One of the classic stories in "Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties" is "three whips for two maces", a story that is still widely known today.
In the war between Li Shimin and Liu Wuzhou, two brave and warlike generals, Qin Qiong and Wei Chigong, had a fierce contest. They competed for hundreds of rounds, and their strength was equal, and it was difficult to tell the winner.
In the end, Yu Chigong proposed a more brutal duel method - body impact. Qin Qiong and Yu Chigong each threw two shots, and Yu Chigong even became ** because of this, but he still insisted on continuing.
And Qin Qiong also retreated after receiving Wei Chigong's third whip. Despite this, both of them highly recognized each other's strength and had a deep sense of admiration.
After the war, Li Shimin successfully defeated Liu Wuzhou, and Wei Chigong was also subdued by him, becoming one of his most effective assistants.
The legend of "three whips for two maces" has been widely praised for thousands of years, and although the details and versions vary, its core spirit is still deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
In the official history, Qin Qiong and Wei Chigong were not so stupid, and they would adopt appropriate strategies to deal with the enemy's attack.
However, this war against Liu Wuzhou did take place in history and had a crucial impact on the nascent Li Tang Dynasty at that time.
1.Backyard**: In July of the thirteenth year of the Great Cause, Li Yuan raised troops in Taiyuan, officially opening the prelude to Li Tang's unification of the world. On November 9, Li Yuan led his army into Chang'an; On November 13, Li Yuan proclaimed Yang Yu as emperor.
In 618 AD, a coup d'état broke out in Jiangdu, Emperor Yang Guang of Sui was killed in Jiangdu, and Li Yuan forced Yang Yu to take the throne in May and established the Tang Dynasty. Li Shimin led his army westward in June and engaged in a fierce battle with Xue Ju of Western Qin.
In September, Xue Ju died of illness, and in November, Li Shimin defeated Xue Ju's son Xue Rengao in the Battle of Shallow Water Plain, expanding the territory of the Tang Dynasty.
At the beginning of the second year of Wude, the Tang Dynasty used a counter-plot to kill the Liang king Li Liang and control Guanzhong and the area west of Guanzhong.
However, as Li Yuan led his army out of Taiyuan, Taiyuan's defensive forces became empty.
Liu Wuzhou, north of Taiyuan, saw this opportunity and began to attack south, trying to capture Taiyuan when it was empty.
Speaking of Liu Wuzhou, he is a very interesting person. He was originally a lieutenant of Yingyang Mansion in the Mayi area of Shanxi, and he joined the army in February of the thirteenth year of the Great Cause.
It was his uprising that led to Emperor Yang of Sui's accountability of Li Yuan, who was then the supreme leader of the Taiyuan region, which forced Li Yuan to raise troops.
After Li Yuan raised his troops, he formulated a strategy of capturing Guanzhong first, and at the same time took defensive measures against Liu Wuzhou in the north.
In order to prevent Liu Wuzhou from moving south, he left his youngest son Li Yuanji to guard Taiyuan and sent excellent generals and reinforcements.
Theoretically, as long as Li Yuanji sticks to it, the Taiyuan area should be safe.
However, the problem lies with Li Yuanji himself. In the second year of Wude, when he learned that Liu Wuzhou's army was approaching Taiyuan, he did not lead the army to resist, but chose to flee with his family.
This kind of behavior really disappointed Li Yuan.
However, this move by Li Yuanji has brought serious consequences.
Because the Taiyuan area is where Li Yuan started, although he later settled in Chang'an, Taiyuan is still his foundation.
Now, Taiyuan has fallen into the hands of the enemy, which is undoubtedly a major blow to the nascent Li Tang Dynasty.
The fall of Taiyuan had a huge impact on the Tang Dynasty. Li Yuan has been operating in the Taiyuan area for many years, and the grain, grass, and people and horses left behind are huge wealth, but due to Li Yuanji's retreat, these resources fell into the hands of Liu Wuzhou.
Most of Shanxi, centered on Taiyuan, was also occupied by Liu Wuzhou, and the Tang Dynasty left only the southwest of Jin on the east bank of the Yellow River. In this case, the battle between the Li family and Liu Wuzhou was inevitable.
In the face of the fall of Taiyuan, different voices emerged within the Tang Dynasty.
Some people supported Li Yuan and advocated the temporary abandonment of Taiyuan.
The reason why Li Yuan had such an idea was not because he was afraid of Liu Wuzhou, but because he already had other plans.
