Haran Shu originally hoped that Ji Ji could rush back to Liangzhou City, gather troops, and contain another Song army.
When he thought about it, it would not be difficult to wipe out at least one Qie Xue with a thousand households in Jiji, hold Liangzhou for a long time, and then call in scattered soldiers and herdsmen to gather more than 2,000 people.
This is like the Battle of Sanfeng Mountain. Tuo Lei used 30,000 people to face the Jin Army's 150,000 troops head-on, and then used 3,000 people to specifically harass... The tactics are different, but in short, the Harlan Technique hopes that destroying Li Ji will have some effect.
After all, he is a descendant of the Golden Family.
However, he was still commanding soldiers and horses to surround the Song army. When the battle was stalemate, he heard Tanmahui report: "Marshal Du, it's bad! King Zong has been captured by the Song people..."
Haran Shu moved his eyes away from the battlefield and looked at Liangzhou City.
During the Han and Tang Dynasties, Liangzhou City was second only to the Old City of Chang'an. The city wall was thick and majestic. Years of wars destroyed all the watchtowers, gate towers, arrow towers, city towers, and turrets, leaving only the fifteen miles built in the late Sui Dynasty.
of city walls.
On the bare city wall, a Song Army flag has been hoisted.
It was far away and Haran Shu couldn't see clearly, so he galloped towards it for a while and finally saw several Song soldiers hanging the Mie Li Ji Gao on the flagpole.
Mie Liji was not dead yet, he kept yelling and calling for help.
After that, there was a loud "boom", and the body on the flagpole exploded like a firecracker. Blood and flesh were scattered everywhere, and there was only one head left on the flagpole...
Haran Shu was stunned for a moment.
This scene brought a lot of shock to the nearby Mongolian soldiers, and many even forgot to continue driving their horses.
"Ming Jin! Ming Jin!"
Haran Shu immediately decided to quit.
A Shu's troops died not long after he took over Kuo Duan. As the deputy marshal who had just taken office, Haran Shu had not yet fully mastered this troops. Mi Li Ji's death caused a huge drop in morale.
The Mongolian army never cared about the gains and losses of a city or a place in battle. It was enough to bring the troops and horses back to Xingqing Mansion and wait for the Great Khan to send another clan king to take charge of the battle.
The Song army went deep into the country alone. As long as they cut off their baggage lines and besieged them for a period of time, they would naturally be able to defeat the Song army.
"Hey!"
The bridles of the horses were pulled, and the Mongolian army turned around and rushed northeast, trying to bypass Li Zengbo's right wing.
Haran Shu planned to evacuate to Xingqing Mansion.
~~
Xingqingfu is Yinchuan.
The Yellow River forms the character "ji", and Xingqing Mansion is in the middle of the character "ji".
It is located to the west of the Yellow River and east of the Helan Mountain. It is an important town on the Silk Road and the capital of Xixia.
When the Xixia State was founded, Xingqing Prefecture was the capital and Liangzhou Prefecture was the auxiliary county. There was a saying that "Xingqing is the capital in the east and Liangzhou is the capital in the west".
…
Li Zengbo came from the southeast to attack Liangzhou; at this time, Haran Shu retreated from Liangzhou to the northeast to Xingqing Prefecture, instead of going west to defend the prefectures in the Hexi Corridor.
Because passing through the Hexi Corridor is the hometown of Xiliao.
During the reign of Genghis Khan, the old land of Western Liao was entrusted to his second son Chagatai.
As the elder brother of Ogedai, Chagatai held a high status in the Great Mongolia. He had already formed an almost independent khanate in his own Uluth and was already called Khan.
After Chagatai's death, his grandson and great-grandson succeeded to the throne of Khan one after another.
A young child sitting on the Khan's throne attracted Kublai Khan, Ali Buge, and Haidu to make moves in an attempt to occupy the Chagatai Khanate.
Last year, Kublai Khan sent Uluk to serve as the Khan of the Chagatai Khanate. Uluk was also Chagatai's great-grandson. However, he was killed by Ali Buge's soldiers on the way.
Afterwards, Aruhu, who supported Ali Buge, ascended to the throne of the Chagatai Khanate.
All in all, passing through the Hexi Corridor does not fall within Kublai Khan's sphere of influence...
