In 644, the eighteenth year of Tang Zhenguan. Emperor Taizong of Tang ordered Li Shimin to appoint Li Ji as the grand commander of the Liaodong Province march and follow Li Shimin in his conquest of Goguryeo. The famous tang dynasty war against Goguryeo in history began.
As the top famous general of the Tang Dynasty, this year, Li Ji was already 51 years old. In the past few decades, Li Ji has grown from a son of a squire to a famous general in the Tang Army, participating in dozens of major wars. Everywhere you go, you're invincible.
However, at this time, Li Ji probably never thought that from this year on, he would encounter one of the most difficult enemies in his life. After that, it will take him a full twenty-five years to finally destroy this enemy.
The Tang Dynasty's battle against Goguryeo was actually of great significance in Chinese history. Moreover, the world span and the breadth of the impact of this war are far beyond imagination. To clarify the war, we must first talk about the origin of Goguryeo.
Although today a certain country has always claimed that Goguryeo is their ancestor. But if we carefully review the history of Goguryeo and the history of a certain country today, it is not difficult to find that this statement is actually untenable. Goguryeo was founded in the late Western Han Dynasty and perished in the early Tang Dynasty. The Goryeo that a certain country is regarded as the ancestor was actually established in the tenth century AD, and there is no inheritance relationship between the two.
Strictly speaking, Goguryeo was actually a Frontier Regime in China.
It is said that at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, there was a northeastern Han in Fushun Xinbin County, Liaoning Province, named Zhu Meng. This Zhu Meng was a member of the royal family of the Buyeo State, a vassal state of the Western Han Dynasty in the northeast, and because he was not a concubine, he was unable to inherit the throne. After that, this Zhu Meng brought some of his own subjects from Buyeo to Xinbin County, and then searched for some of the surrounding local situations, annexed some local idle forces, and formed a small country.
At that time, the Western Han Dynasty was in a period of decline, and its ability to influence the northeast side was limited, so it directly made this Zhu Meng the Marquis. This part of Xinbin County was called Goguryeo County in the Western Han Dynasty, so Jumong was given the title of Marquis of Goguryeo.
Goguryeo, that's how it came about.
In the beginning, Goguryeo was only a princely state under the Western Han Dynasty, not even a kingdom. But in the hundreds of years that followed, the small country began to expand gradually. In the process of expansion, Goguryeo first moved its capital to Haicheng, Liaoning, and then to Pyongyang. After a hundred years of continuous expansion, what was once a small princely state has finally become a frontier regime in the true sense.
During the period of Goguryeo's expansion, the Central Plains side experienced many things such as Wang Mang's usurpation of the Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu's establishment of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the weakening of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and in the Three Kingdoms Era, Cao Cao once swept away this small country during his northern conquest of Karasuma. But after a few decades, as the Sima family established the Western Jin Dynasty, which in turn led the Hu people in the north to the south, the Central Plains regime once again lost control of this side of the Liaodong Peninsula. After that, the descendants of the Goguryeo wang clan took advantage of the situation and revived the kingdom again.
This restoration was out of control.
Throughout the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, the Central Plains were at war almost every day, and there was no time to stop. Therefore, in order to avoid the chaos of war, many Central Plains people began to run to the Liaodong side. The arrival of these Central Plains refugees has brought a lot of advanced culture to the Liaodong side, and at the same time brought the social model of agricultural civilization to this side. Because of the arrival of these refugees, Goguryeo began to transform from a fishing, hunting and nomadic regime to an agrarian civilization.
During the entire Southern and Northern Dynasties, because the Central Plains had been fighting, they could not take care of the Liaodong side. Therefore, Goguryeo began to gradually expand its territory. After hundreds of years, Goguryeo had occupied almost half of the Liaodong region, and also occupied most of the Korean Peninsula. By the end of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Goguryeo was already a fairly powerful frontier power.
Later, after the Sui Dynasty unified the Central Plains, the Central Plains regime finally had the energy to deal with these neighbors around the Central Plains. After looking around at that time, the Sui Dynasty found that there were only two frontier regimes around, which was a great threat to the Sui Dynasty. One of them was the Turks of the north, and the other was Goguryeo. In contrast, however, the Turks were more powerful at the time.
Therefore, during the reign of Emperor Wen of Sui, he mainly cleaned up the Turks, and he had not yet had time to clean up Goguryeo. After the Sui Emperor ascended to the throne, the Sui Emperor was able to take over Goguryeo. Unfortunately, the Sui Emperor was a man of poor skill. In order to conquer Goguryeo, the Sui Emperor recruited hundreds of thousands of troops from all over the country in an attempt to wipe out the entire Liaodong in one battle. However, as a result, because of the sui emperor's command error, instead of destroying Goguryeo, he lost almost all of these hundreds of thousands of elite Sui troops to Liaodong.
