Chapter 325: The heavy sword has no edge

On the same day, Li Qing'an received a notice of appointment from Fu Meng Lingcha and the news of Li Linfu's death. Compared with the former, Li Qing'an was more concerned about Li Linfu's death. This middle-Tang political strongman who had too many interests with him went silently. The court even blocked the news of his death. He only learned about this news from a letter from Li Linfu's son. In fact, even if the court did not block it, Li Linfu's death would not have much turmoil in Chang'an. People have forgotten him. This is also Li Linfu's sorrow. He was once prominent for a while, but his death was so desolate.

But he felt a little sad about Li Qing'an's death. Although Li Linfu's reputation was not good and left a sign with sweet mouth and a sword in later generations, Li Linfu was a great help for Li Qing'an's career. In particular, he secretly helped Wuyi escape in the most difficult times, which made Li Qing'an feel a little grateful to him.

The death of Li Linfu means the end of an era, and the beginning of the central court of the Tang Dynasty's transformation from strong to weak. Neither Yang Guozhong, Zhang Yun nor Wang Gong, they cannot compare with Li Linfu's ability to control various complex situations. The death of Li Linfu also means that the balance between the local and central courts is broken, and the Tang Dynasty will gradually enter an unstable era.

"General, Mr. Yan asks for a meeting!"

A report from a personal guard came from outside the door, and Li Qingan immediately turned Li Jin's letter of family and placed the notice of Fu Meng Lingcha's appointment.

"Come in!"

He knew what Yan Zhuang was going to do for him? He also knew that Fu Meng Lingcha's appointment was because of his life experience leaked, and he also knew about Li Yan's informant. In the past few days, the secrets about his life experience have spread throughout the Tianshan Mountains, inside and outside the Pamir Mountains. Although none of his subordinates talked about this in front of him, he could feel that the eyes of everyone looking at him were different from those in the past. There was a clear trace of expectation in those eyes. He understood the meaning of that expectation, and he was working towards that direction step by step.

Although Li Yan's rumor has increased the difficulty of facing complex situations to a certain extent, from another perspective, this matter also clarified his identity, giving him the greatest legal basis for competing in the world.

At this time, the door creaked open, and Yan Zhuang walked in. Although he was very anxious, he tried to walk lighter as much as possible. He knew that Li Qingan must be in a state of uneasy at this time, and too many things suddenly came. If the situation was not for the urgent situation, he would not be willing to disturb Li Qingan's thinking.

"Sir, please sit down!"

Yan Zhuang sat down. Li Qing'an, whom he saw every day in the past, was a little strange in his heart. It should be said that Yan Zhuang's mood had changed a little. Since he heard that Li Qing'an was built, Yan Zhuang had almost never sleep all night. He thought too much. It turned out that he was trying to persuade Li Qing'an to be independent because he knew that Li Qing'an was not qualified to win the world for the time being, but now it is different. Li Qing'an has become a royal family member, and all the extravagant hopes suddenly become hopes. Yan Zhuang has overturned all his previous ideas and started a new idea. Yan Zhuang also has his own ideals. Isn't this a achievement?

"Empress, I just received the news from Saiye, and King Qing also opposed Hu Meng Lingcha's entry into Anxi." Yan Zhuang tentatively.

"Sir, what do you think?" Li Qingan asked without saying a word.

Yan Zhuang smiled and said, "I have a plan to use King Qing to get rid of Fu Meng Lingcha."

Li Qingan smiled faintly and said, "There are many ways to get rid of Fu Meng Lingcha. I can borrow the hands of the Uighurs, or let the Tubo people or the great cannibals deal with him. But if I get rid of Fu Meng Lingcha, what should I do if Li Longji sends Gao Xianzhi tomorrow? Or if I ask Geshuhan to come the day after tomorrow, how can I deal with it?"

"This..." Yan Zhuang was speechless.

At this time, Li Qing'an asked again with a smile: "If you ask Mr. to choose, will Mr. think it is strategy effective or war effective?"

"If the troops do not fight, they will be defeated, and their subordinates think that the best way to defeat the heart."

"Then I ask you again, is conspiracy the most important in strategy or open conspiracy the most important?"

