After late December, the rebels stopped their offensive to the west, and An Lushan sought to become emperor in Luoyang. Gao Xianzhi led his troops to retreat into Tongguan, and Li Longji issued several holy decrees to reprimand and reprimand the reasons for the fiasco of the Eastern Expeditionary Army, and Gao Xianzhi hurriedly stated on the table.

Bian Lingcheng was worried that this fiasco would affect his way to promotion, and because the conflict with Gao Xianzhi had intensified, so he rushed to the emperor of Chang'an, saying that Gao Xianzhi abandoned Shaanxi County and retreated to Tongguan, surrendered hundreds of miles of land to the rebels, and stole the food given to the sergeants.

The real situation is that after the defeat of the Eastern Expeditionary Army at Wugao Pass, there was no danger to defend when it retreated to Shaanxi County, and there was a shortage of grain and grass in the army, so it was wise to withdraw to Tongguan to accumulate strength.

Li Longji was furious after receiving Bian Lingcheng's report, even if Gao Xianzhi's complaint was on the table, he also preconceived that Gao Xianzhi was guilty, and gave Bian Lingcheng an edict ordering him to go to the army to kill Gao Xianzhi.

On the afternoon of December 20, a light snow fell in the Tongguan area, and the snowflakes drifted like catkins on the shoulders of the soldiers standing guard behind the female wall.

Bian Lingcheng wore a cloak and held an edict, led the sword and axe hand to the meeting hall of the Tongguan City Tower, and smiled at Gao Xianzhi, who was sitting in front of the Xuanbao screen, and said, "Marshal Gao, Your Majesty has an edict for you."

Gao Xianzhi hurriedly got up and knelt on the ground to receive the order, and Bian Lingcheng pulled open the yellow silk of the decree and read aloud: "Your Majesty!" Gao Xianzhi was in vain in the grace of the saint, first defeated in the military prison, and then abandoned Shaanxi County for hundreds of miles, and now he is greedy for food for the soldiers, so that the army's heart is discouraged. How kind did I treat you in the past, giving you officials and knights and rewarding you with ten thousand gold, and this is how you repaid me? Thinking of you and my monarchs and ministers, only you will be condemned, and when the letter arrives, you will immediately ask and behead the heart of the army. ”

Bian Lingcheng closed the edict and immediately ordered to the left and right: "Escort Gao Xianzhi to the city and behead him!"

Gao Xianzhi raised his head angrily and said loudly: "I was defeated by the enemy and retreated, and I deserved to die." Today, there is heaven and earth below, and it is purely a false accusation to say that I have stolen and reduced the food rations of the soldiers!"

Bian Lingcheng laughed coldly: "This is Your Majesty's edict, what is written on it is Your Majesty's meaning, you say that Your Majesty framed you?" Around! Push it out and slash it!"

Li Chengguang and other generals entered the hall, and when they saw this, they hurriedly knelt down and pleaded with Bian Lingcheng: "Border Supervision Army!" It is a taboo for soldiers to kill the general in battle, and I also ask the prison army to intercede with His Majesty, and let Generalissimo Gao treat the crime and make meritorious service!"

Bian Lingcheng was willing to listen, raised his chin and sat proudly on the handsome seat, waved his hand and said: "Gao Xianzhi's sin is unforgivable, how can you allow you to intercede!" Push it out and slash!"

Gao Xianzhi was escorted out of the conference hall by the knife and axe hand, and a group of generals and soldiers gathered outside the door, snow fell from the iron armor on their shoulders, and knelt on the ground to plead: "Marshal Gao can't be killed, Marshal Gao didn't steal the grain!"

For a time, all the soldiers on the entire Tongguan city wall knelt down with spears and shouted that the marshal was wronged, but Bian Lingcheng refused to listen, and a generation of famous generals Gao Xianzhi died at the head of Tongguan City.

After Gao Xianzhi was killed, Bian Lingcheng felt that his surroundings were full of hostility, and he was afraid of being assassinated, so he ordered Li Chengguang to temporarily take charge of the military, and hurriedly asked the emperor to transfer him from Tongguan back to Chang'an.

Tongguan is temporarily guarded by a powerful general, and if An Lushan attacks at this time, he will definitely be able to drive straight in, but this sheep thief is busy claiming the emperor.

Chang'an City was in danger, the people were panicked, Li Longji decided to use the Longyou Jiedu envoy Ge Shuhan, who was recuperating at home, and ordered him to lead the newly recruited soldiers in Guanzhong, as well as to dispatch various guards and horses in Beijing, including a part of the Longwu Army and the Yulin Army, a total of 200,000 people, to go to Tongguan to garrison against the rebels, and the emperor was tantamount to betting all the treasures on him alone.

