After passing Fuqiang County, we entered an uninhabited land of nearly three hundred miles, all the way to Xiangwu County in Weizhou. The entire road was desolate and inhabited. It was originally a rich farming land, with endless farmland scattered as far as the eye can see.
However, during the Anshi Rebellion, Tubo and Tuyuhun invaded Longyou on a large scale. This area was severely damaged, with the county towns abandoned, villages deserted, and large tracts of farmland turned into grassland.
Horse bandits have been rampant in the past two years, which became the last straw that broke the camel's back. The remaining dozen or so villages were also plundered by horse bandits. The villagers died and could not escape, and now they are all in ruins.
The terrain here is undulating, mainly hills and mountains. In addition to the weed fields in the plains, there are also large areas of alpine pastures and forests. The climate in Longyou during the Tang Dynasty was warm and humid, and there were basically no deserts or Gobi Desert.
Zhang Yun and his men have been lurking in this 300-mile uninhabited zone for three days and have never found any sign of the horse bandits. Zhang Yun has always believed that the horse bandits must be here to ambush the Tang Army's transport team, but the soldiers have found nothing in the past three days.
Everyone was suspicious of Zhang Yun, and even Zhang Yun himself was a little shaken.
In a pine forest in a hilly area, Zhang Yun sat under a big tree, leaning against the trunk, chewing grass roots, and thinking hard about what the problem was.
There are more than a thousand horse bandits. As long as they move around in this area, they will always leave various traces. At least the horse hoof prints should be visible. So why did the three days of search yield nothing? Could it be that the horse bandits were afraid of the Tang Army cavalry?
Give up the sneak attack, or they change the location of the sneak attack to the north.
It is impossible to change the location for a sneak attack. The horse bandits have been operating in this area for more than a year. For such a major operation as a surprise attack on the Tang army's baggage, they would never place it in an unfamiliar place.
Unless the horse bandits did not dare to provoke the Tang army and left far away, or Zhu Si did not want to make the matter bigger, the horse bandits were not allowed to attack the Ganzhou army's transport team.
At this time, a squirrel was jumping around above their heads. A soldier laughed and said: "It's strange, how can there be only one squirrel in such a large pine forest?"
Another soldier said with a smile: "This is a squirrel scout. Are there a large number of squirrels hiding outside for fear of being discovered by us?"
The conversation between the two soldiers was like a bolt of lightning flashing through Zhang Yun's brain. He suddenly realized why a thousand horse bandits appeared here. They could have hidden in the periphery and sent a few spies to spy on the movements of Ganzhou's transport team.
, this explains why there are no traces of a large number of horse bandits, because there are only a few horse bandit spies hiding near the official road.
"I see!"
Zhang Yun stood up and summoned more than a dozen of his subordinates. He smiled and said to everyone: "I just figured out what the problem is now. If I were the commander of the horse bandits, I would send more than a thousand horse bandits to the official road."
Are they coming and going nearby? Obviously it's impossible, so how can we find their traces?"
"What the captain means is that they are not hiding near the official road?" a soldier asked.
"It must be like this, we might as well do a drill!"
Zhang Yun drew two lines on the ground, one thick and one thin, and said to everyone: "The thick one is the Wei River, and the thin one is the official road."
He picked up another handful of pine cones and placed them in the distance. "These are the horse bandits. There are more than a thousand people in total. They are at least dozens of miles away from the official road. There is the Weishui River in the south, so they must be hiding in the north."
He picked up another pine cone and placed it on the official road. "This is us. We have been searching near the official road for three days, but we did not expect that the horse bandits were dozens of miles away to the north of us."
He picked up another section of dead branches and placed it on the official road, and placed a small pine cone on the north side. He said to everyone: "This section of dead branches is the main force of our baggage train, and the small pine cone is the spy of the horse bandits. They have been following the baggage train."
Team, once the team reaches a suitable place for an ambush, the horse bandit spies will notify the main force, and a thousand horse bandits will attack at night, so our three-day search is completely meaningless."
Everyone understood, and a soldier said: "Our top priority now is to find this horse bandit in the north, right?"
Zhang Yun nodded, "We can't tell where they will attack, so finding this horse bandit is the key to understanding their movements!"
........
After passing the Great Earthquake Pass, Guo Song adjusted his team and turned the baggage team into two parallel columns. The same was true for the family team. In this way, the team that was more than ten miles long was shortened by half and became eight miles long.
The cavalry was also re-deployed, from a long linear guard to a clustered guard. The eight thousand cavalry were divided into three groups. Guo Song personally led three thousand cavalry in the middle to protect his family members. The two front and rear cavalry had two thousand and five thousand each.
Hundreds of people, led by Zhonglang generals Yao Jin and Luo Daxiao.
