Guiyi Fei Tang

Chapter 74: Ganzhou God General
"Peace?"

In front of the East City Gate Tower, Zhang Huaishen looked at the contents of the letter and couldn't help but sneer.

They lost at least 30% of their food, and the farmland outside the city was also severely damaged. Now Chengle wants to negotiate peace. Does he think that the two battles last night and today can cover up their crimes?
"Governor, ten thousand catties of iron is not too much for us. We will temporarily agree to it and fight back when we have more soldiers and horses."

Chief Secretary Cao Yiqian began to persuade Zhang Huaishen, and the others also expressed their opinions, but overall they were similar and all agreed with the suggestion of peace talks.

For this reason, Zhang Huaishen turned his attention to Suo Xun, Du Wanmeng and Liu Jilong.

Du Wanmeng was a lowly person, so he quickly expressed his opinion: "I will do whatever the governor says."

"It's not a bad idea to be servile." Suo Xun expressed his thoughts.

From the Battle of Qilian City to last night's night attack and today's assault... three consecutive battles made him exhausted.

This is not only true for him, but also for the eight hundred elite cavalrymen in Ganzhou.

It is not easy to march 150 miles in a short period of time and fight three consecutive battles.

Now that they can force the Uighurs to retreat and continue to recuperate, Suo Xun thinks it is already very good.

As for the food lost outside the city, the chances of taking it back are slim, so it is better to give up.

"Liu Jilong, what do you think?"

Zhang Huaishen's face was calm and his tone was neither hurried nor slow, which made Liu Jilong difficult to understand.

As far as he was concerned, he felt that agreeing to peace talks was the best outcome.

The food could not be taken back, and waiting for reinforcements would only make the Uighurs crazy again.

If this group of people really harm the farmland outside the city as the letter said, it would be a loss.

"I will take the lead as the governor."

Liu Jilong bowed in response, and Zhang Huaishen nodded: "Don't you think that our army has a chance of winning the battle against the Uighurs?"

"This……"

Everyone hesitated, but this hesitation was enough to explain everything.

Zhang Huaishen did not give them time to come up with excuses. Instead, he looked at Du Wanmeng and said, "Send a letter back to Cheng Le, saying that peace talks are possible, but all the food must be returned. In addition, the iron materials traded will remain the same. If he has other ideas, feel free to attack him!"

"Yes..." Du Wanmeng had a bitter taste in his mouth, and the others also looked unhappy.

"Everyone, please leave. Liu Jilong, you stay!"

At Zhang Huaishen's command, everyone left.

After Liu Jilong stayed, he followed Zhang Huaishen into the city wall, but saw Zhang Huaishen walk to the main seat and sit down, motioning him to sit in the second seat.

He walked forward and sat down, and Zhang Huaishen then spoke:

"Do you think I should negotiate peace, as they do?"

"I..." Liu Jilong wanted to say that he didn't have any, but Zhang Huaishen interrupted:
"You are my recruit. I know you. If you support fighting, you should respond decisively instead of being ambiguous!"

Zhang Huaishen knew Liu Jilong very well, so he directly exposed his thoughts.

In this regard, Liu Jilong could only say bitterly: "I really think we should not continue the fight. If we provoke the Uighurs to harm the farmland outside the city, it would be more trouble than gain."

"Besides, the situation is indeed as you have said. We can negotiate peace temporarily and settle the accounts in autumn when our troops are strong enough."

"In the past, Emperor Taizong Wen had the Weishui Alliance, and now it may not be a bad idea for us to hold back for the time being."

"No!" Zhang Huaishen interrupted Liu Jilong again, with a hint of disappointment in his eyes.

"You are now in a high position, but you don't have the fighting spirit you once had."

"Emperor Taizong could tolerate the Weishui Alliance because he still had the people of the Tang Dynasty behind him, but what about us?"

"The four states are only a few thousand feet from Hankou, and the enemy is everywhere to the west."

"Today the Ganzhou Uighurs invaded to negotiate peace. Tomorrow the Western Regions Uighurs will invade to negotiate peace. Tomorrow the Long family and Umu will invade to negotiate peace..."

"If this continues, won't any barbarian dare to bully us Han people?"

"Moreover, if I agree to this peace negotiation, the various forces in Shazhou will definitely think that I am not worthy of the position."

"Do you think I can keep the position of Ganzhou governor by then?"

After he finished speaking, he stopped talking and poured himself a bowl of water and drank it in big gulps.

