If Luo Yuanqi, who had never been to the battle array in person, was not afraid at all in the face of the powerful Tubo army, he was indeed overestimating him. The reason why he ordered the local people to be conscripted into the army and transfer the grandson army to the pass to guard it was actually out of the consideration of testing the combat strength of the Tibetan army. In the past few months, he has followed Fleur's side, and the greatest skill he has learned from Fleur is to spy on the enemy's reality. The so-called knowing the other side will not be defeated in a hundred battles. In his mind, this half-soldier and half-civilian grandson army is a stone he used to test the enemy's reality.

Nearly a month has passed, and to the surprise of Luo Yuanqi and the six captains who accompanied him to the Sand Castle, the direction of the Xingsuchuan Pass was as calm as water, that is, even the small troop intrusion of the Tubo army, which was common in the past, was gone. Thinking of the news he received from the rear half a month ago, the envoys sent by Tubo to Chang'an had reached an agreement with the imperial court, Luo Yuanqi's hanging heart gradually relaxed: It seems that this battle will not be able to be fought for a while. As soon as his heart relaxed, Luo Yuanqi couldn't help but relapse into alcohol, and called for troops to gather all day long, shouting five and drinking six, borrowing wine to have fun, as if he had forgotten that the sand castle where he led the army to be stationed was only ten miles away from the border between the two countries.

Finally, one day, amazing news came from Yunzhou in the south, Tubo dispatched the main force of the Scorpion Army, which is known as the strongest combat power, with a total of 50,000 people, to launch a fierce attack on Yunzhou from south to north, and captured Yunzhou City in only one day.

Before Luo Yuanqi could fully wake up from his hangover, a series of bad news followed, making him feel like he had fallen into an abyss. Another Tibetan Scorpion Army, under the personal leadership of the Tibetan general Nasimo, successively conquered the four prefecture cities of Gua, Sha, Yi and Xi in the southeast of Shanzhou and Yunzhou, and was marching in the direction of Jingzhou.

This time, the Tubo people adopted the strategy of attacking the south from the west, changing the previous way of attacking from the western front, breaking through the Xingsuchuan Pass, and entering the Longyou Road, but divided the troops into two routes, first cut off the connection between Shanzhou and the rear, and continued to advance in depth after the two armies converged, and the front of the troops pointed directly at Jingzhou, an important town called the western gateway of Chang'an.

The situation in the entire western Xinjiang changed dramatically in less than a month after the agreement between the imperial court and the Tibetans was reached. Shanzhou, where Luo Yuanqi was stationed, had completely turned into an enclave surrounded by enemies, and the situation was particularly grim.

Fortunately, the direction of Shanzhou City was quite calm, and the Turks in the north had not yet taken advantage of the fire to rob and jointly sent troops with Tubo, which finally gave Luo Yuanqi some comfort.

Since the Xingsuchuan Pass in the west was calm and there was no invasion of a large army from Tibet, the first military order issued by Luo Yuanqi after waking up was to withdraw all the troops guarding the pass and order the grandson's army to move south to the border with Yunzhou, in case after the occupation of Yunzhou, the Tubo army launched an attack on Shanzhou from the south.

However, the soldiers sent to pass the pass to give orders were not heard from as soon as they left, and they lost contact with the sand castle. At the time of the day's lantern, Luo Yuanqi, who was sitting in the camp tent, heard a commotion outside the tent, and then a scout sent to the pass to inquire about the military situation broke in covered in blood, and reported hoarsely at Luo Yuanqi: "General, something is wrong, Tubo, the Tubo people are coming." ”

Luo Yuanqi stood up and asked the scout, "You make it clear, from which direction did the Tubo people come from?" How far is it from here. ”

The scout, who had already been seriously wounded, had exhausted all his strength to rush back to the sand castle to report the news, but at this time he had become a strong crossbow, and fell forward to the ground, unable to say a word again.

Seeing him like this, Luo Yuanqi knew that there was a change in front of him, and hurriedly shouted outside the tent: "Raise your guns and prepare your horses, gather the whole army, and follow me out of the fort to meet the enemy." Then he strode out of the tent.

After Luo Yuanqi picked up his gun and mounted his horse, he led the three thousand Divine Crane Army to rush out of the sand castle, and just set up a formation outside the fortress gate, he saw dust flying in the distance, and killed a group of men and horses from the direction of the Xingsuchuan Pass.

"The crossbow team obeys my orders, takes fifty steps forward, and lines up to prepare their bows." Luo Yuanqi raised the big gun in his hand straight and ordered.

Five hundred crossbowmen marched forward in unison with his words, lined up at the forefront of the army, and set up their positions.

"General, look at this formation, the other side should be a cavalry team, and when they are a hundred paces away, they should shoot arrows to stop them." A lieutenant beside Luo Yuanqi kindly reminded him.

"General Ben has his own area, so I need you to make noise on the side?" For the first time in his life, Luo Yuanqi led the army into battle and confronted the enemy, but he didn't want his own general to be damaged in the slightest, so he scolded.

However, before the two of them could speak, the army that was galloping on the opposite side had rushed to a distance of less than a hundred paces from the crossbow team lined up in front of them. When it came to this, Luo Yuanqi could understand that it was a rare heavy cavalry in the Tubo army that rushed all the way to kill.

After receiving the military order to lead the army to garrison Shanzhou in Jingzhou a month ago, Luo Yuanqi had a premonition that he was about to face the most elite Scorpion Army in Tibet. For this reason, he made a comprehensive and detailed understanding of the composition and troop allocation of the Scorpion Army, and knew that because Tibet had only recently recovered from years of war and was short of national use, there were less than 10,000 heavy cavalry in the 100,000 Scorpion Army. Moreover, because a heavy cavalry company with horses and horses was worth the cost of five light cavalry, the Tubo people were reluctant to use heavy cavalry to attack the city and plunder the land at a very critical moment.

In front of him, it was not only the heavily armored cavalry who were tightly wrapped in heavy armor with men and horses, and the sword of the cloud scorpion in their hands, but also their troops, which were as many as two or three thousand. In other words, in this battle, the Tibetans dispatched almost one-third of all their heavy cavalry, which shows how determined they were to capture and destroy the sand castle in one fell swoop.

"Crossbow team, release arrows. The Modao team stepped forward and lined up to stop them. Luo Yuanqi didn't have time to think about it, and issued his combat order according to the usual drill.

But it was too late. The heavy cavalry of the Scorpion Army is not only ten times more protective than the light cavalry in terms of individual protection, but also in terms of marching speed is not inferior to the light cavalry, which is known for its rapid surprise attacks.

Among the 500 crossbow teams of the left army of the Divine Crane Army, the first one of more than 200 people let go of an arrow, and in the Tubo army that rushed on the opposite side, only four or five war horses neighed forward and fell to the ground, and most of the arrows fired failed to penetrate the thick iron armor and hurt the opponent's people or horses. The Tibetan heavy cavalry of the brigade barely made any pause, and continued to rush towards it with a roar. (To be continued.) )