The team marched more cautiously, setting out every morning and stationing in camp in the afternoon. At the same time, a thousand cavalry were sent to guard at night.
However, the arrival of Mengzi made Guo Song feel more stable. During the day, Mengzi could hover high in the sky and basically detect enemies within twenty miles. It was not unreasonable for him to be named the Scout General by the officers and soldiers of the Fengzhou Army.
It seems that it is ready to continue to defend its glory in Ganzhou.
However, Xue Tao has always been resentful of his irresponsible behavior of abandoning his wife and children, and has not paid attention to him until now.
"Why do you always think that horse bandits will attack us at the junction of Qinzhou and Weizhou?" Zhang Qianyi asked in confusion.
Guo Song smiled slightly and said: "That's because you haven't understood the information revealed in the scout intelligence. They attacked the caravan a total of sixteen times, fourteen of which occurred between Qinzhou and Weizhou. This is the biggest
The advantage is that the two state governments can blame each other. This is actually the consistent practice of the Dangxiang people. Another characteristic of the Dangxiang people is that once they find that the situation is not right, they immediately shrink back. This shows that they are still more cautious and they will definitely act in a place they are familiar with.
Look for opportunities wherever possible, use the familiarity of the terrain to attack us and retreat."
Zhang Qianyi asked again: "Do you think the party members will definitely attack us?"
Guo Song nodded, "They will definitely do it!"
"How can I see it?"
"Because the 20,000 sets of armor and a large number of crossbows, shields and other military supplies we transported are what they desire most, but it is difficult for them to have a chance. Although we know that the party members may have colluded with Zhu Si, Zhu Si does not
Dare to risk the disapproval of the world and transport the soldiers to the Dangxiang people, but Zhu Si will definitely tell the Dangxiang people the information about our transport of the soldiers. Faced with this rare opportunity, I believe that the Dangxiang people will take the risk."
"But when the Dangxiang people destroyed the Longyou Commercial Road, isn't Zhu Si doing his own thing?"
"Zhu Si is frozen in the capital and will soon be transferred from Longyou. The military governor of Longyou will be replaced by Ma Lin. It is said that Zhu Si and Ma Lin have a very bad relationship. It cannot be ruled out that Zhu Si is giving Ma Lin eye drops.
.”
Zhang Qianyi nodded slightly. He obviously agreed with Guo Song's analysis, but he still had some questions. He pondered for a while and then asked: "Why do you think the party's cavalry appeared on Longyou Road?"
Guo Song said lightly: "Before yesterday, I always thought that the Dangxiang people wanted to move the trade route north. However, many years ago, the Dangxiang people also destroyed the trade road to the north. It is a bit contradictory, but today I thought of another possibility. Dangxiang people
Could it be possible that people have colluded with the Tubo people? The Tubo people want to open up the passage to the north, but the Dangxiang people have lost the support of Xue Yantuo and have turned their attention to Tubo."
"Probably!"
Zhang Qianyi immediately reacted, "Tubo and the Tuyuhun people fell out. Without the Tuyuhun people in Longyou to make trouble for it, it makes sense for Tubo to turn to support the Dangxiang people. The Dangxiang people destroyed Longyou's commerce and farming, and they have no influence on Longyou."
The army has a great influence. If things go on like this, it will weaken the combat effectiveness of the Longyou Army. This is what the Tubo people expect. Unfortunately, Zhu Si is still too stupid to see this through."
But Guo Song knew that Zhu Si was not stupid, but too ambitious. Wasn't he also taking advantage of the party members?
...........
Two days later, the baggage team walked out of the Long Valley Road and entered the vast uninhabited land of the Longxi hills. They will walk for six days to reach Xiangwu County in Weizhou, where they will join the baggage team on the Wei River and head to Lanzhou together.
As soon as the main transport team walked out of the Long Valley Road, they were immediately discovered by the spies sent by the horse bandits. They informed the main team hiding in the north.
This horse bandit was indeed disguised as a Dangxiang people, with a total of 1,200 people, led by a captain. As Guo Song judged, the Dangxiang people had indeed colluded with the Tubo people, but both sides had mutual concerns, and the Tubo were just
They verbally supported the Dangxiang people to establish the country in Lingzhou, but they could not provide real money or silver to support it. The Dangxiang people were unwilling to really work for Tibet, so they sent troops to attack Longyou and pretended to be horse bandits to rob Longyou. This became possible for both parties.
Accepted plan.
The party members have been looting Longyou for more than a year and have stolen a large amount of property and women. They even have their own base in Longyou. There is a Qingniu Mountain at the border of Qinzhou and Weizhou, also called Xiao Kongtong Mountain.
The mountains here are densely forested and the terrain is complex. The party members built a camp on the mountainside to store looted property, and the looted women also became tools for them to vent their animal desires.
In the morning, the party leader Tuobatong received the news from the spies.