This article is an excerpt from "The History of the Tang Dynasty that Addicted to Reading a Page: When the Stars Shine".
1 A conversation before a defeat
Li Yuan, who later became the founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty, often recalled his conversation with Yu Wenshi, the son of Yu Wenshu, a powerful man and general of Zuo Yiwei, who was in Zhuojun five years earlier in Zhuo County in 612. At that time, they were at the head of the city, watching the millions of soldiers of the empire marching towards Liaodong under the command of the emperor. At that time, the Sui Empire was at its peak under the wise rule of Emperor Yang Guang, and the emperor's power was extremely powerful. The courtiers who descended from Emperor Yang Guang thought that under such military might, the Goguryeo people would naturally succumb, and they did not expect that this large-scale march would eventually turn into a disaster. Li Yuan and Yu Wenshi are old acquaintances, and their ancestors were all soldiers in Wuchuan Town back then, so they are still fellow villagers. It's just that the ancestor of Yuwenshi was only a general under the command of Yuwentai, the Taizu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, and Li Hu, the Duke of Tang Guo, was the founding veteran of the Wuchuan Group. Li Yuan is the emperor's cousin, and Yu Wenshi is married to Princess Nanyang and is the emperor's son-in-law, and they are all noble ministers around the emperor. Looking at the army in the distance, although they did not know the catastrophic defeat in a few months, they felt somewhat unpredictable about the future situation. After years of reckless military force and excessive use of civilian power, the world has reached a time when it is about to run out. 
What kind of secret conversation they had is unknown to future generations, but this secret discussion is clearly written in the history books. According to the record of "Old Tang Book: Yu Wenshi and Biography", Li Yuan was with Yu Wenshi and was in Zhuo County"Taste the secret of current affairs in the night". After a few years passed, in the second year of Wude (619) after the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan, who had become the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, said to Pei Lian: "This person has been talking to me about the affairs of the world for six or seven years, and the public generations are all behind him." "Li Yuan and Yu Wenshi, at the height of the Sui Dynasty, had already seen the signs of the imminent collapse of the empire. This world was fought by the ancestors of Guan Long, from the time when the Northern Zhou Dynasty Taizu pacified the eastern part of the country, it was the Son of Heaven and the nobles who shared the world. For the safety of the world, Wuchuan has an unshirkable responsibility after his meritorious service. Then, if the Son of Heaven is unscrupulous, the court is in turmoil, and the world is restless, then the descendants of Wuchuan should stand up and eliminate the ills for the world. This is the idea of Yu Wenshi and Li Yuan, and it is also the common view of most Guanlongmen valves. The two of them looked at each other, and there were some extraneous meanings, which they tacitly did not understand, but the meanings had all been pointed. They all saw that under the appearance of this prosperous scene created by Emperor Yang Guang's whipping of the world, there was actually a tired people's power and a lot of white bones. The Sui emperors of the two dynasties were both stern and suspicious people, and under the harsh political atmosphere of the Sui court, even important ministers like them were tense and breathless. The lords and nobles are secretly communicating with each other, taking advantage of the turbulent undercurrent, each preparing for the moment when the world changes. And Li Yuan was the huge wave that was about to rise in the undercurrent at that time. 
2 Li Yuan's plan
The emperor is a king who guesses the king, and most of the people in the court know this, because the unknown person has already been killed by the emperor. For example, Gao Xi, the prime minister of the year, once made immortal feats, because the emperor Yang Guang lived a luxurious life and was worried, and after saying a few words to others in private, he was denounced, and finally Yang Guang was killed on the charge of "slandering the government". And Li Yuan's heart is also like a mirror, although he and Yang Guang were raised by Queen Dugu together, but in the face of power, Yang Guang even killed his own brothers, let alone cousins?Therefore, in the imperial court, Li Yuan did things in a low-key manner, behaved with his tail between his legs, and was an honest official. However, although Li Yuan is low-key, he also grew up with a golden key, a hardcore Wuchuan town heir, hereditary Tang Guogong, and Yang Guang's close cousin, so his career is also smooth. In the ninth year of the Great Cause (613), Yang Xuangan rebelled, the world was shaken, and the Kansai region was also harassed, so Li Yuan was sent to Honghua County in Kansai to guard the town, and he also knew the military of Kansai, and urgently went to pacify the Kansai region. With this appointment, Li Yuan was like a fish in water, plunged into the cause, and mingled with the local heroes and clans. Grandfather Li Hu was famous in the Kansai region back then, and Li Yuan was also a well-known loyal person, so heroes and heroes from all directions, as well as local wealthy families, all competed to make friends with Li Yuan. However, after Li Yuan did it for a while, the gossip came from the palace that the emperor began to suspect him. It turned out that not long ago, the emperor ordered Li Yuan to go to the place where he was lucky, but Li Yuan was sick at that time, so he didn't go. 
