Why is it tasteless? For Li Er and Duan Lun, the artillery thrown into the Fenshui River by Huoyi's Sui army was nothing but a piece of shit! It's a pity to lose it. It would take time and effort to get it back, and it would definitely give the Sui army in Hedong a chance to fight a war of attrition. Even if they could get it in the end, Li Er and Duan Lun would have to pay a heavy price!
Don’t think it’s that simple to fish a few cannons from the Fenshui River. Affected by climate change and human factors, the current flow of the Fen River is indeed not that large. However, during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the flow of water in the Fen River was able to support the Guanzhong Transport. When the grain arrives in Jiang County, the grain can be directly transported from Linfen to Guanzhong by going down the river. A cannon weighing more than a thousand catties, even if there is hope to achieve it, the difficulty is definitely not that small.
What was even more terrible was the harassment and sabotage by the Sui army. As soon as they got rid of the pursuit of the Taiyuan army, the Sui army in Huoyi immediately stopped at a place only 20 miles away from the Shen Cannon, and immediately started to build the camp fortifications. No matter how desperately he tried not to let the Taiyuan army take away the artillery posture, Li Erjun would definitely be destroyed by the Sui army's surprise attack as long as he fished the artillery.
In any case, there is some meat on the chicken ribs. In order to eliminate the nightmare in the Taiyuan army, who had suffered a lot in front of the artillery, they decided to give it a try anyway. So after a little discussion, Li Erduanlun also came to stand on the spot Battalion, while building fortifications to resist the attack of the Sui army, at the same time selected soldiers proficient in water to go into the water to find artillery, and tried to pull the artillery ashore directly with ropes.
It was only after the sailors entered the water that Li Er realized that his thinking was too simple, because the Sui army left the position of the artillery, not only the water flow was extremely fast, but there were also many height differences. The cannon, and the danger of being washed away by the current, sacrificed two sailors, and it took considerable effort and a lot of time to finally find a cannon. When trying to pull the cannon with ropes, the Sui army had already When he came to kill him, he was still under the command of Liu Heitai himself.
It is only forty miles away from Huoyi, which greatly facilitates Liu Heitai to replenish his troops on the front line. He is determined to use artillery as bait to consume a large amount of the vital forces of the Taiyuan Army. Liu Heitai doesn't even consider the cost of casualties , came to the front line to command and supervise the battle. Wang Xingben and Cao Qing led the army to charge together. The Taiyuan army, which was exhausted and had no time to build a strong camp, resisted desperately, but in the end they couldn't stand the Sui army's furious charge at any cost. He was forced to retreat to avoid the edge, and the artillery that had been pulled away from the bottom of the river was thrown back into the bottom of the river.
Then the more damaged ones came again. Taking advantage of the opportunity to temporarily repel the Taiyuan Army, the Sui Army quickly threw a large amount of earth and rocks into the sunken cannon, making it more difficult for the Taiyuan Army to salvage, and then hurriedly retreated to the temporary camp twenty miles away. Rest and wait for the Taiyuan Army to salvage again. When Li Er and Duan Lun made a comeback, not only was the sky bright, but the difficulty of salvage had increased a lot.
Soldiers are not made of iron. Li Erjun didn't get much rest from the midnight of the second day of March to the morning of the fourth day of March. What's worse, Duan Lun's army had to march seventy miles in a hurry. Mangy dogs with their spines removed. So even though Li Er and Duan Lun were still unwilling, they didn't have the guts to salvage while resisting Liu Heitai's possible attack at any time. They could only find a place to camp on a gentle slope near the north of the Shen Cannon site, and rest While preparing to salvage, Liu Heitai, who didn't need these pig iron artillery at all, was even less eager to launch an attack. The two armies temporarily stopped their flags and drums and maintained a confrontation.
Linfen County, where Liu Heikai's main force is located, is only two days away from Queshu Valley, while Taiyuan needs to march at least four days from Queshu Valley. Li Er and Duan Lun are well aware of the impact of this difference, but Li Er and Duan Lun Wan Unexpectedly, it was only in the evening of the same day that Liu Heita's Linfen rear army had already arrived at Huoyi City. Although they had not yet reached the battlefield of Shenpao, with only more than 5,000 troops, they immediately broke through. The balance of power in the entire Queshu Valley battlefield, the Sui army with a combined army of more than 15,000 people is sufficient, and it can easily rotate in battle. The combined army of Li Er and Duan Lun only has more than 8,000 troops. Already at an absolute disadvantage, fighting a war of attrition with Liu Heitai is tantamount to courting death.
