end song

Chapter 1129

Due to the insurmountable natural barriers of Helan Mountain, there are only a few passes that can be passed through, such as Helan Pass, San Pass, and Gunzhong Pass.

At that time, Yang Ben attacked Tacha'er, and he went to Dawukou.

Going south from Dawukou is Helankou, commonly known as "Huolaokou".

Further to the south is the mouth of the rolling bell. The terrain is like a lying giant bell. The mouth is surrounded by mountains on three sides and opens to the east. There is an isolated small peak in the middle that used to be Li Yuanhao's palace.From the perspective of the route, the Yuan army believed that Li Zengbo would escape into the rolling bell mouth.

On December [-]th, Li Zengbo staggered and led his horse into Helankou.

There are rock walls everywhere in the valley, and the rock paintings are engraved on the rock walls, which were carved on the rocks by the Dangxiang people with stones and bone tools.The content includes hunting, animal husbandry, dancing, breeding, and fighting... Although it is rough and thick, it can be called a Western Xia epic.

Li Zengbo didn't look at the scenery, but squatted down by the mountain spring, picked up a stone with his red hands and struck the ice.

I knocked twice but it wouldn't open.

Instead, it was his reflection on the ice, which made him feel disgusted.

"Thousands of soldiers have lost their lives, and this useless old bastard is still alive." He murmured to himself in a low voice, and fell slumped to the side of the mountain spring.

"Commander, light the fire? If you escape to the mountains, the Yuan army will not be able to catch up for a while."

"Ah."

Li Zengbo replied, and turned his head to look, only hundreds of remnants around him.

Xingqing Mansion was regained in his hands, and it was also lost in his hands.

Busy to and fro, busy for several years, in addition to making the already dilapidated city even more dilapidated, destroying the canals that were hard to repair, and causing the people to suffer from years of war... What else did they bring?
Li Zengbo shook his head, dispelling these pessimistic thoughts.

He is very clear that this side has paid a heavy price, which is also a great consumption of Meng Yuan.The reversal of national power may only have been in the past two years, and it should not be decadent at this time.

"You come."

"Marshal Li."

"I didn't have time to ask you in detail in the city before. Let me ask you again, has Lian Xixian really arrived at Qingtong Gorge?"

"It's really here. I passed Shatoupo with Mr. Lian, and Mr. Lian ordered me to send a message quickly."

Li Zengbo nodded, and asked again: "Can he guard the Yellow River? What if the Yuan army is allowed to cross the Yellow River?"

"Marshal Li, don't worry, that part of the canyon is full of torrents, and you can't cross the ice. The Yuan army must either defeat him and go to Shatoupo, or go from the north, but Guanzhong has dispatched troops to Dingbianzhai for defense..."

"Okay, okay, so I'm relieved. I haven't asked your name yet?"

"Aishan."

"Aishan? This is your Chinese name."

"It is both my Chinese name and my Uyghur name, which means auspiciousness." The Uyghur named Aishan said with a smile, "I moved to Heihe, Suzhou two years ago."

"I know there. You are a member of Desu'amu." Li Zengbo asked, "You speak Chinese well."

"Hey, I like watching and singing big plays, I learned by watching the stage..."

Li Zengbo asked a few more words, tremblingly took out a letter from his pocket.

He originally wanted to die in Xingqing Mansion, but this letter made him change his mind and fled all the way here.Although I have seen it once in the city, I will read it more carefully at this time.

Opening the envelope, the first thing that came out was a simple map.

On the westernmost side of the map, a circle was drawn on the banks of the Yili River, and there was a small letter on it that said, "Tuohu was victorious, and Mubala was shot and died by an arrow in the sand." This was news several months ago. Xian obviously learned about it later, and it was not mentioned in the previous newspaper.

Li Zengbo didn't have time to digest the news when he was in the city, so he began to ponder whether it was good or bad.

Not necessarily a bad thing.

