In the "Sui and Tang Dynasties", there was a very famous story called 'three whips for two hammers', which was widely circulated.
The main story of this story is that at the end of the Sui Dynasty and the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin led an army to conquer Liu Wuzhou. At that time, there was a general under Li Shimin named Qin Qiong, and a general under Liu Wuzhou named Wei Chigong, and both of them were very capable of fighting. Hundreds of rounds were played before the game, regardless of whether they won or lost.
Finally, Wei Chigong let out a speech, saying that they would hit each other's bodies to see whoever could not stand it first would lose. As a result, after Qin Qiong had hit two hammers, Wei Chigong retreated and vomited blood, saying that he couldn't stand it. Qin Qiong, on the other hand, also retreated and vomited blood after receiving Wei Chigong's third whip.
After this war, both recognized each other's strength and had the meaning of pity for each other. Later, Li Shimin designed to defeat Liu Wuzhou, and Wei Chigong was also subdued by Li Shimin and became the most powerful general under Li Shimin.
The story of 'three whips for two hammers' has been widely circulated for thousands of years, and there are several versions, and the above is only one of them. In the right history, Qin Qiong and Wei Chigong were definitely not so stupid, and they would stand there and resist each other's fights. However, this war in which Li Shimin conquered Liu Wuzhou did exist in history.
Moreover, this battle, for the then nascent Li Tang Dynasty, can be said to be crucial.
1. Fire in the backyard
In July of the thirteenth year of Daye, with Li Yuan's army in Taiyuan, the curtain was officially opened on Li Tang's unification of the world.
On November 9, Li Yuan officially led an army to attack Chang'an; on November 13, Li Yuan proclaimed Yang You, the acting king, as emperor.
In March of the fourteenth year of Daye, a coup d'état broke out in Jiangdu and Yang Guang died; in May, Li Yuan forced Yang You to take the throne and the Tang Dynasty began. In June, Li Shimin led an army to the west to meet Xue Ju of Western Qin; in September, Xue Ju died of illness; in November, the Battle of Shallow Water Plains broke out, and Li Shimin defeated Xue Ju's son Xue Rengao, expanding Li Tang's sphere of influence to the land of Hexi.
At the beginning of the second year of WuDe, the Tang Dynasty killed Li Rail, the King of Liang, in a counter-plot, and at this point, Guanzhong and the area west of Guanzhong were all under the control of the Li family.
However, at the same time, as Li Yuan led a large army out of Taiyuan, Taiyuan's follow-up guards were empty. Liu Wuzhou, who was north of Taiyuan, saw this opportunity and began to raise troops to the south, hoping to take advantage of the emptiness of Taiyuan to take Taiyuan.
Speaking of this Liu Wuzhou, he is also a very interesting person. This man was originally a lieutenant of Yingyang Province in the Mayi region of Shanxi, and in February of the thirteenth year of Daye, he led an army uprising. It was precisely because he rebelled, and at that time the Sui Emperor wanted to hold Li Yuan accountable, because Li Yuan was the highest person in charge of the Taiyuan region at that time, which forced Li Yuan to raise an army as well.
After Li Yuan raised his army, he set a strategy of going south to take Guanzhong first. For Liu Wuzhou in the north, it is mainly defensive. At that time, in order to prevent Liu Wuzhou from going south, Li Yuan left his third son Li Yuanji to guard Taiyuan. At the same time, because Li Yuanji was too young, Li Yuan later sent many capable generals and many reinforcements to Li Yuanji. Logically, as long as Li Yuanji chooses to stick to it, there should be no problem in the Taiyuan area at all.
But the problem is that Li Yuan's third son is really a bit of a nest. In the second year of Wu De, when he heard that Liu Wuzhou had sent a large army to Taiyuan, he actually let his subordinates resist and slipped away with his family first!
