Li Shimin can be said to be one of the most outstanding emperors in history, after all, it is rare for the founding emperor to have the opportunity to participate in the war, and at the same time, the special status of the emperor is difficult to have the opportunity to personally command the army on the front line. During the Tang Dynasty's unification war, Li Shimin's status as a prince who was neither emperor nor crown prince gave him the opportunity to display his talents.
Li Shimin's conquest career was three stages
Li Shimin's performance in the Tang unification war can be clearly divided into three stages, and each stage of Li Shimin has a clear positioning and role.
The first stage: Li Shimin's first phase in the Tang Dynasty's unification war lasted from 617 to 618 AD. That is, Li Yuan raised an army to capture Guanzhong during the initial period of the Tang Dynasty. During this period, Li Shimin, like his brothers Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji, was an important assistant to Li Yuan. The main commander of the Li Tang clique during this period was Li Yuan himself, although there are many records in the history books attributing the merits of Jinyang's army and capture of Guanzhong to Li Shimin. However, judging from Li Yuan's own past military performance at that time and the desperate situation faced by the Li Tang clique at that time, Li Shimin and Li Jiancheng were both Li Yuan's main military assistants.
The second stage: This stage is mainly from 618 to 621 AD, which is also the most dazzling stage of Li Shimin's performance in the Tang unification war. At this stage, Li Shimin defeated Xue Rengao, Liu Wuzhou (Song Jingang), Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande, laying the foundation for the Tang Dynasty to unify the world. Moreover, these battles were personally commanded by Li Shimin as the commander in the front line, and he really relied on his own military feats.
The third stage: This stage lasted from 621 AD to 624 AD, that is, the stage when the Li Tang clique finally completed its unification. However, at this stage, Li Shimin's military merits were excessive, which aroused the suspicion and fear of Li Jiancheng's family, and Li Shimin lost the opportunity to lead the army independently. Basically, like Li Jiancheng, he sat in the base camp, and generals such as Li Xiaogong and Li Jing went to the front to command the troops. Therefore, At this stage, Li Shimin mainly coordinated and commanded as the top general of the Tang Dynasty military, and there was no excessive battlefield military performance.
Judging from the process of unification, most of the territory of the Tang Dynasty was occupied by Li Shimin
In 617, Li Yuan raised an army at Jinyang, occupying only the shanxi area he had originally administered. It is not prominent among the heroes of the late Sui Dynasty. But Li Yuan's strategic vision is very accurate, and at the same time more decisive. He did not hesitate to enter Guanzhong with Li Mi and Yang Xuangan, and almost desperately chose to enter Guanzhong.
After Li Yuan conquered the strategically important Guanzhong region, the Li Tang clique controlled the area around present-day Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Bashu at the height of its influence. However, at that time, there were still Xue Ju and Xue Rengao father and son in the northwest, and the old lair Jinyang guarded by Li Yuanji was taken away by Liu Wuzhou and others, and the Central Plains east of Tongguan also included Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande.
It was at this time that Li Shimin began to serve as the main general of the Tang army, shouldering the heavy responsibility of sweeping away the territory and expanding the territory for the Li Tang Dynasty. Originally, Li Shimin's main goal was to go east out of Tongguan to compete for the Central Plains, but the other generals of the Tang army were defeated in the battle against Xue Ju, Liu Wuzhou, Song Jingang and others, and Li Shimin had no choice but to eliminate the worries of Li Tang's clique first, and sent troops to defeat Xue Ju's father and son and Liu Wuzhou. By 619, Li Shimin had defeated Liu Wuzhou and basically eliminated the enemies in the areas of Ganlong in the northwest and Jinyang in Hedong, and expanded the sphere of influence of Li Tang's clique to stretch from Longxi in the west, Bashu in the south, Tongguan in the east, and Hedong in the north.
At this time, there were only two people in northern China, Dou Jiande and Wang Shichong, who occupied Hebei and Henan, so Li Shimin began to go out of the east to chase the Central Plains. In the Luoyang area, the combined forces of Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande were defeated, and the northern problem was almost solved in one fell swoop. In a sense, Li Shimin almost single-handedly helped the Li Tang Dynasty unify the north, of course, there were repeated incidents in the Hebei region later, but Li Shimin had lost the opportunity to lead the army independently, and it was the crown prince Li Jiancheng who finally conquered Hebei.
Judging from the role of opponents and strategic deterrence, almost all the fierce enemies of the Tang Dynasty were defeated by Li Shimin
The opponents that Li Tang defeated and conquered in the process of unification, and the opponents who were able to defeat the Tang army and compete with the Li Tang clique, were all defeated by Li Shimin. Xue Ju's father and son dominated Xilong, and in the process of Li Tang's group attacking Guanzhong, they once wanted to enter Guanzhong. In the subsequent battles with the Tang army, he defeated the Tang army many times, and even once was led by Li Shimin himself (Shi Zai was ill in bed at that time and could not command). Liu Wuzhou captured Hedong and fled back to Chang'an overnight with Li Yuanji, who remained in Jinyang, frightening Li Yuan into planning to abandon southwestern Jin and completely abandon the area east of the Yellow River. As a result, Li Shimin led an army to defeat the combined forces of Liu Wuzhou and Song Jingang. Among the heroes who chased the central plains, in addition to Li Mi and Yu Wenhua, only Dou Jiande, who occupied the eastern capital Luoyang and Hebei, had the strongest power, and was once the two most likely to compete for the world. As a result, both of them were defeated by Li Shimin, and it was this battle that completely laid the general trend of the unification of the Li Tang Dynasty, and no one could resist the Li Tang clique from then on. After that, Du Fuwei and Fu Gongyou and others all surrendered one after another, although they were also repeated, they were not opponents of the Tang Army at all, and on the whole, they were no longer qualified opponents. Therefore, judging from the opponents defeated, Li Shimin almost single-handedly defeated all the opponents who could match the Tang Army. The defeat of wang shichong and Dou Jiande's combined forces in the first battle played a deterrent role in the strategic decisive battle, and after that, the world's heroes did not dare to compete.