Li Guangbi led 120,000 Hebei troops and marched south from Qizhou (today's Jinan), aiming directly at Xuzhou.
Pugu Huai'en was deprived of his positions as military envoy to Henan and military envoy to Pinglu because of the Jizhou war. He now serves as a military envoy under Li Guangbi and has made meritorious deeds.
Arriving at Weishan, which is still a hundred miles away from Xuzhou, Li Guangbi convened a military council and opened the military orders and documents sent by the Privy Council in front of the generals.
At the beginning, the Privy Council issued military orders and other materials to the East, West and Central armies respectively.
Among them, the military orders given to the West Route Army and the Middle Route Army were very detailed, both in terms of marching routes and tactical arrangements.
Only one sentence from Emperor Zhou Jun was included in the letter to the Privy Council, the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Route Army, Li Guangbi.
"The battlefield is changing rapidly. Guang Bi knows the soldiers and is good at fighting. I allow you to do everything conveniently."
Zhou Jun's words, if put in plain language, are: Compared with the West Route Army and the Central Route Army, I believe in your ability to lead troops, and I don't plan to arrange any tactics for you. When you go to the battlefield, you don't have to worry about anything else, just focus on it.
Just play freely and concentrate on fighting.
Looking at the Tang Dynasty, there were only a handful of generals who could make Zhou Jun say such words, and Li Guangbi was one of them.
After collecting the letter, Li Guangbi looked at Pugu Huaien beside him and said: "The war is coming. This time against Shi Siming, I plan to use you as the forward."
Upon hearing this, Pugu Huaien knew that Li Guangbi was giving him a chance to express himself because of his past friendship.
While feeling grateful in his heart, Pugu Huaien saluted and said: "I will definitely not disappoint the commander-in-chief!"
Li Guangbi looked at the other generals in the tent: "The battle of Xuzhou is the key to seizing Jiangnan. If this battle is won, Henan Province will be returned to the Tang Dynasty. You should fight bravely."
When the generals heard this, they shouted loudly.
The Eastern Route Army of the Northern Tang Dynasty marched through Weishan and finally arrived at Xuzhou City.
Shi Siming stood on the top of the city and looked towards the Tang Army camp in the distance. It happened that at this time, Li Guangbi was also looking at Xuzhou City.
The two people, who were destined rivals in history, finally reunited in Xuzhou.
Seeing the forward approach of the Tang army, Shi Siming knew that he could not lose his momentum, so he asked his men to call for formation at the bottom of the city and invited the generals to fight one on one.
Li Guangbi saw Shi Siming's petty thoughts clearly and felt funny in his heart.
The forward general Pu Gu Huai'en came to the Chinese army and wanted to ask Li Guangbi to join him to challenge the enemy general.
Li Guangbi shook his head and said: "You can't kill a chicken with a bull's knife."
There was a general in the East Route Army named Bai Xiaode. After hearing this, he stood up and recommended himself.
Li Guangbi nodded in agreement.
The enemy generals who fought under Shi Siming's account had never heard of Bai Xiaode, and they despised him and did not even bother to raise their weapons.
Bai Xiaode didn't say much, and urged his horses. Amid the exclamations of the crowd, he beheaded the enemy general with just one charge.
Li Guangbi saw this and shouted "Hello" loudly.
After losing the duel, Shi Siming's generals all looked embarrassed, and the morale of the soldiers was even lower.
Seeing this, Shi Siming knew that today was not the right day to start a war, so he asked his men to hang up their no-war cards and hid in the city and became a coward.
After losing the first battle in terms of morale, Shi Siming was naturally unwilling to accept it.
Soon, Shi Siming thought of another move.
Shi Siming had more than a thousand fine war horses, all of which were stallions.
In order to show off his strong military power and deter the opponent, Shi Siming sent sergeants to drive them to the shore of Surabaya to bathe every day, and the cycle was endless to show that they had more horses.
Upon seeing this, Li Guangbi ordered more than 500 mares in the army to be gathered together and driven out of the city.
More than five hundred mares neighed and rushed straight to Surabaya. The stallions on the other side couldn't resist the calls of the opposite sex and crossed the river one after another to get close to the mares.
Li Guangbi took advantage of the situation and trapped all of Shi Siming's horses and captured them into the city.