This time, there is a lot of trouble.
These hundreds of thousands of elites were almost all the family foundations of the Sui Dynasty at that time. All at once, they were all folded in Liaodong, and naturally the domestic army was tight, and the peasant army in various places could no longer be suppressed. Therefore, after the end of the Liaodong War, it was not long before the Sui Dynasty died.
After the fall of the Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty was established. In the following twenty years, the Li Tang regime divided the forces from a remote corner of the country and gradually unified the whole country. Later, it crushed the Eastern Turks and Xue Yantuo in the north, and Tuguhun in the northwest, becoming the hegemon of East Asia. Goguryeo, on the other hand, continued to expand, extending its sphere of influence to the north, and its national strength was becoming more and more prosperous.
Moreover, after the previous war with the Sui Dynasty, Goguryeo found that the Central Plains Dynasty did not seem to be so powerful and could not be defeated. In the past, Goguryeo had always been a vassal state of the Central Plains Dynasty, and at most it was slightly independent and did not listen to the orders of the Central Plains. However, this great war with the Sui Dynasty made Goguryeo realize that perhaps he already had the strength to go south to the Central Plains and replace the Central Plains Dynasty.
It was in this context that Goguryeo began to actively expand outward. On the Korean Peninsula, Silla and Baekje in the south of the Korean Peninsula continue to be bullied. In addition, Goguryeo also rapidly developed to the north, filling the power vacuum in the north after the destruction of Xueyantuo and the Turks. In addition, in the border area between the Tang Dynasty and Goguryeo, Goguryeo was also constantly engaged in things, trying to encroach on the Tang Dynasty's territory step by step.
These actions of Goguryeo were naturally seen by the Tang Dynasty.
Li Shimin, who reigned at the time, happened to be one of the most talented and ambitious emperors in Chinese history. Therefore, of course, Li Shimin knew how much harm this expansion of Goguryeo would be to the Tang Dynasty. If Goguryeo continued to develop and fill the power vacuum in the north, Goguryeo was bound to take the initiative to attack the Tang Dynasty.
Moreover, unlike other nomadic regimes in the north in history, Goguryeo was not a nomadic civilization, but an agrarian civilization. After the nomads attack, just grab something and they will retreat. But after the agricultural civilization lays a piece of land, it will strive to transform it into its own actual territory! Such a Goguryeo was obviously more threatening than the Turks or Xueyantuo!
Although the Central Plains are large, they cannot accommodate the coexistence of two agricultural civilizations.
There are some battles that one generation does not fight, and the next generation has to fight.
Moreover, when the next generation fights, it will be more troublesome.
After carefully weighing the pros and cons, Li Shimin finally decided to go to war against Goguryeo. Therefore, in the eighteenth year of Zhenguan, Li Shimin appointed Zhang Liang as the commander-in-chief of the Pyongyang Road March, led 40,000 troops, and set out from Laizhou, Shandong, to directly attack the Korean Peninsula by sea. Li Ji was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Liaodong Province march, and attacked Liaodong by land from the direction of Youzhou. In addition, Li Shimin personally sat in the Chinese army and personally conquered Goguryeo.
In the nineteenth year of Zhenguan, Li Ji led an army to Youzhou. In March, Li Shimin arrived in Dingzhou, Hebei Province, and the Tang army completed its assembly.
On the Goguryeo side, when it learned that the Tang army was attacking, although it was very vigilant, it was not too worried. Because the millions of troops of the Sui Dynasty had been repelled by Goguryeo and suffered heavy losses. Therefore, in the eyes of Goguryeo at this time, the combat strength of the Central Plains Dynasty was actually just that. In addition, at that time, within Goguryeo, the powerful minister Yuan gai Suwen killed the original Goguryeo king and took sole power. Yuangai Suwen was a very arrogant person, but at the same time he was really capable of fighting, so at that time he directly poured all his strength into the whole country and planned to fight a main battle with the Tang Dynasty.
The tang dynasty's first great battle against Goguryeo was thus fought.
With Li Shimin's arrival at the front, the Tang army began to formally launch an offensive against Goguryeo. After the battle, Li Ji personally led a large army to cross the Liaoshui River into the eastern part of Liaoning, and in the Fushun area, defeated the Goguryeo defenders and captured more than 20,000 people. At the same time, another Tang army led by Zhang Liang also landed by sea from the Jinzhou area of Dalian, and won a great victory, capturing more than 8,000 people.
