Why are you called chicken ribs? For Li Er and Duan Lun, the artillery thrown into the Fenshui River by Huo Yi Sui Jun is chicken ribs! It's a pity to lose it, it takes time and effort to fish, and it will definitely give the Hedong Sui army a chance to fight a war of attrition, and even if they can get it in the end, Li Er and Duan Lun will have to pay a heavy price!

Don't think that it is so simple to fish a few artillery pieces from the Fenshui River, affected by climate change and human factors, the current flow of the Fen River is indeed not so large, but in the Sui and Tang dynasties, the water volume of the Fen River can support Guanzhong to transport grain to Jiangxian County, and the grain can be transported directly from Linfen to Guanzhong down the river.

What's even worse is the harassment and destruction of the Sui army, as soon as they got rid of the pursuit of the Taiyuan army, the Huoyi Sui army immediately stopped at a place only about 20 miles away from the sinking artillery site, and immediately began to build camp fortifications, putting on a posture that no matter how desperately they did not let the Taiyuan army take away the artillery, as long as Li Erjun started to fish for artillery, it would definitely be destroyed by the surprise attack of the Sui army.

There was some meat on the chicken ribs anyway, and the Taiyuan army, which had suffered a big loss in front of the artillery, decided to try it anyway in order to eliminate the nightmare in their hearts, so after a little discussion, Li Erduanlun also came to a local camp, while building fortifications to resist the attack of the Sui army, while selecting soldiers who were proficient in water to go into the water to find artillery, and try to pull the artillery directly ashore with ropes.

It was also after the sailors went into the water that Li Er found that he was thinking too simply, because the Sui army abandoned the position of the artillery, not only the water flow was extremely rapid, but also there was a lot of height difference, no matter how good the water was, it was difficult for the sailors to dive to the bottom of the river to find the artillery, and there was also the danger of being swept away by the current, sacrificing two sailors, and it took a lot of effort and a lot of time to finally find an artillery, and when they tried to pull up the cannon with a rope, the Sui army had already killed it, and it was still the soldiers under the command of Liu Heimin himself.

It is only forty miles away from Huoyi, which greatly facilitates Liu Heimin to replenish his troops to the front line, and is determined to use artillery as bait to consume a large number of the Taiyuan army's vital forces, Liu Heimin does not consider the cost of casualties at all, and goes to the front line to command and supervise the battle, Wang Xingben and Cao Qing are the two fierce generals who lead the army to charge together, although the Taiyuan army, which is tired and has not had time to establish a strong camp, although it is also trying to resist, but after all, it still can't withstand the Sui army's fierce attack at any cost, and is forced to retreat to avoid the edge, The cannon that had been pulled away from the bottom of the river was thrown back into the bottom of the river.

Then the more damaged came again, taking advantage of the opportunity to temporarily repel the Taiyuan army, the Sui army hurriedly threw a large amount of earth and stone into the sinking artillery, increasing the difficulty of the Taiyuan army's salvage, and then hurriedly retreated to the temporary camp twenty miles away to rest, waiting for the Taiyuan army to salvage again. When Li Er and Duan Lun made a comeback, not only was the sky already bright, but the difficulty of salvage had increased a lot.

The soldiers are not iron-clad, Li Erjun did not get much rest from the midnight of the second day of the third month to the morning of the fourth day of the third month, and the even worse Duan Lunjun had to add the physical consumption of seventy miles of rapid march, and the top and bottom were already tired like leprosy dogs with their backbones removed. Therefore, even if Li Er and Duan Lun were still unwilling, they didn't have the courage to resist Liu Heimin's attack at any time while salvaging, so they could only find a gentle slope near the north of the sinking artillery site and set up camp, while resting and preparing to salvage, Liu Heimin, who didn't need these pig iron artillery at all, was even more anxious to launch an attack, and the two armies temporarily died down and maintained a state of confrontation.

