At this moment, Tuogu Khan felt as if his bones had been ripped out, and his whole body had lost all energy. He slumped on a chair and motioned to the soldiers on the side, "Call all the people from the tribe below."
"Your order!"
After the soldiers left, Tuogu Khan was the only one left in the tent. At this time, he was no longer as high-spirited as before, full of decadence and had no fighting spirit.
This attack on Da Zhou can be said to be a complete failure. Even if they want to withdraw now, Da Zhou may not let them go.
Fortunately, their nest is deep in the prairie, and even the herdsmen on the grassland have a hard time finding it, so they are not afraid of being raided by Da Zhou.
However, Tuogu Khan was not thinking about this, but another more important thing. The defeat of this war brought not only a military defeat, but also a major political blow. If he could not handle it well, I'm afraid it will upset the hearts of his tribe, and by then, he won't be able to keep his position as Khan.
On the grasslands, the fate of a loser is undoubtedly very tragic. Once he loses his position as Khan, his tribe will be divided up, his wife and daughters will become slaves, and his property will become the property of others. , even his life will not belong to him.
For a time, Tuogu Khan was on pins and needles. Having tasted the taste of power, no one would give up easily. Thinking of the consequences of failure, he fell into deep worries.
no! We absolutely cannot end up like this!
Tuogu Khan clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms, and he was unaware of the drops of blood dripping. Outside the tent, a voice sounded, "Qi Khan, they are here."
The voice of the soldiers instantly woke up Tuogu Khan. He realized that he had been sitting here for an unknown amount of time. There was a slight pain in his palms. He lowered his head and looked down. Then he took out a handkerchief from his arms and wiped it. He took out a pair of Put on leather gloves.
After doing this, Tuogu Khan said, "Bring them in."
Not long after, people opened the curtains and walked in one after another, but without exception, everyone had a heavy look of sadness and exhaustion on their faces.
After they arrived, everyone sat cross-legged in the golden tent, and no one spoke. In an instant, the atmosphere began to become solemn, and gradually became a little breathless.
Finally, a young general couldn't bear the low pressure here and was sweating profusely. He couldn't help but ask, "Khan, why did you call us here? Is there any progress in the siege of the city?"
However, after he said this, he regretted it, because the people around him did not speak, but just stared at him as if they were looking at a fool, which made him even more stressed.
"Alas." Tuogu Khan cast a death gaze at him. Seeing that he was not mocking him intentionally, he sighed in his heart. When things got to this point, it was time to put an end to it.
He stood up from his seat and cleared his throat. At this time, everyone focused their eyes on him, waiting for him to speak. Tuogu Khan glanced at everyone and said in a deep voice, "Everyone, I believe you already know that this This siege battle cannot continue. If we continue to fight, I'm afraid all of us will have to stay here."
For a moment, everyone looked at each other, not knowing what to say, so they could only respond in silence.
"In the past half month, Zhou Dynasty has not sent any reinforcements, but the resources reserved in this city are endless. It can be seen that the Zhou army has a premeditated plan!"
"Even if we don't fight this battle, they will force us to fight. This is inevitable! However, the warriors of Changshengtian will never give in and be led by the enemy!"
"So, we must withdraw!"
Most people were not surprised by Tuogu Khan's decision. In fact, they had already thought about withdrawing their troops a few days ago and secretly conserved their strength when attacking the city.
But they didn't expect that it took Tuogu Khan half a month to decide to withdraw his troops.
At this time, the bald Barhan who had been clamoring for war suddenly asked, "Great Khan, are we just going to withdraw like this? Maybe the prefectures and counties can no longer hold on. As long as we work harder, we can win this city." city."
Tuogu Khan shook his head, his expression full of exhaustion, "Barhan, I tried, even if the Chaturi I accepted led the charge, the city was not captured. Now the soldiers below don't want to fight anymore." No, forcing them to do so will only make them die in vain."
Seeing that Khan had reached this point, Barhan could only retreat quietly.
Withdrawal was already an irreversible fact. The old man who had previously opposed the war asked, "Khan, since we have to withdraw our troops, when will we leave?"
Tuogu Khan glanced at him indifferently and said in a deep voice, "We'll leave tomorrow! If it's too late, it'll be too late!"
