Prime Minister

Chapter 673 The Great War
Zhang Yue and Wang Shao had led their army down the mountain to the plain.

The Song Army fought several consecutive battles with the Xixia Army, and the Song Army finally encountered a hard bone this time.Different from the Qing, Tang and Tibetan tribes that fought before, the Dangxiang army went up to harass when they saw the few Song soldiers, and fled far away when they saw the main force coming.

When the scouts of the two armies fought, the Dangxiang cavalry retreated at the touch of a touch, and retreated separately. When they retreated to one place, another soldier responded. Once the cavalry of the Song army pursued too deeply, and were lured into the enemy and lost more than [-] cavalry.

Wang Shaowenzhi whipped the leading general several times.

In the afternoon, the Song army began to set up camp. Wang Shao, Wang Hou, and Zhang Yue rode on horseback to check the surrounding terrain.

In order for a general to know the location, Zhang Yue often saw Wang Shao holding a map and looking at it.

Wang Houdao: "Theoretically speaking, our army chased Dangxiang's cavalry deep, and we should have found Dangxiang's army here, but I don't know why not even a single cavalry."

Wang Shao raised his horsewhip and pointed: "Dangxiang people practice warfare. When they leave the army, the birds will scatter in the valley, and when the troops are withdrawn, the ants will gather in the fortress. You see the valley in front of you. At dusk, our army dare not go deep, but it is enough to hide tens of thousands of soldiers. .”

Zhang Yue and Wang Hou followed Wang Shao's direction and saw that the valley was not only lush with vegetation, but with the sunset, the valley was shrouded in the shadow of tall mountains.

Wang Hou said: "Father, I heard that the party members are superstitious about divination machines and ghosts. They only go to war on the only day, and avoid the dark day. We might as well avoid it for a while, and wait for the dark day to fight."

Wang Shao said: "How can you stick to this when using troops? You have to look for the time to move, not wait for the time to move."

"I have a hunch that the party cavalry has arrived not far from our army and ambushed nearby, even if they are not in the valley, they are nearby."

Zhang Yue said: "It doesn't have to be a fight, it's just to contain the party's troops. If we hold one more person here, there will be one less Xixia people on Hengshan."

"As far as I know, the Tiandu Mountain Military Supervisor here is not a good guy."

The most elite of the twelve supervising army divisions in Xixia is the left-wing heroic army. It was originally stationed at Mituo Cave in Mingtangchuan, east of Xiazhou, but was later stationed in Tiandu Mountain in order to conquer the Song Dynasty.

Li Yuanhao ordered the general Yeli Yuqi to be the commander of Tiandu Zuoxiang (the earliest military system in Xixia), and the opponent was known as the king of Tiandu because he was permanently stationed in Tiandu Mountain.

However, the left-wing brave army moved back to Yinzhou and Hengshan, and a part of the brave army left behind to set up the Tiandu Army Supervision Division to guard against the Songjingyuan Road.

Because the Tiandu Military Supervision Division is newly established, it is not among the twelve Military Supervision Divisions, and there are fewer soldiers and horses than the Twelve Military Supervision Divisions.

Hearing what Zhang Yue said, Wang Shao laughed and said, "Sheren, if it wasn't for the elite of the party, why would I, Wang Shao, come here? Tiandu Mountain is located at the key point of the five roads, and from here to the south is Xiaoguan (Haiyuan County) Shixiakou), if our army can smash the party here, we will surely spread our prestige in all directions, and spread our illustrious martial arts to the world!"

Wang Shao said confidently.

Zhang Yue was also surprised when he heard that Wang Shao planned to take the initiative to seek a decisive battle with the Xixia people.

The opponent is sometimes very cautious, such as when crossing the Yellow River in the north, but sometimes he is very bold, even leading a group of Qing and Tang tribes to dare to challenge the party elite.

A day ago, the party Xiang's army outside Nanmou City at the foot of Tiandu Mountain had already assembled.

According to the law of Xixia, soldiers are divided into main army, main auxiliary, and burden.

The main army, official horses, armor, a bow, thirty arrows, one gun, one sword, one spear, and a full set of picks and handles.