Yan Zhuang pondered for a moment and asked, "I only know conspiracy, but I don't know what it is to be a conspiracy?"

"Online plot means following the trend and moving with the trend, using clumsiness to overcome cleverness, heavy swords without sharp edges. For example, Cao Cao took the emperor and ordered the princes to be ordered, which is an open plot."

Yan Zhuang nodded and smiled, "That's how to say it, open conspiracy is the best, and conspiracy is the best."

Li Qingan shook his head, "I think the real power is conspiracy and conspiracy."

He picked up a report on the table and said, "I have also received news that Fu Meng Lingcha has arrived in Liangzhou, and there are only four hundred guards around him."

In November, strong winds and cold waves swept across the grasslands. The Tang and Hu coalition forces had initially achieved results in the mobilization of the Uighur grasslands half a year ago. It was difficult to see the shadow of herders on the grasslands thousands of miles east of Jinshan. The fear of the Tang army made most herders choose to move eastward, and it was difficult for the Uighurs to launch an attack on the Tongluo tribe.

As winter approaches, the grasslands become completely quiet, but Cui Qianyou, who is cautious and suspicious, is still worried. From September, he sent nearly a hundred teams to clean the scattered herders on the grasslands, burning all the herders' forage, snatching their cattle and sheep, and driving them to the far east. This cleaning lasted until the first winter snowfall in November and ended. Although it became an unmanned land within thousands of miles east of Kingsoft.

You still controlled the eager ambition of the three Hu tribes to expand eastward. Before Li Qing'an's order was issued, the Tang and Hu coalition still guarded Jinshan and did not move forward eastward. With the heavy snow, tens of thousands of coalition forces finally withdrew. They were all grassland people. They knew that the Uighurs would never launch an offensive in the winter without supplies, and they would be safe before spring. However, Cui Qianyou still left nearly 10,000 troops stationed in Jinshan to prevent emergencies.

The Shatu people also returned to the grasslands in northern Yizhou, but they did not all disband and rest. A cavalry composed of three thousand most elite Shatu people, led by Shatu Prince Zhu XieJianzhong, crossed Zheluoman Mountain, and rushed eastward for half a month, arrived at Juyanhai, and then headed south along the Zhangye River, and arrived near Yaoli Mountain about a hundred miles away from Zhangye, lurking like a pack of wolves.

At the end of November, Meng Lingcha, who went to Anxi to take up his post, arrived in Zhangye City after more than twenty days of marching. They rested in Zhangye for three days and continued to set off. Like the grassland, the Hexi Corridor also felt the attack of the cold wave. The cold wind blew, whistling, and circling in the Hexi Corridor. Merchants and herdsmen rarely saw it in the wild. On the vast land, the bleak winter scenery was endless. Fortunately, it had not snowed yet and the road was not blocked. Otherwise, heavy snow would block the road and it would be extremely difficult to walk on the Hexi Corridor.

Although the scenery was cold, Meng Lingcha was still very interested. In the first year of Tianbao, he was the governor of Hexi, and he was very familiar with every inch of land here. In the early years of Tianbao, the chief of the Tuqi Shi, Mohe Dagan, rebelled. It was his husband Meng Lingcha who led the western expedition and defeated Mohe Dagan in one fell swoop in the third year of Tianbao, beheaded him and put down the rebellion. Unfortunately, he used the wrong person to make Gao Xianzhi rise, causing him to lose the seal of Anxi and return to the east in disgrace.

It has been nearly six years since he left Anxi. Today, he finally embarked on the glorious road of the past again, which made his heart turmoil. Before leaving, Li Longji personally placed a drink with him to practice it. The emperor's secret instructions seemed to echo in his ears, "Your Majesty is here to go to Anxi, I hope to live up to my trust and present Li Qing'an's head as soon as possible. I promise you to be the prince of Anxi. From then on, you will be in charge of the army and King Qing will be in charge until your old age dies in office."

There is also a banner written by Li Longji in his handwritten: "The old horse is in the stable, and his ambition is thousands of miles away!"

