Tibet

Three days later, after his mother Pei Sanniang and his wife Dugu Xinyue reluctantly said goodbye, Li Ye finally set out to march westward. He led 1,100 of his men, traveling lightly, on horseback and galloped toward the Hexi Corridor.

He has the Shangfang Emperor Sword given by the emperor, and can order local officials to provide supplies along the way.

Tubo has been planning this line from the West Sea to Shazhou for many years. It is all mountain meadows and desert Gobi. There are also several freshwater lakes to the west, but this land is the territory of Tuyuhun.

With the complete annexation of Tuyuhun by Tubo, the former Tyuhun tribe finally evolved into the Tubo tribe.

But everything has its priorities. In the early and middle stages of Tianbao, the direction of Tubo's attack was always east, attacking Longyou. However, as Tubo's eastward strategy failed again and again, the Tubo army gradually realized that eastward advancement was no longer realistic.

They began to develop westward. Capturing Anxi and Beiting had been their plan for many years, and Shazhou was an important connection point between the Central Plains and Anxi. Taking Shazhou would mean cutting off the connection between the Hexi Corridor and Anxi.

Therefore, the Tibetan army had a very clear strategic intention to attack Dunhuang County, cutting off the passage between the Anxi Protectorate and the Central Plains, basically cutting off the Silk Road.

In the name of doing business and worshiping Buddha, the Tubo army lurked hundreds of Tubo soldiers in Dunhuang County beforehand. They also used night sneak attacks to seize the low-vigilance Dunhuang County with internal and external cooperation.

Tubo immediately sent more troops to Dunhuang, and soon the number increased to 10,000. The Tang Dynasty deployed 5,000 Doulu troops in Shazhou and 4,300 Moli troops in Guazhou.

The Doulu Army and the Moli Army quickly gathered to counterattack, but were still defeated by the Tubo Army.

The fall of Shazhou shocked the entire court. Even the incompetent Yang Guozhong knew that this was a major event that would shake the fate of the country.

On the seventh day of September, after nearly half a month of trekking, Li Ye led more than a thousand troops to Jiuquan County, Suzhou.

Twenty thousand Ganzhou troops and five thousand Yumen troops were assembled in Jiuquan County, Suzhou. Their mission was to defend the Tibetan army from moving south.

Li Ye arrived at the Ganzhou Army camp. Not long after, his grandfather Pei Fang and his second uncle Pei Jian came out to welcome Li Ye and his army into the camp.

In the tent, Pei Fang smiled at Li Ye and said, "I have received a message from the imperial court. The emperor actually appointed you as the commander-in-chief to regain Shazhou. I thought Gao Xianzhi would be in charge."

Li Ye smiled and said: "I already explained to Gao Xianzhi in Liangzhou that this recapture operation is not only Shazhou, but also Qiemo City in Anxi, and the Beiting Army is the main force, so the emperor asked me to lead the army. .”

Pei Fang sighed softly and said: "That's what I say, but Gao Xianzhi is a very narrow-minded person. He must be very uncomfortable in his heart and dare not have an opinion against the emperor, but he will bear a grudge against you."

Li Ye smiled and said: "I don't care about so much anymore, I just have a clear conscience!"

"Yes! I have a clear conscience."

Pei Fang asked someone to set up a sand table and introduce the current situation in Shazhou to Li Ye. "According to the latest information I got, the Tibetan army is still in Dunhuang County and has not continued to expand. The strength is still about 10,000, but they are repairing Dunhuang." The main purpose of the city wall is to heighten and strengthen it and repair loopholes in defense, which should be to consolidate the occupation of Dunhuang County."

"How many Tang troops are there in Shazhou?" Li Ye asked again.

"There are still five thousand Tang troops, which are the remnants of the Doulu Army and the Moli Army. They are currently stationed in Jinchang County, Guazhou. The army is panicked. Their generals Li Kairan and Chen Feng came to me several times and asked the army to withdraw south, but I did not agree."

Li Ye nodded, "The situation is urgent. My army will rest overnight and set off early tomorrow morning!"

Before dawn the next day, Li Ye led more than a thousand cavalry and rushed toward Jinchang County, Guazhou.

Guazhou is located in the westernmost part of the Hexi Corridor, juxtaposed with Shazhou, but the Xingxing Gorge leading to Beiting is located in Guazhou. There is a large lake here called Daze, and a large river Mingshui flows into it.

