A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 538 Silence
"Congratulations, Minister! On the joyous occasion of the birth of your son, may your life be blessed with good fortune."

At Pingxingling Fortress, the generals, upon hearing that Li Yi had another son, offered their congratulations.

Li Yi laughed heartily, in high spirits. His concubine, Lingyi, had given birth to a son, and both mother and child were safe. This was his fourth son. Lingyi wrote to say that the boy weighed six pounds and four ounces at birth, exactly the weight of a string of Kaiyuan Tongbao coins.

"What's our fourth son's name?" Liu Heizi asked, carrying several pheasants and rabbits, all freshly hunted.

"This boy was born with a single coin of equal weight, so his nickname is Yuanbao, and his formal name is Gui."

Silang Li Gui and Li Yuanbao.

Li Yi's sons, Cong, Yan, Lin, and Gui, all have the jade radical in their names.

"I heard that our Fourth Brother has also been granted a title this time?" asked Ji Sizhong, the Fourth Brother's uncle and military advisor.

"Yes, the Emperor bestowed upon Silang the title of Baron of Yanmen County."

"What a great blessing from Heaven!" Ji Sizhong and Ji Lingyi were half-siblings, and now, as a ninth-rank military advisor in Li Yi's army, he had a good social standing.

Dragon Boat Festival has passed.

There was no fighting at the bottle-shaped pass.

As the weather gets warmer, the more than 20,000 Tang soldiers are now spending most of their time weeding the crops in the military settlement.

However, just 120 miles away, there was a Turkic tribe of tens of thousands stationed, and 80 miles further west, there was Jieli's army, which was still besieging Yanmen City.

The situation is just that strange.

Wu Sui, the young chieftain of the Sijie tribe, and two thousand cavalry were captured by Li Yi. They are now forced to cultivate land and build roads in Weizhou. They only eat one meal a day, and are exhausted and hungry, so they are rapidly losing weight.

However, Awen Jielifa in Fanzhi County remained completely silent.

Even after so many days, not a single envoy has been sent to have a conversation.

He remained calm, and Li Yi remained even more calm, so he held back.

We must resolutely avoid exiting the bottle-shaped barrier.

Even though Liu Shirang from Yanmen City sent several groups of people to ask for help, Li Yi ignored them.

"Minister, Chief Steward Liu said that the Turks are building a large number of weapons at the foot of Yanmen City and hope that you can send troops to rescue them. Are we really not going to send troops?" Wang Xingmin couldn't help but ask.

"The time has not come yet."

"How long will it take?"

Li Yi sighed but did not answer.

Later that evening, Li Yi inspected the border defenses, and Generals Liu Heita and Su Dingfang couldn't help but request to lead troops into battle.

Li Yi touched the battlements of the Great Wall.
Looking westward.

"To be honest, I also really want to launch an attack, but facing a Turkic army of 200,000, I must be extremely cautious. I originally planned to use Wusui to lure Sijie Awen of Fanshi City to attack."

That way we can do what we did last time: wait for him to tire himself out and defeat him at this bottle-shaped pass. But now it seems that Awen is much more composed than Wusui.”

Liu Heita said bluntly, "Sikong, since the thieves aren't attacking, let's attack them."

“I don’t take Sijie Awen seriously, but Fanzhi City is 120 li away from here, but only 80 li away from Yanmen.”

We set up an ambush at the bottle-shaped pass to lure the enemy in, but who knows if Khagan Jieli or Sijie Awen aren't also lying in wait?

The enemy numbered 200,000.

There is absolutely no room for error; one wrong move could lead to utter ruin.

"So we're just going to do nothing like this?"

"No, we are waiting for an opportunity; we must be patient."

Although Li Yi spoke patiently, he was also losing patience.

He has been leading troops to Shanxi for over a month, and the Crown Prince has yet to send a single letter or issue a single military order.

They completely ignored the 40,000 troops stationed in Hebei Province.

I really don't know how this marshal was appointed. He has 40,000 troops, and his position is on the enemy's left rear.

Crown Prince Li Jiancheng failed to utilize such a large and highly capable army.

Moreover, Li Yi, while at Pingxing Village, was also paying close attention to the Hedong battlefield, but so far, each unit was fighting its own battles, with no sign of any coordination whatsoever.

Liu Shirang defended Yanmen City for two months without seeing a single soldier come to his aid.

Li Gaoqian was stationed in Xinzhou, but he also received no reinforcements.

This means that from February, when Li Da'en's entire army was wiped out in Xincheng, to early May, nearly a hundred days have passed.