I have to say that Li Yuan gave birth to such a nest son, and he was indeed speechless enough. However, li Yuanji's withdrawal will cause great disasters. You must know that Li Yuan originally started with the Taiyuan area. Later, although Chang'an was taken and the capital was Chang'an, the Taiyuan area was still his old lair. Now that the old nest has been taken down, this is undoubtedly a major loss for the newborn Li Tang Dynasty.
Moreover, Li Yuan operated in the Taiyuan area for many years, leaving behind a large number of grain, grass, weapons, and men. Because of Li Yuanji's withdrawal, these things fell into the hands of Liu Wuzhou. Most of Shanxi, centered on Taiyuan, also fell into the hands of Liu Wuzhou. At that time, the Tang Dynasty was on the east bank of the Yellow River, and only the southwestern Jin Dynasty remained.
In this way, the war between the Li family and Liu Wuzhou was inevitable.
2. Battle and dilemma
In the face of the fall of Taiyuan, two different voices appeared within the Tang Dynasty at that time.
One is led by Li Yuan, who advocates the temporary abandonment of Taiyuan. The reason why Li Yuan had this kind of thought at that time was not because he was afraid of Liu Wuzhou, but because he had other plans. Because Li Yuan started his army, he planned to take Chang'an first, and then attack Luoyang. Unfortunately, after Li Yuan took Chang'an, before he had time to attack in the direction of Luoyang, Xue Ju in the west came over, so he had to turn to Xue Ju first.
Therefore, when Liu Wuzhou came over, Li Yuan had two choices at this time. The first is to take Luoyang first, as long as Luoyang is taken, then it is only a matter of time before the entire north is taken. One is to kill Liu Wuzhou first, and if you go to deal with Liu Wuzhou, once Wang Shichong of Luoyang becomes bigger, then if he wants to take Luoyang, the difficulty will increase sharply.
The other was led by Li Shimin, who was the King of Qin at the time, and advocated fighting Liu Wuzhou first.
Li Shimin's reason is also very simple. He insisted that Taiyuan was the place where Li Yuan's army was raised and must not be lost. Once lost, there would be no longer any barrier for the north to resist the Turks, and the morale of the Tang army would also plummet.
In the end, Li Yuan decided to let Li Shimin lead an army to retake Taiyuan.
This battle is obviously not easy to fight.
At that time, Liu Wuzhou's side, because of the reason that he had already occupied Taiyuan, was at its peak. On the other hand, Li Yuan is at a low ebb. When Liu Wuzhou's army went south, Li Yuan had actually begun to try to remedy it, so that pei Ning, the right servant of the Tang Dynasty at that time, led the army to resist, hoping to take back Taiyuan when Liu Wuzhou had not yet gained a firm foothold. As a result, Li Yuanwan did not expect that Pei Ning, the old minister who had made the greatest contribution in the process of the Taiyuan uprising, was not good at leading the army at all. As a result, the Tang army suffered an unprecedented rout, and Pei Huan only fled with his own body. After the defeat of Pei's army, Li Yuanji gave up resistance and fled directly back to Chang'an.
It was in this situation that Li Shimin led a large army to come, and finally confronted Song Jingang, the number one general under Liu Wuzhou, in the baibi (present-day southwest of Xindi, Shanxi).
The famous Battle of Baibi in the history of the late Sui Dynasty was thus fought.
3. The Battle of Baibi
At the beginning of the Battle of Baibi, Liu Wuzhou's army had already occupied most of Shanxi, which was equivalent to occupying the first hand. On the part of Li Shimin, it is equivalent to a backhand, and the situation is not optimistic.
However, At that time, Li Shimin soon noticed a weakness in Liu Wuzhou's army.
That's food and grass supply.
You must know that only two years ago, Li Yuan had started his army from Shanxi and fought all the way to Chang'an. In the process, Li Yuan's army had already consumed a large amount of supplies. The granaries accumulated by the Sui Dynasty for many years east of the Yellow River were basically consumed by Li Yuan's army. As for Taiyuan, although liu Wuzhou ate a large number of people and horses, there was still not enough grain and grass.
