Beginning in March of the fourth year of Wude, the Tang army led by Li Shimin began a long-term confrontation with the Xia army led by Dou Jiande at Hugao Pass.

In the face of Li Shimin, who could not hold out, although Dou Jiande had many soldiers and strong morale, but in the face of the extremely dangerous terrain in front of the Tiger Pass, there was no way, Li Shimin tried his best to avoid attacking Dou Jiande's army, but he often sent a small force to harass Dou Jiande's camp, several times, Dou Jiande's army was angry and anxious, however, there was no way to take Li Shimin's small group of cavalry, and after a few times, the morale of the Xia army was inevitably low.

In this case, the envoys sent by Wang Shichong to Dou Jiande for help were all restless, because Luoyang had been besieged tightly at this time, so it had long been isolated from the outside world, even their envoys for help could no longer get any news about Luoyang City, and even rumors that Luoyang had fallen, Wang Shichong and others had been killed, although the rumors could not be believed, however, these messengers sent by Wang Shichong for help had already been restless, At this time, seeing that Dou Jiande was not moving, they all became anxious, and immediately used all their tricks to bribe the high-level generals in Dou Jiande's army to force Dou Jiande to march.

However, Dou Jiande was not willing to fight hard with the Tang army, because the Tang army occupied the dangerous terrain of the Tiger Prison, once the forced attack will inevitably suffer heavy losses, then even if the attack is down, their own strength will inevitably be greatly damaged, Dou Jiande clearly knows that the Tang Army at this time the number of troops in the Eastern Expedition exceeded 200,000, only because of the two-front battle, will give themselves an opportunity, once their losses are too large, thus losing the advantage of the Tang Army. Then Dou Jiande didn't dare to guarantee that the young but brave junior on the opposite side would not concentrate all his strength to deal with him first.

It must be known that because of his disgust with Wang Shichong's villain behavior of being favored by the Sui Dynasty but plotting against the usurpation, Dou Jiande has always regarded Wang Shichong as his enemy, if it weren't for the fact that the Tang Army would definitely take his Daxia as the next target after eliminating Wang Shichong's Zheng Guo, Dou Jiande would not have rescued such a villain. And Dou Jiande believes that if Tang Jun changes his plan of action and decides to target himself first, then Wang Shichong will definitely stand by and watch, Wang Shichong, a villain, has always been so selfish. Therefore, in dealing with the requests of Wang Shichong's envoys, Dou Jiande was more cautious than the harassment of Li Shimin's Tang army opposite, lest one carelessness would suffer a big loss. In this way, in the midst of indecision, Dou Jiande's army confronted Li Shimin until May of the fourth year of Wude.

Due to the long-term confrontation, the failure to fight and the frequent harassment of the Tang army, the morale of the Xia army finally inevitably declined, and as the siege of Luoyang passed day by day, even Dou Jiande, who had always been a little indecisive, felt that he could not wait like this any longer. However, Xia Jun was firmly blocked by Li Shimin under the Tiger Prison. And if you can't rescue Luoyang and want to attack forcibly, what is the time you wasted in the past two months?

At this time, Ling Jing, Dou Jiande's most valued strategist, proposed to him: abandon the tiger prison, mobilize the army to cross the Yellow River north, and then pounce on Shanxi. To occupy Li Tang's old nest Hedong, Li Tang's soldiers and horses were all concentrated under Luoyang City at this time, Hedong was empty, and the Xia army would inevitably be able to enter a no-man's land, and then the Xia army could use local manpower and material resources to strengthen itself. When Guanzhong heard the news, he would inevitably lift the siege of Luoyang.

It's a win-win-win-win- Dou Jiande also agreed with this opinion very much after hearing this, so he immediately decided to adopt this opinion. However, when Dou Jiande convened a meeting of generals to adopt this opinion, he was opposed by almost all the generals, many of whom had accepted the benefits of Wang Shichong's envoy, and because the Tang army could not avoid the war, he gave birth to contempt for the Tang army, believing that the Tang army was nothing more than that, so all of them were opposed.

Dou Jiande has always been benevolent to his generals, so he has won the support of his soldiers, but in this military meeting, the evil consequences of always being benevolent were finally reflected, that is, when all the generals were opposed, Dou Jiande did not dare to oppose the public opinion, and firmly implemented his decision, so Dou Jiande changed his mind in the opposition of the generals, not only did not continue to implement Jingling's plan to go north to Shanxi and attack Hedong, but under the instigation of the generals, he ordered the whole army to move forward. Put pressure on the Tang army on the Tiger Prison. What Dou Jiande didn't know was that it was precisely because of his decision that his army was defeated, and he was captured and then killed.

In fact, as early as the beginning, when Li Shimin decided to rush to the tiger prison to block Dou Jiande, he had already made two preparations, on the one hand, of course, he successfully blocked Dou Jiande, so that he could not rescue Wang Shichong, who was close to Chi Qi, and then quickly captured Luoyang, so that Dou Jiande's army returned in vain, however, as the commander of the three armies of the Tang Army, Li Shimin would of course plan for the worst, for example, if it was difficult to capture Luoyang for a while due to Wang Shichong's resolute resistance, then he and Dou Jiande would have been holding on for a long time, Dou Jiande's army, Will there be changes, Li Shimin is very confident in his ability on the battlefield, and believes that Dou Jiande will not be able to break through the dangerous pass of the tiger prison even if the whole army goes out, however, what if Dou Jiande did not tackle the problem at that time, but transferred troops to leave?

