Tibet

Ashina Chengqing led his army to flee to Lantian County in panic. Only less than 40,000 of the original 50,000-strong army was left. He was very upset. He knew that Li Ye's plan was accurate, but he still succeeded in a sneak attack and nearly lost his troops. Thousands of people.

At this time, Gao Xiuyan came to plead guilty, "I cannot withstand the enemy's cavalry attack due to my humble position. I failed to cover the retreat of the main force. Please punish me!"

Ashina Chengqing waved his hand, "There is nothing to punish. Hurry and collect food in the city and see how much you can collect. In addition, I will kill all the residents in the city!"

Gao Xiuyan was the defender of Datong in the Hedong Army, and An Lushan was appointed as the governor of Hedong. He valued Gao Xiuyan and ordered him to retreat the Datong Army to Yi County, and he followed An Lushan to Qingjun's side.

After An Lushan ascended the throne in Luoyang. He just reacted, but it was too late.

After all, Gao Xiuyan was a general of the Tang Dynasty. He couldn't bear to ask him to kill tens of thousands of people. As soon as he thought about it, he came up with an excuse, "I'm afraid there will be an epidemic if there are too many corpses. It's better to take advantage of the opportunity before the Tang army arrived and drive them all away." Get out of town!"

"You can make up your own mind, but don't allow them to take away a single grain!"

"Follow the order!" Gao Xiuyan hurried away.

Ashina Chengqing then told his confidant General Feili: "Gao Xiuyan is too weak and can't do things well. You go and lead an army of three thousand to supervise. If anyone refuses to leave, I will kill them without mercy. In addition, the county people are not allowed to take them with them." Take any box package.”

Feli clasped his fists and saluted, "I humbly obey my orders!"

Ashina Chengqing walked to the top of the city upset and stared at the south. It was just dawn, winter fog shrouded the wilderness, ice and snow were piled up outside the city, and the weather was extremely cold.

The spies didn't have any news. I wonder where the Tang army went?

Of course Ashina Chengqing cannot evacuate to Chang'an. His mission is to defeat the Tang army. If he cannot defeat the Tang army, he must try to delay the Tang army and buy time so that the Yuanqing and Qingzhou armies can withdraw in time.

Now he can only defend Lantian County and try his best to drag the Tang army here to buy time for reinforcements.

At this time, a chaos broke out in the city behind them. People all over the city cried for their fathers and mothers, dragging their children and daughters to escape outside the city.

The soldiers of the Yan army were like wolves and tigers. They violently drove away the people in the city. They were not allowed to bring even a grain of food. If they refused to leave, they would be killed on the spot. Most of the old people were unwilling to leave their homes. Feli ordered them all to be executed. The Yan army soldiers did not show any signs of death. Thousands of old people were killed mercilessly. The people in the city were frightened by the ferocity of the Yan army, and they stumbled and fled out of the city.

In just half an hour, tens of thousands of people in the city were expelled. The people had no food or clothing, and were crying and overwhelmed in the wilderness. At this time, several officials led tens of thousands of people to the south. They Knowing that the Yan army was fighting Li Ye's army at Lanqiao and must have been defeated by the Tang army, they fled to Lantian County in panic.

At this time, Li Ye was not chasing north. He had already received news that the enemy troops had fled into Lantian County. He simply stopped being anxious and sorted out the rescued food and supplies. The enemy camp was almost burned to the ground.

But in the northeast corner near Ba River are Cangying and Ma Ying. Cang Ying stores grain and grass supplies, and Ma Ying is where war horses are raised. They are separated from the main camp by barracks. It is these barracks that prevent the fire from reaching Cang Ying and Ma Ying. The camp spread, and Guan Pei led the soldiers of the Tang Army to rescue them in time. The fire only burned the camp fence, but saved Cangying and Maying.

In this night attack, Li Ye was a little regretful. The main force of the Yan army ran away and only killed more than 7,000 people. More than 2,000 of them were burned to death, which showed that the Yan army was prepared. Ashina Chengqing He guessed his intention, but he didn't expect Huo Yaozi and lost to Huo Yaozi's attack on the camp.

They lost the east corner and gained the mulberry elm. Although they did not completely defeat the Yan army, they harvested the enemy's warehouse camp and horse camp, and captured tens of thousands of horses and livestock, as well as a large amount of grain and grass supplies.

Li Ye inspected the enemy's cang camp under the leadership of Guan Pei. Guan Pei lived up to Li Ye's trust and led a thousand cavalry to not only save the cang camp, but also exceeded the task and also saved the horse camp. You must know how to save the horse camp. The difficulty is even greater, as hundreds of thousands of loads of fodder are stored in the horse camp.

This result really satisfied Li Ye, and he immediately credited Guan Pei with great merit.

