611 AD
The Sui Dynasty Emperor's Three Expeditions to Goguryeo: Seeking His Own Death
In 611, the Sui Emperor issued an edict to conquer Goguryeo, kicking off three consecutive conquests of Goguryeo.
During the Sui Dynasty, Goguryeo occupied the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, most of liaodong, and the sea of Japan in the east, with hundreds of thousands of standing troops, and was a powerful country in Northeast Asia. Goguryeo attacked the Sui region of western Liaoning several times and colluded with Turkic forces.
In 607, in order to deter the Turks, the Sui Emperor led more than 500,000 soldiers and 100,000 horses to tour the north and stopped at the Qimin Khan, just when Goguryeo sent someone to hook up with the Qimin Khan, the Qimin Khan did not dare to hide, so that the Goguryeo emissaries met the Sui Emperor. The Sui Emperor was overjoyed, but after this incident, he felt that Goguryeo was not very honest, so he accused Goguryeo of not observing the etiquette of the domain and decided to send troops to fight.
The Sui Emperor was particularly conceited and wanted to drive the imperial conquest. In 612, the army was officially dispatched, with a total of 1.3 million troops, transporting 2.3 million civilians with heavy weights. The Sui Emperor ordered all armies to assemble at Zhuo County and then set out at the same time. In order to land on the Korean Peninsula by water, many warships needed to be built. Sui Dynasty officials forced craftsmen to stand in the water day and night to build ships, causing maggots below their waists. After the army was assembled, more than a million mouths were gathered together, causing a great burden of grain and grass in Shandong and Hebei. Sui Dynasty officials took advantage of the opportunity to corrupt the law, which also directly led to the occurrence of peasant uprisings.
However, even if the rear was turbulent, the Sui Emperor had to continue to send troops. The Sui Emperor himself led a large army into the Liaodong Peninsula and wanted to occupy the liaodong city. Although Goguryeo was good at defending the city, there were too many Sui troops, and the Goguryeo defenders soon could not support it and declared that they would surrender. The Sui Emperor ordered that if Goguryeo were to surrender, it would not be allowed to attack the city again. However, the defenders took the opportunity to repair the city walls, restore their strength, and then continue to fight the Sui army. The Sui Emperor was self-conscious, not allowing the generals to act on their own, and the generals did not dare not obey his orders. Therefore, the Goguryeo defenders announced their surrender when they could not hold on, the Sui army stopped attacking the city, and the defenders continued to resist after being prepared, so that the Sui army could not occupy Liaodong City. The Sui Emperor was so foolishly tricked by Goguryeo that he never conquered Liaodong City.
The Sui army, which attacked Pyongyang by water, was defeated by Goguryeo's ambush troops who lured the enemy deeper into the rear, suffered heavy losses, and had to retreat. The Third Sui Army went deep into the Korean Peninsula and won several battles in a row. However, because the soldiers carried too many things and were overwhelmed, the soldiers on the road threw away a large amount of grain, resulting in a shortage of food and grass. As a result, the Sui army also had to retreat, and was besieged by the Goguryeo army, with heavy losses, and only a few thousand people of the 300,000 army fled back.
The first conquest of Goguryeo failed. The Sui army lost more than 300,000 people, and the Sui Emperor was not willing to accept defeat and sent troops for the second time in 613. This time under Liaodong City, the Sui army failed to conquer the city for more than thirty days. The Sui army thought of a way to fill the soil with millions of cloth bags and pile them into a road leading directly to the city wall, preparing to conquer Liaodong City in one fell swoop. However, at this moment, the news of Yang Xuangan's rebellion came, and the Sui Emperor was frightened, and secretly ordered the army to throw down a large amount of materials and retreat. After the Sui army retreated, the Goguryeo army thought it was deceitful and did not dare to pursue, until it was determined that the Sui army really retreated, so it attacked the rear of the Sui army and captured thousands of people.
In 614, the Sui Emperor personally conquered Goguryeo for the third time, ignoring the rebel forces spread throughout the Sui Dynasty. Due to the chaotic situation in the world, the Sui army had no morale and began to flee on the way to assembly. However, At this time, Goguryeo was also very tired, and before the Sui army officially marched, it sent people to invite peace.
Goguryeo not only sent back the fleeing Sui general Hu Sizheng, but also said that the king of Goguryeo would enter the dynasty to show his submission. The Sui Emperor believed it to be true and withdrew his troops. However, the King of Goguryeo refused to enter the dynasty. Originally, Goguryeo was using the strategy of delaying the army, and now that the Sui Dynasty had withdrawn its troops, how could it come back to see the Sui Emperor? The Sui Emperor was furious and wanted to continue his conquest of Goguryeo, but unfortunately, at this time, the Sui Dynasty had already been boiled by the three conquests of Goguryeo, and the world was in chaos, and the anti-Sui rebel army swarmed. Four years later, the Sui Emperor was killed and never had the opportunity to send troops again.
