Call of the Heroes of Chaos in Another World

Chapter 2075 The Treaty of Hulao Pass, the End of Jiande

After the Battle of Hulao Pass, the White King and the Red King of the Great Wei urgently joined forces and mobilized 100,000 troops, intending to retake Hulao Pass.

If Hulao Pass were in their hands, they would naturally have nothing to worry about, as they could guard a road connecting the two countries with a very small number of troops.

But if it falls into their hands, that would be a huge win. No matter how difficult the path is, the most crucial element has already been taken, making the rest of the journey much easier.

Moreover, the path beyond Hulao Pass is extremely important to the Great Wei, a path that cannot be lost. In terms of value, it is far superior to the surrounding paths.

The White King and the Red King were originally scheduled to be summoned by Guo Longcheng to eliminate Yang Jian together.

For Guo Longcheng, dealing with Yang Jian and his ilk was far more important than solving the problem of the Li Tang dynasty.

If Yang Jian and his ilk can be dealt with in one fell swoop, the entire Wei court will be united once again. After that, Wei will be able to mobilize the power of the whole country. How could such a Wei be compared to the mere Li Tang?

By then, let alone defeating the Li Tang dynasty, Guo Longcheng wouldn't even mind taking the Li Tang dynasty under his control.

What was Li Tang relying on to keep harassing Wei at this time? Wasn't it Wei's own internal problems?
If it weren't for this internal problem, what leverage would the Li Tang have to dare to bare their teeth at the Great Wei?
Therefore, he would direct all available forces toward Yang Jian's side, rather than the closer battlefields of Li Xu and Guo Shiguang.

But that won't work now. The road to Hulao Pass has been cleared. If the White King and the Red King don't retake Hulao Pass first, how can they leave with peace of mind? And why would they leave after emptying their forces?

They are still able to make their own judgment about what is more important and what is less important.

However, facing the combined forces of the White King and the Red King, totaling 100,000 men, Li Shimin did not refuse to defend the pass. Although he only had a little over 3,000 men left, he was able to hold the pass, the most dangerous pass in the land, even if it was attacked by 100,000 men.

Despite having a force of 100,000, he chose to take the initiative.

He led three thousand Xuanjia Iron Cavalry out of Hulao Pass, and then traversed the mountains to hide once more.

Just as the armies of the White King and the Red King began to enter the mountains, Li Shimin suddenly led his army to attack from the side.

The terrain near the mountains is narrow, making it impossible for a large army to maneuver. Furthermore, Bai Wan and Chi Wang's vanguard had already entered the mountain pass and were unable to turn around in time.

Li Shimin suddenly launched an attack with his Xuanjia Iron Cavalry, heading straight for the central armies of the White King and the Red King.

In the midst of battle, Li Shimin, despite his wounded body, braved the arrows and charged with unstoppable force to the White King and the Red King, capturing them both alive in one fell swoop.

In the same battle, Wu Lingtian, the nephew of the famous Wei general Wu Taidou, Guo Shihui, the younger brother of Guo Shiguang, and other generals of Wei were also captured by Li Shimin.

After that, the conflict between the Tang Dynasty and the Wei Dynasty ceased to be one of fighting and killing, and instead became one of diplomatic negotiations.

Li Shimin only had three thousand Xuanjia Iron Cavalry. No matter how good he was at fighting and how much territory he could conquer, he had no soldiers to hold onto that territory.

Moreover, the battle of capturing two kings in one battle and defeating 100,000 with only 3,000 sounds exciting, but even Li Shimin would not be willing to take such a risk again.

If he makes even the slightest mistake, he will be the one to die without a burial place.

Therefore, it is time to end the battle between their two countries and end this pointless struggle.

Now, Li Shimin, not to mention the White King and Red King he captured in this battle, as well as Wu Lingtian, Guo Shihui and others, has directly captured seventy to eighty thousand prisoners.

These became the bargaining chips in the subsequent negotiations between the Tang Dynasty and Guo Longcheng.

Now that these people have fallen into Li Shimin's hands and the hands of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin would never kill them. Not only would he not kill them, but he would also take good care of them.

The others are one thing, but the White King and the Red King are among the most prestigious members of the Great Wei royal family. In the entire Great Wei, their prestige is second only to the Emperor.