Linfen County, where Liu Heimin's main force is located, is only two days away from the Bird Mouse Valley, and Taiyuan is at least four days away from the Bird Mouse Valley, but Li Er and Duan Lun are very aware of the impact of this difference, but what Li Er and Duan Lun never expected is that it was just in the evening of the same day, Liu Heimin's Linfen rear army had already arrived under Huoyi City, although it had not yet had time to arrive at the battlefield of the Sinking Artillery Land, and the strength was only more than 5,000 people, but it also immediately broke the balance of power in the entire Bird Mouse Valley battlefield. The Sui army, which has more than 15,000 troops, has sufficient strength and can easily rotate to fight, while the two armies of Li Er and Duan Lun together are only more than 8,000, and they are already at an absolute disadvantage in terms of troops.

Although it was already clear that Liu Heimin wanted to take advantage of the situation to pull the army into a war of attrition, the bait that Liu Heimin put into the water was too tempting, so Li Er and Duan Lun still did not decide to give up, after discussion, Li Er and Duan Lun simply chose to continue the confrontation with Liu Heimin temporarily, and sent a fast horse north to Taiyuan, reported the matter to Li Jiancheng, kicked the ball to Li Jiancheng, and let Li Jiancheng decide to go south to take away the artillery? Or give up and let Liu Heimin fish the artillery back?

It was Li Jiancheng's turn to make a decision, in fact, when he received the news that the Sui army's artillery had secretly arrived on the Huoyi battlefield, Li Jiancheng was already ready to send troops to reinforce the Bird Mouse Valley, if nothing else, in order to defend the only natural danger barrier in the south of Taiyuan, at this time it was actually very convenient to send troops to help Li Er and Duan Lun grab the artillery. But Li Jiancheng also saw through Liu Heimin's tactical purpose was to force the Taiyuan army to fight a war of attrition, once the Taiyuan army was led by Liu Heimin's nose and fell into the quagmire of attrition, then even if the Taiyuan army succeeded in grabbing the artillery, it was likely to be more than worth the loss, and the Sui army took a big advantage - because Chen Fuliang's current foundation is too thick, even if he loses all the main force in Hedong, he can not feel distressed.

In the end, it was the veteran of the Taiyuan Army and the legendary grandfather of the golden cicada, Yin Kaishan, who made Li Jiancheng make up his mind, Yin Kaishan pointed out: "Liu Heimin's intentions are dangerous and poisonous, and the purpose is indeed to drag our army into a war of attrition, but in order to achieve this goal, he also put the main force of the Hedong thief army into the battlefield of the Bird Mouse Valley, and now the main force of the Chen thief is not ready to go to the battlefield, if the main force of our army goes south at this moment, although it is possible to be dragged into the war of attrition by Liu Heimin, but there is also hope to annihilate Liu Heimin's main force first, if so, Our army can then take the opportunity to capture Linfen, obtain a large number of Chen thief's main force to attack our army's grain, grass and military supplies, and then completely disrupt Chen Yingliang's overall plan of traitors, take attack as defense, take the opportunity to take the lead, and completely resist the enemy outside the country. ”

After thinking for a long time, Li Jiancheng nodded, and then said in a deep voice: "Since it is offensive and defensive, then simply put Dou Jian into the battlefield now, and ask him to immediately send troops from Fukou to the west into Shangdang County, take the route of Miyuan and Hechuan, attack the flank of Liu Heimin, and attack Linfen with our army, so that Liu Heimin is difficult to take care of, and also completely disrupt the overall plan of Ying Liangxian." ”

"Zuo Dudu, the road of Miyuan and Hechuan is not very easy to walk, especially not suitable for large-scale marching of the army, Dou Jiande is unlikely to answer, right?" Yin Kaishan reminded.

