Yang Qizhong objected, his opinion was: "If our army goes deep into Yongning alone, although it can converge with the 50,000 Liao army of Yelu Xiaoju, it has already fallen into the encirclement of the Western Xia army, so it is not recommended to go deep alone" Yang Qizhong's statement, and all the generals present at the meeting agreed.

Xiao Ming asked everyone: "Does anyone know the details of this Yelu Xiaoju Gong?" ”

Zhao Lingshou said to Xiao Ming: "Dare to let the king know that this Yelu Xiaoju has always been a brave general under the command of the North Courtyard, but he has never been willing to enter the court as an official, and he has been the envoy of Liaoxi for nearly ten years. "The surname Shulu is the Khitan surname, and the queen of Liao Taizu Yelu Abaoji is the Shulu clan, that is an absolutely powerful woman, and it is his tribe that supports her behind her, the Shulu tribe!

It seems that this Yelu Xiaoju or Shulu Xiaoju Liao General must be the key figure of the Shulu tribe, Xiao Ming has a general understanding of him, this person can accumulate military merits, but he is unwilling to accept high-ranking officials, so he was given the surname Yelu by the emperor, and he is a low-key and assertive Liao general.

"Come and see" Xiao Ming spread out the map, and everyone gathered around, "Our army is indeed not suitable for a lone army to go deep, this is Daxing City, the south is the Yellow River, you need to cross the Yellow River to Yongning, and the Yellow River crossing is heavily guarded by Western Xia, I think Yelu Xiaoju Yin can't help us solve the problem of the ferry, so ......"

Xiao Ming tapped on the map, pointed to a place and said, "We don't have to wait for the convergence, let's go directly here"

The place he pointed to is Dingzhou, which is the northern gateway of Xingqing Mansion, the capital of Western Xia, adjacent to Helan Mountain in the west, across the Yellow River in the east, and flat to the south, but Liupan Mountain in the north, if you want to reach Dingzhou Mansion, you must cross Liupan Mountain, which is a test for the Liao army's marching ability.

Deputy Commander Zhao Yanwen immediately reminded Xiao Ming: "Great King, the Western Xia army has an army in the Altay region, if we attack Dingzhou Mansion, we will inevitably be attacked by the Western Xia army from the north and south, how is this good?" ”

Xiao Ming said: "I also thought of this, if the Altay region wants to support Dingzhou Mansion, there is the Maosuwu Desert in the south and the Badain Jaran Desert in the east, not so fast, and we will have already defeated Dingzhou by then." ”

Hanlu asked, "Dashuai, why haven't I heard of those two deserts you are talking about!" But the place you are referring to really has a place called Dasha Nest, which is indeed a sea of sand and no grass! "Hanlu is the only one who calls Xiao Ming a big handsome, that is the name of everyone when Xiao Ming commanded the army to attack Shangjing, Hanlu is used to it, and he has not changed!

Xiao Ming said with a smile: "Lao Tzu uses surveying and mapping methods, how do you guys know, I don't believe that in a few years and decades, there will definitely be my name called there."

The Maosuwu Desert was originally a large sand nest called Maosuwu, while Badain Jaran was originally a large grassland, but now it has been degraded by aquatic grasses and a large swamp and sand dune land, and it is really called a desert a few decades later.

The military meeting still continued Xiao Ming's usual style, that is, he pointed out the direction of the next move, and everyone followed the order, so on the third day, the westward expedition team started from Daxing City, and the target was directly designated as the state capital.

At that time, in addition to the land in the Hetao area, the Xixia Kingdom was its largest territory in the Hexi region, with four prefectures and nineteen prefectures, and twelve military supervision divisions, in addition to the Dingzhou and Yizhou of the Hetao, there were Yinzhou, Xiazhou, Ganzhou, Liangzhou, Guazhou, Shazhou, Lingzhou and other state capitals in the northwest, because the capital was located in Xingqing Mansion, the southeast had the Yellow River natural risk, the southwest had Helan Mountain and the Liupan Mountain in the north, they still thought that they had occupied a geographical advantage, or relatively safe.

For a period of time, the Liao State was weak, and the Western Xia took the opportunity to expand the land to the east and north, anyway, the Western Liao land was vast, but the environment was bad, and the Great Liao State did not care at all, and as a result, it has now been encroached upon by the Western Xia.

The eastern part of Western Xia and the area bordering Song Liao have always been heavily stationed, Dingzhou Mansion has been deep into the territory of Western Xia, Dingzhou Guard General Lie Amu never thought that the Liao army would attack from here, ** 100 miles away from Liupan Mountain, along the way of the state capitals and counties have troops stationed, the Liao army can not run here.

As everyone knows, Xiao Mingrang is all the army on war horses, and it is easy to cross Liupan Mountain, relative to the highest altitude of only more than 3,000 meters above sea level, choose a low-altitude mountain pass The Liao army passed at full speed, along the way the starry night, along the way, the places where the Xixia people were stationed in the prefectures and counties were all swept by, and only a few large county towns were a little troublesome.

Han Lu, the commander of the horse army of the unified army division of this road, led the light cavalry under the leadership of the vanguard Yang Qizhong, and Xiao Ming led the rear army of the Chinese army to follow.

When Xiao Ming led the army to follow up, he saw several county towns that were almost ruined and broken, the soldiers left by the Liao army to clean up were sorting out the looted finances, the houses that had not been burned were still emitting black smoke, and there were corpses everywhere on the ground, and the Xixia soldiers and civilians in the county town had been slaughtered!

