What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
In the last years of the Sui Dynasty, the world was in chaos, and peasant revolts were raging, among which the strongest was the Wagang Army, and the growth of the Wagang Army was inseparable from a nobleman named Li Mi.
In 613, Li Mi and his former friend Yang Xuangan launched a rebellion, and after the defeat, Li Mi lived a life of exile for several years, and after nine deaths, he joined Zhai Rang's Wagang Army, and since then the Wagang Army has undergone tremendous changes.
Under Li Mi's planning, the Wagang Army gradually developed into the strongest armed force in the Central Plains within a year.
During this period, Li Mi annihilated Zhang Sutuo, the most courageous general of the Sui Dynasty, and recruited the Sui general Pei Renji, and obtained two fierce generals, Qin Qiong and Luo Shixin.
Moreover, under the leadership of Li Mi, the Wagang army took the largest granary of the Sui Dynasty, Xingluocang, and occupied most of Henan, with only the city of Luoyang under the control of the Sui army.
The Wagang Army gradually grew from more than 10,000 people when Li Mi first joined to hundreds of thousands.
However, it can be said that Li Mi was also successful and defeated, and he used a year to strengthen the Wagang Army, and more than a year to bring the Wagang Army to the end.
It can be said that Li Mi had a good hand of cards, at that time the concept of hierarchy was very deep, people were born with the distinction of nobility and inferiority, the common people were accustomed to aristocratic rule, and the ancients were superstitious, whether the common people or the children of the Guanlong nobles, they all believed that the children of the Guanlong noble group were destined for heaven.
Li Mi and Li Yuan have a strong appeal and their origins are closely related, so the question is, Li Mi has hundreds of thousands of mercenaries, and there are a large number of fierce generals such as Qin Qiong, Cheng Yaojin, Luo Shixin, Shan Xiongxin, and so on, and they also have the aura of the sons of Guan Long's nobles, so why not take the Wagang army to the overthrow in two years? This must first start with how the Wagang Army grew.
Zhai Rang Jean Xian
During Zhai Rang's tenure as Fa Cao of Dong County, he fled to Wagangzhai for committing capital crimes, took the mountain as king, and established the Wagang Army, which at first had a size of tens of thousands of people, mainly based on theft.
Zhai Rang's ambition is not high, there is enough to eat and drink, and it is also for life to fall into the grass.
However, the arrival of a person who changed the pattern of the Wagang Army was Li Mi, a first-class wanted criminal of the Sui Dynasty, a son of a Guanlong nobleman with considerable political vision.
After Li Mi came to WagangZhai, he gave advice for Zhai Rang and offered him the best strategy for the world, Li Mi believed that Xingyang was a military stronghold, and when Liu Bang and Xiang Yu fought in the Xingyang area for more than two years, although Xiang Yu won more than one defeat, he was never able to advance westward.
Taking Xingyang can raise grain and grass, and then seize the world after the army is strong and the grain and grass are abundant.
Zhai Rang adopted Li Mi's strategy to even ke Xingyang several county towns and kill Xingyang Tongshou.
Zhai Rang was a benevolent leader, and although Li Mi's merits and talents had threatened his position, he did not suppress Li Mi, but instead set aside a force for him to command, and named this army "Pushan Gongying".
Soon Li Mi took Xingluo Cang near Luoyang and cut off Luoyang's grain routes.
After the Wagang army took the Xingluo warehouse, Li Mi opened the warehouse to release grain, and took the opportunity to set up a large banner for recruiting troops, and the strength of the Wagang army increased greatly in an instant.
Later, Li Mi also surrendered Pei Renji and obtained two fierce generals, Luo Shixin and Qin Qiong.
Zhai Rang originally did not have much ambition, coupled with his lack of self-confidence, he always felt that he was from a humble background and did not have Li Mi's strategy, so he was willing to give up the position of the leader of the Wagang Army to Li Mi.
