Tibet

Time flies to February of the tenth year of Tianbao. Spring has quietly arrived, the ice and snow have melted. Outside the city is an endless green grassland, and the Qianquan Snow Mountain can be faintly seen at the very far end.

There are flocks of birds in the sky, the grasslands are full of colorful wildflowers, the gentle breeze blows, and the air is filled with warmth, and everything is full of vitality.

The city's heightening and repairs have been completed. The city wall has now been raised to two feet, which is barely enough for defensive operations. For the height of the city wall, the soldiers and civilians in the city have made huge sacrifices. Even the small palace of Prince Alole has been demolished, and the soldiers' barracks have been demolished. They were also demolished, and the army used tents instead. All uninhabited houses in the city were also demolished, and finally the necessary stones were collected.

The two city gates were replaced and turned into heavy wooden gates wrapped in iron sheets, with huge cast iron door bolts, which could withstand the impact of tens of thousands of pounds of large battering rams.

A new suspension bridge has been built outside the city gate, and tens of thousands of Bahna people are digging the moat, which is almost completed. Once it is connected to the Bahna River several miles away, the moat will be completed.

In the words of King Murdo, it is not only a moat, but also a canal of Bakhna. You can go directly to Samarkand and Suiye by boat.

In the Bukhan River outside the city, Li Ye stood on the bank, watching the waves rolling in the river. Three thousand Bukhan's new army were training their sword speed in the water.

This is also Li Ye's original training method, inspired by his own Suzaku Mental Technique, but this is not a practice of the Suzaku Mental Technique, but a practice of the speed of the sword.

Practicing knives in water is like running with sandbags tied to your feet. Once the sandbags are removed, your feet will become very light. The same is true for practicing knives in water.

The water is not deep, just above your head. You can go up for air with a slight push of your feet. If you feel in danger, you can raise your knife high to the water, and someone will rescue you immediately.

Of course, it’s training in batches, not 3,000 people entering the water together.

The soldiers have been training underwater for more than a month, and the results are very significant.

On the distant shore, two thousand soldiers were lining up to practice sword skills. Three thousand soldiers were all armed with long swords. This was specially designed to deal with city defense battles. Once the enemy attacked the city, it would be too much to have a sharp long sword team. It's important.

It's a pity that the quality of the long knife is so poor that gaps will appear after a few cuts. This really worries Li Ye, but he has nothing to do. The iron smelting technology of Bukhanna is far worse than that of the Tang Dynasty.

At this time, a cavalryman rushed from a distance, rushed to Li Ye, clasped his fists and reported: "General Li, the king has something urgent to ask you to come back to the city!"

Li Ye nodded and said to Xu Jian and Yu Changyang: "You continue to train, and you can withdraw your troops after another hour of training!"

"Obey!" The two of them bowed together.

Li Ye got on his horse and ran towards Kesai City.

Li Ye arrived at Kesai City, and happened to meet Prince Alole who was patrolling the city wall at the city gate. Li Ye reined in his horse and asked, "Your Highness, what urgent matter does the king have with me?"

Aluole smiled on the top of the city and said, "Someone is coming from Broken Leaf City!"

A month ago, the king sent someone to Suiye City to deliver a letter from Li Ye, but unexpectedly someone finally came.

Li Ye was happy and asked hurriedly: "Where is the visitor? Is he in the palace?"

"At the palace!"

Li Ye clamped the war horse between his legs and said, "Drive!"

The war horse spread its hooves and galloped towards the palace.

The person who came from Suiye was called Zhang Xian, and he was the chief secretary of Suiye City. Dozens of soldiers escorted him and a dozen carts from Suiye.

What Li Ye is most concerned about now is how is Feng Changqing's army? When can Gao Xianzhi send troops to march westward? There is Ying Xin in Sui Ye who is in contact with An Xi, so he should be able to get the news.

Zhang Xiannian was about thirty years old. His ancestral home was Fengxiang. He moved to Luntai County, Tingzhou with his parents. Ten years ago, he joined the Anxi Army and became a civilian officer. Now he is the chief of the Suiye City garrison, which is equivalent to the position of county magistrate.