The first large-scale contact between the Tang army and Goguryeo ended with a great victory for the Tang army.
Next, Li Ji led the Tang army and continued to advance, soon reaching Liaoyang. After arriving in Liaoyang, the main army of Goguryeo had also completed its assembly and went to Liaoyang to rescue and prepare for a decisive battle with the Tang army. However, when Goguryeo's 40,000 main army arrived, it was defeated by the Tang general Li Daozong with 4,000 elites.
After this reinforcement was repulsed, the main force of the Tang army began to launch a general attack on Liaoyang City. In the end, under the onslaught of the Tang army, the city of Liaoyang was destroyed, and the Tang army cut down 10,000 enemies and captured 10,000 soldiers. In addition, more than 40,000 Goguryeo civilians were captured. After this battle, the Tang Dynasty directly changed Liaoyang to Liaozhou and included it in the territory of the Tang Dynasty.
The Battle of Liaoyang was finally a wake-up call to Goguryeo. After this battle, Goguryeo also realized that although it was all a Central Plains Dynasty, the current Tang Dynasty was far more difficult to deal with than the previous Sui Dynasty. As a result, Yuangai Suwen began to mobilize troops from the country with all his might, mobilizing a total of 150,000 troops to reinforce in the direction of Haicheng, Liaoning. At that time, this place was called Anshi City, and with the approaching of the Tang army and the arrival of Goguryeo reinforcements, the famous Battle of Anshi City in history was fought.
After the Battle of Anshicheng began, in terms of troop strength, the Goguryeo side was close to 200,000, while the Tang army was only about 100,000. Therefore, in terms of troop strength, the Tang Army's side was actually in a state of inferiority. In addition, Anshi City was the territory of Goguryeo, and Goguryeo also had the advantage of home combat. Therefore, after the war began, the Tang army encountered great resistance.
After the war began, Li Shimin personally took over the command of the war and came to a classic example of 'encirclement and reinforcement'. First, the Tang army completed the siege of Anshi Castle, and then fought a decisive battle with the main force and the 150,000 Goguryeo troops who came to the rescue. In the end, after a great war, the 150,000 troops of Goguryeo were nearly crushed by the Tang Dynasty. Less than 40,000 people remained, hiding in the mountains for a firm defense. Later, before the siege of the Tang army, the grain and grass were cut off and forced to surrender.
In addition, in this big war, there is one more thing worth mentioning. In the course of the great war, on the side of the Tang army, there was a soldier dressed in white, who was particularly brave, and took the lead in rushing into the Goguryeo camp, and made a great contribution to the Tang army's defeat of the Goguryeo army with one enemy and a hundred enemies. This fierce man is the famous Xue Rengui. This war was also a battle in which Xue Rengui came to the fore. Since then, Xue Rengui has entered Li Shimin's eyes, and has spent decades since then, step by step, stepping into the position of commander of the Tang Dynasty.
After destroying these 150,000 reinforcements, Anshi City became an isolated city, and its fall was almost inevitable. However, it is a pity that because the Tang army fought too fiercely before, resulting in the defenders in Anshi City, mentioning that the Tang soldiers were afraid, the will to defend the city was even stronger. In addition, Li Shimin was unwilling to forcibly attack the city, causing too many casualties, and only wanted to besiege but not attack. Therefore, under the heavy siege of the Tang army, Anshi City miraculously persisted for more than two months.
Two months later, Anshi Castle had reached a crumbling point. But at this time, the Tang Army's side encountered an even more powerful enemy.
This enemy is called weather.
Under the command of such famous generals as Li Shimin and Li Ji, although the Tang Army had strong combat effectiveness, it was still unable to compete with God. At this time, it is already September, and in the Haicheng area in September, the minimum temperature is already less than ten degrees, and it will get lower and lower. Once the severe cold came, let alone continue to attack the city, even the Tang Army itself, whether it could survive was a problem. Today, from Beijing to Shenyang, it is a few hours by car. But in the Tang Dynasty, it was really difficult to cross the Western Liaoning Corridor and transport supplies from Hebei to Liaoning.
At this time, the only choice for the Tang army was to retreat.
This first great battle between the Tang Dynasty and Goguryeo, judging from the outcome of the war, is obviously won by the Tang army. The overall losses of the Tang army were only more than two thousand. On the Goguryeo side, the war losses would not be less than 200,000. Moreover, after this battle, the Tang army still occupied a large area of territory in the Liaodong region, and moved a large number of Goguryeo people to live in the Central Plains. In this way, it is equivalent to inserting a nail in the hinterland of Goguryeo.
