readx; Many major events are often triggered by some accidents, the Tubo Campaign was originally scheduled to start in early July, but on the 10th day of June, a sudden fire disrupted the strategic deployment of the Tang Dynasty, on the evening of the 10th day of June, the warehouse of the Ordnance Department of the Weiwei Temple near the Shunyi Gate of the Imperial City of Chang'an broke out into flames, the fire was monstrous, and the smoke was billowing out. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Tens of thousands of soldiers stationed in the imperial city rushed to put out the fire, but due to the lack of water, they were never able to extinguish the fire, and the fire engulfed several firefighting teams, and finally swallowed up the warehouse, destroying 470,000 weapons accumulated over decades.

One night fire, Chang'an City is known all over the city, especially in the Imperial City, the courtiers are even more anxious, as soon as the day dawns, there are countless courtiers who ran to the Imperial City to inquire about the news, all the gates of the Imperial City have been closed, no one can go in to check the details, just get a few words of news from the mouth of the soldiers guarding the door, the fire not only burned down the warehouse of the Weapons Department, even the adjacent Dali Temple was also affected, part of the building was destroyed, as for the number of casualties, because the fire is too big to count, more than 200 people are known to have been burned to death.

The serious problem is not only that the fire burned badly, but that the 470,000 weapons, which were the foundation of the Tang Dynasty's armament, were burned this time, and it took me no idea how many years to recover, and some of them were ready to be transported to Longyou to prepare for the war, but the weapons were not transported, but they were destroyed, which will affect the Tubo campaign to what extent.

Li Longji was woken up in the middle of the night, the Daming Palace was on higher ground, and the fire in the imperial city could be clearly seen, it was he who ordered the army to put out the fire, but the army was also unable to return to the sky, so that Li Longji jumped like thunder, and did not wait for the dawn, so he ordered to remove the Weiwei Temple from Qing to Shaoqing, so that the Eight Grades Department was not spared, dozens of officials were all dismissed and investigated, and he ordered the three divisions of the Yushitai, the Criminal Department, and the Dali Temple to be interrogated to strictly investigate the cause of the fire.

The decree arrived in Shanzhou three days later in the form of a relay of fast horses, in fact, on the night of the second day of the fire, Ge Shuhan learned about it from a pigeon letter sent from Chang'an.

470,000 pieces of weapons were destroyed, which really made Ge Shuhan sigh for a long time, this matter of course affected his Tubo campaign, fighting is to consume weapons, and his arsenal has no inventory, so he expects Chang'an to transport weapons as a backup, and now Chang'an has no weapons to transport, which means that his military resources are insufficient, which means that there is a gap in the deployment. After all, every soldier has weapons in his hands, but the certainty of victory is gone, although this is the case, but for Ge Shuhan, this battle must be fought, if he wins this battle, he Ge Shuhan will become a famous general of Zhongxing who completely solves the trouble of Tubo, and will be famous through the ages, and the title of the king of Xiping County is also in his bag.

He had already held his breath, An Lushan, Gao Xianzhi, and Li Qing'an were all crowned kings of the county, but his brother Shuhan had nothing, he was not convinced, he must win this battle, and when Li Longji's inquiry was completed, he immediately replied to Li Longji.

'Hit! The Battle of Tubo was still fought, and it had to start half a month earlier, June 20! ’

The war machine started slowly, 100,000 troops of Longyou and Hexi gathered to the west of the Hehuang Valley, crossed the Shibao City, and drove to the Dafeichuan Valley, a team of cavalry, horse-drawn carriages full of various military supplies, ox carts, grain and forage, tents, military uniforms, leather boots, slaughtered cattle and sheep, various weapons, cold spirits and various medicines, there were no more business travelers on the Tangbo Ancient Road, they were all overwhelming banners and armies, and the black and oppressive army could not see the edge at a glance.

In the afternoon of this day, the commander Ge Shuhan arrived at the White Stone City in Dafeichuan under the escort of the 3,000 Longyou Iron Cavalry, which was built by Ge Shuhan last year and took nearly a year to complete the construction for storing military supplies.

