Chapter 237 Meeting on a narrow road

The Tang army's 50,000 troops did not enter the city, but just took over the guards of the East City Gate. This is a must. The Tang army did not enter the city, which was respect for the Shi Kingdom, but when it was far from reaching full mutual trust, the Tang army also had to make a symbolic gesture. Of course, this gesture must be effective and controlled the East City Gate of Tuozhi City, like a needle standing in a ball of soft cotton. The Tang army was friendly but not losing its principles, as if it had strangled the Shi Kingdom's throat, making it dare not have any whims, and could only surrender to the Tang Dynasty with all its heart.

Li Qing'an's commander was also set up outside the city. At this moment, he was pondering the alliance treaty with the Shi Kingdom one by one. Although he had obtained the authorization of Li Longji to give him full authority to preside over the affairs of the River Centre, it was still necessary to hand over the agreement between countries to the court to decide. On this kind of sensitivity, he did not want to be caught.

"It's OK, send it to Chang'an immediately."

Li Qingan signed his name under the drafter of the alliance letter and handed it to the personal guards. The personal guards took it over and walked away quickly. Only then did Li Qingan smile at the marching Sima Liu She who was waiting aside and said, "Tell me! What happened?"

"General, when we regained the soldiers of Shi Kingdom, we found that there were two thousand fewer people missing. I have found out the situation. After the soldiers of Shi Kingdom surrendered, two thousand people left Tuozhicheng north and were led by Shi Kingdom General Tanbul, for unknown reasons."

"There is still such a thing?"

Li Qingan pondered for a moment, then said to his personal soldiers: "Go and invite Prince Hassan to me."

Li Qing'an quickly walked to the map. Where would the two thousand troops of Shiguo go north? Walking north along Tuozhicheng, there were endless grasslands and Gobi. Finally, Li Qing'an's eyes were on the northern small city of Talas City. This small town once wrote a sad page in history, so dazzlingly reflected in his eyes. In the tenth year of Tianbao, Gao Xianzhi's 70,000 troops had no Talas River. Time was still the tenth year of Tianbao, but history also turned around. Will Talas still become the focus of history?

Li Qingan shook his head, and at this moment, the door remembered the personal guard's report, "General, Prince Hassan is here."

Li Qingan was stunned for a moment. Did he come so soon? "Please come in!"

Although Teller, the king of Shi Kingdom, had already merged with Tang Jun, and although Li Qing'an also expressed his resignation, the impact of some of Teller's past negative decisions has always been difficult to eliminate. In order to establish a new alliance with the Tang Dynasty, Teller has officially handed over power to the eldest prince Hassan, and appointed Hassan as the governor. He claimed that he was sick and retreated behind the scenes. This was undoubtedly a decision for Hassan. Just two days ago, the father had decided to establish the second prince Yuanen to inherit the throne, which made him extremely disappointed. However, the arrival of the Tang army changed all this and finally made him ascend to the throne of Shi Kingdom. For this reason, he was full of gratitude to Li Qing'an.

"General, I was about to invite you to live in the city when I heard you were looking for me."

Hassan walked into the camp with a smile. Compared with his brother Yuan'en's tall and fair-skinned and good at leading troops, Hassan was black and fat, short and had a good figure, and liked food and women. Therefore, he did not like his father as much as Yuan'en. However, his support for his father at the critical moment made him eventually become the Lord of the Stone Kingdom. He bowed to Li Qing'an and said, "Living in the camp is difficult. I have prepared a mansion for you in the city, and there are twenty beauties serving you. The general must listen to me."

Li Qingan smiled slightly and said politely: "Of course I have a beautiful woman to serve me, but the Great Food Army is here as soon as possible. I dare not slackew for a moment. Thank you for your good intentions."

"Then there is no way. When the war is over, I will send me to Samarkand to find my sister and reunite with the general. To be honest, I firmly oppose her being that saint and will never be able to get married in my life."

"It's up to your sister to decide this matter! I'll talk to you about the important matter first."

