It was the early afternoon, when the weather was dry and windless, and the sky was full of thick clouds, revealing some of the sun's rays refracted on the clouds, forming a blazing white and dazzling light. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info the outskirts of the city are barren, full of the withered yellow of winter grass.

The main army stopped and stood by ten miles south of the city, Zhang Yue only took three hundred of his own soldiers to ride to a slope behind the front army and waited on his horse, the smoke was billowing in the city, the shouting and killing did not stop, and it was estimated that there would be a skirmish.

Li Duofu came over to ask, Zhang Yue had actually considered this question before the war, and said without thinking at the moment: "General Shi is right, but it can't be too much, so be it...... All the wounded were mended, the officers with the troops were beheaded, the Tuoba clan and the Xiangli clan were mixed and placed, the patriarch and the small head were all executed, and no longer any of the customs of the party members were retained, and all ancestral shrines, temples and other buildings were demolished and burned. ”

Zhang Yue's approach seems to be relatively mild, but it is to destroy their ruling structure and fundamentally destroy the customs and inheritance of the party members. The quickest and easiest way to conquer a people is, of course, to learn from Temujin, to behead those who are higher than the wheels, to exterminate them both mentally and physically, and to take all their women for themselves, so that they will have no women to breed.

However, Zhang Yue is a civilized person with a broad and compassionate mind, so naturally he can't do such a thing. Moreover, the fertility rate of the population in this era was already low, and many young people were lost in successive wars, and the extremely barbaric methods adopted were not only criticized, but also difficult for the soldiers who did such things to accept.

Li Duofu was ordered to go back to inform Shi Yanchao, but he agreed with a smile, but what he would do Li Duofu couldn't control. For the remaining half a day, the army outside the city sat on the spot to drink water and eat dry food, while the front army cleared the whole afternoon and drove out the remaining more than 10,000 party members to surround the camp and take care of them, and the main army entered the city to rest and camp.

On the fourth day of the first month of February, Li Shiwen and Xue Chucun reported that they had captured Baichi on schedule and marched to Youzhou on a certain day. Zhang Yue replied after receiving the report, and ordered Li Shiwen to ask the two to enter Jingde, Xiazhou, eastward after completing the combat mission, and cut off the road of the Liao army's return to the north as much as possible.

On this day, Zhang Yue also sent troops again, and ordered the former army Shi Yanchao to cross the Hongliu River in the east of the city, attack Ningshuo in Xiazhou at the pass east of the old Great Wall, and then capture Sui and Yinzhou, and notify the commander of the Tiande Army to fold the German wall and attack Jingde with the Shuofang army, in order to complete the strategic convergence and annihilate the Xia and Liao coalition forces.

And Zhang Yue led the main army of 50,000 to the north along the west bank of the Hongliu River, and directly took Xiazhou Prefecture to govern Wancheng, which was the foundation of Li Yiyin, and if the Liao army returned north, it must also pass through Xiazhou.

Two days later, in the afternoon, Zhang Yue led his troops to the southeast of Qiwu Mountain, west of Xiazhou City, on the north bank of the Hongliu River, and set up a large camp.

The Liao army lost three or four thousand soldiers since the attack on Lingzhou last year, and only half of them fled back in the previous war, and only 16,000 cavalry were left at this time, and they were stationed on the north bank of Wushui, 20 miles north of Xiazhou City, and only 40 miles away from Jingde County in the north, so as to facilitate the advance and retreat.

And Li Yiyin is even more miserable, last winter lost nearly 5,000 soldiers, Li Guangxin lost a series of battles in the spring, a total of more than 20,000 people were lost, especially the heavy cavalry "Iron Harrier" was wiped out, there are more than 10,000 town soldiers, plus 20,000 young and strong miscellaneous soldiers, barely able to defend the city, the battle is completely powerless, the worst thing is that the grain and grass can not be sustained, the grain stocks in the four states are completely empty, and there are not many concentrated in Xiazhou, and no one knows how long they can hold out.

In the afternoon of the same day, Zhang Yue did not send troops to attack the city, but in the evening, Li Yiyin sent the head of the Xifeng clan, Xifeng Bi to resign from the city as an envoy, holding the Xiping County King System Golden Book Scroll given to Li Yiyin by the court, and the Fujie seal letter of Xia Suijie Town to surrender.

