Late Tang

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The red sun was slowly setting in the mountains in the west, and the western sky was soaked in crimson red by the afterglow of the setting sun.A round of full moon has hung in the vast and deep sky in the east, shedding cold moonlight, illuminating the way home for a row of tired birds returning late.

When it was time to eat dinner, white cooking smoke could be seen everywhere in Derry City, and there were all kinds of pungent smoke and fire smells left by firewood, dried horse manure and even coal burning.The New Year's Eve is just around the corner, and even the city of Derry, which is thousands of miles away from the customs, has begun to have a taste of the New Year.

Night fell and the sky darkened.

After dinner, Li Jing first went to Xingyuan to sit for a meeting, talked with several civil and military ministers who were accompanying the army in Delhi, and listened to several briefings from the attendant's room. After lighting the lamps, he got up and went back to the backyard.

In the backyard, Gongsun Lan was sitting on the kang table with Megan and Julie to fight landlords around the kang table.Now the weather is cold, the rivers and seas are frozen, and the navy's ships have basically returned to the military port.At this time, the Admiral of the Navy has become an ordinary family member of the army. It is rare to stay in Derry City with Gongsun Lan and Julie all day long, and leave all the affairs of the Navy aside.

The three duchesses sat together and fought against the landlord, just like ordinary people, scheming and arguing there, having a great time.Seeing him coming over, Megan, who had already been bombed twice, rolled her eyes and immediately slyly put the pair of threes and a five or ten bad cards into the pile of cards on the table. Interrupted, stretched out a pair of jade hands, rushed over to hug Li Jing, and kissed him on the face.

"Sanlang, you are finally willing to come back. You left us here, but ignored us all day long, and didn't even eat a meal together. Hey, I'm so boring. If I knew it, I would have gone back to Vladivostok."

Li Jing kissed her back, and said with a smile: "The cat stays at home all day, wouldn't it be better to be so leisurely? Besides, you are all heavy now, so you should rest and rest. It's not suitable for running around."

In summer, Megan and Julie led the navy from the mouth of Heilongjiang to the Songhua River to assist in the battle. It was rare for them to stay with Li Jing for a few months.By autumn, both of them were pregnant one after another, and even Gongsun Lan was also pregnant.Maybe it's because Li Jing only has three fields left to plow outside this pass, and he spent too much time plowing, so all three of them became pregnant.When the autumn fleet withdrew, Li Jing simply kept them all and handed over the fleet to Li Xu and other naval generals.

Gongsun Lan stepped forward to help Li Jing take off his coat, changed into a pair of warm fur slippers, and got on the kang together.

"When will we end this war? I don't expect to give birth to a child here." Gongsun Lan said.

Li Jing shook his head, "I hope it will end before the beginning of spring next year. As you can see, we have now completed the most important step. The four-way army has arrived at the designated position and intercepted the escape route of the tribal army first. It is now Entering winter, the tribal coalition forces fought nine battles with us in the best escape season when autumn was tall and horses were fertile, rivers were dry and shallow, swamps were dry and hard, roads were easy to walk, and the weather was sunny. I'm sorry. But even though we have paid a loss of more than one hundred thousand people, we have beaten back all these barbarians. Up to now, they have not broken our siege. Now, the war is entrusted to winter, and the weather is extremely cold. The river is frozen, and the roads are full of snow. In this season, it is very difficult for the tribal coalition forces to retreat."

Gongsun Lan looked at Li Jing and smiled, looked away, quickly put away the cards, took the mahjong box over, opened the mahjong box, poured the mahjong on the table, and started to code .While counting cards, he said: "But this winter is already the last chance for the tribal army to break through. They have been surrounded by us for half a year, and their logistics have been interrupted for so long. Hundreds of thousands of people are simply unable to survive this long winter and spring. Now it is not Breaking through the siege, it will be even worse until spring. Breaking out now, although it is cold, at least they can retreat northward along the flat ice surface on the Sumoshui and Huhan Rivers, and then retreat further north from the Nanshui and Heishui. Wait until spring, when the weather warms up, the glaciers will thaw, and all the rivers will become a series of blocking cables, blocking their retreat. Those soft roads will become swamps, swallowing countless barbarians, and wait until At that time, their horses were probably too skinny, and their people were almost too hungry. They couldn't wait until next autumn. No matter how you look at it, after the tribal army failed to break out this autumn, they could only fight in this winter. Breakout, this is their last chance.

