Li Jing, known as the first god of war of the Tang Dynasty, not only covers the world with martial arts and power, but his light has not only not been worn out in the long river of history, but has also become more and more shining. So what is so remarkable about Li Jing, who has been deified in history as "King Li of Tota", and is it really as easy for him to kill the enemy on the battlefield as it is to cut melons and cut vegetables?
At the time of the founding of the Tang Dynasty, the stars were shining and talents were born, and Li Jing at that time had not yet emerged, and even several times he was almost killed, and the establishment of the Tang Dynasty was almost lost because of Li Jing's achievements.
Li Jingzi (李靖字 pharmacist), a native of Sanyuan of Yongzhou, was an outstanding military figure from the late Sui to the early Tang Dynasty. Li Jing was born into a family of eunuchs, his grandfather was Li Chongyi, who had served as the Assassin of Yin Prefecture, and his father was Yi Shi Sui, who served as the Taishou of Zhao County. Because Li Jing was influenced by his family since he was a child, he said to his father at a very young age: If the eldest husband can meet the monarch and the era of Shengming, then he should make meritorious achievements and seek wealth, so why should he be a reader.
Since he was a child, Li Jing has had a literary and martial talent and a rather enterprising spirit. Although his official position was very low before, his talents had already spread to the Sui Dynasty secretaries.
Later, Li Jing served as the Commandery of Mayi County, fighting the Turks under Li Yuan's account. At this time, the Sui Dynasty was in turmoil inside and outside the Sui Dynasty, the people were not happy, and the rebellion against the tyranny of the Sui Dynasty had become more and more intense, and the three armies led by Dou Jiande in Hebei, Zhai Rang in Henan, and Du Fuwei in Jianghuai were sweeping the rule of the Sui Dynasty with absolute superiority.
Li Yuan, who remained in Taiyuan in the Sui Dynasty, began to secretly recruit troops and horses at this time, waiting for opportunities. When Li Jing sensed Li Yuan's intentions, he wanted to send a message to the Sui Emperor. Because Li Jing had a strong sense of patriotism, and because he had been living in the Sui Dynasty, he did not want the Sui Dynasty to be destroyed. So he disguised himself as a prisoner and went to Jiangdu, and by the time he reached the capital chang'an, there was already chaos in Guannei, blocking the entire road, so Li Jing failed to report to the Sui Emperor in time.
When Li Yuan raised an army in Taiyuan, he quickly captured Chang'an, while also capturing Li Jing, who was disguised as a prisoner. So Li Yuan decided to execute him, but Li Jing felt that he was now full of money, he had not yet had time to do anything, he had not yet made meritorious achievements to realize his ambitions, how could he die so stubbornly.
Therefore, when the executioner was about to swing his sword, Li Jing shouted loudly: Ming Gong raised up the righteous soldiers in order to help the world get rid of the riots, why is it that he has not completed the great thing now, and he must kill the strong man with a personal grudge?
After hearing his words, Li Yuan was attracted by his words and demeanor, and Li Yuan's son Li Shimin also greatly appreciated Li Jing's talent and courage, so Li Shimin asked Li Yuan to release Li Jing. I have to say that the love of Li Shimin's father and son also allowed the Tang Dynasty to get a fierce general, and at the same time laid the foundation for the stability of the Tang Dynasty.
Because Li Shimin admired Li Jing very much, Li Yuan decided to let Li Jing obey Li Shimin's orders. After talking with Li Jing, Li Shimin found that Li Jing was not only very talented, but also a rare general.
Subsequently, the Tang Dynasty was established, and in order to pacify the separatist forces, Li Jing began to follow Li Shimin to conquest Wang Shichong, who was proclaimed emperor in Luoyang. Although Li Jing did not have any outstanding performance in this battle, this battle became the first step in his meritorious career.
Later, Xiao Milling in the south sent boat divisions up the river in an attempt to capture several areas of the Tang Dynasty, but was successfully repelled by Shi Xushao, the assassin of Xia Prefecture, and Xiao Milling's army retreated to Anshu City and Jingmen City. In order to weaken Xiao Qian's power, Li Yuan sent Li Jing.
When Li Jing was ordered to rush to Kuizhou, he passed through Jinzhou, and happened to meet the barbarian Deng Shiluo leading tens of thousands of people to live in the valley, and Li Zhen, the king of Lujiang, made several conquests but returned without success. At this time, Li Jing helped him with advice, and after listening to Li Jing's plan, Li Jing was greatly shocked. Later, with the help of Li Jing, Li Yu successfully repelled the barbarians and also captured many prisoners.
