(Thanks to Big Brother Scarecrow for the tip!)

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The last time Yang Xi met in the Chang'an Restaurant, Gao Shi was ordered by Ge Shuhan to enter Beijing to face the saint, and brought Ge Shuhan's handwritten letter to the emperor Li Longji to ask not to go out of Tongguan to fight, but to defend according to Tongguan.

This is also the last time Ge Shuhan asked to play, asking to guard according to Tongguan, and he sent his own cronies Gao Shi to Chang'an to ask for delivery, but the request was still rejected, Emperor Li Longji and Prime Minister Yang Guozhong, Wei Jiansu and others mercilessly refuted Ge Shuhan, and ordered Gao Shi to transfer the order of the imperial court again, asking Ge Shuhan to strictly abide by the orders of the imperial court, send a large army out of Tongguan to fight, and annihilate all the rebels outside Tongguan in one fell swoop.

Gao Shi was very sad and angry after leaving the palace that day, and it wasn't until he listened to Yang Xi's generous statement when he was about to fill his stomach in the restaurant before returning to Tongguan that he felt better, and even felt like a confidant to Yang Xi, and he wanted to chat with Chen Yi Haosheng for a while.

However, because of the urgency of the military situation, he did not stay in Chang'an for long, and directly returned to Tongguan with his sergeants through the post station, and reported to Ge Shuhan in person the attitude of the emperor and Yang Guozhong, Wei Jiansu and others when they asked to see the emperor.

Ge Shuhan was forced by the order of the imperial court to tearfully order his soldiers to go out of the customs to fight, which eventually led to a great defeat.

This is also an important reason why Gao Shi sighed for no reason when he saw Yang Xi appear here.

If the imperial court really arranged as Yang Xi said, the tragedy would not have happened!

After a few words of exchange, Gao Shi already knew that the imperial court had sent a large army to rescue Tongguan, and the men and horses led by Yang Xi were the advance army, which arrived quickly in the form of two horses, and Chen Xuanli, the general of Zuolongwu, would lead at least 50,000 soldiers and horses to arrive later. Hearing Yang Xi's brief introduction, Gao Shi put a little snack, feeling that the possibility of Tongguan holding on had increased, and his good impression of Yang Xi was also increasing.

But he couldn't tie Yang Xi, who had a majestic face and a terrifying momentum in front of him, with the son of the treacherous minister Yang Guozhong.

Should Yang Xi in front of him be two completely different types of people from Yang Guozhong's son!

Wang Sili and other generals who had similar feelings to Gao Shi all showed panicked expressions after knowing that it was Yang Guozhong's son who led the army to rescue them, and they were afraid that the emperor had sent Yang Guozhong's son to treat them.

Subsequently, Ge Shuhan's generals Lu Chongben, Li Chengguang and others arrived one after another.

After seeing that all the generals who needed to be summoned had arrived, Ge Shuhan got up, looked around the generals in the hall with a look of concern, and said in the loudest voice he could make: "Everyone, a certain army led out of the customs to fight the rebels, unfortunately the enemy ambushed, and returned defeated, now there are only more than 10,000 soldiers in Tongguan City, and most of them are remnants of the defeated generals, it is difficult to hold Tongguan City with these forces!" Fortunately, the imperial court sent Yang soldiers and horses to lead the army to help, and they have arrived at Tongguan, and have already ordered a group of soldiers and horses to go out of the city to fight! But this was not enough to deal with the threat of the rebels, and the follow-up army of the imperial court did not know when it would arrive. What we have to do now is to try to stop the rebels under Tongguan City until the follow-up rescue of the imperial court arrives! After the follow-up rescue of the imperial court arrived, it was no problem to defend Tongguan with new troops! What we have to discuss today is how to deploy defenses to defend Tongguan!"

After Ge Shuhan finished speaking, he glanced at Yang Xi. Yang Xi nodded slightly, stepped forward and walked to Ge Shuhan's side, and looked at the generals, and said in his low but majestic voice: "In order to continue the speed of the rebels' siege, the general has ordered General Li Fu and General Pang Zhong to lead a group of men and horses out of the city to set up an ambush, and retreat to defend Hantong Pass after completing the task, so as to continue the siege speed of the rebels as much as possible, and buy time for the arrival of my follow-up reinforcements!" The military situation is urgent, I hope that all the generals can abandon their past suspicions and concentrate on resisting the enemy, the only thing we have to do now is to do everything possible to hold Tongguan City and hold this gateway to Chang'an! As long as Tongguan is not lost, Chang'an will have no worries!"

"Huh?!" Someone sighed lightly, which was issued by someone who didn't know that Yang Xi had arranged it first. Unexpectedly, Yang Xi had ordered his men and horses to go out of the city and set up an ambush. They also couldn't imagine that Pang Zhong, a general, would be willing to obey orders after Yang Xi arrived.

It's just that there is no one to answer the doubts in the hearts of these unknown people, and then Ge Shuhan and Yang Xi have begun to state the situation in Tongguan and ask the generals to discuss how to defend.

When discussing military intelligence, generals can make any suggestions. A reasonable proposal is likely to be adopted by the manager or the general and the plan will be changed accordingly, but if there is no opinion from the general, then all decisions will be made by the general.

Before ordering the generals to discuss, in order to establish his authority, Yang Xi once again stated his defense concept, that is, to first use the dangerous terrain outside Tongguan City, including the Hantong Pass Pass, to block the attack speed of the rebels, so that the defenders in Tongguan City could calmly deploy defenses, and delay until the arrival of the army led by Chen Xuanli. Relying on the current forces in Tongguan City, it is impossible to finally hold Tongguan, which Yang Xi also believes, and the concept he is stating now is to defend the city at any cost until Chen Xuanli's follow-up army arrives. As long as Chen Xuanli's follow-up army arrives, there is no need to worry about the safety of Tongguan City.

