On the vast grassland, thousands of horsemen are rushing quickly.
After paying a heavy price, the Momo people conquered Xiedan Ridge. Then, a large number of cavalry rushed forward along the weak water system like a flood.
The men quickly fell behind because their horses had lost a lot of weight.
The cavalry pursuit is not as simple as people think.
War horses in pursuit cannot eat all grass. They have to be mixed with grain and fed. It is best to eat all grain. When the grassland is short of water, they must march along a relatively fixed route, otherwise they may die of thirst due to lack of drinking water along the way.
In addition, if you don’t have two horses per person or even three horses, you need to stop and go, and horses get tired more easily than people!
The cavalry had one man and two horses, and the spare horses carried a lot of beans and water. They ate the water themselves and used the beans to feed the horses, so they maintained a certain speed and slowly caught up with the Uighur cavalry who fell behind.
Like cutting a cake, the cavalry rushed up from time to time, intercepted a group of Uighur cavalry, and separated it from the main force.
Their war horses do not have armor, but their men do, and they cooperate with each other tacitly. Whether they are sudden cavalry or Beiweidu, they are very strong. But in general, the Uighurs hate Beiweidu more because of their riding and archery skills.
He is very strong and restrains himself to the death.
Yang Yue had now intercepted a group of Uighur cavalry, and perhaps a small number of Liugu Tubo, about four to five hundred people.
The Uighurs kept beating their horses, then turned around and shot arrows.
The Tibetan cavalry armed with hidden spears tried to close the distance, but they couldn't and were hung up like flying kites.
The grassland is vast and stretches as far as the eye can see, and the Uighurs' fighting method is really disgusting. They firmly maintain the middle distance that is most suitable for them to fight, and rely on bows and arrows to kill the enemy.
But there are still people in the Tibetan cavalry who can help.
Yuhou Fanhe, the capital of Xinquan Army, led nearly 400 cavalrymen around the front of the Uighurs and tried to stop them.
The cavalry of the Tuoba Tribe and the Bai Family Tribe also surrounded them on both sides. They relied on their numerical advantage to slightly contain the Uighur cavalry that was running around.
Once their activity space is greatly squeezed, the value of mounted shooting tactics will be greatly reduced.
"Kill!" The two sides quickly engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Fan He held a saber and fought with a Uighur cavalry general.
The cavalrymen of the Luma tribe rushed to the outside, abandoning their spears and using arrows, shooting down one person from time to time.
The melee combat equipment was at a disadvantage and they couldn't defeat others. They were constantly being stolen and fired from the outside. The Uighur cavalry became less and less confident as they fought. After dozens of people were killed, they ignored it and escaped.
"Change horses!" Sergeant Xinquan brought a lot of Tibetan war horses collected from Haomen Valley and Yangfei Valley. After turning over, he used his horse power advantage to catch up with the fleeing Uighur cavalry in just a moment and continued to intercept them.
This pursuit has been going on for two or three days.
Except that Shuofang's army was briefly stopped at Xiedan Ridge and wasted a lot of time. The rest of the time, they kept pursuing, pursuing, and pursuing again.
Every time you catch up with one, you will eat one through skillful coordination and excellent equipment, and then continue to pursue.
Accumulating small victories into big victories, this is what happened on Ganliang Road in the past few days.
No one has carefully counted, but the Uighurs must have lost more than a thousand horses, and it may even have reached 1,500.
The largest one among them was the one intercepted by Yang Yue just now. After it was eliminated, the score increased by more than 400.
No, maybe more, because hundreds of Liugu Tubo cavalry suddenly rushed over, abandoned their weapons and surrendered, hoping to return to Liangzhou to reunite with their families.
Although Yang Yue was bloodthirsty, he couldn't do anything if he offered to surrender, so he accepted the offer with pinched noses, but asked them to "dedicate their crimes and perform meritorious service" first and follow the large army to pursue the Uighurs.
There are probably more than 100,000 people in Ganzhou, both engaged in farming and animal husbandry. Uighurs account for about half of them, and the rest are mainly Han, Tubo, Tuyuhun, Longjia, and small tribes such as Sogdians, Dangxiang, and Tatars.
.
They can't all live in the city, and most of them live in scattered places. If we don't make a raid at this time, what are we waiting for?
It is impossible to rob property, Dingkou, cattle and sheep. Then we will be like the original Lord of Umu, waiting to be hunted down.
In this battle, the main purpose is to kill the enemy, and the priority target is the strong men of the Uighur tribes.
Without the strong men, the old, weak, women and children are just a piece of food? You can take care of them as you like.
Just do whatever comes to mind. Yang Yue is not a hesitant person. He has no pity for Tubo, Uighurs, and Dangxiang. With a greeting, plus the newly descended Liugu Tubo, there are more than 4,000 horses in total, like a strong wind.
He got up and rushed into the yellow sand and green grass.
******
Lord Umu was speechless now.
As the saying goes, you must cut off your tail to survive. How many tails were cut off along the way? How many people were left behind to slow down the Tang army's pursuit? But they were still slowly pursued.
The brutal pursuit has cost his men nearly two thousand people! Considering that there are still many who are separated, Lord Umu doesn't know how many will be left after he actually escapes.
Fortunately, we are not far from Xiedan, just over a hundred miles away. The royal city has received the news and will send a large team of people to respond.
Did you make a profit or lose this time by sending troops? Lord Umu looked at the dejected Zhe Bu Nian beside him and felt that he had made a loss. The ones who died were the Uighur cavalry, and the ones brought back were the bereaved dogs of Liugu Tubo.