Because there are two arrows on the map, one is from the Altai Mountains to the north, and the small characters on the side say "Haidu sent troops to Hara and Lin", and the other arrow is from Ali Maya to the east, and it is written "Wu Lu Hu Nai led [-] troops to pursue Tuo Hu."

The third arrow is Lian Xixian. He pursued Tuohu from Gaochang, met Wulu Hunai at Xingxing Gorge, and joined forces to chase after the ancient city of Ruoshui. He followed Ruoshui south to the Hexi Corridor. Continue east.

Some soldiers lit a fire beside Li Zengbo.

Li Zengbo didn't realize it, took out a fine pen, and added a few strokes on the map.

"In August, Lian Shanfu sent back the news here, reporting the route of Manggela's return to the east... At the beginning of October, His Majesty decided to go west to intercept... In December, Ulu Khurnai should arrive..."

Then he opened the letter sent along with the map, Li Zengbo looked at it for a while, and then murmured: "Lian Shanfu is amazing."

The reason why Lian Xixian sent express horses back to the route of the Yuan army's return to the east was to remind Li Zengbo to send troops to stop it, even if it slightly defeated the Yuan army.It's just that at that time, no one expected that Kublai Khan would personally conquer, let alone Li Xia would personally attack Mangge assassination.

After that, a series of incidents spread to Lian Xixian, but he still made a judgment thousands of miles away.

He believes that with Li Xia's ability, he will be able to return from Mobei. The real crisis of the Tang Dynasty lies in the fact that Kublai Khan's army marched straight in, and decisively returned to help, trying to save Xingqing Mansion.

Marching to Shatoupo, it was determined that Xingqing Mansion could not be defended, and immediately guarded Qingtong Gorge, and asked Li Zengbo to go west...

Li Zengbo couldn't help but think back to when he was first ordered by the Song court to work with Lian Xixian in Longxi. At that time, he really looked down on this Semu man who surrendered from Mongolia.

Until now, it was Lian Xixian who asked him to live.

……

At night, hundreds of Tang troops who escaped from the sky extinguished the fire instead.

Ai Shan never dared to fall asleep, and kept looking at Li Zengbo's figure.

Before he came to deliver the letter, Lian Xixian had told them that Marshal Li had failed to defend the Xingqing Mansion, and he was afraid that he wanted to die in the city, so he had to be persuaded to live.

"At the age of fifteen or twenty, he won a horse riding a horse on foot. Shooting and killing a white-fronted tiger in the mountains, he would count Ye as a yellow beard."

Suddenly hearing what Li Zengbo was chanting, Ai Shan couldn't help walking closer and asked, "Marshal Li, what's the matter?"

"I can't sleep. Looking at Helan Mountain, I thought of a Tang poem."

"Tang poetry?"

Although Li Zengbo was a marshal, he didn't take the liberty of being disturbed by the Uighur soldiers, and sighed: "It's like your song."

Ai Shan nodded vigorously and said, "I know poetry! I know Li Bai!"

Li Zengbo gave a rare smile and asked, "Do you know Wang Wei?"

Ai Shan shook his head and asked, "Is Marshal Li reading Wang Wei's poem? What does it mean?"

""The Journey of a Veteran" tells the story of a veteran who fought all his life, but ended up being demoted for nothing. But when wars broke out on the border again, he volunteered to serve the country again."

As Li Zengbo spoke, he sighed again.

"If it wasn't for your Majesty's birth, this poem, I'm afraid it's about my whole life. If you think about it like this, what's the loss?"

Even so, there was still loneliness in his eyes.

Ai Shan then asked: "Marshal Li, can you teach me this poem?"

"it is good."

In the dark night without fire and starlight, the old and the young who couldn't sleep chatted about some poems.

"The first eight lines of this poem talk about the wisdom and courage of the veteran when he was young. When he joined the army as a young man, he was able to win the enemy's horse and shoot the white-fronted tiger. The latter part is that he fought for three thousand miles with one body, and once became a million-strong soldier with one sword."

