Chapter 648: Shangdang Battle (10)

The net gradually tightened.

While the Yan army was preparing in full swing, a battle to race against time was also underway in the Tang army camp. At the hour of Hai, Li Qingan finally received the official surrender letter sent by Li Huaixian and Li Guiren's plan to deploy troops.

In front of the sand table, a group of senior generals such as Li Qing'an and Li Siye are carrying out the final combat deployment.

"This is Luosong Village!"

Li Qing'an pointed to the small bag that was bulging alone on the plain on the sand table and smiled and said, "This hill is indeed very prominent, and it is also suitable for setting up a battlefield around him. Li Guiren arranged the meeting place here, which shows that this person still has some ability in fighting. We cannot take it lightly."

"How is the distance between this Luosong Village?" Li Siye asked a military officer in a deep voice.

"Report to the general, Luosong Village is located in the center of Liangmazhai and Shangdang County, about 60 miles from Liangmazhai and 65 miles from Shangdang County."

"Um!"

Li Siye nodded and said to Li Qing'an: "General, time is very tight!"

"That's right, time is very tight, which means we must complete the deployment before noon."

At this time, Li Fei Yuanli, who had been silent, said: "It's better to wait until they have arranged the arrangement first, and we will take action later."

Before Li Qing'an could speak, Li Siye said to him, "Under normal circumstances, this should be the case, but now the Yan army is unstable, everything will happen, we cannot be too passive."

"But once we make moves, wouldn't we be alerting the enemy? Accelerate their internal division." Li Fei Yuanli still insisted on his own point of view.

"No need to fight anymore."

Li Qingan waved his hand to stop the two of them, "I have thought of these issues. Lao Li said it is not unreasonable. If we move too much, it is indeed easy to alarm the enemy. But if we really do not move, once the other party meets, there will be a dispute within, and it will be a bit too late for us to take action, so we must do something and not do anything."

Li Qing'an pointed a river channel north with a wooden pole: "This river is Jiangshui, which is just across the road to the north. The most advantageous place to pass Jiangshui is this small town."

The wooden pole points to a small town by the river, "This town is called Huobi Town, and next to the town is a wooden bridge. If the Yan army retreats north, it is very likely to pass from here, so we must first send an army to block the passage of the Yan army retreating north."

Li Qing'an's eyes fell on more than a dozen generals, "Who are you willing to take on this task?"

No one said anything. Everyone understood that the Yan army was unlikely to retreat north. Going there to garrison was equivalent to watching the wall and losing the opportunity to make contributions in this battle.

"Why, don't you want to go? Want me to appoint me?" Li Qing'an still had a kind smile on his face, but his eyes became a little stern.

"General Wei Boyu, go!" Li Siye spoke and broke the deadlock.

Wei Boyu had no choice but to take a step forward, knelt down on one knee and said, "I am not good at Wei Boyu, I am willing to lead the troops."

"good!"

Li Qing'an nodded, "I'll give you 20,000 troops. You are stationed in two places, one in Huobi Town and the other in Jiangyin Town. The two towns are forty miles apart. I don't care whether there are Yan troops going north or not, as long as you stick to these two towns until the end, I will remember your merit."

Wei Boyu was overjoyed, "Abide by the orders with humble duties!"

"You set out now, lead the ninth guard and the tenth guard, and arrive at Jiangshui before dawn tomorrow and complete the defense for me."

"yes!"

Wei Boyu got up and was about to leave, but Li Qingan stopped him, "Wait a minute!"

Wei Boyu stopped and bowed to the order.

Li Qing'an pondered for a moment and said, "It is possible that Li Huaixian's army will surrender to you. If they really go, you will immediately withdraw to the north shore, demolish all the bridges, and burn the boats crossing the river..."

