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When the Shatuo people were packing their bags and preparing to evacuate, the army of the imperial court arrived.

Li Siyuan reported to Li Keyong that fifty miles south of Jincheng, Daluo Town, his patrol cavalry had spotted the Tang soldiers' scout cavalry. They followed the scouts of the Tang soldiers and discovered the camp of the Tang army, which was garrisoned by 10,000 infantry in the Lahe Valley.

The Lahe Valley is still seventy miles away from Jincheng, and Li Keyong is not too worried. On the eighteenth day of the first lunar month, the first batch of Shatuo soldiers and their families advanced to the northwest under the escort of Li Siyuan and Li Sizhao with 3,000 cavalry. There are more than 30,000 elderly and weak women and children in this group of family members, and Li Guochang and Liu are also among them.

Li Keyong's chosen retreat direction is the northwest direction, because the Yunzhou Qingramp in the north has been occupied by the Zhenguo army, and the east side takes the road where the Ulzhou army enters the block, and because there are not only Zhenguo soldiers and horses guarding Ulzhou, but also Youzhou's soldiers and horses guarding Yanzhou, he had sent troops to Yanzhou before, and wanted to capture this retreat channel, but unfortunately he was defeated by Li Keju's Youzhou soldiers.

Now there is only one road left in the northwest direction that can be walked, go to the northwest, and enter the Shan Yu Duhu Mansion of the Zhenwu Army from the northwest corner of Shuozhou. Shan Yu Du Hu Mansion in the Sui Dynasty, here is also called Dingxiang County, single Yu Du Hu Mansion is Dali City. Crossing the Jin River to the north, there is the famous white road that crosses the Yin Mountain.

Now although the Zhenwu army has fallen into the hands of officers and soldiers, Yu Xuan, the envoy of Zhenwu Jiedu, and Helian Duo, the envoy of Tiande Junjiedu, have already led their troops to come, and Yu Duhufu is far away from the fortress. There are few adults. Breaking through from this side is undoubtedly the best thing to do.

After the first group of more than 30,000 people left the city. Li Keyong sent his righteous son Li Sien, and Li Siben led the newly recruited old and weak 10,000 horses to the northeast along the Sanggan River, first entering Yunzhou, and then going to Ulzhou. The main purpose of this road of soldiers and horses is to serve as a chess piece along the way, to cover the real retreat route of the western route, so as to confuse the Tang army. Secondly. The march to Yunzhou was also to prevent the Zhenguo army from Yunzhou and Ulzhou from coming to Shuozhou.

These 10,000 old and weak are bait, dead chess, basically, there is no return. Li Sien and Li Siben understood this in their hearts, but the two of them accepted the task in the end. After the soldiers and horses of the east and west roads were gone, Li Keyong held out for three days before he began to lead the last 20,000 soldiers and horses to evacuate.

Although there are 20,000 soldiers and horses, the real elite of them is only 5,000 Shatuo cavalry, and there are also 7,000 foot soldiers who have been stationed in Jincheng Sangang and Four Towns. It's kind of a year of training. The rest of the 8,000 infantry were completely recruits recruited by the Liu clan during this time. Compared to the 10,000 that Li Sien and Li Siben took away. Although he was young and strong, he did not have much combat experience. These people are the seeds of the resurgence of the Shatuo people, and when necessary, these people will also be cannon fodder to resist the Tang army.

Li Ke used 20,000 horses to move west, and at this time, 12,000 cavalry of the five tribes of the Tang Army suddenly appeared, quickly approaching Li Ke's soldiers and horses, and the distance between the two sides was less than 30 miles.

The Shatuo army stopped advancing and began to spread out in formation, preparing for battle. But when they spread out their formation, quietly waiting from sunrise in the morning to sunset at dusk, the cavalry of the five tribes had no intention of attacking. The cavalry of the five tribes continued to advance slowly, thirty miles away, and the twelve thousand cavalry actually walked for a whole day, and at noon they saw their sentry in front of them, but at dusk, they still only saw their distant formation.

