History is the memory of things that have been said and done. —Carl Baker
In 610 AD, the sixth year of the Sui Dynasty. The king of Goguryeo, Gao Yuan, did not observe the ceremony, which disgraced the Sui Emperor Yang Guang. In this way, this international etiquette provoked the Sui Emperor, who was determined to conquer this small country.
In the first month of 612, the Sui Emperor recruited 1,133,800 men and gathered them in Beijing. At this time, Beijing was freezing cold, and in order to ensure the supply of troops and materials for the army, the Sui Emperor began to continuously collect materials from farmers. In addition, before that, the Sui Dynasty Emperor built a large number of civil engineering, heavy military service, forced labor, and conscription, making the vast areas of the Central Plains desolate and the people not happy. Peasant uprisings began to break out everywhere.
The first to ignite this pile of sparks was the ChangbaiShan Rebellion launched by Wang Bo in Shandong in 611 AD. The beginning of this uprising was to oppose the conscription of troops to attack Goguryeo. Peasants in a large area of Shandong, in order to avoid being conscripted into the army, joined Wang Bo's rebel army one after another.
However, Wang Bo's rebellion did not shake the Sui Emperor's determination to conquer Goguryeo and continued his great cause of conquest of Goguryeo. In order to ensure the supply of grain and grass for the attack on the Goguryeo army, the Sui Emperor made a major personnel selection error, which made a sui dynasty gravedigger.
In 613, the Sui Emperor chose Yang Xuan, the son of Yang Su, the founding hero of the Sui Dynasty, to feel that Liyang (the ancient name of JunXian County, Henan Province) was oversaw the transportation of grain and grass. At this time, near Liyang, peasant uprisings were frequent. The Wagang Army, which is not far from Liyang, is already quite climatic. Yang Xuangan saw that the opportunity to establish a great cause had come, so he deliberately stayed in grain and grass, tun troops in Liyang, and attacked the capital Luoyang. As a result, Yang Xuangan misestimated his own ability, attacked several times for a long time, repeatedly lost battles, and finally felt hopeless, ordered his brother Yang Jishan to kill himself, which was tragic enough.
Yang Xuangan's uprising failed, what about their soldiers and advisers? There was one of the most important advisers, named Li Mi, who was originally the great-grandson of Li Bi, a famous general of Western Wei and one of the Eight Pillar States of Northern Zhou. During Yang Xuangan's uprising, Li Mi proposed three strategies for the upper, middle, and lower levels, but Yang Xuangan thought that the next strategy was the best strategy, and the result failed.
After the failure of the uprising, Li Mi fled to Huaiyang Commandery (淮阳郡, in modern Huaiyang County, Henan Province), where he was afraid of being pursued and killed by the officials and had to change his name to Liu Zhiyuan. In order to survive, he began to rely on his profound literary skills and recruited apprentices to teach. However, while teaching, he wrote a poem that exposed his identity. Therefore, someone reported to Huaiyang Taishou Zhao Tuo. Zhao Tuo did not dare to be idle, so he searched for Li Mi in Huaiyang County.
Seeing that there was no way out, Li Mi had no choice but to flee to the Wagang army of Zhai Rang, the lord of Wagang Village. At this time, the Wagang Army was already the most powerful of the peasant rebels at the end of the Sui Dynasty. Among the troops were famous generals such as Shan Xiongxin, Xu Shiji, Wang Bodang, and Qin Shubao.
As a generation of strategists, in the Wagang Army, Li Mi's command and strategic ability has been fully brought into play. In 616, Li Mi suggested that Zhai Rang attack Xingyang first, recuperate here, and then wait for the soldiers and horses to be strong before waiting for the opportunity. As a result, the Wagang army defeated the Sui army led by Zhang Sutuo at Xingyang and won the great victory at Xingyang, laying the foundation for the continued growth of the Wagang army.
The following year, in 617, Li Mi again asked Zhai to divide his troops into 10 routes to counter the encirclement and suppression of the Sui army Pei Renji, and once again won a great victory.
Such a battle record made Zhai Rang, the lord of WagangZhai who was originally a Judge of the Sui Dynasty, take a fancy to him and decided to give the leadership of the Wagang Army to Li Mi. In this way, Li Mi became the marshal of the Wagang Army, and Zhai Rang retired to the second place and became Situ. To this end, they also established the "Wei" regime. The reason why it was a "Wei" regime was related to the fact that Li Mi's great-grandfather Li Bi was a famous general of Western Wei.
At this time, the Wagang army had taken control of the Central Plains and cut off the connection between Jiangdu and Luoyang, and even the Sui Emperor was besieged in Jiangdu. It seems that the acquisition of the world is in the near future, and Zhai Rang abdicates the throne with Li Mi, which causes many people to be dissatisfied, such as Zhai Rang's general Wang Ruxin and his brother Zhai Kuan, who all advised Zhai Rang to return to the leadership. However, this provoked contradictions within the Wagang Army.
The resourceful Li Mi, on November 11, 617, held a feast at the Hongmen Gate, at which Zhai Rang was killed, and Xu Shixun, Shan Xiongxin, and others barely survived by prostrating their heads and begging for forgiveness. After this battle, Li Mi really controlled the Wagang army, but the Wagang army declined. A year later, Li Mi accepted the Sui Dynasty's offers and the rebel Yu culture and death, allowing Wang Shichong to gain profit, and since then, the Wagang army has come to the end of history.
If it were not for the contradiction between Li Mi and Zhai Rang, there might not have been any relationship between Li Yuan's Tang Dynasty, and China might have established the Wei Dynasty after the Sui Dynasty.
Since then, people have often used a sentence to describe the Wagang Army, that is, "Ning Xue Taoyuan Three Knots of Righteousness, Do Not Learn Wagang One Incense", which means that brotherly discord has caused a historical tragedy. This is arguably the most successful negative teaching material.