It is not that no members of the Li clan proposed to drag Li Jiancheng into the water and let Li Jiancheng lead the Li clan to serve as Murong Chui under Chen Sangliang. However, this proposal was firmly opposed by brothers Li Er and Li Yuan because Li Jiancheng The second said that he did not want to be manipulated by his brother anymore, but Li Jiancheng followed his lead and was restrained by the bird's temper; Li Yuanji was worried that Li Jiancheng would take away his first contribution to the city and would not be able to shine in front of Chen Sangliang; and Li Yuanji The elders of the Li family such as Shentong and Li Shuliang were also worried that Li Jiancheng was stubborn and unwilling to accept this humiliating Li family revival plan, so the Li family finally unanimously decided to kick Li Jiancheng out and surrender on their own. However, the surrender of the city was definitely not something that could be done. The reason was that Li Jiancheng used his surname to alienate his relatives. The military power in Taiyuan was controlled by Li Jiancheng's confidants. Li Shentong, the only commander of the Li family's army, was already a polished commander and was attacked by the Sui army. Zhu Can was the last person left in Li Er's direct lineage, which was the focus of the attack. The Li clan had no soldiers and no power and could not even leave Taiyuan City without Li Jiancheng's permission. How could they dedicate the city to Chen Sangliang to ask for credit? If you are not careful, your head may fall to the ground very easily. But it's not bad. The Li family is not completely without capital. At least Li Yuanji still has some old members of his direct lineage in the Taiyuan garrison who can be contacted and bribed. Especially Liu Dewei, one of the thirteen general managers of the Taiyuan army, was strongly recommended by Li Yuanji. Li Jiancheng's confidant's old troops have been staying in Taiyuan with their troops intact, and they are stationed in the most important west city of Taiyuan. Basically, as long as Liu Dewei agrees to cooperate, the Li family's plan to dedicate the city will be more than half successful. Therefore, when discussing how to act, Li Yuanji first proposed to drag Liu Dewei into the water and act together. Li Er also strongly objected to pinning all hopes on Liu Dewei. The reason was that Liu Dewei's imprint of Li Yuanji was too deep, and Li Jiancheng would definitely be monitored by Li Jiancheng's spy. At the same time, Li Jiancheng was also a ruthless character who pretended to be a pig and ate the tiger. Liu Dewei, Li Yuanji's direct descendant, must be sure that the military power was handed over to him. Pulling Liu Dewei into the water first and then taking action will most likely lead to bad things. So Li Er proposed to capture the thief first and capture the king first, planning to capture Li Jiancheng and then ask Liu Dewei to take action. In this way, even if Liu Dewei refused to agree, the Li family had hostages in hand and they did not have to worry about being chopped into pieces by Li Jiancheng's men immediately. Meat, and there is still hope of escape. Li Shentong, Li Shuliang and other old tricksters certainly agreed with Li Er's prudent strategy! After some discussions, a plan to capture Li Jiancheng and present the city was quickly hatched, and Chen Sangliang was contacted in advance to allow the main force of the Sui army to prepare for the response in advance. This major event has become a top priority for the Li family In this way, the night passed quickly. When the warrior Yu, who had been lying drunk all night at Li Yuanji's house, returned to Li Jiancheng, the situation outside the city also emerged. New changes. Under the supervision and driving of the large group of Sui soldiers, all the tens of thousands of Dingyang prisoners of war that the Sui army had previously captured were dispatched and began to build a dam at the narrowest point between Longshan and Dongshan in the south of Taiyuan City. At the same time, the Sui soldiers also used Promising a way to pay wages after the city was destroyed, he half-induced and half-forced the people outside the city to participate in the construction of the Fenshui Dam. The people in the south of the Fenshui Bridge were like ants, and civilians and captives carrying earth and wood came and went incessantly. A prototype dam was built between the two mountains. At the same time, rainfall also began to increase in the upper reaches of