After Xu Youchang entered Metasequoia City, he didn't dare to tell Lin Feng and them about his previous experiences. Garrisoned here is the Zhenjiang Protectorate, which also belongs to He Jingming's command. If these people heard that most of them were killed, and he Xu Youchang was the first suspect in killing He Jingming, eighty percent would have to go away on the spot, and the situation would never be much better than those fierce blade troops in Liangzhou.

So, he had no choice but to make up a nonsense, deducing that he had a secret mission and was inconvenient to disclose to outsiders.

Unless they see Li Jiangyao, no one has the right to ask.

Xu Youchang is a serious Qianniu lieutenant general, several levels higher than Li Jiangyao's position of lieutenant, he has to say this, Lin Feng and Du Jian of course have no choice, they can only accompany him and wait for Li Jiangyao to come back and deal with it.

However, whether it was Xu Youchang or Lin Feng and Du Jian, they didn't know at this time that Li Jiangyao, the captain of the school, who was hundreds of miles away, was shocked by an earth-shattering news.

The scout team led by Li Jiangyao set off nearly three days later than the rebel army in Western Xinjiang, and hurriedly took a shortcut until they reached the vicinity of Crescent Bay on the Chechi border, but they were still one step late after all.

The scout soldiers and horses did not see the rebels, but they accidentally encountered a defeated army of the capital of Zhenjiang.

And it was from the mouths of this group of remnants of the defeated generals that Li Jiangyao and the others heard a nightmare news:

The main army of the 120,000 Saint Tang Dynasty was completely annihilated!

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In the year 821 of the Holy Tang calendar, on the second day of the second month of February, the dragon raised its head.

February, also known as "Zang Yue" in the folk, takes the beautiful meaning of the beginning of all things and the revival of vitality.

On the second day of the second month of February, it is the annual traditional "Spring Ploughing Festival", "Spring Dragon Festival" and "Agricultural Festival" in Shengtang. Folklore has it that this is a big day when the dragon raises its head, and the people burn incense and sacrifice, sound gongs and drums, set off firecrackers, worship the dragon and pray for rain, and ask God to bless the harvest in the new year.

According to legend, this festival first originated in ancient times, when the god of agriculture Fuxi "heavy mulberry hemp, ploughing the fields", led the people to open the community. Therefore, on the second day of the second month of February every year, the emperor of the heavenly court descends to the realm to send blessings, and the emperor of the mortal world plows the land himself, wishing the wind and rain to be smooth.

Especially after the founding of the Holy Tang Dynasty, the imperial court stipulated that a grand ceremony would be held on this day every year, and the emperor personally went out to call on civil and military officials to plough and farm. Regardless of the government and the opposition, people regard the second day of the second month of February as a special festival, saying that this is a good day to "welcome the wealth", and on this day to eat the "fruit of the wealth".

However, for the Shengtang soldiers guarding the ghost desert in Western Xinjiang, on the day when the dragon raised its head in 821, they ushered in not wealth and auspiciousness, but an unexpected catastrophe.

The rebel army of the vassal state, which claimed to have 200,000 people, under the leadership of its leader Alikjiang, the king of Loulan, decided to face the most powerful force in the western frontier on the alluvial plain of Crescent Bay, the 70,000 army of the Zhenjiang Protectorate, and the 50,000 fierce blade army that rushed from the Liangzhou Mansion.

The rebels chose a frontal decisive battle, and the emergence of this situation completely surpassed the various predictions of Zhang Sanpi, the deputy capital of the Zhenjiang Army, before the war.

And Li Xiangru, another deputy commander of the Flame Blade Legion, after receiving the order of the imperial capital to rush to the aid of Western Xinjiang, led his troops from Liangzhou to hurry to meet Zhang Sanpi, when he learned the news of the enemy's intention to fight a decisive battle, he also felt the same surprise as Zhang Deputy Duhu: "I'm afraid this group of rebels is not crazy, right?!" It's so cheap, us? ”

The reason why the generals of Saint Tang thought this way was naturally for good reason.

In terms of pure combat strength, the rebel army, which was mainly composed of the armies of Loulan and Shule, could not be compared with the well-equipped and well-trained Shengtang army.

Mo said that the enemy's claim of 200,000 troops was very likely to be just an imaginary number, even if he really had 200,000, or even 300,000 or 400,000, in the plain field battle, the 120,000 Saint Tang elites were completely sure to completely crush them, and the battle would be decided.

This kind of frontal battle that speaks purely by strength has never been a fluke, and it is impossible to use any so-called tricks to play flowers. If the rebels were going to directly challenge the Don Army with only a slight numerical advantage, it would be like an egg hitting a stone.

What Zhang Sanpi and Li Xiangru were most worried about was that the rebels would adopt a guerrilla strategy of breaking the whole into parts, doing their best to avoid the main force of Shengtang, and choosing to attack from all sides to sabotage and disrupt the chaos. If that is the case, the Holy Tang Army will inevitably need to divide its troops into multiple ways to crusade one by one, and the counterinsurgency battle will also be dragged out for a long time.

But they never expected that the rebels would not play their cards according to the routine, and instead of playing with their strengths and avoiding their weaknesses, they chose to face up to Sheng Tang!

God knows where these turtle grandchildren get their confidence?

So, when the reconnaissance scouts finally found out that the rebels of Loulan and Shule were indeed advancing towards the alluvial plain of Crescent Bay after converging, the commander of the Shengtang Army was overjoyed, and immediately led the main force to rush over without hesitation, rolled up his arms and sleeves, and prepared to finish the battle as soon as possible and call it a day.

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The battle that shook the entire ghost desert in Western Xinjiang kicked off in the early morning.