When Li Jing arrived at Xia Prefecture, because Xiao Milling controlled the dangerous plug, Li Jing's army could not advance for a long time. At this time, when Li Yuan saw that Li Jing was slow to advance on the road, he mistakenly believed that Li Jing had deliberately stagnated and wanted to delay the military plane. So Li Yuan issued a secret order for Xu Shao to put him to death, but Xu Shao especially admired Li Jing's talent, so he asked for his life, and Li Jing escaped the disaster.
Later, Li Yuan led eight hundred soldiers to defeat the barbarians in Kuizhou, and then arranged an ambush guard in a dangerous place, killing the barbarian leader Zhaoze at once, and also capturing more than 5,000 people. When Li Yuan heard about Li Jing's outstanding achievements, he was very happy. Therefore, he issued a seal letter to comfort Li Jing, and it was also through this incident that Li Yuan thoroughly believed in Li Jing's loyalty, and at the same time changed his prejudice against Li Jing, and he personally wrote an edict with Li Jing, saying: I have forgotten all the bad things before, and you can also relax your heart. At this time, both people have frozen their previous suspicions and jointly contributed to Datang.
In the fourth year of WuDe, Li Jing finally decided on ten strategies to eliminate Xiao Milling according to the situation between the enemy and us, and Li Yuan was very surprised and attached great importance to it after seeing it. Therefore, Li Jing was appointed as the commander of the march, and concurrently served as Li Xiaogong's marching commander. At this time, Li Jing had actually become the commander of the three armed forces, and he began to organize people to build boats and ships on a large scale, and also organized soldiers to practice water warfare and prepare for going down to Jiangling in advance.
After Li Jing saw that the two regions of Ba and Shu were annexed to the Tang Dynasty, the various tribes were still not very stable, and in order to relieve their worries, Li Jing came up with a way. That is, let the chieftains of each tribe come to Kuizhou, and then give them certain official positions according to their performance and talents. As soon as this idea came out, it played a positive role in stabilizing the political situation in Pakistan and Shu, which is enough to show the depth of Li Jing's strategy.
When Li Jing decided to besiege Xiao Milling in Jiangling, it was the autumn rainy season, and the river water was soaring, and at this time, the Water of the Three Gorges River was surging and roaring down. At this time, Xiao Milling, who was in Jiangling, believed that the Tang army would certainly not dare to attack at this time, so he ordered all the generals to begin to recuperate and accumulate energy, while not strengthening their defenses.
When the Tang army saw such a rough river, they were all deterred, and they all asked Li Jing if they wanted to attack when the river receded. After listening to this, Li Jing held that what is important in sending troops is speed, and the opportunity must not be lost, and the loss will not come again. He believed: Now that our army has been assembled, and Xiao Milling does not know it, if we take advantage of the surge in the river, we will go directly down the river and go straight to Jiangling City, and Xiao Milling will be caught off guard. When Xiao Milling was in Gangneung City and got the news that we had arrived, he would definitely havetily dispatch troops, and when they were panicked, we could take the opportunity to directly attack them.
After hearing Li Jing's words, everyone immediately opened up, and they led more than two thousand warships to the east directly along the Three Gorges current. And Xiao Milling was just as Li Jing expected, defenseless. Taking advantage of this great opportunity, the Tang army broke the gates of Jingmen and Yidu second towns one after another, and then continued to work hard, and arrived at Yiling City in October.
At this time, Xiao Milling saw that the Tang army was threatening, and immediately gathered tens of thousands of elite troops to defend near the Qingjiang River. When Li Xiaogong arrived with his troops, he wanted to attack immediately, and at this time Li Jing advised: Now this time is not suitable for continuing to attack, and Xiao Qiao's army is now guarding Yiling City with elite soldiers. Their Jingmen had just been lost, and now they had sent so many elite soldiers out to meet the battle, hoping to turn the tide of the whole war. Therefore, these soldiers must be the most powerful, and they will do their best to resist our attack. The safest way now is to park all the boats on the south bank of the Yangtze River and not engage in direct conflict with the enemy. When the morale of Xiao Mill's army is low, we will start to attack again, so that we will definitely defeat the enemy army.
Li Jing's tactic of dodging the enemy's sharp edge, consuming the enemy's vigor, and capturing the king in the last move was correct, but Li Xiaogong's heart to win the battle was too eager, so he did not listen to Li Jing's advice, but resolutely launched an attack, and as a result, he was beaten by the enemy and fled.
After the enemy's victory, it began to let the army plunder everywhere, which led to chaos in the ranks. At this time, Li Jing thought that the time had come, so he led the Tang army to battle. When the enemy army saw the Tang army coming, they hurriedly gathered the team, but their team was too scattered, so it was difficult to gather for a while, and as a result, they were all defeated by the Tang army. Nearly 10,000 soldiers were killed and drowned by Xiao Mill's army, and more than 400 enemy ships were captured.
