Li Liang listened to the words of Cao Zhen, the left servant of Shangshu, and on the eighteenth day of the first month, he sent his Shangshu Zuocheng Deng Xiao to Beijing to meet the Tang Emperor Li Yuan, and presented a book to claim to be "the cousin of the Tang Emperor, the emperor of the Great Liang Kingdom, and the subordinate Li Liang", instead of claiming to be the title of King Liang given to him by the Tang Dynasty.

After Li Yuan read Li Liang's letter, he was immediately angry, and immediately detained Deng Xiao and prevented him from returning, and then summoned all the ministers to discuss the matter of Xingshi's crusade against Li Liang.

The first thing to discuss was the question of who should be appointed as the commander to crusade against Li Liang, and in this regard, the eyes of all the ministers immediately looked at Li Yin, the king of Jin.

Li Yuan didn't want to use Li Yin anymore, but he had other considerations at this time.

The Tang Dynasty occupies the neutral country of Guan, and there are two henchmen, one is Xue Ju of Longyou, and the other is Li Rail of Hexi, these two forces have more than 100,000 soldiers and horses, and both have a high-rise momentum to Chang'an, which is a great threat.

Now that Xue Ju has been destroyed, the two major henchmen will only be left with Hexi Li Rail, if Li Rail is destroyed, the Tang Dynasty will be as safe as Mount Tai, and there will be no more worries, and the boundary can focus on the Kwantung princes. (Shuofang Liang's division was far away from Chang'an, with only 20,000 or 30,000 troops, and would not go south to Chang'an without Lingzhou, so the threat to Datang was not great.) ）

Based on the above reasons, Li Yuan wanted to let the invincible Li Yin take command of Li Rail, and planned to let him lead troops to the expedition for a long period of time after Li Yin destroyed Li Rail.

Li Yuan's idea is very good, but as everyone knows, people are not as good as heaven, and the changes in the current situation in the future may surprise him......

Therefore, Li Yuan issued an edict to worship Li Yin as the general of the expedition to the west, and was fully responsible for the affairs of the expedition of Li Liang in Hexi.

At this time, the Tang Dynasty had just asked Li Shimin to lead the troops to recruit Zhu Wei, and immediately planned to fight against Li Liang, and there was still room for troops on both fronts, which showed that although the time for the founding of the Tang Dynasty was short, its strength was no longer comparable to that of ordinary forces.

Li Yin received the edict, and after returning to the Jin Palace, he immediately rushed to discuss the strategy of crusading against Li Liang.

Fang Xuanling said: "If you can connect Tuyuhun and let it intrude on Hexi, so that Hexi is restless, then the big thing can be decided." ”

The territory now controlled by Tuyuhun is roughly in the area of present-day Qinghai, which is the flank of the land occupied by Li Liang.

At the beginning, Yang Guang personally conquered Tuyuhun, and after heavy casualties, he finally drove away Tuyuhun's Khan Fu Yun, and fled to the party with only a few thousand cavalry for refuge.

After that, Yang Guangli made Fu Shun, the son of Fu Yun, who was a hostage of Tuyuhun in Sui, as the monarch of Tuyuhun, and let Fu Shun command the troops left by Fu Yun.

But Fu Shun admired the culture of the Central Plains, and also knew that the people of Tuyuhun were unwilling to accept his rule, so they did not want to return Tuguhun as a khan, and soon after the departure, he returned to the Central Plains on the grounds of physical illness, and after Li Yuan ascended the throne, this Fushun also went to Chang'an from Jiangdu, and now lives in Anrenfang in Chang'an City.

When the Sui Dynasty was in turmoil, Fu Shun's father, Fu Yun, the original khan of Tuyuhun, returned to Tuyuhun from the party and recovered the original territory.

Therefore, Li Yin immediately adopted Fang Xuanling's strategy, sent an envoy to unite with Fu Yun, let Fu Yun attack Li Liang, and promised to return his son Fu Shun.

The eldest grandson Wuji also confidently offered advice to Li Yin at this time: "If the King of Jin gets the help of one person, he will definitely be able to dismantle Hexi Li Rail from the inside, and Hexi will be at his fingertips." ”

Li Yin hurriedly asked who the eldest grandson Wuji was talking about, and his ability was so great.

The eldest grandson Wuji said: "That person's name is An Xinggui, and now he is an official in Chang'an, his younger brother An Xiuren, is Li Rail's household Shangshu, deeply trusted by Li Rail, and his family is in Liangzhou, he is a wealthy family, and the people of all ethnic groups are more dependent, and there are more than a dozen children in the family who are confidential officials of Li Rail, if An Xinggui helps, King Dingping Hexi will be able to add wings like a tiger!" ”

The eldest grandson Wuji himself is a son of a family, and he is clear about the wealthy families in various places, so he can propose such a clever plan for Li Yin at this time.

Song Zhengben saw that Fang Xuanling and the eldest grandson Wuji both offered wonderful strategies, and they were not to be outdone, and told Li Yin a strategy.

At the beginning, Que Khan of the Western Turks sent envoys to the Central Plains to join the Central Plains Dynasty, but learned that the Central Plains was in turmoil, so he attached himself to Li Rail.

At that time, Cao Qiong, the envoy of Xirong of the Sui Dynasty, occupied Ganzhou and lured Que Khan to betray Li Rail, so Que Khan then attached himself to Cao Qiong and resisted Li Rail with Cao Qiong, but was finally defeated by Li Rail, fled to Douba Valley, and watched each other with Tuyuhun.

Song Zheng's original strategy was to connect Cao Qiong, a large and small force hostile to Li Rail, and when Li Yin led the army to Hexi, he would jointly attack Li Rail!

Li Yin also immediately agreed to Song Zhengben's plan, and asked him to set off immediately to the Hexi region to connect with those forces.

Fang Xuanling, eldest grandson Wuji and Song Zhengben all have their own characteristics, all of which are clever plans, although they did not use a single soldier, but it can be expected that after these strategies are implemented, they will definitely have a serious impact on Li Liang.

On the 25th day of the first month, Li Yin swore an oath in Changchun Palace, led 80,000 elite soldiers from his headquarters to leave Chang'an, and went to the west of the river with great momentum.

The Hexi region refers to Jiuquan, Zhangye, Wuwei and other places in present-day Gansu, and is called Hexi because it is located west of the Yellow River. Its place is located between the Qilian Mountains and the northern mountain system, starting from the Wusheling Mountains in the southeast, ending in the lower reaches of the Shule River in the northwest, only a few miles wide to one or two hundred miles, but more than two thousand miles long, forming a long and narrow natural corridor, so it is also called the Hexi Corridor here.

The Hexi region is the throat of the Central Plains leading to the Western Regions, although it is located in the remote northwest, but there are many plains, the land is fertile, the water and grass are abundant, suitable for agriculture and animal husbandry, and it has always been a rich place.

After marching for more than a month, on the fifth day of the third month of the second year of Wude, the 80,000 elite soldiers led by Li Yin finally arrived in Jincheng, which was originally the place where Xue Ju raised his troops, and now it is the territory of the Tang Dynasty, which is adjacent to Li Liang's Wudu County, which is the border land of the two sides.

Li Rail since the thirteenth year of the great cause of the army against the Sui, it has been nearly two years now, at the beginning, Li Rail was also an ambitious figure, after occupying all the land in Hexi, and Xue Ju of Longyou fought for territory, and fought many bloody battles with it.

However, after the Li family entered the Guanzhong, the situation immediately changed greatly, and both Xue Ju and Li Liang felt the threat from the Li family, so the relationship tended to ease.