Li Keyong was furious and took the initiative to order an attack. Fifteen thousand infantry spread out a huge steel phalanx in the middle, and the five thousand cavalry spread out on both wings, like the cavalry of the five tribes slowly advancing.

To be honest, Li Keyong didn't want to fight with the Tang soldiers here, wasting his troops in vain. He set up a formation to meet the battle, mainly to take advantage of the fact that the Tang infantry had not yet arrived, and first scare off the cavalry of the five tribes with momentum. If these cavalrymen want to fight, then he doesn't have to worry. Without the cavalry of the Five Tribes coordinated by infantry, he was not too worried. Perhaps, they will be able to defeat this cavalry unit in one fell swoop.

Sure enough, the cavalry of the Five Tribes didn't know whether Lu Dao was afraid of the reputation of Li Keyong's Raven Army, or whether he was worried about the fifteen thousand infantry that Li Keyong carried. When the Shatuo army slowly pressed up, the cavalry of the five tribes began to slowly retreat.

After advancing some distance, Li Keyong ordered him to turn around and continue westward. But when they had walked less than ten miles, the cavalry of the five tribes once again caught up from a distance and hung four or five miles away.

Li Keyong gave another order to turn around to meet the enemy, and they turned and retreated.

This process occurred repeatedly, and for three days in a row, Li Ke used it as if he had been pasted with a piece of dog skin plaster, and he could not get rid of it. Anyway, these cavalry were like scoundrels, and the Shatuo army advanced, and they followed. When the Shatuo army turned back, they withdrew. After walking for three days, Li Ke could not advance a hundred miles, and he had not even left Shuozhou.

In fact, on the first day, Li Keyong had already reacted, these are by no means the style of the cavalry of the five tribes, everyone is a Hu person, and they have fought countless times for the Tang Dynasty together, and they know each other very well.

All the horsemen are very brave in battle, but the style is closer to fighting and rushing, and what is lacking is formation strategy. But now, these cavalry are as sticky as dog skin plasters, this is definitely not their style, this is the command of the generals of the Tang Army in the back.

I have met the most difficult opponent, and the other party has seen through his mentality of being eager to return to the west. They did not intend to fight with themselves, but to hold themselves back, and it is conceivable that there must be more soldiers and horses coming from behind, and they are trying to surround themselves.

Looking at the mountains and rivers on the map, Li Keyong had almost guessed the enemy's intentions.

The Shatuo army wants to cross the Yin Mountain on the white road, and first enter the territory of the Zhenwu army, and on the way they advance, there are two big rivers, one is the purple river, and the other is the golden river. The enemy generals must be preparing to ambush themselves in the Purple River. When his soldiers and horses have crossed the river halfway, it will be fatal to attack at that time.

It is well known to all soldiers that an army is the most vulnerable moment when crossing a river: not only is the army at both ends of the river bank unable to take care of each other, but the soldiers' psychology is also the most fragile at this time. If you are attacked by enemy forces at this time. It must be a rout. The Shatuo army wanted to cross the river safely and retreat. The threat must be dismantled.

Gai Yu carefully looked at the map, and after a long time, he said: "After staying, the current situation, we must solve this troublesome tail before reaching the Purple River." I have an idea, there is a dense forest not far ahead, and tonight I will lead 3,000 cavalry to ambush in the forest. Tomorrow I will pass by with a large army, and when the enemy cavalry has caught up, the general will come out from behind. When the time comes, we will be flanked in front and back, and the enemy will be defeated. ”

Li Keyong was very happy, and led 3,000 cavalry to hide in the roadside forest that night. The next day, Gai Yu led his army to pass by, and the enemy cavalry really caught up. Li Keyong waited for the other party to pass, and then led the army to kill from behind, and Gai Yu also led the army back to flank the attack.

