Vice General Huang's face changed greatly, he was convinced of the general's words, the general Rong Ma had already practiced the intuition of looking at the wind and observing the atmosphere for half his life, and he would definitely not be wrong about how many people were in the opposite camp.

"General, it was the last general who was negligent, so I will personally take someone to find out the details. ”

Vice General Huang knew that it was a serious crime to misprobe the military situation, if the 400,000 barbarian coalition army quietly bypassed Dunhuang City and attacked the prefectures and counties behind Dunhuang City, and Dunhuang City failed to raise the alarm in advance, this responsibility would fall on the head of Dunhuang City, and then he would die without a place to be buried, and Fan Yunchao would also be implicated and punished.

Fan Yunchao barely suppressed his anger and said: "I don't need you to go in person, I just want the truth, and quickly, we have to sound the alarm before they launch a sneak attack." ”

"Yes, the last general swears to complete the task!" Vice General Huang saluted and immediately went down the city wall.

Fan Yunchao turned around and looked at the enemy camp in the distance, his brows were furrowed, he had been fighting with the barbarian army all these years, and the opponent's attack had always been decent, mainly a war of attrition.

"Is it a sneak attack on Guazhou Mansion? or a direct attack on Suzhou? Alas, careless!" Fan Yunchao slammed his palm on the blue bricks of the battlements, and said loudly: "Go back to the house, have a meeting, and discuss countermeasures!"

In the end, Vice General Huang still went out of the city in person, he selected two hundred good men from his command, and gave a death order before setting off, and never returned to the camp without hearing the real situation in the barbarian coalition camp.

These two hundred good men are all personal soldiers who have followed Vice General Huang for a long time, and they are the capital of his foothold in the city defense army.

After the soldiers learned that this incident was related to the life and death of tens of millions of people in Suzhou Province, and also related to the safety of all the soldiers and civilians in Dunhuang City, everyone was red-eyed and vowed to investigate the situation of the barbarian alliance army clearly.

In a short time, these two hundred and one people quietly left the city and dispersed into forty squads, led by the captain of five to explore the periphery of the barbarian coalition army, and by the way, cleared the hidden stakes laid by the enemy outside the camp.

At dusk, Vice Admiral Huang and his men converged in the woods five miles away from the camp, this tree has been cut down by the barbarians, and it will be cut down every year to attack the city, so this forest is getting smaller and smaller, and it is difficult to hide two hundred men and horses.

Fortunately, it was getting late, and Vice General Huang didn't plan to take his brothers here for a long time, so he lowered his voice and said, "Brothers, tonight you must find a way to find out the number of enemy troops in the camp and the movements of the missing army, and it is best to catch a few tongues and come back, so that the city lord can personally interrogate them." ”

A centurion asked in a low voice: "General, don't worry, we will break into the camp to complete the mission." ”

"Don't be careless, don't be greedy, the purpose of our trip is accurate intelligence, don't have too much entanglement and fight with the enemy, once you succeed, retreat immediately, and those who violate the order will be killed!"

The team of two hundred people spread out again, turned into twenty squads, and took advantage of the night to touch the camp of the barbarian alliance in a rotational way, and the two hundred men in white clothes and white hats and white cloaks quickly disappeared into the reckless snowfield.

The commander who led the siege of Dunhuang City this time was Marshal Batu of the Mengyuan Empire, who was seriously injured by Li Mao under Dunhuang City eight years ago, and returned to China for six years to recover.

Originally, the main generals who failed in the expedition were to bear the blame, but Batu's injuries have not recovered, and the coaches of the following years have all been defeated, so when Batu recovered from his injury and asked Tuomba Khan to plead guilty, Tuomba actually chose to forgive him and let him preside over the siege of Dunhuang City this year.

Batu was grateful, and vowed to take Dunhuang City this year, so that he would serve the Great Khan in shame.

Tuomba affirmed Batu's loyalty, and assigned him his Ming rebel general Zhao Quan to be Batu's deputy general, although Batu did not look down on the rebel general, but he was still very worried about Zhao Quan, although this person's character was poor, but his strategy and force were extraordinary, and his reputation in Mengyuan was not under Batu.

The two led the army to Dunhuang City, waiting for the army of the Western Regions and Western Fan to come here to make peace.

After the convergence of the three parties, the main and deputy generals sat together to discuss how to attack Dunhuang City, Zhao Quan suddenly took out a secret decree and said that he would divide the troops into two places, and the main generals of the Western Regions and Xifan also had their own secret decrees.

The final result was that Batu, who had no secret decree, took more than 40,000 old and weak soldiers to stick to the camp and pretend to besiege Dunhuang City, while Zhao Quan led 400,000 troops to leave quietly, and he didn't know where he went.

If it was eight years ago, Batu would definitely be angry, even if it was to resist the decree, it would be difficult for Zhao Quan, but Batu, who was injured and lying in bed for six years, had already lost his ambition, and had no intention of competing for power and profit with Zhao Quan, so he chose to cooperate with Zhao Quan's actions.

After Zhao Quan led the crowd away, Batu felt a sense of relief, the figure that burst out of the snowflakes eight years ago was still tormenting him night and night, and the knife wound on his back was still faintly painful.

Batu knew that the knife of the "Bloody God of War" not only made him lie in bed for six years, but also shattered all his glory and self-confidence, making him tremble every time he stepped on his horse and touched the weapon.

He no longer had the courage to fight on the battlefield, but for the sake of his family, he had to fight to the death, and he didn't want to be dragged up from bed and beheaded by the Great Khan one day, and then beheaded all over the house.

