Xue Song immediately handed over the military power to Lei Wanchun, and he returned to the capital with his brother Xue Ji that day. Lei Wanchun immediately took over Xue Song's 15,000 troops and appointed Xue Song's son Xue Ping as the commander, Huben Lang.
Will.
The next step was the merger and reorganization of the two armies, and Xue Song's men were reassigned military positions according to the standards of the Guanlong Army.
Not long after Xue Song handed over power, Guo Ziyi led an army of 100,000 into Yanzhou, and the governor of Yanzhou, Kaicheng, surrendered.
Yanzhou was already Li Zhengji's territory, and Guo Ziyi's army entered Yanzhou, which meant that the imperial court's vassal war had officially begun.
Li Zhengji's hometown was in Yidu County, Qingzhou. He initially only had two places, Zizhou and Qingzhou, so he was called Ziqing Jiedushi. This was the territory given to him by the imperial court.
But as his ambitions continued to expand, his territory also began to expand rapidly, occupying Laizhou, Dengzhou and Mizhou to the east, Jeju, Qizhou and Yunzhou to the west, and Yanzhou and Yizhou to the south.
Li Zheng has controlled ten states, becoming the largest one among the four major vassal towns.
Li Zhengyi also knew the dangers he faced, especially after Li Xilie was wiped out and Li Lingyao fled north, he would definitely be the next person the regent had to deal with.
Therefore, Li Zheng had desperately expanded his army, traded with the Balhae Kingdom by sea, purchased thousands of war horses, and used his advantage of being a Goguryeo to obtain an army of 20,000 people from the remaining Goguryeo forces in Silla in the name of restoring the country.
It is now clear that the four major forces formed after the Goguryeo people destroyed the country, some were loyal to the imperial court, like Gao Xianzhi and Wang Sili, some stayed in Youzhou and were loyal to Anlu Mountain, some belonged to the Khitan, and some were annexed by Silla.
Although Li Zhengyi was a Goguryeo who was loyal to An Lushan, he did not want to restore the country. He wanted to establish his own dynasty and name the country Qi.
Therefore, Li Zhengji could not talk to the Goguryeo people in Youzhou together, but he also wanted to get the resources of Goguryeo, so he set his sights on Silla, and introduced tens of thousands of Goguryeo households from Silla into military households.
20,000 soldiers were recruited.
Li Zheng already has an army of nearly 100,000 people, so he has the confidence to confront the imperial court.
However, what made Li Zhengji extremely angry was that the United Vertical Army established last year turned out to be treacherous and refused to support him.
"boom!"
Li Zheng had punched the table hard and gritted his teeth and said: "I know that Tian Chengsi is an unreliable thief. He will only betray at critical moments. How many times have I been tricked by him!"
The second son Li Na was silent on the sidelines. He was solely responsible for participating in the alliance. In the end, he did not expect that Tian Chengsi was unreliable. This was his responsibility.
Military Advisor Jia Shen sighed and took the responsibility on himself, "This is my responsibility. I didn't see through Tian Chengsi's character and thought too well of him."
At this time, Li Jing, the eldest son, advised: "Father, Tian Chengsi did not say that the Hezong Army would not come. It was probably the Tang Army that contained them. Didn't he say that Lei Wanchun led an army of 50,000 in Huaizhou? Could it be possible?
I have something to do with this army. In short, I will urge Tian Chengsi again and ask him to fulfill the alliance agreement immediately!"
Li Jing actually didn't say anything, but the function of these words was not to solve the problem, but to end the topic and turn to business.
Li Zheng had already seen Jia Shen taking the responsibility, so he didn't want to let the attack continue, so he nodded, "Forget it! If you urge Tian Chengsi again, Erlang will be responsible for keeping an eye on this matter."
Li Na quickly bowed and said: "You must keep an eye on me, kid!"
Li Zhengji then returned to the topic. He asked the military advisor Jia Shen: "What does the military advisor think about Guo Ziyi's sending troops?"
Jia Shen picked up the wooden pole and pointed at the sand table and said: "Bizhi originally thought that Guo Ziyi would attack Yunzhou, but he actually made a false shot and led the army to attack Yanzhou. After thinking about it all night, I probably understood Guo Ziyi's intention."
Jia Shen pointed at Qizhou in the north with a wooden stick, "If I guessed correctly, Guo Ziyi's next goal must be to attack Qizhou!"
