On October 27th, Song Yang arrived in Wulei Prefecture, where there was originally a small town of nomadic people.
After the natural disaster, it was abandoned. Song Yang reorganized here and continued westward. At the same time, he sent hundreds of exploration horses to Kucha quickly.
According to the news sent back in the past few days, the situation in Kucha is not optimistic.
Song Yang was extremely anxious, but marching in the Gobi Desert had its limits.
According to the current speed, it will take at least two days to reach Kucha.
On October 28, the Huns once climbed to the top of Qiuci City.
The Western Expeditionary Army fought bravely and drove the Huns away again.
"General! Didn't you say there are reinforcements? Why haven't they come yet?" Wang Xiao and other generals asked anxiously.
They all heard about the reinforcements, because they had received a batch of supplies before, and everyone felt that they could drive away the Huns this time.
But I didn't expect that the Huns fought so resolutely that they didn't even care about casualties.
Now that the war has begun, Kucha City is already in danger.
"There are indeed reinforcements. His Highness the King of Jiangzhou has come in person! But the Central Plains is too far away from here. How could the army march so fast!" Song Hui said in a deep voice.
"Then...General, do we want to break out of the encirclement? Go and meet the King of Jiangzhou and fight back when the time comes!" Qiu Jin suggested.
"No! Breaking out now is tantamount to falling into the Huns' trap!"
"They surrounded Qiuci on all sides, but the siege on the east was almost just surveillance. This is a siege of three and one missing!"
"If we retreat eastward and hand over Qiuci to the Huns, the gateway to the Western Region will be completely lost!"
"And with the cunningness of the Huns, will they allow us to withdraw safely? There must be a heavy ambush on the way east, waiting for us to fall into a trap!"
Song Hui firmly opposed retreat. He knew that the loss of retreat might be greater than holding on.
If we stick to it, even if the city is broken and we can fight in the streets, we can survive for a few more days.
And only more enemies will be killed then.
But if they abandon the city and flee, losing all morale, the Huns can defeat the Western Expeditionary Army with a single ambush.
Everyone on the left and right is dead, so it's better to stay and kill a few more enemies to have a back-up.
"I agree with the general's opinion!" came a weak voice.
"You're awake!" Song Hui was startled and turned back to where the voice came from.
It was Zhang Zhou. After the city of Gumo Prefecture was defeated, General Pi carried Zhang Zhou to break out of the encirclement. Under the desperate charge of the Western Expeditionary Army, he finally escaped back to Qiuci City.
Zhang Zhou was in a coma for more than half a month and woke up today.
Zhang Zhou took a breath and said weakly: "We escaped from Gumo Prefecture and encountered countless interceptions. This kind of loss is greater than holding on to the city!"
There were more than 6,000 people in Gumo Prefecture's garrison when they surrounded the city, but only more than 800 people made it to Qiuci alive!
Along the way, they were chased and intercepted by the Huns. In addition, they were unwilling to fight and suffered great losses.
Zhang Zhou didn't want any more soldiers to die in vain.
He felt that he should be like Xu Wei, fight to the end and die on the way to kill the enemy!
Song Hui walked to Zhang Zhou, pressed his shoulders and asked him to lie down.
"You don't have to worry about the war. Just stay healthy and recover. Maybe when the Huns come in, you will be asked to get up and kill a few enemies!" Song Hui said half-jokingly.
Zhang Zhou nodded heavily, then lay down honestly and closed his eyes to rest.
"Everyone, as Zhang Zhou said, if we retreat at this time, the loss may be greater than taking the city."
"The Baili Gobi Desert east of Qiuci may be the place where we lose our troops!"
"You are all good brothers who have been with me for many years. The war has reached the most critical moment now!"
"Killing one more Huns will buy the King of Jiangzhou a little more time."
“If you work harder, you will have more hope!”
"From now on, anyone who talks about abandoning the city again will be killed!"
Song Hui determined the policy of defending, and the generals made suggestions and strategies around the defense.
In the end, Song Hui adopted Wang Xiao's strategy.
Set up another line of defense in Chengli, Kucha.
Connect some buildings in the city with wooden planks to form an inner city, so that you can have another stronghold.
Once the Huns entered the city, their catapults would be useless.
With this barrier, maybe we can hold on for another ten or eight days.
The houses in Kucha are all mud houses with almost no wooden structures. The biggest advantage of this structure is fire protection.
If you are encircling an inner city, you won't even be afraid of fire attacks.
"It's up to you, Wang Xiao, to handle this matter! Go immediately! An inner city must be surrounded within three days!" Song Hui immediately ordered and sent another five thousand soldiers to Wang Xiao.
…
When Kucha was making its final struggle, Song Yang's scouting horse discovered the Xiongnu ambush stationed in the Gobi fifty miles outside Kucha.
Although the Huns knew that reinforcements were coming from Daqian, they did not expect Song Yang to arrive so quickly.
It took less than two months for the army to march from Ganzhou to Kucha.
Song Yang was only gone for a month and a half.
This was forced to stop for five days by a sandstorm. This is the marching speed of the elite of the Renaissance Army!
"Ambush? Are they targeting us?"
Song Yang spread out the map and looked at the locations of the ambush. They were all east of Qiuci.
"It doesn't look like it! It seems that they are surrounded by three and one missing. They want to force the Western Army to retreat eastward and catch them by surprise." Yu Ming frowned.