Looking at the desolate sky and feeling the vigorous west wind, Meng Lingcha was in a state of excitement. He could hardly help but whistle to the sky. He was tearful and immediately said to himself: "Your Majesty, please rest assured. The old minister will take at most two months to offer Li Qing'an's head to Your Majesty to repay Your Majesty for your grace of knowing you!"

That morning, they had already left Zhangye for more than two hundred miles. The Health Army was ahead. After walking seventy miles forward, the famous Kongtong Mountain was the one that began to grow densely. The journey from the Health Army to Kongtong Mountain was relatively desolate and sparsely populated. Meng Lingcha wanted the Health Army to escort him for a while.

Two miles away from the military camp, a castle had been seen in the distance. The castle was surrounded by the fence of the Tang army camp. The Health Army had 3,000 troops, which was an important force to defend Zhangye. From afar, a team of cavalry rushed towards this side and rushed to the front of them in a moment. The head officer was a lieutenant in his thirties. He stepped forward and bowed: "Zhang Quan, a captain of the Health Army in the low-level army, met the Grand Marshal Meng!"

When Fu Meng Lingcha saw that it was just a captain who came to welcome him, he was displeased and said, "Where is your General Luo? Why didn't he come to welcome me?"

"Reporting to the general, General Luo has unfortunately been killed in the battle of Tubo."

Humeng Lingcha was stunned, and then he said, "Who is the highest commander in your military camp? Why didn't he come to welcome me?"

Captain Zhang still said: "Report to the general, the current highest commander of the Health Army is a humble position."

"What!" Hu Meng Lingcha was shocked and asked hurriedly: "Then how many soldiers there are in your army?"

"Reporting to the commander, there are only one hundred people."

Hu Meng Lingcha couldn't say a word. After a while, he sighed and said, "Why can you achieve this?"

Zhang Zhengwei shook his head helplessly and said, "Mr. Geshu fought against Tubo and basically eliminated all the Hexi army. As a result, the soldiers were killed and half of them were killed and injured. After the war, the soldiers all added the Longyou army. Our Hexi army was raised by stepmothers. How could the General Geshu be willing to take care of us? Magistrate Meng should have seen it. Zhangye City should have had 5,000 defenders, but now there are only 1,000 people. Liangzhou City has a little more, and there are 3,000 people. This is because they are cities, so it is better. Most of us scattered garrisons have only one or two hundred people, and it is the same when we go west."

Humeng Lingcha was speechless, and after a while he cursed fiercely: "Damn Ge Shuhan, he is incompetent, but he has implicated the Hexi Army!"

"Or, Mr. Meng, please stay in the camp for one night. We have a lot of barracks, so we will leave tomorrow!"

The Health Army had only one hundred people, which was useless to him. When Meng Lingcha saw that it was still early, he waved his hand and said, "I'll have lunch and set off immediately, and I won't stop."

"Master Humeng, please come with me!"

Captain Zhang took them to the barracks and had lunch in the barracks. Hu Meng Lingcha continued to set off again. If he walked faster, he could reach Kongtong Mountain before dark. With his order, the team accelerated and rushed west along the official road.

But after only twenty miles, Fu Meng Lingcha discovered an abnormality. More than a dozen followers following him could never catch up. He held the war horses and looked around. The wind seemed to have a bloody smell, and an ominous feeling arose from his heart.

"Master, should we turn forward or turn back!" the entourage leader asked loudly, and he also felt something was wrong.

Before Humeng Lingcha could answer, someone pointed ahead and shouted, "Master, there are cavalry rushing towards us in front."

"The Grand Marshal, there are also on the left, and it seems like a Hu man."

"There are also on the right! There are also on the back!"

Sweat beads rolled down Fu Meng Lingcha's forehead. He was the governor of Hexi for three years. He knew that there were horse bandits in the Hexi Corridor, but most of the horse bandits were Qiang and Hu, and they would never dare to attack the army. Now.

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"Master, what should I do?"

"Break through, break through backwards!"

Humeng Lingcha roared, turned his horse's head and ran back desperately. He knew in his heart that this was not a bandit, but Li Qingan was going to attack him. If he could rush back to the castle of the Health Army, perhaps he still had a glimmer of life.