Although the two important towns of Yanmen and Xinzhou still existed, the crucial gateways to the two prefectures, Yanmen Pass and Shiling Pass, had fallen into the hands of the Turks.

Of the 41 cities and fortresses in the two prefectures, the Turkic army has already occupied 39 cities.

Meanwhile, many cities and fortresses in Loufan and Lishi were also captured.

From Yanmen to Taiyuan, over a radius of several hundred miles, the countryside was plundered by Turkic cavalry. Turkic vassals such as the Prince of Dingxiang and Yuan Junzhang of Mayi also followed the Turks in looting everywhere.

Apart from retreating to important cities and fortresses, there was no active response from various regions.

Li Jiancheng was still in Puzhou, 1,200 li away from Yanmen.

How can a marshal like that command the overall situation?

At the very least, you should be stationed in Taiyuan, or at the very least, in Fenzhou or Jinzhou. What's the difference between you staying in Puzhou and staying in Chang'an?
Even if he's in Puzhou, he still has to give orders and coordinate.

Li Yi couldn't understand what grand strategy the Crown Prince was playing, but whatever the grand strategy, he wasn't going to ignore or disregard Li Yi's 40,000 men.
This person is harboring a lot of bad intentions. Under such circumstances,

Sending Li Yi's isolated army to Yanmen Pass for reinforcements would be risky for Li Yi; it would be blatantly a trap to besiege the city and have reinforcements attacked.

Once you pass through the Bottle-Shaped Pass, you enter the Xinding Basin.

Going down the Hutuo River,

The Xinding Basin is quite large, stretching over 400 li from Pingxing Pass to Shiling Pass in Xinzhou. It may seem long and narrow, but it is actually several tens of li wide.

Such terrain,
Especially now that the Turks have occupied 39 out of the 41 cities in the entire Xinding Basin,

In the past, Li Yi was easily ambushed or outflanked by Turkic cavalry.

"Minister, the Turks are now invading on a large scale, looting everywhere, and the people are suffering terribly. We cannot stand idly by and do nothing."
"This humble general requests permission to lead a light cavalry force out of the pass to search for and attack any Turkic raiding groups near Fanzhi County." Su Dingfang still hoped to take the initiative.

After some consideration, Li Yi said, "You can lead light cavalry to attack, but you must not cross the west of Fanzhi County. Although this area is occupied by the Tielesijie tribe, you must still be careful and not underestimate the enemy."

The enemy is mainly composed of cavalry; we must be wary of being surrounded.

The two generals gladly accepted the order and couldn't wait to go and muster their troops.

Standing on the Great Wall, Li Yi turned to Ma Zhou and asked, "Brother Binwang, why is the court reacting so slowly?"

Ma Zhou also didn't quite understand.

"Perhaps the journey is long and the intelligence cannot be transmitted in time. Or perhaps the Crown Prince has no good plan to defeat the enemy at the moment, so he can only observe the situation first and look for an opportunity."

Li Yi, of course, could not accept this explanation.

"They say the mountains are high and the roads are long, but we've been in Shanxi for over a month already. The situation is that we could take the Feihu Pass to Hebei, then from Hengzhou through Jingxing to Taiyuan and south to Puzhou, or simply go south from Hebei to Luoyang, and then to Puzhou."
It will be delivered in ten days to half a month, and we will receive news in another ten days to half a month.

Why has there been no movement at all?
The Emperor had already received our report of victory in Chang'an. As soon as my fourth son was born, the Emperor, in recognition of my merit in defeating Gao Kaidao at Pingxing Pass, bestowed upon him the title of Baron of Yanmen County.

His Highness the Crown Prince is still in Guandong, why haven't we heard from him yet?

Seeing that no one else was around, Ma Zhou whispered, "I heard that the Crown Prince has been trying to win over the Minister of Works, but the Minister of Works hasn't responded much. Instead, he's been getting closer to the Prince of Qin?"

Li Yi remained silent; many observant people already knew about this.

Ma Zhou continued, "Perhaps that's why the Crown Prince deliberately ignored the news of the Minister of Works' victory, and hasn't even given him a reward yet."

"Actually, this is not a bad thing. If the Crown Prince issues a military order, commanding the Minister of Works to immediately lead troops to Yanmen City, what should the Minister of Works do?"

Li Yi gazed into the distance, his face expressionless, and said, "If the Crown Prince orders me to send troops to Yanmen, I will act according to the specific circumstances. If several armies are dispatched simultaneously, I will certainly go all out and fight alongside them at Yanmen."

