Chapter 480: The Battle of Nine Curves (Part 1)
At this time, Li Guangbi's voice came from the yard: "Is the general inside?"
"Inside, the general is participating in military affairs."
A personal soldier reported: "General, Governor Li asks for a meeting!"
"Please come in."
The door opened, and Li Guangbi walked in quickly from outside. He just knelt down, but Li Qingan supported him and smiled and said, "No need to be so polite, they are all their own people, come! Sit down and talk."
Li Qing'an asked him to sit down and ordered his personal soldiers to serve a cup of tea. Li Guangbi came from Dafeichuan and ran on the road for three days. He was really tired. He picked up the teacup and drank the herbal tea in one go. Then he said, "This time, the Tubo people are not good!"
"Let's not talk about Tubo, but about the situation in Tochar."
Li Qingan smiled and said, "Did the big cannibal march into Tocharo to provoke me while I am away?"
Li Guangbi shook his head and said, "Fortunately, I heard that the cannibals fought fiercely with the former army in the distant Libya and did not care about the East for the time being. Tochar has been very calm this year, but in the Sindh, I heard that General Feng suppressed the uprising in Punjab twice."
Li Qing'an knew one thing about the uprising in Punjab. The reason was that the Tang army forced the locals to build ports. In addition, the tax was heavy, and an uprising demanding independence broke out in Adianpochiluo City. He believed that Feng Changqing could handle this matter well. Li Qing'an was unwilling to talk more about faith with Li Qing'an, so he changed the topic and returned to Longyou.
"General Li, tell me about your military deployment in Longyou."
Speaking of Longyou, Li Guangbi was excited and smiled and said, "Although he could defeat the Tocharo army, the Tocharo army was a weak brigade after all, and he always felt that it was not powerful. The Tubo army was a real powerful brigade. It was my wish for many years to be able to compete with the Tubo army."
At this time, Li Guangbi suddenly saw the huge map. He was stunned, and then he looked at him with surprise. He quickly walked to the map, looked carefully, and said happily to Li Qing'an: "General, where did you get this treasure? What I lack the most now is the plateau map. This map of the general is simply raining in time!"
Although Li Guangbi didn't say anything about his implication, Li Qing'an knew what he meant and smiled and said, "This map was brought to Beijing by a Tubo envoy. I think it's good, so I got it. If you need it, I'll give it to you."
Li Guangbi was overjoyed and hurriedly bowed and bowed, "Thank you, General!"
He picked up the wooden stick and pointed to the four circles painted by Li Qinggong and smiled: "It seems that the general knows Longyou very well. The place he painted is the key place in Longyou. The latest information I received is that the 50,000 Tubo people's army has been divided into two groups, one north to Dafeichuan, with about 20,000 people, and the other 30,000 people have occupied Wuhai and are advancing towards the Yellow River Nine Curves. However, according to my inference, this is a mistake by the Tubo commander. He may have poor military conditions and did not know that the 60,000 Anxi Army had arrived in Longyou. He thought that after Geshuhan left, Longyou was in a state of emptiness, so he divided his troops and tried to seize the strategic important place as soon as possible, but he should change his strategy soon, because he would soon be blocked by 20,000 Tang troops and 15,000 Tuyuhun troops in the Yellow River Nine Curves."
"Wait a minute!"
Li Qingan seemed to react, and he asked anxiously: "You mean the Tubo army has only 50,000 people, and the information is accurate?"
"It should be right. I got the same conclusion from the three scouts. The Tubo army may have advanced in segments, and these 50,000 people may only be their former army."
"There is indeed a possibility, but there is another possibility."
Li Qing'an also walked to the map, took the wooden pole and pointed at Anxi and said, "I suspect that Tubo's attack on Longyou is just a feint attack. Their real target is Anxi. When Tubo was weak, there were still more than 100,000 troops. After several years of rest, their army had at least 200,000 and nearly 300,000 troops. How could they only send 50,000 people to attack Longyou? If they really only had 50,000 troops to attack Longyou, then this must be a feint attack. Their main force went to attack Anxi."
Li Qing'an was shocked and said quickly: "If that were the case, Tocharo would be dangerous. Now only the silver mines stationed in Tocharo, 8,000 Han troops were stationed in Tocharo, and the local Turkish army had only more than 40,000 people. If the Tubo people attacked Tocharo, our silver mine would be seriously affected."
"Not only the situation in Tochar is not good, but the situation in the four towns of Anxi is also bad. I brought 70,000 troops east to Guanzhong, and almost all the troops of the four towns of Anxi were wiped out. Our Anxi army had 300,000 troops, and you and I took nearly half of them. There were 50,000 Hu soldiers in Juyanhai, Hexi, and the 60,000 troops in Hezhong and Shi Kingdom could not be moved. There were 15,000 troops in Xinde. In fact, the troops we could mobilize were 30,000 to 40,000 troops, but I dare not let Saiye be too empty. At most, 20,000 people could be mobilized to defend Anxi. With the 20,000 cavalry I led now, that is, it would be only 40,000. If Tubo had a hundred thousand troops to attack Anxi, to be honest, I would not have a high chance of winning."
