Li Xilie led nearly 20,000 remnant troops and fled back to Zhongli County. He attempted to cross the Huaihe River from Zhongli County and go north to join Li Zhengji. However, when he was still 20 miles away from Zhongli County, he encountered a 50,000-strong army led by Ma Lin.
To break through, one side tried desperately to intercept, and the two sides started a fierce battle.
Although Li Xilie's Huaixi Army was powerful in combat, the opponent's number of troops was far greater than his. In addition, Zhang Boyi's generals, such as Lun Wei Zhen and Liu Chang, were eager to achieve success and attacked with all their strength without fear of casualties.
Li Xilie was no match for his opponent, and after suffering thousands of casualties, he turned around and retreated south. In this fierce battle, the Huaixi Army lost about 5,000 people, while the Tang Army also paid the price of nearly 8,000 casualties before defeating the opponent.
Li Xilie only had 10,000 troops left, while the opponent had more than 40,000 troops left. The number ratio was four to one.
Li Xilie also knew that no matter how many enemy troops he killed, his entire army would be destroyed. He decisively led his army to retreat southward to the southeast of Haozhou. He wanted to retreat to Chuzhou or Yangzhou.
Two days later, Li Xilie and his ten thousand troops stopped at a place called Panjiacun, which is in the middle of Haozhou and about two hundred miles away from Zhongli County.
The village has been destroyed by the epidemic, and there is no one left. The whole village seems to have been burned by fire. The roof is gone, and only the ruins are left. It is normal. People use fire to deal with the epidemic.
Li Xilie's soldiers had no food, so Li Xilie had to order all 300 horses to be killed and their meat cooked for the soldiers to satisfy their hunger.
But they have no shortage of wood. There is a low hill to the south of the village, covered with pine forests.
The scout general Wang Cu who went to explore the road ahead rushed back. He brought a very unfortunate news. Just a dozen miles away in the southeast, there was a Tang army of tens of thousands, which should be an army coming from Yangzhou.
their road to the east.
This news made Li Xilie feel as if he had fallen into an ice cave. There were 40,000 troops chasing him to the north, 30,000 Guanlong cavalry to the west, and now another 30,000 troops appeared in the southeast, which meant that they were surrounded by enemy forces.
Li Xilie was so frightened that he suddenly thought of offering sacrifices to heaven. Now he could only offer sacrifices to heaven and ask heaven to bless him.
He immediately ordered: "Kill me a horse, I want to sacrifice it to heaven!"
The general under his command said helplessly: "Only the lord's mount is left. All the other horses were killed and shared with the brothers."
Li Xilie was stunned for a moment. Do you want to kill his own horse? No way, it is his most beloved war horse and has been with him for many years.
Li Xilie had a thought in his mind and ordered: "Bring that dog king up!"
After a while, several soldiers brought Li Tan, the king of Shu, up.
Li Tan was filled with anger. His horse was dragged and slaughtered by the soldiers. Some of the money in the horse bag was also robbed by the soldiers. He had no money now. How could he walk without his horse tomorrow?
"You bastards, you bastards, pay for my war horse!"
Li Xilie smiled sinisterly, "You, the dog king, don't need a horse now. Now you are both a dog and a horse!"
Li Tan gritted his teeth and said, "I don't understand what the hell you're talking about!"
Li Xilie slowly pulled out his sword, stared at the sword edge and said: "I plan to sacrifice to heaven, but there are no three animals, so I will use your head to replace the three animals!"
Li Tan was shocked and turned around to run. He saw a flash of cold light and Li Tan's head flew up. Li Xilie grabbed his hair in the air and the headless body fell to the ground with blood from his neck flowing all over the ground.
Li Xilie placed Li Tan's head as a sacrifice on the big stone. He couldn't find a candle, so he simply took out the imperial edict of Li Tan's succession from his arms, dipped it in oil to make a torch, inserted it on the ground, and lit it with fire.
Li Xilie knelt on his knees, kowtowed to heaven, and silently prayed to God to bless him for a successful breakout.
