At the end of February this year, Dou Jiande once again led 200,000 soldiers and horses to attack Luoyi in Youzhou.

This time, Dou Jiande came prepared, made up his mind to eliminate Luo Yi no matter what, and said to the whole army: "If you don't break Luo Yi, you will not withdraw from the army!" ”

Luo Yi faced Dou Jiande, every time he implemented the strategy of clearing the wilderness, concentrating all the manpower and material resources in Jicheng, relying on the solid defense of Jicheng, and then looking for Dou Jiande's weakness, and repelling it in one fell swoop.

Dou Jiande's 200,000 troops soon came to Jicheng again, and after preparing the equipment for two days, he immediately launched a fierce attack on Jicheng.

After more than a month of bloody fighting between the two sides, Dou Jiande's soldiers had already climbed the city wall, and they saw that this Jicheng was already in danger.

At the critical moment, Xue Wanjun and Xue Wanche brothers led a death squad of more than 300 people out of the city from the tunnel to the back of Dou Jiande's army, and suddenly appeared to attack Dou Jiande's army.

After Dou Jiande gathered his troops on the bank of the Yishui River, he felt both annoyed and helpless, and sighed that if Jicheng didn't have the existence of this Xue brother, he was only afraid that he would have captured it a few years ago.

Dou Jiande also sent people to try to win over the brothers Xue Wanjun and Xue Wanche, but the people sent were killed on the spot by their brothers.

This is because when Xue Shixiong, the father of the Xue brothers, led 30,000 soldiers and horses south to rescue Luoyang, he was defeated by Dou Jiande and died soon after.

After Luo Yi saw that Dou Jiande had suffered a defeat, he ignored the dissuasion of Xue Wanjun and Xue Wanche brothers, and brought the army to take advantage of the victory to approach Dou Jiande's camp.

At this time, although Luo Yi's soldiers lost a lot, the siege equipment in Dou Jiande's army was all destroyed due to the previous defeat, and the morale was relatively low, so when the city was attacked again, it had no previous momentum, and it was still unable to conquer Jicheng for a long time.

Seeing that the army was tired, Dou Jiande had no choice but to order the troops to retreat, and only let the general Gao Shixingtun army continue to look for fighters on the south bank of Yishui.

In May, Gao Shixing attacked Luo Yi in Youzhou, but failed to conquer it, and withdrew his troops to Caged Fire City. Luo Yi attacked Gao Shixing, severely wounded Gao Jun, and beheaded five thousand.

In so many battles against Luo Yi, the generals under Dou Jiande basically had no merit, but only the general Wang Fubao was brave and witty, and had many military exploits, and every military exploit was the first in the whole army.

Dou Jiande's generals were jealous of Wang Fubao, and felt that because of his existence, their incompetence was highlighted, so they falsely accused Wang Fubao of rebellion to Dou Jiande.

Dou Jiande killed Wang Fubao, and before the execution, Wang Fubao shouted loudly: "I have no guilt, how can the king listen to slander and cut off his left and right hands!" ”

When Dou Jiande led his troops back to the capital from Youzhou, he received a rescue letter from Wang Shichong, and it turned out that at this time, under the attack of the Tang army, Wang Shichong gradually felt a little difficult to parry, so he sent an envoy to Dou Jiande to ask for support.

After Dou Jiande read Wang Shichong's rescue letter, a hesitant look appeared on his face.

At the beginning, when Wang Shichong had just defeated Li Mi, his troops were very powerful, and he attacked many places with Luoyang as the center, and he also fought with Dou Jiande, so the relationship between the two sides was not very good.

Last year, when the Tang Dynasty was fighting with Liu Wuzhou, Wang Shichong also sent troops to occupy Dou Jiande's Liyang, and Dou Jiande later broke through Yinzhou to retaliate against Wang Shichong, and since then the relationship between Zheng and Xia has deteriorated, and no longer send envoys to communicate with each other.

