Tiger Prison Pass, inside the military office hall.

Li Shimin sat in his position with blank eyes and looked into the distance, and in front of the table in front of him was a 800-li urgent document that had just been forwarded from the Luoyang camp, detailing the series of events such as Longzhi Li Mi leading the army to smuggle across the Meridian Valley and attack Chang'an, Li Yuan leading his ministers to flee north to Xianyang, and Liu Wenjing's death in front of the palace.

Li Siyuan, Gao Xianzhi, Bi Zaiyu and other generals of the Tang Army also stood silently under the hall. Li Shimin treats people leniently, and in the past, these generals under his command were unscrupulous in their deliberations in the hall, but today no one dared to speak.

"Your Highness, Chang'an is the capital of my Tang Dynasty, and its strategic significance is far above Luoyang, and now it is occupied by the Sui army, and Guanzhong must be disheartened. At this moment, His Royal Highness can only retreat to Guanzhong with the fire rate army, and it is the best policy to recover Chang'an and stabilize people's hearts with the momentum of thunder. ”

After being silent for a long time, Li Shimin's confidant Du Ruhui, who still came with the holy decree, was the first to speak to break the silence.

Seeing that Li Shimin was still silent, Du Ruhui cautiously swept the generals around him with his spare eyes, and made sure that all the generals in the hall were Li Shimin's descendants, so he opened his mouth and said in a low voice: "Your Highness, now Your Highness has clearly ordered Your Highness to withdraw your troops back to Guanzhong, if Your Highness does not obey the order, how will Your Majesty give you another chance to lead the army in the future?" ”

"Alas-" Li Shimin let out a long sigh and said, "Keming, why don't you know these orphans you are talking about?" But Lone led the army to fight with the Sui army in Luoyang for nearly two years, and it took countless soldiers to stop the main force of the Sui army from marching into Luoyang, but now he wants to give up the entire territory of Luoyang to Yang Gao'er, what kind of face does Lone have to meet those soldiers who died in battle!

What's more, after Yang Gao'er won Luoyang, his voice was bound to be even stronger. On the other hand, my Tang Dynasty, not only did not take an inch of land in the Eastern Expedition many times, but even lost troops and generals one after another, and now even the capital has been breached! Keming, Lone is the first time that he has no confidence in the future of Datang! ”

Speaking of this, Li Shimin was already holding his head in some pain.

Du Ruhui also sighed when he heard this, and said in a deep voice: "Your Highness, now we have to admit that the national strength of the Sui Dynasty is indeed above my Tang Dynasty, and the battle of Luoyang is indeed lost by my Tang Dynasty!" And what we can do now is to bring these hundreds of thousands of main forces back to Guanzhong as much as possible, these hundreds of thousands of troops are the most elite troops in my Datang, and there must be no more mistakes! ”

Although Du Ruhui's words were a little ambitious, Li Shimin knew that what he said was all the truth.

This time, the Sui and Tang dynasties went to war in several ways, but Li Jiancheng of Qingzhou and Li Xiaogong and Li Shiji of Bashu all lost their troops and lost their cities and lands, even if they were themselves, they led the most elite main army of the Tang Dynasty, and they did not get any benefits from the Sui army.

Everyone in this world can deceive themselves, but there is only one kind of person who cannot, and that is the superior person, who must always recognize the reality and make the most correct response. Otherwise, there is only a dead end waiting for them.

"Keming, you're right!"

Li Shimin deserves to be one of the most outstanding emperors in history, although he is extremely reluctant to admit it, he still nodded and said: "The military strength of the Sui army is far above our army, Xue Rengui, Chang Yuchun, Li Jing, Yue Fei, Qin Qiong, Zhang Xun and others are all generals who are in charge alone, and brave generals such as Li Cunxiao, Yuwen Chengdu, Gao Chong, and Xue Kui are endless. A small partial army general, Long Zhi, dared to do such a thing as a surprise attack on Chang'an, and the strength of my Datang family alone could not deal with the Sui army at all! ”

"What His Highness said is extremely true!"

Du Ruhui nodded heavily, and said loudly: "I think that if we want to defeat the Sui Dynasty, we must contact all the forces that can be contacted. Zhu Yuanzhang and Yuan Chu in Hebei, Temujin in Saiwai, Wanyan Aguta, Yelu Abaoji, Goguryeo and Wa Guo, these forces are all objects we can contact, and when the time is ripe, we can even besiege the Sui Dynasty on all sides! ”

Li Shimin nodded slowly: "After Gu returns to Chang'an, he will make a statement to his father, follow the example of Su and Qin when he joined forces with the Six Kingdoms to fight against the tyrannical Qin, and contact all forces in the world to temporarily abandon their previous suspicions and work together to deal with Yang Gao Xiao'er." ”

"However, the top priority at the moment is to find a way to bring my Datang main force back to Guanzhong. If these soldiers and horses are all lost here, then let alone contact the forces of various places, these ambitious guys are afraid that they will treat our Datang as a soft persimmon, and everyone will come over to take a bite! ”

Li Shimin's words changed, he took the map from the table and spread it out, and said in a deep voice: "As far as Gu knows, Sui General Yang Yanzhao has led 40,000 elite soldiers to camp in the area of Vientiane Mountain, the main road from Tiger Prison Pass to Luoyang, blocking Gu's back road to Luoyang. ”

"Your Highness, it is not necessary to pass through Vientiane Mountain to rush from the Tiger Prison Pass to Luoyang, and the lowly position is to bypass Yang Yanzhao's department through a trail."

Du Ruhui said cautiously: "Although this path is steep and difficult to walk, and a large group of soldiers and horses are not allowed to pass, it is no problem to pass through a few hundred people. ”