Today let's talk about Liu Heimin.
Friends who have seen the "Sui and Tang Dynasties", or friends who have a relatively good understanding of the history of the Tang Dynasty, should not be too unfamiliar with the name Liu Heimin. However, many people are afraid that they have only heard of this name. It is known that he was a tyrant in the late Sui and early Tang dynasties, but he did not know much about his life deeds.
In fact, Liu Heimin was a seriously underestimated genius general in the early years of the Tang Dynasty. Although he failed in the end, his personal military ability is most likely at the same level as Li Shimin!
unbelief? Well, let's see what Liu Heimin's life really looks like.
Liu Heimin was born at the bottom of the family, and his birth year is unknown. Compared with Li Yuan, Li Mi, Yu Wenhua and others who were also the late Sui Dynasty tyrants, Liu Heimin's origin can be said to be a blank piece of paper, without giving him any help.
Moreover, not to mention that the family is poor, when Liu Heimin was young, he was simply a pure. In the Old Book of Tang, for Liu Heimin in the early years, fifteen words are used to describe: rogue, alcoholic, good game, no cure industry, father and brother suffer.
In the words of modern people, Liu Heimin in the early years was basically a three-no-one personnel.
However, when Liu Heimin was in his hometown, he met a very important person.
This person was Dou Jiande, one of the most important leaders of the peasant rebel army in the late Sui Dynasty, and also a person who completely changed Liu Heimin's fate.
Compared with Liu Heimin, although Dou Jiande was also from the bottom of society, his family was much better off, and he was very righteous. In the early years, when Liu Heimin lacked food and clothing, he was often assisted by Dou Jiande. In a sense, Dou Jiande is like a charitable Chai Official in "Water Margin", while Liu Heimin is a bit like Wu Song.
However, later, when the world was in chaos at the end of the Sui Dynasty and everyone rebelled against the Sui, Liu Heimin did not directly join Dou Jiande's side, but joined the command of a rebel leader named Hao Xiaode. As for why Liu Heimin did not directly join Dou Jiande's command at that time, it is not clearly recorded in the history books, so we do not know the reason. However, this was not important, because although Liu Heimin did not follow Dou Jiande at the beginning, he later came to Dou Jiande's command.
After Liu Heimin joined the leader of the rebel army named Hao Xiaode, he soon stood out because of his personal bravery. However, for Hao Xiaode, there are also few records in the history books, we only know that he was a native of Pingyuan County, who took the lead in the uprising with Wang Bo, Sun Xuanya and others in his early years, and was later defeated by the famous Sui Dynasty general Zhang Sutuo, and then submitted to Li Mi of the Wagang Army. After his submission to Li Mi, there was no more record.
With Hao Xiaode's submission to Li Mi, Liu Heimin naturally came under Li Mi's command and became a Wagang Army. Under Li Mi's command, Liu Heimin continued to rise step by step and became a partial general of the Wagang Army.
However, in the fourteenth year of Daye, Liu Heimin ushered in an important turning point in his life.
In this year, Yu Wenhua and Jiangdu launched a coup d'état and strangled Yang Guang, which triggered a series of changes.
Before Yang Guang's death, although the Central Plains were already full of wolf smoke, there was still some order in general, which could be divided into two factions: the old sui dynasty and the rebel army. As soon as Yang Guang died, the Sui Dynasty suddenly fell apart and became warlords of all sizes everywhere. Among the rebel armies, because they did not have the pressure of the Sui Dynasty to suppress and kill, they went their own way and were completely divided.
But at that time, among these large and small forces, there were four forces, which were relatively strong. Li Yuan in Guanzhong, Yu Wenhua who strangled Yang Guang, Wang Shichong in Luoyang, and Li Mi in Wagang.
Before the coup d'état in Jiangdu, Li Yuan had already raised an army and was busy unifying the Guanzhong region. Li Mi, on the other hand, was fighting Wang Shichong to death, and had already beaten Wang Shichong half to death. After the coup d'état, Yu Wenhua inherited all the power of the Sui Dynasty in Jiangdu.
As for Dou Jiande, compared with these four at that time, his strength was still relatively weak, and he was still in the process of obscene development.