Fenshui River, and the level of Fenshui River began to gradually rise. In response to this, the helpless Li Jiancheng was worried and had to seriously consider adopting Li Er's suggestion. Finally, he decided to send a few elite troops out of the city at night to attack and harass the Sui army's dam construction site, delaying the Sui army's dam construction progress and Strive to win a few battles to boost morale. However, it is a pity that Li Er and Li Jiancheng's move was expected by the Sui army. That night, more than a hundred Taiyuan Army soldiers wearing Sui army uniforms had just approached the embankment. They were immediately attacked by the Sui army because they could not answer the night command. The dam guarding army received random arrows, and then another group of Sui army soldiers with special markings came out to fight. They could clearly distinguish between ourselves and the enemy even at night, and killed the Taiyuan army's night attack army with heavy casualties. , fled back to the city in embarrassment. The Sui army took advantage of the situation and pursued them to the gates of Taiyuan City. They almost wiped out all the Taiyuan Army soldiers who left the city. Only less than ten of the 100 Taiyuan Army soldiers who left the city were left to escape back to the city by ropes. After receiving this news, Li Er once again ran to Li Jiancheng to offer his advice, proposing another night attack. However, he would arrange an ambush behind the army that was leaving the city to attack at night, allowing the former army to fake defeat and lead the Sui army into the ambush circle for attack. . However, Li Jiancheng was afraid that the Sui soldiers were still prepared and did not dare to agree. Li Er repeatedly persuaded him and expressed his willingness to personally lead the army to lure the enemy. He also suggested that the ambush position should be arranged in the safer northwest corner of Taiyuan City. Li Jiancheng hesitated again and again, and finally He still nodded in agreement with Li Er's volunteering and decided to try his luck again. He also agreed that Li Er would recruit his own soldiers to form a death squad to attack. The next night, Li Er really led the death squad out of the city to lure the enemy, but it was still a pity. Although Li Er successfully lured the Sui army's dam defenders away from their positions and launched a pursuit, the Sui armyHowever, the soldiers were very cunning and only pursued the Yurang Bridge that crossed the Zhibo Canal in the west of Taiyuan City and then stopped. Li Jiancheng's carefully arranged ambush north of Zhibo Canal worked hard in vain. Without losing any money, the hundreds of death squads brought out of the city lost more than 20 people dead and missing. Li Er was extremely ashamed and ran to Li Jiancheng to plead guilty. Li Jiancheng was even more helpless and completely gave up his daydream of relying on a small group of elite attacks to harass the Sui army. Of course, Li Er's hard work was not in vain. With this hard-earned opportunity to leave the city, a Taiyuan Army soldier selected by Li Er took the opportunity to leave the team and took the initiative to surrender in front of the Sui Army's dam guarding army. A letter jointly signed by the clans requesting surrender was delivered to Chen Sangliang. However, after seeing this letter written by more than a dozen Li family members, Chen Sangliang not only did not look happy, but instead looked embarrassed and fell into deep thought. After discussing in a low voice with other Chen Sangliang's staff for a while whether the surrender of the Li family was true or not, Li Jing realized that Chen Sangliang's expression was not kind, so he carefully asked Chen Sangliang: "Your Highness, Li Shentong and Li Yuanji Why are you frowning when the Li family sends a letter asking for surrender? Do you suspect that the Li family's request for surrender is fake? According to reports, the Li family is indeed in a bad situation under Li Jiancheng. Li Jiancheng neither trusts nor uses them. They are certainly dissatisfied with Li Jiancheng. Now our army has begun to build dams to store water, and the city of Taiyuan is about to be destroyed. It¡¯s not surprising that these wallflowers offered their lives and wealth to surrender, so the possibility of them surrendering is very small. And even if they do, we don¡¯t have much to fear as long as we use our troops carefully.