Late Tang

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Qianfu four years in March.

After Wang Xianzhi's death, Huang Chao, who became the recognized leader of various anti-Tangcao armies, did not continue to use the title of General Tianbuping and Dutong of domestic heroes.He changed to a new name. Although the new name seemed less imposing, it was more combative.

Under the city of Bozhou, Huang Chao called himself "General Chongtian", and established his own reign title 'Wang Ba'!Although Huang Chao did not establish a dynasty and a country, he had officially issued his own reign name, refused to use the Tang Dynasty's reign title, and no longer recognized the Tang Dynasty's Zhengshuo.

Cui Anqian, who had just wiped out Wang Xianzhi, was mobilizing troops to surround Huang Chao from all directions, preparing to kill Huang Chao in Henan in one fell swoop.Seeing that the encirclement was getting smaller and smaller, Huang Chao sent a letter of request for surrender to the new Tianping Army Jiedu Cao Quanzhu, asking him to submit it to the court on his behalf.

After the court got the news, it readily agreed to Zhao'an's request, and generously appointed Huang Chao as the third-rank right guard general, and asked him to go to Yuncheng to accept the appointment and disband the army.However, this was just a bait set by the imperial court. Tian Lingzi secretly ordered Cui Anqian to mobilize troops from various towns and prepare to wipe out the bandit army in one fell swoop in Yunzhou.

The imperial court planned to come up with tricks, but Huang Chao had no intention of surrendering to the imperial court from the very beginning. The so-called surrender was nothing more than a trick to divert the tiger away from the mountain.

Just when the ministries of the imperial court rushed to Yunzhou to set up an ambush on all sides, Huang Chao did not go to Yunzhou to accept the surrender, but turned around suddenly, led his troops into the territory of Songzhou and Bianzhou, and then attacked Weinan and Yexian counties. The direction of the front is Luoyang, the eastern capital of the Tang Dynasty.

Luoyang, the eastern capital, is the Achilles’ heel of Datang in the war with the grass bandits. Every time the grass bandits are beaten up, as long as the grass bandits point their troops at Luoyang, they can force the officers and soldiers to change their encirclement and suppression plan and surrender the eastern capital. .

The imperial court never seriously considered Li Jing's memorial to the emperor after his campaign in Liaodong. Li Jing's memorial to the emperor stated that Huang Chao was not capable of capturing Luoyang.Therefore, it is actually a good thing for the grass bandits to attack Luoyang.Once the grass thieves are under the siege of the city, the officers and soldiers can easily completely surround the grass thieves and wipe out the grass thieves as long as they block the fortresses around Luoyang.

However, when Li Jing wrote this memorial, he already expected that the imperial court would never agree to his proposal. Writing this memorial was just a superficial participation in the Central Plains War.

In fact, the imperial court did as Li Jing expected. Facing Huang Chao's invasion of Luoyang, and did not know how many times he had marched into Luoyang, the imperial court still subconsciously issued an order to protect Luoyang at all costs.For this reason, a series of emergency orders were issued, with Liu Jingren, the general of Zuo Shenwu, as the defense envoy of the eastern capital, and the troops of Heyang, Xuanwu, and Zhaoyi were urgently dispatched under his command to station in Luoyang for defense.

Secondly, Cui Anqian, the envoy of recruiting grassroots bandits in Zhudao camp, ordered to rush to Luoyang immediately.Thirdly, the soldiers and horses of Yicheng Town were deployed to defend the four passes of Zhiyuan, Yique, Heyin, and Wulao on the outskirts of Luoyang, and Huangchao was in the outskirts of Luoyang.

The imperial court desperately transferred all soldiers and horses to protect Luoyang, and the encirclement that was originally like an iron bucket suddenly became a sieve.

Huang Chao successfully mobilized various officers and troops, and finally created the conditions to go south. He quickly seized this short-lived opportunity, led the grass army to quietly withdraw from the periphery of Luoyang, and sent troops south.

Along the way, Huang Chao avoided the real and attacked the weak, almost avoiding all the fortified cities and military strongholds, quickly crossed the Huaihe River, and rushed into Huainan again.

At the end of March, Huang Chao and Shang Rang led the Cao army across the Yangtze River in the Hezhou area, rushed into the soft belly of the Tang Empire for the first time, and went straight to Xuanzhou, which is the later Xuancheng of Anhui.