For a moment, the people below were a little caught off guard, and they were so hasty that they didn't even bother to collect the corpses of their companions under Hanyang City. If they had to leave tomorrow, I'm afraid they would have to leave most of their baggage behind and go into battle lightly. withdraw.
However, as a result, they will encounter greater hardships on their way back.
"Khan, think twice! Please give me two days of grace!"
"Yeah, it's so rushed, brothers don't have time to pack things!"
······
The tribal leaders below began to talk and make a noise, and the tent that was silent just now suddenly became noisy. Suddenly, Tuogu Khan's expression turned cold, and he looked at them indifferently without saying a word.
Those who were touched by his gaze seemed to be frozen and immediately silenced their voices. After a while, silence returned to the big tent again.
Seeing the fear in their expressions, Tuogu Khan's expression softened, but his voice was still cold and increasingly forceful, "I'm here to inform you, not to discuss with you! For this retreat, you will take your own tribe's people with you. The others leave first, while Ben Khan stays and continues to attack Hanyang City to buy time for you!"
"No Khan!"
"Yes, we want to go together, how can we abandon Khan!"
······
As soon as the words came out, everyone was shocked, and the two groups quarreled, thinking that Tuogu Khan was testing them, and quickly dissuaded him. After all, how could there be any reason in this world for a boss to take the initiative to cut off the queen of his subordinates?
Seeing their reaction, Tuogu Khan burst into a sneer, "The army of Zhou Dynasty is coming soon. The defense lines on the north and south sides are impenetrable, so we can only retreat the way we came. But once all of us are Now that we're gone, who knows that Da Zhou won't turn these two lines of defense into pockets for us to get into?"
At this time, someone understood the meaning of his words and asked cautiously, "What does the Khan mean?"
What Ben Khan meant was, "Tomorrow night, you will take your men and horses back to the grassland. The faster the better. Take the baggage if you can, and throw it away if you can't. I will launch an attack tomorrow to cover your retreat. You must not Let Zhou Jun find out that we have left!"
At this time, everyone realized that what Tuogu Khan said was true and he was not testing! Of course, some people think there is a conspiracy, but under the current circumstances, who dares to refute it face to face.
The old man from before looked at Tuogu Khan apologetically, "But in this case, when the Zhou army discovers our retreat, it will be difficult for the Khan to leave!"
Tuogu Khan waved his hand and looked at everyone with bright eyes, "Don't worry about me, I am the Khan of the grassland. It is my fault that I lost my troops and generals in the attack on the Great Zhou Dynasty. Even if I am a Khan, I cannot escape. The army The entire grassland is empty. If we all stay here, I’m afraid the grassland will have the same nightmare again!”
"I will never allow the future of the grassland to be ruined in my hands. Gentlemen, from now on, the grassland will be entrusted to you. If we can go back alive, we must drink and talk together and worship the Immortal Heaven together!" In the end, the words The tragic meaning in it is beyond words.
Hearing these words, all the tribal leaders felt guilty and secretly hated themselves for being incompetent. If they had not been able to capture the city, how could the mighty Khan be forced to cut off his rear?
At this time, they felt quite ready to humiliate their ministers and die. Some of them even wanted to stay and break up with Tuogu Khan on the spot, but in the end they were persuaded to come down.
In a tragic atmosphere, all the tribal leaders kowtowed to him and left one after another. Tuogu Khan sat on a chair with his eyes closed tightly, as if he couldn't bear to look directly.
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However, after everyone left and Tuogu Khan was the only one left in the tent, he opened his eyes and looked at the stars through the skylight with his gloomy eyes.
He had no choice but to take this path.
In fifteen days, Zhou Dynasty did not send any reinforcements to relieve the siege. What does this mean? It shows that they have a bigger intention. The defense lines on the north and south sides have been formed. It is basically impossible for them to return to the grassland through other roads.
Therefore, they can only return along the original path.
Tuogu Khan knew very well that the army of the Great Zhou Dynasty was definitely not a group of incompetent people. Although the army they stayed behind had been receiving news that they were fine, could this news really be believed?
Although the codeword tags on the letter are all correct, is the person who sent the letter really their army?
Therefore, Tuogu Khan dared to conclude that as long as they retreated from the original road, they would be ambushed by the Great Zhou on the way. There were hundreds of thousands of troops on the entire border of the Great Zhou.
