Tibet

Zhang Dian led thirty of his men to patrol the road leading to Shuofang from Ulan County for five days, but no team was found.

Seeing that dry food was about to be cut off, they would have no choice but to kill their horses if they did not retreat.

Helpless, Zhang Dian had no choice but to order: "Let's retreat!"

They turned their horses and began to retreat towards Ulan County, where some herdsmen could get some sheep to solve the food problem.

After running for more than twenty miles, the left side became open and a large river like a jade belt appeared at the foot of the mountain. This is the Yellow River.

Suddenly, Zhang Dian reined in his horse, pointed at the Yellow River and exclaimed, "Look!"

Everyone stopped their horses and were shocked. They saw a huge team of large-scale rafts moving upstream on the Yellow River. There were at least two hundred large-scale rafts. They used oars and sails to use them. The fleet of rafts gained momentum.

Zhang Dian let out a long sigh, "It turns out they took the water route, we all made a mistake!"

The end of the raft was Ulan County. What Zhang Dian and the others saw on the road was the second batch of grain transportation. There were three batches in total. 700,000 stones of grain were transported to Ulan County, and then 20,000 camels were used to transport the grain. It is transported to Herong City for transfer and storage. The journey is not too far. It can transport 80,000 shi at a time. All the grain can be transported to the Hexi Corridor before winter comes.

Zhang Dian left a scout team to continue monitoring Wulan County, while he led other men to Guangwu County.

On the second night after Li Ye's army arrived in Guangwu County, a team of 5,000 camels came to Guangwu County. The leader was a Qiang man who could speak fluent Chinese, followed by 300 men. Wearing Han Chinese short clothes, their faces also look like Han Chinese.

This is of course a trap. The three hundred men are all Tubo Han. Once the Tang army soldiers let them into the city, they will block the city gate, and then the main force of the Tibetan army ambushing behind will come and kill them, and will not let anyone go.

Under the cover of darkness, 10,000 Tibetan troops also began to surround Guangwu County several miles away. They would never let anyone go, and they would never let the news reach Lanzhou.

But the Tubo army never dreamed that there was a larger encirclement just ten miles behind them, with 50,000 Tang troops surrounding the Tubo army.

There were 2,000 Tang troops stationed in Guangwu County. Li Ye was worried that there were Tibetan spies nearby and would alert the enemy, so he did not send additional troops to the county. At this time, all 2,000 Tang troops were deployed on the city walls and were ready.

The camel team arrived at the city, and the Qiang merchant at the head shouted loudly: "Is there a garrison on top of the city?"

The guard general of Guangwu County was an Eagle Striker named Guan Xiaowu, a native of Yi County, Jingzhao Prefecture. He stuck his head in and asked, "Who are you and why are there so many camels?"

"I am coming from Hexi. I have a batch of camels to sell to His Highness King Qi. The price has been negotiated. This is the first batch of camels. We have traveled hard. Please open the city gate and let us in."

Guan Xiaowu sneered in his heart and said, "Are there any Tubo people in the team?"

"No, I guarantee they are all Han!"

"Have them all come up and line them up so I can take a closer look."

The Qiang merchants turned around and whispered a few words to the leader. The leader waved and asked three hundred Tubo Han people to come forward and line up. These Tubo Han people were all dressed as men, with short clothes and wide trousers, and cloth belts around their waists. They had no weapons and no Armor, weapons and armor were hidden on the camels.

Soon, three hundred people formed two long rows under the city.

Guan Xiaowu shouted sharply: "Don't do it yet!"

A thousand Tang army soldiers who were ambushing on the city wall suddenly appeared and fired with their crossbows. It was so sudden that the Tubo Han people below were completely caught off guard. They fell down one after another after being hit by arrows. Three hundred people were shot down, and more than two hundred and seventy people were killed. Including the Qiang merchants just now, they were also killed by random arrows. Only about 20 people managed to escape and turned around to escape.