"What is Guo Ziyi's intention?" Li Zhengji asked.
Jia Shen sneered and said: "Once the Tang army captured Qizhou, it would be on the same line with Yanzhou. Then Yunzhou and Jezhou would be cut off by this line and would not be able to maintain contact with us. They would actually fall. This was Guo Ziyi's attack."
Two states, a strategy to capture four states.”
Li Zheng has looked at the map carefully and found that this is indeed the case!
"What do you think, sir?"
"I suggest you immediately withdraw all the troops from Jeju and Yunzhou to Qizhou and send more troops to Qizhou. Qizhou is the top priority. We must keep Qizhou!"
Qizhou is the leader of Li Zhengji's Qi state in terms of population, taxation and commerce, far surpassing Yidu in Qingzhou, so Li Zhengji is preparing to move the capital to Licheng County in Qizhou, and the city walls in Licheng County are tall and strong.
It is easy to defend but difficult to attack. There are 400,000 stones of food in the city, which is especially suitable for long-term operations.
Thinking of this, Li Zheng decisively said to Li Na: "Erlang and Military Advisor Jia led 50,000 troops to support Qizhou and must keep Licheng County."
Li Na was shocked, "Father, with fifty thousand people, there are only more than ten thousand people left in Nayidu."
Li Zheng already waved his hand, "I have gathered all the troops from other states to Yidu County, and the number of troops has reached 30,000. As long as we keep Licheng County and Yidu County and prevent the Tang army from attacking for a long time, Li Ye will probably
We will turn to attack Hebei first."
Of course, this was Li Zhengji's wishful thinking and something he never dreamed of happening.
That night, Li Na and Jia Shen led 50,000 troops and rushed to Qizhou. Li Zheng had also ordered the troops from various states to gather in Yidu County.
Li Zhengji also ordered six thousand troops from Jezhou and Yunzhou to gather in Qizhou.
Guo Ziyi sent troops to Yanzhou on January 20th. This was a plan made last year. January 20th was the agreed time, so on this day, on Donghai Island in Haizhou, 400 large ships were loaded with three ships.
Thousands of soldiers and a large amount of supplies went to sea.
In fact, Li Ye could have gone directly north from Haizhou, captured the empty Yizhou, and then entered Mizhou. There was no need to take the risky sea route.
This is actually training troops, practicing maritime troop transport, and preparing for the next step of overseas expansion.
Three days later, four hundred ships arrived at their destination, a huge bay, which was later known as Jiaozhou Bay. However, it did not have a name in the Tang Dynasty. It was just a fishing place for fishermen. The bay belonged to the junction of Mizhou and Laizhou.
The population is sparse.
This bay is also a natural harbor. Four hundred large ships sailed into the bay. Under the guidance of local fishermen, the fleets docked one after another. A large number of troops disembarked from the ships and began to rest temporarily on the shore.
It took a full day for all the 30,000-strong army to land ashore. After a night's rest, early the next morning, the army regained its energy and quickly moved toward Gaomi County, fifty miles away.
The army easily captured the county seat. The army did not continue to advance, but was stationed in Gaomi County. Nan Jiyun sent people to Yanzhou to contact the general Guo Ziyi.
Nan Jiyun sent another 10,000 troops into three teams, and went to various parts of Mizhou, Laizhou, and Dengzhou respectively. He first occupied the three states, and then began to recruit carts to transport grain and grass supplies.
At the same time, 400 large ships returned to Donghai Island to load food supplies again.
Before deciding to attack Li Zhengyi, the Privy Council made full intelligence preparations, and Li Zhengji concentrated all food and supplies in the core city.
There are three core cities, one is Yidu County in Qingzhou, one is Zichuan County in Zizhou, and one is Licheng County in Qizhou. All the grain and grass supplies in Zichuan County were transported to Yidu County half a month ago.
.
Therefore, for the Tang army, the most important thing was logistical supplies. Rivers in various places were frozen, water routes were impractical, and land routes were relatively far, so the Privy Council considered sea routes.
Since Jiaozhou Bay does not freeze in winter, grain and grass supplies can be transported by sea to the coast of Jiaozhou Bay, and then twenty ice sleds are used to transport the grain and grass supplies along the Gaomi River to Gaomi County.
With Gaomi County as a logistics hub, it would be much easier to use large trucks to transport grain and grass supplies to Yidu.