Zhang Yue saw it at all, and only sent Feng Qianhou out of the camp to test it, but the result was that Li Yiyin's condition was to keep Yinzhou and Sui Prefecture as a place to stay, and still keep his own town soldiers.

Feng Qianhou sneered, just said that he conveyed Li Yiyin's intention to Zhang Yue, and then returned to the camp to report it, but Zhang Yue was noncommittal. If Li Yiyin wants to surrender, he can only surrender unconditionally, and it is impossible to keep the two states.

And in the current situation, Xia Suijun still has a certain strength, the Liao army has not retreated, and Zhang Yue is not in a hurry to attack the city, of course he is waiting for Li Shiwen and Shi Yanchao to report on the two ways of marching.

Three days later, news came from Ningshuo that Shi Yanchao captured Ningshuo and entered Suizhou, and Zhang Duo, the commander of the Zhangwu Army in Yanzhou, heard the good news of Hongliuyuan in Yanzhou, and finally dared to send troops, with 7,000 infantry from Yanchuan Qingjian to the north, captured Suide and Chengping, and pounced on Shangxian County, and soon completed the rendezvous with Shi Yanchao and entered Yinzhou.

Li Yiyin was terrified when he received the report of defeat, and his uncle Li Renxiu, who was sent to Tokyo last winter, has not returned, and the court has not received any reply, so it is likely that Li Renxiu was detained.

When Li Yiyin was disheartened and in a dilemma, there was finally good news that Yelu Xiuge sent Yelu Sha to spread the word, and Yelu Tartlie, Datong Mansion in Xijing, finally sent troops and had led 30,000 troops to Shengzhou, and would soon go south.

Yelu Hugo did not lie that there were indeed 30,000 horsemen, but as he expected, Yelu Tart Lie requisitioned 55,000 Tatars from the Kicking Ridge, and the actual headquarters only had 5,000 horsemen, and was heading south along the line of the Yellow River and the Old Great Wall.

Li Yiyin immediately sent people north to Shengzhou, and it was quickly confirmed, and when he heard the news, he was in good spirits, and then actively prepared for war, but now he no longer expects to turn his back on the Great Zhou, but only wants to keep this foothold.

On the afternoon of the ninth day of the first lunar month, Zhe Deyuan rushed from Fuzhou to ask for a meeting, and reported to Zhang Yue about the strength of the Liao army moving south, as well as Yelu Tartlie's intentions and motives for introducing domestic contradictions.

If the Liao army is allowed to arrive, plus the remnants of Li Yiyin, it will usher in a fierce battle. Zhang Yue asked Zhe Deyuan to return to Fuzhou, tried to delay the southward movement of Yelu Tart's Lie Army, and sent someone to report to Li Shi in Youzhou, ordering them to march into Jingde as soon as possible.

In the evening of that day, Zhang Yue ordered Hao Tianying and Yan Chengwang to lead ten regiments of the four armies of Zhangyi, Jianwei, Huaixin, and the Turk Cavalry to march westward while it was dark and night, and go north to Qiwu Mountain, bypassing Wushui, and rushing south from the upstream to Yelu Huge.

This distance is a bit far away, and it takes seventy or eighty miles to turn around for most of the circle, and it is calculated that you can launch a surprise attack on the Liao army camp at dawn. Before dawn on the morning of the 10th, Zhang Yue led his troops out of the camp, with Xue Wenqian's Zhangyi Army, Xuan Chongwen's Jianwei Army, and Shi Deyuan's Huaixin Army as the left, front, and right armies, each leading 7,000 infantry to deploy the formation.

The Chinese army was five infantry regiments of the Zhenyuan Army, four regiments of the Heavy Infantry of the Breaking Front, one regiment of the Assault Cavalry, and a small number of horse troops were on guard on the periphery to ensure the smooth siege of the main force. More than 40,000 foot cavalry spread out for several miles, and slowly advanced to the east of Xiazhou City with a combat array to stop, followed by a hundred light trebuchets and fifty torsion trebuchets were pushed out of the front of the formation, ready to carry out the first ** attack as usual.

(To be continued.) )