"Give half of the Linfen money and grain to Dou Jiande, and he can take this road to march and collect the currently empty Shangdang County, Dou Jiande will be tempted." Li Jiancheng replied quietly: "I don't need him to send the main force to help me flank Liu Heimin, as long as he sends a partial division all the way, and send more expensive gifts to his subordinate Wenwu, don't worry about disobeying him." ”

Seeing that Li Jiancheng was full of confidence, Yin Kaishan didn't say much, just nodded and agreed, if it could be so best, Li Jiancheng immediately summoned his trump card messenger Wang Jue, and asked him to go to Linwei to meet Dou Jiande with a heavy gift, and asked Dou Jiande to send troops to Shangdang County to attack Liu Heimin's flank, and explained that Wang Jue did not have to be stingy with gold and silver, and could be used to buy Dou Jiande's subordinates. But Li Jiancheng was not very relieved about one thing, and reminded Wang Jue: "Dou Jiande is too upright, and he does not allow his subordinates to seize the people's money, grain and land, his subordinates are not rich, and they are very greedy for gold, silver and jewelry, and it is very easy to buy them to speak for us, but he has a henchman who is an exception, and you must not try to buy it." ”

"Dare to ask Zuo Dudu, who is it?" Wang Qi asked cautiously.

"Wang Fubao." Li Jiancheng replied casually: "Our army's internal intelligence, this Wang Fubao is not only Dou Jiande's right-hand man, but also as Dou Jiande is light on wealth and righteousness, and he hates corruption and bribery, if you bribe him, he will inevitably be furious and report to Dou Jiande, and then maybe it will backfire, and Dou Jiande refused to send troops in anger." ”

Wang Qi remembered Li Jiancheng's advice with his heart, so he hurried to Linwei under the escort of the cavalry to ask Dou Jiande for help, and Li Jiancheng immediately began to arrange an expedition, leaving Li Yuanji, Pei Lin and Feng Li and others to guard the Taiyuan lair, and he and Yin Kaishan, Zhang Lun and other generals led 30,000 troops to the south, rushed to the Bird Mouse Valley to reinforce Li Er and Duan Lun, and arrived in Jiexiu on March 13, officially joining the Bird Mouse Valley battlefield.

Before Li Jiancheng's reinforcements arrived in Jiexiu, Liu Heimin had already fought three more battles with Li Er and Duan Lun in the area of Shen Artillery Land, completely regardless of casualties, forcing Li Er and Duan Lun to fight a war of attrition with himself, and the Taiyuan army, which refused to give up artillery, did not dare to withdraw from the battlefield, and could only build a village according to the mountain and defend it, although it was not taken by Liu Heimin The camp, but also paid a considerable price, and after hearing that Li Jiancheng personally led the reinforcements to arrive in Jiexiu, Liu Heimin, who successfully achieved the main purpose of the tired Taiyuan army, collected his troops and retreated. Save the strength and withdraw to Huoyi to defend the city.

Before leaving, Liu Heimin also wrote another letter and shot into the Taiyuan army camp, openly declaring: "If you like our army's artillery, you can just fish it out, our army's artillery has been soaked in the river for ten days, and it has long been soaked out." You like it, just take it back and use it! ”

Li Er and Duan Lun, who were exhausted and injured by Liu Heimin, were unable to pursue, so they could only watch Liu Heimin lead the army to withdraw from the Bird Mouse Valley with a swagger, and then when Li Jiancheng led the main force to Lingshi, Liu Heimin's entire army had already withdrawn to Huoyi City to rest. Li Jiancheng had no choice but to start salvaging the artillery while discussing the next battle plan with Li Er, Duan Lun and others.

In fact, there is no need to discuss, now the main force of the Taiyuan army has gone south to Lingshi, it is impossible to run in vain, and the main force of the Sui army is still preparing to go out in Daxing, and at the same time, the Sui army of Huoyi has also suffered a lot of damage in the previous battle, such a good opportunity to copy the bottom, it is a retail investor will rush forward, so Li Jiancheng and Li Er and others immediately finalized the decision to continue to attack Huoyi, and also decided to go all out to win Huoyi and seize the initiative in the decisive battle with the main force of the Sui army.

