At the beginning of the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, Tuguhun in the northwest region became a major problem for border passes, and they went to Liangzhou every year to plunder and plunder, making the people unhappy.
In 634 (the ninth year of Tang Zhenguan), Li Shimin decided to send troops to completely solve this border problem.
Therefore, with Li Jing as the commander-in-chief of the march in The Western Sea Road, hou Junji, Li Daozong, Li Daoyan, Li Daliang, and Gao Yusheng as the commander-in-chief of the march, he led 100,000 troops and marched to Tuguhun.
At that time, the large army was accompanied by the Turkic and local armies of Qifu Heli, who had just returned to the Tang Dynasty.
Tuguhun Fuyun Khan was very good at harassing and robbing houses and stealing chickens and dogs on the border of the Tang Dynasty, but he had self-knowledge, and with his existing strength, he confronted the imperial army led by Li Jing, the god of war, which was tantamount to using his mantis arm as a car.
So he heard the wind and fled early.
The imperial court's dispatch of a large army is by no means a child's play, and it cannot be said that if you run away, you will withdraw your army, right?
Therefore, the large army divided into two routes, Li Jing and Li Daliang attacked from the north road, and Hou Junji and Li Daozong attacked from the south road, forming a closed siege against Fu Yun and pursuing the past.
In the Northern Route Army led by Li Jing, Xue Wanche, who was the vanguard, and his brother Xue Wanjun led hundreds of cavalry to run in front of the large team.
When the vanguard reached the Chishui River, it encountered thousands of cavalry riding Tuguhun.
The vanguard of the brothers Xue Wanche and Xue Wanjun was light horses, and after being surrounded by Tuguhun cavalry, fierce battles broke out.
After half a day of fierce fighting, due to the large number of enemy troops, the soldiers around Xue Wanche were hacked to death, and the horses of their brothers were also shot, so they had to fight on foot.
Xue Wanche was known as "ten thousand enemies", and he was very brave in fighting, but without war horses, force could not be exerted, and soon the brothers became blood gourds, and they were about to die on the battlefield.
The leader of the Qifu tribe, Qifu Heli, who led the tribal army in the rear, learned of the urgent situation in the front and immediately led hundreds of cavalry to the rescue.
The number of people they rushed to the rescue was not too large, only a few hundred horses. However, at that time, the rescue people were eager, and they didn't care about three seven twenty-one, but just rushed to the place where there were many people, and finally killed a bloody road and rescued the Xue Wanche brothers.
Fortunately, the xue wanche brothers were both slightly injured, and within a few days they recovered as before.
After several battles, Fu Yun of Tuguhun was frightened by the fighting power of the Tang army. This time he was not in a planned retreat like before, but a fool, and how far he could run was how far he could go.
Finally, he ran all the way to the western border of Tuguhun, around Tulun Moraine (present-day Taklamakan Desert), and was about to leave the country before stopping to rest.
The initial battle was successful, so Li Jing convened a military conference to discuss the next steps.
At the meeting, Xue Wanche believed that Fu Yun had been crippled by the Tang army and could not make a comeback. There is no one in Tulum Moraine, there is a shortage of water sources, and it is extremely dangerous for a lone army to go deep, so it is not advisable to attack rashly.
But Qifu HeLi did not think so, he retorted: "Now the enemy has no city, and migrates with the water and grass, if you do not take advantage of the fact that they gather together to attack and destroy them, once they scatter and flee, there is no way to take their old nest." ”
Finally, Li Jing made the decision and sent a part of the army to eliminate the remnants of the enemy.
This task was entrusted to Qifu Heli, who was the main force to pursue and annihilate the fleeing enemy, and he led an expedition of 1,000 elite cavalry, and Xue Wanche led the army to follow him.
This time the combat arrangement made Xue Wanche lose his old face.