But in Li Shimin's view, this war is his shame.
Li Shimin fought a lifetime of battles, except when he fought Xue Ju, because Li Shimin was seriously ill and unable to command the army, and after losing once, he almost never lost a battle. Moreover, almost every time it was a big victory, directly destroying the other party. However, in this war, although the Tang army destroyed many living forces in Goguryeo, it also occupied a lot of territory. However, the failure to destroy Goguryeo was already a failure for Li Shimin.
At the same time, this battle also allowed the Tang Dynasty to thoroughly understand the situation in Goguryeo.
As an agrarian civilization, Goguryeo was different from the Turks and Xueyantuo that had been defeated by the Tang army before. Agricultural civilization, with stronger resilience and war resilience, is obviously not completely solved in a single war. Afterwards, Li Shimin also reflected and realized that it was his own strategic plan that went wrong.
Dealing with an agrarian civilization like Goguryeo would be unlikely to be able to devote itself to a single battle. The only way to do this was to fight frequent wars, interfere with Goguryeo production, and make Goguryeo weaker and weaker. Wait until Goguryeo is weak enough to finally succeed in the battle.
This strategy of Li Shimin later became the overall strategy of the Tang Dynasty against Goguryeo for several decades. But unfortunately, Li Shimin did not have time to complete this strategic plan. Because after returning from Liaodong, Li Shimin's health began to become worse and worse. Years of conquest, let this absolute hero, overdraft his life. Li Shimin also knew this, so after returning to Chang'an, Li Shimin could only focus all his energy on arranging his own affairs behind him. As for the affairs of Goguryeo, they could only be left to the next generation of emperors to complete.
Of course, in the last few years of Li Shimin's life, Li Shimin still adhered to his strategic plan. Two years after the tang army withdrew, Li Shimin again ordered Li Ji and Niu Jinda to each command the Tang army and attack Goguryeo from both land and sea lines. Not seeking success in a battle, but only interfering with their agricultural time, weakening Goguryeo. This time, Li Ji once again lived up to expectations, fighting hundreds of battles, once again severely damaging the main force of Goguryeo, and pulling the tang army's front line to the area of Salhu Mountain.
After this battle, it is reasonable to say that li ji should lead an army to attack the Goguryeo border every year until Goguryeo is destroyed. However, after this, because Li Shimin wanted to treat Li Ji as a lonely person, Li Ji was transferred back to the capital by Li Shimin and served as a Beijing official for two years. On the Liaodong side, after Li Ji's battle this time, the next year was taken charge of the Tang army general Xue Wanche and others, who also made some gains, and began to gradually push the battle line to the other side of the Yalu River.
In 649, three years after returning to Chang'an from the Liaodong region, Li Shimin fell ill and died at the Cuiwei Palace on Zhongnan Mountain. After that, the crown prince Li Zhi ascended the throne. After Li Zhi ascended the throne, the Tang army did not launch any war against Goguryeo in the next few years. Because at that time, Li Zhi was too young and his qualifications were too shallow. In the past few years, Li Zhi has been busy subduing the old ministers and sitting firmly on the throne. Moreover, in the past few years, Wu Zetian also entered the palace and began a palace fight, from a nun all the way to Li Zhi's empress. Therefore, under the troubles of these things, Li Zhi could not find time to think about how to destroy Goguryeo.
Li Zhi's relaxation in recent years was undoubtedly a god-given opportunity for Goguryeo to recover.
Facts have proved that Li Shimin's judgment is completely accurate. To deal with Goguryeo, it would have to be consumed for many years, and finally it would be completely destroyed. After a few years of relaxation, Goguryeo soon recovered again, and began to expand. On the Tang side, it was not until 655 AD, when Wu Zetian became empress and Li Zhi no longer had to worry about the harem, that he was able to continue to pay attention to Goguryeo.
If that's the case, let's keep playing!
In 655, Li Zhi appointed the Tang generals Cheng Mingzhen and Su Dingfang to lead an army to conquer Goguryeo and behead more than a thousand enemies. In 658, Cheng Mingzhen and Xue Rengui once again led an attack, beheading more than 3,000 people in total. In 659, Xue Rengui again defeated the Goguryeo defenders at Hengshan. In 660 AD, the Tang general Su Dingfang led the Tang army from the mouth of the Jinjiang River in the south of the Korean Peninsula, destroyed the Goguryeo vassal state baekje in World War I, and opened up a battlefield again behind Goguryeo...
In short, from 655 onwards, for the next ten years, the Tang Dynasty used troops against Goguryeo almost every year. Moreover, every battle does not seek a big victory, but only a way to weaken Goguryeo, and then accumulate small victories into big victories. However, in this process, Li Ji, as a famous general of the Tang Army, did not participate in any more wars during the period.