After praying, Li Li Xilie ordered a fire to be lit, and the heads, corpses and half of the imperial edict were thrown into the fire. Li Tan and his dream were eventually burned to ashes.
At dawn, the soldiers drank all the remaining horse meat soup. Under the leadership of Li Xilie, 10,000 soldiers began to break out eastward. Li Xilie divided the 10,000 troops into three teams and ordered his trusted generals Dong Daiming and Han Shuanglu to
Each led an army, each holding his own banner. He himself led another army of 4,000 people, but he was very low-key and did not have any banners.
Li Xilie raised his sword and shouted: "Brothers, let's attack Yangzhou City and distribute the women and wealth to everyone!"
Ten thousand soldiers roared like wild beasts. Li Xilie pointed his sword and said, "Let's break out!"
The three armies broke out to the northeast, due east and southeast respectively. Li Xilie led 4,000 soldiers to break out to the southeast.
To the east was an army of 30,000 men led by Nan Jiyun. In order to prevent the enemy from breaking through, Xi Wanli assigned another 10,000 cavalry to Nan Jiyun.
At this time, Nan Jiyun was well prepared. Faced with the enemy's divided troops, he also divided his 30,000 troops into three groups, and each group went to surround and kill one army.
Nan Jiyun also issued an order, "If you don't accept surrender, you will be killed without mercy!"
The battlefield drums were beating loudly and the shouts of killing were loud. The soldiers of the Huaixi Army who broke out to the northeast were first hit by a hail of arrows. Three rounds of arrows killed more than a thousand people. Tiger General Pei Rong led an army of 10,000 people.
Then they surrounded the remaining two thousand soldiers and killed them mercilessly.
The three thousand soldiers of the Huaixi Army who broke out from the encirclement to the east took the official road. They did not encounter a rain of arrows, but fell into the kerosene array deployed by Nan Jiyun on the official road. The fire burned rapidly. The three thousand soldiers were trapped for a long time.
The fire inside engulfed it.
Countless soldiers cried and fled from the fire, only to be mercilessly shot by crossbows from around them.
Li Xilie's plan to separate and break out of the encirclement was of course his plan. He asked the two armies to use his banner in an attempt to attract the main force of the Guanlong Army, so he broke through from the southeast where the enemy's strength was weak.
But in the world, what you don't want to encounter often happens to happen. In the southeast, he not only encountered an army of 10,000 people led by Nan Jiyun, but also encountered 10,000 cavalry led by Xi Wanli himself.
Ten thousand cavalrymen cut his four thousand troops into pieces. Li Xilie, who was walking at the end, saw that the situation was not good, so he immediately led a thousand soldiers to flee up the hill.
Li Xilie was cunning by nature, and his only other escape route was to go south and run south through the hills, so he led a thousand soldiers to the end. After betraying the three thousand troops, he led a thousand soldiers to rush to the hills to the south.
.
Xi Wanli could see clearly that the only general on horseback led a thousand men to run away to the south hill. It should be Li Xilie. He immediately took out the horn and blew it with all his strength.
"Woo——"
The low sound of horns echoed on the battlefield, and 20,000 cavalry galloped from the west, surrounding the hill. Countless rockets were fired at the hill.
The hill is actually very small, covering an area of only more than 200 acres, with a height of only more than ten feet, and is covered with lush pine forests.
Guan Long's army lit fires from all directions, with blazing flames and thick smoke billowing into the sky. The fires took advantage of the wind, and the flames quickly engulfed the hills.
Li Xilie and his thousand soldiers were not able to escape, and they were all buried in the sea of fire. The fierce god Li Xilie died in Haozhou.
The fortune-telling given to him by Zhang Luanzi came true, and he would ascend to the throne amidst prosperity.
It's just that the red flags and atmosphere are not the flags and the atmosphere, but the burning fire. The ascending the throne is not the ascending to the throne as emperor, but being burned to death and returning to the throne. Of course, Li Xiyeol can't ascend to heaven, he will only go to hell.