Li Qingan invited him to the map and asked, "My subordinates just discovered that a two thousand people of Shiguo army has gone north. Although they have confiscated their weapons, I still want to know what's going on?"

"It's General Tanbul!"

Hassan sighed and said, "He was unwilling to surrender to the Tang army, but my father finally convinced him and disarmed the Tang army. But his father also promised him that he could return to his own tribe, the general, he had no choice!"

"Why?"

"Because his tribe has a small number of large cannibal troops, right here!"

Hassan pointed to the city of Talas on the map, "His tribe is in the area of ​​Talas, and there are still nearly 500 cannibal troops stationed in Talas. I originally wanted to tell the general about this. Since the general is asking about it now, I have to make it clear that Talas is only nominally belonging to the Shi Kingdom. In fact, it has been controlled by the cannibal for many years. The army and the officials in the city are all cannibals, and taxes are also enjoyed by the big food. It is an enclave of the big food."

Li Qing'an's eyes once again fell on this small northern city. No wonder Gao Xianzhi had to lead his army to attack Talas City in history. It turned out that this was an enclave of the Great Cannibal. He pondered for a moment and said, "Why did the Great Cannibal choose Talas as its enclave?"

"Because Talas has an extremely important strategic position."

On Li Qing'an's map, Talas is already the northernmost, and Hassan had to use his hand to draw on the table, "General, General, the Silk Road will be divided into two lines, one is to go west, through Tuozhi City to Samarkand, and finally to Mulu and Damascus, and the other is to go northeast from the Broken Leaf to Talas, then to Itil City, through the Sea of ​​Azov, and finally to Byzantium.

Among them, Yitir is a very prosperous commercial city. Merchants from all over the world have gathered for hundreds of years. I heard that some Gauls and even Vikings from far north would come south to do business here. Therefore, they blocked Talas, which means blocking this business road. Dashi was unwilling to go to Byzantium from the Tang Dynasty to influence their trade interests. This is why Talas has always stationed troops here."

Li Qingan then suddenly realized that Talas City had such important strategic value. He couldn't help but look at the map carefully. Talas City not only had important commercial value, but also the northern passage leading to Saiye. If Dashi occupied Talas City and Ashi did not come to Saiye, it would be like a big knife hanging above Saiye's head, threatening Saiye's safety at any time. In the first Saiye War, Dashi general Judir marched towards Saiye from this route.

Thinking of this, he asked again: "Are you sure there are only five hundred food troops stationed?"

Hassan nodded, "I heard from Tanbul that there were originally many troops, but most of them were transferred to Saiye to fight the general, and only five hundred people left to defend the city. There should be no mistake."

Li Qing'an pondered for a moment, then turned around and ordered: "Go and order Li Guangbi to come quickly."

After a moment, Li Guangbi hurried into the tent and half-kneeled to salute, "See the General."

"General Li, you will lead 5,000 cavalry and immediately go north to Talas, annihilate the 500 major food army there, and take down the city of Talas."

Talas City is located in the northeast of Tuozhi City, about 400 miles apart, and the terrain is flat. Li Guangbi led 5,000 cavalry all the way north. At noon, they arrived at a forest that stretched for dozens of miles. In the middle of the forest, a big river was in front of them. This river was called Baishui, and Baishui City in the middle of the Shi Kingdom was upstream, about eighty miles away.

The river water is clear and the white pebbles below are clearly visible, making the entire river water turn white. It is late summer, and the river water is turbulent and cannot flow across the river.

The scouts went to find a way, while the Tang army was resting on the pebbly-covered river beach and eating dry food. Li Guangbi looked at the other side with some thoughts. He had not fought a good battle since Beiting. His name was not on the credit book. Seeing that the battle with the Great Food Army was about to begin, Li Qing'an ordered him to take a small town in the north. Could this be the opportunity to transfer him away?

