Gao Xianzhi led an army of 150,000 to arrive at Dajiaochang, 30 miles north of Chang'an, on the ninth day of the lunar month. It was originally an urgent rescue trip of 100,000 people, but Gao Xianzhi had to order the whole army to be stationed in the big school field and wait, because the commander of the army was still in Chang'an City at the moment.

Although the imperial court appointed Gao Xianzhi to lead the army to help counterinsurgency, don't forget that the marshal who led the army in the holy decree was not Gao Xianzhi, Gao Xianzhi was just a deputy marshal of counterinsurgency, and the marshal was someone else.

The Tang Dynasty has a tradition of the prince leading the army, starting from Taizong Li Shimin, the emperor's son, whether he has the ability to lead the army or not, will see them in large-scale battles. This is not difficult to understand, a prince leading the army actually represents the emperor himself, and the son goes to the battlefield to fight, which is an incentive for the people of the world to be civilized, military generals, and the world. Noble as the son of the royal family lives and dies with ordinary people, this is an attitude. On the other hand, this is actually a kind of containment. In the history of the Tang Dynasty princes' leading the army, except for Li Shimin, most of the princes actually did not have the ability to lead the army. And if the military power of the courtiers is too heavy, it is easy to cause chaos, so the prince is the commander and the military general is the deputy, which can not only ensure that there are people who are familiar with military affairs to fight, but also ensure that the military power is in the hands of the royal family, so that there will be no accidents. This is actually a kind of distrust of the courtiers, but because it has formed a regulation, no one criticizes it.

The leader of the army this time was Xuanzong's sixth son, Rongwang Li Wan, who was the generalissimo of counterinsurgency, and Gao Xianzhi was just his deputy marshal. If the marshal is not there, how can the soldiers and horses set off? Gao Xianzhi and others were Rong Wang Li Wan, who set out from the capital and joined the army before they could go to the battlefield.

In fact, this Rong Wang Li Wan is actually not without talent, he may be the only one among the sons of Xuanzong who has led the army to fight and fought a beautiful battle. In the twenty-fifth year of Kaiyuan, the Longyou army raided the Turkic tribes, the border towns between the Tang Dynasty and the Turks were ignited, it was this Rongwang Li Wan who was appointed as the envoy of the Longyou section at that time, he was appointed by Xuanzong to go to Longyou, conscription and preparation in an orderly manner, in the face of the surging Turkic soldiers and horses, fought a beautiful ambush on the border, annihilated the Turkic army more than 6,000 horsemen, and became famous for a time.

It is precisely because he has experience in leading the army, and he also has some talent for leading the army, so Xuanzong awarded him the position of generalissimo of the counterinsurgency this time, hoping that he can use his military talents with Gao Xianzhi to quell the rebellion in An Lushan.

However, Xuanzong made a lot of calculations, but he didn't calculate that his appointment, which was completely out of consideration for the situation, would make a person like an ant on a hot pot, and this person was the crown prince Li Heng. Although Li Heng lived a very comfortable life after Li Linfu's death, no one suppressed him. However, Li Heng clearly felt his father's alienation from him. In addition, he already has a ghost in his heart, and the more suspicious he is, the more he feels uneasy in his heart. Every move and every word of Xuanzong can cause him to guess. For most of the day, Li Heng used his modest IQ to figure out the extraneous sounds of some of the words that Xuanzong had said during the day. This kind of Li Heng is like some sensitive and fragile literati, who are sad when they see a leaf falling, cry when they hear the flowers, and the whole person is sentimental.

While An Lushan's rebellion was in full swing, Xuanzong ordered Li Wan, the king of Rong, to be the generalissimo of the counterinsurgency instead of appointing himself to this position, in Li Heng's view, this was obviously a signal that it was possible for Li Wan to replace him.

This is not impossible, Emperor Taizong led the army to fight as a prince and made great contributions, so in the end, everyone actually thought that Taizong should be the crown prince. The crown prince Li Jiancheng had to plan to do something to Li Shimin in order to protect the position of the crown prince, but unfortunately, Taizong was already full of wings at that time, and he knew Li Jiancheng's every move. The change of Xuanwumen was Taizong's preemptive strike, and he easily won the throne.

Comparing what happened in Taizong back then with the current situation, Li Heng suddenly felt that there were many similarities in this matter. If King Rong leads the army to successfully quell the rebellion, he will be even more famous, and everyone in the world will respect and worship him, but his own crown prince is unknown in this matter. Do you want to be the poor prince who was killed by the full-fledged Taizong? Or do you want to stop this from happening and nip in the bud a crisis that could have cost you the crown prince? The answer is, of course, the latter, Li Heng doesn't want to be Li Jiancheng who died under Taizong's knife, so he has to strike first.

However, this is His Majesty's appointment, and the wood has already been completed, and Li Heng will never dare to ask Xuanzong to take back his fate. But Li Heng has his own way. After poisoning Li Linfu, Li Heng suddenly discovered that many things could be solved with only courage and ruthlessness, and did not require hard forbearance. So in this matter, since it is impossible to change the fact that Li Wan has become the generalissimo of the conquest and counterinsurgency, then Li Heng can only use his own methods.