Liu Jilong sighed in his heart, knowing that Zhang Huaishen was right, but the number of the Uighurs was there, with a few thousand armored soldiers and tens of thousands of men. This was indeed not an enemy that they could defeat now.

There are only so many Han people in Hexi. If they behave like this towards everyone, how many times can the mere 10,000 or 20,000 Hankou men provide for them?

In the end, it was just like what happened in history, the Sogdians and Uighurs became more powerful and the country lost Gansu, Su, Yi and other states one after another.

This situation was different from the one he faced in Shandan. If Cheng Le's request was the Ganzhou grassland south of Longshou Mountain, Liu Jilong would definitely stand on Zhang Huaishen's side without hesitation, but Cheng Le only wanted iron.

In Liu Jilian's view, it would not hurt to give Chengle iron materials. Even if their strength would be enhanced as a result, it would not take long for him to be able to recover Liangzhou and even march into Helong.

At that time, how could a mere seven or eight thousand Uighur soldiers be compared with them?

It’s a pity that he dared to think so, but Zhang Huaishen couldn’t, because the two of them thought about the problem from different angles.

Zhang Huaishen needed to prove himself, so if he dared to negotiate peace with the Uighurs, someone in Shazhou would definitely say that he was unworthy of the position.

Zhang Huaishen couldn't stand this kind of questioning, so he would never make peace.

In this case, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do except obey orders.

"Governor, I still want to know how we should fight this battle."

Liu Jilong poured himself a bowl of water and drank it all, while Zhang Huaishen looked solemn: "How do we fight?"

"I want to fight Chengle head-on and tell these barbarians openly that we Han people...are no longer the same as we were before!"

Facing Zhang Huaishen's solemn expression, Liu Jilong nodded and asked, "What are the details?"

"You don't have to panic." Zhang Huaishen explained:
"We will fight the enemy in a grand battle formation. I will lead the armored soldiers in the front, and you will lead the elite cavalry in the back."

"If the Uighurs fight against us and shoot arrows, I will lead the armored soldiers to draw longbows and shoot arrows to suppress the morale of the Uighurs."

"If they can no longer bear it and want to retreat, you will immediately lead your elite cavalry to attack and follow my orders."

Zhang Huai was confident: "This group of barbarians bully the weak and fear the strong. Once too many casualties are caused, they will calm down and seek a way out."

"It is already late autumn and their food supply is limited, so they must return to the grassland to store fodder."

"When they calm down, the only option is to retreat."

"In that case, I will be relieved." Liu Jilong nodded and Zhang Huaishen also nodded.
"Go down and have a good rest first, and wait for my order to leave the city."

"Yes!" Liu Jilong stood up and bowed, then walked out of the city wall under the gaze of Zhang Huaishen and headed towards the city.

At the same time, he also saw Li Ji who was waiting anxiously at the bottom of the horse path.

Seeing Liu Jilong appear, Li Ji immediately went to meet him.

"Don't checkmate. Do you still want to fight?"

"A bunch of people just walked down and said they might not fight. What do you think..."

Li Ji placed his hope on Liu Jilong's answer, but Liu Jilong's shaking head made him sigh.

Although the words "achieve great achievements" make people's blood boil, after fighting three battles in a row and losing so many brothers, Li Ji was eager to rest.

"You haven't had a good rest yet, go and take a rest."

Liu Jilong gave an order and then sat on the stool at the city gate.

Li Ji bowed in return, turned around and went to rest in an empty courtyard not far away.

Maybe after a few hours of rest, he will have different ideas...

"Refused?"

Inside the Uighur tent outside the city, when Chengle learned Zhang Huaishen's response from Pontle, he stood up immediately.

"In that case, let's have people ride their horses to trample the farmland and dump their excrement into the river. I want Zhang Huaishen to taste the consequences of his evil deeds!"

"Yes……"

Instead of refusing, Ponteler accepted Chengle's arrangement.

In his opinion, Zhang Huaishen was refusing to accept the toast and it was time for him to taste the bitter fruit.

Under his command, tens of thousands of Uighurs began to ride their horses recklessly on the farmland outside the city and defecate and urinate at will.

Seeing this scene, Zhang Huaishen on the city wall also ordered people to blow the horn.

"Uuuuuu——"

The battle horn sounded, and the 1,800 armored soldiers who had assembled early began to put on armor and marched out of the city in a long snake formation.

As the East City Gate opened wide, the Uighurs who were originally having fun immediately began to retreat, and the sound of war horns began to sound melodiously.

