On the eighth day of April, the Song army marched along the river for more than 60 miles before calmly stopping. At this time, they were actually only about forty miles away from Xingqing Mansion. Even if they follow the turning of the river and then turn around, it would be only fifty miles... No matter what, no matter how much they calculate, the Song army can officially launch an attack on Xingqing Mansion after resting for a night tomorrow night, on the next day, the tenth day of April.

This is two days ahead of the original time, and two days, under the current situation, it is likely that the time difference that determines a country's life and death.

At the same time, the main infantry and cavalry of the Song army were all in existence and the baggage was there, so it was said that there was no loss.

To be fair, on this day, Wei Ming Anhui, the king of Liang of Western Xia, did his best. He asked a small group of light cavalry to continue harassing and asked a sheepskin raft to carry soldiers from the river to fight, but both were given free under the stronger crossbow arrows of the Song army... The Jurchens, who were famous for their heavy armor, were afraid of the Song army's crossbows, let alone the hasty convened tribal soldiers lacking armor at this time?

Of course, An Hui had already expected this. After yesterday's observation, this old minister of Xixia who had rich war experience had never expected such action to have any practical effect. Those people were simply forced to harass as much as possible with their lives. And this old member of the royal family with the richest military experience in the Western Xia Kingdom and second only to the king, he focused on two things at the beginning... One was to recruit as much as possible and gather the tribes of various tribes, the more the better; the other was to cross the Song army in advance and come to Jingzhou, which was almost next to the Yellow River, and then forcibly took away the foreign army and civilians here, lifted the defense here, and threw the wealth and gold goods in the temple on the road east of Jingzhou.

But unfortunately, the Song army did not go to Jingzhou at all. In the evening, 20,000 to 30,000 main infantry and cavalry of the Song army came to the city of Jingzhou. Facing the open city gate, the gold and silk shining brightly in the sunset, no military formation escaped from the array. Instead, the entire army passed through the city and continued to move forward directly.

This made Wei Ming's fear reach a peak.

After all, Dangxiang was never a pure nomadic nation, and Western Xia was not the case where the king was in the country when Li Yuanhao was alive. In the past hundred years, the country established by the Dangxiang people could not resist the strong invasion of Han culture. The official system basically began to imitate the Song Dynasty. Han rituals gradually overwhelmed the Fan rituals forcibly erected during the founding of the country, and Confucianism became a prominent scholar. Although it still retained a language custom military system with quite national characteristics, the main culture still gradually turned to the Han system.

Various cultural nourishment, coupled with the prosperity of the Yinchuan Plain, has gradually formed its own core agricultural area, so it has finally formed a solid concept of capital - Li Ganshun has not left Xingqing Prefecture for many years.

Of course, Wei Ming Anhui couldn't explain these principles, and the Song army who abandoned Jingzhou and failed to enter may not explain them, but they were all in a clear mind at another level!

They knew very well that the foundation of Xixia was in the Xitaka area between Helan Mountain and the Yellow River, which was this place of spiritual enlightenment, and the heart of this place was Xingqing Prefecture... After taking this city, no one dared to say that Xixia would perish, but this country would definitely go into shock immediately!

In a word, the gains and losses of Xingqing Prefecture have already made enough meaning.

For this reason, Wei Ming Anhui did not hesitate to empty Jingzhou, one of his confidant cities, as bait, in an attempt to slightly block the pace of the Song army. The senior officers of the Song army did not hesitate to kill many soldiers and low-level officers who went to pick up their bargains at the last minute, and also headed north all the way to ensure that they could launch an attack on Xingqing Prefecture in the future.

No matter what, in this delayed operation, the Xixia people failed again.

"What King Liang did is right."

In a field ten miles northwest of Jingzhou City, under the bonfire, surrounded by several golden warriors and tribal leaders, accompanied by the sound of drums in the distance, a nobleman Dangxiang, who was sitting by the bonfire wearing a golden crown, raised his wrinkled face after listening to the report, sighed, but it was Li Ganshun, the king of the Western Xia Kingdom who was nearly 50 years old. "If I were here, I would use Jingzhou as bait."