Later, Li Jing led the army straight to Jiangling, the capital of Southern Liang, while Li Xiaogong led a large army to follow Li Jing. Under Li Jing's strong attack, they quickly conquered the outer city of Jiangling, and then occupied the water city and captured a large number of boats and ships. However, Li Jing did not use these boats as warships, but asked Li Xiaogong to scatter them all in the river and let them float down the river, which was also one of Li Jing's tactics: the strategy of suspecting soldiers.
Li Jing's purpose in doing so was to let Xiao Mill's reinforcements see so many ships and go down the river, giving them the illusion that Jiangling had been breached, so that they would not dare to enter Jiangling easily. Later, Xiao Mill's reinforcements saw so many ships floating on the river, and sure enough, they did not continue to advance. After the generals who rushed to support, after hearing the news of Xiao Qiao's defeat on the road, went to Li Xiaogong's camp to surrender.
Xiao Milling
At this time, the Tang army surrounded Jiangling to the point of nowhere, reinforcements were delayed, and the city was almost unable to support it, and in the case of no way out, Xiao Milling decided to open the door and surrender.
It took only two months for Li Jing to "pacify the Battle of Xiao Milling," which was enough to show Li Jing's outstanding military ability, and this battle was also Li Yuan's first campaign to reuse Li Jing. In addition to this battle, Li Jing also had two very outstanding battles, one was "three months to destroy the Eastern Turks" and the other was "four months to ding Tuguhun in the west".
The ambitions of the Eastern Turks have always been very large, they always want to eat China in one go, and even provoke China many times. They also besieged the Sui Emperor at the Great Wall, but did not benefit anything, but were driven away by the Sui army. It can be said that the Turks were the boss of the whole of Asia at the beginning, and even Tang Taizong Li Shimin suffered losses in the face of the Turks.
After the change of Xuanwumen, the Tang Was still in a period of turmoil, just at this time, the Turks suddenly sent a hundred thousand troops to attack Jingyang, which at that time could be said to be very close to Chang'an, only forty kilometers between the two, and there were only tens of thousands of soldiers in Chang'an at that time. In the face of such a large-scale attack by the Turks, everyone's heart was pinched with sweat.
In this case, Li Shimin began to gather troops while negotiating with Jieli Khan. At this time, Jieli Khan, seeing Li Shimin's calm look, thought that Li Shimin had made all the preparations, so in the end he could only give up the attack.
Later, Li Shimin and Jieli Khan reached an alliance of Weishui, and this covenant was also the greatest shame in Li Shimin's life, and Li Shimin was determined to eliminate the Turks.
In the fourth year of Zhenguan, Li Jing was ordered to lead various armies to the north, and he first analyzed the battle situation, and he believed that the 100,000 infantry of the Tang army were not very threatening to the Turks, so they could only be used to clean up the battlefield. The elite cavalry became the main force of the battle, and he decided to implement the strategy of lightning attack, first breaking the main Turkic force.
So Li Jing led 3,000 iron horses and set out from Mayi. The Turks were generally light cavalry, so they were highly mobile. Li Jing believed that the reason why the Turks dared to go south was because they believed that the Tang army did not dare to go north. In this situation, Li Jing decided to surprise the enemy, so he led 3,000 iron horses straight to the Turkic base camp.
Facing Li Jing's 3,000 cavalry, the unsuspecting Jieli Khan was astonished. He believed that Li Jing had led a large number of men and horses to attack the Turks, because if there were no large numbers of people and horses, Li Jing would not dare to go to their territory alone, so the Turks were afraid every day, afraid that they would be wiped out by the Tang army that day.
When Li Jingtan heard Jieli Khan's thoughts, he suddenly had a plan. He used secret orders to make the Turkic spies alienate the confidants of Jieli Khan and make his close confidant Kang Sumi come and surrender. Later, under the cover of darkness, Li Jing quickly attacked Dingbao and immediately attacked the city, at this time Jieli Khan saw the Tang army coming in, so he hurriedly fled to the moraine mouth.
Just as Li Jing was victorious in his attack, Li Ji also led his army from the clouds, and they met the Turkic army on the road, after which the two sides fought fiercely, and finally defeated the Turks.
At this time, after successive defeats, the Turkic army suffered heavy losses, so he decided to retreat to the Iron Mountain and adjust his troops. After several failed battles, the Turkic army was only a few tens of thousands of horses, and it can be said that Jieli Khan had reached the point of exhaustion, and at this time Jieli Khan had a plan.
