Pugu Huaien stood at the top of the city, looking at the Song army who arranged artillery at the gate outside the city, frowned. Since the Song army besieged the city, he sent two envoys to negotiate, but there was no result. In a moment of depression, the large group of Song army coming from behind surrounded the city. He had sent people to Yanqi several times, but I don’t know if the letter was sent. Looking at the Song army besieged, there were at least tens of thousands of people. Do tens of thousands of people in his city dare to go up and fight?

At this moment, Long Luodusha came and said with his hands: "King, the new news has been received. The Song army has occupied Baishui City. Not only that, most of the other cities have been occupied by the Song army, and Gaochang has actually become an isolated city."

Pugu Huaien turned around and asked, "In this way, the army from the Song army would need 50,000 or 60,000 people? Even more! Such a large number of troops quietly and quickly arrived here from Hequ Road. Why is there no news?"

Long Luodusha said: "King, the Song army built the railway to Yizhou, but only soldiers could sit. Even if the people in Shengzhou received the news of the Song army's attack, how could they send it to Gaochang? The Song army besieged the city for several days, and now the people in the city are in a state of turmoil. If they don't go to war, the internal chaos will be brought first!"

Pugu Huaien was silent for a while and sighed: "The troops in Gaochang City are not elite soldiers, so how can they go to fight? These Song troops first defeat the Khitan and then the strong army of Dangxiang! Alas, if I had known that today, the Song army would have sent envoys to come when they occupied Hequ Road!"

Long Luodusha said, "What's the use of saying this now? I sent envoys, and the Song army only said that they were following orders and asked Du Jieshuai. Now that the city is surrounded, where can I find Du Jieshuai? In my opinion, the Song army deliberately did this, just to raise troops to attack!"

Pugu Huaien turned around and looked at the Song army camp with continuous tents outside the city, and sighed secretly in his heart. He was originally intimate with the Khitan, but the Song army occupied Hequ Road. Because he didn't know the situation there, he sent someone to envoys, and thought that the Khitan would come back soon. Who knew that the delay was repeated, and the Song army had already come to siege the city before the country could reach the conclusion. The army surrounded him, and now he asked what else was the use?

After thinking for a long time, Pugu Huaien said, "Only for the current plan, you must plan to break through. Yanqi has not been moved. Baishui has been occupied, and the retreat has been blocked now. Tomorrow, you will lead the army out of the city and fight with the Song army to see how powerful they are. Don't be too entangled. If the war is unfavorable, retreat to the city quickly and we will discuss other countermeasures."

Long Luodusha said: "The Song army occupied Baishui City, where can we retreat? Yanqi cannot go. Wherever he went, the Song army and Hei Khan had no place to run away. They were going to Beiting, but now there is no way."

Pugu Huaien said, "How many troops can the Song army have? When they attacked the city, they suddenly rushed out and attacked Baishui City. Baishui was a small city and could not stop us. Cross the Tianshan Mountains and go to Beiting, where they were backed by the desert. The Song army had no choice but to do anything!"

The Uighurs were originally nomadic people, migrating westward from the north of the Mo River and driven away by the Khitan and Dangxiang. There was no strong force in the Western Regions, so they fell here. As a remnant of the Turkic tribe, Hei Khan was divided into several pieces and could slowly gain the upper hand, which shows the difference in combat power. Now facing the siege of the Song army, Pugu Huaien's first thought was to escape, run to the grassland, and run to the desert. Can the Song army still chase after it?

After dismissing Long Luodusha, Pugu Huaien looked at the situation of the Song army outside the city for a while and sighed in his heart. In the past, the situation changed in a few days, just like the Song army now. War was a long-term thing, especially in the Western Regions, with a large territory and a sparse population, and it would take several years to prepare for it. Like the Song army, who captured Hequ Road two years ago, and now arrived in Gaochang, the speed was amazing. Could it be that the war in the future was as fast as this? Where can ordinary small countries have defensive power?

In the military camp outside the city, Zhao Zi said to Qin Youpeng and others: "The general Jie has come to the official documents and asks us to start siege the city as soon as possible. Zhang Ji's troops have blocked the surrounding areas of Gaochang, and there is no army to rescue them. It is meaningless to drag them down. The Deputy Envoy Zhang will come tomorrow, and when the Deputy Envoy comes, they will start siege the city!"

