Chapter 700: Surrounding the site for reinforcements
Goryeo, Baekje, and Silla are all small countries.
Su Mingzhe believed that even three to five thousand troops would be enough to conquer such a small country.
However, Su Mingzhe still wanted to wait for the conquest to leave enough power for the vassal king who was guarding the vassal to suppress the rebel forces.
Therefore, in this recruitment, Su Mingzhe recruited a total of 20,000 soldiers.
To serve a government soldier, two to five laborers are needed.
Therefore, the total military strength still reached more than 100,000.
There are over 10,000 people, and there are no boundaries.
A hundred thousand troops went out to fight, which can be said to be continuous, winding like a long dragon.
Cars rattled and horses rustled.
Pedestrians carry bows and arrows at their waists.
Ye Niang and his wife walked to see each other off, but Xianyang Bridge was nowhere to be seen.
He held his clothes, stamped his feet, and blocked the road to cry, and his cry went up to the sky.
"Your Majesty, let's go."
As the general manager of the march, Li Jing coordinated the entire process.
It stands to reason that even Su Mingzhe, the Supreme Emperor, must obey his orders.
"Let's go."
Su Mingzhe didn't want to watch these parting scenes anymore, so he got on his horse and galloped towards the front of the team.
"Your Majesty, wait for Lao Cheng."
Cheng Yaojin is only fifty years old this year, and he is also in his prime for fighting. He was appointed General Zuowei two years ago and is responsible for protecting Su Mingzhe's safety.
At the same time, Cheng Chusi, the eldest son of Cheng Yaojin, Qin Huaiyu, the eldest son of Qin Qiong, and Yuchi Baolin, the eldest son of Yuchi Jingde, were all in the army.
The army is marching forward, but its march cannot reach more than a hundred in a day.
If you travel more than a hundred times a day, you will defeat the general!
The normal walking speed of an army is about sixty to eighty miles per day.
Of course, with all light cavalry and no heavy armor, the speed will be faster, but it cannot exceed one hundred and fifty miles.
This is all written in the military books.
Therefore, Su Mingzhe led his army meandering eastward for a month before arriving in Weizhou, Hebei.
Weizhou, later known as Handan!
This kind of marching speed, in Su Mingzhe's opinion, was really slow and would kill people.
However, despite such a situation, Fang Xuanling praised the great military might of the Tang Dynasty.
"After marching for a month, we are still able to maintain high morale. This is all due to His Majesty!"
As the advance officer of grain and grass, Fang Xuanling had been waiting in Weizhou early. When he saw Su Mingzhe, he immediately stepped forward to greet him.
"Xuanling, you don't have to flatter me, right?"
Su Mingzhe laughed and pulled Fang Xuanling into Weizhou City.
When passing by the city, the army had to stay outside the city overnight, but as the Supreme Emperor, they could enter the city to rest.
Weizhou was once the capital of Dou Jiande's Xia Kingdom.
After Dou Jiande became the leader of the country, he implemented benevolent governance, practiced frugality, shared wealth among the public, encouraged farmers to teach mulberry farming, and resumed agricultural production.
The people of Weizhou spontaneously built the Xiawang Temple and offered sacrifices year after year.
The Tang government did not destroy it either.
Passed by this time.
Su Mingzhe let the army rest for two days, and then went to the Xiawang Temple and offered three sticks of incense to Dou Jiande.
Before leaving, at the temple's request, Su Mingzhe casually wrote a plaque for "Douwang Temple" and a sacrificial text.
The plaque is hung in front of the temple door, and the sacrificial inscriptions are carved into stone tablets.
From now on these things will be cultural relics.
The army rested in Weizhou for two days and then set off again.
More than ten days later, the army passed through Youzhou (Zhuojun), which was not far from Khitan and Goryeo.
Before the Tang Dynasty set off, it had already issued a conquest edict to the Goryeo Kingdom.
