"I don't know... what kind of poem I want to write and what is the title of it?"
Fang Chongyong asked Cui Xiyi, who was sitting on the main seat, with his hands raised.
It is impossible to compose poetry without a proposition. This night banquet is usually titled "Moon".
This kind of topic is the best to write about, but there are so many famous articles written by predecessors that it is not easy to write it this way.
"Since it's a night banquet, of course the theme is the moon."
Xiao Jiong said with contempt.
However, although his tone was arrogant, what he said was very reasonable.
It's just that Cui Xiyi didn't want to agree to him so simply. Xiao Jiong came to Liangzhou obviously to "wreak havoc". In other words, he is preparing to replace himself in the near future. Therefore, it would be really strange if Cui Xiyi felt happy.
There is a big and unobtrusive problem here!
Cui Xiyi only served as the Hexi Jiedushi last year. According to the general rules of Tang Dynasty officialdom, the term of the Hexi Jiedushi is four years.
Why is there a tendency for Cui Xiyi to be replaced in his second year after taking office?
There may be some unusual reasons here.
Cui Xiyi was silent, and the atmosphere at the table gradually became awkward and dull.
At this moment, an orderly soldier wearing leather armor hurriedly rushed into the banquet, raised his hands to Cui Xiyi and shouted loudly: "Commander Jies! The Tubo army is rushing to attack Dadou Valley! The Kang army envoy is leading Dadou The sharp soldiers are fighting with the Tibetan army."
These words shocked everyone!
Dadou Valley is a key passage two hundred miles west of Liangzhou City. It is a tunnel in the Qilian Mountains with a large width. It is the only way for Qinghai to enter the Hexi Corridor.
"Zizhi Tongjian" says: In the fifth year of Daye of the Sui Dynasty (609 AD), Emperor Yang returned eastward from Zhangye (now Zhangye, Gansu). After a big battle to pull out the valley, the mountain passes are dangerous and narrow, and the people are coming out. It is windy and snowy, and... more than half of the soldiers died of freezing, and even eighty-nine horses and donkeys died.
In order to prevent the Tibetans from breaking through the Dadou valley and attacking Liangzhou, the Tang Dynasty specially set up the Dadou Shouchu here. Later, it was upgraded to the Dadou Army and the number of troops continued to increase. Now there is a standing army of 7,500 people. , three hundred war horses.
"After the banquet is over, those who have military positions will follow the commander of this section to order troops!"
Cui Xiyi stood up and hurriedly walked outside the Huamen Tower. Almost at the same moment, most of the people at the table stood up in a hurry and left with Cui Xiyi, leaving only those like Fang Chongyong who made up the numbers, or the civil servants in Jiedu Mansion.
This scene happened so hastily that Fang Chongyong was completely over before he even understood what happened. The remaining cats and dogs also started to get up and leave, leaving uneaten leftovers on the table.
The high stools, cushions, and tables and tables left behind at the table were all in a mess due to the haste of the guests leaving, as if they had been robbed.
"The reputation of the Tubo people is really extraordinary."
Fang Chongyong also stood up and couldn't help but talk to himself with emotion.
A group of officials from Jiedu Mansion in Liangzhou were having a night banquet. They heard that the Tibetans were fighting a big battle to pull out grains, so they got up and left without mobilizing. It would be unimaginable if something like this happened in Chang'an.
Chang'an has been filled with the aura of singing and dancing. The people there seemed to think that it would never be possible for an army to invade Chang'an.
He walked to the wooden fence on the edge of the third floor of Huamen Building, looked up at the bright moon hanging in the sky, and felt mixed emotions in his heart.
"This is Liangzhou, where prosperity and warfare intersect.
The luminous cup of grape wine reminds you immediately if you want to drink Pipa;
Don't laugh when you are lying drunk on the battlefield. How many people have fought in ancient times. "
Fang Chongyong slowly walked downstairs while reciting poetry. As soon as he came out, he saw Fang Dafu looking worried and walking back and forth extremely anxiously.
"Mr. Lang, the troops and horses in Liangzhou City are frequently dispatched. Something big must have happened!"