On the other side of the bonfire, several local officials from Jingzhou and tribe heads were obviously depressed and disappeared directly into the twilight. Wei Ming Anhui, whose hair was already gray, sat aside, but his uneasiness in his heart did not decrease at all when he heard this.

After hesitating for a while, he even crossed the Jingzhou issue and asked the key point:

"Your Majesty, if you don't stop it tomorrow, the Song army can camp on the banks of the Zhengdong River of Xingqing Prefecture. It is only more than twenty miles away from Xingqing Prefecture and ten miles away from the palace outside the city..."

"This is why I came to find King Liang in person." Li Ganshun's brows still did not spread. "King Liang, I have been unable to sleep or eat for the past three days. After thinking about it, you think, can the light cavalry in our hands defend the city? Isn't it your own fault if you don't go to the field to fight, but defend the city instead?"

"I think so too..." King Liang sighed, then responded seriously, but obviously wanted to speak but stopped.

"Today's situation is all above my incompetence and stupidity, and has nothing to do with you. As long as you can survive, you will speak honestly in any words." Li Ganshun didn't even look at Wei Ming Anhui. He just heard the voice and knew what the other party intended to express, but he directly urged. "If King Liang has any useful words, say it quickly."

"Your Majesty." Wei Ming Anhui said to the difficult question. "Xingqing Prefecture has been renovated and expanded many times, but it was not as much as I did when I was the Grand Tutor more than ten years ago... At that time, the country was rarely stable. Your Majesty promoted Confucianism and Han rituals, and I expanded Xingqing Prefecture and water conservancy... I am not expressing my merits, but I am thinking that Xingqing Prefecture, which I personally built, had known for a long time that there were too many flaws in that city!"

"How come I don't know?" Li Ganshun nodded slightly. "I personally issued an order to build a large temple in the north of the city and an open palace in the east of the city. These two places can only be used as siege ladders for the Song army... But who would have thought that the Song army would come here at that time? Since its founding, Xingqing Prefecture has never been touched. It is not a false statement at all."

At this point, two old men, who were almost fifty and sixty, were also the highest-ranking king and ministers in Xixia's confidant place, and they were rarely silent by the bonfire together for a moment.

Let’s talk about it, Wei Ming Anhui is a little older, while Li Ganshun is a little younger, which is about ten years apart. Anhui’s seniority is one generation higher than Li Ganshun, but their political and military experiences basically overlap... In other words, this pair of monarchs and ministers have experienced too many things together.

Since Xiao Liang attacked Song Dynasty, Wei Ming Anhui made his mark and gained a certain degree of military power. After the Khitans poisoned Xiao Liang, Li Ganshun cried and begged the Khitan princess to be the queen but failed. He could only regard An Hui as Shangfu and the Grand Tutor led the Privy Council. An Hui also became the chief of all officials and powerful ministers in the early days of Li Ganshun's rule.

Later, Li Ganshun asked for the Khitan princess, and defeated the Song people militarily. He also negotiated peace with the Song Dynasty to stabilize the country and stabilize the country from a low status. This Shangfu, who was only ten years older than the king, was naturally gradually deprived of power. Many years ago, Li Ganshun successfully replaced the other party to control the army with his adult younger brother Wei Ming Cha Ge, and this person was completely idle... The so-called East Asian monarch and minister drama, in fact, one of them was not short of... Only today, the Song army suddenly penetrated into the belly with a knife, and the nameless general was available, so he hastily activated such an old minister.

However, these old grudges will not affect the two of them’s sincere cooperation and silent tacit understanding at this time, because both of them understand that Dabai Gaoguo has really reached the most dangerous moment.

After thinking for a while, Wei Ming Anhui finally broke the silence: "Your Majesty, what I mean is that it is better to fight in the field than to defend the city, and you still have to try it in the field."

Li Ganshun was so excited that he was waiting for this sentence... At this time, it was one thing to bring all the troops into Xingqing Mansion, and it was another thing to fight desperately outside the city... Li Ganshun himself had actually calculated the military and political accounts very clearly, otherwise he would not have come here in person, and he had already hinted enough just now, but he needed someone to stand up and give him courage and tell him and the leaders of the tribes around that this was correct.