He was a tangtang officer and soldier, and he was a general at the level of a corps commander, and Qifu Heli was just a tribal leader, letting the tangtang officers and soldiers eat farts behind the local troops.
But no way, who made you disagree with the thousands of miles to escape?
In fact, the situation is really like Xue Wanche said, the army has to cross the great desert, and the difficulty is unimaginable. In the face of the long yellow sand, when the army ran out of drinking water, the soldiers could only undo the belt of their pants and drink their own urine; they drank the horse's urine after drinking their own urine; and finally had to stab the horse's neck with a knife and suck the horse's blood.
The Tang army suddenly became a group of vampires.
"Self-selected horses ride more than a thousand, straight to the Sudden Lun River, Wan Jun is the leader of the army." There was no water in the moraine, and the soldiers drank the blood of the thorny horses. (Zizhi Tongjian, vol. 194)
In this way, overcoming all kinds of difficulties, we finally crossed the great desert, and the army finally arrived at the Tujue River.
Fu Yun never dreamed that Tang Jun could chase after this place, and when he saw the Heavenly Soldier Heavenly General coming, he didn't have time to take his wife and children with him, and he took a relative with him.
The battle went exceptionally smoothly, with the Tang army capturing Fu Yun's wife and children and capturing 200,000 heads of miscellaneous animals.
Fu Yun led the men out for a few days, but they were killed by their men.
Later, Fu Yun's son Fu Shun became Tuguhun Khan and was annexed to the Tang Dynasty.
At this point, the independent kingdom that had dominated the western region for more than 300 years finally submitted to the rule of the Tang Dynasty.
What a great merit it was to eliminate Tuguhun, and Li Shimin was very happy and sent a special envoy to the west to labor the army.
The envoy was present on behalf of the emperor, what a great honor, Xue Wanche felt that there was finally a chance to show his face.
Because he used to be a military general under Li Jiancheng, the Prince of Cain, and later submitted to Li Shimin's camp, he was familiar with the officials of the imperial court.
Although Qifu He Li was also invited, it did not take long for him to submit, and his official position was not as high as Xue Wanche, so the number one hero who destroyed Fu Yun was snubbed.
"The superior envoys Lao Zhu will fight and pull up the valley, and Xue Wanjun will destroy The QiFu He Li and claim to be his own merits." He Li was overwhelmed with indignation, and drew his sword, and wanted to kill all the people, and they would save it. (Zizhi Tongjian, vol. 194)
Thus began an accident that shocked the Envoy.
At the banquet where the wind was received, Xue Wanche vigorously boasted of his battle achievements, but also tried his best to denigrate the merits of Qi He Li.
Just as he was dancing with his eyebrows, suddenly Qifu He Li drew his sword, did not look at the special envoy's face, ran straight to Xue Wanche, and scolded as he walked: "Good ungrateful fellow, good evil I also saved the lives of your brothers, today I was so brazen to this point, Lao Tzu went out today, first cut you a dog day!" ”
When the generals looked at this scene, some of them hugged their thighs, some of them hugged their waists, some of them grabbed their knives, some of them grabbed their arms, and they grabbed Qi He Li deadly, so that they did not cause a bloody incident.
At this time, Xue Wanche was dumbfounded, he didn't expect this Hu person to be so bloody.
Later, the envoy went back to report the matter to Li Shimin, and Li Shimin was furious when he learned the details. It will be prepared to grant Xue Wanjun the post of Grand General of Zuo Tun Wei and grant it to QiFu He Li.
However, QiFu He Li wisely refused, he thought that in this way, others would not remember Xue Wanche's humiliation of himself, and would think that he had collided with Xue Wanche in order to grab merit.
Li Shimin understood Qifu Heli's grievances, and later found an opportunity to compensate him in other ways, marrying the daughter of the clan and the daughter of Li Shi, the lord of Lintao County, to Qifu Heli.
In this way, QiFu He Li became an imperial prince.
References: Old Book of Tang, Zizhi Tongjian