Chapter 1977: Tang army retreats
Chapter 1977 The Tang Army retreats
Chapter 1975: The Tang army retreats
It's normal for Li Shimin to be timid. After all, the situation has reversed instantly. If he continues to fight, he is simply courting death.
The two Tang armies from Wuguan and Tongguan merged and before Hangu Pass was conquered, a full 150,000 troops attacked Sizhou.
At that time, the Qin army only had 90,000 troops, of which 30,000 were new soldiers.
Hence, at the beginning of the Sizhou War, the Tang Army had an absolute advantage in terms of military strength.
As the war progressed, casualties increased, and the total strength of the Tang army dropped to 130,000.
As for the Qin Army, although its military strength is also declining, and the decline is greater than that of the Tang Army. The total strength has dropped to 60,000, and nearly one-third of its troops have been lost or injured. However, the Qin Army has a profound background. Any reinforcements are 200,000. Get started.
At present, 200,000 Hebei Qin Army and 30,000 Hetao Qin Army cavalry are about to arrive in Sizhou. Together with the 60,000 Qin Army in Sizhou itself, this means that the total strength of the Qin Army in Sizhou will soon reach 290,000.
You must know that the total military strength of Li and Tang Dynasty plus the county soldiers and militia was barely 300,000. In addition to the troops that could not be easily mobilized to guard various places and guard the major princes, they could only dispatch 150,000 troops at most to conquer the four directions. .
The main force of the Qin army still stayed in Hebei. Using only partial divisions, they gathered nearly 300,000 troops, equivalent to the size of the entire Li Tang Dynasty, which made Li Shimin jealous to death.
In other words, the Tang army is about to face the 290,000 Qin army with an army of 130,000, which is twice as many as itself. Moreover, the opponent is on the defensive, and we are the attacker.
How can we fight this battle?
Under this situation, Li Tang must quickly eat up the 60,000 Qin troops in Sizhou and occupy the major fortified cities in Heluo, so that he can have the capital to continue to fight against the Qin army. Otherwise, it will be nothing more than a mantis acting as a chariot, and it will never be possible. It is the opponent of the Qin army.
However, the Sizhou Qin army was hiding in the city. There was no way they would give up their advantage and go out to fight the Tang army. Want to eat them up before the Qin army's reinforcements arrived? This is an almost impossible task.
The current situation is becoming increasingly unfavorable to the Tang Army, but the greatest threat to the Tang Army is not the 200,000 Hebei Qin Army, but Zhao Yun's 30,000 Hetao cavalry.
The 30,000 Hetao cavalry led by Zhao Yun were obviously here to cut off the Tang Army's retreat, but the Tang Army had no way to deal with it.
To stop these 30,000 Hetao Qin cavalry who defeated 100,000 Xiliang cavalry, they must dispatch 40,000 to 50,000 cavalry. But how could Li Tang have 40,000 to 50,000 cavalry? Is it possible to divide the troops here?
The Tang army is now roughly divided into three parts in Sizhou. 30,000 troops led by Zhao She surrounded Yiyang, 40,000 troops led by Li Keyong besieged Yewang, and the final 60,000 troops led by Li Shimin attacked Luoyang.
The Tang Army's troops are already dispersed enough. If they continue to divide their troops, it will only further weaken their combat power, and the Qin Army will find opportunities to defeat them one by one.
In general, Zhao Yun's 30,000 cavalry were like a sharp sword hanging above the head of the Tang army.
Even if the Tang army could not capture Sizhou, they could have retreated to Guanzhong and defended it at the risk of Tongguan. Even if the Qin army had twice the strength of the Tang army, they could only look at the pass and sigh, and they could not do anything to the Tang army.
But Zhao Yun's 30,000 Hetao cavalry broke this balance.
If you want to stop Zhao Yun's cavalry, you must divide your troops, and once your troops are divided, the situation will be even more dangerous.
If they don't stop it, Zhao Yun's cavalry will definitely cut off their retreat. By then, Sizhou's 130,000 Tang troops will be unable to retreat even if they want to.
If we really get to that point, the 130,000 Tang army may follow in the footsteps of the Liangzhou coalition army and be completely wiped out by the 290,000 Qin army.