"The enemy's food supply is about 100,000 dan, which is stored in twenty large tents. Each tent has 5,000 bags. Moreover, the tents are leather tents, which are not easily ignited by fire. They are specially used to store food. "

Li Ye nodded and walked into a large tent. They were all filled with sacks of grain, neatly stacked like a hill. Li Ye found that a sack was slightly damaged. He pulled it with his fingers and a handful of wheat came out. He smelled After smelling it, he put it in his mouth and chewed it. He frowned and said, "It's a bit old."

"These are old grains from a few years ago. Your Highness, please look at this sign!"

Li Ye saw it, and it said on the sack, "Autumn of the eleventh year of Tianbao, Yingzhou." ’

This is wheat from three years ago. It was produced in Yingzhou, transported to the capital, and eventually became military rations for Anlu Mountain.

"They were all transported via Ba River?"

Guan Pei nodded, "We caught the official in charge of the warehouse camp. He said that everything was transported by boat through Ba River. The weather was abnormal this year, and Ba River actually did not freeze."

"But no ships were captured?"

"There is no boat, so they all go to the capital."

Li Ye then went to the large tents where supplies were stored, and there were dozens of them.

"What kind of supplies are they?" Li Ye asked.

"They are all weapons, crossbows, arrows, armor, as well as shields, tents, flags, gongs and drums, medicines, etc., but no gunpowder was found, only a batch of gunpowder arrows, about ten thousand."

"Do you have money?"

"Yes! In another large account, there are about 250,000 copper coins, which are the military salaries of Yan army soldiers. In addition, the soldiers are also collecting the private leather bags of soldiers in the military camp. There may be a lot of money in them."

At this time, a soldier rushed over, knelt down on one knee and saluted: "Your Highness, General Nan Jiyun is here with several officials, and there are a large number of civilians behind him."

Li Ye got on his horse and urged his horse to the front of the camp. He saw a mighty team coming in front of him. They were all ordinary people supporting the old and the young. Walking to the front were more than a dozen officials. Nan Jiyun led several Thousands of cavalrymen followed the refugee procession.

Nan Jiyun saw Li Ye and rushed forward to report: "Your Highness, these are the people of Lantian County who were forcibly driven out of the city by the Yan army. There are tens of thousands of them."

Li Ye nodded and ordered Sima Wang Suizhou behind him: "Go back to the military camp and set up tents for them, set up pots to cook porridge, find some bowls and chopsticks, and distribute them to them until they are full!"

Wang Suizhou quickly agreed and took hundreds of soldiers back to make arrangements.

At this time, someone shouted: "Wonderful nephew, His Royal Highness King Lu!"

Li Ye turned around and saw an acquaintance at a glance. It was Wang Wei, walking with several officials.

Li Ye urged his horse forward, turned over and dismounted, and clasped his fists in surprise: "Why is Uncle Wang here?"

Wang Wei smiled bitterly and said: "You know I bought a piece of land in Lantian to build a house. Anlushan's army came to kill me, so I fled to Lantian with my family. Unexpectedly, Anlushan's army came to Lantian again a few days ago and burned it down. I had no choice but to take my family and stay in the county town temporarily. Early this morning, An Lushan's army forcibly expelled everyone in the county town from the city and killed them if they didn't leave. Our whole family was driven out again, and we didn't have time to carry anything. I have no money, not even a grain of food.”

Speaking of this, Wang Wei sighed repeatedly, and Li Ye comforted him and said, "Don't worry, uncle, as long as I'm here, nothing will happen."

"I can only rely on my nephew!"

Wang Wei then pulled over a younger, taller man next to him, "This is my third brother Wang Huang, who was also a Jinshi and was appointed as the chief registrar of Taichang Temple."

Wang Huang hurriedly greeted Li Ye. Li Ye knew that Wang Wei's brothers were all great talents, so he responded with a smile and said, "We are all our own people. You're welcome. Let's arrange the people first. Is the county magistrate here?"

"The humble position is here!"

An official in his forties came up next to him, "Shen Huan, a humble official, magistrate of Lantian County!"

"How many people are there?" Li Ye asked.

"About 70,000 to 80,000 people!"

Li Ye was shocked, "There are so many people in Lantian County?"

"Your Highness doesn't know. There are only about 20,000 locals in Lantian County. The rest fled from Chang'an. However, we did not expect to encounter another military disaster. Most of our family property was lost in Lantian County."

"Has anyone been killed?" Li Ye asked again.

Shen Huan sighed, "The Yan army violently drove the people away, but as long as they were willing to leave the city, they could survive. But as long as they refused to leave, they would be killed. Many old people were killed, and they were not allowed to carry items. All packages and items had to be put down. We have to leave the city empty-handed, but they don’t care about the jewelry on women, because they feel like they are asking for food.”

Li Ye nodded, "Eight miles ahead is our camp. Let the old, weak, women and children go to the camp to rest and eat first, and then the young and strong will stay to carry the supplies for us."

The county magistrate Shen Huan quickly agreed to go and explain to the people. Immediately, tens of thousands of young people stayed, willing to carry supplies for the Tang army.