In May of the fourth year of Zhonghe (883), Huangchao, who was forced to withdraw from Chang'an, was not willing to accept defeat, and gathered hundreds of thousands of remnants of the Qi army to launch a crazy counterattack into the hinterland of the Central Plains, and a strategic-level decisive battle between the peasant army and the Tang army was launched with ChenZhou as the center.
Under the emergency, Chen Zhou's assassin Zhao Yi issued four rescue documents in a row: one was sent to the hands of Zhou Qian, the leader of the Zhongwu Army, one to Shi Pu, the envoy of Xuzhou Jiedu, and the remaining two were sent to Zhu Wen and Li Keyong, one to Beizhou and one to Taiyuan.
Considering that the existence of the Yellow Nest was indeed a threat, the people who received the call for help did not hesitate and came with troops.
Among them, the most powerful Li Ke refused to give way to Zhuge Shuang due to the Heyang Festival (Zhuge Shuang insisted that Li Ke was playing a trick of false Dao to destroy the Qi), and had to spare the long way, and did not meet with the crowd until April of the following year.
On April 3, under the onslaught of the Tang army on the fourth road, Huang Chao finally could not resist, and Chen Zhou, which had been besieged for nearly a year, finally broke the siege. However, just as everyone was cheering, Zhu Wen suddenly couldn't sit still.
It turned out that the defeated Huang Chao did not flee into the wilderness, but went straight to Zhu Wen's old lair, Bian Prefecture.
After hearing the news, Zhu Wen immediately bid farewell to everyone and quickly returned to aid Bian Prefecture. Although The defenders of Da Liang persisted until Zhu Wen's arrival, it was not so easy to retreat from the enemy. The Qi army had no way out of successive defeats, and Huang Chao was more hostile to Zhu Wen, so the offensive wave was stronger than the wave.
Zhu Wen saw the situation and hurriedly greeted his newly met comrade-in-arms Li Keyong: Help.
Li Keyong was also reliable, and after getting Zhu Wen's help, the fire rate army marched from Xuzhou to Bian Prefecture.
The desperate peasant army desperately went to the city, and just when Zhu Wen was ready to fight and die or was bloodied by the old leader, Li Keyong arrived.
The result of the battle was not suspenseful, in the face of Li Ke's Shatuo cavalry, Huang Chao had no strength to fight back, the main force was basically completely annihilated, most of the generals under his command were killed and wounded, and Huang Chao had to lead the remnants of the army to continue to run.
Li Keyong was also more conscientious, chasing after the peasant army, but he ran too fast, and when he chased after The Yellow Nest, only a few hundred people were left with him, considering that he was also tired and tired, and at the end of the crossbow, he had to turn back.
On May 14, Li Keyong led the pursuing troops back to Bian Prefecture and rested in a large camp outside the city. He had planned to wait for his strength to recover, and then immediately attack again to catch up with Huang Chao. But he was stopped.
The person who stopped Li Ke's use was Zhu Wen.
Zhu Wen stopped him for the simple reason that he wanted to invite Li Keyun to have a meal and express his heartfelt thanks.
Li Keyong was planning to refuse at the beginning, in his opinion, fighting the Yellow Nest is a matter of duty, saving the State is only done with a piggyback, there is nothing to do, not to mention that now the Yellow Nest is the weakest time, Li Keyong does not want to waste such a good opportunity to make meritorious achievements.
But Zhu Wen was too enthusiastic and too insistent, and Li Keyong felt embarrassed and had to agree.
He never dreamed that his decision would profoundly affect the course of history, and that he and Zhu Wen and their sons would have a half-century-long feud.
Hearing that Li Keyong finally agreed to go to the banquet, Zhu Wen was very happy, and in order to fulfill the friendship of the landlord, Zhu Wen specially sent someone to thoroughly clean up the Shangyuanyi where the banquet was located, and also made elaborate arrangements. All in all, the fine wine, food, music, song and dance are all in place, and they are the best things that Zhu Wen can come up with.
As for Zhu Wen himself, he put down the shelf and personally waited to greet him, acting extremely polite and giving Li Ke enough face.
Of course, Li Keyong is also very happy, after all, he has rarely had the opportunity to enjoy exquisite dishes and fine wines after many years of conquest, and now that he has such an opportunity, he naturally wants to drink freely and not get drunk.
History has told us countless times that there will always be something wrong with eating and eating. Experience also tells us that many big things in the world are caused by small things like drinking, especially when someone is drunk, the accident rate can basically reach 80% or 90%, and this time is no exception.
The drunkard at the wine table was Li Keyong.
