Promotion and fortune in Song Dynasty

For the Song army and the Fan army, being able to confront Xia army head-on with most of them who have been unable to retreat for the past six months, only relying on the city's strong defenses and exhausting their combat power, they feel that the long-awaited victory is beckoning to them, and there is no need for more support from the general. Encouragement, everyone's morale is high.

In this long war of attrition, as long as you are not blind, you can tell which side is more difficult and which side the big victory is leaning towards.

At this moment, on Xia Jun's face, there was no trace of fatigue and emptiness brought about by the war, and it was all madness mixed with despair.

When the vanguards of the two armies confronted each other, Song Jun suddenly realized that the ones rushing to the front were not the elite soldiers under Li Yuanhao's command, but the people of Xia Kingdom who were wearing ill-fitting military uniforms and couldn't even walk steadily!

Since two months ago, even the army has been in panic, let alone the ordinary people in the city?

From the moment Li Yuanhao led the defeated army and rushed into the city overnight from the south, the granary in the city was heavily guarded, and all the warehouses were used for military use.

And that is just the autumn grain tax that has not yet been paid, how can it afford the tens of thousands of hungry soldiers?

Before the Liao army delivered more military rations, Li Yuanhao ordered that all the food stored in the people's homes be searched to prepare for emergencies.

If the Liao people hadn't delivered food and grass in time, the wailing city would have been starved and killed everywhere.

However, as the Liao people delivered less and less food, the army was once again in a tight situation. Li Yuanhao ordered that no more food be distributed to the people, which once again plunged them into deep despair.

Sitting in a prison city is a dead end sooner or later.

At this moment, the back road, which has been regarded as the last hope, was blocked by the Fan army. There was a menacing Song army in front, and the only thing blocking the enemy was the city wall that was smashed all around...

It's better to fight to the death. If you are lucky, Xu Neng can really fight your way out; if you are unlucky, it's just a matter of dying a few days earlier.

It's just that their aura is like a rainbow, in the eyes of Cao Wei with vicious eyes, it's nothing more than a fight between a trapped beast with a strong outside and a dry inside.

Bewitching the common people who have been starving for an unknown amount of time, and whose footsteps are flimsy and weak, to play forward and consume their combat power, so as to reduce the pressure on the elite behind... Only the Xia generals led by Yuan Hao's children can do such inhumane actions evil.

Thinking of this, Cao Wei hated Li Yuanhao even more.

Because the main general was calm and composed from the beginning to the end, his behavior was orderly, and the rhythm was not chaotic at all, which greatly stabilized the morale of the Song army.

The fact is also the same - this group of Xia people shouted loudly and risked their lives to charge the battle, seemingly aggressive, but in fact they were vulnerable.

As expected by Cao Wei, after the Xia people who were in charge of the army fell down one after another, what appeared in front of them was a sharp formation of three rows in the front, back, and middle, lined up by General Xia.

The red-eyed Xia Jun launched a desperate counterattack. Compared with the Song Jun who had just let the group of brave desperadoes consume a round of physical strength, they were undoubtedly much more fierce.

Seeing that the forward was frustrated and the battle line was retreating further and further, Cao Wei ordered people to push aside the white battle flag without haste, causing the Song infantry in the front to retreat slightly, while the Tubo heavy cavalry who had been hiding in the mountains and forests jumped up. He came out, shaking his reins and whipping his whip, like a divine soldier descending from the sky, and launched a fierce charge towards Xia Jun's front.

The horns were loud, the horses galloped on both sides, the horses neighed in the ears, the shouts were deafening, and the violent wind and rain shook the ground.

Zong Siluo, who led the trilogy to outflank Xia Jun, looked at each other quietly the moment Cao Wei passed shoulder to shoulder.

Although there were hurricane waves of swords, spears and axes in their ears, the two still nodded slightly, and followed their respective troops to advance and retreat, and smoothly and freely handed over the command authority.

This time it was elite soldiers confronting elite soldiers, both sides had been recharging their energy for a long time, they were brave and courageous, they shouted and brandished their knives to slash, and for a while it could be said that the battle was evenly contested.

Cao Wei reined in his horse and returned to the formation, and chose a high place on a slope to quietly overlook the fierce battle in the field.

It wasn't long before he was watching the formation from a high position, and he couldn't help frowning.

The number of people is wrong!

Not only was the number of people wrong, but what made him most suspicious was that Li Yuanhao, who had been going to the city every day to encourage soldiers and boost morale, never showed up in this crucial defensive battle where the two sides fought to the death!

No matter what Cao Wei thinks, under the fierce confrontation between the two sides, the sky is dark and the earth is dark, and the corpses are piled up.

In the next three days and three nights, Zong Siluo and Cao Wei took turns to fight, holding the five-color command flags flying up and down, each commanding the most handy trilogy to go into battle, fighting against the doomed Xia army who was making the last fight. Initiate a blow without giving any respite.

This Xia army, which was determined to fight to the death, failed to kill a bloody road after all.

As the formation suddenly collapsed, the city wall collapsed under heavy load, and the tens of thousands of Xia troops who fought to the end were completely defeated.

In this most tenacious fight to the death, the Xia army was able to take advantage of the chaos and the number of fleeers was less than a thousand. The Song-Tibetan coalition forces captured a total of 2000 enemy heads. 52 high-ranking generals.

In addition, more than [-] prisoners of war were captured alive.

The Song-Tibetan allied forces also suffered huge casualties - under such full preparations, the Fan soldiers lost a total of more than [-] people, the Song soldiers lost more than [-] people, and more than [-] were seriously injured. It can be said that they did not take advantage of it at all.

