Chapter 16 fifteen

Du Ruhui, who was sitting on a group stool beside him, asked: "Why is it a pity, Your Highness?" Li Shimin replied: "I feel pity for Li Mi, Wang Shichong, and Dou Jiande, but it's a pity that they guard such a great talent but don't know how to use it. I can be sure that no matter if any one of them reuses Wei Zheng, they will not be defeated by me so quickly. Second, I am even more sorry for myself. I led the army to destroy Dou Jiande, but it is a pity that I missed him. How did you get Wei Zheng in the camp? This is really a beautiful piece of Jingshan jade!" Du Ruhui nodded: "He went to the East Palace, and it is indeed a hidden gem."

After the two sighed, Li Shimin told Du Ruhui to pay more attention to this person in the future. He told Du Ruhui that the tiger talisman taken by the East Palace was nothing, and that Wei Zheng was a sharp weapon ten times more powerful than the tiger talisman.Du Ruhui looked at Li Shimin, feeling a little strange in his heart, and thought to himself, didn't you say that everyone would give you a chance to be Duke of Zhou?Why are your eyes staring at Donggong again? Although Du Ruhui is also an expert, but after all, he is only the owner of the goose feather fan for the great hero. If he didn't live up to that, he would naturally be unable to understand the state of mind of the great hero Li Shimin.If you want to be the Duke of Zhou, you must be able to really bow your head to King Wu, and you must really be able to endure loneliness.But Li Shimin is not a person who can really bow his head to others, let alone a person who can really endure loneliness.Although morality and human relations are still restraining him condescendingly, his innate heroic character makes him unable to hold back the impulsiveness that only great people have.For example, when he knew that there was such a great talent as Wei Zheng in the world, he couldn't help but feel the passion of a rider seeing a good horse.At this time, a kind of pain of violating oneself that ordinary people cannot experience will naturally arise in his heart.As long as you violate yourself, there will be pain, not to mention this is a huge violation.

From the winter of the sixth year of Wude, when Li Yuan set out to snatch the tiger talisman from the hands of the Qin family, Li Shimin, who is naturally strong and unruly, felt this pain more and more. All kinds of psychological preparations made when making a compromise.He asked himself again and again whether this kind of violation was really worthwhile, but he still couldn't give himself an acceptable answer.His heart was struggling, and in his struggle, Li Yuan, Li Jiancheng, and Li Yuanji formed an alliance without covenants, and they were pressing towards him step by step. The once powerful Qin Mansion was like a boat that had lost its sails. The boat floated helplessly in the turbulent waves.In the summer of the ninth year of Wude more than three years later, Li Shimin was driven to the edge of the cliff together with his Qin family team.His mood was also strained to the extreme due to the pain, like a steel wire that was about to be snapped, waiting for the crisp sound when it finally broke.

The ninth year of Wude was an unusual year in the history of the Tang Dynasty. In the summer of this year, the weather in Guanzhong was very hot. From the end of May, there was an endless stream of messengers on the post roads from west to east. They came from Hexi, wearing thick leather jackets and walking. In a hurry, the heat was unbearable, and several people ran away to death.These messengers reported the same ominous letter to the Tang court: Tens of thousands of cavalry from the northern grasslands, led by their leader Yu Sheshe Khan, crossed the river and entered the fortress, and fought all the way to Wucheng, which is located in Wuwei, Gansu today.Wucheng was an important town for the Tang army to guard against the grassland peoples in the north. This ominous news shook the capital, and made the members of Li and Tang's royal family feel as restless as the weather.

From the end of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the dominant tribe on the grasslands in northern China was the Ashina clan. They had powerful cavalry, and their relationship with the Central Plains regime was up and down.During the time of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, the national power was strong, and the troubles in the north were not obvious.After Emperor Yangdi succeeded to the throne, he implemented tyranny and his national power gradually declined. The Ashina tribe rose rapidly and continued to attack the Sui Dynasty in the south. In the eleventh year of Daye, when Emperor Yangdi of Sui Dynasty visited the Great Wall in the north, he was even defeated by the leader of the Ashina tribe. Khan surrounded Yanmen.Afterwards, all the heroes of the Central Plains came together to compete for the world. Many of the various factions had secretly befriended the Ashina clan, hoping to gain their support.

Li Yuan was one of them. When he raised troops from Taiyuan, he sent his confidant Liu Wenjing to meet Shibi Khan secretly and pay tribute to him.When Li Yuan captured Guanzhong, Shibi Khan sent troops to help, and the two sides also secretly reached an agreement: the land of the descendants of the Sui Dynasty would belong to the Li family, and the children's treasures would belong to the Ashina family.However, the honeymoon between the two sides did not last long. In the early years of Wude, the Ashina clan, under the collusion of Liu Wuzhou, captured Taiyuan, the birthplace of Li Yuan. Khan led his troops to the south and fought all the way to Fen and Lu states, and took more than 5,000 people abducted.