In fact, the Sumo tribe not only has an army of 10,000 people. Back then, Qiqi Zhongxiang boasted that his tribe had 50,000 to 60,000 elite soldiers. Although that could not be true, it could not be considered nonsense. After all, all nomads were able to mount a horse.
To fight, if all the men in the clan were gathered together, there would be almost thirty to forty thousand. What Li Xian had to do now was to select the elites and organize these elites to help him attack Goguryeo's strongholds, and even take advantage of them.
With the main force of Goguryeo fighting on the front line, when the rear was empty, he led his troops directly to Pyongyang, thus ending the war early.
Of course, it would be even more desirable if we could take the opportunity to conquer the other Mohe tribes. Therefore, after conquering the entire Sumo tribe, Li Xian immediately ordered Li Duozuo to reorganize his troops and obtain a total of more than 20,000 Mohe cavalry.
Li Xian selected 3,000 strong men from them and brought them under his command, and assigned them to Xue Na and Zhang Deyu each with 1,000 men. These 3,000 men were all strong and skilled in bow and horse. I believe that as long as they are strictly restrained, they will definitely become a leader in the future.
A rare elite soldier in the world.
"Since you have joined our army, you must strictly abide by the disciplines and do not violate them. Otherwise, you will definitely be subject to military law and be severely punished. However, I also assure you that as long as you follow me, you will not have to worry about your life.
The question is, your military salary will be paid by the king alone in the future, so that you and your family will have no worries. If you don’t believe it, you can ask how generous the royal guards under my command are."
Li Xian said something, and Li Duozuo translated it. While translating, Li Duozuo was secretly stunned: "This week, the king of Zhou actually agreed to support an army of 3,000 people with his own efforts. How rich is the financial resources behind it?
I am worthy of being the most favored prince of the emperor and empress. Alas, the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty is beyond my imagination. I, Li Duozuo, am lucky enough to be favored by this prince. I think that as long as I am loyal to my best, I will definitely be an official in the future.
Will your name go down in history?"
As for Li Xian's plan to recruit 3,000 elite members from his tribe to form a private army, Li Duozuo didn't care at all. He suddenly had such a strong backing and was thinking of ways to show his loyalty. Now
Wouldn't it be a good opportunity? As for the development of the ethnic group, he believed that although there were temporary obstacles, as long as he relied closely on Li Xian, he would soon usher in new vitality.
It is precisely because of this that Li Duozuo offered to donate five days of rations to the army and gave the best war horses and scimitars in the clan to the three thousand warriors. Originally, Li Duozuo was planning to go on the expedition with Li Xian, but was defeated by Li Xian.
He refused, because Li Duozuo had just obtained the position of clan leader and still needed to settle the tribe. At the same time, he also needed to prevent other ethnic groups from taking the opportunity to attack, and also to prevent Goguryeo from leading an army to counterattack, so Li Duozuo had to stay and guard the tribe.
Li Xian naturally knew that Li Duo wanted to repay Li Duo's kindness, so he was not polite. Except for accompanying him in the battle, he accepted all other requests. After that, he gave the three thousand warriors some training and taught them some simple words.
In the Tang Dynasty Mandarin, Li Duozuo saw him off and left the Su Mo tribe.
"General, when Li Xian came to our tribe, he demanded food and weapons, and he also removed three thousand of the most elite men from my tribe. This is to drain the firepower. I don't know why the general agreed? Is this what I, the Su Mo tribe, are doing?
Are you waiting to be bullied?"
After Li Xian left, a general next to Li Duozuo complained softly to him.
Unexpectedly, Li Duozuo became so angry that he drew his sword and beheaded the general on the spot, and then shouted to the generals: "You must remember, our Sumo tribe is the Sumo tribe of the Tang Dynasty, no matter what
Whether it is General Li Jinxing or my father, they are both ministers of the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty. The Emperor of the Tang Dynasty was very kind to General Li and my father, and the King of Zhou was even more kind to us, freeing us from the tyranny of begging for help.
