The snow has long been trampled into a mess, with broken swords, spears, arrows and broken shields everywhere.
Dozens of corpses of Tibetan soldiers lay scattered in front of the muddy hillside. There were also many Tibetan soldiers with broken limbs unable to escape, sitting in the snow groaning in pain, or looking up at the still leaden sky, etc.
The final judgment comes.
Xu Huai reined in his horse and retreated to a ridge on the southern edge of Wuzhou Mountain. From early morning, he defended the city wall, to retreating across the city to the north before noon, and then to resisting the enemy in front of Wuzhou Mountain. For the whole day, he felt that his muscles and bones were being drained repeatedly.
He was so exhausted that he found it difficult to even hold the iron pin in his hand.
Two sergeants took the iron stick over, and Xu Huaicai freed up his hands to break off dozens of feather arrows that were stuck in the gaps in the armor, threw the arrow shafts onto the snow, and then sat directly on the horse while the doctor bandaged his legs.
The arrow created.
"This armor is really good, but it's a pity that after a few battles, many pieces of it were damaged!" Niu Er stared at Xu Huai's armor with regret, which was damaged by swords, spears and arrows.
Xu Huai was extremely powerful. In addition to his armor, he also wore a close-fitting leather armor. Except for the calves and other parts that were not covered by the armor or were only covered by leather armor, he was hit by seven or eight arrows.
There is no trauma, and it all shows the role of armor on the battlefield.
Of course, the more critical thing is that in the dozens of battles that took place outside the northern city wall from early morning to this time, they were not defeated or dispersed by the Tibetan soldiers.
Otherwise, no matter how brave he is, no matter how indestructible Hao Zijia is, how can he be spared?
"Damn it, come back to me!" Xu Huai saw a few sergeants on Jie Zhong's side raising their swords and running over to cut off the heads of the injured Tibetan soldiers. He shouted angrily at the other side, "You guys
These little bastards, are you taking my orders as nonsense again? Come back to me and don’t kill prisoners indiscriminately!"
Jie Zhong shouted and cursed, called back several generals who had raised knives without permission to cut off the heads of the Tibetan soldiers, and then drove their horses to Xu Huai to explain:
"The massacre in the city has not stopped yet, and the brothers below are also angry! And if we put these wounded soldiers back, they will not accept our kindness. Maybe they will recover from their injuries after a while and come to fight with us again.
!”
The southernmost edge of Wuzhou Mountain was only a thousand to two thousand steps away from the northern city wall of Datong. When they stopped on the mountain ridge, they could still see that the Tianxiong army was still defeated and trying to escape over the city wall.
However, the Tibetan soldiers had completely controlled Datong City at this time. Not to mention the defeated soldiers who had not escaped from Datong City at this time, those defeated soldiers who climbed over the west city wall and fled westward along the Huihe River were nothing more than that.
The stock is just the prey of the Khitan cavalry like an iron stream.
Seeing the Khitan cavalry raising their swords in the river valley again and again, chasing after them and cutting down the defenseless soldiers to the ground, Jie Zhong did not understand why Xu Huai forbade them to kill the dozens of injured Tibetan soldiers on the hillside.
Cleaned up.
Xu Huai had a straight face and had no intention of giving Xie Zhong a good look, so he scolded sternly:
"Don't waste these words with me! I don't have time to explain to you nonsense. From Kelan City to Shuozhou City, and then to Datong City, how many soldiers dare to raise their butcher's knives against the Tibetan people without hesitation?
On the battlefield, they raised their swords and bows and fought bravely with the Tibetan soldiers? What did those dogs do on the battlefield just now? Don’t think I didn’t have eyes to see! They didn’t dare to step forward to kill the enemy before, and they all hid behind them. Now,
Seeing that there are only a dozen wounded soldiers of the other side lying on the battlefield unable to resist, you want to cut off their heads so that you can return to the war meritorious service. Do you think I am blind? You immediately take off the armor of these people and give each of them thirty lashes, and then
Drive them out! Keeping these bastards here is extremely unfair to the generals who obey orders and fight bravely!"
"They are a bit cunning, but it is better to ask them to serve their crimes..." Xie Zhong said.
"...Commander Jie, obey orders!" Xu Huai took out the tiger talisman from his arms and ordered without allowing Jie Zhong to question.
"Old Jie," Jian Zhizhong's old face flushed red. Zheng Tu hurriedly came over to pull him aside and persuaded him softly, "You may think Xu Huai is too unkind, but you have to think about the fact that we are still far from that.
Escape from danger. Not to mention that tens of thousands of defeated soldiers are still in a mess. How can we be more humane and bring so many people back to Lanzhou?"
Jie Zhong turned his head and looked at the stubble-filled and messy soldiers in the valley to the north, and suddenly felt his scalp numb.
It is two hundred miles from Datong to Shuozhou, and there are enemy cities and villages such as Huairen and Jincheng separated by it. At this time, the snow in the mountains and river valleys is thick, making walking difficult.
It was really hard for him to imagine how these more than 10,000 defeated troops could safely escape back to Lanzhou in the Huihe Valley where the Tibetan soldiers had almost complete control.
Thinking of this, the anger at being reprimanded mercilessly by Xu Huai turned into a helpless sigh. He rode his horse back to the main formation and ordered to arrest the treacherous generals. Two of them were still his tribesmen.
Xinxin stripped off their armor and whipped them thirty times, then drove them down the mountain ridge to their position, and watched helplessly as they were shot dead by the Tibetan scouts who were still wandering around the edge of the battlefield.
At this time, Zhu Hang, Zhu Zhi and others were on the mountain ridge on the north side.
