The time has come, support your troops and stand on your own feet!
This is the advice Zhou Wuxin gave Li Kuo last night.
Although Li Kuo has thought about this idea more or less before, this is the first time he has really thought about the possibility of doing so.
"Now is the time of trouble, and it is the best time to support our troops and stand on our own feet." At present, the imperial court and the rebels are fighting fiercely, and they will not have extra energy to worry about this small fish and shrimp of their own. But if he waits until the rebellion is put down and the imperial court's vitality recovers, he will be like a moth flying into a flame if he wants to stand on his own feet, without any chance of winning.
"Rebellious ministers and traitors!"
Li Kuo never thought that one day he would be so close to such words. No matter how helpless I am, as long as I raise the flag of rebellion, I will probably be written down in the history books as a heinous national traitor.
??????????????????????????????????????????????????? out of consideration for the emperor's favor and support the army to stand on its own, now it seems that it is a helpless move.
¡°After all, rebellions have existed in ancient times and today. Throughout history, the so-called rebellious officials and traitors who rebelled were often forced to rebel.
Do you really want to take this path?
Even if it¡¯s just self-protection, this choice seems to go against Li Kuo¡¯s original intention.
However, if he does not stand on his own feet, what will happen to the brothers under his command? The current emperor is not a man of magnanimity. If he is really held accountable afterwards, these brothers who followed him will inevitably be hated by the court.
If you don¡¯t stand on your own feet, how can you stand up to them?
This is a very difficult question to face and a very difficult question to answer.
It¡¯s not that Li Kuo can¡¯t face it, but he doesn¡¯t dare to face it.
People who sit in higher positions tend to be more cautious when making choices. Because he has too many things and takes on too many things. If he is not careful, he will fall into the abyss and harm a team of followers.
Li Kuo is not in a hurry to make a choice now. At least for now, there is a more important thing waiting for him to do.
Sun Xiaozhe mobilized 30,000 troops to besiege Tangzhou City for half a month, but there has been no progress.
This is no wonder, after all, the city defense of Tangzhou City has been far better than before after Li Kuo's construction. Not to mention 30,000 people, but 50,000 or 100,000 people, it is definitely not an easy task for a hundred thousand people to break through Tangzhou City without large-scale siege equipment.
What's more, the garrison left by Li Kuo in Tangzhou was more than 10,000 people. Together with the 5,000 young men in the city, it was more than enough to resist Sun Xiaozhe's 30,000 cavalry.
As the art of war goes, a city must be besieged only when its troops are ten times the size.
Sun Xiaozhe's current military strength is at most three times that of Tangzhou, so it is understandable that he cannot conquer Tangzhou.
"In other words, Sun Xiaozhe had no intention of conquering Tangzhou from the beginning to the end!" As soon as he returned to Tangzhou, Li Kuo summoned the generals who defended the city. After learning about Sun Xiaozhe's actions in the past few days, Li Kuo came to this conclusion A conclusion that makes people laugh or cry.
Sun Xiaozhe is also a famous general who knows that attacking a city requires overwhelming strength. The troops in his hands are part of the garrison in Chang'an, Xijing. Although they are extraordinary, they are by no means elite. With such a force, they are not considered elite. An elite army will never be able to conquer a city with ample food and forage and strong defenses.
"Captain, what is Sun Xiaozhe's plan?" Dou Qing was puzzled and asked in a deep voice. If Sun Xiaozhe didn't want to conquer Tangzhou City, how could he drag 30,000 cavalry out of Tongguan for a walk? Isn¡¯t this what you need after eating enough?
After my group came back from Ningling, they met Sun Xiaozhe's rebels outside Tangzhou City. This guy fled ten miles westward without even daring to shoot an arrow, which was really confusing.
"Perhaps, they are just trying to contain our troops." Li Kuo sighed and said: "If I guessed correctly, An Qingxu has made up his mind to conquer Suiyang this year!"
Li Kuo walked to the wall chart, drew a circle on the location of Suiyang City with charcoal and said: "Yin Ziqi, Yang Chaozong and other troops stationed nearly 100,000 people outside Suiyang City, almost blocking all the roads for reinforcements to arrive. , and now Suiyang has become an isolated city. An Qingxu spent so much effort, naturally he does not want anything to go wrong, so they want to drive our army out of Ningling."
Li Sheng sighed: "The governor is right. Now even Tian Chengsi, who is stationed in Xingyang, has pushed his army to the north of Ningling. It seems that the rebels are determined to open the Jianghuai gate and intercept rice grains."
"So, they pretended to attack Tangzhou and tricked us back?" When Dou Qing heard this, he roughly understood the vicious intentions of the rebels, and was furious for a moment.
"That's probably the case, but we really don't dare to take risks in this situation. After all, most of the veterans were taken out by me, and most of the people defending the city were recruits from the Jianghuai Army. The soldiers and horses in Sun Xiaozhe's handsAlthough there are not many, they have all been through the war. If the brothers were overwhelmed by the momentum of the rebels and made a mistake, an accident might really happen. "
Li Kuo moved the charcoal more than two hundred miles below Tangzhou City and clicked: "Behind Tangzhou is a plain. As long as they cross Tongbai Mountain, they can also enter the Jianghuai River, but it will be a bit more troublesome."
Li Sheng nodded and said: "So the rebels made two-pronged preparations. On the one hand, they transferred the main force to Suiyang, hoping to conquer this important town in one fell swoop. On the other hand, they sent Sun Xiaozhe outside Tangzhou City. If we return to defend, They will attack Suiyang with all their strength. If we rush to help Suiyang, they will attack Tangzhou at the same time. No matter where the city is broken, the Jianghuai Road will be in the pocket of the rebels."
"If this is the case, won't it be in danger for Xiao Zhang to explore the beauty when we come back?" Dou Qing immediately thought of Zhang Xun's safety. Xiao Zhang Tanhua had made good friends with his general when he was in Chang'an City. During the siege of Ningling, it was the general who risked his life to help save Xiao Zhang Tanhua's life. Later, Xiao Zhang Tanhua insisted on going to Suiyang. The general was worried about his safety and was stationed in Ningling. It was not until the news that Tangzhou was besieged came that he hurried back.
"Brother Zhang, the situation is indeed not good." Li Kuo frowned and said, "But the Suiyang Canal is currently blocked, and the rebels' grain and grass cannot be transported in time. This is good news for Brother Zhang. However, seeing that It will be May soon. By then, if the rebels seize the wheat outside Suiyang City, it will be difficult."
ps: It was actually a feint, Shichiro was deceived.
It needs to be mentioned here that when Suiyang was besieged in history, the first thing the Tang Dynasty thought of was not to rush to rescue, but to take the opportunity to seize Chang'an. If the imperial court could allocate half of its troops to support Suiyang at that time, I believe Suiyang would not be captured. But there is no if in history