When the two met, they laughed and hugged, and Han Jiang punched him in the shoulder again, pretending to be dissatisfied: "I am also a governor of political affairs, and the Shaanxi Road is a little strategic, and the Son of Heaven actually asked me to obey your dispatch unconditionally, why?" ”

Fan Ning smiled slightly, "With Han Xianggong's wisdom, can't you think of what the reason is?" ”

Han Jiang nodded, "When I saw the top-secret military report sent by the imperial court, I couldn't believe it, I actually thought of attacking Western Xia from the north, my first reaction was impossible, but when Song Liao handed over Dongshengzhou and the army was stationed in Yulin County, I found that this plan could be fully implemented, and I went directly south to initiate and attack Western Xia, why couldn't I think of this method before?" ”

"In the past, it was because it was blocked by the Liao State, and it directly entered the territory of Western Xia, and it was a vast desert, which was unrealistic, so we could only fight hard from the south, as long as we entered the Hetao to establish a foundation, and there were sufficient logistical supplies, the layers of defense lines established by Western Xia to the south would be completely useless, and Xingqing City would be directly exposed to us."

"That's right, all the craftsmen you need, big stones, lime, and glutinous rice are ready, in order to prepare the city stones, we demolished three military cities in Yan'an Prefecture and Suide County, and a large number of military forts and stones, which are enough to build two medium-sized county seats."

The key to Fanning's operation this time is to establish a foundation in Hetao as quickly as possible, and when the Western Xia reacted and attacked in a big way, the Song army had already gained a firm foothold in Hetao.

Generally, it takes about a year to build a city, of which more than sixty percent of the time is spent on preparing materials, and then a thousand craftsmen slowly repair, to shorten the construction period there are only two ways, one is to prepare building materials in advance, and secondly, increase the number of craftsmen, Fanning two-pronged, he hopes to complete the construction of the city within 20 days.

When Fan Ning heard that all the materials had been transported to Yulin, he was overjoyed, and he couldn't take a break, so he immediately followed Han Jiang to the warehouse group tent.

..........

In a broad sense, the Hetao Plain is divided into the West Loop, the East Loop, the Front Loop and the Rear Loop, and the West Loop area refers to the ruling core of the Western Xia Kingdom, Xingqing Prefecture, Xiping Prefecture, Jingzhou, Dingzhou, Lingzhou and other places.

The front plain is the Yellow River bifurcated into two, and later re-converged to form a large grassland in the shape of a rope sleeve, and the back plain is the Yulin area of Dongsheng Prefecture.

The east set is between the two banks of the Yellow River between the front and back sets.

But what the Song army wanted to capture this time was the Qiantao Plain, which was also the Hetao area in a narrow sense.

At present, the Hetao area belongs to the land of the Western Xia, because the winter here is cold, and there is no threat of enemies, the north and east are friendly neighbors Liao, and the south is the Gobi and the desert, so the Western Xia is not enthusiastic about the management of the Hetao area, everywhere is an endless grassland, the relics of the Han and Tang court's painstaking management here are either flooded by dust, or become a little ruin.

In fact, the Hetao Plain is a very rich place, the Yellow River flows gently, the irrigation is convenient, the land is very fertile, since the Han Dynasty, the central court has a large number of immigrants to the Hetao to reclaim, to the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Hetao immigrants have reached nearly one million, built Linrong, Woye, Guangmu, Chengyi, Yiliang, Linwo, Heyin and other more than a dozen county seats.

It's a pity that after the Wuhu Rebellion, all prosperity and population disappeared.

The Western Xia called the Hetao area the Black Mountain Fuwei Military Division, at present only two military cities were built, with a garrison of 2,000 people, and the largest city was called Tiande Military City, which was located between the North and South Yellow Rivers, close to the North Yellow River, and had a garrison of 1,000 people.

In addition, at the entrance of the Hetao in the south, there is a small military city with a garrison of 500 people, and on the way to Xingqing Mansion, there is also a supply military city with a garrison of 500 people.

For more than a hundred years, there had been no war here, so much so that the Western Xia soldiers jokingly claimed that their enemies were steppe wolves.

There has been no war in a hundred years, and the Song army can not come, and the Western Xia army is stationed here only to symbolically declare sovereignty, which makes the defense of the Western Xia defenders extremely lax, and at night, there are almost no defenders on the head of the city, only two guards sleeping in the city gate cave.

Although the Western Xia court had learned of the armistice agreement between the Song and Liao countries through the spies deployed in the Song Dynasty's capital, the content of the armistice agreement was not disclosed to the public at the request of the Song Dynasty, and only some clues were obtained from the newspapers.

Such as the exchange of hostages, such as the withdrawal of troops from the Liao State by the Song Dynasty.

However, the news of the exchange of land between Song and Liao was tightly sealed, including the Liao state, and Yelu Hongji did not want his subjects to know about it, and the Liao state was forced to hand over Dongshengzhou to Song Cheng.

It was this kind of tightly sealed news that made the Western Xia court not know that the Western Xia had been betrayed by the Liao State, and Dongshengzhou was exchanged for the Song army, and they did not expect that a huge Song army fleet had sailed into the Hetao for the first time in a hundred years and was heading towards the Tiande Military City.

An army of 10,000 people was ambushed two miles away, and there were 2,000 cavalry inside, and the Flying Tiger Team composed of more than 100 elite soldiers of the Song Army quietly arrived at the city of Tiande Army.

The Tiande military city is built with solid stones, the stones have not been polished, the edges and corners are sharp, and it looks very rough, but the city walls are very high and strong, there is no moat outside the city walls, there is no suspension bridge, and even the only south gate is a little decayed because of the age.