Mobilizing the enemy, breaking the siege, and turning to the south of the Yangtze River, this is simply a soldier from the gods. After Li Jing heard the news, he even secretly sighed that Huang Chao's strategic turn was comparable to that of the later Taizu's Sidu Chishui.

The vassal towns of the Tang Dynasty can be roughly divided into four types, namely the Heshuo separatist type, the Central Plains anti-containment type, the frontier unloading type, and the southeast financial source type.To the south of the Yangtze River is the place where the southeast financial resources-type vassals and towns gather together.

As the name suggests, this type of feudal town is the cash cow that the Tang Empire has relied on for survival since the Anshi Rebellion.The reason why these cash cows can grow money for the imperial court is that apart from the fact that the southern economy has developed greatly and has begun to become rich, what is more important is that they have few soldiers and low military expenditures.For example, Jiangxi, Fujian, Hunan, Zhejiang and other large towns in the southeast have a rated force of no more than [-] troops.

Without sharp claws and fangs, but with good flesh, such prey is of course the best choice for hunters.At the same time, Wang Chongyin and Xu Tangju were in Jiangxi, Cao Shixiong's old Wang Xianzhi's troops were active in Xuanshe, and Huang Chao also had the idea of ​​going south to join forces with other tribes and unite them under his own banner of the soaring general.

When Huang Chao moved to the south of the Yangtze River, the imperial court dismissed Cui Anqian's official position as an envoy to recruit grass thieves.

Regarding this sudden news, there are various speculations in the world.Some people think that the official army failed to wipe out the grass bandits in the Central Plains as planned, causing Huang Chao to escape, and the court therefore needed to find someone to replace them.There are also people who think that the grass bandits withdrew from the Central Plains, and the court felt safe, and the birds were dead, so the good bows were hidden.Some people even said that this is actually a party struggle between the DPRK and China, and that Cui Anqian, who is backed by Prime Minister Wang Duo, is not strong enough. There are rumors that Lu Xie and Lieutenant Tian intend to promote Jingnan Jiedu envoy Gao Pian as a recruiter. Cui Anqian was forced to Make way for Gao Pian.

When Li Jing heard these rumors, he just smiled and said that Cui Anqian stepped down, and those were the reasons.

At the beginning of April, Huang Chao first defeated the official army chasing from the quarry ferry at Nanling in the west of Xuanzhou City, beheading the capital general Wang Juan, but the victory was not complete, and four to 5000 defeated soldiers fled into Xuanzhou.Huang Chao took advantage of the victory to attack Xuanzhou. Tang Xuanshe observed that Wang Ning gathered internal and external forces to resist desperately. The "Grass Army" could not overcome the fierce attack. Huang Chao had to move eastward and prepare to enter the prosperous Zhenhai. The jurisdiction area is equivalent to southern Jiangsu, northern Zhejiang and Shanghai. The headquarters is in Runzhou, which is now Zhenjiang, Jiangsu.And Zhedong, most of today's Zhejiang, and its headquarters in Yuezhou, which is now Shaoxing, Zhejiang.

When Huang Chao attacked Runzhou, Tian Lingzi and Lu Xie took the opportunity to urgently transfer Jingnan Jiedu Envoy Gao Pian as Zhenhai Jiedu Envoy, sent troops to help Runzhou, took on the important task of suppressing bandits, and also created momentum for Gao Pian's next appointment as envoy.

The grass bandit moved to the southeast, and the court breathed a sigh of relief.Although the southeast is an important place for the imperial court's wealth, it is at least far away from the central plains and Guanzhong capital.

At the same time that the grass bandits moved to the southeast, Zhen [***] also won a series of victories in the northeast.When the news was conveyed to the capital, the emperor and all the princes in the court were dumbfounded and couldn't believe it.

In February of the fourth year of Qianfu, Li Jing led the town [***] to raid the important cities behind the Goguryeo people from the sea, Boba City and Jiankou City at the mouth of the Yalu River, and then captured Dahang City.In mid-February, Li Jing led a group of soldiers and horses headed north along the Wugu River, pretending to be a grain transport team from the Bohai Sea, fraudulently opened the gate of Wugu City, and entered the city.

Black Bone City, an important town with a circumference of sixteen miles, could not resist for half a day, but was breached by Li Jing, and all [-] defenders died.

Subsequently, Li Jing sent troops to continue northward, and captured the mountain city of Shanchenggou in the north, and the large-scale Lijiabao mountain city.

