Tang Dynasty: A Guide to Avoiding Pitfalls for Li Er at the Start

Chapter 165 His Majesty said, why not build a mound of skulls?
"Jiali!"

Even Li Jing was taken aback.

He strode forward, squatted down, and looked at the captured Turk.

"No, no, no, I'm not, I'm not!" the Turk suddenly shook his head excitedly and shouted.

"You're not?" Cheng Zhijie roared, immediately grabbing the rope binding the man. "If you're not, why are you wearing Jieli's clothes!"

"Yes, it was the Khan who gave it to me. He said I looked like him, so he swapped clothes with me. He ran away; he'd already crossed the river!"

The Turk cried out in alarm.

"fake?"

Yuchi Gong was taken aback, then burst into laughter: "Cheng Yaojin, if you take this man back to Chang'an, that would be a crime of deceiving the emperor!"

He was genuinely startled. If Cheng Zhijie had captured Jieli, he would have been the one to achieve the greatest merit.

He'll be one step ahead of him in the future.

Cheng Zhijie was furious upon hearing this and immediately sent someone to summon people.

"Impossible! Go find a Turk to verify if he is indeed Jieli!"

"It doesn't seem to be Jieli after all."

Wen He glanced at the Turkic man a few times. He had seen what Jieli looked like through binoculars before. Although this man looked similar, he did not have Jieli's demeanor.

After he finished speaking, he looked up at Li Jing.

The latter nodded as well: "This person is fake."

He had met Jieli more than once, and had seen him through a telescope before, so he recognized him at a glance.

"Yes, yes, I am the Khan's stable boy, please, don't kill me, don't kill me!"

The Turk knelt down and kowtowed.

Seeing his expression, Cheng Zhijie gritted his teeth, his anger flaring up instantly. He stepped forward and kicked him several times.

"That Jieli is so despicable and shameless!" he cursed indignantly.

But this is nothing to be ashamed of.

Even Liu Bang himself didn't do that.

People who are destined for great things never care about their own reputation.

"What a pity, Jieli has crossed the Yellow River. He will surely be able to gather his troops tomorrow."

Li Jing felt somewhat regretful. He knew that the opportunity to fight had been lost, and if they continued to pursue them, they would penetrate even deeper into the Turkic territory.

Putting aside the possibility of an ambush by the Turks, the main concern is that their logistics would also be inadequate.

The provisions for tens of thousands of soldiers are an astronomical figure.

Moreover, His Majesty's decree was to defend against the Turks, not to launch an offensive.

Li Jing had no choice but to withdraw his troops.

"What should we do with this person? Kill him?"

Cheng Zhijie pointed unwillingly at the captured Turk.

Li Jing shook his head and was about to speak when he suddenly heard the Turk say in a panic, "No, no, no, I, I know where the camp is, I know the way, I, I can lead the way."

"Oh?"

The generals of the Tang Dynasty were immediately intrigued, and even Li Jing, who was about to leave with little enthusiasm, stopped in his tracks.

The reason why the Tang Dynasty did not take the initiative to attack was twofold: firstly, the country had just been established and everything was in need of rebuilding; and secondly, they had not yet found the location of the Turkic headquarters.

"You really know him?" Wen He leaned closer.

"What's wrong, little kid? Do you want to be like Huo Qubing?" Seeing his enthusiasm, Li Daozong teased him on purpose.

Cheng Zhijie laughed and said, "Wenxianzi, you'd better learn to ride a horse first, otherwise no one will take you there."

Wen He was speechless, too lazy to bother with these two scoundrels.

Especially Li Daozong, who had kindly helped him out of a predicament, is now making fun of him.

"Grand Steward, why don't we march straight in and head directly to the Turkic camp?" Yuchi Gong was clearly not satisfied.

He felt something was missing because he couldn't catch Jieli to dance with.

But as soon as he finished speaking, Li Jing coldly replied with only two words: "Not permitted!"

That brainless idiot! I also want to destroy the Turks, but how could His Majesty possibly allow us to send troops now?

They don't even consider that the national treasury is empty and the court is unstable. If we are delayed in battle, I'm afraid there will be infighting in the court!

Of course, these were all things that Li Jing himself was thinking.

He couldn't possibly tell anyone about these things.

The reason he brought Wen He along was to use him as a messenger.

He later told Li Shimin that he, Li Jing, had obediently followed the imperial decree and had not overstepped the bounds.

Yuchi Gong snorted indignantly, waved his hand, and left.

Seeing this, Wen He looked at Li Jing, who remained calm and silent, watching the Turks kowtow desperately.

After a while, he slowly spoke: "Take him back to Chang'an, and leave it to His Majesty to decide."

"That's all we have to do."

Everyone nodded, knowing that the battle was over.

"Grand Commander, what should be done with the corpses of those Turks? Should we let the prisoners be buried along with them?"

Shortly afterward, Duan Zhixuan came to report.

He went to gather the prisoners and is now extremely busy.

Now we also need to deal with the burial of those corpses.

Why bury it?

Before Li Jing could speak, he heard someone beside him question him.

Everyone looked over in confusion, and when they saw it was Wen He, they all laughed.

I thought he was just ignorant, which is why he asked such a naive question.

"With so many corpses exposed here, if we don't deal with them, I'm afraid a plague will break out. Isn't the little kid usually very smart? Doesn't he understand this?"

Li Daozong joked, reaching out to grab Wen He's collar, thinking that when they returned to the capital, he would let Wen He ride the same horse as him.

Wen He dodged the attack, scoffed, and said, "I'm asking why we buried it. It's not like we didn't know the consequences of not burying it."

