Chapter 19 Do you want to be emperor?

Everything seemed too peaceful. From the beginning of November to the end of December in the thirteenth year of Daye, during a period of one and a half months, the Eastern Capital battlefield, which had been in full swing, suddenly fell silent. What does such calm mean? Li Mi has been thinking about this question for the past few days.Is Wang Shichong willing to spend it like this, just eating food and not fighting? No, Li Mi felt that Wang Shichong would definitely do something. With such doubts, Li Mi ordered someone to summon the soldiers of the Sui army who had just fled to Wagang recently.

"What is Wang Shichong doing?" Li Mi asked. "Recently he has been recruiting soldiers, and has repeatedly held banquets to reward the soldiers. I don't know what the hell he is doing." Li Mi stared at the faces of those soldiers for a long time, and suddenly a panic flashed through his heart. "Twenty-two and three, the moon rises in the middle of the night." Li Mi couldn't help thinking of this agricultural proverb.That is to say, in the last ten days of the month, especially after the 22nd and 23rd days, there will be no moon in the first half of the night, and the moon will slowly rise in the second half of the night.This means that during the last few days of each month, there is very little moonlight at night.

what is the date today? December twenty-four. A dark and stormy night? Killing and arson day! Li Mi's nerves tensed immediately. "I almost fell for this boy Wang Shichong," Li Mi said to Pei Renji, "Have you ever imagined that we have not launched an attack for so long, and Wang Shichong's barracks are almost running out of food and grass, so he is eager to fight, so he repeatedly recruits troops, The purpose of rewarding the soldiers is to take advantage of the darkness at the end of the month and sneak attack on our Cangcheng! Pass down the order, and the defensive deployment must be completed before sunset today."

With an order, Hao Xiaode, Wang Bodang, Meng Rang and others immediately led their troops into the positions around Cangcheng to set up an ambush. It was midnight, and Wang Shichong's army really appeared.When they entered Wang Bodang's ambush circle, Wang Bodang immediately launched an attack, but met the stubborn resistance of the Sui army, and Wang Bodang failed instead.The Sui army then began to attack the city, and the Wagang defender Lu Ru led all his forces to fight, restraining the momentum of the Sui army.Wang Bodang reorganized his forces to attack again, and finally defeated the Sui army.Wang Shichong's general Fei Qingnu died in battle, and more than a thousand soldiers were killed.

Wang Shichong suffered consecutive defeats, and even the well-planned sneak attack completely failed, and he was immediately discouraged. Yang Yu, king of Yue in the eastern capital, hurriedly sent envoys to comfort him.Wang Shichong complained a lot, saying that he had too few troops, and that he was exhausted from long-term combat.Yang Tong had to give him another 70,000 people to stop his mouth. Wang Shichong got this new force, and immediately gained confidence. He launched a massive counterattack at the beginning of the first month of the 14th year of Daye (618 AD), and finally defeated Li Mi on the north bank of Luoshui, and quickly pushed his troops to the northern suburbs of Gong County.This is the first victory Wang Shichong and Li Mi have won in several months, and he can't help but be very excited.On the 15th day of the first lunar month, Wang Shichong ordered all the troops to build a pontoon bridge on Luoshui, preparing to take advantage of the victory to attack Luokoucang.

However, more people are not necessarily a good thing. The large number of troops and the confusion of designations are very likely to lead to inconsistent orders and command failures.The Sui army who was rushing to cross Luoshui had this problem now.Before Wang Shichong gave the general attack order, the troops who had erected the pontoon bridge first launched the attack.Huben Lang took Wang Bian to the fore and led the troops to break through the outer fence of Li Mi's camp in one fell swoop.The Wagang defenders suddenly panicked. At this time, as long as the Sui army insisted on attacking, Li Mi would be defeated immediately.

But at this juncture, Wang Shichong suddenly ordered to sound the horn to withdraw troops. Because he only saw that the army's actions were chaotic and out of step when crossing the river, and he didn't know that Wang Bian in front had successfully broken through the enemy's camp. Wang Bian, who was struggling to advance, heard the sound of the horn and had to retreat with his troops.Li Mi took the opportunity to lead the death squads to launch a counterattack, and the Sui army was defeated.In order to fight for the pontoon bridge to escape, more than 10,000 people of the Sui army fell into the river and drowned. Wang Bian died in battle, and the soldiers fled, and the army collapsed in an instant.Wang Shichong fled the battlefield with his direct troops. He did not dare to go back to the Eastern Capital to meet the King of Yue, so he had to go north to Heyang (now Meng County, Henan).

