Li Xia decided to send troops to occupy the Hexi Corridor in early September.
In mid-September, he completed the mobilization of 20,000 horsemen and the preparation of baggage.
After that, he and Li Zengbo each led 10,000 troops and sent out troops separately.
Li Xia took the east route and attacked Huizhou, Liupanshan and other places; Li Zengbo took the west route and attacked Hezhou, Lanzhou and other places.
The news of A Shu's defeat had not yet spread, but the Song cavalry had already arrived. This kind of raid was indeed overwhelming. In early October, they had already swept through the northwestern part of Longxi.
However, the Mongolian army has never paid attention to defense, and the siege of the city and territory at the beginning of the war was not worth celebrating.
If you are not careful, you may end up defeated like Xia Gui.
The Song Dynasty had the Huaihe River and the Yangtze River as a screen. It could withstand such a big defeat, but Li Xia couldn't.
He must defeat the Mongolian army in Liangzhou as soon as possible to gain the upper hand.
Another great victory would frighten the hearts of the princes of the North.
Therefore, his next step was to join forces with Li Zengbo in Lanzhou, cross the Yellow River, and attack Liangzhou.
"Go down with the order and set off for Lanzhou."
The marching horn sounded again, and the Song troops who had just captured Liupanshan Palace mounted their horses one after another.
"Quick! Go west, go west..."
Lanzhou is known as "connecting four regions and connecting thousands of miles" and is an important town on the Silk Road.
If the Yellow River flows directly to the southeast here, passing through Longxi and Guanzhong, it will form a straight river.
But Huang He refused.
It must bend toward the northeast to form a "ji" shape, and then turn south to nourish the Hetao and divide Guanzhong and Shanxi.
Lanzhou is a pearl on this bend of "ji".
It was called "Jincheng County" in ancient times.
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, Lanzhou was occupied by Tubo; after Li Yuanhao defeated Tubo, Lanzhou was returned to Xixia; during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty regained Lanzhou; but in the first year of Shaoxing, Lanzhou was captured by the Jin Kingdom; until the Mongols destroyed the Jin Dynasty.
Tubo, Xixia, Song, Jin, Mongolia... experienced endless wars for hundreds of years.
Finally, on October 12th, the third year of Xianding in the Song Dynasty, a Song flag was again planted on the top of Lanzhou City.
The city wall is very dilapidated.
The Mongols don't like to build city walls, so it still retains various traces of the Mongols' extermination of the Jin Dynasty. The city walls were smashed by huge rocks, cavalry can leap through, and the cracks burned by kerosene can allow people to walk through.
The wind blew through the sand, revealing the bones under the city wall.
The 20 to 30-year-old bones have long been broken, but they were piled too thickly, and they had to be blown away by the wind in order to be revealed.
The horse's hoof stepped on the bone fragments. Li Zengbo on the horse raised his eyes and looked at the Song flag with mixed feelings.
He couldn't describe how he felt about taking back Lanzhou with his own hands.
After so many years of talking about recovery, today we finally recovered a big city.
Although he was happy, he couldn't be happy about the devastated scene.
There was no imaginary scene of the people eating pots of pulp to welcome the king's army. The people in Lanzhou City did not know the Song army at all.
In the five hundred years, it was under the rule of the Song Dynasty for only fifty years, and more than one hundred years have passed since then.
The so-called "the remaining people shed tears in the dust, and look south for another year" is just the wishful thinking of the generals of the Song Dynasty...
Li Zengbo was thinking about this while looking at the big flag, and the wrinkles on his forehead seemed to get deeper.
He raised his hand, waved it, and shouted.
"Enter the city!"
After the Song Army cavalry entered the city, groups of civilians also transported supplies into the city.
Lanzhou will be the last stop for these people on their westward journey.
They transported the baggage to Lanzhou, built ships to help the Song army cross the Yellow River, and then stayed in Lanzhou to build city defenses.
The Song Army's cavalry would no longer have supplies after crossing the Yellow River.
…
Li Bing pushed a wheelbarrow and walked among Minzhuang's team.
He was originally from Tongwei County. Ashu captured him when he invaded Longxi. He was rescued by the Song army at the gate of Gongchang City, so he was recruited by Minzhuang.
After saving the money from this trip, Li Bing was able to return to Tongwei County to renovate his old house and regain his livelihood. But he still couldn't cheer up.
At that time, some of the prisoners were rescued by the Song army and found their lost relatives. Li Bing had also been looking forward to this, but gradually, he felt that... he didn't know why he was alive.
He walked listlessly into the dilapidated city gate, feeling a little strange in his heart.
At this time, the corpses of the Song soldiers had just been taken away for burial, while the corpses of the Mongolian soldiers were still piled not far away. The city gate was covered with blood stains, and some broken flesh and blood could be seen from time to time.
The fishy smell reminded Li Bing of the time when Tongwei County was captured.
He found that he was tired of the war, and regretted that he had been recruited to serve as a civilian leader. He should have gone back to his hometown directly...
The wheels of the wheelbarrow were stained with bloody mud. As we entered the city, we could see some Mongolian soldiers in the distance who were stubbornly resisting, screaming and being knocked over by rows of Song soldiers' spears.
There were not many Mongolian troops left in Lanzhou, and there were often more than a dozen Song soldiers attacking one or two Mongolian troops.
There are more people in the city who are sallow and skinny, huddled behind broken houses, looking numbly this way.
Li Bing quickly realized who they were.
He has also been a driver and is very familiar with this aura of despair and numbness.
This is the Uluth of the Mongolian nobles, and most of the people in this city are the residents of the Mongolian nobles.
…
Fodder was piled in front of the stables.
Li Bing wiped the sweat from his forehead, panted and walked a few steps outside. He found that he had dropped his water bag, so he turned around and walked back.
Hearing the rustling sound behind the forage, he went around to take a look and was startled.
I thought it was some kind of wild beast, but when I took a closer look, I saw a skinny woman with horse dung all over her body, carefully picking out the sack he had brought.
When she saw Li Bing, she shrank back in horror and hid in a dog hole by the wall.
Li Bing caught up two steps, and when he looked again, he saw that the woman's face and body were covered with whip marks, and she was shivering... There was also an extremely thin child hidden in the hay.
At first glance, Li Bing thought it was a little wild cat. Then when he looked at the child's yellow eyes, he roughly understood what kind of situation this woman was in.
She must be the daughter of a certain lustful person. Judging from her age, she is probably still very young. I don't know if she escaped or was abandoned by her master due to the war.
Li Bing took out a piece of steamed bun from his pocket and broke off a piece... After thinking about it, he simply handed it over.
When he turned around and walked out, he was wondering whether the Song army would drive these holes away and use them as arrow feed like the Mongolian army did.
He hoped that the Song army was different from the Mongolian army, so that he could just say "Don't be afraid" to the skinny woman who was protecting her child.
But he was not sure, so he had no choice but to let the other party continue to hide in the haystack.
suddenly.
Just hearing a "dong" sound from the bell tower, someone was already shouting in Longxi dialect.
"Folks in the city don't have to be afraid. Master Wang has regained Lanzhou and will not commit any crimes when he enters the city..."
"Master Wang recovered and entered the city without committing any crimes..."
As Li Bing listened, his shoulder was bumped by another Minzhuang.
"What are you doing here? The military master asked us to make porridge."
Li Bing hurriedly followed. When he saw the city wall in front of him, he raised his eyes as if feeling something. He saw an old general standing on the top of the city, whose figure was exactly the same as when he rescued him from the Mongolian army.
Suddenly he no longer regretted applying to be a member of the army...