Chapter 548 Cautionary Case
After the Battle of Shangdang, all the generals of the Tang Dynasty felt that they had not fought enough. The Han army was defeated, and Jinyang opened the city to surrender. Therefore, they were eager to go north to Daibei and make achievements.

The Daibei tribes in Bingzhou were an army with fairly good combat effectiveness, especially the cavalry.

When I first heard about the surrender, I thought there was no hope, but who would have thought that things would take an unexpected turn. Look, isn’t this the chance?
Tuoba Tianbao actually knew that this war was basically hopeless, but the chieftains of the eight tribes, including the elders of his Tuoba family, were all unwilling to accept the conditions of the Tang Dynasty, so he had no choice but to fight.

The two sides fought a fierce battle on the southern foot of Mufu Mountain. Although Li Yuanhui was in Jinyang, he mobilized all the elite cavalry of the Tang army.

The four elite cavalry units of Xuanjia, Beiwei, Xiaoguo and Shenwu, totaling more than 10,000 people, were all transferred to Zhu Deyu, not counting the elite cavalry in Guanzhong.

Zhu Yuanzhang said that he had never fought a battle with such a large number of cavalry in his eight lifetimes. But in fact, he had no experience in commanding large-scale cavalry, so he still commanded the infantry to advance, and asked Xue Wanjun, the governor of Qinzhou, and Luo Shixiang, the left commander of the Beiwei Army, to command the cavalry on both wings respectively.

Xue Wanjun led a total of more than 7,000 elite cavalry from Guanzhong, Luo Shixiang commanded more than 10,000 cavalry from the Tiance armies, plus the 20,000 infantry led by Zhu. The three armies advanced in parallel, and the eight cavalry units in the north of Dai launched several attacks, but all were defeated.

Xue Wanjun and Luo Shixiang took advantage of the situation and led the cavalry to counterattack. The two sides fought a fierce battle at the foot of Mufu Mountain. More than 30,000 Daibei cavalrymen engaged in a fierce battle with the Tang cavalry. At the critical moment, Chang Yanheng led 800 cavalrymen to attack the rear of the Daibei cavalry. The Daibei tribes were in chaos. The Tang army became more and more courageous and pursued the victory, beheading more than 10,000 enemies and capturing 6,000 enemies. The 800 Xianbei in Daibei were badly injured in this battle.

However, the Tang army did not kill them all. After gathering the defeated troops, Tuoba Tianbao asked for surrender again and said that the Tang Dynasty was his father and whatever he said was what it meant. He was completely submissive.

Li Yuanhui said, "If you had known this would happen, why did you do it in the first place? We in the Tang Dynasty believe in winning people over with virtue. If you just surrender to the Tang Dynasty, good days will come."

In this battle, the right commander of the Xuanjia Army, King Lanling Li Changgong, performed extremely well. He captured three chieftains of the Daibei tribes alive and killed the famous Daibei general Hedouling Landu in battle.

Once again demonstrated the bravery of the Li Tang royal family.

After the Battle of Mufu Mountain, the Tang army captured Yanmen in Dai County and took over the northern part of Bingzhou. At this point, the entire Bingzhou was under the control of the Tang Dynasty.

The Northern Han Dynasty was left with only You and Ji states, and its main forces were completely lost, and the country was in decline.

Li Yuanhui's personal reputation also reached a new level during the process of capturing Bingzhou from the seventh to the eighth year of Zhenguan.

He is almost the same as the emperor, catching up with Emperor Taizong.

The biggest reason for this was naturally the Battle of Shangdang, where Li Yuanhui defeated the Northern Han Emperor Liu Xuanji despite having almost the same number of troops.

It was his son who made the greatest contribution in this battle, and he actually killed the main general of the Northern Han army. It can be said that he made great contributions.

After entering Jinyang, Li Yuanhui did not immediately go east through Taihang to attack Hebei. Instead, he first stabilized Bingzhou, and took steady steps, not giving the Northern Han any chance to counterattack.

The loss of Bingzhou and Jinyang meant that the countdown to the demise of the Northern Han Dynasty had begun.

The national strength of the Tang Dynasty had become overwhelming, and after taking Bingzhou and the passage to the east, even the last geographical advantage was lost.

Li Yuanhui led the attack on Bingzhou and held the world's elite troops in his hands. This not only formed a strategic suppression on Hebei, but also, conversely, it was a strategic suppression on Guanzhong as well.

Li Sanlang had thought earlier that Li Si might be able to achieve success this time, but he did not expect it to be so soon. The two brothers had previously agreed that they would not withdraw their troops until Jinyang was conquered.

