Chapter 25: The Hard Choice (Second Update)

Dingxiang is located in the Xinding Basin, surrounded by mountains on three sides, and four rivers flow through the territory. The Xinding Basin is from east to west, with a winnowing basket shape, flat terrain, fertile land and mild climate. It is the main grain producing area in Xinzhou.

This place is not only the Southern King's Court of the Khan of the Eastern Turks, but also the location of the small court of the Sui Dynasty. In February of the third year of Wude (620), the Khan of the Eastern Turks Luo Khan sent envoys to Dou Jiande, welcomed Empress Xiao and Yang Zhengdao to the Eastern Turks, supported Yang Zhengdao as the King of Sui, allocated all the officials and people of the Central Plains left in the Eastern Turks to Yang Zhengdao for governance, and restored the "Great Sui" regime, which is known in history as the Later Sui Dynasty. Yang Zhengdao set up hundreds of officials, all of which lived in Dingxiang County during the Sui Dynasty, and had more than 10,000 tribes.

Although Yang Zhengdao only had more than 10,000 troops, relying on the Xinding Basin, Princess Yicheng then sent more than 30,000 Han slaves captured by the Turks, relying on these more than 40,000 people. Later, the Sui Dynasty reclaimed 1.6 million acres of land in the Dingxin Basin in just one spring, and all of them were planted on sorghum.

The sorghum planted in early spring is almost ripe. More than 1.6 million mu of sorghum can be harvested between five dou of stone or eight dou of stone per mu. According to the Minister of the Civil Affairs Department of the Great Sui Dynasty, at most half a month, at least three million dou of stone will be harvested in the Great Sui Dynasty.

The imperial meeting of the Sui Dynasty was attended by Empress Xiao holding Yang Zhengdao. Yang Zhengdao, who was just five years old at the time (ancient men were two years old and women were one year old), sat on the imperial seat, but he felt like a needle and needle, swaying left and right, very restless.

Empress Xiao, the grandfather of Empress Xiao, coaxing Yang Zhengdao while listening to the ministers' reports. In fact, the Sui Dynasty is now only a larger place in the Dingxin Basin, two counties. There is no major event every day. To talk about major events, in fact, as the 300,000 Turkic troops poured into the Dingxin Basin, the grass at the foot of Yinshan Mountain had already been eaten up, and even the grass roots were eaten by sheep. Whether grass can grow in the next year is also a question.

The most common problem with the state affairs of the Sui Dynasty is that either the grain fields here were gnawed by the Turkic war horses or the Turkic people there.

In fact, these things cannot be solved at all. The so-called Sui Dynasty was a puppet of the Eastern Turkic Khanate. After finally getting the dynasty meeting, Empress Xiao discussed with Chen Zhang, the Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and finally a major event happened to the Turkic Republic.

After Luo Khan died of illness in the Eastern Turkic Republic, his younger brother Ashinaduo became Jie Li Khan, and his descendant Princess Yicheng of the Sui Dynasty was his wife. Jie Li Khan first inherited the foundation of his father and brother, and his troops were strong. He led 300,000 soldiers who controlled the strings to break through the pass and destroy the Tang Dynasty. Like the Xianbei Tuoba tribe, he entered the Central Plains and drank horses and the Yellow River.

However, as the war between the Tang Dynasty and the Xia Kingdom quickly became fierce, especially Dou Jiande and Li Yuan fought together to unite the world to fight against the Turkic banner, which made Jie Li Khan feel embarrassed.

Although the Turks were cruel, they carefully calculated that since the founding of the Great Sui Dynasty, Yang Jian, Yang Wen and Yang Su had fought three times in the northern expeditions. In fact, the Turks had a strong fear of the Central Plains, and they robbed the northern borders. The Turks had no objection, but once they were serious, they wanted to destroy China and annex the Central Plains, they would not have the confidence.

The population is also a flaw. Although the Turks spanned more than 17,000 miles and more than 7,000 miles north and south, and had such a huge territory, the population was only more than 1.2 million (When Jie Li died, he either went to Xueyantuo or entered the Western Regions, and there were more than 100,000 surrenders. In that year, more than 1200,000 Chinese people returned from outside the border and opened four barbarians to counties.) Although Jie Li Khan now controls more than 300,000 soldiers and horses, in fact, more than 200,000 of them were soldiers and horses of various tribes that surrendered outside the Turkic tent, including Xueyantuo, Tielle, Tiefo, Xi, Khitan and other tribes.

In the end, Ashinaduo fell into Li Tang's trick and decided to sit in the mountains and watch the tiger fight. When the Tang and Xia Kingdom were both in the defeat, they went south to the Central Plains. However, the change was too fast. When the Turks were grazing leisurely in the north and south of Yinshan, the battle of Tang and Xia ended. Dou Jiande, who had a strong army of 300,000, did not persist for three months, but was defeated and surrendered, and the 39 prefectures in Hebei also surrendered to Li Tang.