As soon as Yang Guang died, Li Yuan accelerated the pace of unifying Guanzhong. Li Mi, on the other hand, in order to avoid the situation of being attacked by the enemy in the abdomen, immediately shook hands with Wang Shichong and made peace, and turned his head to clean up the Yu culture behind him first. After a bitter battle, Li Mi defeated Yu Wenhuahe, but at the same time, Wang Shichong also seized the opportunity to restore his strength. Taking advantage of the fact that the Wagang army had just gone through a big battle and lacked combat strength, it secretly attacked Li Mi and crushed the Wagang army in one fell swoop. Li Mi, as the leader of the Wagang Army, could only flee back to Guanzhong after the defeat, surrendered to Li Yuan, who had unified Guanzhong at this time, and was later killed by Li Yuan.
At that time, Liu Heimin, because he had been following Li Mi's side, was captured by Wang Shichong after being defeated by Wang Shichong. After Wang Shichong captured Liu Heimin, he did not feel much difficult for him, but because he heard about Liu Heimin's bravery, he planned to reuse Liu Heimin. However, Liu Heimin, who was from the Wagang clan, like Qin Qiong, Cheng Yaojin and others, was very disdainful of Wang Shichong's character. So later, after finding an opportunity, Liu Heimin defected from Wang Shichong's command and switched to dou jiande, an old friend who was dominating Hebei at that time.
By the way, the three major wars between Wang Shichong, Li Mi and Yu Wenhua seem to be won by Wang Shichong in the end. But the biggest profits were actually Li Yuan in Guanzhong and Dou Jiande in Hebei. Li Yuan took advantage of this time to unify Guanzhong, while Dou Jiande took the opportunity to occupy Hebei and Shandong, and then after Li Mi's defeat, he took over a large number of territories that originally belonged to the Wagang Army, and grew into a force comparable to Wang Shichong and Li Yuan.
After Liu Heimin came to defect to Dou Jiande, Dou Jiande was naturally overjoyed and reused Liu Heimin. And Liu Heimin himself, this time did not live up to Dou Jiande's expectations, and soon led the army to fame, and was respected by the army as 'Shen Yong General'.
However, Liu Heimin's conquest under Dou Jiande was not very long. Just three years later, the famous Tiger Prison Pass War broke out. The reason for the outbreak of the Tiger Prison Pass War was because after Li Yuan unified Guanzhong at that time, he sent Li Shimin to attack Wang Shichong in Luoyang. Wang Shichong was naturally invincible and could only ask Dou Jiande for help. Dou Jiande knew that he was not Li Yuan's opponent, but at the same time, he wanted to reap the benefits of the fisherman, and wanted to wait for Li Shimin and Wang Shichong to lose both before picking the fruit.
This plan seems to be seamless, but Dou Jiande only missed one point, that is, Li Shimin is really too capable of fighting! After Li Shimin crushed Wang Shichong and completely besieged Luoyang, he quickly occupied Hu prison pass with his troops, blocking the way for Dou Jiande's army to reinforce Luoyang.
It was in this context that the Tiger Prison Pass War broke out. And this battle has also become a battle for Li Shimin's gods.
At that time, in order to successfully pick the fruit, Dou Jiande mobilized almost all the troops under his command, claiming to be 300,000 troops. Around Li Shimin, there were only less than 10,000 people. There are even historical records that Li Shimin was only surrounded by more than 3,000 people at that time. With such a huge gap in military strength, it seems that Dou Jiande is bound to win. However, the result of this great war was that Li Shimin crushed Dou Jiande in one fell swoop and captured Dou Jiande himself.
After Dou Jiande was captured, Liu Heimin was unwilling to surrender to Li Tang and fled back to his hometown and temporarily retreated into seclusion. But soon, with the news coming, Liu Heimin could no longer sit still.
The news is that after Dou Jiande was arrested and taken to Chang'an, he was beheaded on the street by Order of Li Yuan! Moreover, after Li Yuan killed Dou Jiande, he also forcibly recruited tens of millions of generals under Dou Jiande's command, obviously to exterminate them all.
Li Yuan's idea at that time was actually very simple. Compared with Wang Shichong, Li Mi and others, Dou Jiande is completely different. Everyone else comes from the top and has little prestige at the bottom. After losing the fight, there was no room for turning over, and he could only be imprisoned by Li Yuan. So even if you keep them, it doesn't hurt to make a good name for yourself. But Dou Jiande is different, Dou Jiande and his generals are really from the bottom, and their prestige at the bottom is extremely high. If you keep them, Dou Jiande will pull up a team in an instant as long as he shakes his arms and exhales. This kind of tiger breeding is a problem, Li Yuan naturally will not do it.
