The third emperor of the Sui Dynasty

Chapter 86
Xihe County!
Gao Deru, the governor of Longquan County, who controlled Xihe County's military affairs, really lived up to Wei Xuan's expectations. He led soldiers that did not belong to him, and guarded Queshugu Lingshi County to death!

Li Yuan, father and son traveled southward in high spirits, and when they arrived in Lingshi County, the number of troops swelled to 40.Although the vast majority of people are similar to watching the excitement, Li Yuan never refuses anyone who comes.

Li Yuan originally thought that he would be able to go down to Hedong and enter Guanzhong at the same lightning speed as Hexi. pass.

But Gao Deru, who thought he was loyal and loyal to follow him all the way to the end, stood at the top of Lingshi city and scolded him bloody.

Li Yuan was furious. This guy who bowed to him in Taiyuan turned out to be a duplicitous villain.

"Gao Deru, dare to betray this general, and when this general breaks through the pass, I will cut off your dog's head and use it as a chamber pot!"

"I, Gao Deru, was originally a minister of the Sui Dynasty. When did I become a minister of your Li family? If you want to talk about betrayal, it is also the Li family that has been favored by two generations of emperors! Although the Sui Dynasty is in chaos now, it is just a temporary problem! Come here if you have the ability The battle is over..." Gao Deru replied coldly.

Li Yuan was furious and ordered to attack the city.

Lingshi County is located in the middle of Queshu Valley. It is a very dangerous place. It is the only way to go south from Taiyuan. It is also an important gateway outside Taiyuan. It is not so easy to attack.As long as he sent troops to defend steadily and consume Li Yuan's troops step by step, even if Li Yuan had hundreds of thousands of troops, he would never want to capture Queshu Valley.

Li Yuan had neither siege equipment nor preparations.

As a result, after fighting for a long time, there was no effect at all. Instead, many mobs were killed and injured.And the soldiers of the rebel army with high morale, looking at the tragic casualties at Fort Jiahu, seemed to have just realized that rebellion means beheading, and fighting means killing people.

As soon as the enthusiasm passed, many people deserted immediately.

That night, tens of thousands of Li Yuan's 30 troops evaporated.Li Yuan attacked for another day and walked tens of thousands more.

Three days later, there were more than 40 troops, but only 20 remained.

"Father! This is actually a good thing." Li Jiancheng saw that Li Yuan was worried, and he quickly comforted him: "Too many troops will increase the burden of logistics, and it is not conducive to combat, and good and bad are mixed, so it is difficult to control military discipline! It's just that it is not good at the beginning of the uprising. Keep them out. Apart from consuming our army's food, those mobs will not only have no effect at all, but will also shake the morale of the army. Now that they are gone, they will save a lot of severance pay."

Pei Ji also advised Li Yuan to recruit less people from Hedong and use more Guanlong Army. Li Yuan agreed deeply, so he ordered to rectify the army in Lingshi County, eliminate the old, weak and scoundrels. Food appeasement.

"Wait a minute!" The heroic Li Shimin objected, "We don't have much food. If we have more food, what shall we do next?"

"This..." Li Yuan hesitated. The Queshu Valley is more than 70 kilometers long and narrow, so if the food is distributed to the demobilized people, how can the food be enough?Without food, the army will be confused, "What should I do according to Erlang's opinion?"

"Any strong army needs a lot of tempering to temper it. What I mean is to train the army through battle!" Li Shimin pointed to Lingshi County and said: "Lingshi City has only 20 defenders at most, and all of them are soldiers. We can divide the [-] troops into ten teams for the soldiers and civilians who are not strong enough to attack the city day and night. Can save food!"

"The casualties are too high, right?" Li Jiancheng frowned.

Li Shimin said with a smile: "Those who achieve great things don't care about small things, women's benevolence will only miss big things. These people are all rushing to do things like dragons. How can they do it if they don't work hard?"

Seeing his father's heartbeat, Li Jiancheng didn't say much, thinking that his second brother's heart was too cruel.

"Good way!" Li Yuan patted his thigh and said, "Just do it like this, hurry up."

Following Li Yuan's order, the army was divided into ten, the drums were rumbling, and they took turns attacking Lingshi County regardless of the formation of troops.

After three days,

Liu Hongji finally jumped to the top of Lingshi city.

More and more Tang troops also jumped on the top of the city, and the Lingshi defenders could no longer resist, and retreated into the city one after another.

But Li Yuan also paid a heavy price. The 20 troops ran and died, leaving only about 12 people.

"Where is Gao Deru?" Li Yuan asked after entering the city.

"Retreat to the county government." Liu Hongji, who was covered in blood, replied.

Li Yuan gritted his teeth, "Slaughtered the Lingshi for me!"

