Prince of Song Dynasty

Chapter 974 How to Retreat
At that time, Ye Chen's will specifically emphasized that in field battles, "injuring the enemy one thousand, injuring oneself eight hundred" is ultimately the worst policy.Even if the Xiangfu Kingdom has strong combat power and sharp weapons and equipment, it can often achieve a one-to-two record when confronting the enemy head-on.However, taking into account the threat of Song and Liao, Xiangfu still cannot afford such a loss.

In fact, the sensible people in the court of Xiangfu Kingdom knew very well that as long as Xiangfu Kingdom lost too much in the battle with the Tubo people, Song and Liao might send troops at any time.Now it seems that what Zhang Dawei and Gao Wuyang did clearly understood His Majesty's will.

Deng Chongxuan thought a lot in his mind, closed his eyes slightly, and after a few breaths, he suppressed the remorse in his heart and said: "Come here, give me an order, and the entire engineering battalion will be dispatched to collect all the mines in the army and bury them in Tubo." On the road that people must pass when they retreat to Lanzhou, they planted minefields for me."

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At the same time, Gewang Dorje was on his way back to the Gai Zhucheng camp.

After half a day of bitter fighting, compared with the Suzaku army, the Tubo army suffered more casualties, and it was considered a defeat, so almost all the Tubo generals from Gewang Dorje down looked very depressed.The dull atmosphere made the exhaustion after the battle even more exhausting, and everyone was a little listless.Many generals even felt dissatisfied with Gwang Dorje in their hearts.

Suddenly, there was a loud noise from the front of the team, and Gwang Dorje was startled. "What's going on?" He hurriedly sent his own soldiers to inquire, while sitting on the horse anxiously, waiting for the return.

Not long after, the guards who went to investigate came galloping, ran to Yelumi's ear almost in a panic, and whispered: "General, the guards of Gaizhu City sent a small group of people to sneak into the camp, burn... …burned … part of our camp.”

"What did you say?" Gwang Dorje's eyes widened.Hearing the soldier repeat it again with a trembling voice, Gwang Dorje's face was extremely ugly.

"It's no big deal. It's just that Ding Jia just took advantage of the loophole." Cao Wei, who had been frowning beside him, glanced at Gwang Dorje sideways and said expressionlessly.

"It's not a big deal!" Gewang Dorje almost roared in his heart, but when he saw Cao Wei's expression, his heart trembled, and his eyes swept over the demoralized soldiers beside him, and he suppressed the anger and worry in his heart down.

However, at this moment, he saw a group of 300 cavalry galloping from the south. He guessed that they were probably envoys sent by Ying Chenglin Buchi, and suddenly felt an ominous feeling in his heart.

Not long after, a man in black robe came to Gwang Dorje.

When the man came over, his expression was calm and his robe was very tidy. Gwang Dorje felt relieved a lot. Seeing Gwang Dorje, the man knelt down on one knee and said in Tubo dialect: "Small man Three slaves of the family, I pay my respects to General Gewang, the villain has ordered Ying Cheng Lin Bu Chi Ying Cheng Lin Bu Chi to submit a letter." After finishing speaking, he took out a letter from his pocket and handed it with both hands.

Gwang Dorje nodded, and a soldier walked over, took the letter, and handed it over. Gwang Dorje checked the wax, tore open the envelope, and took out a piece of paper, but it was written in small Tibetan characters. It must be Ying Cheng Lin Buchi's handwriting, glanced at it, and his face changed drastically.

Seeing this, Cao Wei was startled, and was about to ask questions, when Gwang Dorje looked at the small piece of paper carefully again. Suddenly, he leaned forward and spit out a mouthful of blood with a puff. .

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The night of August [-]th in the second year of Tianding in Xiangfu Kingdom was destined to be a sleepless night.

Gewang Dorje knew that Wu Sheng's army had been lost, the Anduo family had been exterminated, and the food road had been cut off.The occupation of Dafengkou by the Azure Dragon Army also meant that their tens of thousands of Tubo troops were cut off from the rear.Such a heavy blow almost made Gwang Dorje feel unbelievable and unacceptable for a while.

However, whether he believes it or not, the most important thing right now is how to return to Lanzhou safely and smoothly under the noses of Deng Chongxuan and Ding Jiagang.

A large army retreats, even if it is all cavalry, it is easy to be attacked by the enemy.And once he was successfully attacked by the enemy and formed a rout, he didn't know how many people could escape back to Lanzhou.

The generals of various tribes under Gwang Dorje had serious differences on the next retreat plan.To put it simply, it is a question of retreating during the day or retreating at night.Gewang Dorje and Cao Wei believed that retreating at night would be difficult to hide from the spies of the Suzaku Legion, and retreating in the dark is prone to chaos, and the possibility of defeat is greater.However, several tribal generals believed that they had the superior force, and the number of people that the Suzaku Army could entangle in the night retreat in the darkness was limited, and there would be more people who could escape to Lanzhou smoothly.

