Throwing the unconquered Xinfeng City to Li Jing and Qu Tutong, who had just joined forces, immediately led the main force of the Eastern Capital to march westward to Daxing. Of course, Chen Sangliang had his own difficulties in doing so.
In fact, the Sui army was quite puzzled by Chen Sangliang's decision, and there were many voices of opposition. Even his cousin Li Jing advised Chen Sangliang to act cautiously and not to be too eager for success. Qu Tutong also volunteered to serve as the vanguard of the siege, promising to break through Xinfeng within three days and make atonement, but because of Yuan Tiangang's prediction of the weather, Chen Sang Liang resolutely rejected the good intentions of Li Jing and Qu Tutong, and insisted on personally leading the main force to Daxing.
Of course, Chen Sangliang knew the danger of doing so. The total strength of the Sui army’s main force was only about 50,000, and the main force of Li Yuan’s rebel army was conservatively estimated to be more than 140,000, which was almost three times the main force of the Sui army. Xue Ju and Li Gui in the west, and Bai Yupo, a slave in the north, may fall against Li Yuan's rebels at any moment because of their cold lips and teeth. It is impossible for Chen Sangliang's deadly enemy not to support Li Yuan's rebels unless his head is flooded. If these people also join the battlefield, then in terms of strength alone, the Sui army in the eastern capital will fall into an absolute disadvantage.
There are soldiers that must be rescued outside, and there are also cities that can be defended inside. Another major problem facing the main force of the Sui army is the defense of Daxing City. The current city wall is only a rammed earth structure. A heavy price was paid, and the Sui army would face a solid palace wall that was more than three feet high and two feet thick. Glutinous rice juice is mixed and rammed, and its strength is comparable to that of concrete. Each of the special blue bricks has the name of the craftsman on it. It is so strong that it cannot be broken by hammering. It is conceivable how difficult it is to enter such a city.
Chen Sangliang, who had always been cautious in using troops and was afraid of attacking fortifications, was uncharacteristic this time and insisted on coming. Before leaving, Chen Sangliang also announced the sad news that the acting king Yang You was killed by the rebels. The story of You's death, together with the confessions of Yin Yue'e and the rebel captives, and the story of Li Yuan's rebels attempting to frame the Sui army in the eastern capital, were all written into a bulletin, spread to all parts of Guanzhong, and sent a large number of spies Sneaking in to Daxing to show the public by posting, seizing the highest point of morality, and exposing the hypocrisy of Li Yuan's rebels who allegedly supported Yang You's ascension to the throne.
The main force of the Sui army did not move too fast. They set off at noon on the tenth day of October, and only arrived at the Chan River in the evening to set up camp and rest. They did not cross the river overnight. This gave the rebels some time to respond and gave the news a chance Time, in the evening of that day, not only the rebels knew the reason why the Sui army wore filial piety, but also many aristocratic families and civil and military officials in Daxing City knew about it. Only the largest number of ordinary people were kept in the dark. Some people didn't even know that the main force of the Sui army was only thirty miles away from Daxing City, and they still dreamed of living a good life under the rule of the rebel army.
The integrity of the Daxing officials was really terrible. After learning that Yang You was killed by the rebels, most of the civil and military officials were afraid to say anything because of the rebels' power to control the inner and outer city defenses of Daxing. Only Yang You's attendant, Yao Silian, led Several low-level officials who were not afraid of death came to the gate of the imperial city to ask for an interview, and asked Li Yuan to explain the matter face to face. Naturally he didn't believe it, and asked Li Xiaogong, the murderer named in Chen Sangliang's list, to come forward to explain, but Pei Ji flatly refused, and under the secret order of Li Yuan, Yao Silian and others were arrested and imprisoned under the pretext that Yao Silian and others violated the national law.
When the struggling and roaring Yao Silian and others were just taken away, Li Er, who was covered in mud and scars all over his face, stumbled to the gate of the imperial city again, and brought back Yin Hongzhi, the youngest son of Master Yin, to Li Yuan. But when his son was dragged in front of him in a state of embarrassment, Li Yuan turned his joy into anger, kicked Li Er on the chest, and roared: "You did a good job! Who told you to go to the south bank of Guangtong Canal?" Are you going to rescue Xinfeng? Why don’t you go to the north shore? The old man has told you several times, don’t take risks in front of Chen Yingliang, the thief! Why don’t you listen?”
This time it was Li Er's fault, he was kicked upside down and Li Er didn't dare to say a word, after struggling to kneel down to Li Yuanji again, Li Er said dejectedly: "My boy is guilty, I originally wanted to frustrate Dongdu a little bit." The sharpness of the officers and soldiers reversed the passive situation and boosted the morale of our army. According to Haier, the officers and soldiers in the Eastern Capital were as strong as a gang. The continuous division of troops still had a clear advantage over the partial divisions under Haier's command. , the child is willing to accept the crime he deserves."