The Xia Kingdom was destroyed, but Li Tang seemed to have not been damaged. Not only did he not hurt his vitality, but his strength seemed to have increased a lot, which made Jie Li Khan very depressed. Especially in the Battle of Hebei, the combat power of the troops led by Chen Ying brought great shock to Jie Li Khan.

The Xia army soldiers were killed in front of the wall of the cavalry and cavalry under Chen Ying's command, and the fresh lives flew with the earth together with thousands of grass mustards. The Xia army soldiers' desperate howling, painful screams, and the battle more than a year ago, Chen Ying had become a dream demon that could not be removed in Jie Li Khan's heart.

How many people were killed and injured by Chen Ying's hook sickle and cavalry and horse hooves? Jie Li Khan naturally had no time to care about it. He sent him to Liu Heita's army to observe the battle of Tangxia and was familiar with the tactics of the Tang army, but the elites who were familiar with the tactics of the Tang army were actually scared to death by more than a dozen people.

These people are outstanding children of the Ashin family or the Anad family. They are all promising children of heaven and none of them are good at all, but they are scared crazy.

Jie Li Khan finally realized that this time was different from the past. In the past, he didn't have to fight at all. He just pretended to be like I was going to break into Guanzhong and could get what he wanted outside the battlefield. Gone are the era when he got what he wanted.

If you want to drink horses and the Yellow River, it is probably hanging. If you want to drink horses and the Yellow River, you must destroy the Li Tang court. Not to mention the sixteen guards of the Tang Dynasty, even a Chen Ying's cavalry army would be enough to give you a headache.

After dinner, Jie Li Khan faced his stepmother, sister-in-law, and now Princess Ke Dun Yicheng, very frankly and bachelor-in-law: "The strength of the Tang Kingdom is far stronger than what we calculated. This time we miscalculated. Dou Jiande's 300,000 army did not last for three months. Our 300,000 soldiers... may not be able to gain any advantage!"

Princess Yicheng smiled bitterly and said, "This time I was too careless. I was fooled by Li Yuan, the common man. Tang State is not like the past. They are not like Liang State in Liang Shidu, Qin State in Xue Ju, and Tianxing State in Liu Wuzhou. Li Tang will never bow to our Turkic Khan like them and ask for it. We underestimated the shamelessness of Li Yuan's old man and underestimated Chen Ying's ability. We were wrong from the beginning. We should not worry about losses. We should have been to Guanzhong at all costs..."

"Oh... what's the use of saying this now?" Jie Lihe Khan sighed and said, "The most important thing now is, what should we do? If we defeat this time, Ben Khan will definitely not be able to explain to the Khan nobles..."

"There is no other way to think about it, so we can only do our best!" Princess Yicheng shouted with murderous aura: "The whole army goes south and defeats Li Tang's arrogant arrogance. Otherwise, when Li Tang gains a foothold, our interests in the Central Plains will definitely be greatly affected."

Jie Li Khan and Princess Yicheng finally reached a consensus. There was no way. Who made Princess Yicheng not just Ke Dun? The four major Ye Hushang twelve khans in the Eastern Turks, and Princess Yicheng mastered one-third of them. Without Princess Yicheng's support, if Jie Li Khan wanted to play big moves, there would be no chance or possibility.

At this time, more than 300,000 troops gathered in Dingxiang, only one line away from Taiyuan, Shuozhou and Yanmen to the south. If you go south with your efforts, with the remaining troops of Li Tang in Shuozhou and Taiyuan, you will definitely have no chance to block the Turkic invasion.

Just when Jie Li Khan was in high spirits and was about to be the second Emperor Daowu of Northern Wei.

"kill……"

A fierce shout of killing came outside Dingxiang City. In the dark night, a fire dragon swept across Dingxiang City from the northwest. After a brief surprise, Jie Li Khan realized and quickly sent someone to check what was going on.

But the result made Jie Li Khan laugh and cry.

The son of Chuluo Khan, his eldest nephew, Ashina Aoshish, actually led his troops to rebel. Aoshish was one of the twelve Turkic Khans. He had more than 16,000 elite soldiers in his headquarters. Aoshish was dissatisfied with Princess Yicheng's assistance to Duo, but was unwilling to assist him. He had long been hated. So he took advantage of the Turkic fear of the Tang army and spread among the Turkic people that "Tang people are invincible. Duo wants to use the sword of the Tang Dynasty to kill Yi Yi. It is inevitable that he was killed by Duo, but he doesn't know who the next unlucky person is.

Under the instigation of AoShishi, some Turkic tribes who did not know the truth also joined the AoShishishi camp and challenged Jie Li Khan.

The battle began suddenly and ended quickly. The Ao Shooting took the initiative, which indeed brought some chaos to Xiangcheng. In this battle, the two sides suffered at least 30,000 casualties, almost 90,000 of which were Turkic troops, but vassal tribes.
Chapter completed!