Before dawn in Shuozhou, the night was as thick as ink, the wind was biting, and the bonfire at the top of the city was swaying violently. From time to time, a fluff of sparks was blown down the city, bringing a little light to the roots of the city wall, and then extinguished.
Hundreds of cavalry filed out from the south city gate. After a while, they couldn't wait to increase their speed. The figures quickly disappeared completely into the thick night. The sound of horse hooves trampling on the snow was also blown away by the cold wind, making them inaudible.
.
"Just let them go like this?" Pan Chenghu stood in front of the crenel and vaguely saw some snow particles falling from the night sky. He looked at Xu Huai with some regret, made a downward gesture with his hand on his neck, and asked in a low voice,
"We really don't want to send a team of soldiers to chase them out? If we kill them, we can also frame them for the Khitans!"
"It's not that this world has too many rules, but that it doesn't have too many rules," Xu Huai sighed. "It's not that you have become bandits, but that the emperor's ministers in the temples are all well-dressed. They talk about benevolence, righteousness and morality, but they
The men and women who are full of thieves and prostitutes have lost their conscience. Let them go. The Ge family has been generals for several generations. Until Ge Boyi's generation dominated the Hedong River and enjoyed the glory and wealth in the world, they did not have the courage to abscond in fear of crime. Ge Boyi committed many crimes.
They will be escorted to Liu Shizhong and Cai Yuanyou via a detour via Lanzhou, but they have lost their last support. Do you think those princes, princes and ministers above the court who are usually close friends with the Ge family and have close contacts will still be able to protect them?
?You think too highly of these princes and ministers!"
Even though Chen Zhi and Ge Boyi, the political advisors, are related to each other, and the Duke of Lu is the son of Chen Zhi’s daughter, Concubine Chen, the Ge family has almost lost all the chips in their hands. It is hard for Xu Huai to imagine that Chen Zhi and Ge Boyi are related.
The Duke of Lu would also help Ge Boyi to absolve himself of the blame for the defeat.
At this time, he sent troops and horses to attack at night and finally defeated them. It was impossible for him to surround Ge Boyi, Ge Yu and others in the ice and snow before Lan. Why did he bother to do so?
The real worry lies in the north.
It is a pity that this Northern Expedition was nominally a joint attack on Yan, but the imperial court had no knowledge of the Chihu people's military operations east of the Xianbei Mountains.
Xu Huai also had no way of knowing the progress of the Chihu people's offensive against the Khitan Linhuang Mansion, Xijin Mansion, Liaoyang Mansion and other inner-city places, but he was basically certain that the news of the tragic defeat of Datong reached the ears of the Chihu people.
Probably it will further strengthen their determination to go south to the Central Plains after annihilating the Khitan?
"Mr. Zhu Hang is here! Mr. Wang Zhen and Mr. Wang Fan went to the west city to greet him. Mr. Wang Fan asked me to come over and call you and Mr. Pan to come too!" Xu Wukun climbed up to the top of the city and said to Xu Huai.
…………
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It was not an easy task for nearly 10,000 soldiers to enter Shuozhou City from Dietou Ao overnight. To ensure nothing went wrong, Zhu Hang stayed until the end, and he and Lei Teng's troops waited until dawn before entering the city.
Xu Huai, Pan Chenghu, Xu Wukun and Xu Wuqi rushed to the west gate. In addition to Wang Zhen, Wang Fan, Lu Xiong, Zheng Shou and Cao Shixiong, the other two commanding envoys Yin Chao and Wen Hengyue were already at the west gate.
Welcome Zhu Hang back.
The handover of control of the West Route Army was much smoother than imagined.
First, Xu Huai and others controlled Ge Boyi and others at the West City Gate and shot and killed Ge Huaicong. At that time, the eighth general (xiang) of the Tianxiong Army who was responsible for garrisoning the West City Gate commanded Wen Hengyue's troops. Although they were shocked, they did not make a fuss.
Not to mention my attempt to break into the temporary blockade of the imperial guards.
