Text: Humility talks about the style of writing
Editor|Humility talks about the style of writing
China is a country with a large number of military talents. Since ancient times, I don't know how many strategists have strategized and won thousands of miles; How many good generals gallop on the field, inside and outside. The heroes of these nations are like bright stars, shining on China's history and making it shine impressively. And Li Jing, a famous general in the early Tang Dynasty, is one of the bright stars among these generals.
He "Ping Wu in the south, break the Turks in the north, and Tuguhun in the west". Everywhere he went, he was devastated, and even a powerful opponent seemed vulnerable in front of him. He also often serves the people with benevolence, so that he can achieve full success without bloodshed.
However, for a long time, Li Jing's popularity has not been able to be on par with first-class celebrities such as Han Xin and Yue Fei. Even today, the biographies of some of the first-class generals we publish also exclude Li Jing, which is obviously extremely unfair. Therefore, it is necessary for us to sum up Li Jing's lifelong practice of warfare and expound the characteristics of his military use and his noble martial virtues, so as to restore his rightful position in the mainland's military history.
Wise and talented, there is a commander's talent
Li Jing has always been admired by those with true insight. Tang Gaozu Li Yuan once praised him as "the famous generals of the ancients, Han, Bai, Wei, and Huo". Zhenguan famous minister Wang Zhu called him "talented and civilian, and he will enter the phase". Ye Kuo of the Southern Song Dynasty also said: "Tang Taizong and Li Jing, the soldiers of the monarchs and ministers in modern times, are unsurpassed. ”
It is especially worth mentioning that even the eloquent Tang Taizong has always been like a teacher of Li Jing. We all know that Tang Taizong is a man, a man with a proud demeanor and arrogant bones, and he refuses to convince people easily. Although he has the reputation of seeking advice and being humble like a valley, this is just the meaning that the mountains do not tire of the soil and the sea does not abandon the trickle.
However, he was different from Li Jing, whenever he encountered a major problem and felt that it was difficult to solve it, he always had to ask Li Jing for advice. Therefore, Yuanren Gezhi once said: "Taizong is talented and heroic, good at fighting and invincible, and the ministers are not enough to look up to his clear light." The emperor admires and teaches the teacher, and Li Jing is alone. Since Sun Wu, those who can combine the teachers of the law are Du Kongming and Jing'er. ”
We should see that Liu Bei's affairs are like a teacher, mainly because of his own poor military talent, while Tang Taizong is a saint and martial artist, and he is the crown of all Chinese emperors. The fact that he was able to often seek advice from Li Jing on the military issues that he was most proud of shows that Li Jing's military talent is indeed extraordinary.
Throughout Li Jing's military practice throughout his life, his military talent is mainly manifested in the following aspects:
Seek impermanence and win because of the enemy
The great military strategist Sun Wu once said: "The image of the soldier is water, the shape of the water avoids the height and tends to go down, the shape of the soldier avoids the real and strikes the false, the water controls the flow because of the ground, and the soldier wins because of the enemy." Therefore, the army is impermanent, the water is impermanent, and those who can win due to the change of the enemy are called gods. ”
Li Jingzheng is a commander who wins because of the enemy and uses his troops like a god. In battle, he always adopts different strategies according to the specific situation, avoiding the real and attacking the enemy. In this way, it is truly achieved that "victory is no more, but should be infinite".
Li Jing mainly commanded four wars in his life, namely: Nanping Xiao Milling, Fu Gongyou, North Breaking Eastern Turks, and West Ding Tuguhun. In the war of Pingxiao and Milling, Li Jing mainly adopted the strategy of "attacking the unprepared and taking it by surprise". Because at that time, although in terms of overall strength, the Tang Dynasty was far superior to Xiao Mill, but in terms of the number of troops that both sides could invest in this war, Xiao Mill was stronger than Li Jing.
Because of the frequent wars in the Tang Dynasty at that time, there were police in the north, and the Turks repeatedly invaded, and there must be generals to guard them; Shandong and Henan are newly attached, and the people's hearts are undecided, and they also need to be heavily suppressed. Therefore, the troops led by Li Jing were only part of the non-main forces of the Tang Dynasty, but Xiao Mo could concentrate his forces to fight a decisive battle with Li Jing, and although Xiao Miao's military strength was not as good as that of the Tang Dynasty, it was not weak.