At that time, Li Yuan's nephew, the Queen, was in the harem, and Emperor Yang Guang heard the news of Li Yuan's illness, so he immediately asked, "Is the eldest cousin sick?"Is it the kind that dies right away?When this news reached Li Yuan, he was terrified to death. Although the emperor is not very virtuous, the suspicion implicitly revealed by his question is already obvious. Yang Su was asked a similar question by the emperor back then, so he gave up ** and waited for himself to die. Emperor Yang of Sui's court does not need capable people, capable people have been eliminated by the emperor one by one, whoever is outstanding may become a thorn in the emperor's side, and the emperor will suspect that he is preparing to plot against the Great Sui - after all, this is what their old Yang family planned back then. So, Li Yuan hurriedly and desperately dug up his little faults. Don't you love to drink?Then double the dose now, drink desperately, and look drunk all day long. Moreover, he also began to accept ** bribes. Although the old Li family has not encountered the word "lack of money" over the years, Li Yuan still defiles himself by accepting ** bribes. In fact, the other ministers of the DPRK and China are not like this?This is the necessary survival skill of the courtiers during the Great Cause period. Didn't Yang Su, the powerful minister of the year, also collect ** bribes everywhere to defile himself?In the end, he was forced by the emperor to give up and wait for death. Fortunately, Li Yuan's brother has thick eyebrows and big eyes, and he looks a little simple, because of his appearance, he was ridiculed and ridiculed by the emperor. The emperor didn't take this eldest cousin very seriously, so Li Yuan survived the crisis safely. 
After the end of the three expeditions to Goryeo, the world was in turmoil, and the emperor needed a close person to pacify the Hedong region, so in the eleventh year of the Great Cause (615), he chose his eldest cousin Li Yuan to serve as the ambassador of Hedong in Shanxi. After Li Yuan was awarded the title of ambassador of consolation, his first reaction must be: "What kind of official is this?""The Shanxi Hedong Comfort Ambassador is neither a loose official representing an official rank, nor a formal dispatch officer, but a temporary "envoy". Since the Qin and Han dynasties, there has never been an official title called "appeasement ambassador", and it is all thanks to the ingenuity of the "great and wise" emperor to create such a position to deal with the complicated public security situation in the Hedong region of Shanxi after the three conquests of Goryeo. Although ancient China was not a society governed by law, the ** dynasty has been running for thousands of years since Qin Shi Huang, and has also formed a certain system and rules, government decree execution, authority, and its own law. So what kind of role does this ambassador of comfort play in Shanxi Hedong?Is there jurisdiction over the state or county?Do you have your own army?What about the transfer authority?What's more, the money comes fromIs it to collect taxes directly from the local government, or to rely on the allocation of funds?It's all a question that needs to be clarified in a new position. However, fortunately, there was a delay under the emperor's edict, which can be regarded as delineating the scope of power of the post of appeasement ambassador: "Undertake the deposition of the county civil and military officials, and still send Hedong soldiers to hunt down the group of thieves." That is to say, the ambassador has the right to punish, exempt, select, and supplement the civil and military forces of the counties and counties in the Hedong Province of Shanxi Province in accordance with the imperial court system, and can also levy the existing army in the Hedong region to arrest the bandits. Hearing this, this comfort ambassador is a bit famous, not only has the right to appoint and dismiss the personnel of the local civil and military ** in the entire Shanxi Hedong region, but also has the power to recruit soldiers and horses from all over the country. Li Yuan liked this appointment very much, and he once said to his second son Li Shimin: "Our old Li family is titled the Duke of Tang State, and during the Spring and Autumn Period, Taiyuan was the land of Tang State”
3 The path of entrepreneurship within the system
