The Khitan of this era was not yet the Liao Kingdom that would span thousands of miles in the future.
Its strength may not even be much stronger than Xi Ren's.
Li Yunze said that he came to attack the Khitan Xi people, but in fact this was just an excuse. His main purpose was to reduce the vassal state.
But the battle still has to be fought.
All the tribes on the grassland must be defeated before there is an irrefutable reason to cut down the vassal.
There are no opponents left, so why are the feudal towns left?
There are so many things in history about raising bandits to respect themselves, and this is the root cause.
Li Yunze has long been accustomed to things like fighting, and he is very familiar with commanding them.
He knew very well that when dealing with grassland tribes like the Khitan Xi people, the most important thing was not to defeat the opponents on the battlefield, but to find them.
The military power of the Tang Dynasty was truly overwhelming.
Faced with the Tang Emperor personally leading the main force of the Tang army to kill them, the Khitan people, Xi people and other tribes all made a very wise choice to escape.
Li Yunze did not choose to chase after him, but instead summoned all the tribes on the grassland who were willing to listen to the Tang Dynasty.
After gathering the chiefs, khans, nobles, etc. of these tribes, Li Yunze very kindly conveyed to them his strategy of reducing the population on the prairie.
As soon as this statement came out, all the nobles were stunned.
"I will determine the amount of reduction based on each tribe's loyalty and contribution to the Tang Dynasty."
Li Yunze, who smiled kindly, said with a calm attitude, "Those who dissatisfied with the Tang Dynasty do not need to be reduced. They can just be lost in the garbage heap of history."
Facing the powerful Tang Dynasty, various tribes were angry, frightened and begged.
But it's useless to say anything, Li Yunze will never give them a chance.
In history, Li Yunze had personally experienced the killings and disasters caused by the continuous march of grassland tribes south to enter the country, and there was no possibility of compromise in this regard.
"If you are not convinced."
Li Yunze looked around the crowd and said, "You can go find the Khitan people and fight against the Tang Dynasty together."
Everyone was speechless.
The Khitan and Xi people who were against the Tang Dynasty were already destined to die when faced with the 200,000 elite crusade led by the Tang Emperor himself.
Who would be crazy to join them in a burial?
"If you are willing to serve the Tang Dynasty."
The stick has been waved, and the monkey to scare you chickens has been selected and positioned.
At this time, in order to catch the monkey, Li Yunze didn't mind throwing out some sweet-looking candies.
"Whoever can find the old camp of the Khitan Xi people first in this battle can avoid having to reduce the number of troops!"
Make great achievements and avoid subtracting strategies.
While other tribes are constantly being reduced, your own tribe can continue to grow.
A hundred years later, when the Tang Dynasty declines, it will be able to annex other weak tribes and unify the grassland, and there is no chance that it will even go south to take over the Central Plains!
With such a wonderful prospect placed in front of them, the nobles of each tribe were not fools, and their faces immediately lit up with joy.
This idea is definitely correct. The only problem is that they are not fools to see this, but Li Yunze is not a fool either.
As the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, he would naturally not break his promise. If he said that he would not be reduced, he would definitely not be reduced.
But Li Yunze was able to order his tribe to migrate to the Western Regions and follow the Tang army to fight as cannon fodder.
Basically, if you keep fighting, the tribe will be destroyed.
Moreover, Li Yunze didn't do anything from the beginning to the end. He just let them scramble to fight against the Khitans and ridicule them.
The reason why this was possible was based on the national power of the Tang Dynasty and its prestige that dominated the world.
To put it bluntly, it was the Tang Army who fought hard.
In this era of strong predators, only strong force is the cornerstone of protecting the country's people.
Just look at the history books to see the damage and impact caused by things like gentlemanly conduct, education, and scholars.
The people of the Middle-earth Dynasty should not bear the pain that they should not bear.
It may be difficult for the Tang army to find the old camps of the Khitan and Xi people in the vast prairie.
But for the tribes on the grasslands, this is not a difficult matter.
Everyone lives on this land, and no one knows who is who.
With such a large population and livestock in the old camp, they must at least find a place with sufficient water and pasture to survive.
There are not many places like this on the prairie, or places that have reached a certain scale. Just send people to investigate.
The first ones to be unlucky were the Xi people. They thought they were well hidden and the Tang army would never be able to find them.
But I never thought that my location would be sold out by a nearby tribe.
More than twenty days later, when King Xi was leisurely waiting for the Tang army to retreat due to lack of food and grass, more than 20,000 Tang army cavalry appeared within a hundred miles of his royal tent.
When the news came, King Xi didn't believe it at all.
This place is more than a thousand miles away from Youzhou, and the location is extremely secret. How could the Tang army find it?
But this is the reality. Not only did the Tang army find him, they also sent a large army.
A distance of a hundred miles, based on the mobility of the cavalry, would only take one day to cover it without any hesitation.
But for King Xi, this was a disaster.
One day was enough for him to ride a horse and run away without being overtaken.
It was even enough for him to summon some preparations and take some of his personal guards and even a group of girls with him.
But the problem is that Xi Ren's camp cannot escape, the nearly 100,000 men, women, and children here cannot escape, nor can the countless livestock.