"There are three reasons for me." Wei Ming Anhui was fighting with the attention of the surrounding golden-armored warriors and some tribe leaders, and said hard by the bonfire. "One is what Your Majesty said before. We are mostly light cavalry, and we have never heard of cavalry throwing down war horses to defend the city; the other is what I just said, Xingqing Mansion itself is actually not easy to defend... This place is different from Lingzhou. It has been peaceful for a hundred years and has too many flaws. The last one is our palace, Buddhist temple, and imperial tombs are all outside the city. The palace is simply on the way to the Song people's army. The Great Buddha Temple in the north of the city is also next to the city wall, and the imperial tombs is at the foot of Helan Mountain to the west... The Song army attacked, should we burn the palace by ourselves, or let the Song people burn it? Once it is burned, how can the morale of the army in the city be maintained? But what is most afraid of is that the Song people not only do not burn it, but instead use the terrain and materials of the palace temple to take advantage of the situation to attack the city. What should we do then?"

The tribal leaders finally began to speak out.

After a while, Li Ganshun suddenly stood up, pulled out his sword in public, and slashed hard at Muji who was holding food and drinking water in front of him by the bonfire... After all, he was old and weak, but he could not break it with one knife. He just cut the knife into several cases and stuck it... but it was enough.

After all, Li Ganshun was the king of the Great Bai Gao Kingdom for forty or fifty years, and he did not need these things to inspire morale. His words and commands were enough.

This knife was just a sign of determination.

"My intention has been decided." With a knife, Li Ganshun took the opportunity to let go and held the scabbard by the bonfire and looked around. "As King Liang said, the entire army will be combined to 100,000 tomorrow, and the Song people will be killed by the river. We will never let the Song people advance to Xingqing Mansion! If any tribe does not obey the military order, I will let him destroy his clan and destroy his race. There is such a case!"

As soon as this statement came out, Liang Wang Weiming Anhui knelt down and kowtowed directly, saying that he was ordered. The other tribe leaders also bowed down to the ground and kowtowed, then stood up and shouted, faintly echoing the strange screams under the drum sounds in the distance.

The morale in the army was inspiring with the arrival of the emperor of the Dabai Gao Kingdom who had been in power for almost fifty years and made a decision.

After the resolution was made, everyone dispersed to prepare for tomorrow's war.

However, Liang Wang Weiming Anhui took several steps, but was grabbed by Li Ganshun in the dark. The former turned around and saw the latter whispering toward him: "King Liang!"

"I'm here."

"You built Xingqing Mansion." Although the strange screams around him kept coming, Li Ganshun lowered his voice again. "It is still the most suitable for you to defend the city. Although Xue Yuanli's Han ministers were loyal, they were useless. The prince and the King of Yue have returned to the capital... If you cannot stop the Song army tomorrow, there is no time to speak on the battlefield. Don't worry about me and go back to Xingqing Mansion to preside over the defense. If I cannot arrive in time, you can arrange various places in the name of the prince, whether it is palaces or Buddhist temples, and burn them as soon as you want, and burn them as you want. The wealth and goods, use them as you want, and reward them as you want, and don't have to worry about it!"

An Hui was silent in the twilight for a long time before nodding heavily, but this place was too dark, but only the golden crown on his head was shaking up and down, triggering a flash.

Not to mention how Wei Ming Anhui thought, on this side, after Li Ganshun passed the last important order, he turned to a tall tent behind him, but finally put down the serious and intense attitude on his face, and seemed a little depressed.

It is true that as the oldest and most experienced king among the countries, Li Ganshun experienced too many things, even a bit legendary. Not to mention him, his mother, his father-in-law, his wife and children, just extending from the current military perspective, the military victory of Xixia against the Song Dynasty was enough to make him proud.

However, others don’t know, but how can Li Ganshun himself not?

Although Xixia had several amazing military victories and repeatedly sent the Song army to disaster situations, in fact, the occurrence of these wars itself means that Xixia was repeatedly forced to the brink of destruction by the Song Dynasty... Let Li Ganshun choose himself, he would rather be the Emperor Taiping than ask for the political and military crises that have achieved the authority of other countries. Otherwise, where would the battles come from asking for peace from the Song Dynasty? Kowtow to the Liao Dynasty for marriage?

