Li Chengqian of the Tang Dynasty: Please say long live His Majesty

Chapter 665 Xue Rengui, with an extraordinary bloodthirsty nature (Second update)
Xue Rengui slowly stopped his horse, then turned around, raised Dieyun's corpse high, and shouted angrily at the distant battlefield where battle was raging: "Dieyun is dead, those who surrender will not be killed."

The sound resounded throughout the battlefield, and everyone couldn't help but look at Xue Rengui.

"Giddy up!" Xue Rengui urged his horse on, carrying Dieyun's corpse, and headed towards Cheng Zhijie under the distant banner.

At that moment, with a loud "boom," a large number of Turkic cavalrymen began to flee frantically into the distance.

At the same time, a considerable number of people charged towards Xue Rengui.

Dieyun was the son of Helu, who was the Khan of the Western Turks.

A considerable number of people are destined to die with Dieyun; only by killing Xue Rengui can they survive, but…

Countless arrows flew up from behind, piercing their bodies directly; no one could get close to Xue Rengui.

At the same time, more Tang soldiers shouted: "Dieyun is dead, those who surrender will not be killed."

……

Xue Rengui carried Dieyun's body through the army until he reached the banner. There, he swung his halberd, throwing Dieyun's body to the ground, and then bowed to Cheng Zhijie, saying, "General!"

Cheng Zhijie gave him a deep look and nodded, saying, "Well done."

"Thank you, Commander!" Xue Rengui bowed respectfully.

Cheng Zhijie smiled and looked at Xue Rengui, saying, "From the Goguryeo battlefield to Pyongyang, and now to the Western Regions, you have always been at the forefront, killing enemy leaders in every battle. It seems that as long as you live, the Tang Dynasty will always be victorious on the battlefield."

"You flatter me, General!" Xue Rengui said respectfully, bowing with his hands clasped.

"Keep it up," Cheng Zhijie said with a smile and a slight wave of his hand.

"Yes!" Xue Rengui cupped his hands in greeting, then rode his horse to Cheng Zhijie's side and looked at the entire battlefield.

With Dieyun dead, the Turkic cavalry had long lost their will to fight.

Not to mention that at the beginning, they were already at a considerable disadvantage under Xue Rengui's onslaught.

In particular, Dieyun's mishandling of the situation has put them in a dangerous situation of fighting their own battles.

If Dieyun had been able to react at that time, they might have had a chance to turn the tide, after all, they had more than 20,000 cavalry, while Xue Rengui only had 10,000 cavalry.

Unfortunately, Cheng Zhijie and Wang Fangyi, who knew Xue Rengui well, led 30,000 cavalry to attack at the most opportune moment.

The first battle completely crushed the entire Turkic cavalry.

What remains is the story of pursuing the fleeing enemy.

Cheng Zhijie didn't say much about Xue Rengui.

Of course, he did this more than once on the Liaodong battlefield.

I don't know who he learned it from, but he directly used the strategy of "shoot the horse before the man, capture the king before the thief" on the battlefield.

On a battlefield where tens of thousands clashed, he rode alone, ignoring the enemy as if they were nothing, and went straight for the enemy commander's head.

Anyone with weaker abilities would have died on the battlefield long ago.

However, it is quite terrifying that someone as powerful as Xue Rengui could, on an extremely dangerous battlefield, in full view of everyone, pass through countless enemy troops and finally reach the enemy commander-in-chief, killing him with a single halberd strike and completely determining the outcome of the battle.

Especially when dealing with a general like Dieyun who has never truly experienced life and death, everything becomes even more fatal.

Regardless, Xue Rengui's power was deeply imprinted in the hearts of tens of thousands of soldiers, who revered him as if he were a god.

Just then, the thunderous sound of hooves came from the depths of the grassland in the darkness of night. Immediately afterward, countless Turkic cavalrymen who had originally fled returned, running back in terror towards the army.

Cheng Zhijie, mounted on his horse, calmly said, "It is Qibi Heli and the Uyghurs who have arrived."

As soon as the words were spoken, more Tang cavalry and Uyghur cavalry charged out from behind the Turks.

The black tide directly engulfed all the Turks.

The overall situation has been decided.

……

At dawn, the fire died down.

Cheng Zhijie, draped in a heavy cloak, gazed at the battlefield before him, where a battle had raged all night. Corpses lay strewn across the land, broken swords and mangled limbs littered the landscape.

Although the Turks suffered heavy casualties, the Tang soldiers also lost several thousand men. However, the loss of 50,000 Turkic soldiers was not a loss for the Tang.

Looking at the Turks piled up in the center, their hands bound, squatting on the ground, frozen in the winter wind, he couldn't help but smile.

"General!" Qibi Heli, Xue Wanbei, Xue Rengui, Lai Ji, Luo Hongyi, Wang Fangyi, Guo Daizhao and others stood behind him.

"I'm wondering if the strategy of splitting the troops is feasible?" Cheng Zhijie turned to look at everyone and said calmly, "If Dieyun hadn't split his troops, then Wang Fangyi wouldn't have seized the opportunity to use the gap while crossing the river to charge straight down the mountain, wiping out all of his more than 10,000 cavalrymen in Gaochang; nor would we have been able to send troops directly after learning the news and swallow up the more than 10,000 men he used to delay; and in the end, Xue Rengui would have directly broken through his more than 20,000 troops and killed him on the grassland."