Li Guangbi's personality is quite worried about gains and losses. He always can't let go of some small things and it is easy to think of small things into big things. In addition, because his military career has been unsuccessful over the years, Li Guangbi developed a habit of guessing the thoughts of those who are superiors. He pondered An Sishun's thoughts with Geshuhan, and guessed Geshuhan's thoughts with Geshuhan. Now that he followed Li Qing'an, he began to habitually guess Li Qing'an's thoughts.

Li Guangbi thought for a long time and had no idea. He sighed, picked up a pebbles and threw them into the river. The other side was lush woods, and a low hill in the distance blocked his sight.

At this time, a scout rushed towards the west. It was obvious that he was very anxious. Li Guangbi couldn't help but stand up, "What's wrong?" he asked loudly.

"General, an enemy is coming here!"

Li Guangbi was shocked and the soldiers around him stood up one after another.

"Where is the enemy? Who is it?"

"Report to the general, they are all Dashi cavalry, about 3,000 people. They are coming to us along the river, which is less than three miles away."

"Get up!"

Li Guangbi shouted sternly: "Leave the forest immediately, hurry up!"

If there were only three thousand Great Food Army, it would be no reason. What he was worried about was that the scouts had only discovered a part of the enemy. If the Great Food Army surrounded them from all sides, the consequences would be unimaginable.

The soldiers packed up their things and quickly ran south. After running for nearly seven or eight miles, they left the forest and came to the grassland. The Tang army ate the crossbow and unsheathed the knife, looked vigilantly in the forest.

The grassland is vast and there is no enemy situation. Li Guangbi lets go of his heart slightly. The enemy army is likely to have only 3,000 people. This is an opportunity.

He rushed forward and whispered a few words to the deputy general Bai Xiaojie. Bai Xiaoji nodded, waved his hand, led 2,000 people eastward, and hid in the forest again.

"Beat the drum!"

With Li Guangbi's order, the sound of the Tang army drums was like thunder, which frightened the birds on the edge of the forest. The Tang army slowly retreated while beating the drums. About a quarter of an hour later, a large food army appeared from the forest.

This Dashi Army, which happened to encounter with the Tang army by chance by the Baishui River, was the vanguard army sent by Muslims to compete for Talas City.

When they learned that the Tang army had occupied Tuozhi City, they detoured north and prepared to reinforce Talas City directly. Unexpectedly, the wooden bridge they were preparing to cross the river had collapsed due to disrepair. Houmeide led his army to go east along the river. They had already discovered traces of large groups of people. When they were nervous, they suddenly heard the sound of drums coming from the south.

Houmede is one of the four tiger generals under the Muslim, ranking third, second to Chiaed and Ibrahim who entered Sindh, while the fourth-ranked general Rasher is currently guarding Mulu.

Houmeide is also from Khorasan, about forty years old this year, and Abu.

Muslims are childhood friends. He was once the governor of Kabul of the Umayyad Dynasty. After the Muslims raised their troops in Khorasan, he led 5,000 troops from Punjab to join the Muslims, followed the Muslims to fight the Umayyad army and made great contributions. This time, he quelled the rebellion of Shiites in Dinghe River. He was responsible for suppressing Xiao Shiguo. He quelled the rebellion in just one month and killed countless people. This time, he rushed to Shiguo as a vanguard. If he could not seize Tuozhi City, he would defend Talas City and prepare to restrain the Tang army from behind to advance westward.

He went smoothly, but he didn't expect to encounter the Tang army in Baishui River. Hou Meide quickly stabilized the army after the initial panic.

He immediately put a curtain on the edge of the forest and looked at the Tang army. The Tang army had retreated three miles away and a grassland was empty, obviously wanting to fight with him.

Hou Meide slowly narrowed his eyes. The number of Tang soldiers was not large, basically similar to him. He probably wanted to go to Talas, which was an opportunity.

Hou Meide was very conceited. His three thousand elite cavalry were all veterans who had followed him for many years. He had rich combat experience and was the elite of the Khurasan army. They also participated in the battle last time with Gao Xianzhi, but they defeated the Tang army from the flanks.

It was the last great victory that made him look a little contemptuous of the Tang army. The Tang army might have good equipment, but they were not very motivated and were only stronger than the Sogdian army, which was still far from the Great Food Army.