"That should be the case. The Huns' scouting horses did not come eastward. They should be targeting the Western Expeditionary Army in Kucha City." Wei Nan also agreed with Yu Ming's view.
"Since they haven't discovered us, it's easy to handle! Eat these Huns first!" Song Yang pointed at the location of the Huns' ambush on the map.
"My lord, it will be difficult to eliminate them silently. Although there are only three or four thousand Huns, they should be one person and two horses." Wei Nan pointed out a difficulty.
"There is no need to fight quietly. If we want to fight, we can fight openly and let the Huns besieging Qiuci know that we are coming!" Song Yang said, patting the table.
On the night of October 29th, the Renaissance Army suddenly appeared behind the Xiongnu ambush.
Taking advantage of the darkness, there was a burst of gunfire.
Before the Huns could figure out the situation, those who were beaten fell on their backs.
Under this situation, the Huns were unable to organize an effective counterattack and were quickly dispersed.
The next day, Song Yang had people clear the battlefield, and at least 1,500 Huns soldiers were killed last night.
"We sent people to Kuchacheng overnight last night. The general should also know that we have arrived."
"These Huns know that we are coming, and they will probably respond. They will probably send a large army to stop us."
Song Yang smiled and said.
"Your Majesty, we are eager for them to come." Yu Ming and Wei Nan also laughed.
Song Yang only brought the Fangzhou Renaissance Army this time, but his firepower was unprecedentedly powerful.
60,000 people, not to mention all of them armed with guns, there are also a total of 3,000 artillery pieces of various types!
After the Northern Expedition ended, the artillery of the three armies was concentrated together.
Produced during this period of time, Song Yang invested in unprecedented powerful weapons at once.
Regardless of the large number of Huns, it doesn't matter if there are 600,000 or 700,000, they still have to kneel in the face of this kind of firepower.
Of course, Song Yang was not so arrogant as to lie down and wait for the Huns to attack.
After the Renaissance Army wiped out the Huns, he did not continue to approach Kucha City.
This place is only nearly fifty miles away from Kucha, so news can be delivered very quickly.
Song Hui's reply arrived early this morning, and it was no problem to defend Kucha City for another three to five days.
With this, Song Yang can use these three to five days to do something.
Yu Ming first led people to unload all the shipping materials, and then formed a large circle around the cart.
Then the wooden boards on both sides of the cart were lowered, so that when the Tiger Crouching Cannon was swung upward, the cart became a fort.
Wei Nan led his soldiers to quickly dig trenches, and placed antlers and ground nails in front of the trenches.
Behind the trenches, many large pits were dug, and explosive packets were buried in the large pits. This operation was the most coquettish.
The enemy rushing through the sawhorns and trenches would think they had broken through the first line of defense.
In fact, the real first line of defense is those explosive bags.
Trench nails and whatnot are just appetizers.
It took a whole day to arrange these things properly.
At sunset, as the earth shook, the Huns' army came over.
When the Xiongnu King learned that Daqian's reinforcements had arrived, although he was angry, he didn't take it to heart.
In his opinion, the 60,000 reinforcements, and the 60,000 reinforcements that had not yet entered the city, were just a delay in taking Kucha for a few days.
So the King of the Huns personally led 200,000 cavalry to attack the Fuxing Army.
As a result, Kucha City's offensive intensity was indeed much smaller.
Song Hui looked at the reduced number of Huns under the city and knew that they must have gone to fight Song Yang's reinforcements.
For this reason, the old general was worried about Song Yang.
In field battles, the Daqian cavalry had no advantage when encountering the Huns.
The people on horseback are not covered by cavalry.
But the message from Song Yang last night was to tell Song Hui not to go out of the city for rescue.
Kucha City must be defended!
Now Song Hui can only pray that the Renaissance Army will become stronger.
"General. Your Majesty won't let us go out to meet them. Can they really defeat the Huns? This is impossible!"
Wang Xiao and others did not believe that Song Yang had such strength.
Zhang Zhou also looked in disbelief.
"The prince has his own opinions! We just need to do our own thing now!" Song Hui said in a deep voice.
He doesn't understand Song Yang either.
Although he didn't know Song Yang, he knew about firearms.
Song Hui knew that Song Yang's confidence came from firearms.
"General, the Huns' attack on the city has slowed down, and it's much easier for us to defend the city now," Qiu Jin said.
This can be regarded as the biggest change brought about by Song Yang's reinforcements. At least it allowed the Western Expedition Army in Kucha to breathe a sigh of relief.
Song Hui looked at Qiu Jin and said nothing, then turned to Wang Xiao and said:
"How is the repair of the inner city going? Seize the time and I will add five thousand more people to you. It must be repaired before dark!"
Wang Xiao was stunned, thinking that Song Hui was not optimistic about Song Yang and asked him to speed up preparations.
"Don't worry, General. If you add another five thousand people to your subordinates, we will definitely be able to fix it tonight!" Wang Xiao said, cupping his fists.
"Go now! Speed up the progress!"
"yes!"
As soon as Wang Xiao went out, Song Hui looked outside the door in the direction of Daqian.
"No matter whether the King of Jiangzhou wins or loses, since the Huns dare to invade my territory of Daqian, we cannot let them have an easy time!" Song Hui said with a serious face.