At that time, "from Jiujiang in the east, to the Three Gorges in the west, to Jiaozhi in the south, and to the Hanshui in the north, milling all there." More than 400,000 victorious soldiers". And only "when it is autumn, the river is rising, and the Three Gorges Road is dangerous", and the time and place are all occupied by Xiao Tie.
However, these favorable conditions led Xiao Mo to make an irreparable mistake. Because of this, you have wrongly judged that "Jing cannot advance, so the troops are not equipped with a truce."
And the scattered pawns of "Jiangling Huiyuan" are in a hurry and difficult to help. Under such circumstances, Li Qing would only be more sure of victory by taking a sudden strike action so that the enemy could not concentrate his forces for a decisive battle with the main force. Therefore, Li Jingli rejected the generals' proposal to "advance before the water falls".
In the war of Tuyuhun in Xiding, Li Jing adopted the strategy of fighting steadily and gradually annihilating the enemy. The situation of Tuyuhun is similar to that of the Turks, who also belong to the nomadic people. "The base is thousands of miles, there are cities but not residences, with water and grass, tents, meat and grain." This habit of being good at swimming made it difficult for the Tang Dynasty to annihilate it in one fell swoop.
However, Tuyuhun was weaker, while the Tang Dynasty at this time was even stronger. There was a huge disparity in the strength of the two sides, the two armies were at war, and the Tang army was almost in danger of being annihilated. Therefore, Li Jing decided to go deep in a big way, divided into joint attacks, and "fought dozens of battles and killed quite a lot." Finally, force the enemy to surrender.
In particular, it is worth mentioning that Li Jing was not only able to display the extraordinary art of war when he was superior in strength, but also was able to display his superb military talent when the enemy was strong and we were weak. During the Wude period, the main force of the Jieli Turks invaded the Tang Dynasty in a big way.
On the road, invincible, and finally met with 10,000 Jianghuai troops led by Li Jing, and the two armies fought in "the Kip Stone of Lingzhou, from Dan to Shen, and the Turks retreated". Unfortunately, the details of this battle are not recorded in any historical source, so we have no way of knowing what strategy Li Jing used to achieve this result. But Li Jing can be in a critical moment. With a small number of people, it shows that its art of using soldiers is extraordinary.
Strike at the enemy's vital points, and do not surrender to the enemy
Sun Tzu said: "A hundred battles are won, and those who are not good are also good; The soldiers who surrender without a fight, and the good ones are also good. The "no war" mentioned here is of course not an absolute avoidance of fighting, but only advocates "going to the army to fight and strategizing", that is, before the real battle begins, it is necessary to defeat the enemy in strategy, so as to exchange a small price for a big victory. And Li Jing did exactly that.
In battle, Li Jing always used keen strategic insight to first grasp the enemy's vital point (that is, the enemy's Achilles heel), and then strike hard, so as to exchange the greatest victory for the least price.
In this regard, the most typical example of the battle is the "Battle of Dingxiang". Before this battle, Li Jing grasped the Achilles' heel of the Turks' fear and internal discord, and boldly approached Dingxiang, the location of the main Turkic army, with 3,000 cavalry.
Here, we would like to point out that the significance of the "Battle of Dingxiang" was not only limited to the battle itself, but also laid a solid foundation for the Tang Dynasty to win the entire war. Because it not only caused the Eastern Turks to suffer great material losses, but also led to the collapse of the Eastern Turks' spiritual power.
It completely shattered the prestige and psychological superiority of the northern hegemon of the Eastern Turks. Therefore, after the "Battle of Dingxiang", Jieli sent an envoy to "ask for domestic attachment". Although this is just a delaying tactic, it also shows that at this time, Jieli has only the heart to flee north to survive, and has no intention of herding horses south.
Therefore, the "Battle of Dingxiang" had actually announced the demise of the Eastern Turks, and as for the victories in the next few battles, it was only a further expansion of the results of the "Battle of Dingxiang".
In the war of Pingxiao Milling, Li Jing also used the strategy of striking at the enemy's vital points. At that time, Li Jing grasped the fatal heel of "milling and releasing troops, leaving only a few thousand guards", crossed the river with his army, and smashed the enemy's capital Jiangling, so that Xiao Mian was forced to surrender out of the city before he could concentrate his forces for a decisive battle.
We must emphasize that in this war, Li Jing not only took advantage of the enemy's weakness, but also expanded this weakness of the enemy with superhuman wisdom. Originally, its reinforcements could have arrived before forcing the enemy to surrender.