The Tibetan soldiers on the periphery faintly heard the screams and immediately shrank to the north and south. At this moment, a sudden burst of arrows shot out from behind the Tubo soldiers. Countless soldiers were hit by the arrows and fell, and then there were shouts of killing. Fifty thousand people were killed. Tang troops came from all directions.

The Tubo soldiers panicked and fled in all directions, completely defeated.

This Tubo army is not an authentic Tubo, but a Tuyuhun. Its combat effectiveness is far inferior to that of the real Tubo army. Like other nomadic peoples, if the loss exceeds 20%, the entire army will be defeated.

It was very difficult for the Tang Dynasty to fight Tubo in the early Tianbao period, but by the late Tianbao period, the authentic Tubo soldiers were almost defeated. The Tubo court could not send troops, so it let the Tuyuhun army fight the Longyou Tang army. As a result, the Tuyuhun army was defeated by the Tang army. In a desperate situation, the Tang army was so powerful that it captured Dafeichuan and the entire West Sea in one fell swoop.

Ge Shuhan was therefore canonized as King of Long in recognition of his achievements.

The encirclement of the Tang army soldiers became tighter and tighter, trapping the Tibetan army like an invisible net.

More and more soldiers were killed, and more and more Tibetan soldiers surrendered.

At daybreak, the 10,000 Tibetan troops were completely defeated, and more than 3,000 of them were killed. The remaining 6,000 people knelt down and surrendered, and no one escaped.

After a brief interrogation, it was found that these 10,000 people were indeed the Tibetan army in Liangzhou. Currently, the Liangzhou garrison consisted of less than 1,000 people, and there were still 15,000 camels in Wucheng.

Li Ye immediately divided his troops into three groups and ordered Ying Yanglang General Xu Jian to lead 10,000 troops to capture Huining County, and ordered Li Xiyue to lead 5,000 troops to capture Ulan County. Once Wulan County was captured, he immediately used large leather rafts to transport grain to Lanzhou, the section from Wulan County to Lanzhou can be pulled by trackers. The only obstacle is Huining County. However, there are not many Tibetan troops in Huining County, only about 1,000 people. The 10,000 people led by Xu Jian are enough to capture it.

Li Ye also ordered Guan Xiaowu to lead two thousand troops to guard the prisoners of war. If there was any abnormal movement, they would be killed without mercy.

Li Ye kept these Tuyuhun prisoners of war mainly because he wanted to use them to mine. Without the support of a steady stream of iron ore, Helong's various weapons cannot be replenished. Copper mines are also extremely important. Huizhou is today's Baiyin City. Known as the Copper City, this place is extremely rich in copper reserves. There is a mine owned by the imperial court here. In addition, the reserves of silver are also very rich.

A very important reason why Anlu Mountain can support an army of more than 200,000 is that mining continues to generate wealth.

Li Ye personally led 35,000 troops northward to kill Liangzhou.

Three days later, the army arrived at Wucheng. Pioneer Pei Xiu had led 10,000 cavalry to capture Wucheng and captured 15,000 camels. These were the camels that the Tubo people had collected from various places to carry food, plus The five thousand camels seized in Guangwu County totaled 20,000 camels, which increased the number of camels in the Helong army to 60,000.

Camels have strong adaptability. They can adapt to ice and snow or dry deserts. They are not prone to illness, have a large load capacity, and more importantly, are easy to feed. They can eat grass or leaves, and there is no need to prepare additional food for them.

It can be said that a huge camel team is a symbol of the strength of the army, which means that the army has strong transportation capabilities and does not need horse-drawn carriages for transportation.

Li Ye squinted and looked at the continuous snow-capped mountains in front of him. They were majestic and spectacular. This was Wushaoling, the starting point of the Hexi Corridor. Beyond it was the Hexi Corridor with rich pasture.

The army rested for a day in Wucheng and set off the next day. The mighty army went over the mountains along a rugged mountain road, followed by 20,000 camels.