The Battle of Shibao was in full swing, the Tang army suffered no less than 2,000 casualties every day, and the bones covered the path to the top of the mountain.

At this point in the war, unfavorable news reached Shanzhou, and Li Guangbi hurried into the envoy to see Wang Zhonghe.

After Wang Zhongsi asked people to pass him in, he casually asked, "General Li, what is the matter with you?" ”

"Ambassador, in the future, please ask for military affairs." Li Guangbi said worriedly.

Wang Zhongsi said calmly: "Now Dong Yanguang is fully responsible for commanding the Battle of Shibao, and General Li is looking for the envoy to discuss what military affairs?" ”

Li Guangbi knew that Wang Zhonghei was unhappy, but he was promoted by Wang Zhonghe, and he had the grace of knowing it.

"Ambassador Wang is sympathetic to the soldiers, and does not want to let tens of thousands of soldiers give their lives in vain, these last generals know in their hearts, but now that the holy decree has been issued, if Ambassador Wang does not cooperate according to the decree, Dong Yanguang will end in a fiasco, and in the future, the saint will be held accountable, and Ambassador Wang may not be able to escape the involvement!"

Wang Zhongsi's eyes widened, stared at Li Guangbi and said, "Why did General Li say this? How did this envoy affect Dong Yanguang? ”

Li Guangbi did not shy away from it, and said bluntly: "Ambassador Wang will be kind to the last general, and the last general has to say bluntly that although the ambassador ostensibly accepted the edict and handed over the 50,000-strong army to Dong Yanguang for command, he did not give a heavy reward, so how can he boost the morale of the three armies?" The treasury in Shanzhou City is full of treasures, why does the ambassador hesitate to reward him with 10,000 pieces to block the mouth of slander? If this bitter battle cannot be won, the court will definitely blame the ambassador! ”

Even Li Guangbi knew that such a difficult battle as storming the stone fort would have a strict order. Without a heavy reward, it is impossible to make a soldier die for his life. Wang Zhonghei has experienced a hundred battles and is old enough to use soldiers, how can he not know this?

After Li Guangbi saw through his intentions, Wang Zhongsi no longer concealed it, he still kept calm and said: "General Li's kindness. Ben made a heart. Is it not for the sake of the pursuit of nobility that my king's loyal heir is loyal to the kingdom?

Now striving for a city, but it can't contain Tubo, and the Tibetan soldiers and horses can still attack in other ways. As long as I Longyou reorganizes the armament and makes the troops strong and strong, the Tubo people occupy the stone fort, and they will not be able to threaten the safety of Longyou;

Now that the army has come out to storm the stone fort, it is already a wrong move, and it should have been rewarded again. It will only make more soldiers die under the Stone Castle. How can I, the loyal heir of the king, exchange the lives of tens of thousands of people for personal positions? ”

"Ambassador, how is it good for the Holy Lord to blame him?"

"If the saint is to blame, it will be nothing more than taking away my military power, and I will return to Chang'an to be an idler, worse or worse, or be assigned to a remote area to be a petty official. It's better than taking tens of thousands of lives to save my personal position! General Lee, I know you're thinking about me. But I've made up my mind, and you don't need to say more! ”

listened to Wang Zhonghe's words. Li Guangbi clasped his fists and sighed: "It turns out that I am worried about the personal safety of the ambassador, and as a subordinate, I have to remind you." Now I have seen the ancient style of ambassadors sacrificing their lives to take righteousness, which is beyond the reach of my generation! The last general was speechless and retired. ”

After Li Guangbi finished speaking, he gave another salute. Only then did he turn around and leave.

To tell the truth, from a practical strategic point of view, Wang Zhongsi really felt that the gains in storming the stone fort outweighed the losses, and there were more than 70,000 soldiers and horses in the entire Longyou, if he paid the price of tens of thousands of elites. Even if the stone fort was recaptured, the Tubo army could still invade Longyou from other ways;

Shibao City has not been able to stop the northern invasion of Tubo, and tens of thousands of elites have died under the Shibao.

From this point of view, Wang Zhonghe's insistence is justified.

At the beginning, Li Ang also proposed a strategic plan to abandon the storming of the stone fortress and eliminate the living forces of Tibet. If people lose land, people and land will survive.

For the sake of a stone fort, all the elites of Longyou have been spelled out, and the stone fort may not be able to hold it at that time.

If it was possible, Wang Zhongsi really wanted Li Ang to take tens of thousands of Longyou elites to Tubo to wander around, but unfortunately, this was impossible.

On the other hand, Wang Zhongsi really can't give a heavy reward to boost morale, Dong Yanguang can't take the stone castle, at least prove that his inference is right, even if the emperor blames him for his poor cooperation, at most he will remove him from his post as a festival envoy and let him return to Beijing to be an idle official (at least Wang Zhongsi thinks so).

The emperor doesn't care how many people are sacrificed, only whether he takes back the stone castle. But if Dong Yanguang really took the stone castle, then what he had advised the emperor before would have become wrong, and then he would be completely denied in the emperor's mind, and the situation would become even more dangerous.

Therefore, Wang Zhongsi was unwilling to offer a heavy reward no matter what, so that more soldiers would die.

***

Under the stone castle city, the war drums were earth-shattering, the sound of killing echoed in the mountains, and the smell of blood permeated the four fields. Under Dong Yanguang's order, the 50,000 Tang troops attacked day and night for four days, suffering more than 7,000 casualties.

The tragedy of this battle has exceeded the last time Tubo attacked Hechuan and captured several times, it is really the new ghosts who are annoyed and the old ghosts cry, and the sky is cloudy and rainy.

However, even with such huge casualties, the Tang army could not even touch the walls of the stone fort. At this rate, it won't be long before all 50,000 troops will be buried under the Stone Castle City.

The morale of the army became very low, and many soldiers were reluctant to rush up any longer, so Dong Yanguang asked his own soldiers to line up under the mountain road with swords, but anyone who did not sound the gong to withdraw the troops and retreated was immediately beheaded.

In this case, groups of Tang troops had no way to retreat, and could only be forced to continue to attack up, and the Tang army also made many tripods with logs, and when the tripods were put together, people could be hidden in the middle, and everyone hid in them and worked together to carry these heavy tripods and move up.

Theoretically, the inclined plane of the tripod can easily allow the falling rolling stone spur to slide away, but the log of the tripod cannot be too large, otherwise it will not be able to move at all.

The topography of Shibao City is different from that of Hechuan Shouchuang, and the rolling stone sassals of Hechuan Shouyu can only roll diagonally down from the mountain road; And the stone fort towers on the top of the cliff, the Tubo people push down hundreds of catties or even heavier boulders, just like a meteorite falling from the sky, the stone breaks the earth, the so-called tripod often can not support, a large number of Tang troops were smashed to death in the tripod, the flesh and blood are blurred, it is difficult to distinguish you and me.

Scattered knives, guns and arrows, broken flags, flying flesh, blurred corpses, trickling blood, this tragic picture makes the stone castle city like hell, which is unbearable to look at.

Dong Yanguang saw that there was no progress in the war, and some soldiers would rather be beheaded than rush up again, but he couldn't offer a heavy reward, in this case, there was no heavy reward, so the brave man?

Dong Yanguang sent people back to Shanzhou to get money, but the people who returned to Shanzhou returned empty-handed, which made him angry, and immediately wrote an impeachment note and sued Wang Zhonghei to Chang'an!

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(To be continued.) )