Li Qing'an was very anxious. His front line was too long, so that there was no soldiers available today. At this time, Li Guangbi suggested: "General, it is better to transfer the Hu soldiers from Juyanhai back to Beiting first, and then divide the Hu soldiers here with 10,000 troops, and Hexi also divide the troops to 10,000 troops. In this way, Anxi can gather 70,000 troops. With the logistics support of the Anxi countries, Beizhi believes that he can barely fight against the Tubo army."
Li Qingan pondered for a moment, then nodded and said, "Your plan is very good, I've adopted it."
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The Jiuqu area of ​​the Yellow River refers to a piece of land within the first major curve of the upper reaches of the Yellow River, which is today the Tongde County and Guide County in Qinghai Province. The terrain here is high in the north and south and low in the middle, forming a river valley basin surrounded by all sides. The climate is warm, the land is extremely fertile, and the water source is sufficient to irrigate, so this area is the most important grain-producing area in the plateau area. The Tang army also established the Dushan Army and the Jiuqu Army here. In the north of the Jiuqu area, there are Wuning Army, Weisheng Army, Jintian Army and other heavy troops stationed.
Since the Tubo army occupied the Jiuqu area in the 29th year of Kaiyuan, this land that produced food rich became the logistics base for Tubo to attack Longyou. It was not until the summer of the 11th year of Tianbao that Geshuhan's army regained this strategic important place.
At present, there are 15,000 Tuyuhun troops in the Tang army stationed in Jiuqu area, and 20,000 Tang troops who have just arrived. The chief general of the Tang army, Li Guangbi, ordered the general Li Sheng to be responsible for guarding this strategic location.
Since Li Sheng surrendered to Li Qing'an in Kuangzhong County, Guanzhong, he returned to Longyou. He ordered his subordinate Yue Ning to lead a thousand troops to guard Shibao City. He himself led 5,000 Han and Hu coalition forces to patrol the Dafeichuan area. Li Sheng was very skilled in martial arts and especially outstanding archery skills. He had a high prestige among the Han and Hu army. It was under his comfort that the Hu army that caused a moment of rebellion caused by Geshu Han's departure quickly subsided. It can be said that Li Sheng made great contributions to stabilizing the situation in Longyou.
This time, Li Guangbi led his army to the east and led the deputy envoy of Longyou Jiedu and the governor of Shanzhou. He appointed Li Sheng as the envoy of the Jiuqu Five Army Capital, commanding 35,000 Hu Han soldiers.
With years of experience in dealing with the Tubo people, Li Sheng discovered that Tubo spies had begun to increase the number of patrols since July. He realized that the Tubo people were likely to launch an attack on Tang in the autumn. It was precisely because of this consciousness that he began to strengthen the defense of the Jiuqu area a month ago, built beacon towers along the Yellow River, echoing each other. In order to concentrate his troops, he withdrew the 3,000 Tang and Hu coalition troops stationed in Wuhai and more than 40,000 herdsmen stationed in Wuhai, and relying on the Yellow River natural barrier to defend the Tubo army's attack. Facts proved that his decision to withdraw the Wuhai military and civilians was very correct. Although Dazhalugong occupied Wuhai, he did not massacre like Baihai, and even no livestock could be obtained.
Li Sheng had already obtained information. After occupying Wuhai, the 30,000 Tubo troops continued to advance eastward. The opponent's tactical intention was already very obvious. He wanted to take down the Jiuqu area of ​​the Yellow River as soon as possible. The wheat had turned yellow. In a few days, the wheat in the Jiuqu area would mature. By then, the Tubo troops would take down Jiuqu of the Yellow River and get supplies.
Generally speaking, wheat can be harvested in early August, but the climate has been relatively cold in recent years, resulting in the prolonged maturity period of wheat and it will not be harvested after the Mid-Autumn Festival. However, the temperature in several river valleys is slightly higher, and the wheat matures slightly earlier than other places.
That morning, Li Sheng and his deputy general Yang Jingyun inspected the harvest of grain in the Mizha City area. Mizha City was a large granary built by Wang Xiaojie, a famous middle-Tang general, in the Jiuqu area. There were three in total, one in the north, central and southern part of the Jiuqu area. Li Sheng inspected Mizha City in Dushan in the south.
In the huge square outside Mizha City, golden wheat was piled up like mountains, and thousands of soldiers and civilians were busy spilling the wheat so that they could be dried as soon as possible and packed into the warehouse.
Seeing that the food was difficult to enter the warehouse without ten days of sunshine, Li Sheng was a little worried and asked, "General Yang, do you think the Tubo people will continue to cross the river eastward after they learned that Jiuqu had heavy troops stationed in the Tang army, or will they stop on the west bank of the Yellow River, and then attack together after recalling another 20,000 troops?"