White Rock City is also one of the logistics base camps of Geshuhan, which can store 500,000 stone of grain and a large number of various military supplies, and Geshuhan sent 5,000 troops to garrison.

From a distance, Ge Shuhan saw the sturdy and towering White Stone City, and he smiled and said to Gao Shi, a staff member beside him: "Does Mr. think that after this Tubo battle, the king of Pingxi County may be in his hands?" ”

Gao Shi also smiled: "If you only talk about qualifications, the handsome is only second only to An Lushan, and it should be above Gao Xianzhi and Li Qingan, but in terms of military merits, how can An Lushan's repeatedly defeated general be compared with the handsome, except that he is more powerful than the handsome, there is nothing else to be desired, so I don't worry about the handsome prince at all, sooner or later, but..."

"But what?" Geshuhan glanced at him.

Gao Shi sighed slightly and said: "However, my subordinates feel that the ownership of the Hedong Festival should arouse the high vigilance of the marshal." ”

"You mean the prince will take care of it?"

Ge Shuhan said with some disdain: "Those rich and noble princes can be led remotely, and they can show off with a well-known name, but when it comes to leading troops to fight, they can only pull aside." ”

"Dashuai, although the prince can't lead the troops, but he is a master of seizing power and fighting for profit, and his subordinates heard that the saint has just appointed the sixteenth king Li Lushi to lead the governor of Yangzhou and control the Jianghuai soldiers, and the subordinates are worried about this momentum."

Ge Shuhan was silent, Yongwang Li Lan actually led the Yangzhou Metropolitan Governor, he also heard yesterday, Jianghuai is said to be the only place in the Tang Dynasty where there are still some government soldiers, and there are tens of thousands of people, and now they are under the control of Li Lan, which shows that King Rong's appointment as the envoy of Hedong Jiedu is not caused by Li Longji's hot-headedness, but has been planned for a long time, and his series of plans are being implemented in an orderly manner, Li Mao is actually one of the links in Jingzhou, controlling Jingxiang, so where will it be next? Whether it's Bashu or Anxi, there are princes in both places.

At this time, Gao Shi said again: "Dashuai, I heard a news that the Holy Lord is going to send King Liang to sit in Longyou. ”

Ge Shuhan was taken aback and asked anxiously, "Which Liang King is it?" ”

There are two Liang kings in Chang'an, one is Li Xuan, the son of Wu Xianyi, who was originally named King Liang, and Tianbao was renamed King of Xiliang in the ninth year, and the second is the old prince Li Heng, who was renamed King Liang after being deposed as the prince, Ge Shuhan's heart suddenly became nervous, at the beginning of the year, Li Longji set five places to be in charge of the prince, and there was no Longyou, which made him a little relieved, but now he actually heard the news again, which really shocked him, could it be that Li Longji also intended to take back his military power.

This news was like a seed quietly planted in Ge Shuhan's heart, and he began to add a little anxiety to his heart.

At noon, Ge Shuhan arrived at Baishi City, and Cui Yan, the soldier and horse stationed here, rushed out, bowed down to Ge Shuhan and said, "See the big handsome!" ”

"General Cui, how much food has arrived?"

"Back to the marshal, it has reached 300,000 stones, 5,000 tents, and most of the hay and other supplies have arrived."

"Good! Take me to the city to inspect it. ”

Ge Shuhan walked into the White Stone City, under the leadership of Cui Yan, went up to the city wall, looked down from a high place, the city was full of all kinds of materials, piles of grain packed in sacks like a hill, countless people from all over Longyou were busy carrying materials, a thriving scene.

The preparation of materials still made Ge Shuhan more satisfied, and then he turned around and looked into the distance, on the side of the endless mountains in the distance, I don't know how Li Qing'an was prepared?

．．．．．．． Ge Shuhan's handwritten letter to Li Qing'an was delivered to Qiuci on June 17 at the cost of running and killing six horses, and Li Qing'an himself happened to be in Qiuci.

According to Li Qing'an's plan, the Anxi Army was in charge of the western front of the Tubo Campaign, not only to prevent the Tubo army from coming to the east, but also to completely eliminate the Tubo army on the western front and relieve the Anxi Tang army from trouble.