On the other hand, Li Yuan, occupying the entire Guanzhong region, has a really great advantage in grain and grass.
In this situation, fighting a war of attrition is undoubtedly more beneficial to the Tang army.
Therefore, after the Tang army arrived in the Baibi area, Li Shimin began to play the trick of Jianbi Qingye. Coupled with the fact that the Li family has been operating in Shanxi for many years, the civil foundation is much better than that of Liu Wuzhou. Therefore, the people of Shanxi are also more inclined to the Li family. In this way, it was even more difficult for Liu Wuzhou to collect supplies.
In the long run, the Song Jingang department that confronted Li Shimin would definitely be dragged down.
In the course of the confrontation, Li Shimin did not forget to send a small army to harass Song Jingang and listen to the enemy's intelligence. Sometimes, even dare to fight in person. It is said that on the most dangerous occasion, Li Shimin led his guards to investigate intelligence, and because he was too tired on the way, he lay down on a hill and fell asleep, only to be bumped into by the passing Song Jingang army. However, at that time, there happened to be a snake chasing mice, which woke up the guards who were sleeping with Li Shimin, which found Song Jingang's army and fled for their lives.
It is said that in recent times, the two sides are only less than 100 steps apart. Later, it was Li Shimin who shot an arrow at the commander of the enemy soldiers, and only then did he escape.
In this way, Li Shimin probably had to thank the snake that woke him up. If there was no such snake, it is estimated that there would be no later Tang Taizong.
Danger is danger, but as long as the two armies continue to confront each other, the longer it lasts, the more favorable it will be to the Tang army. The decline of Song Jingang seems to be just a matter of time.
But in fact, another thing happened that changed Li Shimin's entire plan.
Because at that time, when Li Yuan sent a large army to attack Liu Wuzhou, he did not just send Li Shimin's army. He also had Li Xiaoji the Prince of Yong'an, Yu Jun, the governor of Shaanzhou, Shangshu Dugu Huai'en of the Ministry of Works, and Tang Jian, the Inner History Attendant, attack Xia County from another direction. As a result, the other Tang army was like a bamboo at the beginning, but soon it crashed into the hands of Chi Gong, the number one general under Song Jingang. After a major battle between the two sides, the Tang army was greatly defeated, and several leading generals were either killed or captured.
The defeat of the Other Tang Army made Li Shimin's side a lone army all the way, and he could no longer continue to fight a war of attrition in the qingye. Because if you continue to fight like that, you can only wait to be surrounded by Liu Wuzhou from all directions. Therefore, Li Shimin finally began to take the initiative to fight at this time.
In the first battle, Li Shimin first found Wei Chigong, who had previously defeated another Tang army, which was the prototype of the battle in history of 'three whips and two hammers'. Of course, in the right history, Second Master Qin would certainly not stand stupid and let Wei Chigong fight. Moreover, in this battle, the two sides were not victorious or defeated, but the Tang army defeated Wei Chigong in one battle and beheaded more than two thousand levels.
This battle was the first time since the Tang army and Liu Wuzhou fought each other that the Tang army won a complete victory. The victory in this battle also completely boosted the morale of the Tang army and changed the situation in which the Tang army had been suppressed since the beginning of the war.
After this battle, with the consumption of grain and grass, the Song Jingang army began to show fatigue, and the situation gradually began to change, and the Tang army became more favorable. By the middle of April of the third year of Wude, Song Jingang's side finally ran out of grain and grass and had to choose to retreat.
This retreat is a great rout.
Li Shimin, who had experienced hundreds of battles, naturally would not give up this opportunity to wait for several times, and led his army to pursue all the way, beating Song Jingang to a terrible end. In the end, after the Tang army pursued to the area of quescatch Valley (southwest of Jiexiu County), it finally completely crushed the Song Jingang army, engaged eight times in one day, or killed or captured tens of thousands of people, and the Tang army finally won a great victory.
