Great Song Super Scholar

Chapter 633 Sneak Attack on Tiande City

When the two met, they laughed and hugged each other. Han Jiang punched him on the shoulder again, pretending to be dissatisfied and said, "At any rate, I am also an adviser to political affairs. I have a brief introduction to Shaanxi Road. The emperor asked me to obey your order unconditionally. Why?"

Fan Ning smiled slightly, "With Mr. Han's wisdom, can't you think of the reason?"

Han Jiang nodded, "When I saw the top-secret military report sent by the court, I couldn't believe it. I thought of attacking Xixia from the north. My first reaction was that it was impossible, but when Song and Liao handed over Dongsheng When the army was stationed in Yulin County, I discovered that this plan can be fully implemented, and go directly to the south to give empowerment and attack Xixia, why didn't I think of this method before?"

"In the past, it was blocked by the Liao Kingdom, and it was unrealistic to directly enter the territory of Xixia, and it was a vast desert, so we could only fight hard from the south. As long as we enter the Hetao to establish a foundation and have sufficient logistical supplies, Xixia will establish in the south. The layers of defensive lines are completely useless, and Xingqing City will be directly exposed in front of us."

"That's right, all the craftsmen, big stones, lime, and glutinous rice you need are ready. In order to prepare the city stones, we demolished three military cities in Yan'an Prefecture and Suide County, and there are a large number of military forts to prepare stones, enough to build Two medium-sized counties."

The key to Fan Ning's operation this time is to be fast and establish a foundation in Hetao as quickly as possible. When Xixia reacts and makes a large-scale attack, the Song army has already established a firm foothold in Hetao.

Generally, it takes about a year to build a city, and more than 20% of the time is spent on preparing materials, and then a thousand craftsmen leisurely build it. There are only two ways to shorten the construction period, one is to prepare building materials in advance, and second To increase the manpower of craftsmen, Fan Ning adopted a two-pronged approach. He hoped to complete the construction of the city within [-] days.

When Fan Ning heard that all the supplies had been transported to Yulin, he was overjoyed and couldn't care less about rest, so he immediately followed Han Jiang to the warehouse group tent.

In a broad sense, the Hetao Plain is divided into Xitao, Dongtao, Qiantao and Houtao. The Xitao area refers to the ruling core of the Xixia Kingdom, Xingqing Prefecture, Xiping Prefecture, Jingzhou, Dingzhou, Lingzhou and other places.

The Qiantao Plain is a large grassland in the shape of a noose formed after the Yellow River bifurcates into two and then rejoins, and the Houtao Plain is the Yulin area of ​​Dongsheng Prefecture.

Dongtao is on both sides of the Yellow River between the front and back sets.

But this time the Song army wanted to seize the Qiantao Plain, which is also the Hetao area in a narrow sense.

At present, the Hetao area belongs to the territory of Xixia. Because it is cold in winter and there is no enemy threat, the north and east are the friendly neighbor Liao, and the south is the Gobi and desert. Therefore, Xixia is not enthusiastic about the management of the Hetao area. There are endless grasslands everywhere. , the remains of the painstaking efforts of the Han and Tang courts here are either submerged in dust, or become a little bit of ruins.

In fact, the Hetao Plain is an extremely rich place. The Yellow River flows gently, irrigation is convenient, and the land is very fertile. Since the Han Dynasty, the central court has immigrated to Hetao for reclamation in large numbers. There are more than a dozen counties including Linrong, Woye, Guangmu, Chengyi, Yiliang, Linwo, and Heyin.

It's a pity that after the five chaos, all the prosperity and population disappeared.

Xixia refers to the Hetao area as Heishan Fuwei Military Division. At present, only two military cities have been built, with 2000 garrisons. The largest city is called Tiande Military City.

In addition, at the entrance of Hetao in the south, there is a small army city with 500 garrisons, and on the way to Xingqing Mansion, there is a supply army city with 500 garrisons.

For more than 100 years, there has been no war here, so Xixia soldiers joked that their enemies are prairie wolves.

There has been no war for a hundred years, and the Song army could not come here. The Xixia army stationed here only to declare its sovereignty symbolically. This made the Xixia defenders extremely lax. At night, there were almost no defenders on the city, only two The gatekeepers sleep in the city gate cave.

Although the Xixia court had already learned that Song and Liao had reached an armistice agreement through the spies deployed in the capital of the Song Dynasty, the content of the armistice agreement was not made public at the request of the Song Dynasty, and only some clues were obtained from newspapers.

For example, the exchange of hostages, such as the withdrawal of troops from Liao in the Song Dynasty.

However, the news of the land exchange between Song and Liao was tightly sealed, including Liao, and Yelu Hongji did not want his subjects to know that Liao was forced to hand over Dongsheng Prefecture to Songcheng.

It is this kind of strict sealing of the news that the Xixia court did not know that Xixia had been betrayed by the Liao Kingdom, and Dongsheng Prefecture was replaced by the Song Army. After passing the Hetao, we are heading towards Tiande Army City.

An army of [-] people was in ambush two miles away, and there were [-] cavalry inside. The Flying Tiger Squad composed of more than a hundred elite soldiers of the Song Army quietly arrived at the city of Tiande Army.

The Tiande Army City is built with solid big stones. The stones have not been polished and have sharp edges and corners. They look very rough, but the city walls are very high and strong. Too long and a little rotten.