Of course, finding a way to speed up the cleaning of the corpses in the forbidden ditch, so that the forbidden ditch can once again become a moat to defend against the rebels' siege, is also a point that Yang Xi pays attention to. As for how to deploy the existing troops in Tongguan City, Yang Xi didn't want to express his position now, because he was not very clear about the terrain and situation of Tongguan City, and wanted to wait for Ge Shuhan and other generals to discuss it before expressing his opinion.

After listening to Yang Xi's explanation one step earlier, the generals' attitude towards this young man whose momentum did not match his age changed again.

When he entered Tongguan City, the first thing he thought of was how to resist the enemy, instead of investigating the guilt of Ge Shuhan and his generals, clearing out the dissidents, and had already sent his men and horses out of the city to set up an ambush, blocking the rebels' march with a moth-like posture of throwing fire.

A person who can do this, what kind of courage and vision is a general, how can he be the son of Yang Guozhong's treacherous appearance?

Many generals are puzzled, even the current Ge Shuhan doesn't have this kind of momentum!

After Yang Xi finished his statement, Wang Sili immediately stood up and expressed his opinion. Of course, he did this to express his dissatisfaction with Yang Xi and to prove that he had a long-term perspective compared to the few generals in the house who had opinions with him.

It was also in Wang Sili's detailed statement on how to deploy Tongguan that Yang Xi was probably clear about the current terrain of Tongguan City and the situation of our army.

Today's Tongguan City was built in the Sui Dynasty! Sui Tong Guancheng is located in a place called "Pit Beast Threshold Valley", surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing water: the east of the city is a cliff, and there is only a small piece of flat land outside the city; The south of the city is close to the forbidden ditch, the exit of Tonggu, the west of the city is the high bank, there is only one avenue leading to Chang'an, the Yellow River in the north cuts the Tongguan city and flows underneath, there is no way to pass, the whole city mountain is surrounded by water, the moat is natural.

Now they live in the Sui Tongguan City built at the confluence of Tongshui and the forbidden ditch, the city pass plus the nearby Huangxiangban, the forbidden ditch and the twelve cities, and Huashan, the Yellow River constitute a three-dimensional defensive fortress. The city pass can not only effectively control Changluo Avenue, but also control the north-south passage of the forbidden ditch and Tongluo Valley (Tongshui), which avoids the disadvantage that the Hantong Pass City cannot control the north and south, which is also the reason why the Sui moved to Tongguan City. Closing the gate of Tongguan can cross the east-west avenue and the north-south passage, and it is completely possible to describe the topography of Tongguan City with the trend of "one man is the pass, ten thousand people are not open".

This is also the main reason why the An Lushan rebels still can't capture Tongguan City after half a year of hard fighting.

In fact, from the place name "Pit Beast Threshold Valley", you can understand the degree of danger of the terrain of this place.

Of course, from this direction to Chang'an is not only Tongguan Road, but also other directions of the road, such as crossing the Yellow River and the Wei River back and forth, you can bypass the Tongguan natural danger and go straight to Chang'an. But now is the main flood season of the Yellow River and the Wei River, there are no bridges on the Yellow River and the Wei River, and there is no way to temporarily erect pontoon bridges.

There is also a road that can be bypassed from the southeast of Tongguan, but it has to climb the tall Qinling Mountains, and at least hundreds of miles of mountain roads have to be detoured, which is very difficult to walk, and this road is not undefended. In order to prevent the enemy from crossing the Qinling Mountains and making a detour to Chang'an, or from detouring to break through the Tongguan Pass, at the boundary of the Tongguan Pass at the northern foot of the Qinling Mountains, Xiyu Pass, Shanche Pass, Taiyu Pass, Artemisia Chayu Pass, Tonggu Pass, Shuimen Pass and other passes were set up from east to west.

These fortresses are guarded by garrisons, and they have become the southeast frontier outposts of Tongguan City, and they are integrated with Tongguan Fortress.

When Ge Shuhan led the soldiers and horses of Tongguan out of the pass, the defenders in these places did not use it, and they still made them defend their own pass.

These passes are all wartime must be defended places, it is impossible to send soldiers and horses to guard Tongguan, otherwise it will definitely be occupied by the rebels, and these places are far away from Tongguan City, the farthest is more than 100 miles, even if there are not many defenders there to help, it is far from quenching the thirst of the near.

In other words, the defenders on these passes did not make any moves after the defeat at Tongguan, and it was impossible for the rebels to make a detour through Tongguan even if they wanted to. The current rebels can only take Chang'an by breaking through Tongguan. That is to say, if Tongguan is not lost, Chang'an will not fall; As soon as Tongguan is lost, the door of Chang'an will be opened, and there will be no danger to defend!

This is also the reason why Li Longji did not hear the news of peace from Tongguan in history, so he quietly fled.

If Tongguan can be held, then Chang'an will not have to worry about it for the time being, and Li Longji will not necessarily flee west into Shu!

After the defeat and retreat to Tongguan City, Ge Shuhan's arrangement was as follows: Wang Sili led 3,000 men and horses to guard the north gate, Huoba Guiren led 3,000 men and horses to defend the south gate, Li Chengguang and Gao Shi led 3,000 men and horses to guard the east gate, and Pang Zhong led the remaining 2,000 men and horses to guard the west gate.

After figuring out the current defensive situation of Tongguan City, Yang Xi felt strange in his heart.

Ge Shuhan sent Pang Zhong to lead 2,000 men and horses to defend the West Gate, of course, it was not to prevent the rebels from attacking in this direction, and the rebels could not appear from this direction.

Of course, it's to prevent people from Chang'an!