Of course, he also had some luck. Since he was in power, he has been unable to do anything because the Song Dynasty built Pingxia City. But suddenly, Jingkang came, and the rope cover hanging around his neck was suddenly untied.

Although he lost tens of thousands of elite field troops in Yinshan, he did not delay his attack on Pingxia City and the Dingbian Army, and even took a small half of Xi'an Prefecture... Moreover, the rulers of the Dajin Dynasty were once willing to give the land on the inner side of the Yellow River to Xixia.

What a future this is?

At that time, he really felt that Xixia could come for another hundred years!

However, now the Song people have fought back and taken Pingxia City back, and then there is another serious crisis that will be experienced every ten or eight years.

To be honest, until now, it was not the raid of the Song army that caused Li Ganshun to be in a state of panic... The raid of the Song army was of course fatal, but the problem was that this fatality came from a pure military raid, which came from his own tactical misjudgment and revealed a hole. In this case, being caught by a warlike commander of the Song army can only be said to be inferior to others in skills.

What really shocked Li Gan Shun's obedience completely was the message that the Khitan advanced along Hexi a few days ago!

At that time, like many ministers, he used a lot of effort to accept the reality that the Dangxiang people were attacked by the Han and Khitans.

At that time, Li Ganshun had a certain awareness... This time, Dabai Gaoguo was really caught in an unprecedented crisis... However, the crisis developed so rapidly and so fatal, which really made him frightened.

On the tenth day of April, when it was dawn, Li Gan stood up directly, and the Song army, who had been haunted all night, still got up properly. After dinner, he continued to go down the river without any impact.

Last night, the Xixia people changed to noise harassment, but the Song army responded properly, and the outer layer was still wearing armor on duty, while the inner layer was sleeping with ears blocked, and then replaced them one after another... and in the early morning, it also launched a raid, which made a lot of achievements.

After the march began, everything went smoothly, but Yue Fei, Qu Duan, Liu Qi and other main generals were ready... Without the clear information brought back by the scouts under Li Shifu during the bloody scout fight, it was only said that on the plains that these generals could notice on the small slopes that the Xixia people had begun to gather large areas of foreign cavalry and civilians.

The chaos in the scene, the coexistence of green seedlings and smoke and dust, made it unlikely to verify the specific number of cavalry, but there is no doubt that the other party was gathering troops as much as possible and preparing to block the Song army.

Of course, considering the distance, this is a matter of course.

"As long as you can walk forty miles today, you will be victorious in this battle." Qu Duan put on a pergola in his hand, looked at it, and turned around to speak to Yue Fei. "But if you can kill and hurt it, it will be a lot more appropriate to enter Xingqing Mansion... Jieduan, if the Dangxiang people still harass them like light cavalry today, they should allow the cavalry to counterattack farther!"

Under the early summer breeze, Yue Fei's expression remained unchanged, but he nodded slightly, and said with a pity: "Yes."

After saying that, the former commander of the Imperial Camp would come down from the small slope and lead the generals to continue moving forward with the army.

At this moment, Hu Hongxiu, the Minister of War, who was about to set off, suddenly changed his expression and then stopped his horse and spoke: "Jingdu!"

"What's the matter?" Yue Fei turned around and asked.

"It's a white cow!" Hu Hongxiu pointed his finger at the Xixia army that began to purify the country in the distance, providing a vital message. "The king of Xixia is here!"

The surrounding army and generals were all shocked, and then they rushed to look at it. Even Qu Duan couldn't help but stand up and looked up on the iron elephant that he had specially replaced today... It turned out that the so-called white cow star was not a star embroidered with a white cow, but a star decorated with white yak hair as the outer edge. The word Dangxiang Wen Daxia is still embroidered in the middle. It has always been a symbol of the king of Xixia. However, the king of Xixia, Li Ganshun, had no psychological stress reaction since his youth, but he rarely went to the battle himself. Therefore, even people from the Western Army of the Song Dynasty have not seen this star for many years.

When I returned to my eyes, the white yak hair was really eye-catching. When the generals looked at it, there was indeed such a big star that appeared and disappeared in the distance. It seemed that the king of Xixia had indeed arrived in person, but it was a noisy moment.