In the spring of the thirteenth year of Daye (617), Li Mi set up an altar and ascended the throne as the "Duke of Wei", and Bai Zhai Rang as the Shangzhu State, with the era name "Yongping First Year", imitating the Sui Dynasty to set up three divisions and six guards.
After Li Mi took over the power of the Wagang Army, most of the prefectures and counties in Henan fell in the wind, and since then the strength of the Wagang Army has expanded to hundreds of thousands, becoming the strongest rebel army in the Central Plains.
Then, the strength of the Wagang army was strong, and Li Mi had a large number of fierce generals who could fight battles, such as Qin Qiong, Cheng Yaojin, Luo Shixin, and Shan Xiongxin, why did they end in failure.
There are three main reasons.
Zhai Rang's murder split Wagang internally
Zhai Rang's handing over of power made his subordinates quite dissatisfied, and they did not want to succumb to an outsider.
The Old Wagang Army, led by Zhai Rang, and the New Wagang Army, led by Li Mi, clashed from time to time.
Although Li Mi controlled the real power of Wagang, he would still be constrained by Zhai Rang's subordinates.
Later, Zhai Rang, at the instigation of his subordinates, offended Li Mi's letters and provoked himself to kill himself.
In 617, Li Mi set up a banquet to entertain the Wagang soldiers, and ambushed the sword and axe bearer, during the banquet, Li Mi gave an order, the sword and axe hand appeared on the scene, Zhai Rang and his cronies and brothers were killed, Xu Shixun was also injured, Shan Xiongxin knelt on his knees and begged for forgiveness to survive.
Afterwards, Li Mi took over Zhai Rang's army.
Li Mi's killing of Zhai Rang was indeed ill-conceived.
At the beginning, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty had always wanted to get rid of Liu Xiu but was struggling to find a suitable excuse, and the impact of killing the hero without reason was immeasurable.
Killing heroes will make other heroes and warriors feel afraid, and some even rebel in desperation for the sake of Mingzhe's protection.
Liu Bang's killing of Han Xin is a good example, han Xin's death triggered a rebellion of several years of foreign princes, who were afraid of following in Han Xin's footsteps, so they raised an army to protect themselves.
What's more, Zhai Rang still had the grace of knowing Li Mi, and killing Zhai Rang would only make the Wagang generals deviate from morality, and they saw that Li Mi was a treacherous villain who could only share hardships and hardships and could not share wealth. Originally, Li Mi had come from afar, but there was no foundation in Wagang, and he could not serve the public by killing the old village owner with great fanfare.
After that, the contradictions between the new Wagang and the old Wagang began to intensify, which also laid the groundwork for Li Mi's later failure, so he later left Tongguan in the east, and no one was willing to accept him, because he killed Zhai Rang, and the people of the world regarded him as an ungrateful person.
In order to alienate the old Wagang generals, Li Mi transferred Xu Shixun out of the center of power, let him guard Liyang, and soon transferred Shan Xiongxin away.
Li Mi occupied the granary, there was no source of money, and the meritorious soldiers could not get a favorable reward, and over time the Wagang soldiers became more and more dissatisfied with Li Mi.
Li Mi did not have the support of the Guanlong aristocratic clique
In the middle and late period of the Western Han Dynasty, the "inspection and examination system" was mainly used to select talents, and the Eastern Han Dynasty inherited the old system of the Western Han Dynasty, and gradually the shortcomings of the inspection and examination system began to be exposed.
By the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the selection of officials was monopolized by local powers and gradually developed into a divided force.
Gradually, everyone became accustomed to this kind of aristocratic politics, and in the Western Wei period, the powerful minister Yuwen Tai established the prefectural soldier system in order to counter the Eastern Wei clique, and on this basis formed the Guanlong aristocratic clique.