One main and auxiliary bow, twenty arrows, one spear and stick, and a full set of prying hands. As the deputy of the main army, if the main army is killed, it will be replaced as the main army.

Burden, one bow, twenty arrows, one sword, mainly responsible for logistics and horses for the main army.

In this way, for an army, some armies have only the main army and one auxiliary master, with no burden, and some have two auxiliary masters, or even only the main army, without auxiliary masters and burdens.

In short, prosperity and frugality depend on the number of people, and there are no more than eight people in one copy. For example, the military supervisors such as Xishou Baotaina are not strict in checks, and often there are not enough people and equipment when they are counted.

Sometimes the point collection is frequent, and the leaders of various ministries will refuse to participate in the war.

However, the predecessor of Tiandu Army Supervision Division was the Brave Army, and its troops plundered countless wealth from many battles against Song Dynasty, and made a lot of profits, so their will and combat effectiveness against Song Dynasty were extremely strong.

Inside the big tent, a man wearing a red felt hat, a white shirt with narrow sleeves, and heavy rings on his ears was reviewing military books.

What he holds in his hand is "Taiyi Jinjian Jue", and what he said is military divination.

Similar to how scholars read out the way of governing the country from the divination in the Book of Changes, Li Yuanhao and other Xixia generals also used this book to make decisions when they marched and fought.

The man who was flipping through the book was named Wei Lingda, and he was the supervisor of the Nandu Military Supervision Division.

The Wei name is the surname of the Xixia Kingdom, one of the earliest eight party items. Li Yuanhao's Li is a Han surname bestowed by the Tang Dynasty.

And this Wei Lingda came from the Xixia royal family.

In the big tent, on the left and right of him were the chiefs of the Military Supervision Division, and they all sat in a circle, with wine and meat in the middle, but no one moved a knife.

At this time, a soldier entered the account and whispered a few words to Wei Ming Lingda, and then retreated.

And Wei Minglingda put down the book and said to the left and right: "The cavalry of the Song army fought with us in several battles, winning and losing each other. Our army's scout cavalry can't get close. So far we don't know how many of them are there, but it is estimated that there are tens of thousands of cavalry. "

"As far as the information from Huizhou is concerned, it should be around [-] riders, most of whom are from the Fan tribe of Guwei..."

All the leaders looked serious, but they heard that Gu Wei's tribe all showed disdain. .

A leader surnamed Ye Li said: "We only have two first items, but they are all elite soldiers and strong generals. One is enough to fight ten."

The five armies of the Western Xia Dynasty set up a wooden board, ten boards set up house supervisors, twenty boards set up small leaders, and the last tribe was a group, and each group did not exceed sixty boards.

Counting slips can form a head item.

When Li Yuanhao started his army, there were only five first items.

After a lot of discussion, everyone decided to go to war, otherwise it would be bad if the Song army went deeper and the tribe's cattle, sheep and livestock were looted.

Wei Minglingda nodded and said: "Yi was buried in Yinzhou Dianji, I was going to lead you to fight for Hengshan with the Song army, but now after the Dianji, another Song army came to the door, then I will be wiped out." It won't be too late to go to Yinzhou after acquiring this unit of Song Army."

After finishing speaking, Wei Ming Lingda got up and opened the tent to look at the sky and said: "The clouds in the distance are blood red, which just indicates that there will be a big war!"

All the leaders nodded at the same time. The party members believed in divination the most, and they judged whether they could fight with the clouds or not.

Then Wei Minglingda ordered the fortune teller to take out a sheep skeleton and burn it on the fire, and the party leaders all stared at it.

But after a while, the fortune-teller looked at the roasted sheep carcass, held it in his hands without fear of being hot, gestured in all directions, and said, "The Song army will come from the southwest!"

The leaders nodded again after hearing the words.

Wei Ming Lingda asked, "Then when will we be able to fight?"

The fortune teller said: "We can fight in two days!"

All the leaders nodded upon hearing this, and then Wei Minglingda held out a skull wine glass filled with wine. Each leader stabbed his arm blood into the wine, and then drank it together.

Wei Mingshan set off with his army overnight.

(End of this chapter)