But if I'm sent alone, then I must advance steadily, first taking Fanzhi, then slowly approaching Yanmen City, step by step.

Ma Zhou nodded, "A general in the field may disobey the emperor's orders; the Minister of Works is right to think that way."

"If the Minister of Works were the Grand Marshal, in charge of all the armies, how would he intend to deal with the current situation?"

Li Yi thought for a moment and put himself in Li Jiancheng's shoes.

"If I were the commander, I would immediately lead the army to garrison Taiyuan. Taiyuan must not be lost. Otherwise, the Turks will be able to easily move south across the entire Hedong region and drink directly from the Yellow River."

First, reinforce Taiyuan and hold this key position.

Then, troops were sent to reinforce Xinzhou and Daizhou. As long as the cities of Xinzhou and Daizhou remained intact, even if 39 out of the 41 cities in the two prefectures were lost...
The Turks also had to consider their retreat route and dared not launch a large-scale invasion.

We should adopt a defensive counter-attacking strategy, relying on fortified cities and strongholds. We must be bold in launching attacks. The Turks are arrogant and reckless, attacking from all sides and plundering everywhere. Although they are numerous, they are relatively scattered, so we can seize opportunities to strike.

Of course, Li Yi and Wang Junkuo's 40,000 Hebei troops were also a trump card. Li Yi's Dingzhou army was stationed at Pingxing Pass, which could provide flank support to Daizhou and threaten Jieli's left flank.

Wang Junkuo's Youzhou army could then flank and attack Yunzhou and Shuozhou in the Datong Basin, or even attack Dingxiang.

The most important thing is to coordinate the overall situation and work together, rather than acting independently.

Even Duan Decao and Liu Lancheng of Yanzhou could cooperate to counterattack Liang Shidu and attack the Turks in the Hetao region. Li Daozong, the governor of Lingzhou, could also send troops north to attack Fengzhou in the Hetao region.

“I heard that the imperial court has agreed to the Turks’ request for a marriage alliance and will send a princess to the grasslands for a political marriage. Chang’an has also returned the Turkic envoys, including Rehan Teqin, who were detained there, and has secretly sent a lot of gold, silk, and prostitutes to Jieli,” Ma Zhou said.

Li Yi sighed, "You seem to know quite a lot."

"Has the Grand Commandant considered that the Crown Prince's silence, besides lacking a strategy to defeat the enemy, might also stem from his knowledge that the court is negotiating peace with the Turks and has reached agreements on marriage alliances and rewards, thus assuming the Turks might be satisfied?"

The weather is getting hot again. The Turkic people and their horses are not tolerant of the heat, and their warhorses are prone to falling off in the summer. They probably won't stay long either.

Perhaps after looting for a while longer, they will naturally retreat back to the grasslands.

Li Yi shook his head. "What marriage alliances and rewards? That's just paying tribute and sending women to beg for peace. We even ceded the Hetao and Fengsheng prefectures before. Can we really achieve true peace by constantly compromising and making concessions like this?"
This will only embolden the Turks. Even if they manage to plunder enough and retreat this time, they will come back again when the autumn harvest is plentiful and the horses are fat.

What will happen then? What if they come again next year?

"The Turks are never satisfied; they only become more greedy and demanding. Only by defeating them on the battlefield can we then negotiate peace."

If we can't get it on the battlefield, what can we get at the negotiating table?

"So, even though Sikong knew that Wang Junkuo had disobeyed military orders, lied about military intelligence, and sent troops to Yunzhou without authorization, he did not stop him?" Ma Zhou asked.

"I did not allow the Youzhou army to attack Yunzhou because I was worried that Wang Junkuo would run out of supplies and might be ambushed and besieged by the Turks if he went deep into Yunshuo, especially since Wang Junkuo was too audacious and reckless."

I'm turning a blind eye now because I know the Prince of Huaiyang has transported a large quantity of grain to Beiyan Prefecture, so their food supplies are temporarily secured. Moreover, I have confirmed that Yuan Junzhang's main force has been mobilized by Jieli for the campaign, leaving Yunshuo vulnerable.

Wang Junkuo's attack at this moment was quite opportune.

"Yunshuo is vulnerable, so let Wang Junkuo and the Prince of Huaiyang cause some trouble. Our Dingzhou army should not move, but instead garrison troops at Pingxing Pass and keep an eye on Yanmen."

Even if these 20,000 men don't leave the pass, they are only 200 li apart, which can be reached by light cavalry in a day and night. They can still put pressure on the Turks like a sword hanging over Jieli's head, and they may even have to divide their forces to guard against Li Yi at all times.

(End of this chapter)