Chapter 421 Northwest
Li Yuan went east to Luoyang, having achieved his original goal, so he planned to return to Guanzhong.

After much consideration, he decided to leave Pei Ji, one of the prime ministers, and Dou Cong and Liu Zongxun, two of the twelve generals of the guards, to guard Luoyang.

But before he could make any arrangements, Li Yuan himself needed to stay in bed due to illness. Under such circumstances, he naturally could not set off to Chang'an and could only stay in Luoyang to recuperate.

In the Qi Wang Mansion, many people often came to ask for an audience, to inquire about the news, and to know how the Qi Wang was going to deal with it. However, the Qi Wang Mansion was closed, and the Qi Wang himself was in the palace all day long. He handled military and political affairs on behalf of the emperor. He only returned to the palace at night every day, and all the old subordinates who came to ask for an audience could not see him.

On this day, before leaving for the palace, Princess Murong Jiayin was helping him dress and asked casually, "Have you prepared any valuables at home?"

Li Yuanhui thought for a moment before saying, "We still need to make some preparations. The weather in Jianghuai is hot, so prepare some light clothes."

When Murong Jiayin heard this, she felt as if she had heard it wrong, and then revealed a puzzled look.

Li Yuanhui smiled but turned and left without explaining.

On the other hand, news also came from the situation in Guanzhong and Longyou, where Tianshui and Nan'an counties had been lost. Li Gan, the Prince of Chengyang, the governor of Qinzhou who had just been appointed last year, led his troops to support the attack, but was defeated and died in battle.

The Liangzhou border troops led by Liangzhou Governor Wei Kang and Jincheng Prefect Hou Jun were already in a dilemma while they were still on the road, because Xiazhou Beidi County, which was also established last year, was attacked by Northern Yan.

Liang Congye, the governor of Xiazhou, surrendered to Yan.

Xiazhou was established by separating the two Shuofang counties to the north of the Tang Dynasty. The reason was that Liang Congye, the Shuofang prefect of the Former Yan Dynasty, submitted a petition to Li Yuan, asking the Turks to submit. Li Yuan readily agreed, and specially merged Shuofang County and Beidi County into Xiazhou and appointed him as the governor.

Liang Congye was originally a noble family in the border area and had no stable character. Liu Xuanji sent people to persuade him to surrender and gave him a lot of money and property, which made him change his ways and decide to rebel against Tang and surrender to Yan.

He even said shamelessly: "Liu Taiwei knows me. I am a loyal minister of Yan. How can I be accused of betraying Tang?"

This time, he directly sent troops to cooperate with 7,000 Northern Yan cavalry to attack Beidi County.

The capital of Beidi County, Fuping, was captured, and the governor, county magistrate, and other civil and military officials were killed in the battle. Xiazhou and Qinzhou were the two northwestern gateways of Guanzhong. Problems occurred in these two places at the same time, and the Northern Yan cavalry also passed through Shangjun to raid Beidi. Then all the problems including the Tuyuhun rebellion in Longyou Qinzhou and the rebellion of the governor of Xiazhou were all connected.

Beiyan's move was equivalent to setting a fire directly in the backyard of the Tang Dynasty.

Moreover, the timing of the fire was very clever, as it happened right after Li Yuan had led all the imperial guards out of Guanzhong.

Faced with the corrupt situation in Longyou and Shuofang, Li Er was like a cook without rice, and he had no soldiers.

Previously, Chang'an had sent out more than 10,000 reinforcements with great difficulty, but it only managed to stabilize the Longshan line. Tianshui and Guangwei are currently struggling to hold on.

Because of the shortage of troops, the Tang army could only send several thousand reinforcements to support the besieged Tianshui, in addition to defending the Longshan Road. However, due to the large force of the rebel army, they could only camp near Long County.

On the other hand, under Hou Jun's persuasion, Wei Kang finally made up his mind to resolve the Qinzhou issue first according to military orders.

After arriving in Qinzhou, the 15,000 Liangzhou infantry and cavalry immediately launched a counterattack against Tuyuhun. Hou Jun, the governor of Jincheng and the general of Fenwei, personally led thousands of cavalry to charge into the battle, while Wei Kang, the governor of Liangzhou, led his troops to attack from behind. The Tang Dynasty Liangzhou army defeated the Tuyuhun and Qiang-Hu coalition forces of more than 100,000 outside Ji County.

The reinforcements from Guanzhong also cooperated in the attack. In the Battle of Ji County, the Tang army defeated the coalition forces of Tuyuhun and Qiang-Hu, beheaded more than 10,000 enemies and captured 20,000 enemies.

A large number of Qiang and Hu people were driven into the Wei River by the Tang army and drowned.

Afterwards, the Tang army gathered their forces and quickly recaptured more than ten cities in Longyou, forcing Tuyuhun Khan Fuyun to retreat in embarrassment.

But Hou Jun pursued him relentlessly and finally brought back the helmet discarded by Fuyun Khan, but he himself disappeared.

Hou Jun became famous in the western frontier after the battle of Ji County. After Li Er learned of the battle report, he immediately recommended Hou Jun as the governor of Qinzhou and the general of Zhenxi.

At the same time, he ordered Hou Jun, Wei Kang, Zhang Pinggao, Liu Gaoqian and others to gather the reinforcements from Liangzhou, Qinzhou and Chang'an, about 30,000 people, and march north to Xiazhou.