After the destruction of the Sui army, after two full days of hard work, the Taiyuan army finally picked up nine artillery pieces, and the result was that the Li brothers were depressed that these guns made of pig iron seemed to have really been damaged by the river water. It also made Li Jiancheng and Li Er completely dead, and relied on these artillery pieces to break through Huoyi City.

But it doesn't matter if there is no artillery, there is no artillery in the era of cold weapons, and the siege battle is fought, in history, the old Li family can take Huoyi City by relying on soldiers to bite their weapons and climb empty-handed, and now the Li brothers have the upper hand on the local battlefield, and they can still be afraid of Liu Heimin, who has already injured himself in the Battle of Bird and Mouse Valley? Therefore, the Li brothers still led the army towards Huoyi City, and the prelude to the third Huoyi War began.

On the Sui army's side, at the same time as the battle to defend the city, although Liu Heimin still had a rear army available in Linfen, most of the military grain and grass used in the Northern Expedition of the main force of the Sui army were piled up in Linfen City, so Liu Heimin did not add a soldier to Huoyi, and ordered Wei Ziqi and Huo Shiju to stick to Linfen City with all their might, and were not allowed to send troops to the north without authorization, and he personally sat in Huoyi City and commanded the defenders to meet the Li brothers.

Like when they cleaned up Pang Yu, the Li family brothers repeated their old tricks, and once again led a small number of troops by Li Er to provoke under the city, in a vain attempt to provoke Liu Heimin to lure him out of the city to fight, Li Er also once came to the east gate of Huoyi City to scold fiercely, ridiculing Liu Heimin for being just a little thief and handsome, and he was still as timid as a mouse when he climbed to today's position, and he didn't dare to go out of the city to fight with himself.

Li Er's trick is of course useful to Pang Yu, who was born in a famous family, but it has no effect on Liu Heimin, who was born as a gambler, while pulling several generals to gamble in public in the city to show his contempt for the Li brothers, Liu Heimin scolded back: "Li Erlang Pifu, you are a villain who is incorruptible and shameless and untrustworthy, when you were captured by our army on the battlefield of Huoyi, in order to survive in front of our Tang King and beg for mercy, our Tang King put you back, what did you promise us do?" Li Jiancheng's head, when did you send it over? ”

Li Er, who was not suspected of being suspicious because of Chen Fuliang's discordant plan, was furious when he heard it, and immediately scolded, but Liu Heimin didn't pay attention to it, but continued to gamble and play money. Fortunately, the Li brothers did not have much hope for this, and they were still hurrying to build siege weapons during the period, and the next day they began to use shrimp and toad carts to fill the Huoyi moat.

Three days later, the moat of the east gate of Huoyi was filled by the Taiyuan army, Li Jiancheng brothers both went into battle, commanded the army to launch a very fierce assault on Huoyi, Huoyi Sui army under the command of Liu Heimin rose up to meet the battle, with the condescending favorable terrain, with a strong defense to repel the attack of the Taiyuan army, and let the Li brothers pay a lot of casualties in the siege battle.

In fact, Li Er is more afraid of fighting a tough battle than Chen Fuliang, every time he encounters a strong city Xiongguan that is difficult to get down quickly, Li Er, like Chen Fuliang, will immediately ponder opportunistic conspiracies and tricks, seeing that Huoyi City is strong Liu Heimin and has effective command, and it is not easy to grasp Huoyi by storming, but it will definitely cause a lot of casualties. Therefore, on the night of the failure of the attack, Li Er found Li Jiancheng and proposed two construction to Li Jiancheng, the first was to divide a group of troops to go south to attack Yangxian and Yueyang (now Subao Town, Hongdong County), to receive reinforcements that Dou Jiande might send, and also coerced Linfen to create pressure on Liu Heimin, forcing Liu Heimin to return to the army to save the grain land.