"General, you can't say that." Luo Hongyi cupped his hands and said, "In the end, Dieyun was careless. He thought that with 50,000 cavalry, we would only be forced to hold our ground in the city and be moved around at will. One moment of carelessness and we would all die. Carelessness is the greatest enemy on the battlefield."

"Furthermore, they ultimately don't understand us well enough," Lai Ji said calmly from the side. "In recent years, His Majesty has made many improvements to the military equipment and preparations in the army because of the war with Goguryeo. Don't underestimate us just because we are few in number. It's not an exaggeration to say that we are two to one."

Qibi Heli, Xue Wanbei, Wang Fangyi, Xue Rengui, and the others all nodded in agreement.

Especially the two people behind them, they were both ruthless characters who could charge at two opponents at once. The reason they dared to do this was because of the strength of the Tang Dynasty's military equipment.

“Alright.” Cheng Zhijie smiled and said, “The greatest credit for this battle indeed goes to Wang Fangyi and Xue Rengui. Otherwise, I was worried that He Lu would come quietly from the west, and I would not have dared to send troops easily. Now, the battle situation has been settled overnight. No matter what He Lu’s 150,000 men do, we will have time to deal with them.”

"Yes!" The generals bowed solemnly, their expressions stern.

Although they had wiped out Dieyun's 50,000 cavalry, Helu's 150,000 cavalry could attack at any time, so the pressure on them remained heavy.

"Alright, let's talk about what's next." Cheng Zhijie's expression turned serious as he said, "The current battle is temporarily over, but He Lu doesn't know that his son has died here. He might have already attacked from the west, since the smoke of war has already been raised."

Dieyun's purpose in attacking Xizhou was to disrupt the entire Anxi region, so that Helu could take advantage of the situation and launch an attack.

Now that Dieyun is dead, Helu is unaware that he will definitely follow the original plan and attack Anxi.

"Therefore, all the cavalry will go to Kucha. The infantry left in each city will each select five thousand warhorses to guard the more than ten thousand surrendered Turkic soldiers." Cheng Zhijie looked up at Qibi Heli and said, "Duke of Liang, you will lead your ten thousand cavalry back to the grasslands immediately, and then rush to Shule to cut off Helu's retreat."

"Yes!" Qibi Heli solemnly cupped his hands, then stood up and was about to lead his people away.

Cheng Zhijie turned to the crowd and asked, "Everyone, do you have anything else to say?"

"General!" Luo Hongyi suddenly spoke, cupping his hands to Cheng Zhijie and saying, "This humble official thinks, what do you think about releasing all these Turkic soldiers?"

At that one sentence, everyone looked up, and even Qibi Heli, who was about to leave, stopped in surprise.

Cheng Zhijie raised his head slightly: "Tell me more about it?"

"Yes!" Luo Hongyi cupped his hands and said, "General, with these 20,000 surrendered Turkic soldiers, not only will it require a large number of troops to guard them, but it will also consume a considerable amount of food and fodder. Therefore, I think it is better to let them all go. This will free up a lot of troops, save food and fodder, and allow more resources to be used for frontline operations."

Cheng Zhijie frowned: "Are we just going to let these people leave like this?"

“Let them leave on foot. This long journey will exhaust their strength and reduce the threat.” After a slight pause, Luo Hongyi said, “His Majesty said that after crushing Helu’s main force, the second step is to divide and win over the ten tribes of the Western Turks. Dieyun died too easily, but if it makes the ten tribes afraid.”

“The Turks fear power but do not appreciate kindness. If we really want to reassure them and at the same time spare troops to support the front lines,” Xue Rengui said, glancing at the surrendered Turkic soldiers in the distance, “then why not just kill them all?”

In short, the atmosphere of mountains of corpses and seas of blood was overwhelming.

Xue Rengui wasn't just talking casually; he genuinely intended to wipe out all 20,000 surrendered Turkic soldiers.

His goal was not only to kill these 10,000 surrendered Turkic soldiers, but he also planned to wipe out all the tribes of the Western Turkic Khaganate.

Not only the Tiele and Uyghur generals standing nearby, but even their own people felt that Xue Rengui was truly ruthless.

Cheng Zhi raised his head and looked at Lai Ji to the side, asking, "What do you think, Lai Xiang?"

Lai Ji was taken aback and quickly waved his hand: "General, you mustn't address me like that!"

“It’s alright. Your arrival in Anxi was His Majesty’s decision. With your military achievements today, as long as the Western Turks are completely pacified, you may have a chance to return to Chang’an in the future.” Cheng Zhijie glanced at everyone and said, “As for the rest, I still have some influence with His Majesty.”

"Thank you, Commander." Lai Ji pondered for a moment, then said, "If they hadn't surrendered, then killing them would have been fine. But they have already surrendered, so killing them would be inappropriate. Therefore, letting them go is the right thing to do. In the current weather, even if they are loyal and return to He Lu's side, it won't be of much use without horses. On the contrary, it will force him to give up and move on. This is better."

What they were actually afraid of was that He Lu would suddenly turn around and run away. Now that his own son was dead, he would definitely come to seek revenge.

Cheng Zhijie nodded slowly and said, "If that's the case, the overall military strategy will need to be adjusted, and it will no longer be appropriate to use Kucha City as the battlefield."

“Let’s go to Awat. There’s a river flowing down from the Tianshan Mountains there. If we plan things out properly, the Turkic cavalry will have to slow down when they get there.” Guo Daizhao looked up at everyone and said, “Moreover, the terrain there is wide enough for a large army to fight. As long as we plan things out well…”

"Then we can kill He Lu."

(End of this chapter)