The vast majority of the soldiers watched all this happening calmly, and even a few people struggled internally. No one stood up to defend the Ge family.
After Ge Boyi agreed to hand over control to Wang Fan, Cao Shixiong, Yin Chao, Wen Hengyue and others who still controlled the troops in Shuozhou City also accepted this fact very calmly and gathered their troops back to the barracks.
Transfer the defense of the four cities to Xie Zhong, Zhu Run and Xu Huai.
They no longer hesitated to accuse Ge Boyi of being self-willed, ignorant and incompetent. They accused Ge Huaicong and other generals of being greedy and cowardly, leaving tens of thousands of generals dead in foreign lands. The king's law could not tolerate this.
Together with Wang Fan, Zhu Hang and others, they will go to the book to participate in the crime.
They knew very well that there was no way the imperial court could just sit idly by and ignore such a disastrous defeat. They had even worried that the Ge family and his son, in order to maintain their power, might drag them into the water and resist the imperial court's prosecution.
The defenders currently in Shuozhou, after hearing that the main force was defeated in Datong, were frightened and complained about the incompetence of the Ge family and his sons. In particular, the generals of the Qing Shun Army complained about Cao Shixiong and why the Cao Shili brothers wanted to surrender.
The Yue court was cowardly and incompetent, and even some generals openly accused it unscrupulously.
Cao Shixiong's surrender was meritorious, and Yin Chao and Wen Hengyue, as the main generals of the remaining troops, did not need to bear responsibility for the defeat. At this time, if they did not completely cut off from the Ge family and his son, would they still be hugging the Ge family and his son?
Hanged from a tree?
It is not difficult for Xu Huai, Wang Zhen, and Wang Fan to understand the mentality of Cao Shixiong, Yin Chao, Wen Hengyue and others, so in addition to allowing the three to continue to command their troops, they even handed Cao Shili and Meng Ping into Cao Shixiong's custody.
The last batch of troops entering the city were mainly military generals and military officials who had escaped from Datong City. There were five to six hundred people in total, and many of them were descendants of the Ge family.
In order to prevent them from making a fuss, we not only blocked the news, but also left them in the last group to be evacuated from Diotou Ao.
The cold wind was biting, and Zhu Hang wore a dirty and torn felt blanket as a cloak.
He had been working on military affairs day and night without sleep for the past few days, and his body was stretched to the limit. He couldn't feel anything while riding on the horse. When he turned over and dismounted, he realized that his legs were frozen and stiff, and the blood flow was not smooth. He almost fell to the ground and was chewed by a dog. His name was Zhu.
Zhi, Lu Wenhu supported him from behind.
Zhu Hang reluctantly stood still and saluted Wang Zhen, and lamented: "This battle was a terrible defeat. More than 30,000 generals were killed in Yunshuo like this!"
"It's a lucky thing that more than ten thousand generals escaped and returned!" Wang Xun said in a hoarse voice. He walked over tremblingly and personally helped Zhu Hang to the city.
We rushed directly from the west city gate to the governor's mansion, which temporarily served as the capital's headquarters. It was already dark, but the crisis had not been resolved, and everyone still had no sleep at night.
"...Khitan spies in Sujinlou assassinated soldiers in the street, which aggravated the conflict between Han and Tibet. Xu Huai noticed something unusual at that time and even captured two suspicious persons. However, the army was about to leave at that time, and Xu Huai had already arrested the suspects.
After a long delay, we had no time to interrogate them and had to take them on the road in a hurry. However, it was only after entering Datong City that we pried the two prisoners open. Only then did we learn that all these were the former governor of Fengzhou, Khitan, and Xijing Dao
The defense commander Xiao Linshi was plotting behind the scenes, with the intention of seeing Tianxiong's unbridled killings and arousing conflicts between Han and Tibet, so that Tibetan people Jianrui, who had to flee the war and had to flee into Datong City, could rise up to resist at the last moment.