Without the camp and livestock, it would be useless even if he ran away with a group of people.
Doing that will only have two consequences.
One was beheaded by his subordinates and taken to the Tang Dynasty in exchange for a reward.
Another one was slaughtered by other tribes, but still took his own head in exchange for a reward.
Because in this prairie, only interests are important, everything else is nonsense.
Those who give up the tribe and run away on their own are a big piece of fat meat that everyone who sees it wants to eat.
When you can't run, you can only try your best.
The Xi people, who were mobilized urgently, fought a fierce and unavoidable battle with the Tang Army's cavalry on the grassland outside the old camp.
Behind them is the old camp, where the old, weak, women, children, livestock and property are all there, so they have no choice but to fight hard.
The fierce battle lasted from morning to afternoon, and Xi Ren, who resisted desperately, was defeated as expected.
The Xi people, armed with scimitars and arrows, could not defeat the armored cavalry of the Tang army no matter what.
Their weapons fell on the Tang army's armor and were of little use.
But the Tang army's attacks were fatal every time.
Because the emperor clearly defined rewards and punishments, the Tang army had a strong will to fight.
They successfully defeated the Xi people's resistance and defeated their main force.
The desperate King Xi had to flee from the battlefield in order to survive.
But in the end, a Tang army pursued him for hundreds of miles and overtook him. After defeating the guards, they captured King Xi alive.
Seeing the Tang army general leading the team, King Xi shouted in disbelief, "Li Guangbi?! You are a Khitan, why do you work for the Tang Dynasty?"
"fart!"
Li Guangbi angrily yelled, "A certain person is from the Tang Dynasty! Tie him up and take him away!"
His ancestors were indeed Khitans, and Li Guangbi's father was even a Khitan chief, but he came to surrender during the Wu Zhou period.
Not only did he become the deputy envoy of Jiedu, he was even named the Duke of the country.
When Li Guangbi was young, he joined the Tang army as the Zuolang general of the Zuowei family. He was brave in combat and good at riding and shooting. He was also praised for his calmness and perseverance.
In his opinion, he is an out-and-out Tang Dynasty person, not a Khitan person.
Moreover, the physical appearance of the Khitan people is almost the same as that of the Tang people. They are not like Kunlun slaves or those with high eyebrows and deep eyes, so their sense of identity is naturally stronger.
After breaking through the Xi people's old camp and capturing King Xi alive, the Tang army didn't even have time to bring the prisoners and trophies back to Youzhou. Here they found the location of the Khitan people's old camp.
The hiding place of the Khitans is close to the mountains and dense forests in the northeast.
They may go into the deep mountains and forests to hide at any time, and in that case it will be very difficult to chase them down.
Li Yunze himself was in charge of Youzhou, and Zhang Shougui led the front line.
After receiving the news, he did not hesitate and immediately left some manpower to guard the captives and trophies. Then he waited for more than ten thousand Tang army cavalry and headed straight for the Khitan's old camp.
The fighting power of the Khitan people was much stronger than that of the Xi people, and they had a firm will to fight when they were guarding the old camp.
Fortunately, Zhang Shougui recruited manpower from many tribes along the way. As long as they could ride a horse, they all were carried over and brought more than 10,000 cannon fodder to the battlefield, which greatly offset the Khitan's numerical advantage.
Not surprisingly, there was another big battle between the two sides.
The Tang army still won the victory, and Li Guangbi, An Lushan, Shi Siming and others made great military exploits.
However, the losses of the Tang army were not small.
In addition to the loss of all the vassals brought by them, many of the Tang army failed to come out in order to pursue the remnants of the Khitan who fled into the deep mountains and forests.
The successive annihilation of Xi Ren and Khitan was only an appetizer for Li Yunze.
Because his real goal is the post-Turkic Khanate.
After the Turks were wiped out, they wanted to restore their country.
As early as the period of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty, the Turks had already rebelled against the Tang Dynasty and rebuilt the Turks, which were called post-Turks.
Because the Post-Turkic people mainly moved in Mobei, the distance was too far.
Wu Zhou sent a large army to attack, but felt that the gains outweighed the losses, so he made his master a vassal by making him a khan.
The Post-Turks, who had been recuperating for many years, continued to cross the vast sea and move southward in recent years, and even invaded the Western Regions, which greatly affected the border security of the Tang Dynasty.
After wiping out the grassland rebels, Li Yunze finally expressed his stance to everyone that he wanted to annihilate the post-Turks.
This time, he finally set off from Youzhou.
In addition to leading a large number of Tang troops, they also wiped out all the strong men from various tribes on the grassland and recruited cattle, sheep and horses to accompany the army.
Li Yunze basically has no intention of letting these strong men come back.
Even if it is the first reduction.
The guide led the army, crossed the vast sea along the oases, and finally arrived at the land of Mobei.
Tang Jun has been here in Mobei before, but each time he couldn't stay for too long before leaving.
And Li Yunze came here this time with the determination to end things once and for all and make Mobei unable to recover within a hundred years.
This battle will not only defeat the post-Turks, but also prevent them from ever being able to stand up and rebel again!
PS: Thank you to book friend Liu Suifeng for your 100-point reward and support. I am deeply grateful. Thank you!