I hope Ye Luohe can succeed there.
On the tenth day of April, with the support of thousands of cavalry sent by Xiedan King City, Lord Umu finally escaped back. The cavalry army, which had pursued the furthest, also wisely stopped and waited for the large troops to gather.
The war is about to enter its second phase.
"Khan!" General Zhou Yiyan came over and helped Lord Umu off his horse with his own hands.
Lord Wumu looked gloomy, sighed, and said: "General Zhou, I regret not listening to you. I got involved in the chaos in Liangzhou and lost a lot of people."
"Khan, there will be people coming back one after another." Zhou Yiyan was very young, only in his twenties. At this time, he could only hear him comforting: "Our people are familiar with every plant and tree in Ganzhou, they are not from outside."
Shuofang's army is comparable."
"You are the only one who can speak." Lord Umu sighed: "Master Mani, he kept trying to persuade me to make peace with Shao Thief, even if I surrender temporarily, it doesn't matter."
Zhou Yiyan was stunned for a moment. He really didn't know how to persuade him about this matter, but he quickly changed the subject and said: "There is news from Chang'an. The emperor has agreed to canonize Yingyi Khan. The angel has left the capital. It's time to
Coming to Ganzhou. Since Shao Thief is the Prince of Tang Dynasty, he might..."
"Is it possible?" Lord Wumu sneered and said, "If I don't go to Liangzhou, according to Shao's thief's habits, I will probably find a way to restrain him. But now Shuofang's army has chased Xiedan Ridge all the way, and the forward cavalry has left.
The royal capital is only a few dozen miles away, how can we stop so easily."
Zhou Yiyan frowned and said nothing.
"That's all, let's send someone to contact Shao Thief first to see what he thinks." Lord Umu sighed again.
This dispatch of troops is really a waste of money!
Lord Umu climbed onto the Cidan Tower.
This city is newly built and is still under construction. It is modeled after the historical royal city of the Uighur Khanate and attracted the technology of the Tang Dynasty.
The city is very large, but only the inner city has city walls. The outer city is several times the size of the inner city, has many people living in it, and is much more lively than the inner city, but it does not yet have city walls.
According to Lord Umm's idea, the outer city wall must be built, and there are also some other things, such as water wheels, main canals, etc.
It may take many years, and I may not be able to see it in my lifetime.
Of course Lord Umu did not know that the royal city of Jiedan was finally completed when his brother was the Great Khan, and a great food writer happened to come here and record it.
This man's name was Ibn Muhalhil. He saw the huge scale of Jiedan City and once thought it was the capital of the Tang Dynasty.
"This city is located near a river valley, with the most beautiful scenery in the world. The city is so majestic that it takes a day's journey to cross it. There are sixty streets in the city, each of which extends to the government office. The city walls are ninety arms tall and thick.
There is a large river inside the wall, which is divided into sixty branches. Each branch flows to a sluice, pushing a wind wheel, and then the water flows to the ground. Half of it flows out of the wall to irrigate the fields, and the other half is directed to the city to supply the residents.
There are two canals on each street, one flowing forward and one reverse. The canals flowing from outside the city to the inside of the city are for drinking, and those flowing from the inside to the outside of the city carry away filth.
There is a temple in the country, which is larger than the church in Jerusalem, and there is an idol inside, a giant Buddha.”
At this time, the city of Xiedan was not as large as it would be decades later. After all, it had not been many years before the Uighurs robbed the Silk Road, and the city had only been built less than 30 years ago. During the Xuanzong Dynasty, the Uighurs came to Xiedan to establish the city.
Yazhang, this is the beginning of Ganzhou Uighurs.
Lord Umu still has feelings for this city. In recent years, he has been giving various instructions to the craftsmen, asking them to build the city according to their own intentions.
Originally, this matter had always made him quite proud. But when he thought about the thousands of craftsmen captured from all over the place, as well as the mountains of treasures from the Central Plains, the Western Regions, Dashi, Persia and even the Qin Dynasty, it was very likely that Shao Thief would be given an advantage.
Heartache - if you can't defeat the chasing Shuofang army, then you can only hope to bribe them to retreat!
Thinking of this, Lord Umu came to the treasure house in the inner city by accident.
Jade, golden Buddha, Persian brocade, Goryeo brocade, Shu brocade, pearls, Da Qin silver lamps, silver plates, silver bowls, gold flowers and silver bottles, weapons from various countries, Persian armor, Da Qin armor, Da Shi books...
Most of these things were accumulated by successive Khans and cost almost nothing - in the beginning, the robbery was so severe that many Hu merchants switched to the northern grasslands.
Lord Umu originally planned to use the treasure to recruit more craftsmen to build the royal city and make weapons, but now it seems that they may not be able to save them all.
No, maybe there is still a chance!
Most of the cavalry brought to Liangzhou have returned, and there are still a large number of infantry inside and outside the city. Although many tribes have begun to flee upon hearing the news, with the prestige accumulated over the years, they can still gather some tribesmen, totaling 20,000.
Riding on foot is no problem.
Maybe, we can have another battle with Shao Thief's troops. If we win, there is no need to sacrifice anything. If we lose, we can just think of another way.
Shao Thief doesn't have many soldiers and horses, so the opportunity still exists.
I recommend a friend's book "Traveling through the Early Tang Dynasty from Hanging". If you are interested, you can read it.