The plan was originally to fight for two or three years. During the months of confrontation between Li Si and Liu Xuanji in the Battle of Shangdang, Li Sanlang sent letters several times asking whether he wanted to send more troops.

As long as Li Si nodded, Li Sanlang was ready to use the war potential of Guanzhong to fight a decisive battle with the Northern Han.

But Li Si kept replying, saying that we don't need reinforcements, as long as we have enough food and military supplies, we will win the battle. On the contrary, if we continue to send more troops to the front line now, it will easily cause the rear to be empty, and if there are too many troops, it will be very troublesome if the Northern Han Dynasty feels that it cannot win and retreats to Shangdang and goes to Jingxing or Juyongguan to support Jinyang.

Li San didn't know where Li Si got the confidence from, but he chose to believe it.

And the facts proved that he was right. The Battle of Shangdang was won, and the entire Bingzhou was incorporated into the Tang Dynasty.

As for the Northern Han, at the beginning of the eighth year of Zhenguan, Liu Xuanji asked Prime Minister Cui Tingbi to move to Xindu with the crown prince and the entire court team, while he himself stayed in Yecheng with a large army.

Liu Xuanji's health had been a little bad since the Battle of Shangdang, but fortunately he was still able to hold on. Yecheng also became the last barrier of the Han Dynasty.

In March, Li Yaoshi led his troops back from Shuofang. The total time, including the military operations and waiting for the ice and snow to melt in Shuofang, was less than five months. Liang surrendered again and moved his family inland.

Li Yuanhui submitted a petition to Chang'an to establish Shuozhou in Shuofang, and Chang'an quickly agreed and gave Li Yuanhui the power to appoint personnel. Li Chengqian requested to be the governor of Shuozhou, but Li Yuanhui refused.

After repeated requests, Li Yuanhui finally agreed to his request. He selected two thousand elite soldiers from Taizong's former subordinates and gave them to him. He also appointed Qiu Xinggong, a former general of the Qin Palace who had been transferred to the Qi Palace, as the General Pingbei, and Hou Mochen as the General Pingbei, and they served as the chief historian and military officer of Li Chengqian's Shu Palace respectively.

Lan Yu and Duan Shao were appointed as the chief officers of the Right Third and Left Third Guards of the Prince of Qi's Palace, and Duan Shao was promoted to the title of Palace Attendant of the Imperial Guards for his contribution.

In April of the eighth year of Zhenguan, the emperor visited Jinyang and rewarded the army generously.

He was very fond of his nephews Li Chengdao and Li Changgong, and rewarded them with horses and precious swords.

However, after seeing the condition of his third brother, Li Yuanhui felt a little worried, as if he was not in good health.

After asking, I found out that Sange has been obsessed with having children for the past year or so. There is no way to persuade him. The reason why Li Sanlang is obsessed with having children is simply because he has two remaining sons, one is sickly and the other is wooden. Neither of them is capable.

Even though he no longer had any hope of passing the throne to his son, looking at the nephews from the three families, the eldest brother, the second brother and the fourth brother's family, each of them was smart and capable, especially the fourth brother from the eldest brother's family and the second brother from the fourth brother's family, who had fought on the battlefield and made great achievements. How could he not be anxious?
But he worked day and night, but there was no progress. Therefore, he took a lot of pills, and his originally vigorous body now looked a little weak.

But the emperor was addicted to women in order to have children and it would not affect his normal work. What could the ministers do to persuade him?
Even the stubborn new censor Wei Zheng could only advise the emperor indirectly to take care of his health.

Of course, Li Sanlang was obsessed with this, not only because he wanted to have more sons, but also because his eldest son was gone. He had lost a lot of motivation and had no qualified successor, so he left the responsibility of state affairs and foreign wars to the King of Qi. In the future, the throne would definitely be given to the King of Qi. He was very rational and would not fall out with his brothers just to pass the throne to his useless son and cause civil strife in the Tang Dynasty.

But if you ask him to continue struggling, he won't have the energy to do so. He will simply become a little tired. The future will be yours anyway, so you should do the work.

So much so that even Li Si couldn't persuade him. Persuade him to keep healthy?
Li Sanlang stayed in Jinyang for half a month, and then took his men to patrol the border in the north, planning to go through Shuozhou, then to Liangzhou, and then return to Guanlong from Liangzhou.

Li Yuanhui escorted him to Mayi and then returned to Jinyang, but sent Li Chengdao and Li Changgong to lead the cavalry to escort him.

Because Li Sanlang had brought 2,000 cavalrymen with him when he left Chang'an, which was a light and simple journey. He did not plan to bring too many people to Shuozhou, but Li Yuanhui insisted on sending him more people.

