Tibet

Chapter 423 The Battle Is Coming
In mid-March, the Tang army and Ge Luolu's army had traveled thousands of miles and arrived near the Saresu River. This area is also the territory of the Tuqishi people, but this Tuqishi tribe is not the Tuqishi people attached to the Tang Dynasty, but They migrated from the southern part of Yibohai.

There are only more than 3000 households in the whole tribe, who live in the narrow grasslands of the Saresu River Basin.

Tuqi Shiren also smelled the coming of the war, and quickly retreated north.

At noon that day, the Tang army arrived at Karakoin Lake, set up a camp by the lake, and at the same time sent ten scouts to various places to find traces of the enemy.

In the northwest direction, there was a scouting team composed of [-] cavalrymen from the Tang Army, led by Lieutenant Yang Li. Yang Li was also a subordinate who followed Li Ye to defend the people of Anle County. After being transferred to the Hezhong Army by Li Ye, he was promoted two ranks in succession to become the Captain of the Scout Battalion.

Yang Li is shrewd, capable and talented, but he comes from a humble background and doesn't have many chances to make his mark. Li Ye boldly promoted him to be the most capable scout captain.

In contrast, Wang Yu and Wu Tai were older, both over 40 years old. Li Ye took care of them in nostalgia, and also let them serve as captains, but they were captains of the Tuntian Army, responsible for farming and farming, and followed Gao Shi , is regarded as a pension job.

Yang Li led [-] scouts from the Tang army to rush along the outskirts of the forest. The hills and hills in this area are scattered with a large forest, but the undulating terrain can easily obscure people's sight, and it is easy to pass by the enemy.

So the way Yang Li thought of was to run for dozens of miles, then go up the mountain, visit from a high place, and continue to move forward if he does not find the enemy.

At night, [-] Tang soldiers rested in a forest overnight. The rest place also chose the top of a hill, and then a soldier looked out from a big tree, and it could be seen for dozens of miles around.

After eating their dry food and drinking water, they were about to wrap themselves in blankets and fall asleep when suddenly, a continuous cry of night owls came from the top of the big tree, which was an alarm for the discovery of the enemy's situation.

Yang Li quickly woke up everyone, packed up his things, climbed up the big tree himself, and asked, "What did you find?"

"Look, Captain!"

The sentinel pointed to the distance, and Yang Li could see clearly that there was a fire flickering at the foot of another hill about a few miles away.

"Captain, could it be another scout team from us?"

"impossible!"

Yang Li said decisively: "Before we set off, the governor repeatedly ordered that no fire be used at night. Everyone knows that it should not be our teammates. Let's go down!"

The two climbed down the big tree, the team had already been tidied up, Yang Li and the sentinel tidied up briefly, and everyone led the horses down the mountain.

Yang Li asked two soldiers to guard the horses and wait a hundred steps away, while he led the rest of his men to approach the burning place in a fan shape.

I saw clearly that it was indeed a group of Turkic spies, about ten people, who were lighting a bonfire for barbecue. These Khazar Turkic soldiers were chatting and laughing, not aware of the danger at all.

Yang Li whispered to the two brigade commanders: "I'll lure one away, and you shoot the others with arrows!"

The two brigade commanders nodded again and again, and Yang Li left with a few soldiers. The other soldiers raised their crossbow arrows and aimed at the Turkic soldiers in the flames.

At this time, "Kacha!" suddenly came from deep in the forest!Click! 'The sound of branches breaking continuously.

The chief Shifu heard the sound, he thought it was a wild beast, so he said to the two subordinates: "Go and see, what is the sound?"

The two men got up and walked towards the sound, and when they disappeared, the two brigade commanders ordered at the same time, "Shoot!"

More than [-] army crossbows were fired at the same time, and the dense arrows shot at the Turkic soldiers who were grilling meat by the fire.

The soldiers were caught off guard, and fell to the ground with arrows, screaming.

The scouts threw away their crossbows, drew out their short spears and rushed forward, stabbing several enemy soldiers who tried to resist. In an instant, only one of the eight Turkic spies was left alive.

At this time, two Turkic spies who went to check the situation were also pushed down by Yang Lihe's men and tied up.