In this way, Shi Siming's more than a thousand war horses fell into Li Guangbi's hands for nothing.
After losing two battles, Shi Siming became more and more annoyed the more he thought about it, so he sent his general Dou Jiyuan with three thousand elite soldiers to leave the city at night and head north, intending to use the old method of sneak attack on the grain road to burn the granary of Li Guangbi's army's rear formation.
Who knew that Li Guangbi's granary in Xiaoqiu actually secretly learned Guo Ziyi's tactics in Chang'an and buried a large amount of gunpowder in the granary.
When Dou Jiyuan led his troops into the camp, he was about to order a fire, but a series of earth-shaking explosions blew all the three thousand elite soldiers under Shi Siming's command into pieces.
After these three defeats, the morale of the defenders in Xuzhou City was greatly reduced.
Shi Siming also regarded Li Guangbi as his natural nemesis. He no longer dared to go out to fight in the city. He just hid in the city and drank every day, and his temper became increasingly irritable.
In the Battle of Xuzhou, the two armies attacked each other for several months.
On this day, Shi Siming was sitting in the main hall, holding a wine glass in his hand and muttering something.
The civil and military officials in the palace knew that Shi Siming had been moody in recent days, so they all spoke carefully and flattered him as much as possible.
When a general saw Shi Siming sitting on the throne, he flattered him and said, "King Yan has an extraordinary temperament, and he was born to look down upon the world."
When Shi Siming heard this, his eyes lit up and he asked: "Is it possible that this person can sit on this seat?"
When the civil and military officials in the palace heard this, they didn't dare to say no. They all said that it was natural to sit down.
Shi Siming, under the influence of alcohol, stood up and asked to his left and right: "Where is the emperor's guard of honor of Yan State stored?"
At first, no one could react to Shi Siming's words.
Later, someone realized that the emperor's guard of honor mentioned by Shi Siming was captured when An Qingxu was killed.
Soon, people brought over all the personal belongings of the Emperor of Yan, including the imperial robe, fur hat, etc.
Shi Siming looked at these, and the more he looked at them, the more delighted he became. Amid the flattery of everyone, he stretched out his hand to put on the royal robe.
Fortunately, at this time, there were still people in the palace who were still awake.
Shi Siming's son Shi Chaoyi was horrified when he saw this. He quickly knelt on the ground and urged: "Father, we took refuge in the Southern Tang Dynasty and took advantage of the opportunity to fight against the Northern Tang Dynasty. We are acting as ministers. If you wear the imperial robe of the Yan Kingdom,
If the incident spreads to Jiankang City, it will be equivalent to cutting off the future!"
When Shi Siming heard this, he was shocked and half sober from the wine.
Seeing the civil and military officials in the palace looking at him, Shi Siming did not reflect on his mistake. Instead, he began to feel annoyed that Shi Chaoyi had spoken inappropriately and had lost his face.
As a result, Shi Siming cursed Shi Chaoyi and finally walked away.
After this little episode happened, in the blink of an eye, the time came to the end of the third year of the New Year.
Shi Siming, who was stationed in Xuzhou, received bad news.
The Western Route Army of the Northern Tang Dynasty, under the command of Duan Xiushi, was making great progress all the way from Fangzhou to Xiangyang. It was getting closer and closer to Guo Ziyi's Middle Route Army and would soon be able to join forces.
Once the Western Route Army and the Middle Route Army of the Northern Tang Dynasty merged, it meant that Xuzhou and its surroundings would become an isolated land.
Xuzhou where Shi Siming was stationed had Li Guangbi to the north, Guo Ziyi to the west, and Duan Xiushi and Li Siye to the southwest. The entire area would soon be completely surrounded by the Northern Tang army.
Under such circumstances, Shi Siming made a helpless decision to abandon Xuzhou and move from Henan Road to Huainan Road.
Shi Siming's defeat from Xuzhou meant the complete liberation of the entire Henan Province for the Northern Tang Dynasty.
Li Guangbi, Guo Ziyi, Duan Xiushi, and Li Siye each led troops, totaling 420,000 troops, and finally completed a victorious rendezvous in the Yingchuan area, only one step away from Jiangcheng, the gateway to the south of the Yangtze River.