One thousand eight hundred armored soldiers walked across the stone bridge over the Zhangye moat, eight hundred elite cavalry patrolled the periphery, and one thousand armored soldiers began to build fortifications, creating an attitude of wanting to defend.

The Uighurs were slow to assemble. Even the 4,000-plus elite cavalry were slow and leisurely, not to mention the remaining 40,000 light cavalry.

Zhang Huaishen and his men had already dug the rudiments of the outermost trench, and they had just managed to assemble successfully.

The semicircular trench was two hundred steps long and was expected to be five feet deep.

The soil excavated from it will be used as soil for building the sheep horn wall.

The city defense method in the Tang Dynasty was far less sophisticated than that in the Song Dynasty. The sheep-horn walls were still placed in the main combat direction, which was a bit of a waste of time.

Seeing this, Liu Jilong rode his horse to Zhang Huaishen, bowed and suggested: "Why not send some civilians to build a sheep-horn wall along the moat at the rear? This will be more effective in deceiving the barbarians."

"But" Zhang Huaishen did not ask the reason, but simply affirmed Liu Jilong's suggestion.

After getting permission, Liu Jilong ordered Li Ji to return to the city and asked Suo Xun to lead the laborers to build the sheep horn wall outside the east city gate and along the moat.

"Are they going to be on the defensive?"

On the Uighur side, Cheng Le, who was on horseback, rode to the front of the battle formation and sized up Zhang Huaishen and his men's actions, unable to help showing contempt.

"Isn't it too late to think about being on the defensive now?"

"Great Khan, let's just attack. Zhangye only has so few soldiers!"

Cheng Le sneered and Xian Li also stepped forward to make a suggestion.

His suggestion won the approval of everyone. They did not think that Zhang Huaishen could repel more than 40,000 of his own troops with such a small number of armored soldiers.

Upon hearing this, Pontell frowned and said, "Their armored soldiers are nearly half of ours. We should be careful."

"Humph!" Cheng Le snorted coldly, "Only two thousand armored soldiers."

"We were attacked last night, but I didn't expect them to come back to help so quickly."

"It's daytime now, and the two armies are in a state of war. What can Zhang Huaishen do?"

"Even if one of his soldiers is worth ten of his, I have more than 40,000 men here."

"Even if it's just a paper war, it's still 40,000 people against 2,000 people. What are you afraid of?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Chengle gave the order decisively without waiting for Pontell to speak:

"Xia Li, Ponteler, Xu Liegan... each of you should take your troops to teach Zhang Huaishen a lesson and let him know how powerful our Great Uighurs are!"

"Yes!"

At Chengle's command, Xiali and Xuliegan quickly responded, and Panteler followed suit. Then the three of them gathered their troops and walked out of the battle array one after another.

Nearly a thousand armored soldiers and more than ten thousand light cavalry formed the vanguard, slowly moving towards the Ganzhou army a mile away.

Seeing this scene, Zhang Huaishen slowly raised his hand, and Du Wanmeng blew the whistle.

"Beep——"

At the sound of the whistle, everyone stopped what they were doing and returned to the battle formation with their guns in hand.

Everyone put their spears beside them, strung their longbows, and were ready to draw and shoot arrows at any time.

The eight hundred elite cavalry led by Liu Jilian went around the rear of the one thousand infantry, a move that made Xia Li and others somewhat unsure.

"What does Zhang Huaishen want to do?"

Xu Liegan was unsure and asked, "Why don't the cavalry be on either side of the infantry? Should they be placed in the back?"

"Never mind, just go up and shoot a few rounds of arrows to lower their morale!"

Xia Li interrupted Xu Liegan, waved his whip, and ordered the army to advance.

The distance between the two sides gradually shortened, and Zhang Huaishen rode a black Dayuan horse and came to the front of his own formation alone.

His action of standing in front of the army with his sword drawn boosted the morale of the Ganzhou soldiers.

Zhang Huaishen, as the governor, is not afraid of the barbarians, so what should these soldiers be afraid of?

"Order that the captains, brigade commanders, team leaders, and cooks of each regiment should lead their troops forward when the drums are heard, and retreat when the soldiers of the regiment hear the gold, with the military officers guarding the rear."

"Yes!"

The flag soldiers conveyed Zhang Huaishen's military order. In less than a cup of tea, military officers from each regiment appeared in the first row with grim expressions.

Their faces looked grim, but the soldiers behind them breathed a sigh of relief.