"Prepare for combat!"

Hou Meide shouted loudly, and the three thousand big food soldiers raised their spears, with uniform movements, showing their superb military qualities.

“Route forward!”

The Great Food Army marched slowly. The three thousand cavalrymen were divided into five rows, each with six hundred people, with a distance of two meters. It seemed that they had carefully measured. Each of them was equipped with ten short spears, each weighing about seven kilograms, which were made of fine iron, and threw them far by arm strength, and pierced the enemy from a distance of thirty steps. This was the sharpest weapon of the Great Cannibal to deal with Byzantine heavy armored cavalry.

The cavalry began to turn into trots, holding shields in one hand and spears in the other, and the line was still neatly arranged, with the sharp short spears in their hands shining in the sunshine with a cold light.

The army led by Li Guangbi was the Tianwei Army from Shibao City. It was the first of them, the Longyou Army. It has been fighting against the Tubo people for many years and has rich combat experience. They are equipped with horn crossbows, and the effective range of killing is a hundred steps. The only disadvantage is that the string is slow and can only be fired twice within a hundred steps. In order to make up for this weakness, each Tang army is equipped with a pair of bows and arrows, suitable for short-range shooting, followed by swords, spears and shields, with complete equipment.

Although this Tang army was fighting against the Great Cannibal for the first time, their rich combat experience allowed them to see the advantages and weaknesses of the Great Cannibal Army at a glance.

If you are well-trained, you won’t mention that you can maintain a neat queue while running. Even the Tubo people cannot do it. Obviously, they are very skilled in their overall cooperation. From this point of view, this is a strong enemy. Secondly, they have no bows and arrows. Each of them has multiple short spears. There is another spear in addition to the short spear. From this, it can be inferred that the short spear is their throwing weapon, and the range of the short spear is not as good as that of the crossbow arrows. In this regard, the Tang army has a slight advantage, but the big-food horses seem to be very strong, tall and strong, which is much more powerful than the plateau horses of the Tubo people, and even faster than the Tang army’s horses.

But his weakness was also obvious, that is, their armor was all tight leather armor. This kind of leather armor could not withstand the bow and arrow of the Tang army. Li Guangbi saw the weakness of the Dashi Army, and he immediately ordered: "Set the Yanyue Formation!"

The Tang army flag waved and began to quickly adjust the formation, adjusting it to a crescent-shaped army with heavy and light ends in the middle, with five rows in the middle and two rows on both sides, so as to ensure the maximum density of bows and arrows. The Tang army in the first two rows held huge shields, which was to defend against the big cannibal spear.

The Tang army also slowly advanced forward, holding crossbow arrows in their hands, controlling the war horses with their legs, and maintaining a tight formation. The two armies were getting closer and closer, and the neighing and shouting were intertwined, and the drums rumbling, encouraging the morale of their respective soldiers.

Two hundred steps.

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One hundred and fifty steps.

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One hundred steps, the range of killing of the Tang army's crossbow arrows was already entered. The Dashi Army raised the shields, but Li Guangbi did not order the arrows. He stared at the Dashi People's shields with sharp eyes, as if he had seen through these shields. At a hundred steps, these shields could withstand the Tang army's hard crossbows. The Tang army had stopped its pace and was ready for battle.

After eighty steps, Li Guangbi still did not give an order. Many Tang soldiers were in cold sweat. This was something they had never fought for many years, and they had not shot arrows at eighty steps.

At this time, the Great Food Army suddenly accelerated, and the distance between the queues began to widen, but the queues were still neat. This was Hou Meide's cleverness. At the last moment, the distance was widened, so that the area of ​​the Tang army's bow and arrow would be smaller.

The war horses galloped, and the cavalry shouted and rushed towards the Tang army. Sixty steps, Li Guangbi pointed his sword and shouted: "Shoot!"