By controlling the elephant, we avoided a disaster of swordsmanship. Why shouldn't we repay you for such a great kindness? Even so, I think that our small repayment is not enough to repay the king of Zhou for his great kindness."
Li Duozuo's bravery is well known to everyone. No one in the clan can be his opponent. Moreover, most of the elders in the clan have been killed by Qiqi Meng Liang, Wuyan Chamu and others. The new elders are all some.
How could such a coward dare to resist? In addition, after many days of preaching and brainwashing by Li Duozuo and his soldiers, these tribesmen all believed that Qiqi Zhongxiang was waging war against the Tang Dynasty without permission, which almost led to the annihilation of the clan. Fortunately, Li Xian
He and Li Duozuo decisively killed the beggar Zhongxiang, and thanks to Li Xian's generosity, they were saved from death, so everyone was grateful to Li Xian. Now that the slanderous general was killed, everyone applauded.
Applaud.
It is precisely because of the above reasons that no one said a word about Li Duozuo's impassioned speech.
But it is said that Li Xian, under the guidance of the guide sent by Li Duozuo, led 3,500 troops from the Sumo tribe to cross the Taibai Mountain and easily entered the territory of Goguryeo, because the main frontline forces of Goguryeo were gathered in the Buyeo River area at this time.
, preparing to compete with the Tang army for more than 40 cities such as Fuyu that had been occupied by Xue Rengui, they did not expect that the Sumo tribe, which had always been friendly with them, had surrendered to the Tang Dynasty. This resulted in Goguryeo's northeast defense being empty, and Li Xian's army took the opportunity to attack
Within entry.
Li Xian led the army all the way, as if entering an uninhabited country. Whenever he encountered Goguryeo's army, he would gather together to annihilate the small ones, and retreat to the larger ones. He walked this way for more than 20 days, and was wiped out by him.
The Goguryeo army actually numbered 15,000 to 6,000 people. They robbed more than ten granaries, burned more than 100,000 shi of grain, robbed more than 30,000 Liaodong war horses, and burned tens of thousands of winter clothes. In addition, Li Xian also lied about millet grains.
He sent reinforcements and captured two important cities. However, in order to prevent the Goguryeo army from encircling and attacking the city, Li Xian ordered the withdrawal after destroying the city defenses.
However, although Li Xian's army was cautious all the way, it still attracted the attention of the upper echelons of Goguryeo, because Li Xian's series of burning, killing and looting brought a lot of trouble to Goguryeo. First of all, because of the destruction of food and grass supplies, Goguryeo's backup was no longer available.
There was a serious shortage of food, grass and baggage, and the loss of a large number of war horses also greatly reduced the mobility of the Goguryeo army. Especially a large number of winter clothes were burned, which made the Goguryeo army thin and thin. Many soldiers contracted typhoid fever and their combat effectiveness was greatly reduced.
It was not until this time that the Goguryeo Dynasty Moli Zhiyuan Nanjian, who was in Pyongyang City, began to receive news of attacks from various places. The frightened Yuan Nanjian immediately ordered spies from all over the country to launch operations to collect intelligence, and they must be in the shortest possible time.
Find out the reasons within time.
Under the personal interrogation of the actual person in power, the Goguryeo spies acted very quickly. It took less than two days to find out that it was Sumo Mohe who betrayed Goguryeo and took advantage of the battle between Goguryeo and the main force of the Tang Dynasty.
On this occasion, they crossed the Taibai Mountain and came to the territory of Goguryeo to burn, kill, and loot. This caused the chickens and dogs in Goguryeo to become restless.
After hearing this, Yuon Nanjian was furious and immediately ordered his younger brother Yuan Nanjing to lead an army of 30,000 soldiers to surround the Sumo Mohe soldiers who broke into Goguryeo territory, and strictly ordered them to kill all the Sumo Mohe soldiers within three days, otherwise they would be severely punished. No loan.
