Since Li Xuan ascended the throne as emperor, he has experienced many wars, including medium-sized battles with dozens of people, and very large battles with hundreds of people, including many battles that overturned the country.
Counting on his fingers, Li Xuan found that he had fought quite a lot of 'battles that overturned the country', including the Battle of Jiguan Mountain, the first Battle of Fengjiazhuang, the Battle of Luohu Valley in the third counter-encirclement and suppression campaign, and the Battle of Luohu Valley at the beginning of the year.
Four counter-encirclement and suppression operations, and the second Battle of Fengjiazhuang a few days ago.
Every beating was thrilling and made Li Xuan frightened.
In the above-mentioned battles, the Tang Dynasty was in full force every time, and it was extremely dangerous. If one of them failed, the consequences would be unimaginable. The fall of the Tang Dynasty was a small matter, but the loss of Li Xuan's life was a big deal.
This time's departure was undoubtedly another country-breaking battle for the Tang Dynasty, so Li Xuan had to be cautious.
Because he was afraid that the Ming army would set up an ambush on the road, and the checkpoint he originally occupied had been recaptured by the Ming army, Li Xuan deliberately led his troops in a large circle, and it took them three full days before leaving the mountain through another passage.
In order to ensure the safety of the subsequent transportation of logistics supplies, Li Xuan and the others naturally took down the Ming army checkpoints they passed by just like last time.
However, in order to keep the whereabouts of the troops secret when they came out of the mountain this time, and to gain a few more days to confuse the Ming army, Li Xuan spent a lot of thought when attacking the checkpoint this time, and showed a posture of treating it with all his strength.
More than a hundred people were sent to sneak around the back of the checkpoint through the dense forest on one side, and then the troops quickly advanced.
Then the Ming army inside the checkpoint was completely surrounded.
The purpose was to prevent the Ming army at the checkpoint from escaping and tip off Su Jiakang and the others, and to buy himself more time, lest he be noticed and entangled by the main force of the Ming army as soon as he came out of the mountain.
After surrounding this checkpoint, the next thing was much simpler. The more than twenty Ming troops in the checkpoint faced hundreds of pseudo-Tang rebels who surrounded them, and after finding that there was no hope of escape, they made a simple choice.
Surrendered, and most of the Ming army soldiers were very bachelors after the puppet Tang rebels promised that they would have enough to eat in the future. Anyway, they joined the Tang Dynasty King's Division and became a member of the civilian husband in the baggage train.
.
After taking down the checkpoint in and out of the mountain and keeping the troops' secret whereabouts, Li Xuan breathed a sigh of relief.
Keeping the troops' early whereabouts secret will be of great benefit to the smooth implementation of his subsequent plans, and can effectively reduce risks.
What is his plan?
To put it in official language, a large-scale battle was used to put pressure on the Ming court authorities, forcing the Ming court to shift its attention from Huangzhu Mountain to its own security and to the main force of the Tang Dynasty King's Division, forcing the Ming court to
The Ming army deployed its main force to defend, thus reducing the pressure on Huangzhushan.
To put it in simple and straightforward terms: Li Xuan planned to go to the lower reaches of Zhengtai County, pretending to attack Zhengtai County, and scare Su Jiakang so that he would not worry about Huangzhu Mountain in the mountains.
After all, if you want to contain the Ming army, you can't just rely on words, nor can you just wander aimlessly after leaving the mountain. You must take action to stimulate the Ming army, and it must be an action that makes the Ming army quite uncomfortable. Only in this way can the Ming army be restrained.
The Ming army focused on its own defense and could not enter the mountains distractedly.
However, although Zhengtai County is just a small county in the southwest inland region, and is just an ordinary county in China, it is still a serious county.
By running to Zhengtai County and even posing as an attack on Zhengtai County, the dangers faced here must be considerable.
First of all, one thing is very clear. Regardless of whether Zhengtai County is easy to fight, we cannot really fight it. This is a huge hornet's nest, bigger than Longhua Town. Once Zhengtai County is really attacked, the development of the situation will not be within Li Xuan's control.
It's under control.
However, how to effectively threaten the Ming army without actually attacking Zhengtai County?
Li Xuan has some clues about this, but whether it is really effective has to be done. At least now, even Li Xuan himself is not sure whether it is effective.
After resting for a day at the checkpoint, Li Xuancai led his troops out of the mountain again. This time, after leaving the checkpoint, they did not wander around the edge of the mountain, but went directly out of the mountain to the vast small plain outside.
Zhengtai County is built on a small plain. This small plain is not too big, and strictly speaking, this area is not a real plain, but a relatively gentle hilly terrain, but the hills are undulating.
It's not too obvious.
This kind of gentle terrain is relatively suitable for farming. Unfortunately, the water source in this area is still relatively scarce. There are still relatively few places with abundant water resources like Fengjiazhuang, and the fields in most places are not considered
Waiting fields.
Otherwise, when Fengjiazhuang is so close to the mountains and is in serious trouble with bandits, the Feng family in the capital city will not hold on to it, because places like Fengjiazhuang are really hard to find in Zhengtai County.
However, Li Xuan has no plans to go out to farm for the time being, so what he is concerned about is not the food harvest in Zhengtai County, but that this gentle terrain will greatly increase the marching speed of the army.
The Ming army moved quickly, which would undoubtedly increase the danger of the new Tang army after they came out of the mountains.
Therefore, when planning to 'travel' outside Zhengtai County, one must be very careful, lest one accidentally be surrounded by the main force of the Ming army.
In order to increase the mobility of the troops, he did not carry too much baggage this time. Even the hundreds of young men in the baggage team had to reduce the load as much as possible. They mainly carried ordnance and ammunition. As for the army,
The most important food in the country, they still have four words: eat from the enemy.
There is no way, Huangzhushan itself has limited food, and the more than 500 people who came out of the mountain are all young and strong. In other words, these 500 people are 500 rice buckets.
The food they need for one day is enough to feed the old, weak, women and children in Huangzhushan for two days.
Therefore, just like the last time they went out of the mountain, they only carried the necessary food for the early stage. As for the food needed later, they could only find a way at that time, or attack the Ming army's food transport team, or go to the countryside
Harvest grain.
Li Xuan spent a lot of effort to travel to Zhengtai County smoothly, but what he never expected was that on the day they came out of the mountain, Su Jiakang had already learned about their coming out.
The Ming army is not stupid. In addition to the necessary checkpoints, they have also deployed several small-scale patrol teams near the edge of the mountain. On the one hand, these patrol teams are to prevent small-scale puppet Tang bandit troops from coming out to plunder.
On the one hand, it is to monitor whether the main force of the puppet Tang rebel army has come out at any time.
Although Li Xuan was very careful, the New Army of the Tang Dynasty was still just a group of bandits in the final analysis, so naturally there were still many inappropriate things in the fight.
After a patrol team of the Ming Army spotted the main force of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty from a distance, they didn't even give Li Xuan a chance to meet and ran back to report it. However, Li Xuan himself didn't know that his whereabouts had been exposed, so he continued to pretend that his whereabouts had been exposed.
I thought the secret route was heading towards Zhengtai County.