He decided to send zhizhi to the Tang Dynasty to plead guilty, requesting that the Turks be subordinated to the Tang Dynasty, and at the same time expressing their willingness to join the Tang Dynasty. Although Jieli Khan asked people to show favor to the Tang Dynasty, the drunkard did not mean to drink, he just wanted to buy a little time.
When Jieli Khan and Li Shimin made peace, Li Jing and Xu Shiji discussed what to do next. Xu Shiji believed that although the Turks were now defeated, they still had a lot of men and horses, but now they had collapsed. The Eastern Turks developed gradually through the conquest of other small tribes. If they were allowed to flee to the desert north, they would be able to make a comeback in a few years. Because our army is affected by logistical supplies, it is difficult to cross the desert to pursue them, so there is no way to completely eliminate them. Our plan for the present is to eliminate all the main Turkic forces at all costs. At this time, it was time for Tang Jian to negotiate with the Turks, and we could take this opportunity to eliminate the Turks in one fell swoop.
When Jieli Khan saw Tang Jian coming to negotiate, he really relaxed his vigilance. At that time, a heavy snowstorm was falling, and if Li Jing had not commanded properly, then the Tang army would most likely have been completely annihilated.
Later, under the command of Li Jing, the Tang army and the Turks fought a final battle, in which the Tang army killed more than 10,000 enemies, captured more than 100,000 people, and captured hundreds of thousands of cattle and sheep. The fleeing Jieli Khan led more than 10,000 people and wanted to defect to Shabao Luoshi Ashinasuni, but before he reached the desert, he was stopped by Li Ji at the moraine mouth. After fierce fighting, most of the Turkic chieftains chose to surrender, and Jieli Khan was captured and escorted to the Beijing Division, and the Eastern Turks were completely destroyed.
Li Jing forged ahead when he was a teenager, but his merits were too high, and he was deeply afraid that his merits would be high, so Li Jing used his foot disease as an excuse to ask for retirement. Li Shimin knew what Li Jing meant, so he agreed to his request and gave Li Jing countless treasures.
However, when Li Jing had just retreated for two months, the Tuguhun of the Xianbei tribe began to attack the Tang army in the Hexi Corridor. At this time, when Li Shimin was worried that there was no suitable candidate to fight Tuguhun, Li Jing just asked Li Shimin to want to fight. When Li Shimin saw that there was indeed no better candidate, he agreed to his request and asked Li Jing to pay more attention to his body.
When Li Jing led a large army to Qinghai, it greatly traumatized Tuguhun's forces, and after seeing Li Jing's profound tactics, Tuguhun knew that he was not his opponent, so he decided to retreat to the hinterland of Qinghai. When Li Jing saw that Tuguhun began to retreat, he did not rush to catch up with them, but first calmly analyzed the battle situation. He believed that Tuguhun had now reached the brink of collapse, and that the Tang army could continue to pursue despite the difficulties of logistical supplies. After that, the Tang army pursued Tuguhun for 2,000 miles, and finally destroyed all of Tuguhun, and now Tuguhun's Fuyun Khan only had more than 1,000 cavalry left, and later was killed by Fuyun Khan's subordinates, and the others all surrendered to the Tang army.
After four months of blitzkrieg, Tuguhun, which had been entrenched in Qinghai and Gansu for 300 years, was completely wiped out by Li Jing. The remnants of Tuguhun's troops fled in all directions, and were eventually eaten by Tubo.
Later, Li Jing grew older and older, and his body was not as good as before. When Li Shimin was preparing to expedition to Goguryeo, Li Shimin thought that the battle would not be easy to fight, so he asked him to follow him, but Li Shimin did not agree to his request when Li Jing was old and still had hidden diseases.
Twenty years after Zhenguan, Li Jing's condition suddenly began to deteriorate, and Li Shimin, who was not in good health at the time, personally went to Li Jing's bed to comfort him. When Li Shimin saw that Li Jing was critically ill, he burst into tears, and on April 23 of the same year, Li Jing died at the age of seventy-nine, thus ending his brilliant life.
In this lifetime, Li Jing killed countless enemies, made great contributions to the stability of the Tang Dynasty, and was later posthumously honored as one of the twenty-five families of the previous generation of heroes. After that, Li Jing also enjoyed the Taizong temple court with Taiwei Changsun Wuji and others.
In the late Tang Dynasty, a generation of grandmasters Li Jing was gradually deified into the image of King Li Tianwang of Tota. History is fair and just, after the great waves and sands, those stars that flashed in the early Tang Dynasty were finally covered by Li Jing's increasingly dazzling light, and Li Jing, the god of war, remained in everyone's heart forever.