In 581, the Turkic Shabaoli Khan led an army to join forces with Gao Baoning to march south, preparing to attack the nascent Sui Dynasty. At the same time, after the Chen Dynasty in the south learned of the news that the Turks were going south, in order to expand the defensive space of the capital Jiankang, they also began to raise troops to the north. In addition, Tuguhun in the west also took the opportunity to attack the Hexi Corridor area of the Sui Dynasty. Suddenly, the Sui Dynasty faced the Chen Dynasty in the south, Gao Baoning in the northeast, the Turks in the north, and Tuguhun in the west, and the situation was quite dangerous.
Although the nascent Sui Dynasty suddenly faced enemies from all sides, Yang Jian could see at a glance that these enemies were still fighting their own battles and did not form an anti-Sui alliance. However, if the war continues repeatedly, perhaps the enemy will form a united front in order to end the war as soon as possible and form a military alliance that will attack together, which will be extremely unfavorable to the Sui Dynasty.
Therefore, Yang Jian must use his precious time to break the encirclement of the enemy on all sides as soon as possible.
Yang Jian believed that although the southern Chen Dynasty attacked with great momentum, but there were many internal contradictions, although Emperor Xuan of Chen wanted to make a difference, but there were many factions within the imperial court, and most of its troops were water troops, and as its attack deepened, land warfare was certainly not the opponent of the Sui army. Although Tuguhun was able to fight a good war, domestic resources were scarce, the military system was backward, and there was a lack of unified command, and a powerful offensive was difficult to last. The Turks were the most powerful of these enemies, and the two sides inevitably had to have a big war, which was actually the key battle that determined the fate of the Sui Dynasty, and Gao Baoning and the Turks were constantly colluding, and if the Turks were defeated, Gao Baoning's power would naturally disintegrate.
After detailed analysis, Yang Jian finally determined the order of attack, formulated a strategy of first easy and then difficult, first targeting Nanchen and Tuguhun, and leaving the most powerful opponent Turks to the end.
In March of the first year of the reign of Emperor Kai (581), Yang Jian appointed the general He Ruobi (何若弼) as the governor of Wu Prefecture (wuzhou) and the general Han Huhu (潣潣) as the governor of Luzhou (庐州, in modern Lujiang County, Anhui).
It was really the best choice for these two generals to guard the south together, and it should be pointed out that after He Ruobi arrived at Guangling, he really took Pingchen as his responsibility. But frankly speaking, Yang Jian sent He Ruobi out of the southern border of the town, not to destroy Chen immediately, and that time period was not the best time to eliminate Chen. He Ruobi's idea conflicted with Yang Jian's overall plan, after all, the sui dynasty's biggest enemy at that time was the Turks, and Yang Jian only wanted to resist The attack of Southern Chen. After all, Pingchen had to mobilize the strength of the whole country, and the situation of the Sui Dynasty was not enough to support the battle between the north and the south.
To this end, Yang Jian specially issued a seal for Yuan Xiaoju, the governor of Shouzhou, and made clear instructions on the strategic policy of the southern battlefield: "Yang and Yue refute the atmosphere, invade the border and despise, and do not know the Great Yi." With the gongzhi to save the far-sighted strategy, the town side of the present, gentle with courtesy, called 朕意焉. "
Yang Jian hoped that as long as he regained the lost land in northern Jiangbei, he would drive Chen Jun back to his own territory. On the surface, this is tolerating, but in fact it is a strategic decision to judge the hour and size up the situation. This determined that the battle of He Ruobi and Han Huhu and other generals on the southern battlefield was a local battle to relieve the pressure on the southern battlefield, not a battle that put the other side on the destruction of the country. Yang Jian's biggest concern at that time was not whether the generals could fight, but whether the generals could not understand their intentions and fight uncontrollably. Therefore, when the Chen army crossed the Yangtze River to attack the city, Yang Jian sent a general to fight back on the one hand, and on the other hand, he sent Gao Ying to the southern front to restrain the armies, so that the battle on the southern battlefield was always within a controllable range.
In September, the Sui army concentrated its superior forces and launched a fierce attack on the Chen army, and the marshal of the southeastern province, Sun Lan, led the eight generals to attack the Chen army from Shouyang, repelling the thousands of men and horses led by Chen General Qian Mao, and then fighting against the Chen generals Chen Ji, Zhou Luoyan and others, repelling them all.