After hearing his brother's order, Yuan Nan did not dare to neglect, and immediately divided 30,000 troops from the front line to pursue the "Sumo Mohe Army". However, this made the frontline soldiers no longer able to compete with the Tang army for Fuyu River, and had to retreat across the board.
At this time, Li Ji had no idea what Li Xian was doing in Goguryeo, so he had been attacking Goguryeo for more than a month. However, due to the severe cold weather and the desperate defense of the troops stationed in various places in Goguryeo, the progress was not too great. Later, in desperation, Xue Rengui proposed to lead 3,000 men to attack Fuyu City where tens of thousands of troops were stationed. The generals in the army were shocked and thought that Xue Rengui was crazy, so they tried to dissuade him. Unexpectedly, Li Ji agreed with Xue Rengui's opinion. After that, Xue Rengui led his men to fight quickly, defeated the defenders, beheaded more than 10,000 people, and finally captured Fuyu City. As a result, more than 40 surrounding cities were shaken, and they quickly surrendered in fear. At this point, the Tang Army planned to achieve a major victory. progress.
However, he immediately knew that Yuan Nanjian would not accept defeat easily, and would definitely raise troops to attack, so he had already made preparations for defense. Not long after, he saw Yuan Nanjian leading tens of thousands of troops to attack, but he was What is incredible is that only two days later, Yuan's army suddenly withdrew again before it launched an attack.
Li Ji didn't know what kind of medicine Yuan Meng was selling in his gourd, so he was confused for a moment and couldn't make up his mind. He discussed with the generals for a long time, but he saw that the generals were divided into two groups, some were in favor of pursuing the pursuit, and some were firmly opposed, but they could never form a solution. After reaching a consensus, Li Ji became irritated and drove all the generals out, but he sent spies to investigate secretly.
At this moment, he suddenly received a document asking for help. It turned out to be written by Guo Daifeng, the navy chief, but there was only one poem written in the document. Li Ji was furious when he saw the poem: "Now When is it? The military situation is so critical, but Guo Daifeng writes some nonsense poems and essays. When I see this guy one day, I will definitely kill him."
But I saw Yuan Wanqing, the general secretary of the marching army, who was sitting silently beside him, suddenly said: "General Guo is not an idiot. There must be something hidden in the poem he wrote today. I might as well take a look at it, maybe I can figure it out."
Although Li Ji knew that both of them were from Empress Wu, so he naturally felt sympathy for each other, but he had to listen to his subordinates' advice and had no choice but to hand the letter to Yuan Wanqing.
After a while, Yuan Wanqing laughed and said: "This is an acrostic poem. It probably means that Feng Shiben, the grain transport officer under the general manager, was lost due to a shipwreck. General Guo's army was hungry. He wanted to write a letter asking for help, but he was afraid that he might be a thief. Based on what I found out, I wrote this acrostic poem."
"In that case, let's allocate the food and grass and send people to deliver it." Seeing what happened, the anger on Li Ji's face gradually subsided, so he issued an order and sent another person to deliver the food and grass to Guo Daifeng.
At this time, Li Ji suddenly remembered something and said to Yuan Wanqing: "I see that the people of Yuanshe are talented, and now I have a difficult problem to entrust to you. Our army has already pulled out Fuyu Zhucheng, and now the Goguryeo army has retreated. It is just before our army marches into Pyongyang." The good opportunity has just been postponed until now, and no statement has been issued yet. Can someone from Yuanshe be willing to take care of it?"
Upon hearing this, Yuan Waqing immediately said: "This is a matter that is my duty as a lower official, how dare I shirk it?" After saying that, Yuan Waqing immediately wrote a proclamation. Li Ji did not read it carefully and ordered it to be published. Unexpectedly, because of the
This piece of propaganda caused the Tang Dynasty army to lose a good opportunity to attack Goguryeo. If it were not for the cooperation of Li Xian's army, the army would have spent at least three more months and paid the price of more than 10,000 casualties before they could attack Goguryeo.