The Western Front campaign was attacked from two routes, with a total of 50,000 troops, one was from Khotan to the south, around to the south of Sabize, cutting off the retreat of the Tibetan army, and this route was the main general of Changqing, the deputy capital protector; The other way is a frontal attack, attacking the Tubo army from the south of Shazhou to Sabize, completely pulling out this tumor planted by Tubo in Anxi, and the frontal attack will be commanded by Li Qing'an himself.

In this campaign, Li Qingan originally used the method of veterans leading new recruits to achieve the purpose of training new soldiers, but Feng Changqing thought that the battlefield terrain was too high, and the recruits might not be able to adapt to it, so it was suggested that the veterans should be the mainstay, Li Qingan accepted this suggestion, and transferred 40,000 elite soldiers from Shule and Shaye to cooperate with the 10,000 troops stationed in Qiuzi, a total of 50,000 troops.

A month earlier, Feng Changqing led 20,000 troops south to Khotan, today Li Qing'an will go to Shazhou with Qing King Li Cong, and at this time, Ge Shuhan's letter was delivered, for the reason for launching the Tubo campaign half a month in advance Li Qing'an also just knew, Chang'an Han and Tang will send him the most timely information, the weapons department fire, burned 470,000 weapons, it should be said that in addition to the frustration of the imperial court, any ambitious frontier official will be secretly surprised, This means that the court's ability to suppress the rebellion will be greatly weakened, this news is of course what Li Qingan wants to hear, and he also knows who did this, except for An Lushan, there will be no one else, but compared to burning 470,000 weapons, Li Qingan is more interested in the personnel changes of several princes.

The 30,000 army marched from Qiuzi to the direction of Shazhou, and the 30,000 army consisted of 12,000 cavalry, 5,000 crossbowmen, 3,000 crossbowmen and 10,000 infantry, as well as more than 1,000 scout light cavalry.

There are two ways to go from Qiuci to Shazhou, one is to cross the Xingxing Gorge in Yizhou, and go south from Yumen Pass in a roundabout way, and the second is to directly cross the Puchanghai Desert, which is today's Lop Nur, along the Red River, and go straight to Shazhou, Li Qingan chose this road.

The 30,000-strong army, together with the supply vehicles, left Qiuzi and marched towards Shazhou.

Li Qing'an did not ride a horse, but sat in his wide carriage, while hurrying, while dealing with official business, this time Yan Zhuang also walked with him, in the shaking carriage, Yan Zhuang looked at the carriage of King Qing a hundred steps away from the window, and said to Li Qing'an with some emotion: "I'm afraid that the general guessed it, after the end of this Tubo campaign, the saint will increase the power of King Qing." ”

"This is his usual style, first deploy in place, and then slowly increase the strength, otherwise what will he let these princes do in the place?"

Li Qing'an also got the news, in the appointment of the Hedong Jiedu envoy, the Cheng Qianli he recommended to Li Yu was not adopted, but the Rongwang Li Wan got this position, I am afraid this is the real purpose of Li Longji to let Li Wan be the observer of Hedong Province, the same Yongwang Li Lan also got the post of Yangzhou Metropolitan Governor, commanding the soldiers near the government, but the government soldiers are mainly controlled by the military department, if the Yangzhou Metropolitan Governor's Mansion is changed to Huainan Jiedu Envoy, then Li Longji's intention will be undoubtedly obvious, using the prince to control the border army, which can be regarded as a major system reform, This must be that the ruling group of the Tang Dynasty also realized the crisis of over-concentration of troops on the frontier, and it is said that it was Yang Guozhong's suggestion.

But Li Qingan knew that even if it was Yang Guozhong's idea, his starting point was not to solve the problem of the army's side weight and internal weakness, his purpose was to suppress the imperial grandson Li Yu, so that a pattern similar to the later early Ming Dynasty was formed, the emperor's eldest grandson was the emperor inside, and the princes were leading the army outside, Li Yu's power was even inferior to Zhu Yunwen, Zhu Yunwen still had nearly a million troops in his hands, what did Li Yu have? Li Longji is so mediocre that he is confused!