However, Cao Wei and Gewang Dorje still have another worry about those tribal troops.At this time, no matter how stupid the tribal general was, he knew that the situation of the Tubo army was already very bad.And these tribes are those who can share wealth but not share adversity.At this time, we can't give them too much time to stop and think, only to lead them to fight continuously, so that they will fight with Gwang Dorje or obey Yingcheng Linbuchi's orders because of their habits.In such a situation, once they think about it, or even have a little communication between several tribes, the consequences will be unimaginable.Because, it is easy for them to imagine whether Ying Cheng Lin Buchi can return to Hehuang alive?Even if he returned to Hehuang alive, his prestige would be greatly lost, and the army of the direct tribes would inevitably be greatly damaged, would he still be able to deter the tribes and control the Tubo kingdom?And in this case, if these tribes want to fight on their own, or think of ways to escape.In this way, the retreat process will inevitably be full of loopholes, and Nagwang Dorje's 2-strong army really has to withdraw to Lanzhou.

And Cao Wei's reasons for persuading Gewang Dorje against retreating at night are also very good. Although both sides have taken back most of the rangers after nightfall, Deng Chongxuan and Ding Jiagang are both veterans of the army, and they must be vigilant. If there is any movement in the camp, they will find out.If the suddenness is lost in this way, retreating at night is nothing more than provoking a night battle.And Gwang Dorje has more than 2 troops under his command. If they are arranged in a square formation, the width of the front will be more than seven or eight miles.This kind of heavy army group is extremely dependent on the command of flags and drums, especially the flags. At night, even on a night when the moon is sparse and the soldiers hold fire, at most one flag can be seen. As for the flags The colors and shapes of the soldiers are difficult for most soldiers to distinguish clearly during the battle.Therefore, for night battles, the more people there are, the easier it is to be confused and unable to command. Once a melee occurs, it is not uncommon for them to attack each other and even cause bombing of the camp.Especially under Gwang Dorje's command, there are still a large number of tribal troops.In the night battle, the existence of these troops is definitely not enough for success and more than failure.But at this time, it was already impossible for Gewang Dorje to abandon these tribal subordinates and bring his own army of nearly [-] to break through. Otherwise, if they didn't need the Suzaku Legion to do something, they would immediately have internal strife.

Of course, this kind of confusion is caused by both sides. Unless the Suzaku Legion can't hold on, they will also have to accept the test of the night battle.This is also after the various tribes asked to retreat at night, Cao Wei and Gwang Dorje persuaded him to no avail. Cao Wei and Gwang Dorje felt that there was a reason to take risks to retreat at night. The Suzaku Legion might be afraid of chaos and dare not fight. , This confusion will also make the outcome unpredictable.However, the experience of fighting with the army of the Xiangfu Kingdom these days made Gwang Dorje faintly feel that the Suzaku Army he was facing might be far more capable of dealing with melee combat than their Tubo army.

In addition, the direction of retreat is also a problem.Some tribal generals even believed that at this time, they should not retreat to the death area of ​​Lanzhou in the southeast at all, but simply retreated to the southwest, bypassing Lanzhou, and returning to Hehuang by mountain road was the correct choice.Although Cao Wei and Gewang Dorje feel that this matter is not important now, it is very important to the tribal generals.Retreat in the direction of Lanzhou?Even if it succeeds, Lanzhou City is still a Jedi?At a time when the morale of the army is already very fragile, even if such a plan is really feasible in the military, it is almost impossible to persuade the generals who have more than 5000 tribal troops to follow.

Gwang Dorje understood that he might still have one last chance to choose.It is not to choose a better retreat plan, but to choose the one that is not the worst. This decision will directly determine the life and death of him and the 2-strong army, and even Yingcheng Lin Buchi and the [-]-strong army in Lanzhou City.

Despite the ups and downs in his heart and unprecedented indecision, Gwang Dorje became calm and calm on the outside.This point made Cao Wei secretly discover that Yingcheng Lin Buchi valued Gewang Dorje, and it was not unreasonable for him to lead the army alone.

Gwang Dorje sat on the bed and carefully wiped his saber with a silk cloth. People around him were very familiar with this habit. Every day, Gwang Dorje would spare some time to wipe his saber. Saber, but very few people know how his habit was formed.

This habit has been going on for more than ten years. Every time he wipes the saber, Gwang Dorje will think of the defeat more than ten years ago. It was an insignificant small-scale battle when the Hehuang Tubo Kingdom was established. It's just a small tribe that doesn't accept Master Ying Cheng Lin Bu Chi.

However, at that time, Gwang Dorje, who only knew how to fight bravely, was tricked by the enemy, and more than 500 cavalry fell into the enemy's trap. Only relying on his subordinates to fight desperately, Gwang Dorje managed to save his life. But none of the more than [-] subordinates survived in the end.

Later, he regrouped, avenged his revenge, and defeated this tribe cleanly, killing the leader of that tribe. This saber was originally the saber of that leader.

(End of this chapter)