The Tang Dynasty had just defeated Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande's two rivals to unify the north, but in July 621, Dou Jiande's general Liu Heimin suddenly rebelled in the area of Hengshui City, Hebei Province, and the war was rekindled.
Surprisingly, after Liu Heimin's uprising, the initial strength was only a few hundred. However, in just a few months, he led these hundreds of men to sweep through hundreds of thousands of elite troops of the Tang Dynasty and capture Hebei, Henan, Shandong and other places.
Not only did he quickly restore the territory of the Dou Jiande period, but he even began to pose a threat to the survival of the Tang Dynasty.
What kind of strength does this Liu Heimin have that can create such outstanding military achievements in a short period of time, and even push the nascent Datang to the brink of life and death?
This was both related to his own talents and influenced by the situation at the time. To explain this problem, we need to briefly understand the person Liu Heimin.
Liu Heimin was born at the bottom of the society, when he was young, he was a street runner, idle all day long, addicted to alcohol and gambling, and extravagant, often making himself hungry.
If he were living now, he would probably be the focus of the local police station.
However, history is always full of wonderful twists.
People like Liu Heimin may not be good children in the eyes of most people, but they may play an important role on the stage of history and have a profound impact on history.
When he was young, Liu Heimin often squandered all his family property because of gambling in his hometown, causing him to go hungry. Fortunately, he met a good village chief - Dou Jiande.
Dou Jiande is a typical heroic figure, he likes to make friends, regards money as dung, enjoys high prestige in the local area, and is publicly recommended as the local "lieutenant chief".
Whenever Liu Heimin couldn't eat, he would always go to Dou Jiande for help.
For Liu Heimin, a bit of a scoundrel friend, Dou Jiande always has no complaints, as long as Liu Heimin comes, he will generously provide food.
As a result, the two heroes of the late Sui and early Tang dynasties formed an indissoluble bond.
In the last years of the Sui Dynasty, Liu Heimin was destitute and joined the peasant army.
Because of his good popularity, Dou Jiande walked around his home every time he robbed, so he was mistaken by the government for a member of the peasant army, and his family was executed.
Dou Jiande thus bore the revenge of exterminating the clan and joined the peasant army.
Liu Heimin defected to Hao Xiaode, the leader of the peasant army with limited ability, and later followed him to the Wagang army.
In the Wagang Army, Liu Heimin made a name for himself for his bravery in battle.
After the defeat of the Wagang army, Liu Heimin was captured by Wang Shichong.
Although Wang Shichong released him because he heard about Liu Heimin's reputation and named him a general, Liu Heimin couldn't get used to Wang Shichong's character, so he found an opportunity to escape.
After leaving Wang Shichong, Liu Heimin thought of Dou Jiande.
At this time, Dou Jiande already had more than 100,000 soldiers and horses, controlled the whole of Hebei, and expanded his sphere of influence in the collapse of the Wagang army, becoming one of the most powerful separatist forces in the Central Plains.
Dou Jiande welcomed Liu Heimin's defection, they were all old friends, and Liu Heimin's combat ability was very strong. Therefore, Dou Jiande appointed Liu Heimin as a general to lead an army to fight.
Under Dou Jiande's leadership, Liu Heimin became more courageous and his reputation grew.
Dou Jiande once reached out to help, but was ultimately defeated by Li Shimin. As a result, the Tang Dynasty succeeded in sweeping away the two powerful enemies, and the area south of the Yangtze River was basically unified.
Liu Heimin had participated in this battle, but after the defeat of Dou Jiande's army, he escaped from the Tiger Prison Pass and returned to his hometown. In the beginning, he wanted to be an ordinary person and stay away from these strife.
However, it backfired. Dou Jiande was escorted to Chang'an to be executed, and the Tang Dynasty also planned to execute Dou Jiande's other generals. This puts Liu Heimin in a predicament, and he must make a choice: wait for death, or rebel.