Of course, at this time, the Tang Army had also reached its limit. It is said that at that time, Li Shimin had not removed his armor for three days and had not eaten for two days and two nights. After defeating Song Jingang, the entire Tang army was left with only one sheep as rations, and tens of thousands of Tang troops were divided into food.
Tens of thousands of people are divided into a sheep, and the battle to this part is really tragic enough.
After the Battle of Que rat valley, although the Tang army was exhausted, Song Jingang had also reached its limit. After Song Jingang fled back to Jiexiu City, although there were still 20,000 soldiers and horses under his command, these 20,000 people were already exhausted to the extreme. In the end, the two sides fought a great battle under Jiexiu City, the Tang army won a complete victory, and Song Jingang fled on horseback.
After Song Jingang escaped, although there were still remnants of soldiers guarding the city, there were also fierce generals like Wei Chigong guarding the town. But no matter how you look at it, at this time, Jiexiu City is already an isolated city, and there is no hope anymore. In order to reduce casualties, Li Shimin sent Li Daozong, Yu Wenshi and him to persuade them to surrender. In the end, Wei Chigong surrendered to Tang with jiexiu and Yong'an counties and became a general under Li Shimin.
After taking Jiexiu City, the elite main force under Liu Wuzhou's command had been basically eaten by the Tang army. At this time, Liu Wuzhou had no capital to resist the Tang Army. It was only a matter of time before the Tang army recovered all of Shanxi.
End
If Liu Wuzhou at this time still dared to rectify the remnants of the army and stick to Taiyuan, it might bring more trouble to Li Shimin. However, Liu Wuzhou chose another path at this time.
That is to go to the Turks to rescue the soldiers.
When Liu Wuzhou rebelled, he started by relying on the Turks, and later established himself as emperor, and was also crowned by the Turks as Dingyang Khan. Therefore, at that time, Liu Wuzhou probably felt that as long as the Turks were willing to help, he still had a chance to turn the tables.
However, at this time, Liu Wuzhou made the most wrong choice in his life.
That is to personally go to the Turks to move the rescue troops.
Logically speaking, such a thing as moving and rescuing soldiers is, of course, more appropriate to send subordinates down. However, at that time, Liu Wuzhou probably had another kind of consideration, and felt that he was more confident that he would personally go to the Turks. Moreover, in this way, even if Li Shimin calls, his own safety can be guaranteed.
However, Liu Wuzhou forgot another question.
Without his territory, would the Turks still care?
After Liu Wuzhou fled to the Turks, the forces under Liu Wuzhou's command, seeing that the lords and princes had already fled, surrendered to the Tang army. At that time, the number one general under Liu Wuzhou's command, Song Jingang, originally wanted to reorganize his men and horses to block the Tang army. At this time, because of Liu Wuzhou's departure, no one under his command was willing to fight anymore. Therefore, in the end, Song Jingang could only give up helplessly and only fled to the Turks with a hundred horses. Later, Song Jingang saw that the Turks did not want to send troops, so he wanted to flee back to the Shanggu region where he had first raised his army, but was discovered by the Turks and finally cut off his waist.
As for Liu Wuzhou, he also wanted to flee back to Mayi afterwards, but the same thing was revealed and he was killed by the Turks.
After the deaths of Liu Wuzhou and Song Jingang, the entire Shanxi region fell into the hands of the Li Tang Dynasty. Without the threat of Liu Wuzhou in the north, the Li family was able to free up their hands and concentrate on cleaning up Wang Shichong in Luoyang and Dou Jiande in Shandong, laying the foundation for the complete unification of the world in the future.
Looking at Li Shimin's performance in the Battle of Baibi, it can be said that the four words of courage and strategy have been embodied to the extreme. Many people in the future may not like this legendary emperor of the Tang Dynasty because of Li Shimin's killing of his brother in the Xuanwumen Incident. But no matter what, Li Shimin's own ability to lead troops to fight is indeed not blown.
If you do not consider Li Shimin's imperial identity, throughout the late Sui and Tang Dynasties, he should actually be the first general worthy of the name.