Dozens of flying ropes hooked the top of the city, and a hundred soldiers of the Flying Tiger Army quickly climbed up to the top of the city. It was very quiet on the top of the city, and there was not a single defender in sight.

At this time, it was the third watch, and the defenders in the city were sleeping soundly. The leader of the battalion waved his hand, and they split into two groups. One of them rushed to the city gate with dozens of soldiers, and the battalion leader led the other soldiers. Run to the tower.

Normally, soldiers slept in the city tower, but Song Jun rushed to the tower, only to find that the tower was empty, covered with at least an inch of dust, and no one had stayed here for many years.

The battalion general was stunned for a moment before he realized that Tiande City had no sense of defense at all.

At this time, Du rushed to the top of the wall and said, "There are only two old soldiers under the wall, and they have already been killed."

"Fire the rocket and open the city gate!"

In the thick night, three gunpowder arrows were fired from the vast grassland, and the bright red flames streaked across the grassland, as if three shooting stars were flying towards them.

The general in charge of attacking Tiande City was Wang Shiquan, who was in charge. He saw the rocket and waved his hand. Ten thousand soldiers rushed to Tiande City two miles away. After a while, they rushed to Tiande City. run out.

Feihu brought the horse pens at the city gate, and released more than 1000 war horses.

Wang Shiquan was overjoyed, and immediately ordered: "Infantry surround the city, and cavalry enter the city to encircle and suppress!"

Eight thousand soldiers lay in ambush outside the city and surrounded the city gate. The Flying Tiger Army simply lit a fire outside the city, illuminating the outside of the city gate like daylight.

Two thousand cavalry rushed into the city, and the one thousand defenders in the city were caught off guard. They had no intention of resisting and fled one after another. The streets were full of running soldiers and cavalry slaughtering mercilessly.

In less than a quarter of an hour, more than half of the thousand soldiers were killed or injured, and many Xixia people who were doing business in the city also died in the chaos.

More than 300 soldiers rushed out of the city gate, and they were greeted by ruthless arrows. The arrows were as dense as locusts, and the soldiers in the escaped city fell down one after another.

Wang Shiquan was a bit disappointed in controlling Wang Shiquan. He thought there would be thousands of people, but he didn't expect that it would be over after only three or 400 people rushed out.

The cavalry commander shouted: "The battle in the city is over!"

Wang Shiquan waved his hand, "The army is entering the city!"

At the same time that 500 Song troops captured Tiande City, at the entrance of Hetao a hundred miles away, [-] Song troops also captured another military city with [-] soldiers, and the entire [-] Xixia army was wiped out.

After dawn, the huge fleet of the Song Army also arrived in Tiande City. The two prime ministers, Fan Ning and Han Jiang, both appeared on this deserted grassland, which also showed that Song Dynasty attached great importance to the Hetao area.

Fan Ning and Han Jiang came to Tiande City and commanded Wang Shiquan to kneel down on one knee to report, "To my two gentlemen, the city has been taken, and none of the thousand defenders has escaped."

Fan Ning nodded and said with a smile: "General Wang has worked hard, but did Xin Ying fly away?"

"No! The Flying Tiger Army seized the Eagle Tower first, and none of the ten letter eagles flew away."

This is what Fan Ning repeatedly asked. Seizing the Eagle Tower is far more important than seizing the city gate. I believe that the [-] soldiers in another military city will firmly implement their intentions.

Han Jiang asked again: "When will they replenish?"

"The humble officer interrogated the captured warehouse stewards. They just replenished their supplies last month. The next replenishment will be at the end of September and early October. Usually no one will come during this period."

Fan Ning said with a smile to Han Jiang: "There are still two months, it should be in time."

He immediately ordered the soldiers to carry all kinds of materials off the ship, and the craftsmen built the camp.

Fan Ning and Han Jiang rode horses to inspect the surroundings. Han Jiang pointed at the remnants of the Tucheng not far away with his horsewhip and said with a smile, "Mr. Fan, do you know what the remnants of the walls are?"

Fan Ning shook his head, "Mr. Han, ask for clarification!"

Han Jiang hurried forward, looked at the long and long remnant wall and sighed: "Qin general Meng Tian attacked the Xiongnu in the north, set up Jiuyuan County in Hetao, built 34 counties, and took Wuyuan County as the county government. I have seen the map specially. The county is nearby, if I am not mistaken, this should be the former city wall of Wuyuan County, I did not expect Tiande City to be built on the ruins of Wuyuan County."

Fan Ning looked around and said: "This area is really good, the terrain is relatively high, and there will be no puddles. I think it is better not to demolish Tiande City, but let Tiande City be the inner city. An outer city was built at the ruins of Wuyuan County, and there were two strong cities inside and outside."

Han Jiang said with a wry smile: "Just in this way, I'm afraid the big stones won't be enough to build two cities."

"What I mean is that you don't need to build two cities, just build one city."

Han Jiang thought about it carefully, and said with a smile: "If only one big outer city is built, there will be a lot of big stones left over. It's better to demolish the Xixia Army City at the entrance of Hetao, and we will build another one tens of miles away in the east. In a smaller military city, the two cities echo each other, what does Fan Xianggong think of this?"

Fan Ning smiled happily: "If there are enough boulders, that's the decision."

(End of this chapter)