Chapter 488: Bloody Battle: Qiemo (Central)

The sunset in Anxi was like blood. In the Tubo camp, the fierce drum sound was still ringing "dong!dong!", and 15,000 Tubo troops rushed towards Qiemo City like a tide. This was the third time the Tubo army had siege in three days.

During the first day of the tentative attack, the Tubo army failed to break through the dense rain of arrows of the Tang army, and hundreds of people were killed and injured and retreated. On the second attack, the Tubo army was broken by the Tang army's catapult, and the bones were broken, and thousands of people were killed and injured. They were forced to call the gold to withdraw their troops.

After two tests, Tubo had already understood the defense routine of the Tang army, using catapults and crossbows from the distance, and using bows and arrows to defend. At this time, Shang Jiasu got the news that another 20,000 reinforcements from the logic had arrived at the Tubo camp.

The arrival of these 20,000 reinforcements greatly boosted the morale of the Tubo army. With the confidence of these 20,000 people, Shang Jiasu also increased his confidence. In this way, he had 50,000 troops, and he could concentrate his troops and conquer the Tang army's castles one by one. At this time, his spies also heard news that there were not many defenders in the Khotan Army Town, that is, as long as Qiemo Town is captured, the entire south of the Tulun Desert will be occupied by the Tubo army, and the gate of Anxi will be opened.

It was the arrival of 20,000 reinforcements that made Shang Jiasu make up his mind to take down Qiemo City at all costs.

Amid the rumbling drums of the attack, the 15,000 Tubo army was divided into three square formations, advancing towards the front of the Tang army. The number of people was dense. From a high place, the black Tubo army was densely packed, like an ant colony, covering the earth outside Qiemo City.

"Go forward!" Amid the drums, the Tubo general shouted loudly,

"Kill into the city!"

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"go ahead!"

Amid the thunder-like shouts, the Tubo army advanced towards Qiemo City like a sea of ​​thunder. This time, the Tubo army used many siege weapons, first of all, rafts, that is, ten big trees were tied together. These big trees were all poplar trees cut from nearby oasis, straight and long, each big tree was four or five feet long, keeping its branches and tying them densely, becoming a temporary trestle bridge, allowing the Tubo army to rush across the moat. Hundreds of Tubo army ran on a raft, and it could also resist the Tang army's bows and arrows and bed crossbows.

The second is the leather bucket. This was originally a defensive weapon for the Han people to resist the rolling wood stones. Now it has been learned by the Tubo people. The so-called leather bucket is a rack made of thick wood, covered with several layers of cowhide. The cowhide is coated with thick grease, which is extremely smooth and has a certain oblique angle. When the huge rock hits the cowhide, it is easy to be lifted away. Although not every huge rock can defend, it can at least defend against 40% of the huge rocks.

A leather bucket is three zhang wide and five zhang long, with wooden wheels under it, which can be slowly pushed, while a leather bucket is hidden under it by three or four hundred Tubo soldiers.

Amid the sound of war drums, 15,000 Tubo army launched, rafts, skin buckets, long ladders and the vast Tubo army formed a spectacular black tide and rushed towards the city.

On the top of the city, the Tang army was ready. Twenty heavy catapults in two rows of east and west were creakingly opened. A huge rock weighing ten pounds was placed in the leather pocket. Each catapult needed 150 people to pull it. The Tang army could not distribute so many troops, so they were commanded by the Tang army, and the three thousand civilians in the Mocheng were responsible for pulling the catapult.

The Tubo army was getting closer and closer and had entered the 800-step line. If it was a super-large catapult of 200 people, it could be projected. However, the catapult of the Mocheng was slightly small, with a range of only 500 to 600 steps. The Tang general who was responsible for commanding the catapult was Lang General Luo Shengjun. This was also a practical general who had taken the position of general step by step from a soldier. He was the guard of Sapi City. Under the order of Helou Yurun, he burned Sapi City and withdrew Qiemo City.

Luo Shengjun watched the Tubo army's attack wave approaching the city step by step. The front of the army had reached seven hundred steps. The Tang army's crossbow had been shot out. Three hundred four-foot-long iron arrows and countless dense small arrows were shot at the Tubo army. A group of people in the Tubo army were overturned, and hundreds of Tubo soldiers were shot down. The strong desire to shoot tempted Luo Shengjun, but the red flag in his hand was never waved. The red flag did not wave it, and the twenty Tang army commanders did not dare to issue the order to shoot.

After six hundred steps, the Tubo army finally entered the range of the catapult. The red flag in Luo Shengjun finally waved down, "Shoot!" Twenty Tang army commanders shouted almost at the same time.