In this way, Wang Shichong missed the easy victory. That night, when Wang Shichong's troops were crossing the Yellow River, there was a sudden heavy rain and strong winds. The weather became extremely cold, and more than 10,000 soldiers froze to death.When they reached Heyang, only a few thousand of the hundreds of thousands of troops remained.Wang Shichong imprisoned himself to plead guilty to King Yue. After receiving the news of the disastrous defeat of the army, Yue Wang Yang Tong could only smile wryly.In normal times, a general who lost so badly would have been chopped into meat sauce, but now, can King Yue kill Wang Shichong?

cannot. Not only can't kill him, but also comfort him, reward him, hug him, and coax him. What else?With Wang Shichong present, at least he can contain Li Mi and keep Li Mi out of Dongdu; without Wang Shichong, Dongdu might be eaten by Li Mi in a blink of an eye. Although Wang Shichong has been defeated repeatedly, he must be encouraged to fight repeatedly. Therefore, Yang Tong, the king of Yue, not only did not dare to blame Wang Shichong at all, but instead sent envoys to announce an amnesty to Wang Shichong, and rewarded him with gold, silver, silk, satin, and beauties, and comforted him in every possible way to let him return to Luoyang.

I don't know if Wang Shichong was moved to tears even after losing a battle.However, since the imperial court was so loving, Wang Shichong really had nothing to say, and then gathered more than 10,000 remnants back to the Eastern Capital, and stationed in Hanjia City (in the northern city of Luoyang), only seeking self-protection, not daring to fight. Li Mi defeated Wang Shichong in a row, his morale was greatly boosted, so he took advantage of the victory to attack Dongdu and captured Jinyong City (northwest of the old Luoyang City) in one fell swoop.Li Mi ordered people to repair all the city gates, city walls, official residences, and private houses, and move the Wagang headquarters into the city to deter the Eastern Capital.Afterwards, Li Mi supported more than 300,000 soldiers and formed an array at the southern foot of Mang Mountain to force Luoyang Shangchunmen.

On the nineteenth day of the first lunar month, Yang Tong ordered Duan Da, senior official of Jin Ziguanglu, and Wei Jin, minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, to go out of the city to defend against the enemy.After Duan Da led his troops out of the city, he saw Li Mi's majestic army from a distance, and was terrified in his heart, so he withdrew from the battlefield before he could fight.Li Mi sent his troops to attack, but Wei Jin was defeated and killed. Seeing that the scene of Li Mi was getting bigger and bigger, a large number of Sui Dynasty officials near the Eastern Capital quickly led their troops to surrender Li Mi, and the leaders of the rebel army from far and near, such as Dou Jiande, Zhu Can, Meng Haigong, Xu Yuanlang, etc., also sent envoys to pay their respects. , Encouraging Li Mi to ascend the throne and proclaim himself emperor, Pei Renji and others under him also persuaded Li Mi to assume the title early. Do you want to be the emperor? The situation was gratifying, and there was a lot of flattery in the ears. Those who were a little restless would probably accept it happily. But Li Mi is just like Li Yuan, he knows that his own spring has not yet arrived. He also knew that the people who persuaded him to be the emperor were basically ulterior motives. Let’s just talk about Dou Jiande and his group. Their purpose of persuading him so diligently is nothing more than to make Li Mi a solid target of the Sui Dynasty. Thrive behind.Waiting for Wagang and the Guanjun to lose both sides in the fight, they will reap the benefits of the fisherman and easily pick up the fruits of victory. This is their fancy intestines! As for people like Pei Renji under his command, they couldn't completely erase their support.It's just that their support is inevitably mixed with selfishness.Because if Li Mi became the emperor, this Wagang would become an imperial court, wouldn't the old and young masters of Wagang be promoted immediately?Maybe if they don't pay attention, they can become a chancellor or something, that's why they made a fuss about their small calculations, trying to make Li Mi the emperor. Li Mi also knew all these little thoughts. Therefore, in the face of everyone's persuasion, Li Mi only said eight words - Dongdu is not conquered, it cannot be discussed.