At the end of February, Li Jing completed the siege of [-] Goguryeo and Bohai coalition forces in the Xiuyan area.

At the beginning of March, Goguryeo King Gao Degui assembled 5 troops from Goguryeo and Bohai Fuyu to go south, preparing to tear open the Tang army's encirclement and rescue [-] trapped soldiers and horses.The two sides fought fiercely in the Qianshan Mountains to the east of Anshi.

Zhao Ji led the Feixiong army, and Zeng Yuanyu led the Shenjie army. They adhered to the military orders conveyed by Li Jing, defended the city, and did not fight in the field.Relying on the defense lines formed by Anshi City, Qianshan City, Chengzi Mountain City, Xiaojiaogou Mountain City, and Moyun Mountain City, Zhao Ji and Zeng Yuanyu fought fiercely with [-] elite soldiers and [-] united troops for more than a month.Gao Dexin and Da Weizhen lost nearly [-] soldiers and horses, but failed to break through Zhao Ji's defense line.

In mid-March, the Liaohekou Navy transported [-] cavalrymen straight behind Gao Dexin, landed near Liaodong City, harassed Gao Degui's rear grain road, and threatened Liaodong City.Gao Degui ran out of food and grass, and was worried about Liaodong City, so he was forced to withdraw his troops.

At the same time, the navy leader Pei You, Megan, and Julie led the navy fleet, together with Zhang Chengzong's leopard cavalry, [-] united troops and township soldiers, a total of [-] troops raided Pyongyang and captured Pyongyang City.Afterwards, Zhang Chengzong led the Leopard Cavalry to attack quickly, sweeping the Goguryeo south of the Yalu River to control the cities within a month.

At the end of February, Liu Shouqian led the Yingyang army into Bohai, and divided the whole army into five divisions, each of which was divided into two routes, entering Bohai Yalu Mansion and Nanhai Mansion.According to Li Jing's order, the task of Yingyang Army is to fight guerrilla behind the enemy's rear, not to attack strong cities, but to fight head-on.The order Li Jing gave them was a sixteen-character policy: When the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy is stationed, we harass; when the enemy retreats, we pursue;

By the beginning of April, the [-] Goguryeo and Bohai soldiers in Niangniangcheng Mountain City and Shaozihe had only half a month of food and grass left.Zhen [***] surrounded them, but they were not in a hurry to attack, but just held the line of defense.As time went by, the odds turned against them more and more.

Goguryeo and Bohai failed to go south from Anshi to rescue them, and the people of Bohai also tried to rescue them from the east, but Kezhen [***] held on to Boba City and Black Bone City.Although the two cities of Goguryeo were lost very quickly, they are as firm as a rock in the hands of Zhen [***].Moreover, after the Yingyang army entered the territory of Bohai, they burned, killed and destroyed everywhere, and came and went without a trace. There is no peace, and even the people in Xijing and Nanjing are terrified.

Seeing that there were no reinforcements coming, Goguryeo and the Bohai Navy, who were running out of food, launched a breakout to the Shanchenggou Mountain City and Lijiabao Mountain City in the northeast.

Eighty thousand soldiers and horses abandoned more than [-] mountain cities such as Niangniangcheng Mountain City and Shaozihe, and broke through to the northeast.Li Jing personally sat in the Lijiabao mountain city to fight. From the seventh day of April to the fifteenth day of April, the Goguryeo and Bohai coalition forces left a total of [-] corpses, and broke through Li Jing's frontier of Lijiabao for [-] days. Eighteen lines of defense have been established inside, but there are still twelve lines of defense away from Lijiabao City.

At this time, the coalition army had run out of food and grass, and began to slaughter horses to satisfy their hunger.

On April [-]th, Zeng Yuanyu and Li Liang led [-] troops to attack from Anshi City, and Guo Zhenshan, Gai Yu, and Jing Xiang led [-] troops to fight from Jian'an City.

Zhen[***]’s [-] troops surrounded the [-] Goguryeo Bohai Allied Forces, which were out of ammunition and food. On April [-], the coalition forces broke through for the last time. Zhen [***] fought fiercely with them all day and night, completely defeating the coalition forces In World War I, nearly [-] coalition forces were wiped out, and more than [-] were captured.Many swords, guns, war horses, etc. were seized, and the entire Liaodong Peninsula was completely recovered by Zhen [***]. (To be continued.)