However, Li Yuan's approach must have aroused strong resentment from Dou Jiande's old genus. Everyone gathered together and thought, anyway, surrender is also a death, why stand up and fight? Just the opposite! However, before the incident, everyone also found a fortune teller to calculate it. The fortune teller said that they could only succeed if they were led by the surname Liu. So everyone summed it up again, and they thought of Liu Heimin.
In this way, Liu Heimin was pushed to the position of leader and began his next series of exaggerated achievements.
In the fourth year of Wude, Dou Jiande was crushed in May and brought back to Chang'an in early July to be beheaded. On July 19, Liu Heimin officially raised an army in Zhangnan, Beizhou. In the following short period of one month, Liu Heimin received a rapid response from Dou Jiande's old genus, and his territory began to expand wildly. By the time Li Yuan reacted, Liu Heimin had already occupied a large area of Hebei, Shandong, and Henan.
In September, Liu Defeated the combined forces of Luo Yi and Li Shentong. On the sixth day of October, Liu Heimin attacked Yingzhou. On November 19, Liu Heimin attacked Dingzhou, and on the third day of December, Liu Heimin attacked Jizhou. On December 12, Liu Heimin defeated Li Shiji at Song Prefecture and captured Xue Wanjun's brothers. From December 17 to 19, within three days, they successively attacked Xingzhou, Weizhou, and Xinzhou.
In less than half a year, Liu Heimin led his army to restore all of Dou Jiande's territory that year, and even increased it. At the same time, Liu Heimin also befriended the Turks in the north, which made the Li Yuan clique in Guanzhong increase the pressure in an instant.
In the face of Liu Heimin's sudden counterattack, Li Yuan, who was living in Chang'an, was also a little confused. But soon, when Li Yuan returned to his senses, he began to quickly assemble his army, leaving Li Shimin in charge and going to conquest Liu Heimin. At this time, Liu Heimin had not only recovered all of Dou Jiande's territory, but also proclaimed himself the King of Handong in Xiangzhou, restoring the Bactrian regime that Dou Jiande had established.
Thus, in the fifth year of Wude, the Battle of Shuishui broke out.
Although this battle ended in the defeat of Liu Heimin, it was also the peak battle of Liu Heimin's life!
In the face of Li Shimin, who can be called a generation of military gods, Liu Heimin did not take it lightly. First, he provoked the Tang army many times, but was defeated by Li Shimin. Then he used a clever trick to temporarily withdraw from The County. After Li Shimin sent his henchman Luo Shixin to the county seat of Pushui County, Liu Heimin's close associates quickly rebelled, and Luo Shixin was also killed by Liu Heimin.
Luo Shixin is the prototype of Luo Cheng in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. In the novel, Luo Cheng also died at the hands of Liu Heimin.
After losing the general Luo Shixin, Li Shimin finally began to pay attention to this humble opponent and began to fight steadily. Li Shimin knew very well that Liu Heimin's biggest weakness lay in the lack of strong grain and grass support. In contrast, Li Shimin has the support of the entire Guanzhong, and the logistics are relatively strong. As a result, Li Shimin began to hold out and sent troops to harass Liu Heimin's backup.
Li Shimin's hand-to-hand plan for consumption suddenly hit Liu Heimin's soft underbelly. In the next month, in the face of Li Shimin's insistence, although Liu Heimin attacked many times, but the effect was limited, and finally lost his vigor and had to fight Li Shimin in advance.
At this time, Li Shimin was determined that Liu Heimin needed to fight him, and sent people to intercept the river first on the upper reaches of the River, planning to give Liu Heimin to flood the Seventh Army when the time came. This trick was used by Han Xin in the early Han Dynasty, Guan Yu in the Three Kingdoms period, and Yue Fei in the Song Dynasty later, and the effect was surprisingly good.
However, when the decisive battle came, Li Shimin, who had always been invincible, encountered the most incredible battle in his life.
