The Hexi Corridor in January is still a world of ice and snow, with howling winds and rare human presence. The whole world seems to have stopped.
That afternoon, countless small black spots appeared on the endless white snow. There were five to six thousand people, and they slowly moved towards the mountains to the south.
If you look closer, it turns out to be an army, riding camels, wearing thick leather armor, round helmets on their heads, holding spears in their hands, daggers on their waists, and bows and arrows on their backs. Each of them is extremely long.
Strong, many with beards and flat, broad faces.
Their flag is a black wolf head, and the color of the entire army is mainly black.
This army was the Xizhou Uighur Army that had just annexed the Yellow-headed Uighur Army. The two armies were originally one family, just like brothers fighting for territory. It had no impact on ordinary people, and only the nobles were unlucky.
However, the Song Army and the Xizhou Uighurs were different. They were of different races. The Xizhou Army must drive the Song Army out of the Hexi Corridor. Therefore, after capturing Liangzhou, the spearhead was directed at the Battle of the Valley.
Dadou Bago is a strategic location on the Hexi Corridor. Of course, the Xizhou Army could not tolerate it being controlled by the Song Army. It was only in January that the Xizhou Army took action.
Attacking in January, the Xizhou Army was of course preparing for a sneak attack. January was when the weather was cold and the ground was freezing. The Song Army would never have thought that a war would come. They would first occupy a foothold and wait until March before continuing to the big battle.
Attack deep in the valley.
The Xizhou Army did not know much about Chen Qing's army. Although Chen Qing led the army to destroy Xixia, it was nothing great in the eyes of the Xizhou Army. They also knew that Xixia was in internal strife and its strength was greatly weakened. Chen Qing's army was just picking up the pieces.
This is just cheap.
But the Xizhou Army knew the Song Dynasty’s army very well. It was a bloated and decadent empire, and the army was full of corruption. Even an army of millions could not withstand a single blow, so it suffered repeated defeats. In the end, the country was destroyed and the emperor was kidnapped.
The Xizhou Army looked down on the Song Army from the bottom of their hearts. It was easy for them to capture Liangzhou City without any effort, so naturally they didn't care much about Chen Qing's army.
This is actually an underestimation of the enemy caused by the distance and lack of information. The Xizhou Army does not know the combat situation of Chen Qing and the Jin Kingdom at all. Their latest news is the Jingkang Rebellion ten years ago.
This camel cavalry consists of five thousand people. The leader is a captain of ten thousand men named Tie Mo. He is about thirty years old, tall and tall, and holds a single-handled hammer weighing fifty kilograms. He is a
A well-known fierce general who was good at sneak attacks, he led his army to cut off Cao Changchun's logistics supplies.
Although he despised the Song army from the bottom of his heart, Tie Mo was still more cautious when it came to actual combat. Of course, he would not attack Dadou Bago during the day, but would carry out sneak attacks at night.
There were still twenty miles away from Dadou Bago. Tie Mo looked at the sky and saw that it was almost dusk. He ordered the army to stop moving forward and find a leeward place to stop and rest. He also sent several spies to Dadou Bago to investigate the situation.
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In fact, the Xizhou Army also knew some things. For example, they learned from the Qiang people who transported salt that there were three passes in Dadouba Valley. There was a pass at the mountain pass, a pass 40 miles in the middle, and a pass near the exit of Hehuang.
There are about three thousand people in a pass.
If the pass at the entrance is solved first, then the lake and the grassland behind the pass will also be controlled by the Xizhou Army, and they will have a place to garrison. This is the wishful thinking of the Xizhou Army.
Of course, they also brought dozens of siege ladders. If you want to sneak attack the pass, siege ladders are a must.
Night has come quietly, and several fires have been lit on the Guancheng of Dadou Bago. The soldiers of the Song Army on the top of the city gathered around the fire. The wind and wind in Dadou Bago at night are biting and very cold. The defenders must warm themselves by the fire.
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This Guancheng is about two miles away from the entrance of Dadou Bago Valley, with open pastures behind it. The Song army stationed 200 large tents and more than 2,000 defenders.
This is somewhat inconsistent with the intelligence of the Xizhou Army. The reason is that when the Qiang salt transport team passed through the pass, the defeated army in Liangzhou had not yet come over. The 1,200 Song troops who returned from Liangzhou were all placed in the first building.
On the pass.
