Tibet

There is a saying, ‘The ideal is full, but the reality is skinny! ’

This sentence is too appropriate to describe the encounter of the Tibetan army at this time.

In the vast sea of ​​sand, a Tibetan army marched northward with great difficulty under the scorching sun.

People kept falling down and never got up again. The dry food had been eaten up long ago, and there was no water. The soldiers were leaning on their spears, and every step they took took a lot of effort.

They have walked more than thirty miles in the desert, and there is still a hundred and twenty miles of desert, but the map does not show that this is a desert at all.

They forget that since it is called Shazhou, it is named after the large number of deserts.

In the afternoon, they had only gone more than 40 miles, but the number of soldiers had been reduced by nearly half. It was not known whether the reduced soldiers died, turned back on their own, or were swallowed by the quicksand.

At this time, it suddenly became dark.

The Tibetan army had no experience in sandstorms. They watched blankly as large black clouds swept towards them, covering the sun. It was still afternoon, but suddenly it turned into night.

Immediately afterwards, the overwhelming sand hit them head-on. In an instant, the sand and dust were so dense that it made people breathless.

"No, it's a sandstorm!"

Lun Xipo shouted, turned around and ran away. The soldiers were also frightened out of their wits, shouting and running for their lives.

In the darkness, the overwhelming dust swallowed them up.

This autumn sandstorm lasted for six hours, and even the Tang army on the edge of the desert had to evacuate southward to avoid this menacing sandstorm.

When it dawned the next day, the desert was still there, but the nine thousand Tubo troops were nowhere to be seen. No one could be seen in the vast desert. They were all swallowed up by this desert of thousands of square kilometers.

Heaven and earth are unkind and regard all things in the world as stupid dogs.

After resting for two days in Dunhuang, Li Ye gave all the more than 200,000 guan of money he had seized to the soldiers of the three armies. Each of them received a reward of ten guan of gold, and there was a burst of joy.

Not a single soldier was killed, not even a confrontation, the nine thousand Tubo army was completely destroyed, and the officers and soldiers of the Beiting Army were convinced of Li Ye from then on.

On the top of the city, Dugujun said in a deep voice: "Why don't we divide our forces? My nephew will lead the Han navy to Anxi, and I will lead the Yiwu army to Hala Lake to take over the enemy's logistics base."

Li Ye shook his head and said: "The key is that we don't know whether Tubo will increase its troops. If Tubo increases its troops, the commander is likely to encounter the Tubo army. Fighting on the plateau, the four thousand Yiwu army is no match for the two thousand Tubo army. In order to To be on the safe side, I’ll lead the army to Lake Hala.”

Dugujun was silent for a moment and said: "If I had not encountered the Tubo army, how would my nephew deal with the Tuyuhun herdsmen in Hala Lake? Will he drive them out and kill them all?"

Li Ye shook his head, "I never kill civilians. I will bring them back and give them to Pei Fang and let him place them in Juyanhai. The defenders of Juyanhai will not be so lonely."

Dugujun smiled and said: "In that case, we can let Pei Fang's army go to Hala Lake to deal with the aftermath. You'd better rush to Anxi as soon as possible. Winter is about to begin."

Li Ye smiled and said, "Third uncle, don't think that Anxi is the same as Beiting. It rarely snows in Anxi, and the winter is cold but not cold, especially in the Qiemo area. They are afraid of the heat in summer, but not in winter."

Dugujun sighed slightly, "You'd better let the Ganzhou Army go! A good son-in-law cannot bear all the hard work alone."

In fact, Dugujun said it very implicitly. His implication was that you cannot take all the credit by one person.

Li Ye was stunned for a moment and nodded, "Okay! Then let the Ganzhou Army go."

Early the next morning, Li Ye led 13,000 soldiers and 6,000 camels to Anxi.

Pei Fang personally led 15,000 Ganzhou troops to Hala Lake to deal with the aftermath.