"And Chen Yingliang's bulletin, what's going on?" Li Yuan threw the bulletin stolen by the rebel scouts in front of Li Er, and asked snarlingly.
After carefully reading Chen Sangliang's bulletin disclosing the fact that the rebels killed Yang You, Li Er was even more dejected. He quickly explained the incident to Li Yuan in detail, and then handed over Yin Hongzhi, the youngest son of the Yin Shishi he had captured. He introduced that he had already asked for a confession on the road. Before escorting Yang You out of the city, Yin Shishi had indeed arranged a secret foothold in the Jinsha Cave of Lishan, hiding dry food, drinking water and clothes in the cave. The siblings knew that place, and they had also been there when they went to Lishan with Shishi Yin. After they escaped by chance, they hid there and waited according to Shishi Yin's request, and then what happened later.
After listening to Li Er's report, and knowing that the rebels killed the fake Yang You, they happened to take the only two real insiders, sister and brother Yin Yue'e, as witnesses. With a long sigh, he wailed: "It's God's will, it's God's will! This old man tried his best to make the little thief Chen Yingliang bear the name of murdering the Lord. Who would have thought that such a thing would happen, finding false witnesses and meeting real witnesses would not be enough!" Forget it, one of the only two insiders was directly sent to the thief Chen Yingliang, God bless me."
"Father, I can't admit it, I can't admit it!" Li Eryi was shocked, and said quickly: "Father, this matter must not be admitted. When the hearts of the people are in a panic, if we are charged with killing His Royal Highness Daiwang, the hearts of the people will collapse immediately, and the hearts of the people will be scattered, not only will we not be the opponent of Chen Yingliang's little thief, but it may also lead to civil strife!"
"Of course the old man knows this." Li Yuan said with a gloomy face, "But now that the personal and material evidence is in the hands of the thief Chen Yingliang, what else can we do?"
"I deny it, bite back and muddy the water!" Li Eryi pointed to Yin Hongzhi who was crying next to him, and said quickly: "The boy took the risk to bring him back just to make him bite the little thief Chen Yingliang back. Father, you might as well Let him come forward to testify for us, that is, he saw Chen Yingliang's subordinates kill His Royal Highness Daiwang with his own eyes. After the incident was exposed, his sister Yin Yue'e was captured by Chen Yingliang's thief, and he was rescued here by us. Chen Yingliang's statement on the list It's all lies, Master Yin Shi's daughter was forced by Chen Sangliang to give a false testimony, and then announced the same to the world, completely muddy the water, and let the world not know who told the truth between us and the little thief Chen Yingliang."
"You're not just lying, you're playing a rogue." Li Yuan shook his head, he didn't immediately accept Baby's suggestion, but he didn't reject it either.
"General, this is the end of the matter, we can only follow the power." Pei Ji echoed: "If we don't give an explanation to the people of the world as soon as possible, we will be very passive in terms of morality. It’s cheating and retaliation, but the winner is the prince and the loser is Kou, as long as we defeat the little thief Chen Yingliang, in the history books of later generations, it will only be recorded that the little thief Chen Yingliang killed His Royal Highness Dai Wang!"
Li Yuan didn't refuse his precious son's suggestion at first, but after listening to Pei Ji's encouragement, Li Yuan could only nod his head and said, "Well, that's the only way to go. Tomorrow, all civil and military officials of Daxing will be summoned in Wude Hall to announce this in public. Let’s put the charge on the little thief Chen Yingliang first. Pei Ji, leave this child to you and let him remember what he should remember.”
Pei Ji promised to get someone to take Yin Hongzhi, who was only ten years old, to coerce and lure him to give false testimony to frame Chen Sangliang at the next day's meeting. Li Yuan then yelled at Li Er: "Come on!" Come on, get off and rest, let's talk about the rest tomorrow!"
Li Eryingnuo, who hadn't had a good rest for three nights in a row, stood up but didn't go down to rest immediately, but asked Li Yuan again: "Father, the little thief Chen Yingliang ordered his division to besiege Xinfeng, and led the main force to go west directly to Daxing. Regarding this matter, I don’t know what my father thinks.”
"The old man is also wondering about this." Li Yuan replied: "If it were another enemy, the old man would definitely think that the enemy has been dazzled by the successive victories and carelessly underestimated the enemy, so he ran away with fifty thousand troops. Come to attack Daxing City guarded by the old man's 150,000 troops, but the little thief Chen Yingliang will never make such a mistake, so the old man still can't guess his real purpose."
