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

After discovering this horrifying truth, the group began to shrink back.

They dared not press Li Jing any further and could only wait in silence for the outcome of this battle.

Li Jing kept them hanging on, neither in a hurry nor in a hurry, because neither on this battlefield nor on another battlefield could a victor be determined in a short time.

He's not in a hurry.

Time has always been on his side.

He could easily keep going with this group indefinitely.

In any case, he would never waste the lives of Tang soldiers here.

Soon, news arrived that was good news for Li Jing but bad news for these aristocratic families.

Zhai Hong's henchmen in various regions also began to purge the major aristocratic families.

The major families still held a somewhat arrogant attitude, believing that these people simply did not have the courage to carry out Zhai Hong's orders and would never dare to lay a hand on them.

As a result, the losses were enormous.

The region occupied by Zhai Hong is the most fertile area in the entire Great Xia Dynasty, encompassing several of the most prosperous states surrounding the capital.

Naturally, these are also some of the major states where the power of powerful families is most concentrated.

Zhai Hong's attack caused heavy losses to almost all the aristocratic families in the Great Xia Dynasty.

Now, these powerful families couldn't sit still any longer. They began to actively contact Li Jing and Xia Jie, hoping that Li Jing and Xia Jie could send troops to help them pacify various places.

They are willing to provide substantial financial and logistical support to them.

Li Jing and Xia Jie both made the same move to demand higher prices: if they wanted them to send troops, they had to provide enough money and supplies, and even more people.

What they want are young and strong men, young and strong men of Chinese descent, not those native young and strong men who are neither worth eating nor worth discarding.

If we want to find a large number of young men of Chinese descent to join the army without jeopardizing the governance and livelihood of the people, we can only do so by recruiting them from these powerful and influential families.

Xia Jie, in particular, coveted the possessions of these powerful families.

Why is it that most of his territory is inhabited by indigenous people? Otherwise, why would he have been unable to even break through a single pass for so long?

Zhai Hong is not like Zhang Jiao. He already holds a high position, wields military power, and has been developing for many years.

Although these powerful families also had private armies, they were no match for regular armies.

A brief resistance might be manageable, but it simply won't hold out in the long run.

If it weren't for their deeply entrenched power, even if Zhai Hong had his own people among the local troops in various places, they would have been wiped out long ago.

They now understand why their ancestors were so eager to go out and establish fiefdoms; they only felt safe when they had a gun in their hands.

No matter how powerful you are domestically, or how many protégés and former subordinates you have all over the country, it's all useless when people don't reason with you or resort to violence.

Only by becoming a military aristocrat, wielding both military and political power, holding not only the pen but also the gun, can one truly claim that anyone who wants my life can bring it on. I can simply wave my hand and summon an army to see who prevails.

They now need to resolve their current predicament. Faced with a life-or-death crisis, they no longer hold back, but open their private treasuries and arm their farmers, sending them to Li Jing and Xia Jie's command. Moreover, these private soldiers bring their own dry rations, weapons, leather armor, and some even bring horses.

Besides being inferior to regular troops in training and discipline, they are also superior in physical fitness.

With a large influx of fresh troops, the number of soldiers under Li Jing and Xia Jie doubled. They disorganized these private soldiers and assigned them to various armies, subjecting them to rigorous training to transform them into a truly controllable force.

Only after they understood the most basic military discipline and loyalty did they send former generals with mixed troops to quell rebellions in various places.

The roads in the north were flat, and the inhabitants were mostly of Han Chinese descent. Li Jing moved even faster, quelling the rebellion in the entire north in the shortest possible time.

Then, they launched a massive attack on the Great Xia capital with several times the number of troops, using the private armies sent by those aristocratic families as cannon fodder and sending them to the front lines.

With countless cannon fodder and the military aid provided by powerful families at great expense, Yangcheng, the imperial capital of the Great Xia Dynasty, was finally captured by Li Jing.

Zhai Hong committed suicide on the dragon throne. In less than a year, two groups of people committed suicide on the dragon throne.

This made Li Jing feel that the dragon throne was somewhat unlucky.

They immediately ordered someone to move him away and send him back to China, where he would be handed over to Li Shimin for disposal.

After this battle, Li Jing had basically pacified the northern part of the Great Xia, and only Xia Jie remained as a tough nut to crack in order to pacify the entire Great Xia.

"Notify the auxiliary machine to start."

With the situation settled, Li Jing no longer needed Changsun Wuji to continue his covert operations.

All Changsun Wuji needs to do is hand over the city he holds, and Xia Jie will have no defenses left. Li Jing will then be able to attack Xia Jie from two directions, with one route clear and unobstructed, and strike straight at the heart of the enemy.

Given the servility of the Ganges River natives in the south of the Great Xia, their journey south would not be difficult at all.

After receiving news that Li Jing had breached the imperial city, Xia Jie berated his generals.

"If Mr. Zhang were here, I would have already breached the imperial city. How could I be stopped at this small pass!"

"Useless! Not only useless, but also jealous and resentful of talent! What use are you?!"

Xia Jie ordered his men to drag Da Congming out and execute him. "From now on, the entire army will attack the city day and night, with the Imperial Guards overseeing the battle. Everyone must fight to the death!"

"We will not rest until the city walls are breached!"

"Also, send the indigenous troops to the front lines, with the main force following behind. Use their lives to raze this city to the ground!"

Xia Jie gave a ruthless order: even if it costs the lives of the indigenous soldiers, this formidable pass must be filled in!

With enough lives and weapons, Xia Jie successfully breached the city wall, causing part of it to collapse. His army stormed in and annihilated Zhai Hong's last force.

Just as Xia Jie was preparing to head north to set up a trap for Li Jing, just like Xiang Yu, the King of Western Chu, a battle report came from the only remaining formidable pass in the east: Zhang Wuji, the strategist he could hardly trust, had surrendered.

The Tang Dynasty captured the strategic pass without losing a single soldier.

The Tang army then stormed into his stronghold without any resistance.

Led by Li Ji, Duke of Tang, a large Tang army set off from Xiong Guan and, under the guidance of Zhang Wuji, headed straight for his imperial city.

Xia Jie faced a dilemma: should he head north to compete with Li Jing for the capital of the Great Xia Dynasty, or should he head south to protect his home base?

"Why? Why would Zhang Wuji betray us?!"

Xia Jie could never have imagined Zhang Wuji's reason for betraying him. As long as he successfully established the country, Zhang Wuji would definitely be the prime minister.

What can one gain in the Tang Dynasty? How can a traitor like him expect to be valued and employed by the Tang Dynasty?

Xia Jie now wished he could fly directly to him and ask him what he was thinking.

Could it be that Da Congming sidelined Zhang Wuji, preventing him from participating in the war to establish the Xia dynasty, and thus left him somewhat disheartened?

That damned cleverness has ruined me!