Looking at the ruins of Hangu Pass in front of them, Li Jing, Han Xin, Guo Jia and others were speechless for a long time.
The Tang army destroyed Hangu Pass very thoroughly. Setting fire to the pass once was not enough, so they destroyed it again before leaving in order to prevent the Qin army from repairing Hangu Pass.
With the financial and material resources of the Qin army, Hangu Pass can naturally be repaired, but rebuilding one would not be worth the gain.
Although Hangu Pass has been destroyed, its geographical advantage is still there. If you set up camp here, you can also defend it with danger, but Li Shimin did not do this.
Li Shimin knew very well that just by setting up a camp like this, he was destined to be unable to stop the Qin army and would only lose more troops, so he had to abandon the Han Valley boundary.
Although Li Shimin was willing to give up Hangu Pass, he was afraid that the Qin army would rebuild Hangu Pass, so he wreaked havoc before taking it away, completely destroying the foundation of Hangu Pass.
Hangu Pass was completely destroyed, and there is no difference between repairing it and building one. Even if Qianjun has a lot of money, it is impossible to rebuild Hangu Pass because it is not worth it.
With that kind of financial and material resources, it is better to conquer Guanzhong directly. With the strength of the Qin army, it is not impossible. What's more, defense is something only a weak country can do.
The Qin State's national power and military strength were many times greater than those of the Tang State. It would only continue to expand externally and had no need for defense at all. Naturally, it did not need Hangu Pass.
Therefore, Li Shimin's second destruction of the pass was equivalent to completely erasing Hangu Pass from the map of the Han Dynasty. Hangu Pass would never appear again in the future.
"The final general was incompetent and failed to catch up with the Tang army."
Zhang Liao and Zhao Yun knelt down together and asked Li Jing for punishment. Li Jing sighed and stepped forward to help the two generals up.
"I don't blame the two generals. It's because Li Shimin escaped too fast. I didn't expect Li Shimin to escape so decisively. He gave up without hesitation even though he had to sacrifice 70,000 troops to achieve the hard-fought victory."
What Li Jing said was absolutely correct. Li Shimin was indeed too vigilant. After learning about Zhao Yun's departure, he withdrew from Luoyang without any hesitation.
If Guo Jia hadn't suggested that Zhang Liao lead the cavalry in pursuit first, Li Shimin might have taken the 50,000 elite infantrymen in Longmen Formation and fled back to Guanzhong.
In fact, Zhao Yun and Zhang Liao cannot be blamed for failing to catch up with the Tang army.
Needless to say, Zhang Liao had to travel hundreds of miles more to catch up with him.
Zhao Yun went south from Hetao, passed through Bingzhou, crossed the Yellow River, and entered Sizhou. He traveled thousands of miles without stopping for a moment. The reason why he was still a step late was because Li Shimin was on guard against him from the beginning.
What Li Shimin was afraid of was that Zhao Yun would cut off his retreat, and he would even give up all his victories in Sizhou. How could he let Zhao Yun reach Tongguan and clear the pass before he could return to Tongguan?
In the final analysis, Li Shimin's opponent was too powerful. He basically didn't show any flaws, and naturally he wouldn't give the Qin army any chance.
After hearing what Li Jing said, Zhao Yun and Zhang Liao's expressions became much better. They all knew what Li Shimin's return to Tongguan meant.
"Report...to General, after Li Shimin retreated to Tongguan, not only did he not return to Chang'an, but he transferred troops from all over Guanzhong to Tongguan."
Hearing this, Li Jing's eyes suddenly flashed with a stern look, and he said coldly: "Li Shimin has such sinister intentions."
Li Shimin withdrew all his troops from Sizhou, but still refused to retreat completely. Instead, he continued to increase his troops. Did he want to continue to fight with the Qin army?
Of course not.
Li Tang needs to guard many places with heavy troops. The current defense strength is already at its limit. Even if the additional troops are only 10,000 or 20,000, it will not help the overall situation at all, let alone the battle for Sizhou.
Li Shimin's real purpose in doing this was to contain the Qin army in Sizhou, so as to create an opportunity for the Chu and Shu countries who were attacking northern Jing to completely occupy northern Jing.
As long as Li and Tang's 80,000 troops were stationed at Tongguan, the Qin army in Sizhou would not dare to all go south to Jingbei. Otherwise, if the Tang army came back, Sizhou would still be in danger of not being protected.
If the 200,000 Hebei Qin troops supporting Si Jing cannot all go south to support Yue Fei in Jingbei, the Qin army in Jingbei will not be able to crush the two countries, and the outcome of the war in Jingbei will still be uncertain.
Why did Li Shimin work so hard to help Liu Xiu and Liu Ji? What benefits would this bring to Li Tang?
On the surface, it seems that there is no benefit at all, it is purely harmful to oneself and benefiting others, but in fact, weakening Qin, a powerful neighbor, is the greatest benefit to Tang.
It has to be said that as an ally, Li Shimin is still very powerful and does not deceive his teammates at all. He is far better than Wang Mang and Liu Che by tens of thousands of times.
The reason why Hebei's battle was defeated so quickly was not that Liu Che was not wise enough, nor was it that Han Xin was not able to fight well enough, but mainly because Wang Mang, a pig teammate, was too stupid.
If Wang Mang had not been defeated by Li Jing so quickly, Lian Po would not have been annihilated by Li Jing. Lian Po would not have been defeated, and the remaining two battles would not have been defeated, at least not so quickly.
In the final analysis, Wang Mang was too cheating and was the main reason for Liu Che's defeat. To Qin Hao, he was simply a noble man.
Therefore, you must be cautious when looking for teammates, and you must find someone like Li Shimin who is not cheating on you. But when you encounter someone like Wang Mang who is cheating on your teammates, it will be useless even if you are talented.
"General, what should we do now?" Zhang Liao asked.
Li Jing glanced at Guo Jia, and after seeing this point of view, he immediately said in a deep voice: "General Han Xin, you lead 70,000 infantry, General Zhao Yun, you lead 30,000 Hetao cavalry.
The two of you immediately led the army south to Jingbei to support General Yue Fei.
The remaining troops of my general will stay in Hongnong County to confront Li Shimin and look for opportunities to see if Tongguan can be conquered."
As Zhao Yunnan moved to Sizhou, Li Jing led the army to Hongnong County. Even excluding the losses in the previous battle, the total strength of the Qin army in Sizhou reached an astonishing 283,000.
In addition to the unavailable troops stationed at various checkpoints, the number of troops used by Ke Byte in the war is still as many as 250,000.
This is already more than the current total military strength of Li and Tang.
Now Li Yuanba, Yang Jian and other generals were seriously injured, Yu Juluo and many other generals were killed in the battle, and more than 70,000 elite soldiers were lost. This was really the time when Li Tang was at his weakest.
How much Li Jing wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to command the 250,000 troops and march westward to directly destroy the Tang Dynasty and get rid of Li Shimin's big problem, but he could only think about it.
The main task of Li Jing's trip south this time was to rescue Si Jing. Although the crisis in Sizhou has been resolved, the crisis in northern Jing has not yet ended, so naturally he must give priority to rescuing northern Jing.
Before the danger in Jingbei was eliminated, Li Jing had to resist the temptation even if the opportunity to destroy the Tang Kingdom was before him.
Of course, now is not the time to destroy the Tang Dynasty.
Hebei, which the Qin army had just occupied, had not yet been completely digested. It was too reluctant to destroy the Tang Dynasty at this time.