"Master Ma, I wonder how many people are in the city?" Li Xiang felt refreshed after resting for a long time. He sat next to the oven. The warmth of the fire radiated from the oven, making people feel very comfortable.
When you are outside, no matter how thick your clothes or animal skins are, your hands will still be cold. It feels better to hold a weapon directly.
Since Ma Zhenjiang was captured by Xiliang, he began to gather people at dawn and did as Li Xiang said. He prepared food and drink for the Xiliang soldiers. He did not dare to be careful, such as in the food.
Poisoned or something like that.
When marching and fighting, will there be no special talents in the army?
All the soldiers on the city wall surrendered and were pressed down by Xiliang soldiers into the military camps. Each of the four military camps in the city was intact. There were corpses everywhere, weapons, armor, and solidified blood scattered on the ground.
These soldiers, who usually bullied ordinary people in the city, were frightened. The elites in the city were all ruthless people who had fought with the Qiang people, but now they all fell here and died miserably at the hands of Xiliang soldiers.
Of more than 20,000 people, less than 5,000 survived, and 15,000 died overnight!
The Sifang city gates were guarded by Xiliang soldiers, and there were soldiers patrolling the city walls. There were Xiliang scouts outside. Prime Minister Li did not want the news to spread that the Zhiqiang fortress had been taken down by him.
The Zuqiang Fortress is the gateway to Zhangye County in the northeast. Now that he has taken over this portal, behind the Zuqiang Fortress are a lot of small towns, all the way to Heishui County, one of the six counties in Zhangye!
Blackwater County is named after a kind of black water that can burn. This black color is indestructible when exposed to water. It is an important city defense tool for the Ma family and is often used to reduce the number of siege soldiers!
There are about 20,000 troops stationed in Heishui County. There are also a large number of military towns around Heishui County, because there are rich mines around Heishui County. These military towns are the arsenals of the Ma family. The total number of troops stationed is about
There are 70,000 people, plus the people who can be mobilized, it can mobilize 100,000 capable soldiers.
At the same time, there are few mountainous terrains in Zhangye County, which is not very suitable for large-scale cavalry operations!
Before Li Xiang came, he had already made plans to encircle Heishui County for reinforcements and then eat the reinforcements coming from all sides.
However, this requires a large number of troops. If we only rely on the 30,000 troops in our hands, it will not be to surround the point for reinforcements, but to send meat!
Therefore, after taking the Qiang City, he sent his scouts to the rear to issue orders for the entire army to advance.
The army advancing in the snow was a very risky move for Xiliang, which is why he ordered the army behind him to come after he stopped the Qiang.
Leaving Sanshui Lake means that the Xiliang army will lose its logistical supplies. Only by taking over the Zhiqiang Fortress, this city fortress, can he dare to mobilize the Xiliang army.
He already thought that the food and grass in the city was enough for Xiliang's 100,000 troops for three months. When the Xiliang army came, he also carried about a few months' worth of food and grass. Five months' worth of food and grass was enough for them to capture Zhangye County!
Moreover, there will be reinforcements coming from behind the Xiliang army. The troops in the dark world have returned to the northwest and are now heading south.
In the northwest, due to the tragic battle of the Seventh Army in Danliangzhou, a large-scale recruitment of troops began, which plunged the northwest into a craze for enlistment. Many people who had not joined the army due to various reasons entered the army immediately.
People in the northwest are not afraid of death, they are afraid of what will happen to their families after they die!
The Xiliang army's perfect and generous pension policy has given countless people the idea of dying on the battlefield and getting a sum of money for their families. Unfortunately, without any force, they are not even qualified to go to the battlefield.
At the beginning of spring, Li Xiang expected that 600,000 troops from Xiliang would arrive in Liangzhou, including 200,000 Xiliang headquarters, 300,000 seventh legion, 100,000 eighth legion, and the ninth legion's task is to guard
Qingxi grassland.
The Eighth Army Corps came to guard the captured city!
Ma Zhenjiang said respectfully: "Back to the Governor, there are 230,000 people in the Qiang Fortress!"
Ma Zhenjiang was sincerely respectful this time. He originally thought that when the Xiliang army entered the city, it would be like the soldiers who broke into the city in his memory, burning, killing, looting, and drawing swords whenever they didn't like it.