Only Yue Fei was slightly stunned and continued to turn north: "Don't worry about him, today's vitals are still marching forward."

The personal guard behind him also hurriedly heading north with the banner of loyalty to serve the country.

All of them were in a serious manner and followed the previous ones, but they still couldn't help but look at the white bull's big crow...

In this way, at noon, the attack finally began. Several unarmed cavalry arrived first, but it was obviously a test. With previous experience, these cavalry were just a brief attempt. However, Yue Fei still allowed the entire army to maintain the state of the previous two days, and still only let the outermost soldiers wear armor, and then replace them in turn, and the entire army continued to move forward steadily.

However, after two rounds of tests, at afternoon, when the sun sets slightly westward, the Song army can see countless Western Xia cavalry and infantrymen begin to flock to appear in the fields within their sight.

Many of the cavalry obviously put on some unfit leather armor, and some of them had dazzling armors and cavalry that were hiding back and forth in the formation. The so-called infantry was still the so-called single bow and spear, which was no different from ordinary civilians. This is a typical Western Xia colliding man (the non-Dangxiang cannon fodder troops are mostly Han people, but military merits are allowed to be calculated), but they are obviously mostly the Dangxiang people... And the number of the three together is a bit too much, and the geographical green seedlings are almost instantly trampled on.

Relatively speaking, the Song army array was obviously slightly deformed by the airspace, forcing the marching commanders of various departments to re-order the orders.

"Jingdu..." Hu Hongxiu was a little panicked. "Do you want the entire army to wear armor first?"

"No hurry." Yue Fei glanced at him and ordered grandly. "Wait for them to come first... the key is that they can't stop... Once the army stops, they will succeed."

Of course, the generals knew this truth, but few people responded again, and the nervousness was already very obvious.

At the same time, under the white cow's flag, Liang Wangweiming Anhui, who was wearing a golden crown, also looked back at the king with a slightly higher golden crown beside him: "More than 40 clan tents, about 20,000 light cavalry, two or three thousand Xingqing armored cavalry, more than one thousand step swaggers, forty or fifty thousand... 40,000 to 50,000 hits the emperor... Does the king have any instructions?"

"Yes." Li Qianshun whispered to each other. "These armored cavalry are mostly private soldiers of the nobles in Xingqing Mansion, so they have money to buy horses. Their family mansion is in Xingqing Mansion City. Even if they dismount, they will definitely work hard to defend the city, and even if they are defeated, they will walk to Xingqing Mansion by themselves. But those more than a thousand marches are mostly armored warriors in the tribe at the foot of Helan Mountain... Once they fail, they will inevitably scatter."

"I understand!" Wei Ming Anhui had no intention of concealing it. "Of course, all the members fought desperately in this battle, but they also had to be divided into order. If they could succeed slightly, they could give way to Bu Bazi to follow him and join the battle first!"

Li Qianshun nodded slightly, and the next moment, he jumped out with Wei Ming Anhui jumping out of his horse, waved heavily, and the flags everywhere shaking continuously, and the drums rumbling, but there were armored cavalry coming out first to supervise the battle. Then, unlike the previous two days, this time, an astonishing number of collisions was the first to rush out!

These men shouted strangely, some bare heads, some barely wore a torn felt hat, and most of them had only an inappropriate torn jacket, but they swarmed forward with bows and launched a tide-like attack on the Song army. Often, they would lift their spears and fight in the hands of the army after a shot.

Correspondingly, as early as when the men hit the men, the Song army had already had crossbows flying across the formation, causing countless casualties and injuries to the men. However, with the support of the number of soldiers, these armourless individual Dangxiang people continued to flock to the Song army formation and contact the Song army infantry formation... It has to be admitted that this was the first time that the Song army infantry had reached a large-scale close contact with the opponent after entering the hinterland of Xingling.

"The whole army is wearing armor!"

Seeing the dense crowds of people hitting the men, Yue Fei, who was moving continuously under the banner, finally gave an order, but at the same time he did not forget to continue to emphasize. "The civilians slow down, the armored cavalry slowed down, and no matter how slow the entire army was, they should continue to move forward!"
To be continued...