In view of their relationship, Dou Jiande did not want to rescue Wang Shichong.

However, Dou Jiande's Chinese scholar Liu Bin persuaded him: "The world is in turmoil, Tang has Guanxi, Zheng has Henan, and Xia has Hebei, forming a three-legged trend." Now the Tang army attacked Zheng, from last autumn to this summer, the Tang army is increasing, the territory of Zheng is shrinking day by day, Tang is strong and Zheng is weak, it is bound to be unable to support, Zheng perishes, and Xia can not exist alone. It is better to give up the grudge, send troops to rescue Zheng, Xia attacks from the outside, and Zheng counterattacks from the inside, and he will definitely be able to defeat the Tang army. After the Tang army retreated, slowly observe the changes in the situation, if Zheng is desirable, take Zheng, combine the forces of the two countries, and take advantage of the fatigue of the Tang army to seize the world! ”

Dou Jiande listened to this, sent someone to see Wang Shichong, and promised to come to the rescue. Dou Jiande also sent Master Li and others to the Tang army, asking Tang to stop attacking Luoyang, Li Shimin left a messenger, but did not reply, so Dou Jiande prepared to call an army to rescue Luoyang.

On May 15, Li Shimin sent Hou Junji, the head of the march, to attack and attack Wang Shichong's Kip Stone Fort, and then Li Shimin asked Hou Junji to return to the northern camp as soon as possible, but Hou Junji was greedy for merit and continued to surround Qianjin Fort and ordered the people in the fort to surrender.

The people in the fort not only did not surrender, but also scolded Hou Junji, which made Hou Junji furious.

Subsequently, Hou Junji sent more than 100 people to carry dozens of babies to Qianjin Castle overnight, and let the babies cry and cry, falsely claiming that "they came from the Eastern Capital to join Manager Hou", and then said to each other: "This is Qianjin Castle, we are mistaken." Then the hundred or so departed immediately.

The people in the fort thought that Hou Junji had left, and those who came were really people who had fled from Luoyang, and then immediately sent troops out of the fort to chase after them. Hou Junji set up an ambush on the way, and when the door of the Qianjin Fort opened, he rushed in, and the people hidden in the fort were slaughtered.

Li Shimin criticized Hou Junji's slaughter of the fort and warned him not to commit it again in the future, otherwise he would be severely punished.

Yang Qing, who crossed the Yellow River in a small boat and surrendered to Li Yin a while ago, was Wang Shichong's head of Guancheng, which was located near the Tiger Prison, which was conducive to watching the Tiger Prison, so Li Yin asked Yang Qing to cooperate with Li Shiji and recaptured the Guancheng.

At this time, Wang Shichong's crown prince Wang Xuanying guarded the Tiger Prison Pass, stationed between Xingze and Bianshui, and after hearing that Guancheng was captured by the Tang army, he led his troops to Guancheng, but was repelled by Li Shiji.

Li Shiji asked Guo Xiaoke to write a letter to persuade Wang Shichong's Xingzhou assassin Wei Lu, Wei Lu secretly asked to surrender, when Wang Xuanying sent the general Zhang Zhi to Wei Lu to recruit troops, Wei Lu captured Zhang Zhi and other four generals alive, and came to surrender.

Wei Lu asked Zhang Zhi to forge Wang Xuanying's letter, ordered Wang Xuanying's troops and horses on the eastern route to stop advancing, ordered the general Zhang Cibao to return to Bianzhou for the time being, and secretly informed Zheng Bianzhou to assassinate Wang Yaohan and let him kill Zhang Cibao, Wang Yaohan beheaded Zhang Cibao and surrendered to Tang. Wang Xuanying learned that all the states had rebelled, and he was terrified and fled back to Luoyang.

Soon after, Li Yuan issued an edict appointing Wang Yaohan as the governor of Bianzhou and giving him the title of Duke of State, and the situation faced by Wang Shichong was already precarious at this time.