The three thousand Shatu people dressed up as Qianghu. They rushed from all directions like wolves. The murderous aura swept across the earth. The yellow dust rolled and the iron cavalry rushed. Although the Jinwu Guards who guarded Meng Lingcha were all majestic and arrogant in the capital, they were in front of the hideous god of death, in the face of the real life-and-death battle, in the face of the Shatu people and wild wolves, the Jinwu Guard cavalry were frightened and many even shouted in panic.

Humeng Lingcha could no longer find the gap in breakthrough, so he could only kill a bloody path and fight to the death. He drew out his sword and shouted: "Kill! Kill a bloody path!"

In an instant, the yellow dust raised by the iron cavalry covered the sky and blocked the sunlight. Three thousand Shatu Iron Cavalry swept over. These three thousand Shatu elite cavalry were selected from the 15,000 Shatu soldiers. They were all proficient in cavalry and fierce. The momentum of each iron cavalry was as shocked as thunder. The three thousand iron cavalry even frightened the earth. They rushed into the Jinwu Guard's team like three thousand bloodthirsty wild wolves. In an instant, the heads rolled on the ground, their broken limbs and arms flew all over the sky, screaming, crying, begging for mercy, and screaming hysterically like crazy. The Jinwu Guard soldiers whine under the sword of the Shatu people.

Zhu Xie Jinzhong held a thirty-pound golden-ring sword in his hand. He was like a wolf king. His sinister eyes were fixed on Fu Meng Lingcha. Fu Meng Lingcha and forty cavalry formed a group and were breaking out to the death. He was not panicked and wandering around, but his eyes were always on the target. He was waiting for the best opportunity to pounce on him.

The soldiers around Fu Meng Lingcha were constantly killed, fewer and fewer, leaving only a dozen people. These dozen people could no longer protect Fu Meng Lingcha closely. His back was exposed, and the opportunity came. Zhu Xie Jinzhong suddenly urged the horse, and the war horse shot behind Fu Meng Lingcha like an arrow, and slashed into Fu Meng Lingcha's old back with a fierce knife.

Meng Lingcha was old and weak, and he had no strength. The screams and sword lights of Shatu people from all directions made him dizzy. He knew that his death was coming, and his heart was filled with regret. At this moment, his back hurt a sharp pain, and his body seemed to be torn apart. At this moment, there seemed to be an old wife's advice in front of him.

"You will retire from the officialdom for three years and have a lot of grandchildren. Why don't you enjoy your old age at home?"

Yes! Why didn’t he enjoy his old age at home? He would never have thought of this answer. Zhu Xie Jinzhong’s heavy sword actually cut Hu Meng Lingcha’s back in half. He drew the knife suddenly, chopped off Hu Meng Lingcha’s head with his backhand, held it in his hand and shouted: “I’ve succeeded!”

The Shatuo people retreated, and in an instant the wind disappeared and ran without a trace. The grassland was covered with blood, and there were incomplete corpses everywhere, and the blood flowed into a river. The dying war horses lay on the ground and twitched and struggled. More than a dozen surviving Jinwu Guards sat among the pile of corpses, some were stunned, some cried, and some were laughing wildly. Most of them were frightened.

Meng Lingcha's Anxi dream stopped in Zhangye, and he could not take another step to Anxi until his death.

In Kucha, Li Qing'an was writing a memorial to Li Longji.

"Hexi horse bandits were portrayed by Qiang and Hu, and have been in trouble for a long time. I went to Beiting several years ago to take office and encountered rampant horse bandits. Three thousand horse bandits besieged at Yumen Pass. I was almost in trouble. However, Hexi was not the place where my office was managed. I could only follow An Sishun and urge him to sweep away the bandits in Hexi. However, the bandits were still in trouble. In the spring of the ninth year of Tianbao, the Kangguo merchant Nonodun and other 300 people, thousands of camels, and the breeding was multiplied tens of millions. I met bandits in Ganzhou. Hu merchants were killed and injured, and the breeding was ransacked, and only one survived. In the autumn of the tenth year of Tianbao, Chen Xiaoxi and his neighbors were more than 30 people in Zhang.