Li Heng, who had little contact with Li Wan on weekdays, went to King Rong's Mansion to see Li Wan after Xuanzong's holy decree was issued, and encouraged Li Wan to go here to make contributions to the country as the crown prince. Li Wan knew what the idea of this crown prince and imperial brother was in the gourd, and he regarded Li Heng's arrival as goodwill, and exchanged views with Li Heng heartily. After all, they are brothers, and once they chat, the relationship will heat up quickly.

During the days when Gao Xianzhi's army arrived in the capital, Li Wan and Li Heng met many times, or talked together, or feasted together, or played together, in short, in Li Wan's opinion, he regained the feeling of carefree and carefree play with his brothers when he was a child. He was also ashamed of some of his previous misunderstandings about Li Heng. King Rong is such a simple person, he is simply an outlier in the emperor's family. Or rather, he is a man who comes out of the sludge without staining.

However, what Li Wan, the little white flower-like Rong Wang, didn't expect was that his prince brother had already attacked him. Li Heng and Li Fuguo learned the lesson of poisoning Li Linfu, and this time the plan was more thorough. Li Fuguo found a stranger to get a chronic poison, this poison is called Mi Xinsan, the poison is slowly accumulated and then concentrated through the way of medicine. During the nearly twenty days that Li Heng and Li Wan were dating, Li Wan drank the chronic of Mi Xinsan, which was divided into eight parts. Poison, these poisons accumulate in his stomach into a deadly whole set of poisons, waiting for the drug to be triggered.

And after feeding all these poisons to Li Wan's stomach, in order to avoid suspicion, Li Heng cut off his relationship with Li Wan. Every time Li Wan went to look for Li Heng, Li Heng avoided him, which made Li Wan wonder why and he was stunned. He didn't know why this prince's brother suddenly became cold to him, and he didn't even see his face.

On the morning of the seventh day of the lunar month, the housekeeper of King Rong's Mansion saw in front of the door that there were sellers selling geese in front of the house, and more than a dozen big white geese in the basket were fat and strong, remembering that King Rong loved to eat roast goose, so he ordered the kitchen to buy one. At noon that day, Rongwang Li Wan happily ate several pieces of roast goose, and in the afternoon, his stomach began to ache faintly.

All this was carefully arranged by Li Fuguo. Because King Rong likes to eat roast goose, Li Fuguo ordered people to pick up fat white geese to walk around the Rongwang Mansion for several days. Poor King Rong knew that when he happily ate the roast goose, he had already walked towards the ghost gate.

For three days in a row, King Rong had abdominal pain, and the famous imperial doctor You Fang invited countless doctors, but no one could find out the cause. I could only watch King Rong clutch his stomach and howl, watching him change from a high-spirited person to a withered artemisia beyond recognition.

Xuanzong was greatly surprised when he learned of this, he instinctively suspected that this was Li Heng's manipulation, but after sending someone to investigate, he dispelled this idea. Because although the prince and King Rong had frequent contacts some time ago, the prince had not seen King Rong at all in the past four or five days, and King Rong suddenly fell ill in his own mansion, Li Heng did not contact him at all, nor did he send anyone to visit or treat King Rong's mansion, and sent anything suspicious, so it could not be him.

After five days and five nights, Li Wan, the king of Rong, was finally relieved of his pain and died in the palace. When the news came, everyone was stunned. The cause of Li Wan's death is a mystery, which has led to many conjectures, but no one knows what Li Heng did. On the night of Li Wan's death, Li Heng came to visit, and cried beside Li Wan's stiff corpse, and fainted several times. Xuanzong burst into tears when he heard this: "The prince has true feelings for Li Wan, and the brotherhood is like this, I am very pleased." ”

After Gao Xianzhi's army waited for two days in the north school field of Chang'an, the news of Li Wan's violent death came from Chang'an. Gao Xianzhi was stunned, and died before the commander of the expedition, does this indicate an ominous ending? Before the army set out on the expedition, the most taboo was all kinds of bad luck, and now I have encountered the most unfortunate thing.

Moreover, Gao Xianzhi had to wait for the imperial court to issue an order to send someone to replace Li Wan's position and come to meet and set off. waited until the afternoon of the third day, and finally the holy decree arrived, and a short and fat inner attendant came with the holy decree and read out the holy decree of Xuanzong.

"Due to the misfortune of King Rong, the post of generalissimo of the conquest is temporarily vacant, and now I have ordered Gao Xianzhi to command the whole army to quell the rebellion. In addition, the holy order of the inner attendant Bian Lingcheng is the general of the prison gate and the army overseer. Send troops to Luoyang as soon as possible to relieve the siege of Luoyang......"

After Gao Xianzhi received the order, he got up and asked, "Which one is the border prison gate?" When is it coming? ”

The fat attendant smiled and said slowly: "Our family is, tall and handsome and polite." ”