Bathed in the morning light of early spring, the soldiers and horses of the Holy Tang Dynasty and the rebels of Western Xinjiang completely spread out the formation, and the front stretched for several miles to the left and right. The shining armor and forest-like flags almost completely covered the entire Crescent Bay.

The centaurs on both sides are in the same state of mind - leave no one behind! Bear down! Nearly 400,000 troops confronted each other on the plains and wilderness, and the thick murderous aura that steamed up from the huge phalanx made the entire heaven and earth change color.

The soldiers of Loulan and Shule were all hideous, standing in their own camp, constantly waving the saber and spear in their hands, and shouting and scolding at the Shengtang army in the distance opposite, the momentum was higher and higher, and it was deafening from a thousand steps; On the other hand, on the side of Shengtang, the 120,000 soldiers and horses were all silent, just staring at the opposite side quietly.

Their eyes were like butchers looking at lambs to the slaughter.

Suddenly, the military horn was violently blown without warning, and hundreds of giant war drums immediately beat at the same time, and the sound of dong dong hit everyone's heart, shaking people's blood.

The commanders of both sides raised their long swords and scimitars, and with an order, the large arrays of forwards on both sides moved almost at the same time. The two huge phalanxes, holding different banners and like mountains and seas, gradually changed from slow advance at the beginning to fast running, faster and faster, and then rushed towards each other like flying.

In the blink of an eye, the forward soldiers and horses collided like two monstrous waves, and suddenly raised countless red blood flowers.

Immediately after the striker, the left and right wing armies of the warring sides and the main force of the Chinese army, one after another, one after another, countless soldiers were thrown into the battlefield one after another, and in an instant they were mixed together, repeatedly entangled and strangled.

After two or three hours, despite the rare courage shown by the rebels and the great cost paid by the army of Saint Tang, they gradually grasped the obvious advantage on the battlefield. Whether it was the Zhenjiang Army or the Fierce Blade Army, the sky-high battle intent erupted by the soldiers and horses of the Holy Tang Dynasty visibly overwhelmed the rebellious enemy with the naked eye.

Loulan Shule no longer had the arrogance that he had when he swept through the Western Frontier countries, and under the impact of the Saint Tang ironclad cavalry, they completely understood what the real invincibility was.

One rebel phalanx after another was ruthlessly suppressed, destroyed, and crushed by Saint Tang. The Loulan soldiers and the Shule soldiers began to collapse, and wolves ran wild.

Looking at the battle situation in front of them, including Zhang Sanpi and Li Xiangru, almost all the Shengtang soldiers believed that a brilliant victory was within reach.

However, to their surprise, the balance of the battlefield tilted sharply without warning.

The decisive battle lasted from the beginning of the sun to the west, and just as the sharp edge of the Saint Tang army continued to advance and was about to completely break through the rebel defenses, a large bright light suddenly appeared on the horizon behind them.

Any experienced veteran immediately recognized that it was the reflection of countless swords in the sun!

The sound of the galloping hooves of thousands of horses was like muffled thunder, roaring in the ears of the Shengtang soldiers from far and near—at the critical moment of the decisive victory or defeat, the Turkic Temple Prince Ronia led 100,000 golden clan iron horsemen to kill!

At this moment, although the Shengtang army completely suppressed the rebels, it was also exhausted, and there was no way to turn around and set up a formation again, whether psychologically or physically, and strive to resist this sudden strong enemy.

And the rebels in Western Xinjiang, which were originally on the verge of collapse, were also under the desperate command of Alikjiang and others at this time, and they regrouped and turned around and killed back.

Zhang Sanpi and Li Xiangru are both experienced fierce generals, in the face of this sudden change in front of them, the two did not think twice, and immediately urged the horse to rush to the forefront of their own military formation, waving their swords and shouting, hoping to rely on this way of taking the lead to once again inspire the morale of the Holy Tang Army and rise up to fight.

But it is a pity that the pattern of suffering from the enemy on the belly and back has been decided, and all efforts have been useless after all.

The Turks' grasp of the timing of the battle was so accurate that they seemed to suddenly join the battle, but in fact it was the result of countless deductions and calculations, and repeated weighing and planning. In the first half of the decisive battle, the 200,000 rebels in Western Xinjiang tried their best to drag the Shengtang soldiers and horses, and used their piles of corpses to successfully squeeze every ounce of strength of the Shengtang army. At the critical moment before the rebels were about to collapse, the Turkic Iron Cavalry of the Prince of the Temple, Ronia, made full use of its advantages of high mobility, launched from a hidden place several miles away, and took advantage of the limit of the scout response of the Holy Tang Army to launch a long-distance attack, and at the most critical moment, stabbed the Holy Tang Army from behind.

The Turks and rebels came prepared, flanking from front to rear; The Shengtang side was defenseless and attacked on the back. Before all this happened, no one could have imagined that the 120,000 elite main force of Saint Tang would be conspired by several enemies on the open plain to fight an ambush battle that was not an ambush.

The Battle of Crescent Bay ended in a crushing defeat for Saint Tang.

In this battle, including Zhang Sanpi and Li Xiangru, Shengtang killed a total of two senior generals at the level of deputy commanders, 14 titled generals, more than 230 captains and lieutenants sacrificed their lives on the battlefield, and 120,000 soldiers and horses were almost wiped out.

Zhenjiang Protectorate and Fierce Blade Legion, the two powerful main forces of the Holy Tang Dynasty, were almost directly erased from the establishment on the second day of the second month of February in 821.

This is a tragic defeat that has never been seen since the formation of the Zhenjiang Fierce Blade, and even since the founding of the entire Shengtang Dynasty.