According to the Zizhi Tongjian:
Ding Wei, Hei Min Shuai rode twenty thousand south to cross the water, pressed the Tang camp and Chen, Shimin Zi will finely ride his cavalry, break it, and take advantage of the victory to ravage its infantry. Kuroman led the crowd to fight to the death. From noon to dusk, the number of battles is combined, and the black min cannot be supported. Wang Xiaohu said, "The intellect is exhausted, and it is advisable to die early." "So he fled with Hei Min first, and the rest of the people did not know, Yug war." The guards broke the weir, and the water was so large that it was deep and deep. Hei Min's people collapsed, beheaded more than 10,000 people, drowned thousands of people, Hei Min and Fan Yuan and other 200 rode to the Turks, Shandong Xiping.
According to the record habits of the Zizhi Tongjian, this elite led by Li Shimin at that time should be the famous Xuanjia Army. This Xuanjia army under Li Shimin's command was created by the entire Guanzhong at that time. Even with the full support of the Guanzhong region, only 3,500 horses were assembled. Moreover, this Xuanjia army was also the key to Li Shimin's rapid defeat of Dou Jiande.
But even if Li Shimin used this Xuanjia army, the war was still in a state of stalemate. According to this record of Zizhi Tongjian, after Li Shimin broke through Liu Heimin's infantry phalanx, the two sides still fought for a whole afternoon. Moreover, in the end of the fight, Liu Heimin had already taken the lead in fleeing, which meant that the entire Liu Heimin army was in the absence of command, and Li Shimin had been hard for an afternoon. During this period, Li Shimin also had several adventures, thanks to Wei Chigong's desperate efforts at his side, to protect Li Shimin's safety.
Even in the end, even if there was no command, Li Shimin still couldn't take it down, and could only let go of the water and flood the Seventh Army with one move.
But most importantly, whether it is the Old Book of Tang, the New Book of Tang, or the Zizhi Tongjian, for this battle, only the casualties of Liu Heimin's side are recorded, but not Li Shimin's casualties. According to the research of historians, in the Battle of Huanshui, Li Shimin's losses were probably not inferior to Liu Heimin's side, and even more than Liu Heimin's side!
After the Battle of Shuishui, Liu Heimin fled to the Turks with just over a thousand troops. But soon, only half a year later, Liu Heimin borrowed Turkic soldiers and horses and counterattacked again. The territory that Li Shimin had so hard to calm down was taken by Liu Heimin again in the next few months.
However, this time, the old department that originally belonged to Dou Jiande had been almost cleaned up by the Li family, and the support that Liu Heimin could get was relatively limited. But at the same time, within the Tang Dynasty, there were also some changes. Because Li Shimin's military merits were too great, Li Yuan was afraid that the position of the crown prince would be unstable, so he did not dare to let Li Shimin fight in this battle, and instead sent the crown prince Li Jiancheng to unify the army.
Although the general of the unified army was replaced by Li Jiancheng, the situation of Liu Heimin was still very dangerous. On the one hand, Liu Heimin's old troops had been nearly lost in the Battle of Huanshui, and it was no longer difficult to fight a hard battle. On the other hand, although Li Jiancheng is an incompetent person in the novel. However, in the right history, his talent is not inferior to Li Shimin. It can even be said that in some ways, it is more ferocious than Li Shimin.
In this battle, Liu Heimin was defeated in a mess, and was chased and killed by Li Jiancheng's Liu Hongji in the back. Liu Heimin originally wanted to flee to the Turks again, waiting for a comeback. However, after Liu Heimin fled to Raoyang, the local assassin Zhuge Dewei rebelled, captured Liu Heimin, took Liu Heimin's head, and went to the Tang Dynasty to surrender his name.
In February of the sixth year of Wu De, Liu Heimin was beheaded by Li Jiancheng in Puzhou. A generation of fierce generals will eventually become ghosts under the knife. After Liu Heimin's death, Shandong, Hebei, and Henan regions were finally completely pacified, and there was no more rebellion.
From the perspective of later generations, Liu Heimin's failure is actually largely due to his poor logistical supplies. Being able to lead the peasant army with weaker combat strength and the strong Xuanjia army to a state of stalemate shows how strong Liu Heimin was as a general. If Liu Heimin can have a solid rear, he has a relatively strong logistical supply ability. Then the outcome of the original Battle of Shuishui is probably still unknown. The final ownership of the world at the end of the Sui Dynasty is probably going to be variable.