Chapter 36 Yuchi Gong

Tang Dynasty, the third year of Zhenguan.

Li Shimin smiled and said: "Anyway, I don't expect these people to be loyal to me and the Tang Dynasty. It is enough for them to surrender to the Tang Dynasty and show their loyalty to the Tang Dynasty." At that time, as long as there was such a situation of "all around Luoyang, everyone responded, and all places surrendered one after another", it would be enough. Anyway, what he wanted was a general trend.

Anyway, as more and more counties and prefectures surrendered, Luoyang was like a trapped beast that could only struggle unwillingly.

Moreover, in addition to the victory and fame gained from this battle against Wang Shichong, he also gained another great general, Zhang Gongjin, who surrendered with Weizhou and was an important figure in the Xuanwu Gate Incident.

Song Dynasty, the first year of Kaibao.

Although Zhao Guangyi criticized some aspects of the Tang Dynasty and Emperor Taizong, his evaluation of Wang Shichong was consistent with that of the Tang Dynasty: "Wang Shichong is just a villain, and a cruel and murderous villain. Moreover, this man has been usurping the throne and usurping the throne. He has always been courting his own destruction, and it is only natural that he was defeated by the Tang Dynasty."

Moreover, the fact that there are so many fence-sitters in various places is also related to his way of employing people. Is it right for him to simply employ relatives of the Wang family?
Not to mention Wang Shichong's various political practices, just the fact that he acted as a minister and committed treason was something that all orthodox emperors could not tolerate - such a person must be severely criticized and not allowed to have a glorious image! Moreover, Wang Shichong's image was not glorious either, and his suspicion, implicated others, and other behaviors were the clearest evidence.

[Before this, Wang Shichong realized that the situation was not good, so he tried to negotiate with Li Shimin.

But Wang Shichong's request was that he wanted Luoyang. His reason was that since the fall of the Sui Dynasty, "Chang'an and Luoyang have each had their own territory." In that case, I will guard Luoyang and you will occupy Chang'an. What's wrong with being a pair of harmonious neighbors?

Would Li Shimin agree to such a condition? Of course not, no one would agree to it.

Therefore, Li Shimin replied to Wang Shichong in an official manner: "All the people in the four seas follow the orthodox rule." If you are willing to abandon darkness and join the light and join the Tang Dynasty now, your wealth and glory can still be guaranteed. But if you are still stubborn and want to resist with force, then there is nothing we can do.

Later, when Li Shimin was gathering intelligence and surveying the terrain with 500 cavalrymen, he met Wang Shichong again. At this time, Wang Shichong was with more than 10,000 soldiers.

Frankly speaking, Wang Shichong was quite capable of seizing opportunities on the battlefield. When he defeated Li Mi before, he took advantage of the fact that Li Mi had not even set up his battle formation. Li Shimin was also caught by Wang Shichong several times when he was leading light cavalry.

But this time, Wang Shichong still failed. Although his general Shan Xiongxin was very brave, Li Shimin also had a brave general by his side, Yuchi Jingde.

Shan Xiongxin originally wanted to stab Li Shimin with his spear, but was killed by Yuchi Jingde. Yuchi Jingde then helped Li Shimin escape from the encirclement.

Han Dynasty, the fourth year of Yuanshou.

Although he was not familiar with the history, Liu Che, who thought he had some understanding of Li Shimin after watching the show before, always felt that the matter was not over yet: "Li Shimin just ran away like that? This shouldn't be the case. I think this matter is not over yet. Li Shimin should fight back."

Li Shimin did bring only 500 men, but he certainly did not run away secretly. From the fact that he led the light cavalry to Cijian and personally led the troops to charge, everyone in the army knew about his style of doing things. In this case, apart from anything else, the main force of the Tang army should be where they can rush to help in time - they can't really let the commander go out and do nothing, right?

But even though he claimed to have understood some of Li Shimin's preferences and style, Liu Che still didn't know what to say about Li Shimin's behavior of wandering around the war zone with a small team of people.

Since he was born, he usually hung around Chang'an, still using the title of Marquis of Pingyang.

Song Dynasty, the first year of Kaibao.

Zhao Guangmei was stunned for a moment: "When did Yuchi Jingde start following Emperor Taizong of Tang?" As Emperor Taizong of Tang was a light cavalry reconnaissance, Yuchi Jingde was able to guard in time, so he must have followed Li Shimin closely.

Didn’t Yuchi Jingde just surrender to the Tang Dynasty before?