¡± ¡°My ministers think so too. "Qu Tutong agreed, saying: "The Li clan made it very clear in the letter that they are planning to contact the generals in the city to surrender the city, and when the time comes, they will capture the thief first and capture the king first to capture Li Jiancheng who refuses to surrender. When we advance, we only need to guard against them setting up ambushes and gates in the city. Even if they are cheating, we won't suffer much. But Your Highness, with such a good opportunity in front of you, why don't you look good? " "I'm worried? Li Jiancheng." Chen Sangliang said truthfully: "Li Jiancheng is soft on the outside but strong on the inside. If he is really captured by the Li family, he will probably rather die than surrender, and would rather lose his life than show mercy to his shameless relatives. Bowing your head, you lost your life in vain." Qu Tutong, Feng Deyi and others laughed heartlessly and said, "Your Highness, this is a strange thing in the world. There are people in this world who are worried about the life of the enemy's coach. "Li Jiancheng doesn't owe me anything, but I owe Li Jiancheng a lot," Chen Sangliang said gloomily: "I lied to Li Jiancheng when we first met, and then he not only didn't care about it, but also tried his best to stop his father. My brother planned to harm me and gave me gifts to see me off. During the Yanmen War, I had already captured his father, and he tried his best to help me win the Yanmen War. He has always been worthy of me. But I have never given him anything in return, so I always feel that I owe him something." Qu Tutong, Feng Deyi and others then closed their mouths, but Li Jing said with a smile: "His Royal Highness and Li Jiancheng have a true friendship. It's admirable, but your highness can't miss this good opportunity to quickly attack Taiyuan City because of your personal relationship with Li Jiancheng, right?" "Of course not." Chen Sangliang said in a very depressed tone: "Although I miss Li Jiancheng very much. Safety, but I must be responsible for the lives of my officers and soldiers, and for the people all over the world. Relying on the support of the Li family to break the city can reduce the casualties of countless soldiers of our army, save countless grain and military supplies, and reduce the burden on Guanzhong Hedong. To bear the burden of the people, to speed up the end of this troubled times and benefit the people of the world. For this, no matter how hard I feel, I can only feel wronged by Brother Jiancheng." "Your Highness is right, we should distinguish clearly what is more important." Li Jing nodded. , and then asked: "Your Highness, what should we do? Should we send a signal to let the Li clan in Taiyuan City know that we accept their surrender, so that they can take action with confidence? " "Send the signal. "Chen Sangliang sighed and said: "Light the smoke on the top of Longshan Mountain so that Li Yuanji and Li Shentong can do it without any worries. But we cannot stop building the dam. We must be prepared with both hands. It is best if we can rely on internal forces to quickly break through the city. If not, we can use water to break the city according to the original plan, capture Taiyuan as soon as possible, and then go back to solve the Central Plains battlefield. ¡± In this way, although he was very intolerable, in order to reduce the casualties of the soldiers and reduce the expenditure on food and grass, Chen Sangliang still ordered the lighting of beacon smoke on the top of Longshan Mountain as agreed, so that the members of the Li clan in the city could do it with confidence, and at the same time in Fenshui Additional troops were stationed on the west bank, led by Li Jing, who was ready to attack the city with the help of the Li clan. After seeing the smoke rising from the top of Longshan Mountain, the Li clan was elated and immediately began to arrange a coup plan and put it into effect. . Paper cannot contain fire.??Li Jiancheng has a relatively kind personality, but his scheming in the city is definitely not inferior to that of Li Er. He has also discovered that a group of his relatives and brothers have been traveling too closely in the past few days, and the frequency of gatherings has been too high, so he has become more vigilant. However, the warrior Yu who was ordered to secretly monitor the Li clan reported to Li Jiancheng that although the Li clan gatherings were indeed discussing the current war in Taiyuan, they were discussing how to defend the city and