His plan was to start with Chang'an and then attack Luoyang.
However, when Li Yuan took Chang'an, Xue Ju in the west suddenly attacked, and he had to deal with Xue Ju first, so he temporarily abandoned the plan for Taiyuan.
When Li Yuan attacked Liu Wuzhou, he faced two choices: one was to attack Luoyang first and gain the advantage of the north;
The second is to directly confront Liu Wuzhou, but it may lead to Wang Shichong in Luoyang becoming bigger.
Led by Li Shimin, he advocated attacking Liu Wuzhou first, because he believed that Taiyuan was the place where Li Yuan raised his troops and could not be lost, otherwise it would weaken the defense of the north and the morale of the Tang army.
In the end, Li Yuan decided to let Li Shimin lead his army to retake Taiyuan, which would be a tough battle.
After Liu Wuzhou captured Taiyuan, his momentum was like a rainbow. However, Li Yuan was at a low point and had to take measures. He sent Pei Lian, the right servant of the Tang Dynasty at that time, to lead the army to resist, hoping to recapture Taiyuan as soon as possible.
However, what Li Yuan didn't expect was that this veteran minister who had made outstanding achievements in the Taiyuan Uprising was not good at leading troops.
As a result, the Tang army suffered an unprecedented defeat, and Pei Lin was only spared.
After Pei Lian was defeated and fled, Li Yuanji gave up resistance and fled directly back to Chang'an.
Faced with the unfavorable situation of Liu Wuzhou's army occupying the lead, Li Shimin led his army to the Baibi area and confronted Song Jingang, the number one general under Liu Wuzhou.
This famous battle of Baibi in the history of the late Sui Dynasty kicked off.
At first, Liu Wuzhou's army had occupied most of Shanxi, forming a favorable situation.
However, Li Shimin was keenly aware of a weakness of Liu Wuzhou's army - the problem of grain and grass supply.
Two years earlier, Li Yuan had raised his army from Shanxi to Chang'an, and his army had consumed a lot of supplies in the process, as well as the granaries that the Sui Dynasty had accumulated over the years east of the Yellow River.
In Taiyuan, although Liu Wuzhou's troops captured a large number of men and horses, their grain and grass were still insufficient.
And Li Yuan occupied the entire Guanzhong region and had obvious advantages in grain and grass.
Under these circumstances, after the Tang army arrived in the Baibi area, Li Shimin began to implement the strategy of clearing the wilderness by fortifying the wall, taking advantage of the Li family's many years of operation in Shanxi and the deep civil foundation, so that the common people of Shanxi were inclined to support the Tang army, thus making it more difficult for Liu Wuzhou's troops to collect supplies.
As time goes by, the confrontation between Song Jingangbu and Li Shimin will continue. Li Shimin did not forget to send a small army to harass Song Jingang's troops and obtain information about the enemy.
Sometimes, he even went into battle himself. On one occasion, Li Shimin led his guards to reconnoiter intelligence, but fell asleep on a hill due to fatigue. Luckily, a snake chasing rats awakened him and his guards, who found and fled from the army of the Song Jingang Tribe.
Recently, the distance between the two sides is only a hundred steps. In the end, Li Shimin was able to escape by shooting an arrow at the commander of the enemy army. If it weren't for that snake, there might not have been a later Tang Taizong.
Although it is dangerous, as long as the two armies continue to confront each other, the longer it will be, the more beneficial it will be to the Tang army. The decline of the Song King Kong Ministry seems to be only a matter of time.
However, Li Shimin's entire plan was changed by another thing.
At that time, Li Yuan sent a large army to attack Liu Wuzhou, not only sending Li Shimin's army, but also sending Li Xiaoji, the king of Yong'an, Yu Yun, the governor of Shaanxi, Dugu Huaien, the secretary of the Ministry of Works, and Tang Jian, the servant of the internal history, to attack Xia County from another direction.
As a result, the Tang army was overwhelmed at first, but was soon stopped by Chi Gong, the number one general under Song Jingang. After a major battle between the two sides, the Tang army was defeated, and several leading generals were killed or captured.
On the other hand, the defeat of the Tang army left Li Shimin's army alone, unable to continue to adopt the strategy of attrition in the field of fortification.
Because if you continue to do this, you can only wait to be surrounded by Liu Wuzhou from all directions.