But when he saw in the city, Xiliang soldiers were performing their duties. The soldiers who should rest went to the arranged places to rest, and those who should patrol patrolled. At the same time, a group of soldiers cleared the snow on the ground, making the traffic on the entire city's roads more complicated.
Gotta be better.
Just when he came back, Xiliang soldiers rebuilt the house that was destroyed yesterday because the war affected the enemy, so that the owners inside could return home.
These soldiers were very skilled in construction techniques, and the houses they built were more beautiful and stronger than other houses.
Ma Zhenjiang has never seen such an army. When the Ma Jiajun conquered other cities, they basically let the soldiers burn and kill them for a period of time. Basically, where the soldiers passed, what was left was a piece of scorched earth.
"Twenty-three thousand people!" Li Xiang picked up the tea cup and took a sip: "It seems that Liangzhou has a large population. Wait a minute, please go and tell the civilians that they have been staying at home for a while.
If you don’t have food, you can go to the granary and buy it with the Xiliang soldiers!”
"Don't worry, Governor, they won't go out!" Ma Zhenjiang knows the civilians under his rule very well: "Each of them will basically have three or four months of food at home, sir, don't worry!"
"It seems that this place is quite wealthy, and it can actually buy so much grain!" Nowadays, the Daqian Dynasty is raging with war, and grain prices are soaring. Sometimes Li Xiang can exchange one shipload of grain for three shiploads of civilians.
When Xiliang transport ships are not transporting large armies, they often transport civilians to war-torn places. Of course, the transport ships that come out are ordinary transport ships.
Ma Zhenjiang smiled bitterly: "There is no way to do this. Since more than 20 years ago, Liangzhou has been plunged into a quagmire of war. There are fights between the three major families, and there are rebellions among the Qiang, Xianbei and other ethnic groups.
In the past twenty years, this city has suffered forty-eight wars, fifteen of which were initiated by the Han family, and the remaining thirty-three were caused by the Qiang people who came south from Wuwei County to surround the Qiang fortress.
There was a siege that lasted for three months, and there was a shortage of food in the city, so they had to eat cannibal corpses before reinforcements arrived and drove the Qiang people away."
As he spoke, Ma Zhenjiang laughed: "However, those were all summer or autumn days, and we were attacked this winter. But this is the first time I blocked Qiang City. None of us thought about launching an attack in winter."
Li Xiang smiled and said: "Surprise me and attack me unprepared. If you are prepared, I will have to lose a lot of men if I want to kill the city!"
"Surprise the enemy by surprise and attack when he is unprepared!" Ma Zhenjiang pondered this sentence repeatedly. There are wars like this, but no one simplifies a tactic into just eight words. Eight words can summarize a tactic.
Ma Zhenjiang looked at Li Xiang's young face and felt that it was really incomparable: "I have been taught. I wonder, Lord Governor, do you have any other instructions?"
Li Xiang glanced at the snowflakes still falling outside: "I want detailed information on the troops and horses in Heishui County, will you give it to me?"
Ma Zhenjiang's expression froze: "This, this..."
He is a member of the Ma family, and Heishui County is an important arsenal for the Ma family. The Ma family's business is inseparable from the arsenal in Heishui County.
"I don't want to say that I don't have to force myself!" Li Xiang knows the cohesion of a family. A big family may have some unfairness and some scum, but most of them are people who protect the family. They don't talk about loyalty, but about interests.
, everyone in the family has an interest.
If the family is strong, their lives will be better. If the family is declining, their lives will become worse day by day.
It would be impossible for Ma Zhenjiang to achieve this position without the support of his family!
"Prepare more food, find some people who can cook from the city, and let them go to various camps!" Li Xiang reluctantly forced Ma Zhenjiang: "We also purchased some live poultry and sent them to the military camp. In the next seven days,
, I want my soldiers to eat meat every day!"
Being close to the grassland, there are naturally a lot of live poultry, livestock, etc. in the city, but most of these are killed for meat only during the Chinese New Year. The Xiliang army is about to arrive, so Li Xiangde asked the soldiers to eat better.
Hearing what Li Xiang said, Ma Zhenjiang frowned a little. There were many live birds and livestock in the city, but it was not easy for those to take out these things. But when he thought of the blades of Xiliang's army.
The Xiliang soldiers are currently performing very well. They are on both sides with the people. If you don't offend me, I won't offend you. But if you really think that the Xiliang army is a kind-hearted person, then you are thinking too much!
