One day in August 618, Xue Ju, the head of the Xue clan, was particularly excited, because the day before he had defeated Li Shimin at Gao Yuan, killing tens of thousands of Tang troops.
The Battle of Gaoyuan was the biggest defeat in Li Shimin's military career, and it is estimated that the Tang army at that time numbered about 100,000 people and killed 50,000 or 60,000.
Xue Ju won a great victory and opened the gateway to the west of the Tang Dynasty, and whenever he thought about it, his heart was overjoyed.
Portrait of Li Shimin
At this moment, Xue Ju's adviser proposed: "We have just defeated the Tang army, and the morale of everyone is booming, so it is better to take the opportunity to take Chang'an directly, and the world is ours." Xue Ju hurriedly said, "I have this intention."
At this time, Xue Ju and his party were arrogant and arrogant, oblivious, and indulged in the victory of the war and could not extricate themselves.
Just when Xue Ju was preparing to send troops, due to his excessive excitement, he suddenly fell seriously ill and died in the palace not long after.
Although Xue Ju's death left Li Tang with one less fierce enemy, the Xue regime still existed, and if he wanted to unify the world to the east, he must have a solid rear.
The Xue regime was the first major separatist force to threaten Li Tang's rear, especially after their absolute victory at the Battle of Gaoyuan, posing a great threat to Chang'an.
To this end, Li Yuan decided to send Li Shimin again to attack the Xue regime, and at this time the head of the Xue regime was Xue Ju's eldest son Xue Rengao, so li Shimin, who had experienced a fiasco, could he be disgraced in the case of the low morale of the Tang army?
Portrait of Li Yuan
Xue Rengao's scheme
After Xue Ju's death, his eldest son Xue Rengao inherited Xue Ju's mantle and became the leader of the Xue regime, Xue Rengao was brave and good at war, strong in martial arts, and had the reputation of "ten thousand enemies".
Previously, the Tang army had suffered defeats in many battles with Xue Rengao, first of all, the governor of Qin Prefecture, Dou Rail, was defeated, and later the Jingzhou town general Liu Gan was captured, Liu Gan swore to die and did not want to fight for Xue Rengao, and Xue Rengao shot him to death with a random arrow in a rage.
When Liu Gan was killed, his superiors were powerless to rescue him and could only watch as his subordinates were shot to death.
After Xue Rengao defeated Liu Gan, he continued to attack Jingzhou, Li Shuliang was unable to cope with the battle, and could only adopt the turtle tactic and refused to leave the city for a decisive battle, and Xue Rengao could not attack Jingzhou for the time being.
At the same time, Xue Rengao also repeatedly fought with the Tang Dynasty's Longzhou Assassin Shi Changda, and as a result, this time Xue Jun encountered opponents and suffered many fiascos. Xue Rengao thought that hard fighting could not be done, and he had to play some yin. So he sent his confidant Shi Zheng to surrender to Chang Da, who lied that he was at odds with Xue Rengao and wanted to surrender to the Tang army.
Chang Da believed it, he wanted Xue Rengao to suffer defeat many times, and some internal contradictions were normal, and as a result, he was deceived, and Shi Zheng took the opportunity to hold Chang Da hostage.
At this time, li shimin, the king of Qin, led his army to Gaoyuan, and a bloody battle began.
Li Shimin's countermeasures
In November 618, when Xue Rengao was besieging Jingzhou, Li Shimin's large army came to Gaoyuan, and he learned the lessons of the previous defeat and prepared to play a protracted battle with Xue's army.
Li Shimin ordered the construction of a high fortress, and no matter how provocative Xue Jun was, he could not fight.
We must know that Xue Jun cannot afford to play a war of attrition, they do not have much grain and grass, the grain road is far away, and their own economic strength is insufficient, and the Tang Army's grain road is close, the road is easy to walk, and grain transportation is not a problem for Tang Jun.
After that, Xue Rengao repeatedly sent people to scold the battle under the city, trying to provoke the Tang army, but Li Shimin's men pretended not to hear. Xue Rengao was anxious, and he was anxious to fight tang jun to the death.
Xue Jun's many insults, tang army finally some people can not stand it, he advised Li Shimin to hurry up to fight, but Li Shimin said: "We have just finished the battle, the morale of the generals is very low, but Xue Jun has the heart of a light enemy, as long as we wait patiently, they can't afford it, and then we can capture it in one battle." ”
In order to prevent the army from being distracted, Li Shimin ordered that those who spoke in the army should be beheaded.
In this way, after Xue Jun and Tang Jun held each other for more than two months, Xue Rengao's grain and grass were running out, and internal divisions began to appear, and Xue Rengao's subordinates turned to Li Shimin one after another, and one of the xue generals named Liang Hulang also took his subordinates to Li Shimin.
Xue Rengao was a cruel man, and he often tortured his captives, once he captured Gengli, the son of the famous literary scholar Yu Xin, and put him on fire to divide his body, and cut off his flesh to enjoy with the soldiers, Xue Rengao's move was criticized by the literati, in addition to torture to force the local rich families to hand over their belongings.