Haran Shu did not intend to defend the Hexi Corridor and withdrew extremely decisively.
He originally thought that the Song army had no idea that he would withdraw, so they must have been unable to react and wanted to encircle him.
However, Li Zengbo ordered almost immediately, and the entire army turned around, suddenly rushed to the north, and charged diagonally into the Mongolian army's rear formation.
It is a rear formation, rather than blocking the front of the Mongolian army and blocking the Mongolian army's escape route.
In this kind of terrain, the Song army cannot completely annihilate the Mongolian army. If they rush to encircle it, the formation will be chaotic, but it will give the Mongolian army a chance to break the formation.
Therefore, Li Zengbo only planned to divide a part of the Mongolian army.
It's like two wild beasts fighting. One of them runs away, but if the other tries desperately to stop it, it may not be able to stop it, and it will definitely be bitten.
It would be better to tear off a piece of meat from its hind legs.
Li Zengbo only made a choice in a split second.
This is how he is in battles. He seems to be eager and reckless, but when it comes to the critical moment, he can make prudent decisions.
The person responsible for cutting off the Mongolian army was Yang Ben again.
Just like in the battle of Qianshuiyuan, the cavalry rushed straight into the enemy formation, firing crossbows, throwing fireballs, and stabbing with spears. The Song cavalry forcefully penetrated the Mongolian army's formation.
To the east, Haran Shu had led more than 8,000 cavalry to retreat. Looking back, he saw that the Song army had used this Mongolian army's tactics to cut off more than 2,000 of his troops.
He couldn't help being furious, and commanded all the troops to contain Li Zengbo's troops, intending to surround Yang Ben's troops.
After a while, dust and smoke billowed from the west again, and a large bamboo stick quickly rolled in.
It was Li Xia who had led his men to cover him from behind.
This kind of cooperation between Li Xia and Li Zengbo, when they divided their troops, defeated each one, and when they joined forces, they were so powerful that they completely forced Haran Shu to do nothing, so he had to leave the more than 2,000 people surrounded with hatred and flee in embarrassment...
~~
There is a vast expanse outside Liangzhou City. Beishan separates the oasis in the Hexi Corridor from the vast desert to the north.
The Great Wall of the Han Dynasty was built along the edge of the desert. Some places have collapsed, leaving only ruins, but some sections still stand like rocks.
From a distance, it looks like a dragon.
The black torrent of the Mongolian army surges eastward at the boundary between the desert yellow sand and the green state.
It was torn apart, as if a big tail had been severed, and there were traces of blood all over the ground.
Blood stained the grass and yellow sand, spreading wider and wider.
After the Song army had cavalry, the Mongolian army could no longer come and go like the wind as before...
Afterwards, Li Zengbo led his troops to pursue the Mongolian army retreating eastward, and Li Xia led his troops to encircle and annihilate the intercepted Mongolian army.
When the war reaches this point, there is no longer any art of war, only killing.
Suddenly, the soldiers of Song Dynasty who were excited to fight looked back and shouted.
"Fire!"
"Liangzhou City is on fire..."
~~
Seeing that there was a fire in Liangzhou City, Li Xia had no choice but to let Li Zengbo continue to take charge of the war outside the city, while he led part of the troops into the city first.
Riding horses into Liangzhou, a group of soldiers were holding down several Mongolian soldiers for torture, and someone hurriedly came up to meet them.
"Report, the trial has come out...the one who set the fire was Harlan Shu's nephew Hu Jichu."
"how many people?"
"A team of a thousand people. It is said that this sudden assassination was a famous fierce general in the Mongolian army. Seeing that Haran Shu was in a disadvantageous situation, he set fire to the city, then rushed out of the city gate and fled to Yongchang. General Song He had sent people to
Chase."
"Don't rush to chase. It's important to put out the fire first."
Li Xia urged his horse to march towards the city, observing the fire in the city, and dispatched soldiers and horses to put out the fire and appease the people.
At this time, there was thick smoke billowing everywhere in the city, and the fire kept flowing down, making the entire city hot.
Many granaries and residential buildings were burned down, and many people died in the flames...
When Li Xia saw this, he felt angry and thought that the Mongolian army was ready to jump over the wall.