Conclusion: The Three Expeditions to Goguryeo cost the Sui army hundreds of thousands. In order to support the war, the Sui Emperor requisitioned millions of people and collected a large amount of grain and grass materials, causing hundreds of thousands of people to run for a long time, exhausting and dying of countless diseases, directly triggering a large-scale peasant uprising, and then causing the demise of the Sui Dynasty.
Dou Jiande Rises: The Road to Grassroots Rise
In 611, Dou Jiande raised an army at Gaojipo, Hebei.
Dou Jiande was forced to raise troops. This year was the seventh year of Daye, and the Sui Emperor sent troops to conquer Goguryeo in order to realize his grand ambitions. Hebei was relatively close to Goguryeo and became an important conscription place for the imperial court. Soon after, Dou Jiande became the small captain of the conscription team in Zhangnan County, Bei Prefecture, and led his two hundred militiamen to the front line of conquest of Liaodong.
When Dou Jiande and his fellow villagers set out, the Area around Hebei was already overwhelmed by the tyranny of the imperial court, and there were bandits and bandits everywhere, gathering in the mountains and forests to attack zhou county, but the situation in Zhangnan County was quite special, and there was never a bandit attack here. After investigation, the county order found that most of the bandits were composed of nearby displaced people, many of whom had received relief from Dou Jiande and were reluctant to invade Engong's hometown. Based on this, Zhangnan County Ling concluded that Dou Jiande was originally a collusion with bandits, so he arrested Dou Jiande's entire family and killed them. At this time, Dou Jiande was already on his way out, and when he learned of this news, he was very sad, and he knew that if he stayed in the Sui army again, he would die sooner or later, and decided to lead his two-hundred-man team to rise up.
After making up his mind, Dou Jiande led this team to gao shangda, the leader of the rebel army in Gaojipo, who was very happy to see Dou Jiande, who knew that Dou Jiande was capable and immediately appointed him as his subordinate soldier, responsible for training and recruiting soldiers. Under the efforts of Dou Jiande, the ranks of the Gaojipo rebels expanded rapidly, and soon grew to more than 10,000 people. Guo Xuan, the Taishou of Zhuozhou, saw the huge momentum of the Gaojipo rebel army and led his troops to fight. Gao Shangda asked Dou Jiande to command the soldiers and horses to meet the battle, and Dou Jiande decided to win a surprise victory considering that it was the first time to formally fight with the officers and soldiers.
Dou Jiande and Gao Shangda made a plan, and Dou Jiande first pretended to defect and sent a letter to Guo Xuan, saying that he was willing to surrender to the officers and troops and jointly crusader Gao Shangda. Guo Xuan was sure of the plan and made a pact with Dou Jiande. However, Dou Jiande seized the opportunity for Guo Xuan to relax his vigilance and suddenly launched an attack on the officers and men under his leadership, defeating Guo Xuan in one fell swoop and occupying Pingyuan County.
After this battle, Dou Jiande's prestige was greatly shaken, and his power in the rebel army was also increasing, and Gao Shangda felt that his position was threatened, just at this time the Sui Emperor sent his servant Yang Yichen to attack, Dou Jiande knew that Yang Yichen was brave in battle, so he suggested to Gao Shangda that he should temporarily avoid the front and then find an opportunity to fight. Gao Shangda refused his proposal, and in order to re-establish his prestige in the army, Gao Shangda decided to personally lead the army to meet Yang Yichen.
Dou Jiande knew in his heart that Gao Shangda would be defeated, and led more than a hundred of his henchmen to withdraw from Gao Ji po in advance. Sure enough, a few days later, the news of Takadaka's death came. Dou Jiande fled to nearby Raoyang to gather strength, temporarily avoiding the crusade of the official army, and soon returned to the plains, recruiting fleeing soldiers and re-raising the ranks of the rebels.
Dou Jiande began to call himself a general and truly mastered a team of his own. Dou Jiande's great ambitions were also gradually revealed, and unlike other rebel armies who immediately killed Sui officials and local gentry when they caught them, Dou Jiande often treated them with courtesy.
Dou Jiande's approach won him support, and in the ensuing battles, the Sui Dynasty Officials of Hebei Prefecture surrendered the city, and Dou Jiande's strength was further strengthened. After capturing the two county seats of Hejian and Leshou, he used this as a base and renamed Leshou as Jincheng Palace as the capital, and subsequently occupied many prefectures and counties in hebei.
Soon after, Dou Jiande feasted on the courtiers at the Jincheng Palace, and someone presented a piece of black jade as a congratulatory gift. After seeing this piece of jade, Jingcheng Gong Deshao immediately said to Dou Jiande that this was an auspicious omen, in ancient times, Xia Yu only took the world after receiving the Xuanjue given by heaven, and now you have also got a piece, we should conform to Providence and name the country Xia. Dou Jiande was very happy after hearing this, and immediately announced that the regime he had established was named Xia, and called himself The King of Xia.
Conclusion: As the leader of the rebel army at the end of the Sui Dynasty, Dou Jiande persisted in Shandong and Hebei for twelve years, and was one of the most important separatist regimes in the last years of the Sui Dynasty, and became an important political and military force in the situation around the end of the Sui Dynasty and the beginning of the Tang Dynasty.