what to do if the city was not protected. Xiang Loufan and Mayi retreated to break out of the encirclement, so Li Jiancheng didn't pay too much attention and just let the warrior Xun continue to monitor the matter closely. As a result, Li Jiancheng naturally failed to discover that Li Yuanji had secretly sent someone to contact his old subordinate Liu Dewei, nor did he discover that the spy he had placed at Li Yuanji's house had already been secretly screened out by the shrewd Li Er, nor did he discover that he had personally formulated the plan The rotation plan of the various departments of the Taiyuan City garrison was secretly discovered by Li Shentong, and he did not find a dragnet targeting him, which was quietly opening in the dark Two days later, on the seventh day of July, the Day of the Opening Day, Taiyuan rained down rain. After the first heavy rain, although the resulting rise in the Fen River facilitated the Sui army's plan to divert water to the city, it also restricted the movement of the Sui army's siege weapons and restricted the power of bows and arrows. Relatively speaking, the Sui army launched an offensive. The city may be relatively small, so after inspecting the city defenses and finding no abnormalities, and with plenty of food and grass, Li Jiancheng ordered to reward the defenders and let his soldiers have a good house-opening festival - also called the Qiao Qiao Festival in this era. This will at least boost the morale of the troops. However, after the rain stopped in the middle of the afternoon, Li Yuanji's family suddenly came to Li Jiancheng's headquarters in Jinyang Palace to ask for a meeting, and nervously brought Li Yuanji bad news - Li Yuanji was suddenly ill and lying in bed. Unfortunately, the condition is still very critical! "What disease does the fourth brother have? Have you asked the doctor? What did the doctor say?" Li Jiancheng asked nervously after hearing the news. "Reporting to Governor Zuo, my Duke Qi suffered from unbearable abdominal pain and was sweating all over the body. He asked a doctor. The doctor said it was intestinal carbuncle (acute appendicitis)." Li Yuanji's family member replied: "The doctor also said that Qi Qi was suffering from severe abdominal pain. My father's illness is coming quickly and seriously, and I'm afraid his life will be in danger, so my wife sent the young man to ask Governor Zuo to go and have a look, otherwise it might be too late. " "It's raining all night long because of the leak in the house! Will you have such an emergency at this time?" Li Jiancheng complained loudly, and quickly stood up and ordered: "Quickly, prepare my horse! I want to visit my fourth brother immediately." The guard agreed, but Li Jiancheng's most trusted confidant Feng Li hurriedly said. He advised: "Captain Zuo, thieves are besieging the city. Commander, you are responsible for the fate of the whole city of Taiyuan. It is best not to leave the important place of Jinyang Palace lightly, as a precaution." "It's okay, I'll come as soon as I go, you keep an eye on Jin for me Just Yang Palace." Li Jiancheng shook his head and refused, and said: "The emergency of intestinal carbuncle is very likely to kill people. My fourth brother gave up the military power of Taiyuan to me. I owe him a lot and I have to visit him in person." Li had no choice but to change his words and said: "Captain Zuo, please bring more guards with you." "Captain Zuo, please ask the general to bring two hundred guards with you." The warrior Xun also stood up and volunteered. Li Jiancheng did not think much and immediately accepted the kindness of Feng Li and the warrior Xun. At that moment, Li Jiancheng hurriedly went out to mount his horse. The warrior Xun also quickly led two hundred soldiers to follow Li Jiancheng and left Jinyang Palace, all the way to Li Jiancheng in the southwest corner of Taiyuan West City. Came from Yuanji's mansion. After arriving at the gate of Li Yuanji's mansion, Li Jiancheng dismounted and rushed directly into the gate of Li Yuanji's mansion. However, the warrior Xun ordered the accompanying guards to wait in line outside the gate, and only led four guards to follow Li Jiancheng inside. Li Yuanji's sudden illness is indeed something serious. There are servants coming and going in the front and back gardens. Li Shentong, Li Shuliang and other members of the Li family have also arrived. Most of them are waiting outside Li Yuanji's bedroom door to see Li Jiancheng. Come in quickly