However, before the troops besieged Jiangling, the Tang army broke Xiao Mill's army and obtained more than 400 ships, and Li Jing scattered them in the river. He believed: "Now that the ship is abandoned, the river is stopped, and the reinforcements see it, they must say that Jiangling has been broken and they dare not enter lightly."
Coming and going, flooding the moon, I will take it. As Li Jing expected, "the reinforcements saw the boats and ships, but they did not advance." In this way, Xiao Miao, who was alone in the empty city, became Li Jing's bag. By the time the reinforcements learned the truth and came to aid Jiangling, Xiao Mo had already left the city and surrendered. This is the famous strategy of "confusing the Liang soldiers in the boat" in history.
As soon as Xiao Mo fell, the army of more than 100,000 was like a group of dragons without a leader, so they had to come and surrender one after another. In this battle, Li Jing grasped the enemy's weakness and won a complete victory in the war at a very small cost without a decisive battle. The subtle realm.
"Qi Zheng is all gained, and the country is also assisted"
Li Jing once said: "All generals are righteous and unsurprising, and guards are also; Strange and unpositive, fighting generals also; Qi Zheng is all gained, and the country is also assisted. The so-called "strange and positive" does not only mean that when it is strange and when it is right, but also to achieve "all strange, all right". There is a strange in the positive, and there is a positive in the strange.
The former, most of China's famous generals can do, and the latter is even more commendable. In war, Li Jing always strives to be strange and correct and use "unpredictable enemies." For example, in the decisive battle with the main force of Fu Gongzhe, "Jing led Huang Junhan and others to advance by land and water, fought hard, killed and wounded more than 10,000 people, and Hui Liang and others died."
It can be seen that Li Jing mainly defeated the enemy with regular soldiers in this campaign. But before the war, Li Jing pointed out to the generals: "If you attack its city gate today, it will be a surprise." People will be surprised when they first hear this, but if you analyze it carefully, it makes sense.
Because at this time, the two armies had been holding each other for many days, and the Tang army made a surprise attack to rob the enemy's grain route, which gave people the impression that the Tang army was going to besiege the enemy for a long time. Therefore, although the battle was attacked with regular troops, there were also factors for surprising victory.
In the war of pacifying the Turks, Li Jing mainly fought the two major battles of "Dingxiang" and "Yinshan". The "Battle of Dingxiang" is obviously a surprising victory, so there is no need to repeat it here. And the "Battle of Yinshan" is also a typical example of a surprising victory.
Before the war, Li Jing clearly realized that at that time, "when the edict arrives, the captives will be safe, and if they take 20 days of food for 10,000 horsemen, they will be attacked by confession, and they will get what they want." And pointed out that "the opportunity cannot be missed, so Han Xin broke Qi." Then he supervised the army and marched forward, "Go to Qili Naijue, the people were shocked, more than 10,000 ranks, and 100,000 men and women were captured...... Jieli is dead".
But afterwards, Li Jing said to Tang Taizong: "The ministers are fighting against the Turks and traveling thousands of miles west. This shows that when Li Jing uses strange soldiers, it also contains the factor of regular soldiers.
Resourceful, flexible, and adaptable
Li Jing used his troops to not only be confident in strategy, but also witty and flexible in the face of the enemy, and good at improvising on the occasion. On the way to Jiangling, the Tang army once encountered tens of thousands of soldiers led by Xiao Miao's general, Wen Shihong. At that time, Li Xiaogong did not listen to Li Jing's dissuasion, and ordered Li Jing to defend the village and bring his own army to fight the enemy.
As a result, he returned in defeat. After the victory of the enemy, he got carried away, "commissioned a boat to plunder, everyone was burdened, Jing saw that his army was in chaos, the column broke it, captured more than 400 boats, beheaded and drowned 10,000 people." In this battle, Li Jing was wise and decisive, witty and flexible, and commanded Ruo Ding in the midst of danger, so that the Tang army turned defeat into victory. This shows how superb his conducting art is.
epilogue
To sum up, we can see that Li Jing is indeed a rare military wizard. He is not only good at applying appropriate strategies and tactics according to the specific conditions of both the enemy and us, but also good at grasping the enemy's vital points and delivering fatal blows, so as to exchange a small price for a big victory.
The strategic insight and superb command art he displayed during the war fully proved that he was worthy of being an outstanding commander in Chinese history.
Sun Tzu said: "Victory and the world is said to be good, and the good is not good." "The victory of those who are good at fighting is also useless." And Li Jing is such a commander.