As soon as he saw Fang Chongyong coming, Fang Dafu couldn't help but ask.
He had also served in the army back then, so he was not an inexperienced person. Just now, a group of cavalry, numbering no less than a thousand people, left the city directly from the city gate near Huamen Tower and disappeared without a trace.
Liangzhou's response to the invasion was so fast that Fang Chongyong couldn't believe it. I just don't know what's going on at the Chishui Army station twenty miles away. The Tubo people come early or late, but they come at this time. They really know how to pick the time.
"The Tubo people made a surprise attack on Da Dou Valley."
Fang Chongyong said in a deep voice.
Hearing this, Fang Dafu breathed a sigh of relief and said, "That's okay, it's more than two hundred miles away from Liangzhou City."
"Yes, there are still more than two hundred miles away..."
Fang Chongyong sighed lightly, but there was no sense of relief on his face.
He knew roughly where Dadou Bago was, but he didn't have any on-site inspections and didn't know what the terrain was like. But one thing is for sure, if the Tubo army gets through the Battle of Bago, they will be able to kill everyone in the Hexi Corridor!
For example, two months before Fang Ya Nei came to Liangzhou, the Tubo army had penetrated Dadou Bago and reached the gates of Liangzhou City, where they fought a decisive battle with the main force of the Chishui Army.
This operation may seem a bit confusing at first glance.
Because from a strategic point of view, these Tibetan troops are almost like delivering food. This made Fang Chongyong unable to understand and guess the thinking mode of the Tibetan people.
However, Niu Xianke told him that since the Qin and Han Dynasties, Tubo was so powerful that no surrounding barbarians could match it.
To put it simply, although the Xiongnu back then, the Xianbei, Turks, etc. later looked very bad. But comparing their army with the elite Tibetan army, those people were nothing.
Tubo's abilities in waging war, such as mobilization, recovery, and execution, are all top-notch.
Although the Tubo were a peripheral ethnic minority that began to rise in the early Tang Dynasty, their thinking and cultural mentality were based on the "Central Empire" model. This is the only example in ancient Chinese history without a semicolon.
In other words, nomadic peoples such as the Turks may dream of one day entering Chang'an and becoming the masters of the world, accepting court from all directions. This is also one of the reasons why there are so many nomads who have taken refuge in the Tang Dynasty, and why Ban generals can be accepted in large numbers.
The spirit of the Tang Dynasty is "I am the main one and the world is one family". Surrounded by the central government's ministers, accepting the canonization of the central government, this has formed a cultural mentality.
The Turks, Goguryeo, Khitan, Xiren, Cili, and Sogdians, no matter who they were, knew very well that they were "barbarians" and tributary vassals to the Tang Dynasty.
But Tubo is different. They do not consider themselves "barbarians".
The Tibetan nobles generally agree that Tubo is a central empire located on the top of a mountain (the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau) and should be the object of pilgrimage by surrounding ethnic groups, not the other way around.
In other words, the Tubo people were very interested in robbing Chang'an, but they despised the mediocre Tang Dynasty in Chang'an and did not have the "weak mentality" of the surrounding grassland peoples.
They believe that all good things in the world should be transported to Luoshe (Lhasa, Tibet) and piled up. Places that should be conquered include but are not limited to Tang Dynasty, Tianzhu, and the Abbasid Dynasty in West Asia. They should not grovel and serve great countries like the Tang Dynasty as ministers.
This mentality, so arrogant that it is almost impossible to communicate, is the spiritual pillar of Tubo's national militarism. It is also the endogenous driving force for Tubo's expansion since its rise.
The Tubo people thought nothing of it and attacked Liangzhou by pulling out grains. It may be true that these Tibetan troops were delivering food. But the Tibetan army must have a plot, and the plot may be unexpected.
Not even in Hexi!
The Tang Dynasty suffered too many losses from Tubo. If the Tibetans did not consider the habit of concentrating superior forces to fight annihilation wars and not sparing human lives, they would surely pay a heavy price in the end.
Fang Chongyong couldn't help but feel nervous when he remembered what Niu Xianke had said to him. He always felt that the Tubo army had other agendas and was having a lively fight in Hexi, but it was not necessarily for Hexi.