Everyone looked puzzled.

Li Jing understood his meaning: "What is Wenxianzi planning to do? Is he going to hang up all these corpses to intimidate the Turks?"

"Pretty much," Wen He said with a smile, under the surprised gazes of the crowd, "How about we build a Jingguan (a mound of skulls)?"

The first person in history to build a Jingguan (a mound of stones) was King Zhuang of Chu.

Xiang Yu did the same thing, but he killed prisoners.

Wang Mang did the same.

And later, the puppet emperor Shi Jingtang.

But for the Tang Dynasty, what left the deepest impression was the Goguryeo Kingdom of the former Sui Dynasty. When the Sui army was defeated, the Goguryeo army launched a surprise attack, piling up the corpses of their fallen soldiers into a mound of corpses as a show of force.

Even today, there are still mountains of corpses in Liaodong.

This was a disgrace for the Tang Dynasty, which inherited the Sui system.

Li Shimin had publicly stated more than once that he would conquer Goguryeo and destroy these mounds of corpses.

And he did indeed achieve that later on.

"hiss!"

Everyone, including Li Jing, couldn't help but gasp, and their gazes toward Wen Heshi became somewhat strange.

Even Li Daozong's eyes lost some of their smile.

Too bad!
Wen He noticed their strange looks and said dismissively.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Those barbarians raid Han lands and plunder Han people. The number of common people killed by them is in the tens of thousands. Barbarians fear power but not morality. Only in this way can we deter them.”

"Are you really only ten years old?" Li Jing blurted out.

Everyone shared the same thought as him.

They were surprised by Wen He's idea to build a Jingguan (a mound of statues of statues).

It wasn't that no one had done it before, even at the end of the Sui Dynasty.

Cheng Zhijie did it once before.

What surprised them was that Wen He was only ten years old.

When have I ever seen a ten-year-old boy so fierce?

Fortunately, his words just now expressed hatred towards the foreign races; otherwise, even Li Daozong would have had to reconsider whether to stay away from him in the future.

Wen He was stunned for a moment before she realized what was happening.

He had momentarily forgotten his own age.

But since the words have already been spoken, all we can do is shift the blame.

"These are all things His Majesty said."

"I see!"

Everyone immediately felt relieved.

If Li Shimin had said these words, they wouldn't have been surprised at all.

"Very well, such a great victory this time should serve as a deterrent to the Turks. Order the entire army to supervise the construction of the Jingguan (a mound of skulls) by the prisoners!"

……

Inside Chang'an City.

Several days of heavy rain have caused the Wei River to rise considerably.

In recent days, Li Shimin was worried about potential flooding, so he sent Yan Lide, the newly appointed Minister of Works, to take people to check on the situation several times.

However, the gloom covering Chang'an was not the continuous heavy rain.

Rather, it was news from afar that had not yet returned.

People living in Chang'an are always well-informed.

Even when the army set out on its expedition, Li Shimin deliberately concealed it.

But before long, the news began to circulate in the streets and alleys of the city.

It is also said that the Turks came out in full force.

There are also accounts of a Turkic army of 500,000 marching south.

Even more alarming, rumors have circulated that the newly enthroned emperor intends to move the capital.

There was much discussion in the imperial court.

However, that emperor always wore a happy expression when he attended court, and angrily denounced the idea of ​​moving the capital as nonsense.

That's why there was no turmoil in the imperial court.

But what they didn't know was that Li Shimin, after returning to the Liangyi Hall, was even more anxious than they were.

This is his first battle after ascending the throne, and he must win!
And it has to be a resounding victory!
"Your Majesty, the rain has stopped outside."

Gao Yue, who had been observing the rain outside, suddenly walked in.

Li Shimin looked up, put down the letter in his hand, and went outside.

The sky, which had been covered with dark clouds, seemed to have been torn apart by the sunlight.

"That's good news, I suppose."

Li Shimin sighed softly, gazing into the distance with his hands behind his back.

"Good news!"

"A great victory at Huizhou!"

A long howl shattered the tranquility of Chang'an.

Outside Mingde Gate, a fast horse charged straight in.

Two flags were planted behind the horse, which read "Great Victory at Huizhou"!
"A great victory! A great victory!"

The soldiers defending the city cried out in alarm.

People blocking the road quickly made way.

"This is Lubu reporting victory!"

"Our army has won a great victory! A great triumph at Huizhou!"

"Our army beheaded 50,000 and captured more than 60,000. The Turkic Khan Ashina Dubi barely escaped with his life!"

The soldiers, reporting their victory, shouted loudly as they marched into Mingde Gate.

Soldiers and civilians along the way all turned to look at him, and only when they saw his departing figure did they realize what was happening.

"A crushing defeat for the Turks?"

"The Turkic Khan barely escaped with his life!"

"Excellent, excellent, excellent! The Duke of Yongkang County truly lives up to his reputation as the pillar of our Great Tang Dynasty!"

"His Majesty has just ascended the throne and already achieved such a great victory; it truly is a sign from Heaven!"

"Such a great victory, how could there be no poem? I have one!"

The people in Chang'an cheered.

In the tavern, the scholars composed poems and sang songs.

Since the end of the Sui Dynasty, the Turks have been like a mountain, pressing down on the Han people of the Central Plains, making it hard for them to breathe.

The people of Chang'an, in particular, were constantly worried that the Turks would move south.

Therefore, the Crown Prince proposed moving the capital.

However, today, the Turks suffered a great defeat, and Jieli barely escaped with his life!
How could this not be cause for celebration!

(End of this chapter)