The heavy trencher was launched, and twenty long throwing poles were swung out, smashing twenty huge stones into the Tubo camp. The huge stone made a sharp whistling sound, rolling in the air, and appeared rapidly above the Tubo army. The Tubo soldiers shouted, dodging to both sides, or crawling into the skin fight.

With a muffled sound of 'boom!', the huge rock fell down, and the dust flew. Several Tubo soldiers could not dodge and were smashed into meat sauce. The powerful impact force made the huge rock continue to roll and rushed into the group of Tubo soldiers. There was a scream immediately. More than a dozen soldiers were killed, blood splashed everywhere, and the entire huge rock was dyed red.

There was another loud noise, and a huge rock hit Pi Dou. With a "bang", the smoothness of Pi Dou made the huge rock that had been worn out without solidity. After sliding out for more than twenty steps, the huge rock did not achieve its effect.

But not every giant stone can withstand it, it depends on the smoothness of the stone itself. If the stone is rough and the edges are hard to achieve their effect.

Another muffled sound, accompanied by the sound of the brackets breaking, a leather bucket was smashed, hundreds of Tubo soldiers hiding under the leather bucket stumbled out, and many were injured by the collapsed wooden pillars and moaned in pain under the leather bucket.

The second round of the trench was launched again, twenty huge rocks rolled in the air, roaring and smashing, causing Tubo soldiers to overturn their horses, blood and flesh to fly, skin buckets shattered, and rafts broke, followed by the third round and the fourth round.

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There were hundreds of casualties in each round of stone-capping launch. Although the catapult was powerful, it was small after all and could not form huge lethality. More than 10,000 Tubo troops had already rushed to the city. On the city, the Tang army fired thousands of arrows at the city, and the arrows were like hail and rain, covering the sky and shooting towards the Tubo army.

The Tubo army raised their shields to greet them, and people were constantly killed by arrows. In the rain of arrows, thousands of Tubo soldiers placed a row of rafts several feet long on the moat, forming more than twenty temporary tree bridges. A large 8-meter-high ladders were placed on the top of the city. Groups of fierce Tubo soldiers rushed up the ladder and began to climb up. The rain of arrows from the Tang army came in obliquely, and the rolling wooden stones were smashed head-on. A bunch of Tubo soldiers screamed and fell from the stairs. The bodies were shot by arrows, and their heads were smashed. Under the city wall, corpses were piled up like mountains. Then Tubo soldiers climbed up the stairs frantically and charged upwards regardless of everything.

At this time, the sound of drums in the Tubo camp was loud again, and another 10,000 Tubo cavalry rushed over, dust was flying. They passed through the range of four hundred steps to eight hundred steps, and the huge rocks roared and knocked over the cavalry. The arrows of the crossbow were strong and fast, and one arrow could shoot through two to three people. The war horses were neighing, the soldiers rolled, and under the big rocks, there were terrible corpses and plasma everywhere.

At this moment, the Tubo army had invested 25,000 siege soldiers, and the city attack and defense battle entered the most intense stage.

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On the third day of the siege of Qiemo City, the 40,000 main cavalry of the Tang army had arrived at Puchanghai about 500 miles away from Qiemo City. Puchanghai is today's Lop Nur. The Lop Nur of the Tang Dynasty was still a vast ocean, and the salinity was not as great as today. Poplar trees and bushes with extremely tenacious life grew around it.

The Puchang Sea of ​​the Tang Dynasty was a must-pass place on the southern branch of the Silk Road on the Western Line. From Shazhou to Yangguan, you will reach the Puchang Sea. Then you will walk southwest along the Qiemo River to reach Qiemo City. There is a vast oasis on the way, which is an important supply area for merchants and the army. Today, Ruoqiang County, Xinjiang. The Tang army built four small cities such as Bibli, Dianhe, Pu Tao and Qitun, which became an important military base for the Tang army. In history, the Battle of Boxian Town against Tubo in the 11th year of Tianbao took place here.

When Li Qing'an's 40,000 troops arrived in this oasis, the sky was getting darker. Thirty thousand Tang troops rushed from Longyou. It had been nearly a month since they were about to reach the battlefield, Li Qing'an was not anxious. In order to maintain the combat physical strength of the Tang army as much as possible, Li Qing'an ordered the Tang army to station on the spot, rest for a night before setting off.

At night, all the soldiers of the Tang army who were tired from marching were asleep. Only more than a thousand sentries patrolled around the camp. In the camp, Li Qing'an's main general's tent was still brightly lit. A huge sand table that was three meters wide and five meters long had been put together and placed in the middle of the tent. This sand table covered the entire Anxi army's control area except Xinde. It took nearly a year for nearly a thousand Anxi scouts to make.