Therefore, when the Tang army came to the border, both Goryeo and Khitan quickly sent people to ask for peace and surrender.
In particular, Goryeo, perhaps accustomed to surrendering during the reign of Emperor Sui Yang, actually expressed its willingness to surrender, but asked the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty to abide by the etiquette of a great country and not to send troops across the border after accepting the surrender.
"What a joke. Do they think I am Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty?"
Su Mingzhe almost burst out laughing when he saw the letter of surrender handed over by the Korean envoy.
When Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty conquered Goryeo, he had almost wiped out Goryeo.
I don’t know if Emperor Sui Yang felt that he couldn’t lose even if the flying dragon rode on his face.
Faced with the false surrender of the King of Korea, Emperor Sui Yang agreed to accept the surrender, and then began to arrange the withdrawal of his troops.
One said surrender, and the other believed it.
In this situation, Goryeo played with Emperor Yang of Sui more than a dozen times.
In other words, Goryeo pretended to surrender more than a dozen times, and Emperor Sui Yang believed it more than a dozen times.
The result of each false surrender was that the Sui army was stolen from the camp and suffered thousands or tens of thousands of losses.
Under such circumstances, the aristocratic families who followed Emperor Sui Yang on his eastern expedition began to suspect that they were being played by Emperor Sui Yang and the King of Korea.
The final result was that the powerful family betrayed Emperor Sui Yang, making Emperor Sui Yang taste the taste of a subjugated king.
Now, Korea has come to pretend to surrender to Su Mingzhe again. Su Mingzhe naturally feels speechless.
Just when Su Mingzhe was thinking about whether to drive the Korean envoy out directly, Fang Xuanling reminded him:
"Your Majesty, when attacking a city and conquering a country, integrity comes first. Since Goryeo has offered to surrender, we cannot refuse..."
More than half of the ministers in the tent nodded in agreement, feeling that Fang Xuanling was right.
Su Mingzhe suddenly frowned.
After all, he was not an ancient person, so he thought for a moment and said to the Korean envoy:
"Go back and tell you that the lord of Anshi City wants to surrender. He will tear down the city gate before noon tomorrow as a signal. If you don't tear down the city gate after noon, you will bear the consequences."
Although Su Mingzhe wanted to start the fight directly, Fang Xuanling also said that as a Celestial Kingdom, one must be magnanimous.
Then give them half a day to think about it.
The Korean envoy did not expect that not only did he not succeed in pretending to surrender, but he was only delayed for half a day, and he immediately left in tears.
The Korean envoy left, but the Khitan envoy stayed.
After all, the Tang Dynasty came to attack Goryeo, not the Khitan.
The Khitan envoy also wanted to ask if the Khitan cavalry was needed to help.
It was just an attack on a small Goryeo. Naturally, the Tang Dynasty would not let the Khitan take a share of the pie.
In order to frighten the Khitan, Su Mingzhe also invited the Khitan envoy to accompany him tomorrow to watch the Tang army attack the city.
When the Khitan envoys retreated, the generals in the tent began to quarrel over the gifts brought by the two envoys.
The special products brought by the two envoys are not rare to the generals.
But those Khitan noble ladies and Korean maidservants made the generals in the tents start to make trouble.
It has been nearly two months since the army left Chang'an City. Now when they see a young and beautiful woman, they can't take their eyes away.
Su Mingzhe looked at the generals' performance and was speechless for a while:
"Xuanling, please distribute these gifts to everyone."
The Goryeo maids, the Kunlun slaves, and the Bodhisattvas were the "Three Treasures" of the domestic slaves of the powerful men of the Tang Dynasty.
Among them, Kunlun slaves are black-skinned slaves.
There are two reasons why the powerful families like Kunlun slaves.
The first reason is that the Kunlun slaves are strong and their physical endurance exceeds that of ordinary people.
The second reason is that if a woman in the family dares to have an affair with a Kunlun slave, the child she will give birth to will have the same skin as the Kunlun slave, which is black and cannot be concealed at all.
