Chapter 2248: Huo Qubing vs Li Shimin
After hearing what Bai Feng said, Li Jing was not disappointed. After all, if even the country was completely infiltrated, then Li Shimin would not be worthy of his title of King of Tang.
"There are two hundred Black Ice Platform Swordsmen in Chang'an City, but the bad guys are very guarded against us. If we don't have a complete plan, it will be difficult to open the city gate with just these two hundred swordsmen." Mo Ya said.
Li Jing understood the meaning of Mo Ya's words. He just hoped that he would not activate the two hundred swordsmen easily before he was sure, otherwise the two hundred swordsmen would definitely die.
Li Jing's status is much higher than that of Mo Crow and Bai Feng, but Black Ice Terrace directly serves the King of Qin and is not under Li Jing's control. Therefore, Li Jing cannot command Black Ice Terrace, but because Li Jing invaded Guanzhong, Black Ice Terrace is in Guanzhong. Only then will his strength temporarily obey Li Jing's orders.
"Don't worry, I will not activate these two hundred swordsmen easily until I am absolutely sure."
Li Jing pondered, thinking in his mind how to plan to maximize the role of these two hundred swordsmen.
"Report...report to the Commander-in-Chief, Yang Jian led his army out of Lantian and headed straight towards our army."
"Sure enough, we left the city."
Li Jing was immediately overjoyed. The reason why he bypassed Lantian and assumed a posture of taking Chang'an directly was to force Yang Jian to leave the city.
After all, if Yang Jian was determined to defend Lantian, the Qin army would not be able to break the city without tens of thousands of people dying. Lantian blocked the Qin army's food route and was one of the cities that must be occupied.
Li Jing didn't know if Yang Jian would be fooled. After all, Yang Jian also had a resourceful Sima Yi. It was easy to deceive Yang Jian, but not so easy to deceive Sima Yi.
But no matter whether he succeeds or not, Li Jing still has to give it a try, it is better than sitting back and waiting for death.
Li Jing was already prepared to retreat and re-encircle Lantian if his plan failed, but he didn't expect that Heibingtai gave him a big surprise and directly instigated six counties to rebel.
The surrender of the six counties in Guanzhong to the Qin Dynasty made Li Jing's strategy more perfect, and it directly changed from a conspiracy to a conspiracy. This was the main reason why Sima Yi did not persuade Yang Jian.
"With Sima Yi here, Yang Jian will definitely not confront our army head-on, but this is not up to them."
Li Jing smiled coldly and ordered: "Send an order to Huang Zhong from Yaoguan to lead the army to Lantian immediately after the Tang army left Lantian.
By the way, with Sima Yi's ruthlessness, he is likely to leave a back-up in the city, so Huang Zhong was asked to be cautious and guard against Tang Jun's fire attack.
In addition, don't think about grain depots or anything else. Sima Yi will never leave half a grain of grain for our army. "
"promise."
While Li Jing and Sima Yi were fighting for their wits, Li Shimin had already ordered the abandonment of Wuzhangyuan, and the entire army returned to Chang'an to defend it.
The reason why Li Shimin took the initiative to give up Wuzhangyuan, a place that military strategists must compete for, was actually a helpless move.
Don't give up. Fenglingdu has been captured by Zhang Liao, and Li Jing has occupied Aoguan. Hundreds of thousands of elite Qin troops have entered the pass. The Tang army can only compete with the Qin army by defending the city.
In addition, Lu Bu is leading five thousand iron cavalry and heading straight for Wuzhangyuan.
Although Wuzhangyuan is dangerous and easy to defend but difficult to attack, it can only block one side of the Qin army. If it is attacked from two sides, the situation of Wuzhangyuan Tang army will be very dangerous.
There was Huo Qubing in front of him and Lu Bu behind him. If he didn't evacuate in time, once Lu Bu blocked his retreat, Li Shimin would be unable to evacuate even if he wanted to.