The Guanlong aristocratic clique can not be underestimated, and the Qing Dynasty historian Zhao Yi once said: "The land of bullets in Wuchuan District was the emperor of the Zhou, Sui and Tang dynasties, who ruled for more than three hundred years. ”
The ancients were more superstitious, they believed that the Guanlong Group had the spirit of a king, whether it was a commoner or the children of the Guanlong nobles, they all believed that the future true destiny of the son of heaven naturally came from the Guanlong Group, and the "Guanlong Group" was their most trusted brand.
Therefore, this is also the reason why many peasant rebel leaders are not confident, although Li Yuan and Li Mi are from the Guan long clique, but the Guan Long clique only supports Li Yuan, not Li Mi.
Although Li Mi was a great-grandson of Li Bi of the Northern Zhou Dynasty and a son of the authentic Guanlong nobles, after Emperor Wen of Sui ascended the throne, he redistributed benefits, and Li Mi's family began to decline.
After the Sui Emperor ascended the throne, Li Mi relied on his father's shadow to serve as a guard in the palace, but he did not please the Sui Emperor, and as a result, he was persuaded to retire.
Later, Li Mi joined Yang Xuangan's rebellion as a strategist, and at this time he had nothing to do with the Guanlong noble clique, and the Guanlong nobles at this time supported the Yang clan of Hongnong, that is, Yang Xuangan, the eldest son of Yang Su, the founding hero of the Sui Dynasty.
Therefore, when Yang Xuangan raised the banner of anti-Sui, he was supported by more than thirty of GuanLong's noble sons, but Yang Xuangan was brave and unscrupulous, and a good hand was broken by him.
Li Yuan understood this, he claimed that his ancestor was the Longxi Li clan, a descendant of Laozi, in fact, according to Mr. Chen Yinke's research, Li Yuan's ancestor was the Li clan of Zhao County.
Li Yuan and the Li clan of Longxi were related to each other in order to get closer to the Guanlong aristocratic group.
Moreover, Li Yuan and the Sui Emperor were both grandsons of dugu Xin of the Eight Pillar Kingdom, and they were still cousins, and the dugu family was a humble old nobleman, and these halos Li Mi did not have, so the Guanlong nobles supported Li Yuan and did not support Li Mi.
Therefore, later Chai Xiao took "Liu Bang occupied Guanzhong to win, while Xiang Yu lost Guanzhong and lost" as a lesson for the past, and persuaded Li Mi to take Guanzhong, but Li Mi refused, although he gave a lot of reasons, but the main reason was that he could not get the support of Guan Long's nobles.
Li Mi's situation was very embarrassing, he could not get the support of the Guanlong nobles, nor did he get the support of the Wagang Army, in the eyes of the Wagang Army, he was from an aristocratic background, and he was a reader who naturally did not fit in with their style, which was also one of the main reasons why Li Mi got rid of Zhai Rang.
However, he did not expect that killing Zhai Rang would make the internal division of Wagang more serious, and even Qin Qiong and Cheng Yaojin began to find another owner.
With Yu culture and maneuvering, strategic mistakes
In July 617, the Wagang army attacked Luoyang, the defenders were unable to resist, and the distress letters sent to Jiangdu came pouring in, and the Sui Emperor had no choice but to send Wang Shichong to suppress the Wagang army.
Wang Shichong fought with Li Mi more than a hundred times, and the two armies could not hold each other, and the Sui Emperor was very anxious, and in the army, he worshiped Wang Shichong as a general and asked him to quickly defeat the Wagang army.
Wang Shichong led his army across Luoshui to engage the Wagang army, but returned with a major defeat, losing tens of thousands of soldiers, and only more than a thousand people returned to Luoyang.
In March of the following year, Yu Wenhua launched a mutiny and killed the Sui Emperor.
There was no lord in the world, and Wang Shichong and others supported Yang Tong, the grandson of the Sui Emperor, as emperor, and Wang Shichong, Duan Da, Yuan Wendu and others assisted in the government.