"The barbarians are definitely going to fight a trapped beast. This is their last chance. Can we stop them? In the few battles in autumn, we almost fought them for equal losses, with more than [-] casualties. People. If the Hu people try their best to break through, I'm afraid we may not be able to stop them."

"Of course you can stop it, the key is how much loss you have to pay." Li Jing built the Great Wall skillfully, and playing mahjong with a few women every night has almost become an inevitable activity.Although Delhi is a big city, it is only a military fortress. At the beginning of the Hu people's invasion, they looted everything here, making it a fortress with only military use left.The winter here is extremely cold, and the temperature can reach minus [-] to [-] degrees. In this kind of weather, no one wants to go out unless it is necessary.

"But it is impossible for us to waste all our precious troops here." Julie said, "Even if the barbarians can break through this time, it will be almost impossible to fight against us again. In this winter, we can completely let them go." Let's go, the severe cold in winter and the shortage of food can make half of them die of frostbite and starvation. We don't have to fight them hard, we can force them to retreat. I think our goal has been achieved by now. We sent troops to To curb the tribes going south, in order to swallow the Bohai Sea, instead of expecting to wipe out the coalition forces of hundreds of tribes in one fell swoop at this time. This is unrealistic. If we push too hard, we will pay more losses. In the autumn battle, We lost 10,000+ people, fortunately, most of these losses were from Bohai and surrendered tribal soldiers. But if we have to fight again this time, I’m afraid we will inevitably pay a lot of casualties.”

This concept is actually the thinking of a large part of the soldiers in the army. In everyone's opinion, it is impossible to truly eradicate the grass and roots in such a vast place outside the customs. For those barbarians, they can at best defeat them and drive them away. A bitterly cold place further north.Especially for the soldiers who have been stationed in Bohai Sea for three years, they are a little tired of this battle, the severe cold in the north, and everything here.They feel that there is no point in continuing to fight here.

This kind of emotion is spreading, and Li Jing knows very well that he must end this battle before next summer and start his class in autumn.In addition to the emotions of the soldiers, what made Li Jing make such a plan was news from the Central Plains.

Huang Chao is dead, his Qi Empire has collapsed, the Yang brothers have now integrated a powerful alliance, from Guanzhong to Henan, and then to Shannan Jingnan, Hedong, they have more than 20 feudal towns, it can be said that they occupy Maps of half of the feudal towns in the world, and in the Battle of Chang'an alone, they have assembled the power of thousands of capitals, with 40 soldiers.Even if it is a mob, this force has begun to show great strength.

Although Li Jing understands that this alliance targeting Huang Chao is still very loose in a short period of time, and it is impossible to integrate it immediately.But it is also obvious that they will definitely be able to integrate in a short time.The information sent from the Central Plains has shown that the Yang brothers are already planning to establish the emperor's seventh younger brother, Shouwang Li Jie, as the emperor, and to abolish the one in Tian Lingzi's hands.

It is conceivable that after the Yang brothers really establish a new emperor and their alliance is integrated, they will definitely attack outside, either in the direction of Tian Lingzi in the southwest, or Li Jing in the northeast.

In such a situation, Li Jing couldn't guarantee that the Yang brothers would not attack him.Especially when he put tens of 10 horses outside the pass, no matter how you look at it, this is an excellent opportunity for the Yang brothers.

"Many soldiers can't adapt to such severe cold weather. They stay in the fortress barracks all day, and they are still shivering from the cold. In this season, if they go out to fight, most of them will be directly frozen to death and frostbite." Gongsun Lan asked a very practical question.The winter in Haidong is really too cold. For most of the soldiers who came from the pass, except for the brief warm and comfortable summer, this ghost place is extremely cold for most of the rest of the year.Especially in winter, when the breath turns into ice, the snow in the wild is as high as a human being.Fighting in such a season, the biggest enemy is not the tribal coalition forces, but God.