"General, I heard that Li Xuan, the king of Xiliang, will go to Longyou to sit in the town, could this be that the Holy Lord wants to seize the military power of Ge Shuhan?"

"There is this possibility, after the Tubo Campaign, but it will not be in place in one step, it will come step by step, and if it goes too fast, Ge Shuhan will not do it!"

"How is the general going to deal with the man in front?" Yan Zhuang glanced at King Qing's convoy.

Li Qingan was already confident about this crisis, and he smiled faintly: "I have considered this problem, and I will solve it with one word, 'Drag!'" ’”

Yan Zhuang was stunned, he suddenly realized, and praised: "The general's strategy is high, Anxi is far away, and half a year has passed since he came and went, unlike Longyou and Hebei, which are close to Chang'an, so let An Lushan and Ge Shuhan go to the front, and drag it out until the end." ”

Li Qingan shook his head, "It's impossible to do it, at most, it's just to delay the outbreak of contradictions, maybe he might be able to attack Anxi first." ”

Speaking of this, Li Qingan also sighed slightly: "Fortunately, God favored me and came to a stupid prince, so that I can calmly lay out and let this fool be a shield for me." ”

"But the general can't be careless, King Qing's stupidity should also be very clear, we have to prevent him from using the Ming plank road to secretly cross the Chen Cang strategy, obviously delegating power to King Qing, but in fact, it is secretly disintegrating the Anxi army from the inside."

"You're saying he's going to use an insider from the Anzay Army against me?"

"General, this kind of thing must be done without leakage, since he can use Ge Shuhan to replace Wang Zhonghei, he will also replace you with someone else, as long as there is such a possibility, I have to be on guard, the general has already ridden the tiger and is difficult, only the slightest negligence, he will die in the mouth of the tiger, general, don't be careless!"

Li Qing'an secretly agreed, Yan Zhuang deserved to be a master of conspiracy, not only can design, but also defend, his words must not be listened to, he pondered for a while and asked: "Who do you think is the most likely?" ”

"I have considered that this person must not only have prestige in the Anxi army, but also actually hold military power, and he cannot be promoted by the general, there are two people who may have the largest surname, one is Li Siye, but he is far away in Shiguo training, and he has no military power in his hands, so his surname may not be very big, I think it should be another person, for him, the general must be on guard."

"The person you're talking about is ....."

Li Qing'an somewhat understood what he meant, he pointed to the south, and nodded solemnly and slowly, "That's exactly what I'm talking about." ”

After a pause, he smiled again: "However, then again, open guns are easy to dodge, but hidden arrows are difficult to prevent, since there is an open gun, the general must not destroy his open gun." ”

At this time, a horse galloped over, and immediately a soldier arched his hand and said, "General, His Royal Highness King Qing is invited!" ”

"Got it, I'll go."

Yan Zhuang also smiled: "Then I will also go back to the carriage, a little tired, I want to sleep well." ”

Li Qing'an got out of the carriage, flew on a horse, and chased after King Qing's carriage, and saw King Qing's fat face waving to him out of the window, smiling like a bad boy who had just done something bad.

King Qing followed Yan Kai's advice to move to Dunhuang, from his heart, of course, the closer to Chang'an, the better, but Yan Kai persuaded him to leave Bian Lingcheng a little farther, maybe this eunuch will spread some of his ugly things in Anxi to Chang'an, and in Dunhuang, he can slowly move to Liangzhou to Longyou in the future, step by step, in Qiuci will only go further west.

What's more, King Li Cong didn't realize that his father's real intention in sending him to Anxi was to spy on Li Qing'an, in his opinion, it was enough for Anxi to have a prison army, he was just exiled, and his exile to Anxi was just a means for his father to protect the emperor's eldest grandson, and to transfer their uncles away, so that Li Yu could calmly ascend to the throne.

Therefore, he hated the place of Anxi, when Yan Kai suggested that he go to Dunhuang, he agreed without hesitation, and now he finally wants to leave Qiuzi, Li Cong's heart is full of joy, and he can't wait to put on his wings and fly to Dunhuang.

"Your Highness, are you looking for me?" Li Qingan flew forward and smiled.