The military officers took the lead in the charge and led the rearguard in the retreat. Such military orders made the soldiers bolder, as at least they did not have to worry about being abandoned by the military officers.

Of course, there are also great disadvantages to doing this. If the military officer dies in the first moment of the battle between the two armies, the middle and lower-level command of the army will be blank, and it will be easy to be defeated.

However, Zhang Huaishen had his reasons for daring to do so.

The invading Uighur army had no more than 10,000 men, including at most 1,000 or 2,000 armored soldiers, and was completely unable to break through their own army's formation.

Without the armored soldiers, the light cavalry behind them would be lambs to be slaughtered...

"Buzzing..."

The sound of horse hooves could be heard outside Zhangye City. As they got closer, Zhang Huaishen gave orders again.

"At 60 steps, all bows and arrows will be fired. At 20 steps, everyone will use bows and crossbows. The first and second groups will hold long spears to prepare for the enemy. If the enemy arrives, the third, fourth, and fifth groups will hold swords and clubs and fight forward!"

"If the enemy retreats, the drummers will beat the drums, and the cavalry will cover the troops and kill them after they have walked 300 steps. When they hear the drums stop, they will retreat!"

The flag soldiers issued the military order, which was passed on to each regiment in just half a cup of tea. After receiving the order, the captains of each regiment handed it over to the brigade commander and the team leader.

As time passed, seeing that the Uighur cavalry was only a hundred steps away from them, Zhang Huaishen was the first to blow the wooden whistle.

"Beep——"

At the sound of a whistle, a thousand infantrymen took their arrows and put them on the bowstrings, ready to draw their bows and shoot at any time.

One hundred steps, eighty steps, seventy steps...

"Uuuuuu——"

The sound of trumpets came from the battle formation, and the Ganzhou infantry drew their bows and shot arrows, which flew out like locusts and fell into the enemy formation.

The seven-bowl infantry bow was far more powerful than the Uighur cavalry bows of varying lengths. For a moment, the horses in the Uighur formation wailed, and countless horses fell off their horses and were trampled.

Horse archers had to march fifty steps before they could release their arrows, but the Uighurs could no longer wait.

They drew their bows and shot arrows at the Ganzhou army in batches, but most of them missed the target. Only the arrows from the front row of more than a thousand cavalrymen hit the Ganzhou army formation.

Many people were shot with several arrows, but everyone was safe and sound.

While the Uighurs were shooting arrows, the Ganzhou army fired twelve consecutive rounds of arrows, causing the Uighur army to suffer dozens or even a hundred casualties for every step forward.

"Fire the arrow! Fire the arrow!"

In the battle formation, Xia Li, Ponteller and others gave orders one after another, and the Uighur cavalry increased the speed of archery, but due to the poor quality of their weapons, the casualties caused to the Ganzhou army were very few.

The two armies fought for only a cup of tea, and the Uighurs had already shown signs of retreat. In contrast, the Ganzhou army stood in front of the bridge, and the entire team remained motionless.

"withdraw!"

Unable to bear the casualties, Xu Ligan retreated first. Seeing this, Pontell and Xia Li had no choice but to retreat as well.

"Drum roll!"

"Boom boom boom——"

"Xilulu!!"

Seeing the Uighurs withdrawing, Zhang Huaishen decisively ordered the drums to be beaten, and Liu Jilian of the rear army immediately led 800 elite cavalry to attack.

"The elite Tang cavalry is coming! Run!"

"Run!"

"No one is allowed to run! Stop right there!"

"Zhabarhuozhe (elite armored soldiers) will guard the rear!"

Seeing that the elite cavalry from Ganzhou launched a pursuit, some Uighurs decisively abandoned the main force and fled.

Such an escape caused a chain reaction, which was that a group of people followed suit and escaped.

Although the generals and Sima in the formation led soldiers to stop them, there were too many people fleeing and they could not stop them at all.

Ponteller was the first to realize that something was wrong, so he immediately led his elite armored troops to cover the rear.

Upon seeing this, Xia Li and Xu Liegan also followed suit and led the armored troops to cover the rear.

Nearly a thousand armored cavalrymen went the other way and tried to stop Liu Jilian's eight hundred elite cavalrymen from Ganzhou.

"kill!!"

Liu Jilian held his spear high in both arms and rushed to the front of the formation. The flag soldiers of the four regiments followed behind him, and everyone followed him to charge.

"It's you again!"