In the ye, the man killed a woman and raped a gangster, and the wilderness was violent. In April this year, 128 people including Zhang Silang from Hedong migrated to Anxi. In Zhangye, he met another bandit in Zhangye. The blood fat was covered with the ground and there was no complete corpse. The horse bandits were violent and violent. I knew it was done by Qiang and Hu, but the territory was not under the jurisdiction, but I bit off the steel teeth and swallowed blood and hatred. This time I was shocked to hear that the old horse bandits suffered a disaster must be done by the old horse bandits. I could not bear it anymore. Hexi was inaction and Anxi was uneasy. I would like to promote a brigade Yi army, sweep the Qiang and Hu horse bandits, let the bright sunshine shine on the Hexi Corridor again, and avenge the shame of the old horse bandits!"

Li Qingan finished writing in one go, threw the pen to the ground suddenly, and said sternly: "Come here!"

A few soldiers rushed in immediately, and Li Qing'an ordered one word by one: "Transfer my order and ordered the 50,000 troops of Anxi Beiting to set off immediately and follow me to Hexi to suppress the bandits!"

In December of the 11th year of Tianbao, when the first snow fell in the Hexi corridor, 50,000 Anxi troops suddenly sent troops to Hexi. They swept across Shazhou, Guazhou, and Suzhou and fought to Zhangye. All the prefectures and counties along the way were shocked. The snow-like memorials flew towards Chang'an. The various military camps in Hexi surrendered one after another. Li Qing'an comforted everyone. The Anxi troops came from the east to suppress bandits and avenged their revenge for their husbands and General Meng. They had no other intentions and would return to Anxi before spring.

In another dense snowflake, the Zhangye city gate was wide open. The prefect of Ganzhou Zhang Qixian went out of the city to welcome him. The 50,000 troops had already set up camps outside the city. The tent stretched for ten miles, and thousands of cavalry surrounded the Anxi Jiedushi. The Anxi County Prince Li Qing'an came to the city gate.

Zhang Qixian stepped forward and bowed, "I am humble to serve as the prefect of Ganzhou to meet the general!"

Li Qingan nodded slightly and said, "Envoy Zhang is exempted from courtesy. I came to Hexi to suppress bandits. I have reported to the emperor. I ask Envoy Zhang to tell the people and officials of Hexi that there is no need to panic. The Anxi army will never kill innocent people indiscriminately, nor will it rob people's wealth!"

Zhang Qixian calmed down a little, and he hurriedly said: "Hexi bandits have been in trouble for a long time, and I am also in trouble. Not long ago, my husband Meng Lingcha was attacked by bandits and unfortunately died. I have reported to the emperor and asked the emperor to send troops to suppress the bandits. Unexpectedly, the Anxi army arrived bravely first. This is a blessing for the people of Hexi. The humble representative of Ganzhou and the people of Hexi who suffered from the bandits expressed their sincere gratitude to the general."

He said it very beautifully. Zhang Qixian knew that Li Qing'an was sending troops across the border, but he dared not say anything more. This was actually a very serious incident. Without the authorization of the emperor, it could even be said to be a rebellion. However, Li Qing'an had a real excuse to suppress bandits in Hexi, which eliminated the suspicion of rebellion. But no matter what, as long as Li Qing'an did not harm the people of Hexi, Zhang Qixian was willing to pretend to be confused.

Li Qingan smiled slightly, and he turned around and waved his hand, "Bring them all!"

In the wind and snow, thousands of Tang cavalry rushed towards him with dense crowds of people. Zhang Qixian couldn't help but complain. The people came were all Qianghu herders distributed near Ganzhou, including men, women, young and old, and as many as ten thousand. Li Qing'an obviously wanted to throw these Qianghu to him, but he had no food to support these people for a winter.

"The horse bandits are among these people. I will leave these people to you. I will be questioned for me. If the horse bandits are found, I will hand them to us immediately!"

Zhang Qixian dared not refuse to agree, so he had to bite the bullet and said, "Abide by the general's orders!"

Li Qing'an turned around and ordered: "Take them into the city and leave them to Taishou Zhang to deal with it!"
To be continued...