"..."

At the end, Li Zengbo murmured the sentence "Don't dislike the old days of guarding in the clouds, it is still worthy of meritorious service in a battle", without further explanation.

He is finally different from the veteran in the poem, and no one despises him.He still has a chance, just to see if he can win a battle.

It's just that the future is bleak. After crossing the Helan Mountain Pass, there is a vast snowfield. No one is sure whether Li Xia can come back or whether he will come back this way.

~~
At dawn, Shi Gang stood at Helankou, waiting for Tan Ma to go in and find out.

Hundreds of households came forward and asked, "Young General, why do you want to pursue Li Zengbo again? The Tang army only has a few soldiers and horses left. What can we do?"

"What soldiers and horses?" Shi Bang said: "Then you lead 100 people into the valley and bring me Li Zengbo's head."

"This..." The hundred households quickly apologized and said with a smile: "The villain is saying that Li Zengbo is familiar with the terrain. We will chase after us, but we will not be able to catch up for a while. When we catch up, maybe Tang Jun has starved to death or froze to death. Not to mention how long a 70-year-old man can endure in the ice and snow."

"You also know that there may be an ambush." ​​Shi Bang frowned, and said: "The army has occupied the Xingqing Mansion and is about to go south. If we let Li Xia and Li Zengbo meet at the Yinshan side."

For many generals of the Yuan army, the most troublesome problem since the battle has been that they have never been able to find Li Xia.

The more I don't know where he is, the more I can't help worrying.

Some low-level school generals didn't have such far-reaching considerations, so the hundred households asked: "I don't understand, even if Li Xia comes, can he still defeat our army?"

Shi Bang actually couldn't figure it out, so he said lightly: "Do you know how many people who thought Li Xia couldn't win ended up dead?"

"The villain doesn't know, the villain talks too much."

They waited for a while, but they didn't dare to enter the dangerous valley easily before Tan Ma came back, so they continued to chat.

"Major General, why do I feel that His Majesty seems to trust us Han soldiers more?"

"Why do you think so?"

"This time to attack Xingqing, Yang Wen'an was sent to take Qingtongxia, Zhang Hongfan was sent to take the fake Han Xiriji, and our commander-in-chief deployed the line of defense at Yinshan. They were all Han troops."

"There is no false Khan Xiriji." Shi Bang first reminded: "Xiliji was killed by Li Xia when he was in the Western Regions. The fake Khan has always been fake, and it was Li Xia who asked the lost neighbor princess to pretend to be."

"The villain knows... Speaking of this, many Mongolians in the army muttered secretly, especially the prisoners released by Li Zengbo at that time, they all said they saw it with their own eyes..."

"Shut up! Do you want to die?" Shi Bang shouted, "Don't mention it after it's over, there is only one big sweat."

"Yes!"

Shi Bang snorted, changed his tone, and asked, "Do you know why Your Majesty trusts the Han army more?"

"The little guy doesn't know."

"There are two kinds of Han army. One is like Yang Wen'an, who surrendered. If he surrenders to Li Xia, he will definitely not be reused. He can only serve Dayuan wholeheartedly. The other is like my father, Taizu. The meritorious service in the founding of the country will be crowned as a king in the future, and Li Xia will never have a status in the Yuan Dynasty if he surrenders. Naturally, they are all loyal."

At this point, Shi Bang turned around and pointed, "On the contrary, there are some Mongolians who don't study and don't know loyalty. If they surrender to Li Xia, they think that the grassland is so far away, and Li Xia can't control them at all. You can only treat them softly and indulge them... Do you understand? How can there be so many feelings of loyalty and righteousness, they are all thinking of benefits and their own calculations."

"The villain understands, but doesn't quite understand."

"You just have to remember that His Majesty hates someone who shakes his prestige on the grassland and shuts your damn mouth shut."

(End of this chapter)