At that time, He Ruobi recovered a large area of lost land in northern Jiangbei and pacified Cao Xiaoda of Dongtong Prefecture in one fell swoop, and the marching marshal Yuan Jingshan led the governors Han Yan and Lü Zhe out of Hankou to conquer Thirsty (present-day Hanchuan, Hubei) in one fell swoop. Another general, Deng Xiaoru, led 4,000 elite troops to attack the town of Zhenshan (甄山镇, southeast of present-day Hanchuan, Hubei), and the great destruction of Chen's general Lu Lun to reinforce the water division troops, successfully recovered the important military base that Sima Had dedicated to the Chen Dynasty during the rebellion.
By the end of the year, the Sui Dynasty's counterattack on the southern front had achieved the expected results, and the lost land in jiangbei was basically recovered. The Sui army deployed on the north bank of the Yangtze River, and had the potential to take advantage of the victory to cross the river and defeat the Chen Dynasty in one fell swoop. At this time, Chen Jun had already been beaten to the point of panic, not only did he all retreat to his own borders, but he no longer dared to have the idea of marching into Jiangbei, and only hoped that the Sui army would not cross the Yangtze River. Emperor Xuan of Chen originally had great ambitions and wanted to expand his territory at a time when the Sui Dynasty was worried about internal and external troubles, but he did not expect that the Sui Dynasty was so fierce, and now he was actually beaten back to his hometown, and his heart could not help but be anxious and annoyed, and he rushed to the west with a fierce attack.
The newly enthroned Lord Chen Hou was very knowledgeable, sent emissaries across the Yangtze River to ask for peace with the Sui army, and returned the cities and pools such as Hushu (on the north bank of the Yangtze River in present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu), which he had previously captured, and was considered to have taken the initiative to bow his head and admit his mistake. In the face of Chen Chao's initiative to bow his head, Yang Jian took this opportunity to make peace with Chen Chao and withdrew all his troops to the north to prepare for the Northern Expedition. Yang Jian adopted Gao Ying's suggestion, and the sui dynasty's war on the southern front came to a temporary end.
While fighting Chen on the southern front, Yang Jian also launched a counter-offensive against Tuguhun in the northwest direction of the empire.
In August, Yang Jian appointed Yuan Huan as the marshal of the march, and led tens of thousands of people such as He Louzigan, Guo Jun, and Yuan Hao, the commanders of the march, to counterattack Tuguhun.
This instruction was actually very similar to the instruction for Chen Zhan, and Yang Jian also only told Yuan Huan to repel Tuguhun and did not order the continuation of the war.
Yuan Huan led the Sui army to attack from Yanzhou (present-day Ledu, Qinghai), Tuguhun was also a large army, stretching from Mantou (present-day Gonghe County, Qinghai) to Shudun for a hundred miles, and zhongLifang, the king of Dingcheng, led three thousand cavalry to unite with the Dangxiang tribes in the south to cross the river and advance eastward to prepare for the Sui army, while the Commander of the Sui Army, Yuan Huan, took the strategy of enveloping and directly inserted into Qinghai, preparing to cut off the retreat route of Tuguhun's army.
At that time, the two sides encountered each other under Fengli Mountain (present-day Qinghai Lake East, Qinghai), so the Sui army and Tuguhun's 20,000-strong army launched an encounter. After a fierce battle, the Sui army repelled Ye Guhun's army and took advantage of the victory to advance into Qinghai Lake and reach its base camp. Tuguhun was not willing to accept defeat, and sent Prince Kebo to lead a 50,000-strong army to counterattack, and the two sides once again launched an encounter. However, since Tuguhun was a federation of various tribes, unlike the Sui army, which had a unified command, the war could be fought smoothly and they could attack together, and once they encountered a slight setback, they would flee separately. The Sui army, under the command of Yuan Huan, violently attacked the Tuguhun army, and eventually the various tribes of Tuguhun withdrew most of their territory in order to preserve their strength.