"My boy also thinks so. With Chen Yingliang's ability, it is absolutely impossible to make the mistake of underestimating the enemy." Li Er nodded, and then said in a deep voice: "So, my boy is very suspicious that Chen Yingliang is trying to use himself as a bait to lure the enemy." Let's go out of the city to fight a decisive battle, fight a big battle with us, and end the Daxing war with one battle!"
"Chen Yingliang has such confidence?" Li Yuan showed some disdain, and said coldly: "In front of this old man, how dare he have such confidence?"
"I don't know if the little thief Chen Yingliang has such confidence, but he still wants to attack with a small number of people. The best way to defeat us is to win in the field." Li Er said in a deep voice: "So I think, this time We must not fight decisively lightly, it is best not to fight a field battle, and always rely on Daxing Jiancheng to confront Chen Yingliang's little thief, frustrate his spirit, drag down his morale, and then try to defeat the enemy!"
Li Yuan has long discovered through the research of war records that Chen Sangliang is afraid of fighting tough battles, and he likes to use opportunistic tactics. He knows that his precious son's suggestion is very reasonable and appropriate, but out of various overall considerations, Li Yuan cannot immediately accept Li Er's correct suggestion. Nodding his head, he said, "That makes sense. The old man will use his troops with caution. Go down and rest. We will discuss the details of the battle tomorrow." Li Er agreed, and then hurried down to rest.
There was nothing to say all night, and in the early morning of the next day, Li Yuan immediately dispatched a large number of scouts to closely monitor the actions of the Sui army, and demanded to report the movement of the Sui army every half an hour. The youngest son, Yin Hongzhi, had memorized everything he had to say, and he also agreed to serve the rebels. Li Yuan was overjoyed when he heard the news, and immediately ordered all the civil and military officials of Daxing to be summoned to the Hall of Wude for a discussion. All officials above grade 7 will participate, and there is a time limit of half an hour to be present.
Thanks to Li Yuan's indiscriminate appointment of official positions, there are more than 700 civil and military officials above the seventh rank in Daxing City. In order to allow these people to hear Yin Hongzhi's testimony, Li Yuan temporarily decided to hold a meeting outside the hall to avoid these people. Civil and military officials couldn't squeeze into the Wude Hall, but they waited in front of the Wude Hall for half an hour against the cold wind in early winter. What left Li Yuan and his son dumbfounded and annoyed was that the half-hour deadline had come. Unexpectedly, less than half of the civil and military officials came, and the rest either claimed sick leave, or even their family members didn't know where they went, and there were seriously many members of the Guanlongmen faction who were the most important supporters of Lao Li's family.
Of course, Li Yuan and his son knew the reasons why these grasshoppers claimed sick leave and hid from seeing. Seeing the sparse crowd of officials outside the hall, Li Yuan and his son wanted to drag those grasswools here and behead them on the spot. Li Er also suggested that Li Yuan send someone there. To catch all the fools who pretended to be ill and avoid them to attend the meeting, Li Yuan gritted his teeth and wanted to agree, but at this moment, Yin Kaishan, who was in charge of the sentry affairs, came to report in a hurry, reporting that Chen Sangliang The main force of the Sui army has already crossed the Chan River, and the forward is less than 20 miles away from Daxing. At the same time, there are still many people in Guanzhong lining the road to welcome the Sui army in the eastern capital. There are quite a few people from Guanzhong who have brought their own dry food and asked to join the Sui army in the eastern capital. .
"The Daxing people lined up to welcome the officers and soldiers?" Li Yuan was a little dumbfounded, and blurted out: "Those people are crazy? Why did they welcome the officers and soldiers?"
"Our army's detailed work has found out the reason." Yin Kaishan replied with a mournful face: "These people are mostly people who failed to receive the food from us. The thief Chen Yingliang sent Qingqi messengers to various places in Xiaoyu yesterday, saying that they broke through After arriving in Daxing, he will also open a warehouse to release grain, relieve the people in Guanzhong, and make up for the losses we caused to the people. Therefore, those people who did not receive relief from us rushed to meet them, and some of them had already come from us. The people who received the relief here also went, and they all wanted to receive the relief again.”
"These greedy and shameless rats!"
While Li Yuan was gnashing his teeth, an even more shocking news came suddenly. Li Yuan's wife and uncle Dou Wei, who was in charge of confidential affairs, suddenly reported that several rebel soldiers secretly conspired to collude with the Sui army in the Eastern Capital and planned to kill them in wartime. The dead soldiers surrendered to Chen Sangliang. Li Yuan's shock was no small matter, and he blurted out, "The soldiers there? The Zuo Tunwei soldiers brought by Yun Dingxing? Or the Daxing soldiers who surrendered to us earlier?"
