Guanzhong.

In Chang'an City, Li Yuan was completely removing the traces of Yang Guang, although on the surface Yang Guang was nicknamed Emperor Wu. But since Li Yuan entered the customs, he has begun to clear the traces of this emperor.

Daxing City, renamed Chang'an.

Daxing Palace, renamed Taiji Palace.

At the same time, the county system was abolished, the state and county system of Emperor Wen was restored, and the previously established provincial-level divisions were abolished, and the posts of pacification envoys and jiedu envoys were dismissed.

Li Yuan gave orders at the General's Mansion.

Everything is going well, Huayin County ordered Li Xiaochang to be attached, and offered Yongfeng Cang, one of the six major granaries, which made Li Yuan have a lot of grain at once, which greatly solved the dilemma of lack of food after Xiaoguo's army was returned to Beijing.

At the same time, Li Xiaochang also sent troops into the two counties of Hexi and Hedong, and recruited many Sui soldiers and bandit rebels, so Li Yuan named Li Xiaochang as the prince of Yi'an County and awarded him the governor of Huazhou.

Li Yuan's nephew Li Xiaogong led his troops to respond in Feng Yi, and Li Yuan gave him the governor of Tongzhou and the prince of Hedong County.

And Li Shentong also led his troops to respond in the Qizhou area, and was awarded the governor of Qizhou and the prince of Hongnong County.

But the bad news followed.

Chen Ling surrendered to Luo Cheng with six counties including Jiangdu, Liyang, and Pengcheng, and was worshiped by Luo Cheng as a lieutenant and Tongping Zhangshi.

Huainan and Shandong are all owned by Luo Cheng, and the six counties in the north of Hebei are also in Luo Cheng's hands.

And Li Mi and Dou Jiande did not fight to the death.

This is very bad news.

Especially Luo Cheng actually won more than ten counties without much effort in this big war, which made Li Yuan even more worried.

"Report!"

Worse news arrived.

"Xue Ju sent a large army to invade Jingzhou, and the main force has marched in the direction of Yilu in Fenzhou."

Hearing that Xue Ju called directly, Li Yuan hurriedly summoned Li Jiancheng, Li Shimin, Chai Shao and others.

"What's going on?"

Li Yuan asked Li Shimin directly.

Li Shimin's face was solemn, "Father, Xue Ju is menacing, he has passed through Longshan since the great earthquake, and then came east along the Jinghe River valley, invaded Jingzhou, and the main force went straight to Yilu, Fenzhou, and on the northeast and southwest flanks, he also sent mobile cavalry to attack Ningzhou and Qizhou. ”

As for Longzhou, it has been completely captured.

"Is Xue Ju personally commanding soldiers and horses, how many people are there?"

"Known as an army of 200,000, the commander of the army is Xue Ju's crown prince Xue Rengao, who is known as having the courage of ten thousand people."

Li Yuan listened, "Two hundred thousand is an imaginary number, right?" ”

"Real numbers." Li Shimin reluctantly reported, "When Xue Rengao sent troops from Tianshui, there were only 100,000 people, but after he arrived at Fufeng, he used a plan to annex the soldiers and horses of the open source thief Tang Bi, and the number of people increased by 100,000 at once. ”

This Tang Bi originally supported Li Hongzhi as the Son of Heaven, with more than 100,000 horses. Xue Ju sent an envoy to recruit Tang Bi and named him the king of Tang, Tang Bi gladly accepted, and then Xue Rengao invited Tang Bi to a banquet, took advantage of his unpreparedness, killed Tang Bi, and then attacked his army and collected all his people.

Xue Rengao was also shocked by this.

Pizhou is only a few hundred miles away from Chang'an, Li Yuan didn't expect the Xue family to come so quickly, he also planned to use Longyouqiang and Tuyuhun and Li Liang to fight Xue Ju, but Xue Ju came first.

"Shimin, I order you to be the marching marshal, and command the two armies of the right and the right, with a total of 40,000 horses, to go to Pizhou to resist Xue Rengao."

Li Yuan also asked Li Jiancheng to lead an army to garrison Jingyang in the north of Chang'an's Wei River, and let Li Shentong garrison Qizhou, and ordered Chang'an to be under martial law to strengthen defense.

The fourth day of the seventh month.

Li Shimin commanded 40,000 troops to go north along the Jing River and came to Yilu.

The march was in a hurry, and he suddenly contracted a malarial disease, so he had to let the marching commanders Shi Liu Wenjing and Sima Chai Shao take over the command.