This siege of Dunhuang City Batu is ready to die in battle, to use death to wash away the shame of eight years ago, and to preserve the glory of the Batu family with life and blood, which is the only thing Batu wants to do now.

This time, Zhao Quan suddenly took away most of the troops, and asked Batu to avoid the battle without confusing the Tang defenders, and tried to delay the time to start the battle with the defenders of Dunhuang City, but it lifted Batu's spirits.

That means you don't have to go to war, you don't have to besiege a city to die!

If Zhao Quan and they don't return for a day, they can delay the battle for a day.

If Zhao Quan wins, Batu has a meritorious cover; if Zhao Quan is defeated, Batu can deduce that Zhao Quan took the elite of the army with him, and his insufficient troops are difficult to conquer Dunhuang City, and this is really a golden opportunity.

With his mind decided, Batu began to work hard around his remaining 40,000 people, disguised the pomp and circumstance of 450,000 people in the camp.

Batu's morning and afternoon rotation training patrols are very effective, giving people a feeling of the army in the camp reorganizing and fighting, but the soldiers are very hard, the previous three days of one training and one patrol, has become a daily training and one patrol, the effect of a large number of people has come out, but the soldiers are exhausted.

Except for Batu's pro-military camp, most of the trainees in the barracks fell asleep after dinner, otherwise their bodies would not be able to withstand such a large amount of exercise.

Batu has reduced the power of night patrols to the extreme, and according to the experience of besieging Dunhuang City for many years, the defenders in the city rarely attack the coalition camp at night, so Batu has also reduced the number of night patrols.

Because of the laxity of the coalition camp, it just gave Vice General Huang the opportunity to make contributions, and at three o'clock in the hour, Deputy General Huang and two hundred of his men quietly infiltrated the coalition camp, during which only three coalition night sentinels were killed.

If the defense at night is so lax, either military discipline is lax, or there is a shortage of manpower, otherwise the quality of the normal army should not be so bad, because he was worried that it was a trap, Vice General Huang was more cautious while being happy.

Two hundred men successfully broke through the fence of a large camp and began to disperse to the battalions to count the number of people and arrest the clerks and other small officials, who knew very well about the affairs of the camp, and captured one person to know many secrets.

Batu was a little restless tonight, and always felt that something big was about to happen, but he didn't know what kind of big thing it would be, so he called the commander of the personal guard battalion and asked him to send additional defense forces near the tent.

On the basis of the original twenty-five guards, the captain of the personal guard sent twenty-five more people, and under the protection of fifty good men in the army, Batu felt safer.

He slept in the tent with his brazier and clothes, and he couldn't sleep in a daze.

As soon as he arrived, there was a sudden earth-shattering shout outside the camp, and Batu was so frightened that he immediately sat up, trembling like chaff, and he hurriedly drew his saber, put on his heavy fur and leather boots, and shouted: "Come quickly, escort!"

The commander of the personal guard battalion wore iron armor and opened the tent curtain and came in, gave a military salute and said: "Don't panic, big marshal, someone is attacking the camp, and now the soldiers are fighting." ”

Batu listened for a while and said: "There are not many people attacking the camp, and the shouts and killings are chaotic, most of them are to build momentum, let's go out and have a look." ”

The commander of the personal guard battalion did not prevent Batu from leaving the camp, and at this time, the commander's presence on the battlefield was the best way to boost morale, and besides, he also heard that there were not many enemies outside, and the personal guard battalion was sure to protect the safety of the commander.

Sure enough, the fighting outside was very messy and scarce, and it could be seen that the enemy was no more than a hundred people, and they set fire everywhere, with only one goal, which was to kidnap a few small officials from the army out of the camp.

At this time, the camp team was only more than ten feet away from the gap in the camp, but they were blocked in front of the gap by a steady stream of coalition troops, and every step they took would pay the price of blood.

Batu rode on the horse, his eyes narrowed into a slit and stared at the more than 100 Tang soldiers, this point of stealing the camp is obviously a little less, and the stealing camp did not steal in the first half of the night, at this time it was dark for only an hour and a half, and there were still many soldiers who did not sleep, so they dared to come in, it seems that they must be inquiring about the news.

From the few scribes they hijacked, it can be inferred that they must have discovered that the number of troops in the camp was wrong, so they wanted to arrest a few small officials and go back for questioning.

These people must not be allowed to get out alive, otherwise the lack of soldiers in the battalion will definitely be known by the defenders of Dunhuang, in case the defenders in the city come to attack, their tens of thousands of people may not be able to resist, if the battalion is lost, the punishment for defeat will be very severe.

Batu ordered the pro-army battalion commander to personally lead people to besiege the Tang army spies, and not let anyone go, and the pro-army battalion commander immediately led people to block the gap in the camp.

At this time, the leader of the Tang army was a centurion, who had killed six enemies and suffered two minor wounds, but he was still brave and good at fighting.

While covering the brothers' onslaught towards the gap, he encouraged loudly: "Brothers, you can prepare to retreat, the general and the fifty brothers who retreated first should have already walked out of three miles."

Our mission is accomplished, and we can't go back to see my wife and children if we don't work hard!"

"Kill!" more than a hundred Tang troops let out a battle cry in unison, and immediately rushed the Meng Yuan army that was blocking in front of them.

Just when a hundred Tang troops were about to break through from the breach in the camp, the battalion commander of Batu's personal guard led fifty personal guards to kill from the oblique stab, just blocking the retreat route of the Tang army.

This pro-guard army is the elite cultivated by Batu for many years, and its combat power is better than that of the Tang army, instantly blocking the Tang army's forward route.

The two sides were locked in a bitter battle near the gap in the camp.