Zhao Defang said, "Uncle San, you just looked through the history books. Just a few days ago, Yuchi Jingde and generals such as Qu Tutong and Yin Kaishan had a conflict."

"As for Wang Shichong, although he is a villain, he is really good at seizing opportunities."

Ming Dynasty, Hongwu Years.

Flipping through the history books, Zhu Bo couldn't help but say, "If it weren't for the thrilling records in the history books, and if there were no relevant content, I would really think that this was something done by Emperor Taizong of Tang." He and Yuchi Jingde ran out, Qu Tutong's army arrived, and then Wang Shichong was in big trouble...

How should I put it? Was it because the Tang Dynasty had a good strategic layout, or was it because the communication between the Tang Dynasty’s armies was efficient?

"However, the combat level of the Tang army is really high." Zhu Di sighed. The Tang army he mentioned does not only refer to those high-level generals. Those people are indeed excellent enough and are a great glory of the Tang Dynasty, but the combat level of the ordinary soldiers who make up the Tang army is also quite high.

Let's not talk about anything else, just say that Liu Wenjing was leading troops to defend against Qu Tutong in Tongguan. The troops he led later were not the elite of the Tang army, as the elite had been taken away to attack Chang'an. However, these non-elite Tang troops stopped Qu Tutong in Tongguan. Even when they suffered thousands of casualties, they began to disintegrate, but they were still able to barely hold on.

Not to mention the situation when the Tang army attacked the four directions in the future.

[However, Li Shimin and Yuchi Jingde, who escaped from the encirclement, did not leave.

On the contrary, Li Shimin led Yuchi Jingde and his hundreds of cavalrymen to attack Wang Shichong's army again, charging back and forth, and wherever they passed, people and horses fell to the ground, "going back and forth without hindrance";
Then, Qu Tutong arrived with a large army. Wang Shichong's army, which had been attacked by Li Shimin and had a scattered formation, was defeated by the Tang army. Wang Shichong escaped alone, while the Tang army beheaded more than a thousand people, captured six thousand soldiers, and also captured Wang Shichong's champion general Chen Zhilue.

Han Dynasty, the fourth year of Yuanshou.

Although it is difficult to evaluate Li Shimin's behavior of repeatedly venturing into dangerous situations with light equipment, Liu Che himself actually quite likes Li Shimin's style. He has always admired those who have sufficient ability and are confident and proud. In particular, every time Li Shimin led the cavalry to charge into the enemy's formation and fight bravely, it was indeed enough to awe people.

This time, Liu Che also highly praised Li Shimin for leading Yuchi Jingde and hundreds of cavalrymen to charge back and forth.

But his good mood was soon affected. "General Champion?" Liu Che pondered over the title of this official position. At this time, Liu Che had already given the title to his favorite general, Huo Qubing, who was also famous for his bravery. Even if we don't mention Huo Qubing, the word champion appeared earlier and was used to describe Xiang Yu. Xiang Yu's bravery naturally deserved such a title.

What made Liu Che unhappy was that the word "champion" had become too common in later generations. What ability did Chen Zhilue have to be named "champion"?
I always feel that my hard work and reputation for curing diseases have been wasted.

Moreover, there is another point of concern: the Great General. The Great General in the Han Dynasty was not a wholesale title, nor was it an honor without real power, but the real supreme commander of the three armies.

Although Liu Che had long discovered from various previous contents that the generals in the future would be completely different from his current generals, the previous "generals" still seemed capable after all, and they were backed by the orthodox political power.

But now, Wang Shichong's subordinates can be both "champions" and "generals", which really makes him unhappy.

[This battle added another chapter to Li Shimin's record of bravery.

However, there is another thing here, that is, when did Yuchi Jingde serve Li Shimin?
In fact, even though the Tang army fought bravely and had many highly skilled generals, they were still unable to escape the aftermath of the remnants of other forces: internal conflicts.

At this time, the main generals under Li Shimin came from roughly three sources: the first was the old ministers who followed the Li family in starting the uprising from Jinyang, who knew each other well and started together; the second was the famous people who surrendered to the Tang Dynasty from Wagangzhai. There were quite a few of them, and Xu Shiji, Qin Qiong, Cheng Yaojin and others who were given the surname Li were all part of this group; the third was the generals from Liu Wuzhou's army who surrendered to the Tang Dynasty after the Battle of Baibi not long ago. Yuchi Jingde was the third type.