The other Dou Jiande's generals faced the same dilemma, and they decided to continue the rebellion.
In the early days of the uprising, they asked a local fortune teller to tell a fortune teller, who said that they should elect a man surnamed Liu as their leader, so that they would have a better chance of success.
So, they found Dou Jiande's old subordinate Liu Ya, hoping that he could lead them to revolt again. But Liu Ya was a little timid and did not agree to their proposal. After Liu Ya refused, these people were afraid that he would tell the truth, so they killed him directly.
After that, they began to look for the next person with the surname Liu, and finally found Liu Heimin. Liu Heimin was originally worried about being pursued by the Tang Dynasty, but at this time, there happened to be a good opportunity sent to him, and of course he would not miss it.
As a result, these people officially revolted in Liu Heimin's hometown.
At the beginning, there were only more than 100 of them, but as the uprising progressed, soldiers from all over the country who originally belonged to Dou Jiande's old department came to join them, and in just over ten days, Liu Heimin's army swelled to more than 10,000 people.
After that, Liu Heimin began to lead this army to fight in all directions. Because Dou Jiande has only been killed for less than two months, the Tang Dynasty has not had time to replace the ** in various places.
Therefore, after Liu Heimin's uprising, many of the old subordinates who originally belonged to Dou Jiande directly killed the local places sent by the Tang Dynasty to respond to Liu Heimin's call.
Li Yuan, who was in Chang'an, misjudged Liu Heimin's army.
He believes that Dou Jiande's defeat is already a sure thing, and Liu Heimin's rebellion is just a small fight and will not have an impact on the overall situation.
In addition, Li Yuan was also restricting Li Shimin's military power, fearing that he would threaten the position of the crown prince Li Jiancheng. Therefore, Li Yuan did not send Li Shimin to lead the troops, but sent several Tang Dynasty troops around Liu Heimin to suppress him.
It was this misjudgment that gave Liu Heimin enough opportunities to completely expand his power. I have to say that Liu Heimin's military talent is indeed very strong.
In the following months, he successively defeated many Tang Dynasty armies such as Li Shentong, the king of Huai'an, Luo Yi, the governor of Youzhou, and Li Xuantong, the governor of Dingzhou.
After these battles, coupled with the response of Dou Jiande's old troops in various places, in just half a year, Liu Heimin almost restored all of Dou Jiande's territory.
Liu Heimin's combat speed was too fast, resulting in almost all the elite troops deployed around him by the Tang Dynasty being annihilated. After Li Yuan realized the seriousness of the problem, he could only send Li Shimin to lead the army to conquest.
When Li Shimin confronted Liu Heimin's main army, Liu Heimin showed an extremely brave fighting attitude, and even killed Li Shimin's general Luo Shixin for a time, which was the only time in the history of Li Shimin's army.
However, after Li Shimin mastered the details of Liu Heimin, he decided to stick to it and consume Liu Heimin's supplies and put him in a predicament. After two months of confrontation, Liu Heimin's army was completely depleted of supplies, and morale gradually declined.
At this time, Li Shimin decided to have a main decisive battle with Liu Heimin. Before the decisive battle, he sent people to block the upper reaches of the water where the two sides were facing each other, and when Liu Heimin's main force crossed the river, Li Shimin ordered the upstream to release water and use the river water to attack Liu Heimin's army.
Taking advantage of the river's water, coupled with the Tang army's easy battle, Li Shimin successfully defeated Liu Heimin and wiped out all of his elite forces.
Although Liu Heimin escaped the Tang army under the protection of his subordinates, he chose to go to the Turks to seek assistance against Li Shimin.
However, Liu Heimin's departure left his subordinates leaderless and unable to resist Li Shimin's attack, and soon Li Shimin pacified Shandong, Henan, Hebei and other places.
However, Li Yuan was worried that Li Shimin was too powerful, so he let Li Shimin lead his army back shortly after the end of the war.