After two counterattacks against Southern Chen and Tuguhun, the Sui Dynasty quickly lifted the threat from the west and south before the Turks invaded on a large scale, and also broke the dilemma of the enemy's encirclement on all sides, while defusing the hidden danger of the enemy's alliance against the Sui. Now Yang Jian could finally free his hands and concentrate on solving the most powerful enemy, the Turks.
In April 582, the Turkic cavalry penetrated deep into Jitou Mountain (present-day Xialongde County, Ningxia) and was defeated by the Sui dynasty general Han Monk Shou, while another Turkic cavalry was repulsed by Li Chong, the upper pillar state of the Sui Dynasty, at Hebei Mountain (present-day Wolf Mountain and Yin Mountain in Inner Mongolia). Although the Sui Dynasty won these two battles, this was only a tentative attack by the Turks and did not show the true strength of the Turks. At this time, the main force of the Turks was assembled in the north of the desert. In May, Shabal Khan led an army of 400,000 men across the Great Wall, officially opening the prelude to the war that changed the fate of the two countries and even the pattern of the East Asian region at that time.
The Turkic attack was so powerful and ferocious that Gao Baoning also cooperated with the Turkic army to launch an attack on Pingzhou (平州, in modern Lulong, Hebei). When Yang Jian learned that the Turkic army had broken through the Great Wall and went south, he immediately ordered the pillar state Feng Yu to garrison Yifupo (in present-day Ledu, Qinghai), the governor of Lanzhou, Li Changcha, to guard Lintao, the governor of The Pillar State, Li Chong, to garrison Youzhou, and the general Daxi Changru to defend Zhou Yu and defend the entire border.
On June 9, Yang Jian also ordered Yang Shuang the Prince of Wei to be the governor of Liangzhou and a marshal of the march, leading an army of 70,000 men out of Pingliang (平阳, in present-day Pingliang, Gansu), and three days later Li Chong of the Shangzhu State repelled the Turkic attack at Mayi (present-day Shuozhou, Shanxi), and the Turks instead invaded Lanzhou (lanzhou, Gansu). Yang Jian urgently dispatched Li Changcha as the governor of Lanzhou, held the enemy in the area, and at the same time let He Louzigan lead the troops to help, the two sides encountered Turkic cavalry at the Kolo cough mountain, the Sui army held on to the river, cut off the enemy's water source, and when the enemy was tired, the arsonists suddenly attacked and broke the Turkic army.
Although the Sui army achieved many victories, from the overall strategic point of view, the Sui army's defensive points were broken through in many places, among which Feng Yu, the commander of the march stationed in Yifubo, was attacked by tens of thousands of Turkic cavalry, Feng Yu, although desperately resisted, was still defeated by the Turkic army, and the Lanzhou governor of Lintao, Li Changcha, was also defeated by the Turks. At the same time, in the eastern battlefield, the combined forces of the Turks and Gao Baoning broke through the Sui army's defense line and launched a large-scale attack on Youzhou, and Li Chong, the shangzhu state, was defeated.
In view of the successive breakthroughs of various strongholds in the western battlefield by the Turks, Yang Jian made the general Dou Rong of Zuowu Marquis the governor of Qin Prefecture (present-day Tianshui, Gansu) in August, and re-deployed in depth in the western battlefield.
However, until October, the situation in the western battlefield did not improve, important states and counties along the Northwest Great Wall fell one after another, and the Turkic army broke through the Muxia and Shimen passes, and then divided its troops south, crossed the Liupan Mountains, advanced into the Weishui and Jingshui river valleys, and began to pose a threat to Chang'an. At this time, Yang Jian fell ill due to overwork, so he had to let the crown prince Yang Yong lead his troops to garrison Xianyang to coordinate the overall situation, build a defensive line west of Chang'an, and send the internal historian Yu Qingze as a marshal to Honghua (present-day Qingyang, Gansu) to resist the enemy.
After Yu Qing arrived in Honghua, the commander of the command army, Daxi Changru, led two thousand troops to attack, just out of Honghua not far away, just when Zhou Yu encountered the Turkic army and fell into a heavy siege, the Sui army immediately chaos, Daxi Changru was very calm, encouraging the soldiers to fight to the death, after the army was solidified, he gathered the whole army into a battle and retreated, withstood the repeated impact of the Turkic cavalry, after fourteen battles of day and night, many times scattered and then regrouped, so he persisted for three days. Although he suffered five knife wounds, he stood like an iron tower, so he encouraged all the generals of the army to kill the enemy bravely, so he insisted on gradually withdrawing Honghua, but Yu Qing saw that the Turkic army was fierce and did not dare to go out of the city to save each other.