Niu Xianke said that Tubo's main attack direction could only be Longyou.
In Hexi, most of them used "offense as defense" to prevent the Chishui Army from going south to attack the Tibetan Army fighting with the Tang Army in Longyou. Their strategic goals are sequential, and they are not just throwing punches indiscriminately.
As for tens of thousands of people dying in Hexi, according to the habits of the Tubo people, they probably don't care much about it.
Fang Chongyong outside Huamen Tower felt for a moment that the Tibetans were walking the Chishui Army like dogs.
Every time the Tibetan army came in a hurry, the Hexi Chishui army had to rush two hundred miles to Dadou Bugu for a decisive battle.
When the Chishui army was tired of killing, the Tubo people retreated from Dadou Bugu, leaving many corpses on the ground. This wave of offensive is over.
On the surface, it seems that the Tibetans suffered a great loss. But if a strategically superior force like the Chishui Army moves south to Longyou and flanks the Tibetan army attacking Longyou from the north, what will be the final outcome?
Maybe it will create the kind of big victory that has a major impact on the strategic landscape.
After all, the Chishui Army has 13,000 cavalry in the government accounts! In fact, it’s just a lot more!
Because this powerful army was constantly harassed by the Tibetan people, it had to be stationed in Hexi and could not move. Then the Hexi Jiedushi could not ignore the local defense and dispatch the Chishui Army to Longyou to fight.
Because the Hexi Jiedushi is on the same level as the Longyou Jiedushi!
Could it be that the Tibetan people's strategy is smarter?
A terrible thought came to Fang Chongyong's mind.
He found that it seemed that the Tang army did not take the strategic initiative when fighting the Tubo people, even though the capital in their hands was extremely rich.
"Mr. Lang, it's already curfew. Cui Jieshuai just sent someone to escort us to the other courtyard where we went last time to rest."
Fang Dafu saw Fang Chongyong in a daze, so he came over and said calmly.
"I know, let's go."
Fang Chongyong nodded slightly, a little frustrated.
He really wanted to help the Tang army, and he had thought about it a lot before coming here. But when things came to pass, it was always so urgent and embarrassing, and it didn't help even a little bit.
Seemingly sensing his mood, Fang Dafu said with a smile: "Little Langjun, the days are still long. There will be many opportunities in the future."
"Yes, there are plenty of opportunities."
Fang Chongyong sighed helplessly.
…
Dadouba Valley starts from the mouth of the canyon in the north and reaches Obo Ridge in the south. Stretching for fifty miles, the existing ancient road from the Han Dynasty is only large enough for two people to pass side by side at its narrowest point, but the overall area is quite large.
The moon and stars are sparse tonight, and the hills of Dadou Valley are densely covered with torches. The Tang army erected wooden fences at key points, while the Tubo army faced them with heavy armored infantry with only their eyes exposed.
Although well prepared, the Tang soldiers of the Da Dou Army still could not prevent the Tibetan army from infiltrating from the south side of the fence to the north side step by step. The ground was covered with dried blood, which looked like black oil emerging from the ground under the firelight.
The Tubo people's tactics were not very clever. The first wave was made up of vanguards holding square tower shields. These people were almost all expendables. By the time they rushed to the wooden fence set up by the Tang army at the entrance, almost the entire army had been wiped out.
The second wave was dominated by armored soldiers composed of small nobles among the Tubo people. They were the main force in the battle.
Each of these armored soldiers wore chainmail armor made of iron leaves and ropes. Only their eyes were exposed, and they were not afraid of the swords and crossbows of the Tang army.
These iron blades were forged by Tibetan craftsmen using methods from the Western Regions, and their forgings are very thick. Each blade must be forged until less than one-third of its original thickness remains. Its armor is strong and durable, and is much lighter than armor with the same protection level.
Often a Tibetan heavy-armored soldier rushing in front could create a gap several men wide in the Tang army's line.