The main general of the pass is called Song Xinping, a commander from Xinping County, Jingzhou. The main general of the Song army in the whole battle is Wang Lun. He is in the second pass. There is an eagle tower there, which can be compared with Lanzhou.
Contact Yingxin, and Lanzhou will transfer Yingxin to Jingzhao.
Song Jingping was on the top of the city. He was having dinner with a thousand soldiers. Their supplies were relatively sufficient. Dadou Bago was originally controlled by the Yellow-headed Uighur army. Two thousand Yellow-headed Uighur troops rushed to rescue Zhang Ye, but were led by Wang Lun.
The army seized this strategic location and found that there was a large amount of food, grass, mutton and wine, enough for their thousands of troops to hold on for half a year.
The soldiers of the Song Army were roasting mutton by the fire. The soldiers were sipping goat's milk wine and nibbling freshly fried noodles.
"General Song, do you think the prince has given up on the Hexi Corridor?" a commander asked worriedly.
Song Xinping smiled slightly and said: "Of course the prince will not give up. There are tens of thousands of Han people in Liangzhou, and it is related to the security of Lingzhou Prefecture. Even if he takes ten thousand steps back, the prince will never give up on the Hexi Corridor, but he will never give up on Liangzhou."
state."
A commander next to him took a sip of wine and said in a low voice: "What are you talking about? There were nearly a thousand casualties in Liangzhou City, and the deputy general was also killed. How could the prince give up?"
"Old Li is right, how could this bad breath not come out? As long as we guard the battle and pull out the valley and prevent the Xizhou army from harming Huangzhou, the prince of the county will have nothing to worry about."
Just as he was talking, a soldier came over and said nervously: "General Song, there are fires on Qitian Ridge!"
Song Xinping stood up and looked back to the south. He saw three torches raised on the sentry tower of the big tent in the distance.
Qitianling is a high ridge at the entrance. There is a very hidden sentry tower on it. If the enemy is discovered, the soldiers in the sentry tower will raise a torch in a special place. This torch cannot be seen in the north of Dadouba Valley.
It is also invisible, and it is also invisible on the pass. Only the sentry tower at the garrison behind can be seen. The sentry tower serves as a mirror, reflecting the alarm on the cliff to the pass.
This is the cleverness of the defenders. They built a warning tower that they can see but the other party cannot see. Naturally, the other party has no way of knowing that they have been discovered.
"General, it's impossible! It's January now and the snow is so thick that it's difficult for the horses to move. How can they come here?"
Everyone thought it was impossible, but the alarm happened to be three torches, which was an army of more than a thousand people!
Song Xinping said coldly: "They chose this time to come here just because you think it's impossible."
"But general, it's snowing heavily." Another general wanted to remind Song Xinping.
Song Xinping interrupted him with a wave of his hand, "You can come here just like riding a camel!"
Everyone was surprised, yes! You don’t need to ride a horse, you don’t need to worry about the depth of snow when riding a camel, they didn’t think of it.
Everyone looked at Song Jingping, what should they do?
Song Xinping participated in the defense of Jianxiao Pass. He was just a small soldier. Eight years later, he has now been promoted to the commander of the army. If he wins this battle, he will be promoted to deputy commander. Song
Of course Xinping is also looking forward to this battle.
He pondered for a moment and said: "Use the trick to catch them off guard!"
At two o'clock, five thousand troops had entered the valley. Since the valley had to turn a corner to see the defensive city several hundred steps away, the Xizhou Army did not have to worry about being discovered by the Song Army at this time.
At this time, the soldiers of the Xizhou Army had already seen Guancheng, and there were only two bonfires on it.
"Are you sure there were six bonfires at the beginning?" Captain Tiemo asked.
"I can confirm that there are indeed six bonfires when it gets dark."
It was so cold at night that a fire was necessary to keep warm. The number of defenders on the city could be judged from the bonfire. According to the maximum number of people, a fire of fifty people would be burning, which would reach the sky.
Generally speaking, there are twenty people for a fire, but there cannot be only forty people at the top of the city, and there cannot be soldiers who are not warming themselves by the fire, so more must be counted.
Tie Mo pondered for a long time, and he felt that his calculations should be good. Fifty people were roasting in a fire. There were originally three hundred people on the city, but now it has been reduced to a hundred. This is reasonable. In the cold winter, there will not be any danger.
There doesn't need to be so many people on board. Of course, this is also the reason why they attacked Guancheng at this time, to take them by surprise.