At this time, Li Mi had already surrounded luoyang city, and Yang Tong only had luoyang in his hands, and the situation was very critical, and soon Yu Wenhua and led more than 100,000 troops were stationed in the suburbs and looked at Luoyang.
Yuan Wendu proposed that now there is Li Mi outside Luoyang City, there is Yu Wenhua outside the suburbs, if at this time send troops to attack Yu Wenhua and, then the Sui army will certainly be attacked by the enemy, it is better to recruit Li Mi, give him a high-ranking official Feng Lu, use his soldiers to fight Yu Wenhua and, when they are both defeated and wounded, the Sui army will take advantage of the situation.
Yang Tong took Yuan Wendu's advice and sent someone to make Li Mi a lieutenant and a Shangshu Ling, and ordered him to immediately attack Yu Wenhua and .
With Li Mi's ingenuity, he should be able to see the intentions of the Sui army, but since he accepted the reward of the imperial court, it is estimated that Li Mi was also afraid of being attacked by the enemy in his belly and back, so he first stabilized the Luoyang side, waited to destroy Yu Wenhua and then deal with Yang Tong later, in fact, he was wrong.
Yu Wenhua and his party did not have the ambition to rebel against the emperor, and most of the Janissaries who followed the Sui Emperor to Jiangdu were Guanzhong people, and their rebellion was also because the Sui Emperor did not want to return to the west and planned to die in Jiangdu, and they were homesick before launching a coup.
Yu Wenhua and his party passed through Henan and attacked Liyangcang first, mostly to replenish military food, and their purpose was to return to their hometown.
However, Li Mi is in cahoots with Yu Wenhua, and he throws all his elite troops into the struggle against Yu Wenhua.
In fact, Li Mi could completely avoid this life-and-death duel, because Yu Wenhua and his party were just poor people passing through Henan and rushing home, and would not threaten the interests of the Wagang Army for the time being.
At this time, Li Mi should understand the truth of "wounding a thousand enemies and losing eight hundred to himself", but he followed the devil and must fight with Yu Wenhua and a decisive battle.
It can be said that the morale of both sides was very strong, they fought and killed each other, Shi Zai Li Mi was shot by an arrow at that time, unconscious, Qin Qiong risked death to save each other, only to get out of danger.
Under the fierce battle of the generals of the Wagang Army, Yu Wenhua was repelled, but the Wagang Army was also seriously injured and turned from prosperity to decline.
Li Mi repelled Yu Wenhua and prepared to attack Yang Tong, but found that Luoyang City was already controlled by Wang Shichong, Yang Tong was reduced to a prisoner, and Wang Shichong and Li Mi began to stalemate again.
In fact, at this time, the situation was unfavorable to Wang Shichong, Li Mi occupied Xingluocang, the military food was sufficient, and there was a shortage of grain in Luoyang City, and many people in the city at that time turned to Li Mi.
At this time, the cunning Wang Shichong offered to exchange cloth for grain with Li Mi, and Li Mi actually agreed, and the people of Luoyang had grain to eat, and fewer people turned to Li Mi.
When Li Mi found out, he regretted it, but it was too late.
Wang Shichong felt that the opportunity had come and challenged the Wagang army, and Li Mi did not take Pei Renji's suggestion to fight a war of attrition, but instead launched a decisive battle with Wang Shichong.
Wang Shichong sent an army to ambush near Li Mi's camp, and when the next day the two armies fought, Wang Shichong found a man who resembled Li Mi and shouted: "Li Mi has been captured", and in an instant the ambush troops who were ambushed near Li Mi's camp rushed into the Wagang army camp and set fire everywhere, the Wagang army suddenly collapsed, Li Mi's soldiers fled to Luokoucang in defeat, and at this time, the town guarding Luokoucang was an old subordinate of Zhai Rang, the old village lord of the Wagang army, who colluded with Wang Shichong and betrayed Li Mi, and Li Mi was forced to surrender to Li Tang.
Since then, one of the most powerful rebel armies in the Central Plains has collapsed.