"Xue Rengao's lone army has gone deep, although there are 200,000 people, but among them are the newly annexed 100,000 Fuyu thieves, there are not many soldiers and food, and the soldiers are tired from afar, so we should be careful not to fight now. When I am well from my illness, the enemy's sharpness and sharpness have passed, and there will definitely not be much food and grass, and if I go to war again, I can be defeated in one battle. ”

Li Shimin was very cautious, no matter what, Xue Rengao had 200,000 people, and he only had 40,000 horses. Moreover, many soldiers and horses, like him, rushed from Chang'an and fell ill by the summer fever.

But after Chai Shao and Liu Wenjing came out, they discussed.

"When the Tang King came, he explained that this battle must be resolved quickly, otherwise the Beijing division will be turbulent and chaotic."

"But the marshal is sick now."

"It's not all bad things for the marshal to fall ill, Xue Rengao, I heard that there is courage and no strategy, we deliberately release the news that the marshal is sick, they will inevitably despise us, and we will be defeated by then."

Liu Wenjing is a very good strategist, but he is obviously unprofessional in military affairs, Chai Shao was only a guard in the East Palace before, and he had little experience in commanding operations.

As soon as the two discussed, they decided to go to war behind Li Shimin's back.

They led their army to line up in the southwest of the shallow water plain outside the city of Yilu.

Unexpectedly, Xue Rengao was very cunning, and he slowly opened up the formation, but in fact it was a bluff, but he made a detour of the main cavalry to cover the back of the Tang army.

The ninth day of the first month.

The two armies faced each other for several days, and they were only skirmishes, and on this day, Xue Rengao led the cavalry to kill from behind, taking advantage of the dawn to launch a surprise attack.

The generals of the Tang Army, Murong Luohou and Li Anyuan, were killed on the spot, and Chai Shao and Liu Wenjing, the two main generals, were also captured.

In addition, eight governors were captured.

Xue Rengao took advantage of the victory to march and easily conquered Yilu City.

After the victory, Xue Rengao ordered the collection of the corpses of the Tang army on the battlefield, which were more than 10,000. He ordered the corpses to be placed on the shallow water plain, layer upon layer of corpses, layer upon layer, layer upon layer, and finally built a huge Jingguan.

When Li Shimin was waiting for Liu Wenjing to be defeated, he was already escorted by his guards and fled all the way back to Chang'an City.

After Xue Rengao broke through the city of Yilu in Pizhou, he opened the gate of Pizhou, so the army went down the trend and surrounded the city of Pizhou, and at the same time sent troops to attack Ningzhou in the north.

Fortunately, Marshal Li Shimin ran away, but Ningzhou Assassin Shi and Pizhou Assassin Shi led the army and people to defend the city, the weather was hot, and the Qin army failed to capture it after several attacks.

At this time, a letter came from the rear, saying that Emperor Xue Ju was critically ill and asked the crown prince Xue Rengao to return to Beijing as soon as possible.

It turned out that Xue Ju was very happy when he heard that the prince had defeated the Tang army in Qinzhou, so he rushed from Qinzhou, but when he arrived at the city of Zhiqi in Qinzhou, he suddenly became seriously ill and was very critical all of a sudden.

Originally, Xue Rengao was ready to take advantage of the victory to go straight to Chang'an, and simply ignored the two prefectures of Suining, but who knew that such an accident happened at this time, so he had to hurry to Zheqi City.

As soon as Xue Rengao left, the offensive of the Qin army stopped.

This gave the dangerous Ningbi Erzhou a chance to breathe, and Tang King Li Yuan also hurriedly transferred troops and horses to Li Shimin, and sent him to redeem the two states to resist the attack of the Xue family.

August.

In Chang'an City, Li Yuan received two urgent reports, one from the east and one from the west.

"Listen to the intelligence from the west first."

"Marshal Shimin urgently reported that Xue Ju died of illness in Zheqi City, and the crown prince Xue Rengao succeeded to the emperor's throne and changed Zheqi City to the capital."

Hearing that Xue Ju was dead, Li Yuan's face changed for the better, and he was really worried about the news of the defeat of the World Militia.

"Where's the intelligence from the east?"

Li Yuan hoped to hear another piece of good news.

"The east is urgent, Luo Cheng was proclaimed emperor by Chan in Fanyang Mansion, with Fanyang Mansion as Beijing and Liaodong City as Tokyo."

"Luo Cheng is the emperor?"

Li Yuan was stunned and stunned.

Among the heroes of the world, Li Yuan is most afraid of this Luo Cheng, I can't imagine that he is actually the emperor.

"Didn't you say that the Goguryeo people were in turmoil, how could Luo Cheng move the capital and become emperor at this time?"

"Back to the Tang Dynasty, the Goguryeo rebellion has been put down!"

Li Yuan's complexion changed greatly, the Goguryeo rebellion was put down, Luo Cheng was proclaimed emperor by Chan again, and the capital Fanyang was established, this is the real Central Plains hegemony?