Although it was already clear that Liu Heita wanted to take advantage of the momentum to draw his own army into a war of attrition, the bait Liu Heita put into the water was too tempting, so Li Er and Duan Lun still did not decide to give up. Afterwards, Li Er and Duan Lun simply chose to continue the confrontation with Liu Heitai for the time being, and sent a fast horse north to Taiyuan to report the matter to Li Jiancheng, and kicked the ball to Li Jiancheng, so that Li Jiancheng decided to go south and take the artillery with all his strength? Or just give up and let Liu Heitai fish the artillery back
It was Li Jiancheng's turn to make a difficult decision. In fact, when he received the news that the Sui army's artillery had secretly arrived at the Huoyi battlefield, Li Jiancheng was already ready to send troops to reinforce Queshu Valley. The only natural barrier, it is actually very convenient to send troops to help Li Er and Duan Lun grab the artillery at this time. But Li Jiancheng also saw through Liu Heitai's tactical purpose to force the Taiyuan army to fight a war of attrition. Once the Taiyuan army was led by Liu Heitai and fell into the quagmire of attrition, even if the Taiyuan army successfully grabbed the artillery, it would probably be worth the loss. The Sui army took advantage of it—because Chen Sangliang's current foundation is too strong, even if he lost all the main forces in Hedong, he would not feel bad.
In the end, it was Yin Kaishan, a veteran of the Taiyuan Army and the legendary grandfather of Jin Chanzi, who made Li Jiancheng make up his mind. To achieve this goal, the main force of the Hedong thief army was also thrown into the Queshu Valley battlefield. At present, the main force of the Chen thief is not ready to go out. If the main force of our army goes south at this moment, although it may be dragged into a war of attrition by Liu Heita However, there is also hope to annihilate the main force of Liu Heitai first. If so, our army can take the opportunity to capture Linfen, obtain a large number of food, grass and military supplies for the main force of Chen thieves to attack our army, and then completely disrupt the overall plan of Chen Yingliang's traitors, and use offense as defense , take the lead, and completely defend the enemy from outside the country."
After thinking about it for a while, Li Jiancheng nodded, then pondered again and said: "Since the defense is based on offense, then we should simply send Dou Jiande into the battlefield now, and ask him to immediately send troops westward from Fukouxing to Shangdang County, via Biyuan. , Hechuan, attack Liu Heita's flank, and attack Linfen with our army, making Liu Heita difficult to care about, and completely disrupting Yingliang's overall plan."
"Captain Zuo, the road of Miyuan and Hechuan is not easy, especially not suitable for large-scale marching of the army. It is unlikely that Dou Jiande will answer?" Yin Kaishan reminded.
"Promise half of Linfen's money and food to Dou Jiande. If he marches this way, he can easily collect the currently empty Shangdang County. Dou Jiande will be tempted." Li Jiancheng replied calmly: "I don't need him to send out the main force to help me To attack Liu Heitai, as long as he sends out all the troops, give some valuable gifts to his subordinates, so you don't have to worry about convincing him."
Seeing that Li Jiancheng was full of confidence, Yin Kaishan didn't say much, just nodded in agreement. It would be the best if this could be the case. Li Jiancheng immediately summoned his trump card envoy, Wang Gui, and asked him to go to Linming with a heavy gift to meet Dou Jiande and invite Dou Jiande He sent troops to Shangdang County to attack Liu Heitai's flank, and explained that Wang Gui didn't need to be stingy with gold and silver, and he could use it to buy Dou Jiande's civil servants without worry. But Li Jiancheng was still worried about one thing, and he reminded Wang Gui: "Dou Jiande is too upright, he doesn't allow his subordinates to seize folk money, food and land, his subordinates are not rich, and they are very greedy for gold, silver and jewelry, and they are bribed to speak for us It is very easy, but he has a henchman who is an exception, and you must not try to bribe him."
"May I ask Governor Zuo, who is he?" Wang Gui asked cautiously.
"Wang Fubao." Li Jiancheng replied casually: "Our army's insider information, this Wang Fubao is not only Dou Jiande's right-hand man, but also like Dou Jiande, he values money and righteousness. He hates corruption and bribery. If you bribe him, he will be furious and tell you Dou Jiande's whistleblowing may backfire, causing Dou Jiande to refuse to send troops in a rage."
Wang Gui carefully remembered Li Jiancheng's instructions, and then under the escort of the cavalry, he rushed to Linming to ask Dou Jiande for help. Then, together with Yin Kaishan and Zhang Lun, they led an army of 30,000 troops to go south to Qushugu to reinforce Li Er and Duan Lun. They arrived in Jiexiu on March 13th and officially joined the Qushugu battlefield.