This was not the reason why Li Ji was lazy, or emperor Li Zhi was suspicious of him. Rather, it was because, in Li Ji's capacity at the time, there was no need to lead a campaign of this scale. After the death of Li Shimin and Li Jing, two top generals of the early Tang Dynasty, Li Ji had almost become the entire Tang army, the most capable of fighting handsome, handsome is not able to move lightly, only at the moment of the final decisive battle, will appear. Moreover, in addition to Goguryeo, the Tang Dynasty had other enemies at that time, and Li Ji naturally could not go on expeditions for many years, just to harass Goguryeo.
During this decade, Li Ji mostly lived in Chang'an, in the middle of the dispatch. Although he has never participated in the war on the front line, he is a person who really plans from the overall situation. Li Ji had been waiting for an opportunity, waiting for Goguryeo to decline to a sufficient extent, and then it could destroy the country in a war.
Ten years later, this opportunity has finally come.
After a decade of harassment, Goguryeo had been severely weakened and its national strength had been greatly damaged. Moreover, in the year 666 AD, the Yuangai Suwen of Goguryeo died. Although Yuangai Suwen was a super-powerful courtier, he controlled the government for decades. But it has to be said that his existence is indeed a big mountain where the Tang army swept Goguryeo. After the death of Yuangai Suwen, the mountain disappeared in an instant. In addition, his three sons, after their deaths, began to fight for power with each other, causing civil war within Goguryeo.
After learning of these circumstances, after Li Ji, the opportunity for a final decisive battle finally came.
In December 666, Li Ji was appointed Grand Commander of the Liaodong March, with full authority for the conquest of Goguryeo. A few months later, Li Ji arrived in Liaodong and led the Tang army in a general attack on Goguryeo. This decisive battle, the Tang army has been preparing for many years, so this time, the Tang army's logistics supply, there is no problem at all.
After the war began, Li Ji adopted a step-by-step strategy, and everywhere he went, he captured all the cities of Goguryeo. After five months of fighting, the Tang army uprooted almost all the major towns on the western front of Goguryeo.
Under the simultaneous force of multiple directions, the Goguryeo defenders were defeated one after another, and were gradually compressed by the Tang army. After that, the Tang army began to launch a general offensive against Goguryeo from the directions of Fushun and Siping. After a month of fighting, the Tang army finally surrounded the city of Pyongyang. After a month of siege, the Tang army finally broke through Pyongyang and completely destroyed the center of Goguryeo.
With the fall of Pyongyang, the goguryeo top brass was swept away by the Tang army. The remaining Goguryeo defenders also had to surrender. From 644 AD, Li Shimin led his troops to conquer Liaodong, and in 668 AD, the Tang army attacked Pyongyang. It took the Tang Dynasty a full twenty-five years to destroy this great enemy in the northeast direction and completely solve the hidden dangers in the northeast direction.
As the commander of the Tang Army, Li Ji was 51 years old when the war began. By the time Goguryeo was destroyed, Li Ji was already 76 years old. This great war, which lasted for 25 years, completely exhausted the mental strength of this famous general of the Tang Army.
A year later, Li Ji died of illness in Chang'an at the age of 77.
Looking at the entire process of the Tang Dynasty's destruction of Goguryeo, it is not difficult to find that the reason why this war was fought for a full twenty-five years was not because the Tang Dynasty was not strong enough, but because Goguryeo, the enemy, was indeed stronger than other enemies. In ancient Chinese history, the enemy of the Great Unification Central Plains Dynasty for most of the time was the nomadic regime in the north. Only a very few times will face a powerful agrarian civilization regime.
Compared with the nomadic civilization regime, the war resilience of the agricultural civilization regime is significantly greater. Even after one or two major failures, as long as there is time to recover, it will soon recover quickly. In contrast, against the nomadic regime, as long as they can find their main force and destroy it in a war, they can do their best in one battle. But for an agrarian regime like Goguryeo, this method obviously did not work.
The war between the Tang Dynasty and Goguryeo also brought us a revelation: if we want to have the heart to forge swords into ploughs, we need to have the power to calm the swords. Against some powerful enemies, time often works better than space. Chinese civilization is an extremely resilient civilization, and in the face of some powerful enemies, protracted war can often become a magic weapon for us to defeat the enemy.
Thousands of years of human civilization in the game, to this day, our opponents have changed round after round, but only we are still at the table, and the cards in our hands are getting better and better.
This was the case before, and it will probably be like this in the future.