There were only more than 300 steps between the two sides. They saw Jie Zhong, under Xu Huai's strict order, driving out several soldiers who disobeyed the order and shot them to death for the enemy cavalry. However, they just sighed in their hearts and did not think of persuading Xu Huai's men.
Show mercy.
The two east-west ridges in front and back are not high, and less than three thousand steps to the south is the north wall of Datong City.
The eastern slopes of the two mountain ridges are relatively gentle, facing a high cliff running north to south. At the foot of the cliff is a stream flowing from the depths of Wuzhou Mountain, bypassing the northwest of Datong City, and flowing southward into the Huihe River.
among.
This seasonal river has stopped flowing after autumn, and the stream filled with rocks has become a passage for tens of thousands of defeated soldiers to escape from the northwest corner of Datong City into the deep hinterland of Wuzhou Mountain.
Including the Imperial Guards, Jie Zhong and other troops, a total of 14,000 to 5,000 people rushed out of the north city wall before noon, but not everyone was willing to obey in such a panic.
Following Xu Huai's guidance, he temporarily fled into Wuzhou Mountain and then figured out a way to escape.
The situation was in chaos at that time, and Xu Huai had to arrange his limited combat power on both sides of the northern evacuation passage to resist the attack of the Tibetan soldiers. Some commanders, who were fleeing to the south of Wuzhou Mountain, must gather their troops and go directly to Shuo.
Zhou Fang fled for his life, but Zhu Hang was unable to restrain him even though he was holding a tiger talisman.
In the end, almost more than 9,000 people, including the soldiers of the Imperial Military Envoy, Xie Zhong and other tribes, as well as a large number of Tongbai Mountain soldiers, fled along this stream into the valley to the north.
The Tibetan people Jianrui had no intention of letting them go, and gathered troops and horses in the afternoon to try to attack them. Xu Huai and others intercepted them on the valleys and streams between the two mountain ridges and high cliffs.
Fanmin Jianrui's several attacks were repulsed, leaving behind hundreds of corpses, but Fanmin Jianrui had no intention of retreating. At this time, they were organizing hundreds of men and horses to dig trenches outside the valley and dig out a group of people.
Pine logs were buried in the frozen soil to build a fence, but their purpose was to block them in Wuzhou Mountain.
Wuzhou Mountain does not have many natural dangers that stand thousands of feet high and are difficult for apes and birds to cross. The hills and peaks in the mountain are not extremely high. Mountain gorges and valleys are connected in a circuitous way. There are even mountains on the north side of the mountain ridge where they are located.
A trail can directly pass through Wuzhou Mountain and enter the Monan Grassland to the north.
However, an elite team of thirty or fifty people can climb over the mountains and ridges in the Wuzhou Mountains, and even ride horses for a circle on the Monan Grassland, and then find a gap elsewhere in the Qianli Yin Mountain to retreat to Lanzhou. The problem is that the eight or nine thousand people will collapse like a frightened bird.
Bing, how do you escape back to Lanzhou when surrounded by enemies?
Xu Huai's most optimistic idea at first was to take advantage of the chaos to gather two to three thousand people and flee back to Lanzhou.
Therefore, when Su Laochang and the others sneaked into Wuzhou Mountain following the Tianxiong Army in the name of Zhufengtang engaged in mule and horse business, they only had some necessary armor and arrow clusters as supplements, as well as caltrops, ropes, wound medicine and other items.
In addition, the dry food, dried meat, and cattle and horses purchased on the way were only enough to feed 3,000 people for six or seven days.
Considering that two to three thousand people can be organized and stay out day and night, they should be able to escape back to Lanzhou in six or seven days.
Who would have thought that Xu Huai had a big trick and gathered more than 9,000 horses into the valley.
Most of the defeated soldiers fled from Datong City in panic, wishing they had two more legs, not to mention preparing dry food. Most of them even abandoned their weapons and armor in the city.
After a day of fierce fighting, the soldiers of the Supervisory Academy and Jie Zhong and other troops suffered heavy casualties. Currently, there are only a thousand combat-ready soldiers. Zhu Hang frowned and looked worriedly at the Tibetan soldiers outside the valley.
, he really couldn't think of any good plan that could make more than 9,000 horses fly back to Lanzhou.
Seeing that the Tibetan soldiers showed no signs of launching another forceful attack for the time being, Han Qi and Xu Xin also led the work camp at the valley pass between the two mountain ridges to urgently cut down trees and build horses and antlers to form an obstacle that would delay the Tibetan soldiers' attack.
With difficulty, Xu Huai took off his blood-stained armor and walked with Xu Wuqi and others into the valley between the two mountain ridges.
After Su Laochang and the others entered Wuzhou Mountain, they set up a temporary camp in the woods between the valleys.
In order to ensure the suddenness, Xiao Linshi could not conduct a detailed search of the front line of Wuzhou Mountain before the raid on Shengde Gate; and after the successful raid on Shengde Gate, they would never have thought that Xu Huai would actually be in Wuzhou Mountain, which was just a short distance away.
Do a deployment like this.
Therefore, although the temporary camp here is very close to the outside of the mountain, it has been extremely hidden and undetected in the past few days; even if one or two herdsmen passed by, they were all detained by Su Laochang and the others.
Now hundreds of pine trees in the woods have been cut down to build fences in the valley to keep out horses, and the campground is much wider.
Seeing Xu Huai, Xu Wuqi and others returning to the camp, Zhu Hang and others ran over from the mountain ridge behind and asked worriedly: "This is close to Datong City. The Fan captives can mobilize more soldiers and horses at any time to close the entrance to the mountain."
With so many people and horses blocked, how can we return to Lanzhou safely?"