Although the brave and fierce Li Ke has long become mature and stable under the polishing of time, taking into account the overall situation, it is only limited to his waking state. Li Ke, who is in a drunken state, uses that is really difficult to say, because some people like to sleep when they are drunk, some people like to cry when they are drunk, and Li Ke uses the kind that is most likely to cause trouble.
Under Li Keyong's shouting, everyone present could see that Zhu Wen's face became more ugly the more he listened. Although I went through all the historical materials that could be found and did not find out what Li Keyong said at that time, it is certain that he must have insulted Zhu Wen in public and seriously hurt Old Zhu's self-esteem, so after the banquet, Zhu Wen had an unshakable thought: Kill that Sha Tuolao tonight!
When the night was completely over, Zhu Wen's men began a covert operation. According to the arrangement, Zhu Wen's general Yang Yanhong first set up wooden fences and other roadblocks in the streets and alleys near Shangyuanyi where Li Ke stayed overnight, and after confirming that all the roads were closed, a group of soldiers quickly surrounded the inn and were ready to rush in at any time to turn Li Ke into meat sauce with songs.
Now, everything was just waiting for Zhu Wen to issue that order.
Although you have helped me at any cost, and although your bravery and strength make me deeply admire, I have my bottom line and cannot be violated. Today, I have to get rid of you to let everyone know that Zhu Wen can't be messed with!
Sorry, go all right, Li Ke used!
At Zhu Wen's order, the soldiers lurking under the wall and at the entrance of the pavilion immediately launched, knocking on the door and climbing over the wall.
However, a strange thing happened, the army attacking the pavilion was not blocked, and many people entered the pavilion very smoothly, which found that the reason was that Li Keyong was drunk like most of his entourage and Li Keyong (all the followers were drunk) and were sleeping at the moment. Don't say that the outside is attacking, or someone is hanging in their ears and singing a big drama, they may not be able to get up.
No matter how you look at it, Li Ke's line is doomed and will undoubtedly die. If Li Ke hangs up like this, there will naturally be no inspirational story of his dying three arrows to Li Cunmao. Therefore, everyone can rest assured that Li Ke's life is not in danger this time.
In the novel, Da Fan encountered a similar situation, it is said that the Ji people have their own celestial appearance, the emperor has his own vision, when he first read it, he felt that it was very magical and powerful, and then he read more books, felt very superstitious and ridiculous, and then read more books later, and felt that there seemed to be a little bit of truth. Realistically speaking, some figures of the imperial and monarchical levels have indeed been more or less able to explain in history that cannot be explained by scientific laws.
With the help of paranormal phenomena, some are wind (wind-assisted type representative: Zhu Di), some are rain (rain-assisted type representative: Sima Yi), and some are meteor showers (meteorite-assisted type representative: Liu Xiu). At this time, what helped Li Ke was heavy rain and lightning.
Because none of the Xuanwu soldiers who participated in the siege of Li Keyong were unaware of the "Flying Tiger" and "Li Ya'er", although they had previously vowed to hack Li Keyong to death with a knife, although Li Keyong was already drunk and unconscious, the soldiers who rushed in still did not dare to face this fierce man, so they chose not to face Li Keyong's killing method and set them on fire one by one.
Rockets and torches quickly ignited the guest rooms of Shangyuanyi, and for a time the flames rose in the air, the smoke spread out, and the Shatuo people who were awakened by the smoke rushed out of the room, but basically they had just breathed in the relatively fresh air, and they were shot into hedgehogs by Zhu Wen's soldiers, and they returned to the mansion on the spot.
There was already a lot of noise outside. More and more Shatuo people woke up from their sleep, but Li Ke used the wind of a great general in the end, Tarzan collapsed in front of him, and his old man turned over and continued to snore.
At this time, there were already bold soldiers who had killed Li Keyong's door, and Li Keyong's pro-soldiers Xue Zhidong and Shi Jingsi and a dozen others immediately copied the guys to fight. Only a servant, Guo Jingba, remained by Li Keyong's side.
The benevolent brother was a wise man, and as soon as he came up, he extinguished all the candles in the room (to prevent the enemy soldiers from shooting arrows), and then he hurriedly helped Li Keyun to lie down under the bed and began the most difficult step: to wake up Li Keyong.
Li Ke slept really to death, Ren Guo Jingba pushed and shook and screamed that he did not wake up, and Guo Jingquan jumped up and down in a hurry, and almost rounded his arm and hit him in the face.