Although Li Sanlang said he didn't care, he was still very grateful for his brother's kindness.

My parents and two biological brothers have passed away, my first wife and eldest son have also passed away, and my closest family members are my eldest sister and fourth brother.

And because the two sons left in his family were really useless, Li Sanlang liked his two nephews more and more. He asked them to accompany him and occasionally tested them along the way. After the test, he also talked to them about his experience in handling military and political affairs.

This journey took more than three months.

Just as Li Sanlang returned to Chang'an, the Tang army sent out again a few days later. 150,000 Tang troops went out of Fukou and Jingxing and went straight to Yecheng. Another 60,000 troops were sent from various states in Guanzhong, crossed the river from Liyang, and besieged Yecheng.

The Han army was prepared for this. They strengthened the defenses of Yecheng and stockpiled large amounts of food and military supplies.

Liu Xuanji himself went to Xindu, and left Yecheng to Wei Xiaoju to guard.

Yecheng was a large city with more than 20,000 defenders and 200,000 Tang troops surrounding the city. Li Yuanhui ordered people to build a large number of siege equipment, including ladders, wells, catapults, and crossbows.
During the first month of the siege, Li Yuanhui tried many methods to attack the city, but they were all resolved by Wei Xiaoju.

First, the most traditional method was adopted, which was to carry soil to fill the trenches and climb the city walls like ants. The trenches outside the city were filled, but when they started to climb the city walls, the Tang army began to suffer heavy casualties. After ten consecutive days of fierce attacks, more than 10,000 people were killed or wounded.

Li Yuanhui then began to seek other ways to attack the city. He also tried digging tunnels, which was time-consuming and labor-intensive, and in the end was completely useless.

Someone suggested that the Zhang River be diverted to flood the city, but Li Yuanhui rejected the suggestion.
By the beginning of the second month, the Tang army no longer attacked the city walls, except for daily bombardment of the city walls with catapults and crossbows.

Wei Xiaoju became worried when he saw this, because the Tang Dynasty, which unified the world, was not afraid of a war of attrition.

The strategy proposed by Wei Xiaoju and Liu Xuanji was to use Yecheng to consume the morale and manpower of the Tang army, while Liu Xuanji led the troops from the two states and waited for an opportunity to act.

The fundamental reason why the Tang Dynasty stopped attacking the city and chose to besiege it after its initial siege failed was that Li Yuanhui thought of someone.

After singing the "Chi Le Song" of Yinshan, the hero wept a lot in old age. He held the imperial tablet of Wei Wu in his lifetime and was awarded the spear of Tiao Hou to kill the enemy in his death.

The six towns of China and foreigners spread the news, and the nine dragons gathered in the Zhang River. Only now there is still a clear moon, which once shone on the thousands of horses of King Gao passing by.

This is Yuan Mei's "Passing Ye to Pay Homage to Gao Shenwu". The place where he is now surrounding with his army is Yecheng, and the river not far away is the Zhang River.

How come King Gao didn't get it? He just failed to take down the jade disk, and he was so angry that he died because of the loss of his troops.

So Li Yuanhui couldn't help but shudder when looking at the water of Zhang River. His title was King of Qi, which seemed to be somehow connected with the Northern Qi Dynasty in history.

If he also gets carried away and attacks Yecheng desperately, will he follow in the footsteps of King Gao? Very likely.

Therefore, Li Yuanhui was not carried away by victory, but instead comforted the soldiers, reorganized the army, and prepared for a long siege.

Wei Xiaoju, the General of Chariots and Cavalry, Palace Attendant, and Duke of Zhou of the Northern Han Dynasty, was very good at defense as the garrison commander of Yecheng. Therefore, after more than ten days of siege, the Tang army suffered heavy casualties and only managed to fill up the trenches.

If we continue to attack, morale and military strength will be damaged. The Han army will gather troops from Youzhou and Jizhou to launch a counterattack, and the battle will be difficult to fight.

Therefore, Li Yuanhui quickly adjusted his mentality and decided to stop fighting and continue besieging the city.

Now that they have besieged Yecheng of the Northern Han Dynasty, will the Han army send reinforcements? The Tang Dynasty has sufficient troops to completely wipe out Weijun, Zhaojun, and the banks of the Yellow River. Li Yuanhui did not believe that Liu Xuanji could sit still.

You want to use the fortified city to wear down my morale and launch a counterattack, but I also want to besiege the city and attack the reinforcements.

Come, let’s move on to the traditional stage and see who can afford it.

(End of this chapter)