The red-eyed Liu Hongji and the others immediately turned around and came out, "The general has an order to slaughter Lingshi City, and no chicken or dog will be left behind!"

When Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin came to stop them, the order had already been issued, and evil 'rebels' were everywhere.The two brothers looked at each other and smiled wryly: The massacre order has begun, and the next town will definitely resist to the death, and the battle will become difficult to fight!
On that day, more than 2 soldiers and civilians in Lingshi City were all slaughtered, leaving no chicken or dog behind.

As expected by the Li brothers, when the army went south, they encountered stubborn resistance in Fort Jiahu!After four days of stalemate, Tang Jun paid a price of more than [-] people before taking it down.This time, Li Yuan, who had learned his lesson, did not dare to massacre the city again!
But bigger troubles arose.

Because they delayed too much time and gave Da Sui time to deploy his defenses calmly, the terrain in Huoyi County before them was difficult and dangerous, blocking the only way to go south!The defenders were no longer ordinary government and county soldiers, but [-] forbidden soldiers led by the veteran general Song Laosheng.

Li Shimin believes that although Song Laosheng is trusted and reused by the Dai Wang, it is not because he has military merits, but because he is a student of Wei Xuan, and he has survived by his seniority!Now Wei Xuan is old, and Qu Tutong is threatening his status, so he must be eager to make meritorious service to prove himself.

Li Yuan adopted Li Shimin's opinion, took advantage of Song Laosheng's eagerness to make contributions, and used himself as a bait to lead seven thousand elite soldiers to persuade him to surrender.But Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin were ordered to set up an ambush halfway, as long as Song Laosheng was led out of the city, they would wait for the opportunity to seize the city.

Song Laosheng was really fooled, he saw that it was Li Yuan himself who was recruiting to surrender, he was overjoyed, on the surface he agreed to surrender, but in fact he was rectifying the army to attack Li Yuan.

Li Yuan was so frightened that he turned around and fled. Seven thousand soldiers escorted him and fled northward. Song Laosheng was willing to give up and lead a large army to pursue him. His troops were far inferior to Li Yuan. Only once, lost and never again.

So under the city of Huoyi, Song Laosheng fought against Li Yuan. The [-] troops brought by Song Laosheng were all experienced Sui forbidden soldiers. .

Brothers Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin, who were hiding in the woods, spared Song Laosheng's army and went straight to Huoyi.

Song Laosheng chased him for less than ten miles, and some soldiers shouted in horror: "General Song, the Huoyi County tower is on fire."

When Song Laosheng turned his head, he really saw the flames of the Beicheng tower rising into the sky and thick smoke billowing. He realized that he had been fooled.

The [-] Sui troops turned around and ran towards the city. At this time, Li Yuan led the army to arrive, and sent troops to hide and kill them. Seeing that the army could not enter the city, Song Laosheng couldn't help being furious, and ordered: "The three armies line up and fight the rebels to the death!"

The two armies launched a bloody battle in the north of Huoyi County. The Sui army finally lost due to being outnumbered and the whole army was wiped out. Song Laosheng was surrounded by hundreds of people led by Liu Hongji.

Huoyi, an important town in the east of the river, which was built as an iron wall, fell in less than half a day because of Wei Xuan's improper employment.

Li Yuan took Huo Yi's remnant soldiers into his pocket, and the army became 12 horses. For those soldiers who didn't want to fight, Li Yuan sealed him as a fifth-rank official, let him go home, and quickly accepted the morale of these people. Even those soldiers who left the army and returned to Guanzhong also said that Li Yuan was benevolent and righteous.

Facts have proved that appeasement methods benefit Li Yuan ten thousand times more than slaughtering the city, because his "benevolence and righteousness" will be like a broken bamboo in his next march, and he will conquer Linfen County, Longquan County, Jiang County, and Wencheng County all the way. Dang County and Changping County only got one part, because Xue Wanshu and Yang Shanhui, who heard the news, entered the country first and captured the strategic points of these two groups.

So far, except for the heavily guarded Hedong County and Hanoi County in the south of Taiyuan, most of the remaining counties have been occupied by Li Yuan's army.

In mid-December of the 13th year of Daye, Li Yuan sent Li Jiancheng and Li Xiaogong to lead the army to fight Xue Wanshu and Yang Shanhui respectively, while Liu Hongji marched from Jiangjun to Hanoi and confronted Pei Renji in Hanoi County; he personally led an army of 15 to attack Hedong County.

At this time, Qu Tutong rushed to Hedong City with [-] soldiers, and saw that King Yang Qingxian of Xun led [-] Xiaoguo troops to settle in, and recruited [-] soldiers. Qu Tutong's confidence suddenly increased.While deploying defenses, they sent people to explain the battle situation to Xijing.

(End of this chapter)