At the same time, he selected more than 10,000 elite soldiers from the troops sent back by Li Yuan and ordered Li Cang, the Prince of Linhuai, to lead them out of Xiaoguan to rush to the northern battlefield. On the Northern Yan side, the one who was ordered to lead the army to rush thousands of miles was the General of the Northern Expedition and Duke of Dai Tuoba Tianbao. This 20-year-old brave general was an expert in using cavalry, and he could maintain the combat effectiveness of the army even after a thousand-mile raid.

Liu Xuanji's order to him was to cooperate with the Tuyuhun and Qianghu tribes who were causing trouble in the west and to cause some trouble for the Tang Dynasty north of Guanzhong.

But if you encounter a large army, don't confront them head-on, retreat when necessary.

So when the Tang army marched northward along the Yellow River from Longxi, Tuoba Tianbao found Liang Congye to discuss withdrawing.

Liang Congye was also very aware of the current situation and knew that this war would be difficult to fight. The two quickly reached an agreement, but Liang Congye wanted to relocate all the people of Beidi County to Shuofang.

After thinking about it, Tuoba Tianbao agreed to his request and personally led the cavalry to harass the Tang army in order to buy time for Liang Congye to relocate the people.

Fortunately, the Yellow River was navigable by then, and Liang Congye moved all the tens of thousands of households in Beidi County to Shuofang.

Tuoba Tianbao personally led the cavalry and set up a confusing formation. After playing hide-and-seek with the Tang army for several days, he was almost entangled by the cavalry led by Hou Jun.

He knew that if he continued to fight like this, he would most likely be defeated, so he decisively led his troops to withdraw and stopped going around in circles.

The Tang army continued to advance northward cautiously, and along the Yellow River they recovered the deserted northern land.

After seeing the empty city, several Tang army generals were all a little angry and immediately prepared to pursue. However, Hou Jun suggested that if they went north from here, they would pass through the Helan Mountains on the west bank of the Yellow River. The terrain there was complicated and the Yan army was likely to ambushed near the Helan Mountains. If they sent troops to pursue now, they would definitely encounter the enemy's ambush.

Both Liu Gaoqian and Zhang Pinggao were Li Yuan's confidants, and were the original contributors to Li Yuan's founding of the country, with a lot of seniority.

Hou Jun was a confidant of the prince who had risen to prominence in Longyou. Liu and Zhang did not take this young man seriously and insisted on sending troops to pursue him, but Hou Jun refused to join them.

The result was just as he said. Liu Gaoqian and Zhang Pinggao were defeated by the ambush of the Yan army and had to retreat with their troops.

However, Hou Jun spoke up again at this time, saying that the Yan army had now successfully ambush us, and they must have expected that we would not pursue them, so they would definitely pass through the Helan Mountain area quickly to reduce their defenses, and at this time, the pursuit would surely yield victory.

Hou Jun personally led 3,000 cavalrymen, and Zhang Pinggao and Liu Gaoqian also followed him with doubts. As expected, they pursued the Yan army at the northern foot of the Helan Mountains, defeated them, beheaded more than 2,000 of them, seized countless supplies, and recaptured more than 10,000 people from the north.

Afterwards, Zhang Pinggao and Liu Gaoqian took advantage of the situation to attack Shuofang County.

Hou Jun said that we cannot fight at this time because the Yan cavalry is on the east bank of the Yellow River and our army is not sure where to go. If our army marches to Shuofang, the supply line required will be a thousand miles long. Even if it is transported by water, it will be easily intercepted by the Yan army. Now we can only retreat to the north and wait for the prince's edict.

This time, Zhang and Liu did not object again, because Shuofang was indeed a thousand miles away from Guanzhong, the northern land had been emptied and could not provide food and fodder support, and it was indeed difficult to ensure the safety of the transportation route when transporting grain from Guanzhong thousands of miles away.

On the other hand, Tuoba Tianbao was just as Hou Jun had expected. He was hovering between Shangjun and Beidi on the east bank of the Yellow River. Only after learning that the Tang army had retreated to Beidi did he prepare to return to Bingzhou.

Just as Hou Jun expected, he was waiting for the Tang army to attack Shuofang so that he could attack them from behind.

However, the Tang army did not attack Shuofang, and he had no chance to attack, so he immediately chose to retreat back to Bingzhou.

On the way back, Tuoba Tianbao, who had already learned about the Tang army, asked Cui Yan, the Minister of the Honglu Temple, who was beside him, with great interest: "Who is this Hou Jun? Why haven't I heard of him before?"

Cui Yan was born into the Qinghe Cui family. He was well-read, knowledgeable, and eloquent. As the Minister of the Honglu Temple, his main task this time was to serve as a contact person and persuade Liang Congye to surrender. Judging from the results, this task was completed quite well.

"He is a close confidant of the Crown Prince Li Erlang of the Tang Dynasty. He was originally the grandson of Hou Zhi, the prefect of Yanmen in Dayan." As a member of an aristocratic family, he knew every lineage of aristocratic families in the court of the Tang Dynasty clearly.

Tuoba Tianbao said: "This Hou Jun was not well-known before, but he has such a strategy. The Tang Dynasty is indeed full of talents and should not be underestimated."

Cui Yan laughed and said, "Otherwise, how could the Li Tang Dynasty have won most of the world? Apart from the Murong Xianbei, no one else is as powerful as the Longxi Li family!"

(End of this chapter)