Northern Dynasties Imperial Industry

After receiving Duan Shao's reinforcements, Hulugu immediately set out from Jiushan Valley and advanced towards Qinshui River Valley.

Knowing that Yining City was easy to defend but difficult to attack, and that the Western Wei still retained a considerable number of defenders in the city, Hulugu once again chose to attack at night, hoping to capture Yining City in one fell swoop, thereby cutting off the retreat of the Wei army and causing its front-line divisions to collapse without a fight.

However, the risk of sneak attacks, a combat method with low investment and high returns, is also not small. Hulugu himself has experienced it twice recently and played different roles. It was originally a tricky method with insufficient strength and little control. Success is certainly gratifying, but failure is also not a small probability event.

This time, the Western Wei side, because Yunbao's attack did not fully communicate and coordinate with Yining City, and Hulugu's counterattack was also relatively rapid, so it was relatively smooth in the early stage of the advance, and his troops entered the Qinshui River Valley without encountering any obstruction. But when it continued to advance northward, it encountered a little accident.

However, the high level of defense of Yining City exceeded Hulugu's expectations. When his troops passed through the Fajiu Valley and then walked north along the Qinshui River, they were soon discovered by the scouts of the defenders in Yining City, and then they immediately warned the city, so that the city was on guard.

Hulugu's thousands of divisions came over the mountains. If they tried to steal the city, they might succeed, but facing the heavily guarded city, they could do nothing without carrying large engineering equipment.

However, Hulugu's advance was not in vain. After all, he opened up and mastered the passage from Shangdang area to Qinshui River Valley. As long as this passage was mastered, the troops in Shangdang area could continuously enter the Qinshui River Valley and try to intercept and block the enemy's retreat route in Wusu area.

Therefore, when seeing that Yining City was heavily guarded, Hulugu did not make any more futile attempts to attack the city. Instead, he led his troops back to the place where he had entered before, and established a temporary stronghold relying on the mountain road behind. While sending troops to patrol up and down to observe the enemy situation, he also sent personnel back to report the situation to Duan Shao, who was still stationed in Xiaweiju, and asked him to continue to send more troops to completely block the Qinshui River Valley.

The Qinshui River Valley was related to the retreat route and communication between the Western Wei army and the upper and lower levels, so it was naturally not allowed to be lost. Xue Shan, who stayed in Yining City, was cautious and prudent by nature. After trying his best to protect the city, he did not dare to neglect the enemy situation and hurriedly sent messengers to deliver the news to the front line.

Li Tai, who was still stationed on the north bank of Tongdi River, frowned immediately after hearing the news. When he continued to march, he made detailed military arrangements for the rear, but Yunbao, the veteran, actually took the initiative to attack rashly, resulting in the annihilation of the entire army and the surrender of the passage in and out of the Qinshui River Valley. This really surprised him.

The importance of the Qinshui River Valley to the Western Wei army is beyond words. Once it is lost, it will definitely be a major change that can shake the morale of the army. The advance and retreat of the entire expeditionary force will be greatly affected, and naturally it cannot be controlled by the enemy.

Therefore, after learning about this, he immediately summoned all the generals into the tent to briefly explain it, and everyone's faces changed after hearing about this, and they all began to rebuke Yunbao for underestimating the enemy and making mistakes.

But now that things have come to this point, it is useless to pursue it further, not to mention that Yunbao has already died on the battlefield, and there is no way to hold him responsible. The most important thing at the moment is how to remedy this matter.

When talking about this topic, all the generals sighed and said that they had finally forced the main force of the Qi army to retreat and were about to take advantage of the situation to continue the attack, but they did not expect that their retreat would be disrupted, forcing them to give up their great advantage and withdraw their troops for rescue.

But not everyone holds this view. He Ruo Dun, who has been squeezed by his elder brothers recently, said loudly: "The gains and losses of Qinyuan are important, but they are not my lifeblood. The enemy army was defeated in the previous battle between the two armies. I believe that their morale is low and their military will is shaken. If the enemy really still has the strength to fight, they should lead their troops north again and fight a decisive battle with me, instead of taking advantage of the opportunity to advance to Qinshui with a small group of troops.

Not to mention that Yining City is still being defended, even if it has been lost, it is not a dead end for me. We can burn our boats and advance with the trend. While the enemy is divided into east and west, we can continue to attack the enemy army in the south and sweep Shangdang, and then join forces with Anlu Gong and others in Jianzhou, so that the enemy will be even more difficult to fight!"

Hearing He Ruo Dun's voice, Li Tai couldn't help but silently give him a thumbs up in his heart. It was only after receiving this news and after a deep consideration that he felt that the war had progressed to this point, and the control of the Qinshui River Valley was actually not as important to the Wei army as it was at the beginning.

It was a bit unrealistic for the Qi army to count on this to achieve a reversal victory against the Wei army. This behavior instead exposed that the Qi army no longer had the ability and confidence to organize a large-scale battle, and could only hope to break through the key nodes to try to reverse the situation.

It is certainly difficult to achieve what He Ruodun said about continuing to go south to sweep Shangdang, but if the Qi army is really too focused on controlling the Qinshui River Valley and investing too many troops, it is not absolutely impossible to achieve this.