"Indeed, this is the biggest problem. The severe cold weather, and the soldiers of our army who mainly come from the pass and cannot adapt to the severe cold in Haidong. But if it's just this problem, it's better." Li Jing grabbed a [-] In his hand, he used [-] to tap a piece of [-], and with another [-], he could play all [-]D cards.In fact, Qin Jun had already expected this problem.So far, not long ago, Li Jing sent [-] soldiers and horses and [-] civilians to the area where the Nenjiang and Songhua Rivers meet in the north of Fuyu. Among the [-] soldiers and horses, except for more than [-] soldiers who were recruited from the pass, the rest were recruited. They were recruited from the four provinces outside Liaodong, Liaoxi, Andong and Rehe, and half of them were tribal fighters.

"The [-] new recruits recruited in autumn are basically soldiers from the Liaodong region, mainly tribal soldiers. In addition, we recruited [-] new recruits from the Bohai Sea. These are all able to adapt to the severe cold weather in the Northeast. These five Thousands of soldiers and one hundred thousand civilians will supplement the Da'an front in the north of Fuyu."

Despite all the efforts, there is still a big problem.

If the tribal coalition forces really wanted to break through this winter, it would be difficult for the Qin army to guess the direction of their breakout. The front line of thousands of miles was too wide.Although they knew that they would break out along several big rivers, the Delhi side in the northeast was okay. There were a lot of hills here, and Delhi guarded the narrow and long plain in the river valley, so they could sit and wait for work.But in the northwest, beyond the confluence of the Nen River and the Songhua River, is the Songnen Plain, the three major plains in the Northeast. There are endless plains everywhere. If it is spring and summer, the continuous swamps and lakes here are still It would be a land of death, with only a few muddy roads, but if it was winter, even though there was thick snow, they could choose any place to break through thousands of miles away.

Li Jing can't intercept all the places where he is located, which is unrealistic.

Now, the only thing Li Jing can do is to build defense lines along several important rivers such as the Songhua River, Nen River, and Mudan River, gather troops and horses, and guard those rivers.Instead of giving up these major roads to the coalition forces, but forcing them to return north from the thick snow-covered plains, Li Jing plans to use the severe cold that is unique to the sea, east, and north of the Great Wall to deal with these tribal armies. Guard the forts one by one, and then deploy the tribal soldiers and Bohai soldiers under the Qin army at the northernmost point, and let them intercept and chase the coalition forces.

In any case, although the final decisive battle has not yet begun, Li Jing has won this victory as he wished.Although the victory was not perfect, it was enough. The tribal army could not stay in the Bohai Sea, so they could only retreat to the north.Their strength will inevitably be greatly damaged, and after several years of fighting, the Bohai Kingdom has completely become a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

The Qin army's several years of war in the Northeast has come to an end, and the tribe's vitality has been severely damaged. They will retreat to the north and west, and the entire Bohai State will be occupied by the Qin army.In the autumn of next year, the Qin army can withdraw its main force back to the pass, and then send a few elite small troops northward to drive those tribes farther away.

Gongsun Lan was a little surprised, "You are willing to accept such a result, which is not perfect."

Li Jing grabbed a card, touched it with his finger, and slapped it on the table with a smile: "Seventy thousand, in case of one color, draw it yourself, and give me the money!"

The three women all pouted, they knew that Li Jing was doing Wanyise, so everyone refused to type according to the ten thousand word, who knew that he could still touch it, and it was the last one of [-].

Li Jing counted the banknotes happily, "Satisfied, the plan we made before was too big. In fact, it is very difficult to fight a war with millions of people. Because in such a war, the biggest enemy is not the opponent. , but ourselves, logistics supplies, etc., and for our battle this time, in addition to supplies, there is also bad weather. To swallow the other side's army, we all need more troops, but such weather, we It is impossible to gather more troops. The weather is one of them, and logistics has become the most critical issue. Therefore, until now, it is actually impossible to fight a decisive battle. We have already won by cutting off their supply lines, although we cannot obtain more Big victory, but with the help of the weather, the result is already very good. Although the process is very different from our plan, the result will be the same in the end. We won, and the Hu people suffered a big defeat. Ability threatens us! Look, just like this card, you have been stuck with my [-], but in the end I got the last [-] by myself."

"You recruited so many tribal fighters and Bohai civilian husbands, are these people credible?"

"Well, there may be some small troubles, but there will never be big troubles. Just like the thirteen tribal cavalry recruits some time ago, they will do some unexpected things, but as long as we quickly and correctly If we deal with it, then these people will be tamed by us like wild horses and used by us." Li Jing said with a chuckle. (To be continued.)