Each of these soldiers has several lives in their hands. If they get angry, the entire city may cease to exist.
Think about what happened to the military camp. There were only 5,000 people left out of 20,000. More than 3,000 of them survived because they were not in the military camp because they went out. Only less than 2,000 people actually survived in the camp, and most of them survived.
The troops have not come back to their senses until now and have been immersed in the massacre.
"Yes!" Ma Zhenjiang lowered his head and said.
"Report!" A Xiliang scout came in from outside: "My lord, the scout team found a huge pasture more than ten miles away from the fortress. The people inside attacked us. The scout team counterattacked and killed the 231 people inside.
We killed them all and harvested more than 1,300 cattle and more than 40,000 sheep. According to the calculations of the scout team, if we continue a little further north, there should be more pastures!"
"Well done, go and investigate immediately. If there are too many enemies, I allow you to mobilize the Xiliang cavalry!" Li Xiang's mood, which was a little bad because Ma Zhenjiang refused to provide information, instantly improved.
Let's just say, how can there be no cattle and sheep in Liangzhou? This is a place close to the grassland, and the Qiang, Xianbei and other ethnic groups are nomadic people.
Ma Zhenjiang mourned for several big families in the city. Ordinary people also have pastures and cattle and sheep, but those people have taken their cattle and sheep to storage farther south. Every year when winter comes, they will drive the cattle and sheep away.
To the south, they did not have much manpower and material resources to prepare much food and grass for cattle and sheep, and they did not have the financial resources to build pastures for cattle and sheep to stay in during the cold winter.
These civilians were combined, and every year one person from each household would go to the south to guard. Usually there were about 3,000 people guarding the area, while the rest waited in the city for the coming spring.
As for the big family members, they didn't want to go through so much trouble, so they built a pasture outside. There were seven pastures with hundreds of thousands of cattle and sheep. There was also a pasture with more than 5,000 horses and more than 500 qualified war horses.
When he thought about the misfortune of these family members in the city, Ma Zhenjiang felt very happy for some reason. After all, he was no longer the only one who was unlucky.
"Bring the cattle and sheep in!" Li Xiang said to Ma Zhenjiang: "There is no need for the poultry and livestock in the city!"
On the second day after entering the city, the Shenji Battalion and 30,000 infantry guards arrived, and there were more snowflakes floating in the sky.
The snow on the ground is already half a meter deep, reaching the deepest level in previous years. At this time, everything on Liangzhou fell into silence.
Xiliang soldiers from the northwest land, they wear thick cloaks, gloves sewn by ferocious beasts, and their boots are all sewn from ferocious beast skins.
This means that everything in Xiliang does not consume gold or silver. The raw materials are obtained by hunting ferocious beasts in the northwest land. The sewing people are women from Xiliang headquarters. They do not need wages, as long as they eat well, of course they need money.
If so, go to the inner government and explain the reason, and you can get enough money.
Most of the Xiliang Headquarters produces and sells themselves. For them, there is basically no cost except for materials. In Li Yi's words, everything used by the soldiers of the Xiliang Headquarters must be the best available.
thing.
Most of the good things in Xiliang are used by the Xiliang headquarters. They are not as good as the equipment they have. Any soldier's clothing or weapons, if they are in Dagan, the cost price will be more than eighty taels, at least
A set would sell for more than one hundred taels, but once it is made, not many people will buy it.
Would someone who could spend a hundred taels on weapons and equipment buy a set of Xiliang headquarters soldiers?
But people who know how to wear this set of clothes don't have enough money to buy it, and it's impossible for Daqian to generally equip such a suit. It's too expensive. Xiliang has a lot of ferocious beast furs, and the labor is done by Xiliang itself. Basically,
They are all made by the Xiliang Headquarters. It does not cost much money to let the soldiers of the Headquarters wear such a suit.
Pull the war horse to the front line on the way out. If you feel cold, take out the animal blood wine and take a sip.
In such cold weather, if there are still scouts for reconnaissance, just let them go!
In the middle of the army, the army was pulling carts of grain, ferocious beast meat, and animal blood wine. The soldiers of Xiliang headquarters were fond of drinking, but they were very measured and knew when to get drunk and when to drink a little to warm up!
In the white snow, a long black dragon rushed towards the Zuqiang Fortress. The fortress was in full swing, with the smell of cattle and sheep everywhere, as well as the smell of cooking meat and barbecue.