Because of the above two important reasons, powerful families like to use Kunlun slaves.
Goryeo maidservants refer to women from the three kingdoms of Goryeo, Silla and Baekje.
Most of these Goryeo maids were the daughters of powerful Goryeo families. Not only were they gentle in character and charming in appearance, but they also spoke the same language and did not require any effort to train them.
(Goryeo also spoke the Mandarin of the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Moreover, Goryeo dignitaries were proud of being able to speak the most fluent Chang'an dialect.)
The Bodhisattva Man refers to the beauties with fair skin and blue eyes from the Western Regions.
Most of these Bodhisattvas are based on the beauties in the murals in the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. They are like Buddhist Bodhisattvas and possess exotic auras.
Moreover, these Bodhisattvas were not only beautiful and fair-skinned, but most of them were good at singing and dancing, so they were naturally welcomed by the powerful people in Chang'an.
The number of these three types of slaves also represents the symbol of power and wealth of a wealthy family.
Su Mingzhe asked people to recruit those Khitan noble ladies and Korean maids. They were indeed quite good.
However, to Su Mingzhe, none of these women looked familiar, so they could not attract his attention.
Immediately asked Fang Xuanling to give everyone a point.
As a result, Cheng Yaojin, an old guy who relied on his high official status and was the most shameless, took the lead in grabbing the most beautiful Korean maid without waiting for Fang Xuanling to be assigned.
Li Jing was reserved and did not try to rob him.
Fang Xuanling was afraid of his wife and did not try to rob her.
The other generals took advantage of the situation and divided up the remaining beauties according to their positions.
After the women were assigned, Su Mingzhe asked the chamberlain to lock them up and take care of them.
If you want to enjoy these beauties, you have to wait until you conquer the city.
Most of Goryeo's cities are located near mountains and rivers, making them easy to defend but difficult to attack.
However, because most of these cities are located near mountains and rivers, the walls are only one or two feet high.
During the Sui Dynasty's Eastern Expedition, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty relied on the siege weapons from the Central Plains to advance all the way and almost wiped out Goryeo.
Now Su Mingzhe wanted to reduce casualties, so he told Li Jing to fire a few rounds with the newly built cannon to intimidate him.
As the military god of the Tang Dynasty, Li Jing naturally did not need Su Mingzhe to teach him how to fight.
However, Su Mingzhe said so, so Li Jing naturally would not refuse.
On the second day.
Thirty thousand troops surrounded the Koryo City tightly, and the muzzles of the cannons were aimed at the city gate tower.
Just wait until noon before firing.
The defenders on the Goryeo City were panicked when they saw the boundless Tang army, but they also wondered why the Tang army had set up a formation but did not attack.
One of the lieutenants couldn't help but asked his city lord: "Master Liang, why do the people of the Tang Dynasty have to wait until noon to attack? Do they have too much military rations to waste?"
"This is called cleverness!"
Liang Wanchun, the lord of Anshi City, sighed: "Our city is high and the water is deep. We are not afraid of them attacking us, but I am afraid they will besiege us and not attack us."
The deputy general became confused again:
"Master Liang, wouldn't it be better if they didn't attack?"
"Besieging but not attacking must have a deeper motive. I suspect that the Tang people wanted to 'encircle the point and mobilize reinforcements'."
As the lord of Anshi City, Liang Wanchun was familiar with the art of war. After sighing in his heart, he said helplessly: "Now I just hope that Mo Lizhi will not fall into an ambush by the Tang people."
Molizhi was the highest official of Goguryeo, similar to the prime minister of the Central Plains court.
The current Molizhi is Yeongae Suwen, who will be famous in Goryeo in later generations.
Yeon Gaesomun was in charge of the power of Goryeo for many years, so he was naturally very capable.
Therefore, although he had already arrived thirty miles away from Anshi City with an army of 50,000 people, he did not rush over to rescue.