Before the two armies collided, Pontell and Xia Li saw Liu Jilong one after another, and their faces turned black.

They didn't expect that Liu Jilian would also appear in Zhangye. It was really a narrow road for enemies to meet.

"Kill that Tang general first!"

The two men issued the same military order in unison, but they soon realized that the strength of the two sides was not equal.

"Oh!"

"Uh-"

"Get away!!"

During the battle, Liu Jilian shot a Uighur armored soldier off his horse with one spear, and he fell into the battle array and was trampled to death.

Without waiting for the Uighurs on both sides to react, Liu Jilong held the gun in both hands, sat on the horse's back and swung the iron gun in his hand around.

As he charged forward a few steps, six Uighur armored soldiers were knocked off their horses.

He was the strongest force among the eight hundred elite cavalrymen, and with his spears formed by the eight hundred elite cavalrymen, he fiercely pierced through the one thousand elite Uighur cavalrymen who were coming towards him.

"kill!!"

Breaking through the obstruction of one thousand elite Uighur cavalry, eight hundred elite cavalry from Ganzhou fought hard towards the fleeing tens of thousands of Uighur light cavalry.

Compared with the elite Uighur cavalry wearing thick armor, this group of light cavalry wearing leather jackets and leather armor were more adept and more successful in killing.

If Liu Jilian needed to use all his strength to smash the armored soldiers to death, then when facing this group of light cavalry, he just waved his spear and knocked down several people in a breath.

"Follow General Liu! Kill!"

"kill--"

The shouts and cries of killing were deafening. At this moment, not only were Xia Li, Ponteller and others dumbfounded after turning their horses around, but even Cheng Le, who was ready to provide support, gave up the idea of going forward to provide support himself.

At this moment, only Zhang Huaishen in the Ganzhou infantry formation smiled.

"That's how Liu Jilong should be!"

Under the city wall, Suo Xun looked at Liu Jilong showing off his prowess on the battlefield, feeling both angry and respectful. However, someone next to him was praising Liu Jilong.

"I only heard that Liu Jilong had extraordinary arm strength, but I never thought he was so brave!"

After the clerk finished speaking, he deliberately looked at Suo Xun and said, "Suo Guoyi has worked with him for three months. Has he ever tried to win him over?"

"Humph!" Suo Xun was a man of high self-esteem. He didn't want to lose face, so he said with all his might:
"Liu Jilong is quite brave, but I am not as good as him in single combat, but I am far superior to him in deploying troops!"

"Haha, that's right..." The clerk chuckled twice, causing Suo Xun to turn his attention to the civilians and no longer pay attention to Liu Jilong.

But he wasn't watching, but someone else was watching.

In front of the city wall, officials of all ranks in Zhangye City and Zhibai all saw all this, and Cao Yiqian was generous in his praise.

"This General Liu Bie is so brave, he is really a natural cavalry general."

"I heard that he was a horse herder for the bandits in Guazhou for more than ten years and that he was very good at riding horses. Now I see that his horsemanship is indeed superb."

"With such a great general, the barbarians are nothing to worry about."

For a moment, everyone became optimistic. After all, the scene before them was truly inspiring.

Tens of thousands of Uighurs were chased and beaten by Liu Jilian's 800 men, but the Uighur main force was reluctant to send troops to escort them, as if they were intimidated.

"kill!!"

On horseback, Liu Jilong was desperately chasing and killing the light cavalry around him, and he was already in high spirits.

Fortunately, Zhang Huaishen was not carried away by joy. Seeing that Liu Jilian had rushed far beyond 300 steps, he quickly ordered the drummers to stop beating the drums.

When the drums stopped beating, the four flag soldiers quickly reminded Liu Jilong: "Don't worry, the drums have stopped beating!"

"Stopped?" Liu Jilong listened carefully and indeed, he could no longer hear the drumbeats.

"withdraw!"

He did not take credit for himself, but turned his horse around and ordered a retreat after the drums stopped beating.

He retreated in a roundabout way with his eight hundred elite cavalrymen, and Xi Li, Ponteller and others who caught up with him from behind did not dare to pursue him at all.

Seeing him retreat calmly, Cheng Le in the main camp finally reacted and shook with anger.

He looked around and saw fear on everyone's faces. He quickly shouted:

"What great things can a single cavalry commander accomplish!"

"If ten thousand men can't take him down, then let's do twenty thousand! Thirty thousand!"

"I will kill Zhang Huaishen today!"

(End of this chapter)