Two of Tang's troops could speak Turkic, and they immediately started interrogating them.

The results of the interrogation were encouraging, and the main force of the Khazar Turkic Army camped overnight fifty miles west of them.

Yang Li killed the Turkic spies, and led his men to continue rushing westward
At the fourth watch, they climbed to the top of a hill and looked to the west, only to see scattered fires in the valley to the west.

Yang Li found on the map the small river where the water was taken at noon. Using the small river as a reference, he quickly found the current location. He marked the position of the enemy army on the map with charcoal, about 120 kilometers away from their main camp. inside.

The exact size of the enemy army could not be seen clearly at night, so we had to roughly estimate that it was between 2 and 5000, which was consistent with the confession they asked. The confession was more than 2, but less than [-].

Yang Li immediately sent two of his men back to the camp to report, while he led other scouts to continue to observe the enemy.

At noon the next day, Li Ye received an urgent report from Yang Li, and found the main force of the enemy army near the Qibai River, with a number of 120 to [-], about [-] miles away from the camp.

But it must be less than 120 miles now. Although Tang Jun did not leave, the other party should have walked thirty or forty miles. Li Ye immediately sent someone to find Naerman.

"We found the enemy army, about a hundred miles to the west of us. We still follow the first set of combat strategies agreed before. The Tang army will attack from the east, and you will attack from the west. Attack the enemy army from both ends. It is estimated that the enemy army has not yet arrived. Spotting us, the chief immediately led his army to detour from the north, go around behind them, and wait for us to fight the enemy."

Li Ye and Narman had agreed on several battle plans before. The first battle plan was to attack from east to west. Everyone was cavalry. As long as they defeated the opponent first, the rest would be the pursuit of cavalry.

Narman nodded, and immediately led an army of [-] to go north.

Half a day after Ge Luolu's army left, at one o'clock in the night, Li Ye received a second letter from Yang Li.

He immediately summoned all the generals overnight to discuss the military situation.

"According to the latest intelligence, the enemy army is about [-] miles away from us, but they have stopped moving forward, and they probably discovered us."

"Captain, let's talk about the specific situation of this army first!" Wang Xuanwu raised his hand.

Li Ye nodded and said: "According to the latest news from the scouts, this army has 7000 people. The equipment is similar to the 3000 people we wiped out last winter. They are wearing leather armor and holding spears. The combat effectiveness is estimated to be very strong. The organization is strong, we all know that, so it's going to be a tough fight."

"Please deploy the commander!" Pei Xiu said.

Li Ye pondered for a while and said: "I have already mentioned the plan for this battle before, so I won't repeat it again. Our main force will be heavy armored infantry, black spears, it's up to you!"

Black Spear nodded slowly, "I've been looking forward to this battle for a long time!"

.........

Immediately the army rose up and marched westward for another [-] miles. At this time, the scout lieutenant Yang Lili came back and reported, "I want to report to the commander, the main force of the enemy army is [-] miles west of us. They have already set up their formation. It's slowly moving east."

"What formation are they setting up?" Li Ye asked.

"Cracking knife array!"

Lying knife formation is also called Qinglong Yanyue formation. It is a classic formation of nomadic cavalry. This is the name given by the Han people. They themselves call it the half-moon formation. The formation is like a half-moon. Looking from a high altitude, it looks like a half moon lying across the grassland.

This formation is very suitable for cavalry assaults, breaking down the enemy's positions with a powerful impact.

The fact that the opponent set up this formation shows that the opponent does not know the existence of the Ge Luolu cavalry.

"Is there a short spear in the opponent's equipment?" Li Ye asked again.

This is very important. The Dashi infantry is good at using spear throwing, and the spear throwing is so lethal that even the heavy armor infantry can't bear it. In the Battle of Talas, they broke the opponent's spear throwing army with a big fire formation Otherwise, the consequences will be disastrous.

"Reporting to the governor, no projectile spears were found on their spies."

Li Ye nodded. The scouts of each army were the best-equipped troops. No spear-throwing was found among the enemy's scouts, and neither was the [-] vanguard army last year, which meant that they were not equipped with this sharp weapon.

Li Ye immediately ordered: "Put down the geese formation to fight!"

(End of this chapter)