All the generals agreed.

Qin Youpeng said: "From Zhang Ji's attack on Liu Zhongcheng, Gaochang's combat power is not strong. If we concentrate artillery and quickly open the city gate, we should be able to quickly occupy Gaochang. There are Uighur Khan and nobles in the city. After this war, the Uighurs would have no power in the Western Regions."

Zhao Zi said: "Jiang Zheng specifically told me that in addition to the Uighurs, there were many Sogdians in Gaochang City. Here in the Western Regions, Sogdians were good at clerks and doing business. Unless they were willing to fight with the Uighurs, they would have to protect them. When they recovered the Western Regions, they would still need them."

Cui Dutian said: "If you do business and become a clerk, we Han people are all humans, so why do you need Sogdians?"

Zhao Zi said: "What do you know? Sogdian is a big family in this area, not only in the Western Regions, but also in the rivers. They have to surrender to facilitate the opening of commercial roads. It is not for the commercial road, why should the Jieshou come to attack Gaochang in a hurry? It is not that after we occupied Hequ Road, Gaochang closed the commercial road and did not allow merchants to come from Yizhou, but to take the Khitan Shangjing Road? On this east-west trade road, the Sogdians are the main force and should make good use of it."

Qin Youpeng said: "If they don't say it, who knows who it is? If they don't know who it is, how can they protect it?"

Zhao Zi said: "Where are so many whys? When siege the city, fight hard! If you break through the city, you must be in order and not rob the people. The rest of the matter will be handled by Jieshou. Remember, the most important thing is that you should not harass the people after entering the city! Anyone who dares to violate this article will definitely be punished! Deputy Envoy Zhang came to supervise the matter."

Seeing that Zhao Zi was speaking harshly, the generals hurriedly crossed their hands and said yes.

Zhao Zi looked at everyone and said, "It has been more than two years since the battle of Hue, and it has not been through the battle formation again. In the past two years, the army has trained, many people have left, and more people have come. What is the combat power? This battle is clear! In the battle of Hequ, we won consecutively, and Khitan and Dangxiang are not our opponents. For more than two years after the war, there was no war again. Why? Because military achievements have proved that the soldiers we trained in Suizhou are the most capable of fighting in the world, and the entire army has to follow the training. But the result of the training is not satisfactory. Do you remember? After a few months of training, there was a training exercise in the capital. Zhang Ke led his troops to win. The court sent many ministers to the Wudu Military Academy on Hequ Road. However, when they arrived at Hequ Road, they could not do a good job in the military academy in the capital, so they had to do this. If we fight well this time, the court would have confidence!"

Cui Dutian said: "The general said this, is it that Gao Chang won, and there will be more wars in the future?"

Zhao Zi smiled: "At least, the conditions are met now, it should be time to attack Dangxiang. There is no training for the entire army, and the imperial guards are still the former imperial guards. After the railway was built to the Zhenrong Army, it is actually time to attack Dangxiang. If we fight beautifully in the Western Regions, I guess we should concentrate the army and attack Dangxiang. When the railway was built to Yizhou, wouldn't it happen to attack Shazhou from the west?"

The real enemy of the Song Dynasty was the first to be affected by the Khitan, followed by Dangxiang, and Gaochang actually fought casually. When the railway was built to Yizhou, one could reopen the east-west trade routes, and the other was that it could attack several Hexi counties in Dangxiang from the west.

Since the late Tang Dynasty, many years of wars have been lost in Hexi, and now it cannot support the army. After the White Horse Military Supervision Office was annihilated, Dangxiang had less than 50,000 troops in several counties in Hexi, and only more than 10,000 soldiers. The Song army turned back from Yizhou and attacked Guazhou and Shazhou, which was considered as an attack on weak places.

Du Zhongxiao led his troops to attack Gaochang, which not only opened up the Western Regions commercial route, but also opened another channel for the Song Dynasty to attack Dangxiang. Only by destroying Dangxiang and Khitan could the Song army truly expand outward and no longer have any worries.
Chapter completed!