A melee broke out between the two sides, but the cavalry of the five tribes did not love to fight, and after finding the ambush, they quickly broke away from the battlefield, although Li Keyong won. But only less than a thousand horsemen were killed. Waiting for Li Keyong to hurry again, the cavalry behind him hung far away. But I suffered a loss. This time, there was a lot of lessons, they followed behind, but they sent countless scout cavalry to search along the road, and several times Li Ke's ambush soldiers were found.

Li Keyong was anxious and angry, not that he couldn't defeat the cavalry of the Five Tribes, but it was completely because the other party knew that he was in a hurry to go west, so he seized his weakness. And there is also a key point, since the withdrawal of troops, he has only seen the cavalry of the five tribes of the Tang Army, and has not found other troops and horses.

The Tang army had a total of 80,000 soldiers and horses in the eight towns, and after the last battle, the Tang army lost about 30,000 people, and Li Jing still had 15,000 people in Yunwei and Weizhou, and there were more than 40,000 people. Now there are only 12,000 cavalry of the five tribes, and the other party still has at least more than 20,000 or so foot cavalry, including Li Jing, who took his Shanyang City.

The sound of the horse's hooves made Li Ke suddenly surprised from his sleep, and he suddenly touched the horizontal knife and drew it out of its sheath, "What happened?" ”

There was a cavalry of tens of thousands of people behind him, which made Li Ke sleep uncomfortably in the middle of the night.

"After staying, a team of messengers arrived, and was discovered by the Tang Army scout cavalry behind, and there was a battle, and our cavalry went up to support, and a few people have been rescued." The guards reported loudly.

"Where's the messenger?" At this time, the messenger must have brought important news.

"From the east!" The guard replied.

Hearing that it wasn't from the west made Lick breathe a sigh of relief in his heart. "Bring people."

When the messenger came in, he was covered in blood and wounded in many places. When he saw Li Keyong, he immediately stepped forward excitedly to salute, and Li Keyong held him, "You are injured, you don't have to salute." Where did you come from and what news did you bring? ”

Xin pressed his hand on his left shoulder, which was pierced by a shot from the Tang Cavalry scout, and the bleeding had not completely stopped. Blood continued to soak through the cracks between his fingers pressed against the wounds, and in addition to this wound, there were several wounds on his body, and half of his face was covered with a thick scab of blood.

After taking a few breaths to calm himself down a little, the messenger said: "I am General Li Sien's personal soldiers, and we will follow the will of the queen, and 10,000 soldiers and horses will march eastward. But just after Huanghualiang, he entered the territory of Yunzhou, and it turned out that he was in Qingdaopo, where there was already an army in ambush. Our army was ambushed, and the two generals, Li Sien and Li Siben, led the brothers to fight bloodily for a day and night, but they were never allowed to break through, and by the afternoon of the second day, the whole army of 10,000 horses and horses were wiped out. ”

Hearing this, Li Keyong gritted his teeth, but did not make a sound. When he sent this army at the beginning, he had already thought of this result, but now the result came a little too quickly.

"What about Sien and Heiben?" Li Keyong remembered two righteous sons.

"The two generals led more than 100 cavalry to fight out of the siege, and we returned all the way back to Shuozhou, but Jincheng and Sangang and four towns were occupied by the Tang army. The two generals were seriously wounded and are now hiding in the mountains of the Shenmu River, and the two generals sent me to have important news to tell Rugo. It was Li Jing's Zhenguo army that ambushed us in Yunzhou, but it was not the cavalry he personally led, but the soldiers and horses of Yunzhou and Ulzhou that had been stationed. There were only a few Tang troops stationed in Jincheng, and we arrested a few Tang army scouts, and learned from interrogation that Li Jing and Zheng Congyan and other Tang troops had entered Yunzhou a few days ago and passed through the Jingbian army. ”

Hearing this, Li Ke's face turned pale. The Jingbian Army is in the west of Yunzhou, bordering the Zhenwu Army, and the location is on the north bank of the Purple River! (To be continued......)