Ge Shuhan resigned on the grounds of serious illness, but the emperor repeatedly issued an order to reward him with the right servant of the Pingzhangshi monk of Zhongshu Men, and his old subordinates of Longyou, Tian Xingqiu as the deputy, Wang Sili as the commander of the horse army, and Li Chengguang as the commander of the infantry army. Under such a warm welcome from the emperor, the veteran had to get off the horse, and Li Longji personally gave him a meal and ordered hundreds of officials to send him off in the suburbs.

Insert a digression, this is the third general of the Xuanzong Dynasty to enjoy this kind of treatment among the generals of the Xuanzong Dynasty in addition to An Lushan and Li Siye. One of the first two had already rebelled, and the other had too many troops, so that the emperor was too worried to summon him to lead his troops into the pass.

After Ge Shuhan led his army to Tongguan, the first thing he did was to intercept false information and frame his old rival An Sishun to secretly pass An Lushan.

Although An Sishun and An Lushan are cousins, their positions have always been different, as early as before An Lushan's rebellion, An Sishun repeatedly appealed to the emperor, pointing out An Lushan's bad intentions, but Li Longji did not listen. Therefore, after An Lushan's rebellion, Li Longji successively killed An Lushan's eldest son and dozens of his cronies in Chang'an, but trusted An Sishun and ordered him to return to Beijing to serve as the head of the household. Now Brother Shuhan made a plan to falsely accuse An Sishun, and the emperor was not credible. However, Ge Shuhan was in charge of the military power in Guanzhong, and the emperor needed to rely on him to lead the troops to win, so he had to agree to give An Sishun and his brother An Jizhen to death, and exile his relatives to Lingnan.

Among them, Ge Shuhan's confidant general Wang Sili secretly plotted, Wang Sili and Longyou generals once suggested that Ge Shuhan count Yang Guozhong's crimes, and ask the emperor to kill Yang Guozhong, imitating the strategy of the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms in the Han Dynasty. Although Ge Shuhan did not do this, these rumors in the Tongguan army leaked to Yang Guozhong's ears.

Because Ge Shuhan had recently unjustly killed An Sishun, Yang Guozhong was worried, so he wrote to the emperor, asking for the recruitment of 10,000 elite soldiers to be stationed in Ba, led by his henchman Du Qianyun, ostensibly to guard against the rebels, but in fact to guard against Ge Shuhan. Ge Shuhan knew this, so the emperor included this army under his command, and designed to kill Du Qianyou. This made Yang Guozhong and Ge Shuhan suspicious of each other and full of contradictions.

At this time, Yang Guozhong's heart must have been desperate, and it was rumored that An Lushan was forced by him to rebel, not only An Lushan played the banner of the Qing monarch's side, but even Li Siye and Ge Shuhan of Hexi Domain tried to force the emperor to kill him.

The first year of this Shenzhou catastrophe has passed, and An Lushan is proclaiming himself emperor in Luoyang in the New Year, with the country name Dayan and the year name the first year of Shengwu.

However, soon after An Lushan became emperor, Dongping Taishou Wu Wangyi and Jinan Taishou jointly raised troops to resist the rebels, and the counties and counties were unwilling to attach the thieves to respond, and Yan Zhenqing, the Taishou of the Plains, recruited tens of thousands of soldiers to raise troops, and many counties in Hebei began to set things right, respecting Yan Zhenqing as the leader of the alliance to meet to fight the thieves and wait for the imperial court to reinforce. Then there was Changshan Taishou Yan Gaoqing raised troops to kill An Lushan's righteous son Li Qincuo, and contacted the counties to start a rebellion. Guo Ziyi led his army to defeat the Jingbian army of the rebel general Gao Xiuyan in Hedong one after another.

Xuanzong was overjoyed when he heard this, thinking that the rebel army was declining, so he had the idea of recovering the eastern capital. He gave Ge Shuhan an order to go out of Shaanxi County to attack Luoyang.

Ge Shuhan knew that he had a lot of recruits in his hands, and his combat effectiveness was extremely weak, and the rebels concentrated most of their forces on the front line of Tongguan, as long as he held on to Tongguan, An Lushan would not be able to advance westward for a long time, and the army's morale would naturally be weakened, and it would be defeated for a long time.