There is no doubt that what Li Shimin wants to see most is that Dou Jiande directly led the army back to Hebei, and at that time, although he will still have an expedition to successfully eliminate Dou Jiande and dominate the world, however, the crisis at this time can be resolved, for Li Shimin, of course, it is the biggest victory, the question is that Dou Jiande at that time will really turn around and leave like this, without other ideas?

Li Shimin clearly knows that at this time, most of the Tang Dynasty's army is in his own hands, gathering under Luoyang City at this time, and the other half is led by Li Xiaogong, Li's own son, and is sweeping away the separatist forces in the south, in this way, the territory of the Tang Dynasty is actually extremely empty, if Dou Jiande gives up the confrontation between the Tiger Prison Pass and the Tang Army and instead attacks the weak links in the Tang Dynasty, no matter where it is, it will inevitably force the Tang Army to return to the army, then the Tang Army's bloody battle for most of the past half a year will be in vain. If that's the case, no matter how unwilling Li Shimin is, he must transfer troops back, otherwise, Datang's own interior will be occupied by the enemy, and even if he captures the eastern capital Luoyang, it will be worth the loss.

Because the soldiers of the Xia army generally have a contempt for the Tang army, they are often unprepared for the Tang army's espionage and intelligence activities, and the Tang army's detailed work is often not difficult to obtain the intelligence in the Xia army, so when the Xia army has just made a move, the plan put forward by Dou Jiande in the military meeting, and the information that most of the soldiers opposed, will soon be known by the Tang army's detailed work that has lurked in the Xia army, and it has been passed to the hands of Li Shimin, the commander of the Tang army.

And when Li Shimin got the news, he finally breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, what he had been worried about, at this time, finally will not happen again, and because Dou Jiande hastily moved the camp this time, the result has caused some chaos, Li Shimin believes that as long as these chaos can be used appropriately, then it will be easy to defeat Dou Jiande's army.

Li Shimin's staff and subordinates also fully agreed with the conclusion of his commander, because if Dou Jiande really gave up the Tiger Prison Pass and chose to go north, then no matter what, the Tang Army must choose to make it, thus losing this war, however, since Dou Jiande himself gave up the superior policy and chose to come to the Tiger Prison Pass to fight to the death with the Tang Army, then he really can't complain about others. At this time, all the officers and soldiers of the Tang Army had no doubt that their commander would soon be able to win the battle and completely defeat the Xia army of Dou Jiande, which seemed to be powerful at this time, but was full of contradictions.

In May of the fourth year of Wude, Li Shimin suddenly sent troops from the Tiger Prison Pass to attack the Xia army that had just moved to the village and had an unstable foothold, the Xia army was passively defended, and Li Shimin took the opportunity to cut off the back grain road, which led to the shaking of the army's heart, Dou Jiande insisted on a decisive battle with the Tang army, and was taken advantage of the situation by Li Shimin to use cavalry to attack the camp, and then, in the camp, set off a huge chaos.

Previously, after Dou Jiande defeated Meng Haigong, Meng Haigong's 30,000 troops were wrapped into the army to strengthen the momentum of the Xia army, but at this moment, these 30,000 troops that originally belonged to Meng Haigong were not subordinate to the Dou army due to the short time of submission, which became the source of the spread of chaos. Both the generals and the soldiers had completely lost their organization and had to flee for their lives, and could no longer gather together to resist the Tang army.

In this battle, the Xia army lost more than 20,000 people, most of them trampled on each other in chaos, and the number of prisoners who became the Tang army exceeded 50,000, and because of the capture of the Xia king Dou Jiande, Li Shimin considered that the north was about to be fully pacified, so there is no doubt that these 50,000 people will soon become the subjects of the Tang Dynasty, so he released all the 50,000 people, and then he took the leader of the captured Xia army led by Dou Jiande, and left the tiger prison with the army, and rushed to Luoyang to recruit Wang Shichong.

Wang Shichong will definitely surrender, Li Shimin can be completely sure of this, after all, Wang Shichong was originally trapped in Luoyang, and the only hope was Dou Jiande's rescue, but now, even his rescuers have become prisoners of the Tang army, in addition to surrendering, can Wang Shichong have any other choice?

Capture two kings in one battle! Although Li Shimin has gone through battles and defeated powerful opponents such as Xue Rengao and Song Jingang, such a huge glory still makes this young invincible commander very proud, after all, Li Shimin is only twenty-four years old at this time, but he has made such a peerless achievement, and the joy in Li Shimin's heart can be imagined. (To be continued......)

PS: Disasters often accumulate in the slightest, and wisdom and courage are mostly trapped in drowning - "Preface to the Biography of Lingguan"