The second Jian yì is the most ruthless, in view of the fact that Liu Heimin was only a small thief under Hao Xiaode's command before, and after Chen Fuliang's reuse, he attracted countless jealousies, Li Erti spread rumors, saying that Liu Heimin was afraid that Chen Fuliang would be held accountable because of the defeat in the Bird Mouse Valley, and because Huo Yi was besieged and greedy for life and death, he secretly contacted the Taiyuan Army to beg for surrender under the wavering, and asked Liu Heimin's unconvinced subordinates to make a small report, which separated Liu Heimin and his subordinates from the generals, and made the treacherous and suspicious Chen Fuliang suspicious of Liu Heimin and took the opportunity to take the opportunity to learn from it.

Li Jiancheng, who was also a master of scheming, but didn't like to take risks, accepted the two construction of the second brother with only a little calculation, and decided to send Yin Kaishan to lead an army of 5,000 south to attack Yang County and Yueyang, and then immediately discussed with the second brother how to frame Liu Heimin's conspiracy, and immediately began to implement it............

Liu Heimin, who quickly climbed from a small surrender thief to a senior member, was indeed very jealous of his colleagues, and Li Er's hand really hit him to the vital point, but the danger of Liu Heimin and the Hedong Sui army was not only like this. On the same day, Li Jiancheng's envoy Wang Qishun arrived at Dou Jiande's old nest in Linwei City, and immediately sent a large number of valuable gifts to Dou Jiande's poor subordinates, and met Dou Jiande the next day, on behalf of Li Jiancheng, he asked Dou Jiande to send troops to the party and attack Liu Heimin's flank.

Wang Jue soon found out that his gift was completely for nothing, in fact, not only all the civil and military forces under Dou Jiande coveted the Shangdang, but even Wang Fubao, the general of the Dou army who Li Jiancheng did not dare to bribe, was very much in favor of sending troops to the west, seizing the Shangdang and looking down on Hedong, waiting for the opportunity to enter Guanzhong. However, Wang Fubao did not enter the Hedong battlefield now, and directly carried the main force of the Sui army that was about to send troops to Taiyuan.

Wang Fubao's construction is of course good, but it's a pity, Dou Jiande is too righteous and too trustworthy, and he doesn't want to go back on what he promised Li Jiancheng, and because Li Jiancheng just implored Dou Jiande to send a partial division into the Hedong battlefield to threaten Liu Heimin's flank, so all the civil and military forces under Dou Jiande, who received Wang Qi's benefits, felt that they should not lose their trust, even if they didn't send the main force, they would send a partial division of about 10,000 people to help Li Jiancheng, and finally Dou Jiande made a decision and decided to accept Li Jiancheng's plea. Sent 10,000 troops to the Hedong battlefield to help clean up the accomplice lackeys of the thief Chen Fuliang.

It's easy to make a decision, and when Dou Jiande asked who could take on this important task, that is, who dared to lead the division to help Li Jiancheng, the fierce generals under the command of King Changle all closed their mouths, and then exchanged a few glances with each other, and these fierce generals and brave generals said in one voice: "Your Highness, General Wang Fubao Wang can fight well, is wise and brave, and is worthy of a great task, and the last general and others unanimously believe that General Wang should take on this responsibility!" ”

Wang Fubao was originally opposed to entering Hedong now, and when he saw that his colleagues were pushing themselves to the front, of course they were extremely angry and refused. But Dou Jiande also felt that Wang Fubao, who was the most capable and brainy under his command, was the most reliable in this matter, and forced Wang Fubao to accept the order, and Wang Fubao, who was loyal to Dou Jiande, had no choice but to accept the order obediently. And seeing Wang Fubao's sullen appearance, the generals of the Dou Army, who were jealous of his merits and achievements, and were about to go crazy with jealousy, were all very happy in their hearts, and said secretly: "Go!" It's better to die on the battlefield in Hedong and never come back! ”R1148