Call of the Heroes of Chaos in Another World

Chapter 2418 Guo Longcheng supports the young emperor, Li Shimin is assassinated in the street.

Datang!

At this point, Li Shimin was clearly in a position of great power and influence within the entire Tang Dynasty, where his achievements overshadowed the emperor.

During the Battle of Hulao Pass, Li Shimin had already begun to differentiate himself from Li Xu and Li Ji. At that time, Li Shimin had essentially become the top military leader of the Li Tang Dynasty and the leader of the three great generals of the Li Tang Dynasty.

Of course, at least during this period, the three were still at the same level. Li Shimin had only initially pulled ahead of the other two, but the gap was not large.

However, during the Han Dynasty's conquest of the Song Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty had already had two years of recuperation and rebuilding. Under the joint advice of Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin and Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, they began a second alliance with Emperor Yang Jian.

Furthermore, the two most capable emperors of the Sui and Tang dynasties jointly wielded the power to open up new possibilities from outside the battlefield.

Li Shimin's great victory on the battlefield against Wei was unexpected even within the entire Li Tang state. He had managed to achieve such a complete and utter victory, taking three major territories from Wei in one fell swoop.

Even within the Li Tang dynasty, not to mention Li Shimin and Yang Jian themselves, despite their long planning and waiting, they added fuel to the fire when the conflict between Guo Longcheng and the emperor could not be suppressed, thus achieving victory outside the battlefield.

However, the fact that the internal conflicts within the Great Wei were escalated so intensely, leading to Guo Longcheng's utter defeat in such a short period of time, was also beyond their expectations.

Li Shimin's gains, combined with those of Yang Jian's alliance, meant that this battle had laid the foundation for a situation where the balance of power had shifted far beyond mere offensive and defensive maneuvers; it had transformed the Wei dynasty's crisis from a matter of suppressing rebellion to a matter of survival.

Most importantly, this defeat outside the battlefield has completely torn away the last fig leaf of the Great Wei court, revealing that it is no longer just internal strife among the court's own people.

At the same time, it brought the conflict between Guo Longcheng and the emperor he helped to the throne into the open.

An incredibly painful choice lay before Guo Longcheng.

Either he completely relinquishes power, handing over all military and political authority to the emperor. If he is unwilling to relinquish power, this emperor, unwilling to continue being a puppet, will absolutely not stop his actions; what happened before was just the beginning.

To be fair, Guo Longcheng did not believe that he was treating the emperor as a puppet. However, he believed that when the court was facing internal and external troubles, it was only right for him, as a prince of the imperial family, to shoulder more responsibilities.

However, he didn't seem to realize this, or perhaps he could see it but was unwilling to admit it. Maybe he didn't intend to treat the emperor as a puppet, but his actions were no different from treating the emperor as a puppet.

This whole affair was already destined when he himself hadn't yet taken that position, and when he had amassed enough political capital to support a so-called wise king to ascend the throne.

But if he were to relinquish his power, could the emperor on the dragon throne bear the responsibility for the country? And if he did relinquish his power, would the emperor spare him?
These are all things that Guo Longcheng has to consider at this stage!
If this option is not available, then Guo Longcheng will have to choose from the other options!

Therefore, not long ago, Emperor Guo Zhaocheng of the Great Wei drowned, and Guo Longcheng supported the five-year-old crown prince to ascend the throne.

Returning to Li Shimin's side, after achieving this unexpected and resounding victory, the entire Tang Dynasty military was completely thrown into disarray.

The gains from this battle, combined with the previous gains Li Shimin made from the Great Wei during the Battle of Hulao Pass, meant that Li Shimin had taken four provinces from the Great Wei. Although the Great Wei had the second smallest territory among the original seven dynasties, it, like the Great Xia, was a region with a small land area but mostly good land.

In contrast, the Great Chu to their south was the complete opposite. On the surface, it was the largest of the seven dynasties in terms of area. However, its average quality was also the worst among the seven dynasties.

In particular, the southern region of the former Great Chu was the poorest and most remote area among the seven great dynasties.

Although the territory of the Great Wei was small, its population density was not low, so it was divided into twenty circuits.

In addition, when the Great Wei and Great Chu attacked the Great Xia in the very early days, they also took care of some dynasties in the south and west, which increased the number of provinces under the Great Wei to twenty-two.

To put it bluntly, these dynasties were all abandoned by the Great Wei for various reasons in their early years. Being in the very center of the seven great dynasties, they had a tough time. They were forced to go from being the dynasty with the largest territory to the second to last.

At that time, only a portion of it was recovered.

Among the seven former dynasties, although the average area of ​​each province of the Great Wei was much smaller than that of the other dynasties, its population density as the central region was still considerable.

Li Shimin reclaimed four provinces in one fell swoop, seizing nearly one-fifth of the territory from the Great Wei. This meant that the Tang Dynasty now truly had half of its territory conquered by Li Shimin alone.

After all, the Tang Dynasty only has seven circuits in total, three of which originally belonged to the Xia Dynasty, plus four of the Wei Dynasty.

Under these circumstances, the military naturally fell into a state of complete imbalance.

Fortunately, Li Hao had a good mindset. Although he had seen the imbalance in the military immediately, he could even see the consequences if this situation continued to develop.

However, in his view, this problem is not difficult to solve.

After all, their Great Tang Dynasty not only had one General of Heavenly Strategy, but also two other generals.

Therefore, under these circumstances, General Li Xu succeeded Li Shimin in military power. Even Li Siyuan and Li Cunxu, two famous generals of the Tang Dynasty who had been close to Li Shimin in recent years, were recalled along with Li Shimin under the guise of promotion.

In Li Hao's view, the three generals of their Li Tang dynasty all possessed extraordinary talents, and their levels, even if they differed, were not far apart.

Send Li Xu to the front line to take over Li Shimin's military power, and recall Li Shimin to give him a period of time to cool things down, allowing Li Xu time to make his mark and establish his career.

After that, the military naturally reached a new balance.

However, on the very day Li Shimin returned to the capital of the Tang Dynasty, as he was preparing to enter the city, he was assassinated and wounded by a poisoned arrow in the street.