In fact, when the young emperor drowned and Guo Longcheng was choosing a new emperor from among the imperial clan, these two were also candidates.

However, although these two men could not compare to Guo Longcheng in terms of power, they still possessed genuine strength. Therefore, Guo Longcheng chose another wise prince from the royal family, another wise prince whose political views aligned with his.

If these two were gone, if the Tang Dynasty were to kill them with a single blow, even if Guo Longcheng was unwilling, he would have to put aside Yang Jian first and fight the Li Tang Dynasty with all his might.

Therefore, killing them would not only bring no benefit to the Tang Dynasty, but would also leave behind a future disaster.

Instead, wouldn't it be better to keep them as bargaining chips to exchange for cities, food, and supplies with the Great Wei?
Thus, Li Longji was sent as an envoy to the Great Wei once again, but this time it was Guo Longcheng instead of Yang Jian.

Moreover, Li Longji made an outrageous demand as soon as he arrived, asking Guo Longcheng for two sums of money right away, which angered Guo Longcheng so much that he kicked him out.

However, while they ask for exorbitant prices, everyone tries to bargain.

He didn't really take Li Longji's two points seriously. The other party dared to ask for an exorbitant price because, firstly, they had hit his weak spot, and secondly, they had given him enough room to bargain.

Guo Longcheng has no choice but to redeem the White King and the Red King!

Previously, Yang Jian and he were evenly matched in the court. Even if he had a slight advantage, it wasn't much.

Even now, even though Yang Jian has joined forces with Cui Xiao and his group, they are still suppressed by him. The reason is that Yang Jian's reputation was hit rock bottom because of what happened before, while his reputation was raised to a peak. In addition, a large number of neutrals have stood behind him during this period.

If he doesn't redeem these two people, it will be a direct blow to his reputation.

After all, the White King and the Red King are his own brothers. If he can't even save his own brothers, how good can his reputation be?

Furthermore, if it's not just about these two people, it has a strong suspicion of excluding dissidents.

These people did have some differences in their political views. However, compared to the chaotic situation in the Great Wei court and the ambitious ministers led by Yang Jian, these members of the imperial clan still stood together despite their differing political views.

At this time, we absolutely cannot give anyone a reason to criticize us.

Besides, Guo Longcheng has genuine feelings for his two brothers. Differences in political views are one thing, but they don't mean he has no affection for his two brothers.

Especially Bai Wang; although the two weren't born of the same mother, Bai Wang was raised by Guo Longcheng's mother from a young age after her mother's early death. As a child, Bai Wang practically followed Guo Longcheng around. And negotiations were no different from a war of words.

Guo Longcheng and Li Longji, the two representatives, remained calm, but their other envoys had been arguing incessantly for some time, and had even almost come to blows in court.

The two sides argued for over a month before finally reaching an agreement. Furthermore, Guo Longcheng, representing the Great Wei Dynasty, and Li Longji, representing the Great Tang Dynasty, formally signed the Treaty of Hulao Pass.

Article 1: The two dynasties shall formally cease hostilities. Within one month of receiving the news, the troops on both sides shall withdraw to their respective territories. Furthermore, neither side shall initiate another major war for any reason within the following year.

This is something that both sides demanded.

Given the current situation in both countries, they both need a period of peace.

Guo Longcheng needs this time to focus all his efforts on resolving the problems of Yang Jian and his group. As for the Li Tang issue, he needs to deal with Yang Jian and his group first before addressing that problem.

As for the Li Tang dynasty, with their current national strength, they cannot continue fighting. What they need now is to recuperate and rebuild their lives, not to wage war.

Even if Li Longji wanted to secure a longer period of peace, a mere year of recuperation was still too short for the Li Tang dynasty.

However, negotiation is a process in which both sides make concessions and test each other's bottom line. Li Longji was unwilling to make concessions on other issues, so he had to relax some conditions.

Article Two: The Great Wei shall redeem all Great Wei prisoners held by the Great Tang by offering a territory encompassing three prefectures.

Li Xu mobilized a large army and fought for more than a year, but gained nothing. Instead, the strength of the Li Tang dynasty continued to weaken. However, Li Shimin directly acquired a complete province and three prefectures by taking prisoners from this battle.

Li Shimin and Li Longji have done their best to make these prisoners of war valuable.