"It's a Taiyuan soldier."
Dou Wei's weeping answer made Li Yuan's father and son's faces turn pale. When Li Yuan and his son hurriedly asked the reason, Dou Wei explained in a low voice: "Those Taiyuan soldiers are all veterans who participated in the Yanmen War. We have been rescued, and we know that the little thief Chen Yingliang is good at fighting, so we feel that we are hopeless, so we decided to surrender to Chen Yingliang."
The veins on Li Yuan's forehead began to twitch violently, and he finally knew how bad the current situation of the self-army was—Chen Sangliang's invincible reputation was so resounding and prominent that no one in the world dared to ignore it. At the same time, a considerable part of the elite soldiers of the rebel army used to be Chen Sangliang's former troops. They knew Chen Sangliang's sincere love for the soldiers under his command, and also knew that Chen Sangliang used his military tactics with the help of God, and he never missed. The elite soldiers who are the core backbone are actually advocating for Chen Sangliang to fight for five, how can this battle be fought
"We have to win a battle first, destroy Chen Yingliang's reputation as an invincible little thief, and boost the morale of our army, otherwise, this battle will not be able to be won."
After finishing these words in his heart with a livid face, Li Yuan first ordered Dou Wei to execute all those vacillating elements in a low voice, and then resolutely gave up the plan to arrest those officials pretending to be ill for a meeting—there was no arrest. No, there is nothing to gain except more disappointment, so Li Yuan also temporarily ignored those sloppy walls, but immediately called out Yin Hongzhi, forcing him to publicly declare that Chen Sangliang's announcement was false , to testify that the acting king Yang You was actually killed by the Sui army's rebels under Chen Sangliang's command...
…
In fact, Li Yuan was already very lucky. If he could see Chen Sangliang's current situation with his own eyes, then he would definitely not turn pale with anger, but faint on the spot. In fact, as early as last night, when the main force of the Sui army was still resting by the Chanshui River for the night, all the powerful families in Guanzhong had already sent representatives of their children to see Chen Sangliang, and explained to Chen Sangliang that their family was forced by the situation to pretend to be a thief. It also introduced the indomitable struggle their family made against Li Yuan's rebels underground. Chen Sangliang stayed up almost the whole night, just entertaining and meeting representatives of these powerful families. Those willing to join the army were retained immediately, appointed officials on the spot, and promised to protect the residences and properties of these powerful families in Daxing, and soldiers were strictly prohibited from looting.
Of course, Chen Sangliang also knew that these grassroots were unreliable, but there was no way. In order to kill Li Yuan's rebels, Chen Sangliang had to at least maintain a superficial friendly relationship with these powerful families. In addition, he shamelessly declared in front of these representatives of the Guanlong Clan, "Actually, I am also a side branch of Guanlong. My wife, the Changsun family, is the daughter of Duke Changsun Sheng. Changsun Sheng is a genuine Guanlong clan. I am his family." His son-in-law was born in Daxing and grew up in Daxing, so I am also a branch of Guanlong."
Shameless words are not for nothing. Chen Sangliang was able to brazenly publicize that he is an offshoot of the Guanlongmen Clan. Naturally, he expressed respect for the Guanlongmen Clan. The respected Guanlongmen Clan family was psychologically satisfied and benefited He also begged Chen Sangliang, and he wanted something in return for Chen Sangliang, so in fact, including the two children of Li Yuan's wife's Dou family, they all came to Chen Sangliang secretly to ask for an audience, and accepted Chen Sangliang's appointment For dispatch, the number of children from other big and powerful families, of course, will not be less.
At noon, the main brigade of the Sui army arrived outside Daxing City. Ten miles away from the Chunming Gate of Daxing City, they set up a camp against the Guangtong Canal. All is well for the time being. However, behind the safety and security, it was Chen Sangliang who was worried, and said to himself: "I guess I can't do much if I set up a camp today. Starting tomorrow, within three days, if I can't lure old thief Li Yuan out of the city For a decisive battle, three days later, heavy snow will fall, and the ice and snow will absorb the bouncing power of the solid shells, greatly reducing the power of my artillery, and it will be difficult to defeat him in a single battle."
Worried in his heart, Chen Sangliang smiled happily, and ordered loudly in front of the children of those powerful families, "Order the whole army, build deep ditches and high forts, build a strong camp, and build a temporary wharf in Guangtong Canal to facilitate food transportation. The city is high and the trenches are deep, easy to defend and difficult to attack, we must be prepared for a protracted war!"