It is precisely because the Qinshui River Valley is no longer a matter of life and death that Li Tai summoned all the generals to discuss this matter together. If this matter really seriously threatens the advance and retreat of the army and the subsequent direction of choice, then Li Tai will not make it known to everyone, but will secretly summon his confidants and select elite soldiers to immediately send them back to Yining City for assistance.

This matter has a certain threat, but it does not endanger victory or death. Instead, it is brewing a more attractive opportunity. Li Tai told the generals to cool down the overly optimistic and excited atmosphere in the army, and let the generals recognize the reality. It is important to know that arrogant soldiers will be defeated.

When the generals were worried about the retreat, He Ruo Dun was able to propose the idea of ​​facing the difficulties and continuing to march in a very short time. It can be seen that this guy has an almost intuitive perception and judgment of the situation of the war.

From this point of view, He Ruo Dun is really a general with both advantages and disadvantages. In terms of ability and potential, this guy is definitely likely to become a first-class general. But this foul-mouthed character and problem also makes it difficult for him to handle overly complicated personnel relationships. If there is really a large-scale battle that can be fought alone, Li Tai would not dare to put all his brothers under his command without restraint.

Of course, Li Tai did not dare to speak out these ideas directly, otherwise if He Ruo Dun knew that he also agreed with his views, he would definitely insist on going to the end and strive to fight.

After discussing, the generals did not reach a consensus, mainly because they were unwilling to give up the current advantageous situation, and at the same time they were worried about the army's advance and retreat and logistics supply problems after the Qinshui River Valley was cut off. There are more radical ideas like He Ruo Dun, but they did not dominate the mainstream without Li Tai's approval.

So Li Tai did not make any major military adjustments for the time being, but only sent orders to dispatch some of the troops in Wusu City and Guyuan City to return to assist in the defense of Yining City, while the main force of his army remained on the north bank of Tongdi River, and also strengthened the efforts to send scouts to investigate the military situation.

Not to mention the reaction of the Western Wei side to this matter, Duan Shao of Xiawei Ju was a little disappointed when he learned that although Hulugu successfully entered the Qinshui River Valley, he did not take advantage of the situation to capture Yining City, but soon adjusted his mentality slightly.

He was not the kind of person who was very gambler and greedy for extraordinary achievements. He knew that with Li Boshan's ability to use troops, it was rare for a small loophole to appear. It was really impossible to expect a huge strategic turnaround due to the negligence of the opponent.

As for Hulugu's request to continue to send more troops to strengthen the blockade of Qinshui River Valley, Duan Shao did not immediately agree, because his troops were not sufficient at the moment, and he had just suffered a great defeat and was in low morale. The enemy army on the opposite side was still undecided about whether to stay or go. It might not be a good thing to rashly transfer troops to other places to open up a new battlefield.

Next, Duan Shao also sent more scouts to the north, wanting to find out the enemy's reaction to this matter before making a decision, but the feedback made it difficult for him to be optimistic.

Not only did the main force of the enemy army not show any signs of evacuating to the rear immediately, but it also increased the activities of scouts. Whether this was really fearless or pretending, at least for now, the stability of Qinshui River Valley did not seem to have as much impact on the Wei army as they expected.

Then whether to continue to send troops to the Qinshui River Valley is not a difficult matter. Even if Huluguang thinks this plan is feasible, at least he must show that it can have a certain impact on the main force of the enemy before considering the investment of additional troops.

At the same time, another message came back from the rear, which surprised Duan Shao and made him uneasy. That is, Emperor Gao Yang, who originally led the army back to Jinyang, suddenly turned to Liaoyang halfway.

The emperor had many whims, but they were basically harmless before. This time, he suddenly turned to Liaoyang when the army failed, which inevitably made people think secretly.

On the one hand, it may be that the emperor's physical condition has become worse, and he wants to take Liaoyang to recuperate. The monks of Ganlu Temple in Liaoyang have been deeply trusted by the emperor in recent years, and Liaoyang is located between Yedu and Jinyang. The emperor can avoid being disturbed by the political forces of the two capitals if he recuperates in the middle.

On the other hand, it may be that the emperor has certain ideas about the current personnel structure in the country, so he carried out some personnel operations in Liaoyang, an intermediate position.

No matter which situation the emperor went to Liaoyang, he had not communicated with Duan Shao before. Although Duan Shao sent people to Liaoyang to ask for instructions as soon as he learned about this, he has not received a reply so far. Duan Shao couldn't help but feel panic when he thought of the various personnel turmoil that would follow in the country.

After he tried several times to re-establish contact with the emperor but failed, Duan Shao made a major decision after weighing the pros and cons. That is, while Hulugu advanced into the Qinshui River Valley and the Qi army at least had a certain advantage on the surface, he sent envoys to the Western Wei camp to seek peace and try to stabilize the border situation.

Even if it was just a show of pretending to be friendly with each other, it could release some meaning of stopping the war, so that the army gathered on the border could get a chance to relax and return to the court, thereby exerting a certain deterrent force on the people who were ready to move in the country, and even if there were any variables, they could be slightly controlled.