Yang Jingyun is also a young general. He was less than 30 years old. His family was a Hehuang clan. He joined the army at the age of 17 and earned great achievements. Geshuhan appointed him as the Dushan Army's envoy. He had a very good relationship with Li Sheng. When Li Sheng asked him, he smiled slightly and said, "Who will the general think the Tubo lord be?"
Li Sheng thought for a while and said, "Based on his familiarity with Longyou, Ma Chongying is the first among the Tubo generals. Judging from the Tubo army's killing of Baihai herders, this is very similar to Ma Chongying's style. I think the Tubo commander is the one who belongs to this time."
Yang Jingyun smiled again and said, "If it were Ma Chongying, would he directly attack Jiuqu?"
Li Sheng also smiled, "Ma Chongying likes to seize the initiative and is good at attacking the world. If he comes to attack Jiuqu, I guess he will not wait for the army to gather before attacking, and he will definitely attack immediately."
As soon as he finished speaking, a soldier rushed to report: "Report to General Li, the beacon towers with rocks were lit, and there were three pillars of black smoke."
The three pillars of black smoke mean that a large army was coming. Li Sheng pondered for a moment. Although this was likely to be the Tubo army's strategy to attack the east and west, he still did not dare to be careless, so he immediately said to Yang Jingyun: "General Yang, you can lead five thousand Dushan troops to the rocks to defend, use bows and arrows to shoot the Tubo army in the river."
Yang Jingyun agreed with his fists and turned around. Li Sheng had no intention of inspecting Mizha City again. He immediately ordered: "Order the troops to enter emergency combat preparations immediately, and order the Jiuqu Army and Tuyuhun Mingguan Department to follow me to Feiyundu immediately."
The Yellow River in the upper reaches is not as wide as the middle and lower reaches, and the waves are turbulent. The Yellow River in the upper reaches is gentle and the river surface is not wide. There are often small islands with dense vegetation in the middle of the river. There are cliffs on both sides of the river, but there are also gentle slopes and flat roads. The Tubo army can easily cross the Yellow River with sheepskin rafts. There are two places that are most likely to cross the Yellow River. One is the rocky ridge in the south, where the river surface is narrow and the water is not fast, and the other is Feiyundu, which is in the west.
Feiyundu is not a ferry crossing, but a gentle slope flat road about twenty miles long. There are dense forests on both sides of the Yellow River. One of them is also a narrow and long island in the heart of the river, called Cymbique Island, about three miles long and twenty feet wide. The island is lush and trees are lush. Cranes fly high, as if there are immortals coming, so they are called Cymbique Island.
If the Tubo army was fighting the west, then they would have the greatest possibility of crossing the river from Xianke Island. Li Sheng's army was not far from the Yellow River. Thirty-five thousand people were divided into three camps. He led the 10,000 Jiuqu Army and the 5,000 Tuyuhun Army. The Jiuqu Army he had just arrived was actually the Anxi Army. Li Guangbi handed over the command of 20,000 Anxi to Li Sheng, and he divided the 20,000 Anxi Army into two, one was called Dushan Army and the other was called Jiuqu Army.
In the night, 15,000 troops marched rapidly in the valley, about eighty miles from Daying to the bank of the Yellow River. They needed to march overnight and they could reach the Yellow River at dawn the next day.
It was already five o'clock, and the night was still deep, with stars in the night sky, and a bright crescent moon hung alone in the eastern sky, but there was a faint blue color in the sky, and it was almost dawn.
The river valley where the Tang army was located was ten miles away from the bank of the Yellow River. In the valley, a clearing of about three miles long, 15,000 Tang soldiers were lying in the dark. They had been resting for an hour. Each of the soldiers of the Anxi Army had a wool sleeping bag. Although the night wind was full of coldness, they were still sleeping soundly. The Tuyuhun soldiers also had their own way to keep warm. They wrapped their bodies with thick sheepskin and could fall asleep sweetly.
Li Sheng couldn't fall asleep. This was his first time to command the army independently. He was facing a famous Tubo general Ma Chongying. He was facing a fierce battle when he became the chief general for the first time. He was really unsure of it.
He also knew that this was not because Li Guangbi valued him. He was not very familiar with Li Guangbi, and Li Guangbi didn't know him. He would never value himself like this. Li Sheng knew that this must be Li Qing'an's order. Otherwise, Li Guangbi would never hand over the 20,000 Anxi Army to a young Longyou general for command.
Li Qing'an's trust made Li Sheng feel grateful and even a heavy responsibility. This time, whether he could defeat Ma Chongying and preserve the Jiuqu area would be a turning point in his military career and even his destiny. His strength was not weak against the 50,000 Tubo army, and it depends on whether his judgment was correct. He was betting that Ma Chongying used the strategy of fighting the east and the west, called attacking the rocks and gangs, but actually walking on Feiyundu.
When it was almost dawn, Li Sheng stood up and stretched his waist long. It was time for the army to set off. He was about to order the army to pull out, but at this moment, he suddenly saw three pillars of thick black smoke rising into the air not far from the west.
Chapter completed!