Zhang Xian and Li Ye saw the ceremony and handed a letter to Li Ye, "This is the eagle letter from Marshal Gao. We copied it down. It is the letter from Marshal Gao to Supervisor Li."

Li Ye took the letter and read it hastily. The letter stated that Feng Changqing's army had returned to Shule and was resting. It would set off for Suiye City in the near future. He hoped that Li Ye would fully assist Ba Khanna in resisting the attack of the Shi Kingdom. .

Feng Changqing went back, which made Li Ye breathe a long sigh of relief. He asked again: "Excuse me, Mr. Zhang, how long does it take to get from Suiye City to Kesai City?"

"About ten days, it took us a full ten days."

"What about from Shule to Suiye?" Li Ye asked again.

Zhang Xian laughed and said, "From Anxi to Suiye, we don't go through Congling. Instead, we take the Badaling Mountains in Gumo Country. After crossing Lingshan, we take another five days to Suiye."

Li Ye nodded, but it would take at least five or six days to get from Shule to Gumo Kingdom. In other words, even if Zhang Xian returned to Suiye to report the situation, and Gao Xianzhi ordered the army to set off from Shule, it would take at least twenty It would take a few days to reach Bukhanna, and it was too late to count on the Tang army to rescue Bukhanna.

No wonder Gao Xianzhi also implicitly said in the letter that they can only rely on themselves.

"How many troops are there in Broken Leaf City?" Li Ye asked again.

"There are 1,000 Tang troops in Suiye City, and there are 300 garrisons each in Yezhi City, Helie City, and Dongcheng. Plus some garrison troops, the entire Suiye City has about 2,000 troops. The supervisory army has the Emperor's Gold Medal, so we can Mobilize Broken Leaf’s army, but you must obtain the military talisman order from the commander-in-chief before you can send out troops.”

In fact, Li Ye also knew that although he had the Emperor's Gold Medal to mobilize a thousand troops, the Emperor's Gold Medal was only useful to Gao Xianzhi and not to the Guarding General of the Broken Leaf Army. The Broken Leaf Commander Chen Fengzhong only recognized the Jiedushi's troop mobilizing talisman, that is, Gao Xianzhi has half of the tiger talisman, and Chen Fengzhong has half of it. The two can be combined into one to mobilize troops. Therefore, even if they contact Gao Xianzhi through Yingxin, without the tiger talisman, they cannot mobilize the Broken Leaf army to assist Ba Khanna.

Li Ye immediately wrote a letter and gave it to Zhang Xian, "This letter is very important. Please ask Master Zhang to send someone to deliver it to Gao Shijun."

Zhang Xian took the letter and nodded and said: "I will send someone to deliver it to Gao Shuai when I get back. In addition, I brought a batch of weapons from Suiye to support Li Jianjun. Although we can't come in person, we still try our best to assist Ba Khan's army. , should be the weapon Li Jianjun needs most."

"What is it?"

Zhang Xian smiled and waved his hand, "It's right outside!"

Li Ye followed Zhang Xian to the outside of the palace. There were more than a dozen carriages parked on the grass outside. They were loaded with supplies, which should be weapons. There were straw bags on the outside, and everything inside was wrapped in oil paper. It seemed to be oiled and very well maintained. good.

The soldier opened a bundle of weapons, and Li Ye's eyes lit up. It turned out to be a long knife. Li Ye lifted the knife. It weighed about twenty kilograms and was eight feet long. In front of it was a three-foot-long thick-backed Yanling knife, which was extremely sharp.

Zhang Xian introduced with a smile: "This is the horse-cutting knife used by the Anxi Army before the Mo Dao was equipped with the Anxi Army. It was aimed at the horse's legs. It was gradually no longer used and has been stored in the Suiye Army's warehouse. The king's envoy told us last time, Li Jianjun trained 3,000 swordsmen, so we asked Commander Gao for instructions, and Commander Gao agreed to hand over these weapons to Bahna."

"There are three thousand long knives?" Li Ye asked.

Zhang Xian nodded, "They're all here!"

Li Ye rubbed his hands in excitement. These long knives came just in time and solved his biggest difficulty.