The deployment of half of these armies is also an extremely considerable number, not to mention that they had sent out a lot of troops in order to ensure logistics.
A month has passed since they entered the customs. One month is enough for Zhou to dispatch troops and horses from other places. Therefore, there will never be a small number of troops blocking their retreat!
Once ambushed, it is hard to say how many of these hastily evacuated troops will be able to return to the grassland alive. On the contrary, if he stays here to attack the city, it will not attract the powerful army of the Great Zhou Dynasty to attack.
If he was the commander-in-chief of the Great Zhou Dynasty, how could he abandon the large army on the grassland and ignore it after knowing that the troops staying here were abandoned?
In other words, the person being used as bait was no longer him, but the evacuating army!
Even if he could escape back to the capital this time, the men and horses of each tribe would suffer heavy losses, and he could take advantage of the war between Da Zhou and other tribes to fish in troubled waters and escape back to the grassland.
Once he returned to the grassland and faced the tribes that had suffered heavy losses, he could still sit firmly in the position of Great Khan. Moreover, this time he stayed behind to make up for his previous mistakes. Even if someone made an argument about this matter, Can't make any trouble.
Of course, the premise of all this is that he can return to the grassland, which can be regarded as a desperate move to survive.
Next, the Tatars continued to attack the city, but the intensity and frequency of the siege were far less frequent than before. The leaders of each tribe also obeyed Tuogu Khan's order and packed up their things to prepare for retreat.
In order to prevent the warlocks of the Great Zhou Dynasty from detecting his location, Tuogu Khan also asked his son to wear the Khan's seal, disguise himself as himself and hide in the retreating army, and also asked the high priest to use magic to conceal him The dragon energy on his body covered up the vision.
On the second night, the Zhou army suddenly found that the Tatar offensive suddenly became more violent, even worse than before. Even Jiang Yunfei, the general who defended the city, could not figure out what medicine they were selling in the gourd, thinking it was Tatar again. suicide attack.
Under the fierce offensive, they were exhausted and could not care about the changes in the Tatar camp. Under the cover of night, the Tatars withdrew a total of 200,000 troops. Tuogu Khan continued to station with 30,000 troops. Here, attract the enemy's attention.
Soon, the movements of the Tatars were discovered by the spies of the Great Zhou Dynasty. The military of the Great Zhou Dynasty responded quickly, tightened the defense line, and pursued and intercepted the Tatars.
They had waited so long to set up this dragnet, how could Wang Yuer escape so easily?
As for Tuogu Khan under Hanyang City, the Great Zhou Dynasty only sent reinforcements to confront them and help Jiang Yunfei defend the city, and did not care about them anymore. After all, who would have thought that the Khan of the grassland would take the initiative to stay and break up the throne? He must have been among the fleeing Tartars.
At this time, Tuogu Khan was secretly preparing to pack up his things and run away. According to reports from his spies, Dazhou and the tribesmen were now fighting anxiously, and they were at a stalemate for a while.
If they don't take this opportunity to run away, I'm afraid they won't be able to run away again.
As a result, Tuogu Khan changed his previous decline, attacked forcefully, defeated Dazhou's reinforcements, and ran away with his men.
A few days later, the battle between the Great Zhou Dynasty and the Tatars finally came to a close. The Tatars were defeated and fled. The 200,000-strong army was routed. Only tens of thousands of Tatars fled back to the grassland. In this battle, the Great Zhou Dynasty was defeated. Complete victory.
At this time, the Zhou army also learned from the prisoners on the battlefield that Tuogu Khan took the initiative to stay in Hanyang City to break up the rear. Only then did they react, but now it was too late to pursue him. Because of the decisive battle between the Zhou Dynasty and the Tatars, the defensive troops were mobilized, which caused gaps in their defense lines. Tuogu Khan easily got out of his pocket with an army of 30,000 and returned to the prairie.
In this battle, Dazhou won, and Tuogu Khan also won. Only the leaders of the grassland tribes lost. They lost their troops and their vitality. Even if they returned to the grassland, they could no longer threaten Tuogu Khan. On the other hand, Tuogu Khan retained a certain degree of vitality and retained his position as Khan.
But since then, within thirty years, the grasslands have been unable to march into the Great Zhou Dynasty on a large scale. , violating the boundary.