Looking at the tragic situation in front of him, Xiao Ming couldn't help but feel a little sad, he once said to the pioneer officer Yang Qizhong, act cheaply, don't expose your whereabouts, if you are found on the road, deal with it immediately, Xiao Ming's original intention is that you arrest those people, and then release them after this period of time, how do you know that Yang Qizhong is so ruthless! Slaughter the city!

The vanguard is actually the cavalry of the Wuhuai battalion of Hanlu, these people were originally Khitans, they have been like this in previous wars, they have been accustomed to burning, killing and looting, if it is an infantry battalion of the Han army, it may not be so ruthless! But there is no guarantee that they are not like this, Xiao Ming has seen the actions of the rebels of the Ming Sect, and the burning, killing, looting and doing it is no worse than this!

"Why are people so savage?" Xiao Ming shook his head and couldn't think clearly, he continued to march all the way, and saw such a slaughtered county many times in succession, Xiao Ming turned a blind eye, not that his heart hardened, but that he knew that in the turbulent times of war, human life was like a mustard, he just wanted to complete this western expedition quickly, and then he wanted to support his troops and not play with Emperor Tianzuo.

On this day, he arrived at the city of Dingzhou, Dingzhou guard general Lie Amu was shocked, while sending people to guard the city and sending people to report to the right chamber to the Shun soldiers and horses, there are twelve military supervision divisions in Western Xia, which are under the jurisdiction of the left and right chambers and the Shun soldiers and horses, and the Liao-Song border in the southeast direction belongs to the right side of the Shun soldiers and horses.

The governor of the right chamber Chaoshun soldiers and horses is Li Yanzong, the king of the letter of the Western Xia, and he almost didn't believe it after receiving the report, because there was news that he reported that the Western Xia passed through the northern military town of Wuliang Haicheng and was not attacked by the Liaoxi Jiedu envoy Yelu Xiaoju Gong, but saw him lead the troops to the east, and what was the army that arrived in Dingzhou City, could it be Xiao Ming, the king of the Southern Courtyard?

On the one hand, he sent people to verify, and on the other hand, he urgently ordered the general Helian Tielie to lead the army to support Dingzhou, Dingzhou is the northern gateway of the capital of Western Xia, the defenders are less than 20,000, and the nearest Xingqing Mansion is currently only the white armor army of the imperial guards can support Dingzhou, Li Yanzong immediately reported to Chongzong Li Qianshun, hoping that the emperor will decide.

Li Qianshun also understood the severity of the matter, and it was most important to ensure that Dingzhou City was not lost, so he ordered his imperial guards to quickly go to reinforce Dingzhou City, the white armor cavalry was the elite of the Western Xia army, although the number was less than 20,000, but it was composed of domestic nobles and veterans who had been in battle for a long time, and their combat effectiveness was not ordinarily strong.

After Xiao Ming surrounded Dingzhou, he did not send troops to attack, but made an appearance, but sent a large number of men and horses to set up an ambush on the Xiashan Road from Xingqing Mansion to Dingzhou, the Han army's infantry battalion and archers were all sent out to ambush, and the cavalry of the Wuhuai battalion was a reserve, and the idea of encircling the point to send reinforcements was to fight it, but the Western Xia army just wanted to feed him with meat in his mouth!

The 15,000 white-armored cavalry of the Western Xia army entered the encirclement in this way, and the war drums of the Liao army beat loudly and loudly, and the horns sounded constantly, surrounding the white-armored cavalry, and not having close contact with you, anyway, it was a few rounds of 10,000 arrows, and the infantry all used crossbows and bows to shoot three consecutive shots, and the archers were accurate shots, plus the Tiger Guard battalion shot and killed the officers and leaders of the other side at fixed points, and the Western Xia army was defeated!

The white-armored cavalry was almost wiped out, the ground was full of corpses in white armor, this battle was fought too fast, from the other party entering the ambush circle to several rounds of chaotic arrows, the white-armored cavalry of the chaotic battalion was finally rushed by the Liao army iron cavalry of the Wuhuai battalion and almost the whole army was exhausted, and the remaining dozens of men and horses fled into Dingzhou City.

On the third day, Dingzhou guard general Lie Emu led 3,000 personal soldiers, abandoned the city and fled, and surrendered Dingzhou City to Xiao Ming, but when he broke through, 3,000 personal soldiers suffered heavy losses, and finally hundreds of people fled to Xingqing Mansion, and he was also hit by two arrows, fortunately, it was not fatal.

Dingzhou City is easy to obtain, Xiao Ming is very happy, others may not know, but he knows too well, this Dingzhou, is the Shizuishan in later generations, there are a large number of high-quality coal resources, that is the famous Shizuishan coal mining base in later generations, and it is also the largest coal capital in Ningxia!

The coal mines of Shizuishan, the copper and silver mines of Yinzhou, and the iron ore and gold mines in Hexi and other places, Xingqing Mansion is the Yinchuan of later generations, where is there the largest silver deposit in the west, plus the gold mines in the Altai region, these deposits make people drool when they think about it, let alone take all these treasures into their own hands.

This is one of Xiao Ming's unknown purposes, he laid down Dingzhou, directly threatened Xingqing Mansion, the capital of the Western Xia Kingdom, and divided the entire Western Xia right wing into two in the north and south directions, and was bound to be attacked by the Western Xia army's crazy counterattack, but Xiao Ming was not in a hurry, he was full of information, he led the army into Dingzhou City, rewarded the three armies and prepared the city defense, ready to meet the enemy.

In fact, the right wing of the Western Xia Dynasty Shun soldiers and horses have reacted in the fastest way, Dingzhou lost and waited for the gate of the capital to be opened, how to get it, the general Helian Tielie led an army of 150,000, gave up the defense of the Yongning line and rushed directly towards Dingzhou, a big war was about to break out.

……

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