Although Daze is surrounded by lush grasslands, the land in the south and north is dry. It is basically the Gobi Desert. It is vast and sparsely populated. Looking from the official road to both sides, it is endless desolation.

Li Ye quickly led the army to Jinchang County. Jinchang County is the only county town in Guazhou. Because Mingshui passes through here, with water sources, there is a population gathering.

Jinchang County is a small county with only more than a thousand households, most of which are family members of the army, and there are also a small number of Qiang people.

Li Ye arrived in Jinchang County. Li Kairan, the governor of Shazhou, and Chen Feng, the governor of Guazhou, both came out to meet him. They received a message from the imperial court sent by Pei Fang, appointing Li Ye, the governor of Anxi and the king of Gaochang County, as the commander-in-chief. , commanded the Beiting Army and related armies to recover Shazhou.

Although the relevant armies here are not explicitly named, the Shazhou Doulu Army and the Guazhou Moli Army are both related armies. If strictly investigated, the Ganzhou Army deployed at Yumen Pass also belongs to the relevant armies.

Li Ye and the two men saw the ceremony and then entered the county seat.

In the big tent, Li Ye said to more than a dozen generals: "This time the Tubo troops were divided into two groups. One group captured Dunhuang, and the other group captured Qiemo City. With the emperor's trust, I will lead the army to recapture these two cities and drive out the Tubos. military."

A general worriedly said: "But we only have 5,000 troops left. Including the envoy's 1,000 troops, there are only 6,000 troops. How can we defeat the 10,000 Tibetan troops!"

This general expressed everyone's feelings. Everyone thought that there would be a lot of reinforcements, but they didn't expect that the coach only brought a thousand people, which made everyone disappointed.

Li Ye smiled slightly and said: "Don't worry about the reinforcements. Our reinforcements are 16,000 Beiting troops. They are on their way to Jinchang County. They will arrive in the next two days. By then we will have more than 20,000 troops. If If the army is not enough, I can also mobilize the Ganzhou Army stationed in Jiuquan to join us. I have already made an agreement with General Pei."

Everyone's hearts dropped, and Li Ye immediately ordered Scout Lang Yang to lead a hundred cavalrymen to Shazhou to gather information.

After annihilating the Khazar Turk army, Yang Li was promoted from captain to general. This time, like Li Ye, he went home to get married. They got married in early August. They only stayed for a month before setting off with the army. His wife He stayed in his hometown in Hu County to take care of his parents-in-law.

At noon the next day, Yang Li led the cavalry to arrive near Dunhuang County. They were very careful lest they encounter a trap by the Tibetan army.

"General, there is a temple there!" the soldier shouted pointing ahead.

Yang Li ordered his two men: "Go and see if there are any enemy troops!"

The two men dismounted and ran away. After a while, they came back and said, "There are more than a dozen Tibetan soldiers checking the food in the temple!"

Yang Li immediately became vigilant. Usually there are not only a dozen people. In this case, there is usually a team of several hundred people, and everyone disperses.

However, there were only a dozen people on the other side, so this opportunity was rare. Yang Li sent a dozen more men to search for traces of the enemy within five miles of the surrounding area.

After this time, the soldiers all came back and found nothing unusual.

Yang Li immediately left a few soldiers to guard the horses, and he led more than ninety of his men to rush towards the temple.

There were twenty-five Tibetan soldiers in the temple. They were ordered to collect money, food, and copper utensils from Dayun Temple. They didn't get much food, grass, and money, but they found a bronze Buddha statue and a large copper pot in the temple. Bell, both pieces of bronze weighed several thousand kilograms, which made the Tibetan soldiers very excited.

The Tubo army would also privately mint Tang Dynasty copper coins, and then send people to Guanzhong to buy the supplies they needed, but they had no copper, and any copper they had had to be plundered from the Tang Dynasty.

This time they captured Dunhuang, a very important task was to collect Shazhou's money, grain, materials and copper and iron utensils.

Twenty Tubo soldiers carried a large bronze Buddha statue into the courtyard. At this moment, countless Tang army soldiers suddenly appeared on the wall. They raised their crossbows and fired, causing immediate casualties. Everyone was shot down, and the bronze Buddha statue was also shot. Falling to the ground with a 'boom!' ’ a loud noise.

The Tang army scouts continued to attack the temple. The other five Tibetan soldiers did not run away and were all captured by the Tang army.