Perhaps because of his estrangement from Yang Guozhong, Li Cong's hatred for Li Qing'an has also weakened a lot, and after coming to Anxi, Li Qing'an took good care of his life, which made him feel very good, and his concubines, each of whom received expensive gifts from Mrs. Li Qing'an, so everyone said good things about Li Qing'an to him on the pillow, and Li Cong's attitude towards Li Qing'an naturally changed slowly.

Seeing Li Qing'an's respectful attitude, he couldn't help but feel very satisfied, so he pointed to the carriage and said with a smile: "A few of my concubines want to know, has our accommodation in Dunhuang been arranged?" ”

"Your Highness, rest assured, there are already a few good palaces in Dunhuang, and I have sent someone to repair them, and those are Han palaces, I guarantee that Your Highness will be satisfied, and in addition, I will protect Your Highness's safety."

This is exactly what Li Cong was eager to know, just now he was chatting with a guard next to him, I heard that there are Qianghu horse bandits in the Hexi corridor, hundreds of immigrants were attacked by horse bandits last month, more than 100 people were killed, and more than 20 young women were robbed, and there were also Shazhou side, haunted like the wind, he suddenly became worried, since Li Qing'an also mentioned this matter, he hurriedly asked: "I heard that there are horse bandits in the Hexi corridor, they are very fierce, how is the general going to protect me?" ”

Li Qing'an looked to both sides, lowered his voice and said: "The so-called horse bandits, in fact, many of them are the army of Hexi, as far as I know, the Shazhou horse bandits and the Doulu army are related, these are open secrets, I have hated them for a long time, but I am the envoy of the Anxi Festival, it is not good to meddle in the affairs of Hexi, just in the name of protecting His Highness, I will send 5,000 troops to protect the safety of His Highness, and at the same time take the opportunity to suppress the bandits." ”

"That's good, I'll be relieved!"

Perhaps feeling that this sentence was not enough to express his appeasement, Li Cong smiled again: "Don't worry, general, I will write to the saint and give good words to the general." ”

"Your Highness's kindness, Li Qing'an has thanked you here!"

Li Qing'an dismounted and saluted him deeply, with an unusually respectful attitude, which caused laughter from several of Li Cong's concubines in the carriage.

．．．．．．．．．．． Sabize is a vast plateau lake in the south of Shazhou, located in the south of the Altun Mountains, although it is under the jurisdiction of Shazhou, but in fact it is more than 1,000 miles away from Dunhuang, separated by the snow-capped Altun Mountains, the Altun Mountains are tall and majestic, and also block the road of the Tubo people to the north, it is for this reason that although Sabize is stationed with 20,000 Tubo troops, it is difficult for them to attack Dunhuang.

On the contrary, Sabitze was very close to Anxi, and could go directly to the town of Banxian (today's Jimo County) along the Jimo River, and it was from this road that the Tibetan army invaded Anxi in history, and the battle of Boxian Town occurred in the 12th year of Tianbao, which is the background.

Of course, Li Qing'an did not go south to Boxian Town because he wanted to take advantage of Shazhou to control Dunhuang, an important town in the northern part of the Hexi Corridor, but if he really wanted to fight the Tubo army in Sabize, he still had to start with Boxian Town, so that an oasis between Boxian Town and Dunhuang County was an important supply transit point.

This oasis is located in the southwest of Puchang Sea, and the middle of the Mo River, north of the Altun Mountain, that is, today's Ruoqiang County, there are vast grasslands, abundant snow-capped mountains meltwater, rich pastures, is a high-quality pasture, the Tang army built four castles here to control this oasis, Putao City, Qitun City, Xinghe City, Crossbow City, each has hundreds of garrisons, as early as two months ago, a scout army of 300 people has been stationed here.

The leader of this scout army was Qin Haiyang, who had made a distinction in the Battle of Talas, and had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant general for his merits in intercepting the Great Eclipse's silver and had come here from Broken Leaf to monitor the movements of the Sabitze Tubo army.

In the afternoon of that day, Qin Haiyang led 300 scout cavalry and rushed along the Jimo River towards Sabize.

(To be continued)