The thousand arrows in the first row shot out flat, which was the advantage of sixty steps. There was no need to shoot the parabola anymore, but directly shot flat. The arrows were like rain, roaring towards the group of Dashi Cavalry. The powerful crossbow arrows shot through the shield of the Dashi Cavalry, shot through the leather armor, and penetrated the body. The war horses pounced on the ground and fell down. The cavalry screamed and fell from the horse. In an instant, the people were overturned. Nearly two hundred people were shot over. The momentum of the Dashi attack was depressed. Then the two thousand arrows in the second and third rounds also shot. Within 60 steps, the three thousand Great Food Army lost five or six hundred people. Just as the three rounds of arrows were shot, Li Guangbi immediately ordered, "Yanxing Formation!"

The Yanyue Town of the Tang Army suddenly scattered. Before the Dashi Army's short spear was thrown out, it quickly pulled apart to both sides, as if an inverted geese had returned north. The Tang Army's transformation caught Hou Meide off guard. He had seen the Tang Army holding giant shields in front of the two rows of the Tang Army holding giant shields in their hands, which seemed to be to resist their spears, which made him secretly happy. The Dashi Army's short spear was extremely sharp and powerful, and no shield could resist it. The Tang Army's formation was dense, just for their flying spear rain to massacre.

However, the Tang army suddenly changed its formation at fifty steps, and Hou Meide had no time to adjust, so he had to order: "Spout the spear!"

The cavalrymen raised their arms and threw them, and thousands of short spears intertwined into a dense rain, flying in the air. Despite the terrifying momentum, most of the cavalry threw them from fifty or sixty steps away. Despite the help of war horses, most of the short spears could not reach the Tang army's position. Only hundreds of short spears in the front shot. The last part of the Tang army had no time to leave. The force of the force pierced their shields with sharp force. Dozens of Tang soldiers also screamed and fell off their horses, and the short spears pierced their bodies.

The Tang army obviously did not intend to fight with the Dashi Army. They fought flexibly with fifty people, trying to shoot from the side of the Dashi Army with bows and arrows. They sometimes cooperated with each other and dissolved into one, but scattered and fought each other. Although it seemed scattered, it seemed as if a rope was tied together, scattered in shape but not dispersed in spirit. This rope was the command flag of the Tang army. The flags constantly changed into various combinations, commanding the weak links of the Tang army's attack on the Dashi Army.

The flexible combat method of the Tang army is obviously the nemesis of the Dashi Cavalry's rank-and-line combat method. This rank-and-line combat method is designed to deal with the Byzantine square formation. In the group's combat against the group, this rank-and-line combat is very sharp, and can form a dense and consistent rain of spears and kill the enemy in large quantities. However, its overall advantage over the Tang army that was fighting scattered, was not able to exert its overall advantage. On the contrary, its clumsy and slow weakness is fully reflected.

This is where Li Guangbi's military ability lies. He can adapt to local conditions and adjust his tactics at any time to find the enemy's weak points to attack. This is his purpose of firing arrows at 60 steps. He would rather fire one less round of arrows than attacking its weak links when the enemy did not have time to change its formation. At this time, the Dashi Army will passively change its formation again, and the Tang army will not give them the opportunity to adjust calmly.

The Tang army's flexible small-scale multi-point attack made the Dashi Army's queues start to chaotic, and they gradually became the same as the Tang army. They were really the same as the Tang army. They were really the same as each other. Without unified command and cooperation, they seemed messy. The Dashi Army was gradually at a disadvantage.

At this time, Li Guangbi saw that the time had come, and he immediately ordered: "Shoot the rocket!"

A rocket rose into the air and dragged long black smoke through the air. Two thousand Tang army cavalry suddenly broke out from the forest behind the Dashi Army, but they were in a neat array, lined up in a complete square formation, with the horses fast, and the Tang army was murderous intent soaring into the sky and swept towards the Dashi Army.

As the Tang army's ambushed new forces emerged, the Dashi cavalry finally couldn't stand it and began to retreat. The Tang army covered the pursuit behind them. The Dashi army suffered heavy casualties and suffered countless surrenders.

Abu.
Chapter completed!