A thousand-year-old family begins with one fighting against ten thousand.

Under the pretext of avenging Dou Jiande, Liu Wuzhou embezzled all of Dou Jiande's estate. In addition, Dou Jiande had once shown kindness to the people of Hebei, so many people were willing to join the army to avenge Dou Jiande.

This allowed him to gather an army of 50, preparing to take advantage of Li Yuan's recent battle and the fact that his strength had not yet recovered, to join forces with Du Fuwei in Jianghuai and Lin Shihong in Jiangdong to defeat Li Yuan in one fell swoop.

With 5 against 50, the situation is extremely dire.

Fortunately, Li Shimin rushed to Hulao Pass and occupied it ahead of time. Otherwise, Liu Wuzhou would have had a greater advantage in both military strength and control of the strategic pass. Even if he were a god of war descended to earth, he would have had a hard time breaking through it.

Although the gap in combat strength is still huge, as long as he holds out for ten days or so, more troops will arrive in droves.

For this northward expedition, Li Yuan gave him a total of 200,000 troops. Including the troops at Hulao Pass, the total number was 220,000.

With a troop ratio of 1:2 and the formidable Hulao Pass as its stronghold, this already constitutes an advantage.

Two days later, just as Li Shimin finished setting up the defenses, countless dark dots appeared on the horizon; Liu Wuzhou's army had arrived.

When Liu Wuzhou saw that the Li Tang flag had been raised at Hulao Pass, he couldn't help but curse inwardly.

After the cursing, they set up camp and assembled the siege equipment they had prepared in advance. That night, the army had a hearty meal and prepared to attack Hulao Pass the next day.

At the hour of Chou (1-3 AM), the heavy gates of Hulao Pass were opened, and one mounted soldier after another rushed out and charged towards Liu Wuzhou's camp.

Liu Wuzhou never expected that the other side would dare to launch a proactive attack on his 500,000-strong army. He failed to take proper precautions and was thus able to break through with 10,000 elite cavalry.

These elite cavalrymen charged in and simply set fires, without engaging in any prolonged battle.

After they broke through, Li Shimin counted the number of men. The losses were less than a hundred. Behind them, Liu Wuzhou's camp was already engulfed in flames.

Liu Wuzhou gritted his teeth as he looked at the ashes before him and clenched his fist tightly.

"Li Shimin!"

At this point, Liu Wuzhou already knew who was leading the army on the other side, and after finding out, Liu Wuzhou became even angrier.

He actually lost to a callow youth, and was successfully ambushed in his very first battle.

He could already imagine how future historical records would describe this battle.

He must wash away this humiliation and kill Li Shimin with the utmost efficiency.

"How are the siege equipment preparations going?"

Liu Wuzhou asked the person beside him.

"Our siege equipment was assembled in the rear, so there were no losses. Most of it is now assembled."

Song Jingang had already ordered his men to verify the information, and the answer greatly satisfied Liu Wuzhou.

"This brat has succeeded in his sneak attack and must be in high spirits, so he's not on guard. If I attack the city now, I can catch him off guard and take it in one fell swoop."

Liu Wuzhou said excitedly.

Song Jingang frowned. The fact that the enemy could launch such a decisive attack out of the city and then retreat just as decisively showed that they were no ordinary general.

How could a general like this make such a basic mistake?

Moreover, the moon's brightness is extremely poor at night, making it virtually impossible to conquer a city by overcoming the natural conditions alone.

"My mind is made up, no further words are needed."

Liu Wuzhou sensed what Song Jingang was about to say, and in order not to shake the morale of the army, he directly shut Song Jingang up.

"Do as I say."

"yes!"

"I can't help it," Song Jingang said helplessly.

Then he went down to prepare the army, striving to minimize the losses.

"They actually came?"

Li Shimin looked with delight at the approaching troops in the distance.

It wasn't that he had particularly good eyesight, but rather that siege equipment was extremely cumbersome and could be spotted at a glance.

Upon seeing these things, Li Shimin naturally realized that Liu Wuzhou intended to launch a forced attack on the city.

Li Shimin waved his hand, and someone immediately relayed his order, waking up some of the garrison troops to begin their defense.

Hulao Pass guards both the east and west routes, with valleys on both sides. The terrain is narrow, making it impossible to fully utilize the advantage of troop strength.

Even though Liu Wuzhou brought over 100,000 troops in this probing attack, only 10,000 to 20,000 of them were actually able to engage the defenders on the city walls head-on.

They had an advantage in defending the city and were no match for Li Shimin and his men.

After leaving behind tens of thousands of corpses, Liu Wuzhou finally came to his senses and led his army in retreat.

Li Shimin watched Liu Wuzhou leave, then waved to him and mouthed something.

"Welcome to visit again next time."

Li Shimin's lips curled slightly, not caring whether Liu Wuzhou could hear him or not.

"He probably won't come again. Let everyone go back and rest."

Li Shimin said slowly.

In the following days, relying on his superior troop strength, Liu Wuzhou divided his forces into ten groups and had these ten groups take turns attacking.

Li Shimin, relying on the fact that Hulao Pass was easy to defend and difficult to attack, and that the battle space was small, also divided his troops into ten groups, and extravagantly used cavalry as infantry.

Each group consisted of only a few thousand men, but they managed to withstand the attack of Liu Wuzhou's tens of thousands of troops by relying on the geographical environment of Hulao Pass.

Moreover, Li Shimin personally led an elite cavalry force to continuously raid Liu Wuzhou's supply lines.

In addition, the camp of 50 troops was enormous. Even though Liu Wuzhou sent people to patrol every night, the number of patrolmen was far from sufficient to cover the camp that housed 50 troops.

Every night, Li Shimin would send troops to launch surprise attacks from different directions, not to gain any real victory, but simply to exhaust his soldiers.

Because of constant sneak attacks, Liu Wuzhou's army suffered from sleepless nights, often being awakened by various shouts and cries just as they fell asleep.

Even Liu Wuzhou's grain supply route had to be reinforced with more guards because it was frequently attacked by Li Shimin.

This indirectly reduced the pressure on Li Shimin to defend the city.

After more than ten days, Li Shimin's reinforcements successfully changed course.

With the current troop strength in Hulao Pass, it is more than enough to defend the pass.

However, Li Shimin was not prepared to simply take the beating without fighting back; he wanted to retaliate.

The following day, Li Shimin personally led 30,000 cavalry to launch a night raid on Liu Wuzhou.

He deliberately made a big commotion by launching this sneak attack, giving Liu Wuzhou time to prepare.

Liu Wuzhou planned to use this opportunity to his advantage and seize Li Shimin.

Li Shimin led his troops to Liu Wuzhou's camp. Just as he was about to lead his army to attack, he saw Liu Wuzhou personally leading his army to light a large number of torches and waiting for him in the camp.

Li Shimin was greatly surprised. "Oh no! There's an ambush! Retreat quickly!"

Li Shimin exclaimed in alarm, turned his horse around, and began to flee.

Liu Wuzhou laughed loudly, "You little brat, you know how to fight?!"