Just when the smoke was rising more and more, and the fierce battle outside the door had also entered the critical moment of the white-hot stage, Guo Jingba suddenly glanced at the copper basin in the corner of the room and thought of a way.
After a few handfuls of cold water splashing noodles, Li Keyong finally woke up slowly. What greeted him was not a good morning greeting, but Guo Jingba's anxious cry: "Shuai Shuai plotted to kill Sikong!"
The wine woke up.
Li Ke used to be a veteran of the battlefield for many years, and when he heard Guo Jingbaht's words and the familiar shouting and killing outside the room, the blood in his body boiled at that time. As soon as he opened his eyes, he immediately locked his bow and arrow, grabbed it and rushed out.
At that time, it was Xue Zhiqin who was shooting at the Bian army with a bow in the post tower, this person was Li Keyong's vanguard right army envoy, the martial arts naturally had nothing to say, since he appeared on the high ground, the arrows were not false, in a few moments he shot dozens of Zhu Wen's native soldiers, seeing Li Keyong walk out of the door, he was the first to rush forward and said a very crucial sentence:
"The situation is urgent, if it is delayed until the time of the five drums, I am afraid that we will be driven out and killed, please leave this place as soon as possible!"
He was right, although the Shatuo people blocked the attack of the Bian army with the help of the long-range deterrent of bows and arrows and the bloody soldiers, but this was temporary. What's more, the most deadly thing at this time is not the enemy soldiers, but the smoke.
Generally speaking, most of the victims of fires are not burned to death, they mostly die of air poison or suffocation.
Although Xue Zhiqin had not accepted the popularization of fire escape knowledge, he had common sense and knew that if he delayed any longer, these people would be completely annihilated.
Zhu Wen and Yang Yanhong, who were in charge of commanding and dispatching outside, also knew this, so when they saw that the soldiers could not attack, they waved their hands so that the soldiers did not have to fight, and they would add wood one by one. When he found it, he threw it into the fire, ready to roast Li Ke with smoke like a monkey.
This time the Shatuo people were in trouble, originally they could still resist a burst of bows and arrows and kill the enemy, but who knew that the other party gave up hand-to-hand combat every minute, special fire, fireworks, and fireworks, and could only sit and wait.
Under the unremitting efforts of Zhu Wen's soldiers, the Shangyuan Station was in flames, the smoke was billowing, and the time from burning out was getting shorter and shorter. The people inside are also helpless, almost desperate. It seems that the heroic road used by Li Ke is about to end here.
But then something happened that surprised everyone. When the fireworks were in full swing, the sky and earth suddenly became obscure, and the heavy rain poured down, and the fire of Shangyuanyi was extinguished. Because it was very dark, the rain was very large, and the vision was greatly affected, Zhu Wen's native soldiers could not launch an effective attack.
After experiencing the brief excitement of the fire and rain, Xue Zhiqin suddenly realized that this was a good opportunity to escape, so he immediately summoned Xue Tieshan, He Huilu and others, and set up Li Keyong and ran to the backyard of the post office in his memory.
With the help of a moment of light at the time of lightning, Xue Zhiqin and others broke through the wall, retreated while fighting, and retreated all the way to the Wei's Gate, and then several people came out of the city one after another and fled back to the army outside the city.
Li Keyong survived, but his general Shi Jingsi (also known as Shi Jingsi in the White Robe, the eleventh of the thirteen Taibao) died in battle to cover his retreat. His overseer Chen Jingsi and more than three hundred of his own soldiers were also killed by Zhu Wen's army because they did not escape from Shangyuanyi, and the losses were heavy. As for Zhu Wen's side, more than a hundred people were killed or injured, including one Yang Yanhong. It is said that zhu Wen mistakenly believed that he was a Shatuo and shot to death by mistake.
In short, the Shangyuanyi incident can be said to have given the popular Li Ke a blow to the head, so that he appeared in front of the whole world, although Zhu Wen belonged to the conspiracy, but the heroic invincible Li Ke almost died, it is already an indisputable fact. Therefore, according to the routine, the next plot is bound to be Li Ke using all his strength to seek revenge on Zhu Wen.
However, real history is not driven purely by emotions like movies and TV series, and people who live in reality want to live too many episodes, often relying only on reason. Although Li Keyong cried because of the death of Shi Jingsi, although the next morning he planned to lead his army to find Zhu Wen desperately, he finally chose to be patient.
One is because Li Ke is indeed mature; The second reason is that his wife has spoken.