The Qin army did not even need to fight the Tang army. They only had to wait until Li Jing and his army arrived. By then the three armies would be encircled. The Qin army would be able to annihilate Li Shimin's 60,000-strong army without even paying a high price.
The 60,000 Tang troops in Wuzhangyuan are the last strength of the Tang State. If the entire army is annihilated, the Tang State will have no power to fight back against the Qin State and can only be passively beaten. Therefore, Li Shimin must bring these 60,000 troops back to Chang'an. Just fine.
Recalling how confident he was when he launched his troops, Li Shimin only felt frustrated at this time.
With an army of 80,000 in hand, it was not impossible for him to have a chance to eliminate Huo Qubing, but Huo Qubing was too cunning, and his use of cavalry was extremely clever. He relied on the speed of the cavalry to be as slippery as a loach.
Li Shimin launched a total of three encirclement and suppression campaigns, but Huo Qubing saw through them all and escaped from the Tang army's encirclement in advance.
The total cavalry of Li Shimin and Li Siyuan is actually only fifteen thousand. If they can entangle Huo Qubing's troops, they can still surround Huo Qubing's troops, but the Tang army's cavalry cannot catch up.
Li Shimin even passed the cavalry personally and used the fastest marching speed, but he could not keep up with the speed of the Qin army, and was pulled further and further away by the Qin army.
The Xiliang horses are not as fast as the Bingzhou ponies. This is simply unreasonable. However, the Bingzhou wolf cavalry under the command of Huo Qubing is faster than the Tang army's cavalry riding the Xiliang horses.
The closest Li Shimin came to success was the third time. After summing up the experience of the first two failures, he almost succeeded in trapping Huo Qubing to death in the third time, but he didn't expect Gongsun Xuanyuan to show up halfway.
Gongsun Xuanyuan relied on his own charisma to subdue and reorganize the Tang army prisoners of war, and then led 5,000 cavalry and 10,000 surrendered troops to help in the battle.
Gongsun Xuanyuan's strategic vision was no worse than Huo Qubing's. He saw the weak points of the Tang army's encirclement at a glance, and immediately broke Li Siyuan's weak blockade and rescued Huo Qubing from the Tang army's encirclement.
Since then, Li Shimin's three campaigns against Huo Qubing failed. Fenglingdu and Aoguan were successively breached, and his retreat was threatened by Lu Bu. Li Shimin had no choice but to abandon Wuzhangyuan and retreat to Chang'an.
After Gongsun Xuanyuan rescued Huo Qubing, the combined strength of the Qin army and the two armies reached 40,000. In terms of combat strength, they were no longer afraid of the Tang army. Naturally, it was impossible for the Tang army to escape easily.
In response, Li Shimin ordered Li Siyuan to retreat to Huaili and take charge of the defense of Youfufeng County. At the same time, he left an army of 10,000 in Wuzhangyuan behind, while he himself led an army of 50,000 to retreat to Chang'an at night.
The 10,000-strong army that was left behind had apparently become abandoned and was led by Li Sizhao, the general of the Li Tang clan.
Li Sizhao ranked second among the Thirteen Taibao. He was the adopted son of Li Keyong's younger brother Li Kerou. He was courageous, knowledgeable in the art of war, brave in battle, prudent and prudent, and was responsible for the recapture of Luzhou, the pacification of Li Tang, the Battle of Taiyuan, and the northern attack on Khitan. With Li Sizhao's participation, it can be said that he has made many achievements.
Li Sizhao was implanted as Li Siyuan's younger brother. The two were both members of the Li Tang clan. Because of their outstanding abilities, they won the trust and importance of Li Shimin.
Li Shimin was naturally reluctant to let his clan brother Li Sizhao die, but if he let others become the abandoned son, if the other party broke the jar and surrendered directly to Qin, then he would be shooting himself in the foot.
Now Li Tang has reached a life-or-death moment, and only the children of the Li Tang clan can be completely trusted by Li Shimin, so Li Shimin has no choice but to give up on Li Sizhao even if he is reluctant to do so.