"No!" Li Qing'an corrected again: "Don't wait for them to go and then demolish them. After you arrive in Jiangshui, you will immediately withdraw the people of the two towns to the north bank, demolish the bridge, and sink all the ships. When Li Huaixian's people come, he can pass on my orders to let them station on the south bank and wait for the end of the battle. This matter is of great importance. You must never let them cross the river. If they violate the order, you will be treated as starting a war!"

"I understand!"

Wei Boyu bowed and left in a hurry.

Li Siye frowned and said, "Li Huaixian is not like this, right!"

"Human hearts are unpredictable, so it's better to be more careful."

Li Qing'an walked to the sand table again and carefully studied the distance between Changping Pass and Shangdang. He ordered: "Immediately send a letter to Li Guangbi and ordered him to act according to the original plan, but the army of Shangdang will set off two hours later."

This order surprised all the generals present. Li Guangbi's original plan was to divide his troops into two groups, one to send troops to Changzi County to block the escape route of the Yan army to the south, and the other route was to send troops north of Shangdang County to block the Yan army's escape from the east. Among them, the army sent troops to Shangdang County was extremely important, which was directly related to whether the Yan army's most important retreat route could be blocked, Fukou Xing. If the Yan army was two hours late, it would likely give the Yan army a chance to escape.

Li Siye was also a little impatient and asked, "General, why should he be two hours later?"

Seeing that everyone's eyes were full of doubts, Li Qing'an knew that something should be told to them, so he smiled and said, "I can tell you honestly. If I really want to destroy An Lushan's rebellion, then after the Xiangzhou Battle last winter, Li Guangbi's army could seize the southern part of Hebei Road. I will then order the Siye Army and Guo Ziyi Army to go to Jingxing, and Lei Wanchun Army to go to Feihu Road. At that time, An Lushan's forage was cut off, and a large number of war horses starved to death. Basically, I can completely defeat An Lushan before spring, but I didn't do that. Do you know why?"

There was silence in the big tent, and many people thought of politics. Could this be the political purpose of their lord?

Li Qingan shook his head, "It's not what you think. I'm not for my own self-interest. There is an information you may not know. Shi Siming borrowed 30,000 cavalry from the Turkic servants, and An Lushan also borrowed 50,000 Khitan soldiers and a large number of cattle and sheep from the Khitan. What did you think of from these two news?"

Li Qing'an's explanation is inducing. Everyone in the tent is full of battle-hardened generals. All these military mobilizations are very sensitive. Li Siye took the lead in understanding.

"The general means to let An Lushan and Shi Siming have a civil war, and then to bring in the Turks and Khitans one after another. Is that true?"

There was a whisper in the big tent. Li Qing'an waved his hand to calm everyone down. He continued: "My initial idea was to make the Hebei Dao separatist situation and let them kill each other, but I didn't expect that Shi Siming and An Lushan would use their respective influence to borrow soldiers from the Turks and Khitans respectively. In this way, I had an idea, why not use this matter to stir up a war between the Uighurs and the Khitans, and then wait for them to kill each other. After the killing was almost done, we would wipe out them in one fell swoop and completely eliminate these two big cancers."

Everyone suddenly realized and nodded silently. It was like a gambler. Whether it was the Turks or the Khitan, they had already invested a large number of troops in advance. No matter what, they would not give up. They would definitely increase their troops continuously until all the troops were exhausted in the end.

However, Li Qing'an's big move was something they could not have imagined. At this time, Li Fei Yuanli suddenly asked, "What should the people in Hebei do?"

This is also a sensitive issue. Li Qing'an interrogated: "After several major immigration and bloodbaths of war, less than 20% of the people left in Hebei are mainly concentrated in Youzhou and Weibo. Youzhou is the foundation of An Lushan and Weibo is Tian Chengsi's territory. I think these two places are quite stable. Secondly, after the end of this battle, I will control the Eight Passes of Taihang and encourage the people of Hebei to escape. On the other side of Weibo, I will transfer the Jiangnan naval army into the Yellow River and connect the people of Hebei to the south. After these efforts, at least half of them can escape. I can do nothing else."