The wife That Li Ke used was his wife Liu Shi, who later became Lady Qin and Princess Liu. This woman's family background is unknown, only known to be a Daibei person, very smart, so Li Ke usually took her with him when he went out to fight, and used her as a staff officer. Practice has proved that the Liu clan, who can make good decisions, is indeed used, such as this time in the Shangyuanyi incident, Liu Shi has played an extremely key role.
In fact, Zhu Wen not only wanted Li Ke's life, but also wanted to rob Li Ke's equipment and war horses. At that time, Zhu Wen, who had just come to do it, was really very poor, and when he first came to the Xuanwu Army, he only had a hundred or so people in his hands, and they were basically infantry, and then he tried to make up for half a day before he managed to get five hundred war horses. You must know that every general who gallops on the battlefield has a heart to command thousands of troops and horses and traverse the world, so Zhu Wen intends to seize the two thousand war horses that Li Ke used outside the city to keep for his own use.
But he did not know that his intention was seen through by Liu Shi, who remained in the military camp. As for Li Keyong's entourage who escaped from the city of Bianzhou first, Liu Shi without exception quietly ordered him to be killed, and she believed that it would not be a problem to escape from Bizhou with Li Keyong's skills, so there was only one thing she had to do, that is, to ensure that the army was not in turmoil, so that Li Keyong would still have a complete army to rely on when he returned, otherwise once the whole army heard the news and broke down, when Li Keyong returned, they would have no resistance in front of Zhu Wen's Xuanwu army.
In order to stabilize the army, Liu Shi also stepped forward, summoned the generals of various departments in the middle of the night, and ordered them to restrain the troops from spreading all unverified gossip, stabilize people's hearts, and at least ensure that the troops can return to the whole division.
It was precisely because of these tasks carried out by the Liu clan that Although Li Keyong returned from the great old man's misery, the troops did not undergo any surprise changes, but instead proceeded step by step and performed their duties.
Now seeing the signs of Li Ke's intentional use of qi, Liu Dangjia naturally had something to say.
"You are currently fighting for thieves for the country and the urgent need to rescue the eastern domain town, although Zhu Quanzhong of Bian Prefecture plotted to harm you, it is not convenient for you to send troops, but you should go to the imperial court to appeal and ask Tianzi to preside over justice." If you lead people and horses to attack Bian Prefecture without authorization, then in the eyes of the Daxia people, we will do it first, but it will give Zhu Quanzhong the opportunity to slander us. ”
Listening to his wife's words is better than reading ten years of books. Li Keyong immediately realized that his wife was right. Nowadays, basically no one knows about Shangyuanyi, if he attacks the city with this move, then all his previous efforts will be wasted. He Shatuo Like will become a traitor to everyone with righteousness, and he will not be a hero.
Of course, there are still a few words that the wife did not explicitly say, but Li Keyong is also very clear. That is, with Li Keyong's current situation, he didn't want to take Bian Zhou City.
First of all, Li Ke's strength is limited and almost all cavalry, Shatuo cavalry is invincible in the world, this point does not need to be questioned, but it is impossible for them to charge directly to the head of the city, if they want to break the city, they have to honestly climb the wall, it is obvious that Li Ke used cavalry as an infantry, too uneconomical.
Second, there is the issue of replenishment. Li Keyong was fighting away, did not have his own supply line, all the grain and grass ordnance had to rely on local supplies, and now he and Zhu Wen had torn their faces, plus there was not much grain stored in the army, and it was difficult to persist until the city was destroyed.
Finally, Zhu Wen had several allies in this area, and if someone came to attack Li Ke's flank while he was besieging the city, Li Ke would not only be unable to take Zhu Wen, but even his own personal safety would not be guaranteed.
Therefore, based on the above reasons, Li Ke left Bian Prefecture with his troops on the same day. Of course, before leaving, he sent someone to send a letter to Zhu Wen, angrily denouncing the other party's behavior and denouncing Zhu Wen for being ungrateful. Zhu Wen quickly sent someone back, still very polite. This is how he explained what happened at Shangyuanyi last night:
"I really don't know anything about last night's events, it was sent by the imperial court itself to conspire with Yang Yanhong, and now Yang Yanhong has been ambushed, I hope your excellency will be able to see it!"
Obviously, it is the ghost you made, but you put on a "Who am I?" Where am I? What did I do?" The innocent expression comes, which is even more infuriating. But the severe shortage of food has made it impossible for Li Ke to stay in the Central Plains for one more day.
On May 16, after Xu Zhou had unsuccessfully borrowed grain from Zhou, Li Keyong had to return to Jinyang along the same route as he had come.
Come and go in a hurry. What Li Ke left behind in the Central Plains this time was a lonely back. But next time, everything will be completely different.