I have to say that this is a dilemma. No matter which one he chooses, Li Tang's expedition to Sizhou is destined to fail. The only difference is how many troops he loses.
After a night of deep thought, Li Shimin still divided his troops to stop Zhao Yun. He could not accept the failure of this operation anyway. According to the conclusion that the strong are the most powerful, if Li Tang cannot defeat Sizhou this time, it will be even more impossible when the Qin army digests Hebei.
By then, the national power of Qin and Tang will be completely expanded, and Li and Tang will forever lose the opportunity to grow. What they should consider is no longer external expansion, but how to avoid being destroyed by the offensive of the defeated Qin army.
Based on this consideration, Li Shimin decided to give it a go and risk everything. He would die in Luoyang if he didn't capture Luoyang.
When they learned that Li Shimin had decided to burn the boat, Li Kui and other senior management of Li Tang were shocked. Li Tang was far from reaching the end of the road, and no one could predict the future. There was no need to fight with Qianjun at this time.
Li Shimin's determination was shaken by the unanimous persuasion of Li Tang's senior officials, but the person who really made him give up was Sima Yi.
After Sima Yi learned about it, he was shocked by Li Shimin's boldness and admired his courage.
The unwillingness to retreat at this point shows the courage and courage of this king. Unfortunately, there are too many British masters in this era, and even a wise king like Li Shimin cannot lead the way.
Sima Yi persuaded Li Shimin for two hours from various angles such as military, political, and world trends before getting Li Shimin to give up the decision to divide the troops, and decided to give up all the results of the war and temporarily return to Guanzhong.
In Sima Yi's opinion, this is the wisest decision, but he has no idea what giving up now means to Li Shimin.
This means that in the confrontation with Qin Hao, he, Li Shimin, completely lost. In the future, he can only be inferior to Qin Hao and rely on Qin Hao's breath.
This is undoubtedly an extremely painful decision for Li Shimin, who has always wanted to defeat Qin Hao.
"Retreat. If we continue to fight, it will only increase casualties. Before the Qin Army's Hebei reinforcements arrive, we'd better retreat to Guanzhong as soon as possible."
After saying this, Li Shimin seemed to have been drained of all his energy, and his whole person seemed to have aged several years in an instant.
All the generals of the Tang army breathed a sigh of relief and said in unison: "My lord is wise."
After all, if they withdraw their troops, they will not have to face the 200,000 Hebei Qin Army. They only have 60,000 troops in Luoyang and have no strong city to defend, so they cannot be an opponent of the 200,000 Qin Army.
In this way, Li Shimin led an army of 65,000 to raid Luoyang. However, when the Qin army fell into civil strife, they still failed to capture Luoyang, and instead left 5,000 corpses.
Li Shimin led 60,000 Tang troops to retreat, and they did not retreat from Luoyang. Instead, after joining Zhao She and Li Keyong, they retreated directly from Sizhou.
Here in Luoyang, after learning the news that the Tang army had withdrawn, the top brass of the Qin army exploded.
The radical faction headed by Qin Jian proposed to lead the army out of the city to delay the retreat of the Tang army, and wait until reinforcements arrived to swallow up the 60,000 Tang troops.
Conservatives led by Qin Ji and Sima Cuo believed that Luoyang's military strength was too weak and they were not qualified to go out of the city to fight the Tang army, even if it was to delay time.
Once the army is sent out of the city, Luoyang's military strength will be even thinner, and it is likely that the Tang army will be attracted back.
There were still too few troops in Luoyang City, and the risk of sending troops to stop the Tang army was too high, so in the end the conservatives gained the upper hand.
Li Shimin, who was already unwilling, expected the Qin army to come out of the city to pursue the Tang army. When he saw that Luoyang did not send troops to pursue him, he was naturally disappointed and could only give up his last hope.
At the same time, an elite cavalry force of 40,000, led by Zhang Liao, Zhang He, Xiao Yan and other generals, passed Mengjinguan and Xiaopingjin and galloped towards Luoyang at the fastest speed.
Guarantee.
(End of this chapter)