Ge Shuhan explained his plan to the emperor, but Yang Guozhong believed that Ge Shuhan refused to enter the army in Tongguan for a long time because he had other ideas, or wanted to force the emperor to kill him. The contradiction between the generals made Li Longji listen to and believe partially, and he had doubts in his heart.

An Lushan handed over the task of attacking Tongguan to the general Cui Qianyou, after Cui Qianyou arrived, he led thousands of sick and weak soldiers to call for battle under Tongguan every day, Ge Shuhan did not move, and Yang Guozhong's eyes and ears in Tongguan then transmitted the matter back to Chang'an.

Yang Guozhong said in front of the emperor that the rebels were in decline, and Li Longji also thought so, thinking that the time had come to counterattack on the frontal battlefield, and ordered several holy decrees to force Ge Shuhan to go out of the pass and fight the rebels.

Can Goshuhan disobey? He can't, he has the loyalty of Wang Zhonghe, but he does not have the character of Wang Zhonghe, Tianbao's ten years of tragic victory in the stone castle has foreshadowed his fate today.

Under the urging of the holy decree, he wept and led the army out of the pass, and the rebel general Cui Qianyou first defeated with stragglers, leading the Tang army into the canyon between the mountains of Lingbao Xiyuan, and shot countless arrows with stones and arrows on the mountain, Ge Shuhan urgently ordered the felt cart to open the road in front, and the rebels set fire to a large number of straw carts and pushed them down the valley, and the road was blocked by thick smoke in an instant, and the Tang army fired arrows indiscriminately, and only knew the plan when it was dark. Cui Qianyou sent elite cavalry from the west of the Yellow River to the back of the Tang army to attack Geshuhan, the Tang army was defeated before and after, and the soldiers threw themselves into the Yellow River one after another, drowning countless people.

Ge Shuhan and some of his soldiers climbed onto the grain ship on the bank of the Yellow River and escaped on the other side of the river, and he fled back to Tongguan in the early morning of the next day, but was abducted by the general Huoba Guiren and others to surrender to the rebels and escorted to Luoyang.

The news of Ge Shuhan's fiasco came back to Chang'an, and in the middle of the night, Gao Lishi hurriedly ran to Li Longji's couch and said, "Your Majesty, the big thing is not good! Ge Shuhan was defeated in Tongguan, and Chang'an is in danger, please summon your majesty to summon civil and military officials to retreat to Shuzhong for temporary refuge!"

The whole Daming Palace became a pot of porridge, the emperor summoned Yang Guozhong and Wei Jiansu, and ordered the Longwu army to escort Luan, and informed all the sons who should be notified, and the concubine and the palace maid boarded the vehicle with a package, and those who did not have a car could only run behind the team, and from time to time there were cries coming from the corners of the palace.

The crown prince Li Heng seems to have been prepared, and the chariot has been set up outside the Sixteen Princes' Mansion and the East Palace, and the six rates of the East Palace under his command have also been reorganized into a marching array, taking the initiative to act as the vanguard and rearguard of the emperor's fleeing team.

Li Longji walked out of the palace with the support of Yang Yuhuan and Yang Guozhong, and looked back reluctantly at the palace bell on the eaves of the Chengxiang Hall of Daming Palace at sunset.

The crown prince Li Heng knelt in front of the car and said: "Please also ask your father to board the dragon chariot quickly, and the son is willing to lead the Donggong Qingdao rate to lead the father and emperor in front!"

After Li Longji sighed, he praised Li Heng rarely: "It's still my son's thoughtfulness, and he really lives up to my expectations, and the matter of travel will be handed over to you and General Chen Xuanli, and you will discuss it."

After that, he and Concubine Yang raised their legs and prepared to board the car.

"Oh," Li Heng hurriedly raised his hands and said, "Father, there is one more thing ......"

He naturally knew what the prince wanted to say, so he immediately turned his head and said to Gao Lishi, who was standing next to him: "Immediately prepare the imperial pen, yellow silk, and order Li Siye to be the Pingzhang of the Zhongshu Gate, and the envoy of the four towns to camp and the festival, and lead the people of Hexi, Anxi, Beiting, and Longyou to enter the customs to ask for thieves." Since the date of the issuance of the edict, all military and political dignitaries in the four towns of Longyou Province have been appointed, armed, recruited, rewarded and punished. ”

"Huh," even Gao Lishi, who has never been moody, has a light smile on the corner of his mouth.

Yang Guozhong stood aside and quietly glanced up at the emperor, as if he wanted to say something, but he pursed his lips and did it.