Before Li Jiancheng's reinforcements arrived in Jiexiu, Liu Heikai had already fought three more battles with Li Er and Duan Lun in the area of Shenpao. He completely ignored the casualties and forced Li Er and Duan Lun to fight a war of attrition and refused to give up. The Taiyuan army with artillery did not dare to evacuate the battlefield, so they could only build a stronghold on the mountain and defend it according to the danger. Although they were not taken down by Liu Heitai, they paid a considerable price. After Jiexiu, Liu Heitai, who successfully achieved the goal of exhausting the main force of the Taiyuan army, withdrew his troops and retreated, saving his strength and retreating to Huoyi to defend the city.
Before leaving, Liu Heikai wrote another letter and shot it into the Taiyuan army camp, blatantly declaring: "If you like our army's artillery, you can just fish it. Our army's artillery has been soaked in the river for ten days. It was soaked. If you like it, just take it back and use it!"
Li Er and Duan Lun, who were exhausted and injured by Liu Heitai, were powerless to pursue. They could only watch helplessly as Liu Heitai led the army to withdraw from the Queshu Valley, and then waited for Li Jiancheng to lead the main force to Lingshi At that time, Liu Heita's entire army had already withdrawn to Huoyi City to rest. Li Jiancheng had no choice but to salvage the artillery while discussing the next battle plan with Li Er, Duan Lun and others.
In fact, there is no need to discuss it. Now that the main force of the Taiyuan army has gone south to Lingshi, it is impossible to make a trip in vain. The main force of the Sui army is still in Daxing and preparing to go out. At the same time, the Sui army in Huoyi is also fighting before The damage in the middle is not small, such a good opportunity for bargain hunting, a retail investor will rush forward, so Li Jiancheng, Li Er and others immediately finalized the decision to continue to attack Huoyi, and also decided to devote all their efforts to take down Huoyi and seize the opportunity to compete with the Sui Dynasty. The initiative of the main force of the decisive battle.
After two days of hard work without the Sui army's disturbance and destruction, the Taiyuan army finally picked up nine cannons one after another. What made the Li family brothers depressed was that these cannons made of pig iron seemed to be real. The gunpowder has been damaged by the river water. In the test shooting, the gunpowder was loaded with less gunpowder, and the shells fired were not powerful at all. A little more gunpowder would be even worse-it would directly explode and injure people. The explosion killed two Taiyuan Army soldiers, making the Taiyuan Army soldiers push back and dare not light the fire again, and it also completely killed Li Jiancheng and Li Er's thoughts of breaking through Huoyi City with these artillery.
But it doesn’t matter if you don’t have artillery. Siege warfare in the era of cold weapons without artillery can still be fought. In history, the old Li family could take down Huoyi City by relying on soldiers to climb up empty-handed with their weapons in their hands. Now the Li family brothers have the upper hand on some battlefields. Can you be afraid of Liu Heita, who has already injured himself in the battle of Queshu Valley? So the Li family brothers still led their troops towards Huoyi city, and the prelude to the third Huoyi war kicked off.
While the Sui army had already started to defend the city, even though Liu Heitai still had rear troops available in Linfen, most of the supplies for the Sui army’s main northern expedition were piled up in Linfen City, so Liu Heitai never went to Huoyi again. Supplementing one soldier and one soldier, ordered Wei Ziqi and Huo Shiju to defend Linfen City with all their strength, and not to send troops northward without authorization. He himself sat in Huoyi City and commanded the defenders to face the Li brothers.
Just like how they dealt with Pang Yu back then, the Li family brothers repeated their old tricks. Once again, Li Er led a small number of troops to the city to provoke him in an attempt to provoke Liu Heitai and lure him out of the city to fight. He is just a little handsome thief, he is still as timid as a mouse to get to today's position after being lucky, he dare not go out of the city to fight with him, if he wants Liu Heita to let his horse come over, he will fight him for 300 rounds.
Li Er's trick is of course useful for Pang Yu, who is from a famous family, but it has no effect on Liu Heita, who is a gambler and a rascal. At the same time, he cursed back: "Li Erlang, you are a shameless and untrustworthy villain. You were captured alive by our army on the Huoyi battlefield. You were begging for your life in front of our Tang king. Our Tang king let you go!" I went back, and you have done what you promised us? Li Jiancheng's head, when will you send it over?"
At the beginning, Li Er, who had been suspected because of Chen Sangliang's divorce scheme, was furious when he heard this, and immediately cursed, but Liu Heitai ignored it, and just continued to gamble for money. It may be that they retreated to the camp in resentment. Fortunately, the Li brothers didn't have much hope for this, and they were still rushing to build siege weapons during the period, and began to use frog carts to fill up the moat of Huoyi the next day. The army fought fiercely.
