After the battle plan was handed over, Xie Yushu and her team spent another day anxiously lying in ambush in the depression. At night, they began various operations, infiltrating their respective designated locations.
Now everything is ready, except for Pei Jie's favorable wind.
Pei Jie was also very helpful, fearing that he might break down halfway and cause Xie Yushu and the Divine Eagle Guard to lose their lives in the Tatar stronghold, so he hurried along the way.
With Xie Yushu's signal, their journey was nearly doubled. It took Xie Yushu and her group nine days to find the Tatar stronghold, but Pei Jie and his group had Xie Yushu's mark and would arrive in five days. Now, they were only two hundred miles away from Xie Yushu and her group.
At this moment, the Tatar carrier pigeons and eagles finally brought back the message.
"The Suhebalu tribe has been completely wiped out, and the Great Qi army has marched onto the grasslands!"
Although Xie Yushu and the others did not know what the expressions of the leaders of the various Tatar tribes were upon hearing this news, chaos was visibly brewing within the Tatar tribes.
Just a few days ago, I could hear them racing horses and wrestling from afar, and occasionally a few sheep would run over here to graze on some grass.
Now, all that can be seen are soldiers coming and going, running back and forth to deliver messages.
Xie Yushu and the others waited quietly in the distance. Sure enough, after a while, the Tatars began to mobilize their troops. By noon, a dark mass of soldiers had gathered outside the Tatar tribe.
And the number is still increasing.
Qingfeng said with concern
"They won't send all the soldiers who can fight, will they?"
"If they all go, with over 200,000 troops, wouldn't General Pei and his men be at a disadvantage?"
Xie Yushu frowned as she looked at the rapidly assembling army and said confidently.
No way!
There are still so many elderly, weak, women and children in the tribe. Unless Yelü Ying is completely insane, he should know that these people are the foundation of the Tatar tribe, and he will not abandon them.
It is estimated that the letter exaggerated the number of people in Daqi, so the Tatars also called on the reserves.
But that doesn't matter, isn't our goal to whittle them down and consume them?
Most of the elite troops have been sent out. Pei Jie has led troops for many years and he is no pushover. Losing half of them should not be a problem.
"We'll use up half of what's left in the capital. The rest will just be ordinary herders. Without a large number of elite troops, the Tatars won't amount to much."
Qingfeng thought to himself: I hope so!
Hopefully, Pei Jie will show some spirit and utterly defeat them in their first encounter. The greater the victories Pei Jie achieves, the safer they will be to cause trouble here.
Similarly, the smoother things go for them, the sooner they can settle the score.
Another hour passed, and it was estimated that the Tatars had assembled a force of 100,000 men before the army finally set off.
I don't know if Aman's side succeeded, but apart from the few leaders who led the troops, the Tatars really didn't have any cavalry.
While the Tatars were gathering their forces, Pei Jie and his men had just eaten lunch and slept in the sun for two hours before continuing their journey.
Since the army set off, they have been traveling day and night, sleeping no more than three hours a day. Pei Jie estimated that they were about to reach the Tatar stronghold and was afraid of encountering them at any time. Therefore, he had begun to pay attention to conserving the army's physical strength and ensuring its combat capability.
It was too cold, and no matter how much they huddled together for warmth, they couldn't sleep soundly. So, Pei Jie simply moved his nap to noon, where the sun would be out and he could sleep a little warmer.
He thought that such a large group of people should have been discovered by the Tatars long ago, but to his surprise, four or five days had passed since they entered, and they still hadn't seen a Tatar.
Their men did shoot down a few pigeons and an eagle, but surely their intelligence system wouldn't rely solely on pigeons and eagles?
Pei Jie wondered to himself.
What they didn't know was that the Tatar intelligence system did indeed have people, and they had even received intelligence when the Qi army was being mobilized. It just so happened that the messenger happened to be visiting the remnants of Sukhbaatar's forces that night, intending to rest there.
As a result, they were wiped out by Qingfeng and his group.
It was only when the people lurking in the Qi territory hadn't heard any news of war between the two countries that they realized something was wrong, so they sent out pigeons and eagles again, using a two-pronged approach, to warn Yelü Ying.
This is why, when Pei Jie's army was almost at the Tatars' stronghold, the Tatars only then learned of the Qi invasion of the grasslands and began to hastily respond.
When Yelü Ying heard that the Suhebalu tribe had been completely wiped out, he was so enraged that he spat out a mouthful of blood. Those were his elite troops! A full 100,000 men! A full 100,000 men!
They also joined forces with the Northern Yan and Rouran armies of 300,000 and 400,000 men to attack the Great Qi from three sides. How could Suhebalu suffer such a crushing defeat?
This was something Yelü Ying could never understand.
Now, upon suddenly hearing that Suhebalu had been wiped out and that the Qi army of 200,000 had already entered the grasslands, Yelü Ying was completely panicked. 200,000 troops? All the soldiers his tribe could muster were only a little over 200,000!
To drive the Qi people back in one fell swoop, we would have to send at least one-third of the Qi's troops to win in one fell swoop.
In desperation, Yelü Ying practically emptied the Tatars' coffers.
Not only were the Tiger Head Army dispatched, but all the able-bodied men from the Six Ministries who were capable of fighting were also gathered and taken along.
Even so, with only 180,000 people, they were outnumbered. Yelü Ying could only play the emotional card, saying that if the Qi people attacked, none of them would survive, including the elderly, women, and children. So, regardless of whether they wanted to fight, all the able-bodied men from the Six Ministries went.
Now, all that remains on the tribe's side are the elderly, women, and children from six tribes, 40,000 soldiers guarding the royal city, plus 6,000 elite troops guarding the granaries and armories.
After the army set off, the Tatar tribes were suddenly emptied.
Teams one and two also infiltrated to their designated positions as planned.
As night fell, Xie Yushu, along with Qingfeng and Nanxing, headed towards the horse farm carrying a bomb.
Around 7 PM, when everyone had probably just fallen asleep, Xie Yushu found a well-protected poplar tree, tied the explosive charge to the crown, and, together with Qingfeng and Nanxing, pushed it out a dozen meters away before firing a shot that detonated the explosive charge.
With a loud bang, the top of the tree snapped.
Nanxing, who had run quite a distance away, was so shocked that he stumbled and almost fell to the ground.
Xie Yushu and Qingfeng each grabbed one of her hands and pulled her back to the camp.
Sure enough, a moment later, someone came out with a torch to investigate.
Xie Yushu and the others watched from a distance and saw several torches circle around the camp entrance a few times before slowly heading towards the horse farm.
If you were closer, you'd know how agitated the Tatars were; several patrolmen were looking around while muttering curses.
"This is really weird! It's one thing for the horse to go crazy for no reason, but how can there be thunder in the middle of the night, in the dead of winter!"
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