, but it was useless to try to dissuade Ge Huaicong from reining in military discipline. The twenty to thirty thousand new captives suddenly added to Datong City, except for the three thousand cavalry led by Xiao Linshi who raided Shengdemen, the others were all Khitan and
The young men of the various Tibetan tribes were not ambush troops transferred from elsewhere. Xiao Linshi, as the herdsman of Xijing, was demoted by Khitan Emperor Xiao Yichun, and had many conflicts with Xiao Xinhan and others who were left behind in Xijing by Khitan. The Tianxiong army was trapped in the west city of Datong.
Xiao Linshi and his troops attacked from Shengde Gate and the North and South City, while Xiao Xinhan led the remaining troops to defend the inner city. During this period, the inner city was completely closed. Even after the Tianxiong army collapsed, Xiao Xinhan did not send troops to fight out from the inner city, so we
We concluded that Xiao Xinhan was extremely vigilant against Xiao Linshi and expected that they would not be able to work together to encircle the remnants of Tianxiong's army. So after the main force of Xiao Linshi's troops moved south, we decisively broke through Wuzhou Mountain and withdrew westward, resolutely and without surprise along the way.
risk……"
There was a brazier burning in the lobby, and Zhu Hang, who had been starving for several meals, did not care about his decency. He grabbed cooked beef and gnawed it fiercely. He told everyone more details about how the army was able to break through Datong and retreat westward.
Know.
Of course, not to mention that Cao Shixiong and others were present, even in private, Zhu Hang would not tell Wang Fan about the secret discussions between Chen Zixiao, Xiao Yanhan and Xiao Linshi about truce and cessation of the war.
Take Xu Huai's words, some things are destined to be done, but there is no need to put this burden on too many people's hearts. It is also necessary to prevent the matter from leaking out and allowing Ge Boyi, Liu Shizhong, Cai Yuanyou and others to find excuses to shirk responsibility.
Zhu Hang also knew very well that there were many things that Guatian Lixia could not explain clearly.
Although at the last moment, Xiao Linshi did not completely give up his intention to eradicate them, but the matter of releasing Chen Zixiao, Xiao Yanhan, Wu Sanrong and others and secretly discussing a truce to end the war really wanted to spread from their side.
Not to mention people like Ge Boyi, Liu Shizhong, Cai Yuanyou and Cai Zheng, the court ministers who usually did not deal with them insisted that they were having an affair with the Hulu, and even said that they had a special target rate after surrendering to the Hulu.
The soldiers and horses returned to Lanzhou, how did they defend themselves?
Zhu Hang was also determined to note that if the matter was leaked one day, he should be the one to bear the blame and scolding, and not involve Wang Zhen, Wang Fan and others.
"..." It was only then that Wang Zhen, Wang Fan and others figured out the details of how quickly the Tianxiong Army was defeated in Datong. However, after Ge Huaicong and other generals fled back to Shuozhou, they didn't even know who their opponents were.
Cao Shixiong guessed that Xiao Linshi might be secretly supporting everything, but in the past three days, they had not been able to send out many scouts to investigate the situation, so there was no way to verify it.
"Xiao Linshi led his troops into Yingzhou. Liu Shizhong and Cai Yuanyou probably did not dare to fight. It is very likely that in the next two days, he would lead his troops to march back to Yanmen Pass from the Yellow River."
Zhu Hang told Wang Zhen and Wang Fan,
"After Xiao Xinhan and Xiao Linshi completed the exchange of troops and horses in Yingzhou, Xiao Xinhan was able to bring more than 20,000 Yingzhou troops back to Datong. Together with Huairen, Jincheng and troops from Fengzhou in the north, they will regain the advantage on the west flank.
The Tianxiong Army, together with the remnants of the Qing Shun Army, plus the old, weak, sick and disabled in Lanzhou, may be able to barely gather 30,000 horses, but in fact they are no longer able to hold on to Shuozhou. In order to avoid the wedge between large groups of enemy cavalry
In the south of Shuozhou, block the retreat. Wang Xianggong and Wang Fanlangjun, you should be led by Zhu Run and Lei Teng at dawn to escort tens of thousands of Han people from Shuozhou City to retreat south. Do not