Li Qing'an and several generals of the army were discussing military information next to the sand table. This time, Li Qing'an returned from Longyou and did not walk on the plateau south of the Qilian Mountains, but passed through the Dadouba Valley and entered Ganzhou. It was because they were going around that their march was a few days late. However, Li Qing'an even considered the combat effectiveness and supplies of the Tang army. Therefore, after 30,000 Tang troops entered Hexi, they brought another 50,000 war horses. At the same time, Li Fei Shouyu from Hexi distributed 10,000 elite troops to follow Li Qing'an to Anxi.

Li Qing'an stood in front of the sand table and pondered for a long time. He was thinking about the entire battle situation. The Battle of Mocheng was only one link in the entire battle situation. He already knew that the Uighurs invaded the old nest of the Gelulu people and almost killed all the Gelulu people. However, there was Yili City built by the Tang army in the south. The seven castles in Gongyue City were used as defense. Thunder Ye had another 20,000 troops heading north. It was difficult for the Uighur cavalry to break through this defensive line.

He had ordered the 60,000 Three Hu coalition troops to divide into two groups, one from the Gelulu army to intercept the retreat of the Uighurs from the north of Jinshan, and the other from the Luo army and Shatuo army to go south of Jinshan to Xuanchi, intercepting the Uighurs from the front into Beiting. However, in order to prevent the Uighurs from taking the opportunity to attack Beiting, Cui Qianyou's 6,000 Han troops stayed in Beiting.

In a sense, the killing of the people of Geluo was also in line with his expectations, so the Hu people on the grassland were allowed to kill each other.

Although Anxi was attacked by the north and south, the situation was very bad, Li Qing'an also discovered some subtleties of the enemy's large-scale attack, mainly because the invaders did not have much force, and the Uighurs only sent 30,000 people. This kind of troops was not like a strategic attack, and it also had a little bit of a robbery. This also confirmed Li Qing'an's judgment that after years of weakening, the Uighur army was no longer able to launch a large-scale invasion of the Tang Dynasty, so it could only send 30,000 people to carry out a robber-snatched attack.

Compared with the Uighur Army's southern invasion, Li Qing'an was more concerned about the Tubo Army's attack on Anxi this time. It is obvious that this is complementary to the Tubo Army's attack on Longyou. This is the consistent strategy of the Tubo Army. After several campaigns invading Tang, the Tubo people often fought on both the east and west sides. Judging from the Tubo Army's dispatch of 30,000 troops to attack Qiemo City, the number of people seemed to be a little less, and they were very likely to have other strategic intentions.

At this time, General An Baozhen whispered from the side: "General, I have some suggestions for my humble rank."

An Baozhen is the youngest brother of the Yulin General An Baoyu. He is only twenty-four years old this year and is young and promising. He joined the army in Longyou at the age of seventeen. He followed Li Guangbi to Anxi, and was gradually promoted from a team to a general of the Central Army. He was deeply loved by Li Guangbi. This time, Li Qing'an returned from Longyou and Li Guangbi divided his troops to follow him. He recommended An Baozhen to Li Qing'an.

Li Qingan also admired the young general very much, so he nodded and smiled: "Tell me!"

An Baozhen has been following Li Guangbi in Tocharo and is very familiar with the situation there. He bowed and said, "General, I suspect that the main force of the Tubo army is to attack Tocharo. After General Li returned to Longyou from Tocharo, there were only 8,000 Tang troops in Tocharo, and they were mainly stationed in several large silver mines. Tocharo only has more than 40,000 local troops. They have very weak combat power and will not be opponents of the Tubo army. Moreover, the Tubo army attacked Qiemo. I am worried that their ultimate goal is Shule, occupy Shule, and cut off the Anxi Tang army to support Tocharo. I am humble and have a brief opinion. Please consider the general."

Li Qing'an didn't say anything, but in fact he thought of this possibility. Now the power of the Tang army has extended from Beiting to the west to the river and south to Xinde. If he was Tubo Zamp, if he wanted to compete with the Tang army for a long time, he had to choose the most favorable base. Tochar is undoubtedly the best choice. Tochar can break leaves to the north, attack river to the west, occupy Anxi to the east, and descend to Xinde to the south, and is connected to the mountains and rivers of the Tubo Plateau. Even if he can't defend it, he can retreat to the plateau. In addition, Tochar produces a lot of food and can also provide the Tubo army with a steady stream of logistics supply.

Thinking of this, he took several small red flags and planted Dabolu and Tochar in turn. The reason why he did not insert Xiaobolu was because he knew that the Tubo army could not cross the Sayi River.

Li Qingan had already affirmed the Tubo army's strategy of expedition in the west, and attacking Anxi as the auxiliary, and attacking Tochar was the right way.

At this time, a report from a patrol officer came from outside the door, "General, our patrol team found two Tang soldiers in the wilderness fifty miles away. They were both seriously injured and very weak, but they said they had important information to report to the general."
Chapter completed!