Xue Rengao's brutal and inconsiderate behavior of his subordinates made him unpopular and inferior, and when he was still the crown prince, Xue Rengao was at odds with his father Xue Ju's subordinates, and at that time even Xue Ju himself was not accustomed to his son, he said: "What use can you do, such a thin widow, sooner or later the foundation I have worked so hard to create will be destroyed in your hands." ”
After Xue Rengao ascended the throne, most of his father's former subordinates looked down on him, and even found excuses to stop following xue's regime.
Originally, Xue Rengao was unpopular and this time the grain and grass were exhausted, causing Xue Jun to be even more centrifugal within the army.
So Li Shimin felt that the opportunity had come.
Li Shimin stills
At the Battle of Shallow Water Plains, the main force of Xue Army was defeated
Li Shimin first divided an army as bait, let Liang Shi lead the stationed in the shallow plains with higher terrain, lured Xue Jun, Xue general Zong Luo looked after a good guy, waited for sixty days to finally come out, so he led the main force of Xue Army to attack Liang Shi, while the Tang army built a high fortress and stuck to the battle.
A few days later, Li Shimin found that the fire was almost over, and Xue Jun was exhausted, so he said to his subordinates: "Almost, you can attack." ”
Early the next morning, Li Shimin led his entire army to meet Xue Rengao, and he first asked the general Pang Yu to line up in the shallow water plains to attract Zong Luohu.
Zong Luo, who was besieging Liang Shi, saw that another Tang army had emerged, so he immediately shifted his target to attack Pang Yu, who fought bravely and fought to the death, just when Pang Yu was about to be unable to hold back, Li Shimin went out.
Li Shimin led the main cavalry of the Tang army to take advantage of Zong Luoju's lack of attention to appear in the north of the shallow water plain, Li Shimin gave an order, the Tang army roared down, Zong Luoju was stunned, and immediately divided an army to meet the battle.
Li Shimin was the first soldier to personally lead dozens of horsemen to rush into the enemy position first, the enemy camp was in an instant chaos, and then the Tang army launched a fierce attack on Xue Ju from all directions, and shi zai at that time the Tang army killed the heavens, the Xue army was powerless to resist, and began to collapse, and the Tang army killed thousands of Xue troops.
Zong Luo saw that the general situation was gone, so he led the remnants of his troops to retreat.
Map of the Battle of Shallow Water Plains
Without spending a single soldier, take the folding city
After Li Shimin defeated the main force of Xue's army, he abandoned his infantry and immediately led his cavalry troops straight to Xue Rengao's fortified folding city, ready to annihilate it in one fell swoop.
At this time, Dou Rail advised: "Although Zong Luoju is defeated, Xue Rengao's troops can be intact, leaving the infantry behind and taking the cavalry alone to go deep is too dangerous, it is better to first press the troops and observe Xue Rengao's movements." ”
Li Shimin said: "I have been thinking about your question for a long time, and now that our army has defeated the main force of Xue's army and its morale is high, it is the best time to eliminate the Xue regime. ”
So Li Shimin led the cavalry troops all the way to the city of Folding, Xue Rengao hurriedly mobilized his army to meet the Tang army, just as the two armies were preparing to engage, Xue Rengao's subordinate general named Hungan surrendered to Li Shimin with his men.
Xue Rengao was terrified, the army was unstable, how to meet the battle.
Although Xue Rengao was brutal, he was not a generalist, and he knew that in this case, the Tang army would undoubtedly lose the battle, so he ordered him to withdraw to the city, hold the city, and refuse to fight.
Near the evening, after the infantry of the Tang army arrived one after another, Li Shimin ordered the siege of the city of Folding, preparing to besiege the city early the next morning.
However, in the middle of the night, there was an incredible scene at the head of the city, only to see Xue Jun at the head of the city bustling and moving, and then one by one lined up to tie himself down with a rope and surrender to Li Shimin.
Xue Rengao saw that the army's heart was scattered to this point, but there was nothing he could do.
The next day, the desperate Xue Rengao opened the city gate and led the civil and military officials to surrender without a fight. Li Shimin took the city of Folding City without spending a single soldier and captured more than 10,000 Xue troops.
At this time, someone asked Li Shimin, how dangerous is it that you did not wait for the large troops, did not bring siege equipment, and led a cavalry army to go deep alone.
Li Shimin said that although we defeated the main force of Xue's army, but only killed a few thousand people, they escaped, they will definitely find a way to return to the folding city, so I will rush ahead of them, control the city gate, prevent them from making peace with Xue Rengao's troops, so that Xue Jun can't return to the old nest, they can only return to their hometown, then Xue Rengao will be isolated.
After the fall of the Xue regime, In order to win over the hearts and minds of the people, Li Shimin only executed Xue Rengao and several of his henchmen, killed Shi Zheng to avenge Chang Da, and pardoned all the rest.
Moreover, Li Shimin also retained the army structure under Xue Rengao and handed them over to Xue Rengao's old generals.
In order to reflect his generosity, Li Shimin also hunted and played with these generals.
In his subsequent military career, Li Shimin often used this policy of gentleness towards the soldiers who surrendered to him.
Li Shimin's Huairou policy had a remarkable effect, the subjects of the Longxi region were quickly appeased, Li Tang had a stable rear, and Li Yuan was finally at ease, and he could unify the world to the east without scruples.