However, there is always a gap between the ideal and the reality, and when Li Yuan took office as the ambassador of comfort, the entire Hedong region had been beaten into a sieve by the popular uprisings that had sprung up in various places, and the small group of "liukou" was not counted, but the number one was Wudu'er in Longmen, Lishanfei in the Yicheng area, and Chai Baochang in the Jiangzhou area, all of which had more than tens of thousands of people. On Li Yuan's side, he said that he could mobilize the soldiers and horses in Hedong, but after all, these soldiers and horses were not directly commanded by him, the ambassador of comfort, and in that era when transportation was basically by walking and communication was ***, it was extremely inconvenient to command. Moreover, Li Yuan parachuted from ** to Hedong, and the original local powerful factions also had the mentality of watching the show, and if they followed Li Yuan's orders immediately, they actually couldn't do anything. Li Yuan can only rely on the little soldiers and horses under his command to beg for thieves, but fortunately, the Tang Guogong family has a great cause, and there are a lot of family members and guests, and the combat effectiveness is also strong. Moreover, Li Yuan has befriended the world's heroes in the past few years, and the prestige accumulated in the rivers and lakes also came in handy at this time. For example, the rich warrior Tong of Bingzhou is also a good man in the rivers and lakes, and after befriending Li Yuan, he is sponsoring money and food and contributing manpower. This brother's daughter is very famous, her name is Mei Niang, and she has not yet been born at this time. In this way, Li Yuan organized an army of more than 1,000 people, and more importantly, this private army was absolutely controlled by Li Yuan and was well-trained. 
When the prefectures and counties in Hedong were either watching or being beaten by the "rogues" everywhere and cowering in the city and unable to come out, Li Yuan's small but elite army appeared in front of the peasant army like a mechanical god of war. In the first battle, Li Yuan played against Longmen's Wuwei'er. This battle with a huge disparity in numbers was a battle between thousands of people and tens of thousands of people, and tens of thousands of people set up a dragon gate array in the Huoyi area of Longmen, as if this battle was bound to win. But after the battle, Li Yuan personally led dozens of heavily armed armored cavalry and launched a charge against these tens of thousands of people. This is the most terrifying cavalry charge tactic since the Wei and Jin dynasties - "armor and cavalry equipment", horses and cavalry are wrapped in armor all over the body, indestructible, dozens of cavalry charge, but there is a tendency to overwhelm the mountains and seas. Under the unstoppable charge of the armored cavalry, the entire army of Wudu'er was crushed. Li Yuan fired more than 70 arrows in a row, and each arrow hit, and the enemy fell in response. The peasant army collapsed on all fronts under the onslaught of this violent cavalry, so the officers and troops took advantage of the situation to cover up and kill countless people. 
Li Yuan built the corpses of the beheaded peasant soldiers into a "Jingguan" to intimidate those who dared to rebel and rebel in the future. In addition, Li Yuan began to send people to surrender to the remnants of the Wudu's army. The remnants of the soldiers, who were traumatized by the charge of the "armored cavalry equipment", finally surrendered to Li Yuan. In this battle, tens of thousands of troops were obtained, and Li Yuan ushered in a good start. Although these tens of thousands of people are mainly from the small families of the peasant army. However, Li Yuan selected strong people from the remnants of the army to be incorporated into his subordinates, and his strength suddenly increased a lot. Subsequently, Li Yuan solved Chai Baochang in Jiangzhou in a similar simple and crude way, and got tens of thousands of people. Because of these military exploits, Li Yuan was named the general of the Right Xiaowei. Soon after, Li Yuan led the army to conquer the Turks after the siege of Yanmen, and was appointed as the guardian of Taiyuan by the emperor Yang Guang, who went south, and officially sat in Taiyuan City. Entrepreneur Li Yuan dug up the first pot of gold in his life. Record my romantic life At this time, the world was already in chaos, and the emperor was also crying on the tower of Yanmen Pass, and he lost face. The Sui Empire tore off the last fig leaf, and the truth of the royal family was looked at coldly by the old nobles of the Sui Court, all with frivolous looks. Before leaving, in Fenyang Palace, Li Yuan met with Yu Wenshi again. When there was no one around, the two had a heart-to-heart long talk, and Li Yuan also found out his heart in the secret room.
Sui lost its deer, and the old people of Wuchuan should chase it together. 