Chaos of the Three Kingdoms Summons

Chapter 2660 Dual-Line Blockade: A Strategic Approach to Tang

Li Shimin was not only an outstanding monarch, but also an outstanding military strategist.

But it is precisely because of this that he understands even more.

Against any opponent, you can take the risk and gamble, even if you are at a complete disadvantage, you must fight for that few chances of survival.

When facing any opponent, one must remain calm and composed; taking unnecessary risks will lead to certain death.

Qi Jiguang and Han Xin undoubtedly belong to the latter category.

If you try to win against such an opponent without sufficient confidence, you will die without even knowing how you died.

However, being at a disadvantage and finding a way to win against a larger force is almost a paradox, especially when facing opponents like Qi Jiguang and Han Xin.

Therefore, by winter, most of the southern part of the peninsula had been gradually conquered by Qi Jiguang and Han Xin.

This region itself doesn't have any large or fortified cities. Furthermore, the people in this area were not originally from Goguryeo, the predecessor of the Tang Dynasty, but belonged to the Three Hans.

Besides these, there were the Japanese population plundered by the Tang Dynasty, as well as the people of Qingzhou or Xuzhou from the Han Dynasty.

There are even some grassland people living here.

In fact, the people here have been under the rule of the Tang Dynasty for at least ten years, and the indigenous Sanhan residents have been under its rule for twenty or thirty years.

Over such a long period of time, the Li Tang dynasty had actually established a sufficiently effective rule over these people.

However, when Han Xin and Zhang Liang joined forces to use psychological warfare, they stirred up a portion of the Han population, starting from the lowest levels of society, creating instability.

With the support of the powerful army of the Great Jin, from the complete landing in September to now, December, and with the new year fast approaching, they have managed to nibble away at two-thirds of the southern part of the peninsula in just a few months.

Li Shimin did try to send troops to slow down Qi Jiguang and Han Xin's advance, but with these two generals advancing steadily, Li Shimin dared not go too far.

Taking advantage of the Xuanjia Iron Cavalry's mobility, although they didn't achieve any significant results, at least they didn't give Han Xin and Qi Jiguang the opportunity to outflank them.

After all, although Qi Jiguang and Han Xin employed a combined land and water strategy, with their naval forces coordinating with each other, naval operations were ultimately limited by the availability of rivers. If Li Shimin were to launch a military campaign, he would naturally choose a target point where Qi Jiguang could not interfere.

This makes it much more difficult for Han Xin to achieve his goal of encircling the enemy.

Furthermore, the Xuanjia Iron Cavalry, as an elite force painstakingly built by Li Shimin, possessed truly exceptional combat power, even though Gao Shun was in Han Xin's army.

However, Gao Shun's elite Trapped Camp only had three thousand men, which was insufficient to carry out the heavy task of resisting the Xuanjia Iron Cavalry alone.

Compared to Qi Jiguang and Han Xin's second front, Xue Rengui and Li Mu's first front faced numerous difficulties in advancing.

Apart from Liaoxi, which the Li Tang dynasty voluntarily relinquished, Li Guangbi successfully achieved his military objectives in Liaodong and Xuantu Commandery.

By utilizing the heavily fortified cities in these two locations and establishing layers of defenses, the aim was not to hold these territories, but rather to deplete the Jin army's strength as much as possible before the war reached Li Tang's homeland.

By the end of the year, although Li Mu and Xue Rengui had basically recovered the rest of Youzhou except for Lelang, they had suffered more than 40,000 casualties, while Li Guangbi's losses were less than 20,000.

However, the real difficulty of this battle only came afterward.

Next, they would face the treacherous mountain fortresses in the north of the Li Tang dynasty. As the coldest time of the year approached, Xue Rengui and Li Mu did not rush to launch further attacks.

Even the imperial court of the Great Jin Dynasty was not in a hurry.

Li Xiang couldn't possibly disregard the lives of his soldiers just to hastily conquer the Li Tang dynasty.

After all, as the year drew to a close, Chang Yuchun had fulfilled his promise and ended the war in Southeast Asia.

On the southern front, only the conflict between Bai Qi and the Kushan Empire remained.

Therefore, at this moment, the Great Jin Dynasty need not be in a hurry.

In November of the first year of the Qianyuan era, upon receiving battle reports from various battlefields, Li Xiang decided to adopt the strategies of Guan Zhong and Zhuge Liang to temporarily halt the offensive against the Li Tang dynasty.

Li Mu and Xue Rengui's troops adopted a semi-military, semi-agricultural approach, recultivating the farmland in eastern Youzhou that had been abandoned due to the relocation of the population. They tried to obtain some of the army's food supplies locally, while the rest were mobilized from the Central Plains and Guanzhong regions via river and sea routes.

Furthermore, immigrants were sent from the Guanzhong Plain, the most populous region, to the Youzhou region to replenish the population of the recovered Liaodong and Liaoxi prefectures and restore production in these areas.

In doing so, the western part of the Li Tang dynasty was sealed off, effectively confining it to its own territory.

If Xue Rengui and Li Mu felt the time was right, they could seek out opportunities to launch an attack and adopt a strategy of gradually encroaching on the Li Tang dynasty, slowly advancing and prioritizing the development of agricultural areas.

As for the second battlefield, a similar policy was adopted, with Han Xin and Qi Jiguang working together to continue to nibble away at the southern part of the peninsula. Once the remaining parts of the southern peninsula were also taken over by Qi Jiguang and Han Xin, the focus was also on developing production.

From two directions, they trapped Li Shimin in the northern part of the peninsula.

The Tang dynasty lost 40,000 naval troops on the southern front and 20,000 infantrymen in Youzhou. At this time, the Tang dynasty still had a terrifying 140,000 troops in its territory.

How could he support so many troops without the support of agriculture in the southern part of the peninsula?

In addition, the people he moved to Youzhou also needed to eat.

Even if Li Shimin and Li Longji were incredibly capable in politics, there was only so much arable land in the northern part of the peninsula. How could they possibly conjure up surplus grain?
Without the southern part of the peninsula suitable for agriculture, and without half of Youzhou, how could the Li Tang dynasty support so many troops with only the northern part of the peninsula?

By trapping them within the territory of the Li Tang dynasty and imposing economic and military blockades, the direct military conflict can be transformed into an economic and national power war, thus defeating the Li Tang dynasty from another angle.

Of course, the Li Tang dynasty still had a passage to the north, but if Li Shimin could obtain so much grain from the Manchus, then Li Xiang would be considered capable!

With the Southeast Asian war over, as long as they can get the region into an economic recovery phase as soon as possible, given the region's grain production, the Great Jin Dynasty has ample resources to sustain the war there. There's no need to knowingly fight a difficult battle.

In war, if you can attack the enemy's weak points, you should naturally do so. Why fight to the death if you don't target their weaknesses?
For the Great Jin Dynasty, this meant changing the war of attrition into a protracted war, allowing these soldiers to stay in the north for a few more years to reduce casualties.

In any case, for the Great Jin Dynasty, it was already necessary to amass a large army in the north.

At the same time, the Jin Dynasty was also trying to mobilize the resources within the Li Tang Dynasty, or more precisely, to stir up unrest at the grassroots level.

The Tang dynasty's policy of scorched earth policy meant that the people of Youzhou who were forcibly relocated there were also a ticking time bomb for them.

In addition, the Jin Dynasty made this decision because the situation on the grasslands had changed again. Or rather, this was the most fundamental reason.