It stands to reason that it should have been a great joy to finally gnaw this hard bone that has been choked in his throat for more than two years, and occupy Xingcheng, the most important city in half of Xia Kingdom.

But amidst the joy of counting the results of the battle, the coaches of both sides who personally supervised the counting of the battlefield——Cao Wei and Zhe Siluo, looked dignified.

Not because of anything else, but because Li Yuanhao, who used to be the best to lead the troops to charge the battle, had never shown up this time, and he was not found among the corpses all over the place for a long time.

Moreover, after counting the original thousands of defenders in the city, Li Yuanhao should have at least 5 to [-] soldiers under his command.

And a rough count of the dead bodies here and the captives captured alive is only in the early [-]s, which is a full half less!

With them taking turns staring at the high ground, at most they let go of more than a thousand deserters, but where did the more than 2 Xia soldiers who disappeared out of thin air go?

Just as Cao Wei frowned and was pacing absently in the middle of the endgame, someone suddenly shouted: "Yuan Hao has been found!"

He and Ji Siluoju were surprised, they rode away without thinking, and in a short while they came to the soldiers surrounded by a group, and asked in a deep voice, "Why did you say that?"

Seeing the commander arrive, the soldier who had just yelled was flushed with excitement, and quickly got up to get out of the way.

Cao Wei took a closer look, and saw that among Xia Jun's corpses, there was a particularly tall figure with thick armor and gorgeous silk clothes inside, and the shield under him was decorated with precious gold and embedded with the totem of the party. , by no means the iron shields used by ordinary soldiers.

This corpse has many characteristics in one body, and instantly convinced the soldiers present that the deceased must be Li Yuanhao, the commander of the enemy army and the lord of the Xia Kingdom.

Now that the leader of the Xia thief has been killed, wouldn't the rest of the Xia army become a mess, leaving the mighty soldiers without a leader, doomed to let them drive straight in and devour the remaining half of the country?

It was thanks to Li Yuanhao's successor to the throne, who first murdered all his blood relatives in a frenzy, and then married Princess Liao for many years, but he never gave birth to an heir, and there was no one in the clan or under his knees.

Even Xu Li, the deputy general who has followed Cao Wei for many years, couldn't contain his excitement, and said happily: "The great news of annihilating the leader of the bandits, Yuan Hao, must be something that His Majesty has been looking forward to for a long time. Let the court know!"

"What nonsense are you talking about?"

Facing the excitement of the people around, Cao Wei asked back with a blank expression.

Gu Siluo also had a cold expression on his face. Although he couldn't fully understand the fast Chinese spoken by the general, it was not difficult to guess from the beaming face and dancing appearance.

With a chuckle, he pushed the hideous dead face with the toe of his boots, stepped on the weird braids, and poured cold water on him: "It's not so much Yuan Hao, it's better to say that he is greedy for life and afraid of death, Wouldn't it be more accurate to play with the 'shell' left by the golden cicada's shell?"

Not to mention that Li Yuanhao's succession to the throne was filled with the four characters "destroying human relations". In wars, the Xia army has always been deceitful in every battle. Whether it is Tubo or Song people, they have suffered a lot.

It is conceivable that such an unscrupulous, shameless and despicable person will absolutely use all means to fight for him as long as he has a chance to survive.

It is the heroic Xiang Yu who will fight to the end with pride and blood, and cannot die in Jiangdong, and it cannot be Yuan Hao'er.

Although the corpse was wearing expensive clothes and holding exquisitely decorated weapons, its face was bloody and bloody, making it difficult to distinguish its features.

If Li Yuanhao intends to use his hands and feet to muddle through, what's the difficulty?

Cao Wei nodded slightly, and severely reprimanded the lieutenant general: "You have been with me in the army for many years, how can you lose your composure so easily? Yuan Hao has always been cunning and shameless, and he probably wants to get away with treacherous tricks, but before we can verify the situation, how can we?" In order to seek fame and fame, I rashly reported it to the imperial court!"

The lieutenant-general took the blow, and when he suddenly realized, he felt extremely ashamed and apologized repeatedly.

Therefore, Cao Wei hastily wrote a letter about the great victory before the soldiers had thoroughly counted the battlefield and prepared the whole army to continue northward, so as to include the rest of the territory of Xia Kingdom in their pockets.

He didn't say a word about the discovery of the gorgeously dressed Xia Xia's corpse, he only sincerely thanked His Majesty for his great trust, and then he described in detail the soldiers who risked their lives to fight, and then gave a brief report results.

Even though he could easily imagine the scene of joy and carnival when the imperial court got the good news, Cao Wei was still worried.

Before the moment of determining Li Yuanhao's death came, no matter how smooth the battle situation was, he was destined to be unable to feel at ease.

The actual situation was indeed as Cao Wei and Zhe Siluo worried, the corpse in Chinese clothes that fell outside the gate of Xingcheng was not Li Yuanhao.

To be honest, he was definitely lucky—although it was a sudden idea, he managed to lead the army just before he outflanked the back road without knowing anything about the whereabouts of Fan Jiang Guizhang. Twenty thousand soldiers left the city.

He spent so much time and energy, it was not for the sake of his life.

With the Song and Fan allied forces occupying an absolute advantage in terms of numbers and supplies, whether he stayed in Xingcheng or not could not change the outcome of the battle.

With such a disparity in strength, the Xia army will undoubtedly lose.

Li Yuanhao was really unwilling to just sit there and wait for his death. Riding on that flash of inspiration, he simply turned his heart away and put all his hopes of making a comeback on the Eastern Front battlefield where he could not guarantee that he would be negligent because of his success all the way.