Li Mi is very strategic, he said to Zhai Rang: "Xingyang, a strategic place in the Central Plains, is a plain in the east and a tiger prison in the west. Gong County, west of Tiger Prison Pass, has a large granary of Sui - Luokou Cang. As long as we capture Luokoucang, we can not only get a large amount of grain, but also approach the eastern capital Luoyang. ”

Zhai Rang affirmed Li Mi's suggestion. In the twelfth year of the Great Cause (616 AD), Zhai Rang and Li Mi led the Wagang army to capture the fortress Jindi Pass, and entered Xingyang City.

Zhang Xutuo was a veteran of suppressing the peasant rebellion, and when he heard that Yang Guang had sent Zhang Xutuo to deal with them, the high-spirited Zhai Rang suddenly wilted like a cucumber beaten by frost. He began to retreat, preparing to lead his army to evacuate Xingyang and avoid confrontation with Zhang Xutuo.

It's really strange, although the name of this Sutuo is powerful in the Central Plains, Zhai Rang shouldn't be afraid to be so embarrassed, how can a timid person be a good general? What's more, the morale of the army is high now, and if it really fights Zhang Xutuo, it is difficult to say whether the victory or defeat will be won.

Later, I heard from others that I learned that Zhai Rang had dealt with Zhang Xutuo before, and he was a defeated subordinate of Zhang Xutuo. As the saying goes: "Once bitten by a snake, ten years afraid of the well rope." "Well, thinking about it this way, I can understand Zhai Rang's complicated feelings, but I don't think it's a good thing to escape, especially in the duel on the battlefield, being a coward will never work.

Li Mi also thought that he couldn't give up the idea of attacking Xingyang, and he analyzed with Zhai Rang: "Zhang Xutuo is brave and unstrategic, to put it bluntly, he is a reckless man, not to mention that Yang Guang gave him 20,000 troops this time, not to mention the combat effectiveness of our Wagang army, at least it is far superior to them in numbers." Let's analyze Zhang Xutuo's strategy when fighting, it is not difficult to find that there is no special skill, it is nothing more than bravery, and Zhang Xutuo also has a fatal weakness. ”

"What Achilles' heel?" Zhai Rang hurriedly asked.

Li Mi smiled and continued: "Zhang Xutuo's character is very arrogant, as the saying goes, 'arrogant soldiers will be defeated', we can take advantage of his weakness and take him down in one fell swoop, what else is there to be afraid of?" ”

Zhai Rang listened, nodded vigorously, frowned, seemed to agree with Li Mi's opinion, but he was still a little worried, and then asked, "May I ask if Mr. has you thought of a countermeasure for the battle?" ”

"Of course."

"Tell me about it." Zhai Rang's eyes suddenly lit up, he should have seen hope, and he desperately wanted to be ashamed.

"It's not convenient to say now, you'll know then." Li Mi said pretending to be mysterious.

On the 17th day of November in the 12th year of the Great Cause (616 AD), Zhang Xutuo led 20,000 elites to wait for us in Xingyang Dahai Temple, he did not seem to put his defeated general Zhai Rang and our soldiers in his eyes, as Li Mi analyzed, this person was too reckless.

Zhang Xutuo attacked us without even arranging his troops. We were outnumbered, but otherwise we were all armed: hard armor and elite weapons, while we were broken armor and agricultural tools such as iron forks and nail rakes, and when the two collided, we were immediately crushed, and we threw down our weapons and ran back, and I was no exception.

I really don't understand what Li Mi's plan is, or does it fail before it is implemented? I can't care about it so much, it's still important to live a little bit, thinking like this, I can't help but speed up the pace of escape. Zhang Xutuo behind him is leading the army in pursuit.

Zhang Xutuo's army chased us for more than ten miles, unconsciously, we have come to the forest north of the Great Sea Temple, only to see that the road in front is getting narrower and narrower, and the forest is getting denser and denser.

Zhai Rang immediately turned around and led us to fight back against Zhang Xutuo's army, it turned out that this was Li Mi's plan, perhaps because he was worried that this plan would be leaked, so we were all still in the dark, and we couldn't react for a while.

Now we instantly changed from passive to active, Zhang Xutuo's army was in chaos, fleeing in all directions, but to no avail, these 20,000 Sui Dynasty elites are afraid that they are unable to compete with us, and they were lured to this narrow dense forest, and they were surrounded by us layer by layer, even if they put their wings, it is difficult to fly.

Zhang Xutuo also tried to lead the generals to escape alive, but we used our bodies to form one wall after another, and they were trapped in this circle and could not escape. At first, they all struggled to resist, but after a while, they all abandoned their troops and gave up their useless struggles.

But what is amazing is that Zhang Xutuo is really Zhang Xutuo, the name of "Wei Zhen Dongxia" is really not blown, he has been ordering his subordinates Luo Shixin, Qin Shubao and others to fight out of the encirclement, after a long time of fighting, Zhang Xutuo actually really killed the general, but he was the only one who escaped, Li Mi hurriedly sent some people to block him, but he didn't expect that Zhang Xutuo, who was heavy on love and righteousness, saw that his subordinates were still trapped in the encirclement, and immediately reined in the horse and killed back.