Of these three groups, it goes without saying that the generals who had accompanied the Li family in starting the war and establishing the country from the very beginning, and the people who surrendered to the Tang Dynasty in Wagangzhai, because they surrendered earlier, also participated in the battle against Liu Wuzhou and basically gained a foothold. Only the people who surrendered to the Tang Dynasty under Liu Wuzhou were left, and they have not yet made any outstanding contributions.

Moreover, some bad things happened during the third part, that is, defection. Many of Liu Wuzhou's former generals found opportunities to defect from the Tang army, including Xun Xiang, who had surrendered to the Tang army with Yuchi Jingde.

Tang Dynasty, the ninth year of Wude.

Not only Li Yuan was paying attention to Crown Prince Li Shimin, the ministers in the palace also quietly cast the highest level of attention to the newly-appointed Crown Prince.

Although Tianmu has already said that the future Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty will be His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, and that this future Emperor will lead the Tang Dynasty onto an incomparably glorious path and leave a good name in history books for future generations, this does not affect the inner uneasiness of many people.

One must know that not all the people in the palace at this moment are die-hard supporters of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. There are also many neutrals - those who do not interfere in royal affairs, as well as some supporters of the Crown Prince and the King of Qi who have not had time to slip away.

Now, the prince is already the de facto king, and with the miracles revealed, his position is unshakable. So what will be the future fate of these people?
——Although judging from the Crown Prince’s attitude towards Yuchi Jingde, he would not do anything as long as they were willing to work for him now, but, after all, there is no clear answer now…

The early years of the Han Dynasty.

"Internal divisions are not a good thing." Liu Bang commented as he recalled his own military rise.

At that time, it was not him who raised the army in Pei County who was at the peak of his power, but the enthroned King of Chu. The King of Chu's subordinates could be described as powerful and majestic, with a raging fire and abundant flowers, but beneath the apparent power, there were fatal problems.

The King of Chu was unable to control the troops under his command, nor could he control the power struggles among those who served under him. Internal discord and disputes arose frequently, which gave Liu Bang an opportunity.

Thinking of this, Liu Bang felt a little headache: "You are already working hard to balance and gather the various forces of the Han Dynasty. I just don't know if the prince can shoulder the heavy responsibility after you."

Since the founding of the Han Dynasty, internal forces have been divided. What worries him most is a bunch of princes - the original enfeoffment of princes was just a temporary measure to ease internal problems. Now, in order to deal with the internal problems of the Han Dynasty, he naturally has to deal with these princes.

But can the prince do it? Of course not.

Liu Bang was very clear about this, but for the time being, he did not have many options except the crown prince. If it really came to the crown prince, Liu Bang trusted Lu Zhi more, because this woman could stabilize the situation of the Han Dynasty after he left.

[Because he had no merit and many people rebelled against the Tang Dynasty, the generals in the Tang army were quite suspicious of Yuchi Jingde, a surrendered general of Liu Wuzhou, and simply tied up Yuchi Jingde.

Then Qu Tutong, the left servant of the Shaanxi East Road, and Shangshu Yin Kaishan suggested to Li Shimin: Why not just kill Yuchi Jingde? After all, this man is "extremely brave and valiant", and now that he has been imprisoned, he "will definitely harbor resentment", wouldn't this be a huge disaster?
That being said, they kidnapped the people first and then told Li Shimin about it, which does have a bit of a "kill first and report later" vibe.

Faced with this situation, Li Shimin did not choose to kill Yuchi Jingde. On the contrary, he said to the generals: "If Jingde had plans to turn against the emperor, why would he have waited until the prime minister ran away?" If he wanted to run away, he would have run away long ago. Why wait until the prime minister ran away?

Afterwards, he had Yuchi Jingde released, brought him into his bedroom, gave him a piece of gold, and told him that he would never harm a loyal and honest person because of slander, and besides, "a man should be loyal to his friends", so if he must leave, this gold would be his travel expenses.

Naturally, Yuchi Jingde did not choose to leave, and was subsequently arranged by Li Shimin to stay by his side. 】

Eastern Han Dynasty, Jian'an period.

Cao Cao was greatly impressed by the miraculous scene in which Li Shimin pacified Yuchi Jingde and boldly employed him.

What's wrong with surrendered generals? They are very useful!

Many of his generals were surrendered generals, and he valued them. They lived up to his expectations and trust, and made great contributions and achievements during Cao Cao's conquests.

Cao Cao felt that he had found one of the common points with Li Shimin: they dared to employ surrendered generals, and they really employed them, rather than just making up a show.

When Xu Zhu came to surrender, he appointed Xu Zhu to join the imperial guards.

(End of this chapter)