Although Li Shimin had pacified these places, he had not been able to clean them up.
Soon after, Liu Heimin returned from the Turks and brought back Turkic reinforcements. With the help of Turkic reinforcements and the support of the best people in various places, Liu Heimin quickly recovered most of his territory.
When the news of Liu Heimin's second army came, although Li Yuan had a headache, in order to protect Li Shimin's position, he resolutely refused to let Li Shimin lead the army.
Because Li Shimin at this time has already made great achievements, it poses a serious threat to Li Jiancheng's position as the crown prince.
So, Li Yuan first sent Li Daoxuan of the Li family clan as the head coach to fight against Liu Heimin.
However, Li Daoxuan was soon killed by Liu Heimin's attack. Then, Li Yuan sent his other son, Li Yuanji, as the commander to conquer Liu Heimin.
But Li Yuanji was a shallow learner and was not Liu Heimin's opponent at all, so he was beaten by Liu Heimin and retreated.
At this time, Li Jiancheng, who was the crown prince, took the initiative to ask Ying to fight, and Li Yuan readily agreed.
After Li Jiancheng arrived in Shandong, he changed Li Shimin's tactics, and he actively contacted the local scholars and gained their support. These scholars gave up their support for Liu Heimin one after another, causing Liu Heimin's strength to decline rapidly and begin to retreat.
In the end, Liu Heimin was defeated all the way and fled to Raoyang, Hebei, but was killed by the local assassin Zhuge Dewei rebelled. At this point, Liu Heimin's life came to an end, and Shandong, Hebei, Henan and other places were finally pacified by the Tang Dynasty.
Liu Heimin's story is incredible, and even after combing through the whole story, there are still a lot of puzzling points. For example, why did Dou Jiande's old troops in various places respond to him positively after Liu Heimin raised troops?
Why did Liu Heimin quickly make a comeback after losing to Li Shimin and set off a big storm again? In fact, there is a hidden force behind Liu Heimin's story, that is, the Shandong Shi clan.
In the last years of the Sui Dynasty, the scholars in the Central Plains were mainly divided into Shandong scholars, Guanlong scholars and Jiangnan scholars, and the reason why they were divided into three categories is related to the history of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
In the later period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the south was ruled by the Southern Liang and Southern Chen, and the north was ruled by the Northern Zhou and Northern Qi.
Therefore, this force is acting in secret, which makes Liu Heimin's story seem a little incredible.
In the last years of the Sui Dynasty, although Dou Jiande occupied most of the territory of the Northern Qi Dynasty, it was difficult to gain the support of the Shandong scholars because of his background. At that time, people paid great attention to their origins and family lineage, and even if Dou Jiande was in power, the Shandong scholars did not recognize him.
In the Battle of Tiger Pass, Dou Jiande was defeated, and the Shandong Shi clan did not have time to support him, resulting in his rapid defeat. For the Shandong Shi clan, they are eager to compete with the Guan Long Shi clan for the world, because it is related to their status and interests.
Therefore, when Liu Heimin raised troops again, the Shandong Shi clan had no choice but to fully support him. It is for this reason that Liu Heimin quickly restored all of Dou Jiande's territory after raising his troops.
The whole process is incredible.
Although Liu Heimin was defeated by Li Shimin, the Shandong scholars still supported him. After the second army, he quickly occupied the territory, but Li Jiancheng was gentle and friendly with the scholars, and the scholars defected to the Li Tang regime one after another, and Liu Heimin's power gradually weakened, and defeat was inevitable.
The key to Liu Heimin's victory or defeat lies in the support of the Shi clan group and the people at the bottom. Battlefield wins and losses are sometimes not on the battlefield, but outside the battlefield. Liu Heimin lost without a clear foothold on the fundamentals, and after losing the support of the scholars, there was no place to stand.
Exploring the key factors of victory and starting with the key factors is perhaps more important than the ever-changing victory and defeat on the battlefield.