As for bows and arrows, the Tubo people think that they are "dark" weapons. In their hearts, only the stone-throwing lock Wuduo is a bright weapon! They don't like to use bows and arrows at the beginning of a war. Of course, this is also divided into ruled areas. It can only be said that the core area of Tibet on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is like this.
Soon, the Tang army on the other side of the fence was unable to withstand the fierce Tibetan offensive. Deserters began to appear, and the front quickly collapsed.
The Tibetan heavy-armored soldiers pushed open the fence and swarmed forward. The weakness of today's fighting army was beyond their expectation. Of course, there is also a possibility that it may be because the Da Dou Army was crippled the last time they attacked Liangzhou City, and they could not even hold the battle line after that bloody battle.
The Tubo people rushed into the pass of Dadou Valley like a tide. In the darkness, the Tubo people were already familiar with the road.
It is wide in the south and narrow in the north. Passing through the barrier is the Hexi Corridor. When the time comes, you can go to Shazhou (Dunhuang) to make a fuss, or you can go to Liangzhou to make a fuss.
Here, heavy infantry is invincible. There are many hills, and the flat land in the middle is so thin that even the cavalry cannot move forward.
At this moment, a young Tubo nobleman wearing heavy armor found in disbelief that a long and large knife penetrated his body! He was "pierced" on this long knife like a meat skewer!
"Li Siye, the captain of Zhaowu School of Anxi Army, is here, Modao Team comes forward to kill the enemy!"
There was a roar in the valley, and countless torches lit up behind Li Siye, as did the hills on both sides. The jar, soon filled with the smell of kerosene, was thrown from the hill and landed at the critical point where the Tibetan army gathered:
The terrain began to change from wide to narrow, the attack route was blocked, and they retreated... Probably a large number of people would die in the subsequent pursuit battle.
The fire began to spread, and the Tibetan army fled in fear, trampling on each other to no avail. The exquisite chain armor had no power to resist in the face of the raging fire. One after another, the little Tubo nobles fell into the sea of fire, and the valley exuded the disgusting smell of meat.
On a nearby higher hill, Cui Qianyou, who was already a tenth general in the Great Dou Army, raised his hands to a Tang army general with Sogdian descent and said: "Envoy Kang, fortunately you have lived up to your command and led the Tubo people here. It’s a Jedi. Now the Da Dou Army can annihilate them all without relying on other reinforcements.”
The general who listened to his report was Kang Taihe, the envoy of the Da Dou Army. He was one of the nine surnames of Zhaowu. He had deep roots in Liangzhou and had served as a guard in Chang'an Palace for more than ten years. He was deeply trusted by Li Longji.
"Those are not big things. I will take credit for you."
"Returning to the army, this battle relies entirely on the support of the Mo Dao team sent by the Anxi Army. The general will not dare to take credit." Cui Qianyou said reservedly.
His previous experience made him realize that if a capable person wants to show his talents and rise to the top, it will not work without a backstage. When the faction of the superiors around you is unknown, it is not a bad thing to keep a low profile.
Faced with the difficult situation on the border between Tubo and Tang Dynasty, which was thousands of miles away, the Tubo people had their own tricks, and the Tang army also had some clever tricks. The Tang army used the method of "mounting infantry and maneuvering thousands of miles" to predict the direction of the Tibetan people's actions and concentrate its superior forces to annihilate the Tibetan army.
However, in this case, the Central Committee of the Tang Dynasty directly issued the order bypassing the Jiedushi. For example, this time, Cui Xiyi was not notified in advance.
Kang Taihe stroked his beard and laughed.
After this battle, he will return to Chang'an to enter the palace and enjoy the blessings. The days of licking blood from the edge of a knife have passed for decades, and enough has passed. Before leaving, he planned to recommend Cui Ganyou as the deputy military envoy of the Great Dou Army. Of course it was impossible to be honest. After all, this was a man with 7,500 soldiers. The military-level establishment is not like the Bai Ting Army, which can arrange military envoys at will.
"Thank you, Ambassador Kang." Cui Qianyou bowed deeply to him.
"Hey, it doesn't matter, it's just to serve the saint."
Kang Taihe said with laughter. While the two were talking, the battle down the valley had come to an end.
(End of chapter)