Dozens of flying ropes hooked the head of the city, and a hundred soldiers of the Flying Tiger Army quickly climbed up to the head of the city, and the head of the city was very quiet, and there was not a single defender in sight, which was really a bit unexpected by the Song army.

At this time, it was the third watch, the defenders in the city were sleeping soundly, and the first battalion general waved his hand, and they were divided into two ways, one of them rushed to the city gate with dozens of soldiers, and the battalion general ran towards the city tower with other soldiers.

Generally, the city tower is a place where soldiers sleep, but when the Song army ran to the city tower, they found that the city tower was empty, at least an inch thick of dust, and no one had stayed here for many years.

The battalion general was stunned for a moment, and then he realized that Tiande City had no sense of defense at all.

At this time, Du Tou rushed to the head of the city and said: "There are two old pawns under the city, and they have been killed." ”

"Launch the rockets and open the gates!"

In the thick night, three gunpowder arrows were shot in a row from the vast grassland, and the red fire light swept across the grassland, as if three meteors were flying towards them.

The main commander in charge of attacking Tiande City is Wang Shiquan, he saw the rocket, and with a wave of his hand, 10,000 soldiers immediately rushed to Tiande City, which was two miles away.

The Flying Tiger took the horse pen at the city gate, and more than a thousand war horses were released.

Wang Shiquan was overjoyed and immediately ordered: "The infantry is surrounded outside the city, and the cavalry enters the city to encircle and suppress!" ”

Eight thousand soldiers lay in ambush outside the city and surrounded the city gate, and the Flying Tiger Army simply lit a fire outside the city and illuminated the city gate as if it were day.

Two thousand cavalry entered the city, and the thousand defenders of the city were caught off guard, and they had no intention of resisting, so they fled one after another, and the streets were full of running soldiers and cavalry mercilessly slaughtered.

In less than a quarter of an hour, most of the 1,000 soldiers were killed and wounded, along with many Tangut people who were doing business in the city, also died in the chaos.

More than 300 soldiers rushed out of the city gates, and they were met by merciless arrows, as dense as flying locusts, and the soldiers who had escaped from the city fell one after another.

Wang Shiquan, the ruler, was really a little disappointed, he thought that there would be thousands of people, but he didn't expect that it would end with only three or four hundred people.

The cavalry commander shouted: "The battle in the city is over!" ”

Wang Shiquan waved his hand, "The army is entering the city!" ”

.........

At the same time that 10,000 Song troops captured Tiande City, at the entrance of the Hetao a hundred miles away, 5,000 Song troops also captured another military city of 500 people, and the 500 Western Xia troops were all wiped out.

After dawn, the huge fleet of the Song army also arrived in Tiande City, and the two Xiangguo, Fan Ning and Han Jiang, appeared on this uninhabited grassland, which also shows the importance that the Great Song Dynasty attached to the Hetao area.

Fan Ning and Han Jiang came to Tiande City, and Wang Shiquan, the commander, knelt down on one knee to report, "Qi two ministers, the city has been taken, and none of the thousand defenders have escaped." ”

Fan Ning nodded and smiled: "General Wang has worked hard, but there is a letter eagle flying away?" ”

"Nope! The Flying Tiger Military seized the Eagle Tower first, and none of the ten letter eagles flew away. ”

This is what Fanning has repeatedly instructed that capturing the Eagle Tower is far more important than capturing the city gates, and I believe that the 5,000 soldiers in another military city will also resolutely carry out their intentions.

Han Jiang asked again, "When are they replenished?" ”

"I interrogated the captured warehouse stewards, they were only resupplied last month, and the next resupply will be at the end of September and early October, and no one usually comes during this period."

Fan Ning smiled at Han Jiang and said, "There are still two months, it should be too late." ”

He immediately ordered the soldiers to carry all kinds of supplies and disembark, and the craftsmen to build a large camp.

Fan Ning and Han Jiang rode horses to patrol around, and Han Jiang pointed to the remnants of several sections of the earthen city not far away with a horsewhip and said with a smile: "Little Fan Xianggong knows which remnants of the walls turned out to be?" ”

Fan Ning shook his head, "Please Han Xianggong to solve your doubts!" ”

Han Jiang urged him to step forward, looked at the long remnant wall and sighed: "The Qin general Meng Tian attacked the Xiongnu in the north, set up Jiuyuan County in Hetao, built thirty-four counties, and took Wuyuan County as the county rule, I specially looked at the map, Wuyuan County is nearby, if I didn't make a mistake in judgment, this should be the city wall of Wuyuan County in the past, I didn't expect Tiande City to be built on the ruins of Wuyuan County." ”

Fan Ning looked around and said: "This area is really good, the terrain is higher, and it will not form puddles, I want to simply not demolish Tiande City, let Tiande City be the inner city, and then build an outer city along the ruins of the former Wuyuan County, with two fortified cities inside and outside." ”

Han Jiang smiled bitterly: "It's just that in this way, I'm afraid that the big stone won't be enough to build two cities." ”

"I mean, you don't have to build two more cities, you can build one."

Han Jiang thought about it carefully and said with a smile: "If you only build a big outer city, there will be a lot of big stones left, it is better to demolish the Western Xia military city at the entrance of the Hetao, and we will build a slightly smaller military city dozens of miles away in the east, the two cities echo each other, what does Fan Xianggong think?" ”

Fan Ning smiled happily: "If the big stone is enough, it will be decided." ”