The Turks, who had come to plunder their belongings, did not expect to encounter such stubborn resistance and were shocked. Incredibly, in the face of the few remaining Sui armies led by Da Xi Changru, the Turks did not launch a final attack, but only hurriedly burned the bodies of their partners and retreated.
From a strategic point of view, the Sui army did not defeat the Turks on the battlefield, and even lost more, but on the other front, a secret war was quietly underway, and Changsun Sheng's divisive counter-work against the Turks began to gradually achieve results.
In the west, the Turks faced the newly rising Sassanid Persia, which had attacked together with eastern Rome, but did not go well and was eventually forced to return, so there was a direct conflict of interest between the two sides. At that time, Yang Jian described the Turks as "the kingdoms of Dongyi, who have taken personal vendettas, and the leaders of the Western Rong group, all have old grudges." The north of the Turks, the Khitans, cut their teeth and grind their teeth, often serving their convenience."
A nomadic people like the Turks are actually a very emotionally unstable people, and if the war goes well, they can launch a stormy attack, and once the war is not smooth, the potential contradictions will break out in an instant, which will affect the war situation. The stubborn resistance of the Sui Dynasty army made the Turks have to pay a high price for every step forward, so the internal contradictions accumulated on their front lines were gradually revealed again, which was manifested by the fact that the Datou Khan, who was bribed by the Sui Dynasty, was unwilling to continue to the south, but led his troops to return north with the spoils of war.
The act of Datou Khan's unauthorized withdrawal from the battlefield made Sha Baoliu Khan feel angry, at this time Changsun Sheng quietly appeared in front of Sha Baoliu's nephew Dye Gan, and whispered a few words in his ear very mysteriously, before the words were finished, Dye Gan was already as dead as ashes, and immediately ran to Sha Bao Luo, telling him that the Tiele tribe in the north rebelled and planned to sneak into the Khan's tooth tent.
Sha Bao was slightly shocked, and immediately led his troops to plunder Liangzhou, Qinzhou, Anding, Jincheng, Shangjun, Honghua, and Yan'an, which he had already captured, and then hurriedly withdrew from the outside of the country.
In the spring of the third year of the reign of emperor (583), the Turks were once again in a frenzy, and in February they fought a small battle with the Sui army on the border, and in April they pressed the border. At the same time, Tuguhun, who had been defeated by the Sui army the previous year, moved back to his original position one after another, and also took this opportunity to attack Lintao (present-day Lintan, Gansu), assassinating Shi Pizixin to meet the enemy, and was defeated and killed. Liang Yuan, the governor of Wenzhou (文州, in modern Mao County, Sichuan), led his elite troops to rush to the rescue, which led Tuguhun to retreat, but soon after turned to attack Kuo Prefecture (郭州, in modern Guide, Qinghai).
Tuguhun's comeback reminded Yang Jian that he must deal a heavy blow to the Turks, otherwise even if he was repelled, he would not be able to grasp the initiative on the battlefield, and could only let the Turks lead the nose, so that other surrounding tribes would follow the Turks to take advantage of the fire and loot, and then bring greater disasters to the Sui Dynasty.
The most crucial thing is that the conditions for the Sui Dynasty to change from pure defense to active counter-offensive are gradually taking shape, after last year's big war, the Sui army still withstood the test, although in the end did not really defeat the Turks, it was the Turks who took the initiative to withdraw their troops, but in several battles, the Sui army did not fall behind, and has cultivated the confidence to defeat the Turks. The contradictions within the Turks gradually became apparent, manifested in the contradictions between The Datou Khan and the Shabaoli Khans, making it difficult for them to become a unified whole. In Yang Jian's view, as long as he exerted more efforts, it would cause internal divisions, so Yang resolutely used the contradictions within the Turks to the end, carried out various blows, and gave Sha Baoli Khan a decisive blow, realizing the strategic turning point of our attack and defense of the enemy.