Therefore, Li Shimin began to take the initiative. In the first battle, he chose to challenge Wei Chigong, who had defeated him before, which was the prototype of the "three whips and two strikes" battle in history.
Of course, Second Master Qin would definitely not stand stupidly and let Yu Chigong fight. Moreover, this battle was not a dead victory between the two sides, but the Tang army defeated Wei Chigong's side in a battle and beheaded more than 2,000 people.
This was the first overwhelming victory in the history of the Tang army and Liu Wuzhou. This victory injected strong morale into the Don army and reversed the situation that had been passively beaten since the beginning of the war.
With the reduction of grain and grass, the Song Jingang army began to show fatigue, and the situation began to favor the Tang army. By the middle of April of the third year of Wude, Song Jingang's grain and grass had been completely exhausted, and he could only choose to retreat.
This retreat means a great defeat.
Li Shimin, who had experienced a hundred battles, naturally would not miss this rare opportunity, and he led the army to pursue all the way, putting Song Jingang in a predicament.
In the end, the Tang army completely defeated the Song Jingang army in the area of the Bird Mouse Valley, fought eight battles in one day, killed tens of thousands of prisoners, and achieved a complete victory. However, at this time, the Tang army had also reached its limit.
It is said that Li Shimin has not taken off his armor for three days and has not eaten for two days and two nights. After the defeat of Song Jingang, the rations of the Tang army were only one sheep, which was shared by tens of thousands of soldiers.
Tens of thousands of people share a sheep, and this war is really tragic. After the first battle of the Bird Mouse Valley, although the Tang army was exhausted, Song Jingang's team had also reached its limit.
After Song Jingang fled back to Jiexiu City, although he still had 20,000 men under his command, these 20,000 people were also exhausted. In the end, the two sides fought fiercely under the city of Jiexiu, the Tang army won a complete victory, and Song Jingang fled on horseback.
After Song Jingang fled, although there were still remnants of soldiers guarding Jiexiu City, and there were fierce generals like Wei Chigong guarding it, but in any case, this city was already a lonely city, and there was no hope.
In order to reduce **, Li Shimin sent Li Daozong and Yu Wenshi to persuade him to surrender. In the end, Wei Chigong chose Jiexiu and Yong'an counties to surrender to Tang and became Li Shimin's subordinate.
After Liu Wuzhou lost the elite main force of Jiexiu City, he was no longer able to resist the attack of the Tang army. It was only a matter of time before the Tang army recovered Shanxi.
If Liu Wuzhou dares to rectify the remnants of the army and stick to Taiyuan, it may bring more trouble to Li Shimin.
But he chose to move troops to the Turks and embarked on a different path.
Liu Wuzhou relied on the support of the Turks in the early days of the uprising, and after establishing himself as emperor, he was also named Dingyang Khan. He believed that as long as the Turks supported it, there was a chance to turn the tables.
However, he made a bad decision and personally went to the Turks to rescue the troops.
According to common sense, this kind of thing should be handled by sending subordinates, but he thinks that he is more sure that he will go in person, and even if Li Shimin attacks him, he can ensure his own safety.
However, he ignored one question: he had lost his territory, would the Turks still care about him?
After Liu Wuzhou fled to the Turks, his subordinates saw that the lord had fled, and surrendered to the Tang army. Song Jingang, who was once the number one general under Liu Wuzhou, originally wanted to gather his troops again to resist the Tang army.
But with Liu Wuzhou's departure, his subordinates had no intention of fighting again.
In the end, Song Jingang had no choice but to give up, and only led dozens of horsemen to flee to the Turks.
However, he discovered that the Turks had no intention of sending troops to help, so he planned to return to the upper valley area, where the army had started, but was discovered and intercepted by the Turks.
At the same time, Liu Wuzhou also tried to escape back to Mayi, but the plan was leaked and he was killed by the Turks. After the deaths of Liu Wuzhou and Song Jingang, the entire Shanxi region fell under the control of the Li Tang dynasty.
Without the threat of Liu Wuzhou from the north, the Li family was able to deal with Wang Shichong in Luoyang and Dou Jiande in Shandong, laying the foundation for the unification of the world.
Li Shimin showed incomparable courage and resourcefulness in the Battle of Baibi, and almost perfectly interpreted the words "courage and strategy".
Although many people have reservations about his killing of his brother in the Xuanwumen Incident, his leadership skills are undeniable.
If you leave aside his imperial status, he is undoubtedly the most outstanding general of the late Sui and Tang dynasties.