Not only the White King and the Red King, but also Wu Lingtian, these are the highlights of this prisoner exchange, and Guo Longcheng needs to give the Wu family face.

If Wu Taidou were merely the most powerful general of a previous dynasty, that would be one thing. But the Wu clan of the Great Wei Dynasty behind Wu Taidou was a powerful military family.

The Wu family, the Wang family, and the Xue family, to which Xue Rengui belonged, were all famous military families in the Great Wei Dynasty.

However, while Lady Xue committed a heinous crime by kicking a prince to death in the street, the Wu and Wang families still survive to this day.

The Wu and Wang families, who passed down loyalty and filial piety as their family tradition, have always been the right-hand men of the imperial family.

Article 3: The Great Wei shall redeem Hulao Pass with 300,000 taels of silver, 100,000 shi of grain, 30,000 suits of armor, and fine horses.

Although Guo Longcheng paid for the ransom of a circuit and three prefectures, it was not the circuit after Hulao Pass, but the circuit that Guo Shiguang was currently stationed in.

Li Shimin still had tens of thousands of Wei soldiers under his command, and these prisoners were also included in the scope of prisoners redeemed under the second clause.

The main force of these people came from the road behind Hulao Pass. If that road is ceded, what is the point of them redeeming these troops?

After all, the families and assets of these soldiers are all in that place. Even if you redeem them, it's uncertain whether their hearts will remain with them.

Furthermore, the road beyond Hulao Pass is far more valuable in terms of population and resources than the road Guo Shiguang is currently stationed on.

Furthermore, the road beyond Hulao Pass not only contains a massive iron mine of the Great Wei Dynasty, but also a medium-sized gold mine.

Since the choice was made to retain the road behind Hulao Pass and instead cut off the road that Guo Shiguang was currently guarding, Hulao Pass had to be redeemed as well.

If they don't redeem Hulao Pass after passing through a certain area, their Great Wei will face serious problems on the border defense line.

Therefore, no matter how much it costs, we must take back Hulao Pass.

To put it bluntly, the righteous path beyond Hulao Pass has the power to make them pay the price.

Leaving aside the population and resources of this region, the iron and gold mines alone are worth the sacrifice for the future border defense of the Great Wei.

After this battle, the great war between the Tang Dynasty and the Wei Dynasty officially came to an end, and the Tang Dynasty officially began to recuperate.

After this battle, Li Shimin officially surpassed Li Xu and Li Ji among the three great generals of the Li Tang Dynasty, becoming the most prestigious among them.

As for the Great Qian Dynasty, it remains the same as always.

The central court of the Great Qian Dynasty completely lost control over the local areas and the local imperial clans.

The Great Qian Dynasty is now in complete chaos, with infighting between rebel kings and princes of the imperial clan, infighting among rebel kings themselves, and princes of the imperial clan annexing each other.

With the Great Qian court losing its deterrent power, the internal struggle within the Great Qian was no longer between the court and the rebel kings, but rather descended into a chaotic situation of warring states among the feudal lords.

The Great Qian Dynasty is now the most chaotic of the seven dynasties.

Even the imperial clan no longer supported the central government, yet the emperor of the Great Qian Dynasty remained indulging in pleasure and squandering the last remaining assets of the Great Qian court. At this time, the Great Qian Dynasty was even worse than the Great Wu Dynasty before it.

The imperial clan system, which had sustained the Great Qian Dynasty for hundreds of years, has now become one of the ailments plaguing the dynasty. It has dealt another heavy blow to the already sinking ship of the Great Qian.

In fact, the current imperial clan of the Great Qian Dynasty has begun to fight among themselves, annex each other, and grow stronger.

Among these people were truly ambitious individuals. However, there were also those who still remained loyal to the imperial court. It's just that the current central government of the Great Qian Dynasty has continuously disappointed these people.

While the rebel king and other members of the royal family were constantly annexing and expanding their power, even those who had no ambition still wanted to support the court. However, as the court continued to disappoint them, they had no choice but to follow suit and continue to annex and expand, at least in this way they could survive in this chaotic situation.

Some people may not have any ambition, but in order to survive, they have no choice but to resort to ruthless killing.

On the contrary, while Da Wu still faced endless external threats, they successfully addressed their internal problems during this period.

When Da Wu finally made his move, he cleanly and decisively eliminated Dou Jiande's forces.