He changed the topic and said to everyone: "I have said everything I should say. The reason why I ordered Li Guangbi to delay the number of troops on Shangdang was that I wanted An Qingxu's army to escape back to Hebei and enrich An Lushan's strength. In this way, he and Shi Siming can match the same."

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An Qingxu's army should have set off at the 10 am as planned, that is, at 10 am, while Li Guiren and Li Huaixian's army had already set off before dawn.

An Qingxu, with his counselor Gao Shang and hundreds of personal guards, came to Li Guiren's camp first. It was already empty. There were only a few hundred soldiers guarding the camp where the 80,000 troops were stationed. The tent had been withdrawn. The open space at the garrison was in a mess, like a huge garbage dump, boundless.

All kinds of items that cannot be taken away were piled on the ground, furniture, cabinets, clothes, shoes, copper coins, clay jars and water tanks. These Khitans and Xi people were as greedy as locusts. They killed all the places they passed by, snatched all the property into their own hands, and finally they could not take it away and threw it away.

The most tragic thing is women. A large number of women were captured by them and raped them day and night. Now they are useless and become burdens. They would rather kill them than let them go. No one knows how many Han women they killed last night. All the sins were buried in the loess, and the ground was full of blood stains of murder.

An Qingxu was not a good person, but even he changed his expression in the situation in front of him. Gao Shangqiu came behind him. Looking at the shocking scene in front of him, he couldn't help but sigh: "Heavenly commits evil, especially if he does evil, he will not live. It seems that Li Qing'an is determined to kill all Li Guiren's troops."

"Sir, when will we leave?"

Gao Shang looked at the sky, "Wait for the news from Tang Jun again, I think there will be news at noon."

An Qingxu nodded, then turned his horse's head to the grain warehouse. The grain warehouse was located in the back camp. At this time, the only camp that still retained a large tent was protected by the camp fence. There were more than fifty large tents inside. Each tent was filled with grain, a total of 120,000 stones. In addition, Li Guiren took away 30,000 stones with his army, which could basically maintain the Yan army's military ration for two months, and several forage piled up like a hill.

An Qingqing Qingxu only has 10,000 troops. It is obviously unrealistic to get this grain to the front line. Li Guiren also hopes to use this grain to retain him.

An Qingxu looked at these foods and was really moved. It would be best to take them away. He knew that what Hebei lacked the most in the future was food. Hebei farmers basically ran away and killed them all. Whoever farmed for them in the future? Although there is still some food in Youzhou now, it will be consumed sooner or later. At that time, the food crisis will come, unless you ask the Khitans, the Sumo and the Mile people, and the Silla people.

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An Qingxu felt it was necessary to organize an expeditionary army to conquer Silla so that their materials and supplies would be guaranteed. He must make this suggestion to his father.

But just as he was thinking, a cavalry rushed from a distance and shouted from a distance: "Little Prince!"

An Qingxu and Gao Shang both strangled the horses, and saw a cavalry coming, and he immediately reported: "Report to the little prince, report to the military advisor, Li Guangbi has sent troops, an army of about 30,000 people occupied Changzi County, and another army of 40,000 people have just set out and are heading towards Shangdang County."

An Qingxu and Gao Shang were both surprised. They looked at each other and this was the news they were waiting for.

Gao Shang immediately said: "Hurry! Let's withdraw our troops immediately and leave now."

"Where is this... 150,000 shi of military ration?"

Gao Shang was very anxious, "Little Prince, when is it now? I still have to take care of military rations. If I don't leave, it will be too late!"

The two turned their horses and ran towards their military camp. An hour later, An Qingxu led 10,000 troops to leave Shangdang County and head towards Wukou Xing. In Lucheng County, they joined the 40,000 Yin Ziqi's troops who arrived in advance. The 50,000 troops left Hedong Road and returned to Hebei Road from Wukou Xing.

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To be continued...