During the Battle of Ezhou that year, Kublai Khan followed Zhang Wenqian's advice that "a king's army must conquer but not fight, treat everyone equally, and not be murderous", changed the old Mongolian habit of looting land and massacring cities, and ordered the generals not to kill people at will after entering the Song Dynasty.
Don't burn down people's houses, and release all prisoners.
Li Xia didn't know whether it was out of benevolence and righteousness. He only knew that Kublai Khan must have thought that Jiangnan would be under his rule sooner or later.
Sometimes the motive for a general to choose to destroy or preserve a city is whether he intends to capture it.
After Kuo Duan entered Chengdu, he first asked the wizard if he could occupy Chengdu. After the wizard made a divination, he said, "If the people do not return, Chengdu will die in the four most dangerous places. If you live there, you will not last more than two generations, but if you leave in a bloodbath," Kuo Duan then massacred Shu.
We don’t have the confidence to occupy it, so we have to kill them all.
weak.
For more than thirty years, Mongolia's offensive against the Song Dynasty did not show the domineering power consistent with its territory. It just continued to rob and massacre, and was defeated by the Song army again and again.
To death from exhaustion.
Of course, war is inherently despicable, and it’s good to be able to win.
Only by being despicable at first and then gradually becoming victorious could Kublai Khan show his aura of "the master of kings" during the Battle of Ezhou.
But once the victory is gone, the Great Mongolia will only show its true colors again.
Its shortcomings are much more serious than those of the Song Dynasty, but they are hidden behind its strength. Once this piece of powerful cloth is torn off, its barbaric, backward, and rough side will be revealed...
Now, the Mongolian army could no longer claim to be "the army of kings". Facing Li Xia's offensive, they began to burn and kill again.
Burning and killing Guanlong and Liangzhou, even they felt that they were bandits rather than political power, and they also felt that these cities were more like places under Li Xia's rule.
Because these cities were originally under the rule of the Central Plains Dynasty, how could bandits who didn't know how to govern them not feel guilty?
However, Li Xia had just entered Liangzhou, but he had already regarded Liangzhou as his own country and began to fight the fire with all his strength.
…
After the Song army outside the city annihilated the two surrounded Mongolian armies, they did not continue to pursue and expand their victory, but quickly turned back to Liangzhou City.
Finally, with the joint efforts of the military and civilians, the fire was finally put out at night.
Smoke still fills the ruins.
The soldiers' faces were covered with ashes, and they sat down on the side of the street to catch their breath.
But when the Liangzhou people held water basins for them to wash their faces, and brought out fruits and melons to thank them... the atmosphere began to change.
The generals, who had been exhausted from fighting the fire, remembered at this moment that they had not had time to inform the whole city——
"Let me tell you, the elders of Liangzhou, that today the king's army has entered the city, and Qiu did not commit any crime. After hundreds of years, he has been reduced to a dusty state, with his hair disheveled in left turbans, and now he has returned to the Han family's crown..."
"Tell the elders of Liangzhou, Zhou Zhi, that if the king's army enters the city now, Qiu will not do any harm..."
These words were shouted by Li Zengbo.
He didn't have time to arrange for someone to learn the local dialect and shout, so he just said what he wanted to say.
We don’t force the people of Liangzhou to understand it now. Anyway, they will understand it sooner or later.
At this moment, as long as they can feel that the soldiers and horses entering the city are their own.
Because of this fire, the people of Liangzhou have indeed felt it. The Song army helped them put out the fire, and they also helped the Song army set up camp...
The whole night passed in this scene of putting out fires, setting up camp, and preparing pots of food and wine to welcome the king's army.
Seeing this emotion and shadow, Li Zengbo couldn't help but feel greatly comforted. He shouted to Li Xia, but his voice was hoarse from fighting the fire.
"Recovering lost ground is truly a blessing in life."
"What did Mr. Li say?"
Li Zengbo waved his hands, unable to speak any more. He just trimmed his beard and smiled dumbly. He was full of enthusiasm for serving the country and realized it alone in his heart...
"Last night, the Tibetan soldiers avenged their country, and the Shazhou Guards defeated Liangzhou. Now the nine bends of the Yellow River return to the Han Dynasty, and there is a bloody battle outside the fortress."