After all, it is too strong, Zhang Xutuo was able to kill the bloody mouth again and again under our layers of surrounding, he rescued many people with his own strength, maybe he was infected by his momentum, Zhang Xutuo's subordinates were like chicken blood, and suddenly exerted force, and our Wagang Army also fell batch after batch of people.

Li Mi and Zhai Rang saw that it was not a way to spend money with them like this, and immediately ordered the encirclement to be gradually reduced, as the saying goes, "capture the thief first and capture the king first", Li Mi dispatched a part of the army to suppress Zhang Xutuo. Zhang Xutuo was extremely brave and couldn't get close at all, but his two fists were hard to beat his four hands, and after fighting hard for so long, he gradually got tired and was hit by a lot of arrows on his body.

When he entered the siege for the last time to save people, we once again contracted the encirclement, and finally besieged Zhang Xutuo, at this time his body was full of holes, and the armor on his body was stained red with blood, and under the reflection of the sun, it emitted a terrifying bloody light.

"The defeat is so far, how can I see the Son of Heaven?" Zhang Xutuo raised the sky and wailed, and jumped off the war horse. Because it was inconvenient to wield a knife and a gun in a small area, Zhang Xutuo took out a dagger, and still fought bloodily, and finally died of exhaustion and fell forever in a pool of blood.

The 20,000 elites had already lost most of them and their morale was low, and now they saw that the commander had died in battle, and they immediately cried bitterly and gave up resistance completely. Zhang Xutuo's generals Luo Shixin and Qin Shubao saw that they could not break out of the encirclement, and the commander was dead, so they finally surrendered to our Wagang army.

To be honest, in the battle of Xingyang Dahai Temple, Li Mi's strategy is really not very clever, arranging ambushes in key places, this is a relatively common trick in history, this time it is nothing more than to capture Zhang Xutuo's arrogant and arrogant nature, if Zhang Xutuo is a little cautious, maybe the result of the battle of Dahai Temple will be different.

But then again, the victory in this war made Li Mi's status in the Wagang army rise rapidly. At the same time, it also made the officials of the surrounding counties feel frightened, they must have thought in their hearts, even such a strong general of the Sui Dynasty is not the opponent of our Wagang army, who else can compete with us? It has played a great deterrent role, which will be very helpful for our future actions.

After hearing that we had defeated Zhang Xutuo's army, he hurriedly sent Liu Changgong and Pei Renji to lead more than 25,000 people, wanting to attack us in two ways.

Occupied the first granary of the Sui Dynasty - Luokoucang, and annihilated the Sui army sent by the eastern capital Luoyang, so we got a large amount of grain and armor, and our strength instantly increased again. Our reputation has been shattered by this, and heroes from all walks of life have joined us in the uprising.

After occupying Luokoucang, Li Mi asked us to open all the grain cellars and let the common people take them as much as they wanted. The people who have been hungry for a long time are naturally very grateful to us, and some poor peasants have joined our Wagang army.

In February, the peasant regime at the end of the Sui Dynasty - "Wei" was established in Wagangzhai, Li Mi was the marshal, called "Wei Gong", and Zhai Rang, who greatly admired Li Mi and took the initiative to cede power, was the Shangzhu State, and set up three divisions and six guards.

In April, Li Mi commanded us to capture another large granary of the Sui Dynasty, Huiluocang.

In September, we broke through the Liyang warehouse again, once again opened the warehouse to release grain, and our Wagang army added more than 200,000 personnel. The three granaries were seized, and it is estimated that Emperor Yang of Sui was already in turmoil at the moment.

In addition, Li Mi also ordered someone to draft a crusade against Emperor Yang of Sui, which denounced Emperor Yang of Sui's ten major crimes: killing the monarch's father, killing meritorious heroes, favoring traitors, and rewarding and punishing untrustworthy...... And spread it all over the world.

At this time, Taishan Taoist priest Xu Hongke was worried that the food would not be enough for so many people, and he suggested: "Taking advantage of the high morale and well-equipped now, we should advance eastward along the river and attack Jiangdu directly." ”

Chai Xiaoheli, the former official of the Sui Dynasty, persuaded Li Mixi to enter Guanzhong, first establish a solid base in Guanzhong, and then meet with the Wagang army east of the Yellow River, so that it would be easy to win the world. Now that the heroes of the Sui Dynasty are competing to defect, if we don't capture it earlier, someone will definitely rush ahead of us, and it will be too late for us to regret it at that time. ”

In fact, Xu Hongke and Chai Xiaohe's strategies are very good, but Li Mi thinks: "Now that the mediocre king is still alive, his army is still very strong, and my subordinates are all Shandong heroes, seeing that Luoyang has not yet been captured, who is willing to march west with me?" ”

In this way, Li Mi decided to lead his troops to besiege the eastern capital of Luoyang.

In October, Yang Guang sent the general Wang Shichong to lead the army to the rescue, and launched a continuous battle with us near Luoyang. We were in a disadvantageous state in the early stage, so we were a little powerless when fighting against Wang Shichong, and we were about to lose, but fortunately, a large number of rebels and official troops came to support, and we finally defeated Wang Shichong, and this war was really thrilling.