Pei Fang led his army along the Ganquanshui River Valley. To the north was Yema Nan Mountain and to the south was Danghe Nan Mountain, both of which were towering mountains stretching for thousands of miles.

Hala Lake is a saltwater lake, second only to Qinghai Lake on the Qinghai Plateau. Although it is a saltwater lake, it is surrounded by many small rivers, which are fresh water. The lake is surrounded by snow-capped mountains and alpine meadows.

The Tibetan army spent several years building a supply point here. It was actually three army-raising tribes that specialized in raising sheep to supply the Tibetan army from afar. This made it possible for the Tibetan army to threaten Shazhou.

Led by dozens of Qiang prisoners of war, after more than ten days of arduous march, the Tang army arrived at Hala Lake, and soon found three army-raised tribes, all of whom were Tyuhun people, with a population of about 2,000, and raised several One hundred thousand sheep.

It does not mean that migrating a tribe to Hala Lake will form a supply base. The climate and environment here are not suitable for human habitation and survival, nor are they suitable for grazing. They must first adapt slowly and then slowly expand sheep farming.

It took the Tubo army ten years to build this supply base, and they constantly moved tribes here to live. In the end, only three small tribes were able to persist, and the number of sheep multiplied from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands.

Once the Tang Dynasty completely destroyed the logistics supply base of Hala Lake, the Tibetan army would not be able to invade Shazhou from the south of the Qilian Mountains for at least ten years.

The Tang army seemed to fall from the sky. It came so suddenly that the three tribes were caught off guard and all became prisoners of the Tang army.

Pei Fang did not order the massacre of these Tuyuhun herdsmen, but brought them all back to Ganzhou and settled them in Juyanhai. They also became the people of the Tang Dynasty.

October is still late autumn for the Central Plains, but it is already early winter for Anxi. However, Anxi is different from Beiting. There is not much snow in Anxi. Most of the time it is sunny, the sun is bright, the sky is blue, and the brilliance of the sun shines on The earth makes everything look so bright, even if the phoenix is ​​very big, you can't feel the chill.

Going to Anxi in winter is even more comfortable than in the hot summer.

Mainly at night, the temperature plummeted to more than ten degrees or even twenty degrees below zero, making it impractical to light a bonfire. There was no combustible wood in the desert, so the soldiers could only wrap themselves in blankets and cling to the camels to keep warm.

The camels carried no cargo, only food, water and horse feed. In winter, the north wind in the desert was strong and sandstorms could break out at any time, so the Tang army moved extremely cautiously.

However, they were lucky. They walked all the way to Puchanghai without encountering a sandstorm. After walking for nearly half a month, the team finally arrived at Puchanghai.

The team arrived at Puchanghai at night, and Li Ye immediately ordered the army to rest south of Puchanghai.

In a military tent, Li Ye stood in front of the map and pondered for a long time. When he arrived at Puchanghai, he had to make a decision.

Should we go to Qiuci along the Chihe River, or go directly to Qiemo City along the Qiemo River?

There are two routes, one takes the north of the Tulum Desert to Qiuci, and the other takes the south of the Tulum Desert to Qiemo, separated by the vast desert.

If you go first and wait for the last, on the one hand, the situation of the enemy's army is unclear, and whether you have enough troops is still a problem. On the other hand, it will affect your control of the Anxi Army.

But if you go to Qiuci first, you will have to wait until the spring of next year to attack Qiemo. This will also affect your plan to attack Big and Small Bolu, and even affect your ability to rush back to Chang'an in time.

After much deliberation, Li Ye decided to go to Qiemo City first. After all, the emperor agreed to temporarily lend Han Haijun to him in the hope that he could recover Qiemo City as soon as possible.

There should not be too many Tibetan troops. If there are too many, food supply will be difficult.

At this time, a soldier rushed to the tent door and reported, "Report to the Governor, the local elders of Puchanghai are urgently seeking an audience!"