Three days later, most of the moat at the east gate of Huoyi was filled by the Taiyuan army. Li Jiancheng and his brothers both went into battle and commanded the army to launch a very fierce attack on Huoyi. Terrain, with a strong defense to repel the attack of the Taiyuan army, and let the Li brothers pay a lot of casualties in the siege battle.
In fact, Li Er is more afraid of fighting tough battles than Chen Sangliang. Whenever he encounters a strong city that is difficult to pass quickly, Li Er, like Chen Sangliang, will immediately ponder opportunistic schemes and tricks. Taking Huo Yi by force is not very sure, and it will definitely cause a lot of casualties. Therefore, on the night when the storm failed, Li Er found Li Jiancheng and made two suggestions to Li Jiancheng. The first was to divide a force to go south to attack Yang County and Yueyang (now Subao Town, Hongdong County). The reinforcements also threatened Linfen to create pressure on Liu Heita, forcing Liu Heita to return to save the grain.
The second suggestion is the most ruthless. Considering that Liu Heikai was just a little handsome thief under Hao Xiaode's command before, and after being reused by Chen Sangliang, he aroused countless jealousies. Sang Liang pursued the responsibility, and because Huo Yi was surrounded by greed and fear of death, he secretly contacted the Taiyuan Army to beg for surrender, and asked Liu Heitai's unconvinced subordinates to make small reports, separating Liu Heitai from the generals of his subordinates, and even more. The treacherous and suspicious Chen Sangliang became suspicious of Liu Heitai and took the opportunity to make trouble out of it.
Li Jiancheng, who is also a strategist but doesn't like to take risks, accepted the two suggestions of his second brother after a little calculation, and decided to send Yin Kaishan to lead an army of 5,000 to go south to attack Yang County and Yueyang, and then immediately discussed with his second brother. How to frame Liu Heita's conspiracy and tricks, and immediately start to implement it...
Liu Heitai, who quickly climbed from a small surrender to a leader, is indeed very jealous of his colleagues. Li Er's move really hit his vital point, but the danger of Liu Heitai and the Sui army in Hedong is not limited to this one. . On the same day, after Li Jiande's envoy Wang Gui successfully arrived at Linming City, Dou Jiande's hometown, he immediately sent a large number of valuable gifts to Dou Jiande's poor subordinates, and met Dou Jiande the next day, and asked Dou Jiande to send troops on behalf of Li Jiancheng. Shangdang attacked Liu Heita's flank.
Wang Gui soon discovered that his gift was completely free. In fact, not only the civil and military men under Dou Jiande coveted Shangdang, but even the Dou army general Wang Fubao, who Li Jiancheng dared not bribe, was very much in favor of sending troops westward to capture Shangdang. The party looked down at Hedong and waited for an opportunity to advance in Guanzhong. But Wang Fubao didn't enter the Hedong battlefield right now, and directly confronted the main force of the Sui army who was about to send troops to Taiyuan.
Wang Fubao's suggestion is of course good, but it's a pity that Dou Jiande is too loyal and trustworthy, and he doesn't want to go back on his promise to Li Jiancheng. At the same time, because Li Jiancheng just begged Dou Jiande to send a partial division to the Hedong battlefield to threaten Liu Heitai's flank, he accepted it. Dou Jiande, who has benefited from Wang Gui, felt that all the civil and military personnel should not be dishonest. Even if the main force was not mobilized, he would send a partial division of about 10,000 people to help Li Jiancheng. In the end, Dou Jiande made a final decision and decided to accept Li Jiancheng's plea and send 10,000 troops. Go to the Hedong battlefield to help clean up the accomplices and lackeys of the thief Chen Sangliang.
It was easy to make a decision, and when Dou Jiande asked who could take on this important task, that is, who would dare to lead a partial division to help Li Jiancheng, all the brave generals under King Changle kept their mouths shut, and after exchanging a few winks, These brave generals also suggested unanimously: "Your Highness, General Wang Fubao is good at fighting, wise and brave, and worthy of a great responsibility. The last general and others agree that General Wang should take up this role!"
Wang Fubao was originally opposed to entering Hedong now, and then saw that a group of colleagues pushed him to the front, of course he was very angry to refuse. But Dou Jiande also felt that Wang Fubao, who was the most capable and intelligent under his command, was the most reliable in this matter, and forced Wang Fubao to take orders. Wang Fubao, who was loyal to Dou Jiande, had no choice but to accept orders obediently. Seeing Wang Fubao's gloomy appearance, all the generals of the Dou army, who were so jealous of his achievements and achievements that they were about to go mad, were very happy, and said to themselves, "Go! It's best to die on the Hedong battlefield and never come back!"