Standalone Northern and Southern Dynasties

Chapter 504: Their respective struggles

After Su He entered Pingcheng, he was not treated coldly.

There was no way. Goguryeo was now in a weak period in history and was seriously internally divided. What's more, most importantly, when King Anzang of Goryeo inherited the throne, he accepted the edict of the young emperor Yuanxu, and Suhe was Yuanxu's envoy. Naturally, Goguryeo had to welcome Suhe as it treated its suzerain state.

Su He checked into a hotel specially designed to entertain foreign envoys. However, in Su He's opinion, this hotel was very simple. Looking at the food brought to him by the skinny servants, Su He had no intention of swallowing it.

He could only give all the meals to the servants serving in the reception hall, while he and his entourage ate the food they brought with them.

Unexpectedly, these servants actually thanked Su He profusely. After conversation, Su He realized that these servants in the guesthouse were all civilians captured near the government office. They were forced to work here and were also required to use their own property to support the envoys.

When Su He heard that this was all learned from Nan Liang, he could only spit. This Bodhisattva Emperor of Nan Liang really did a lot of harm to people!

King Anjang was in poor health, so the Goguryeo court sent his younger brother Baoyan as a full-power envoy to meet with Suhe.

After a day of conversation, Su He had a general understanding of the top leaders of Goguryeo.

To put it simply, they are - "no clue".

Even though he had become so rotten, he still acted like the overlord of Liaodong and asked Su He for a title.

Baoyan made a huge request, demanding that Emperor Yuanxu, who was controlled by Su Ze, enthrone his brother as the King of Joseon, that is, the king of the entire Korean Peninsula.

Today is the Three Kingdoms era on the Korean Peninsula. Baekje and Silla are competing for hegemony, and Goguryeo is demanding the right to claim the entire Korean Peninsula.

This was naturally unacceptable to any dynasty in the Central Plains. Silla and Baekje were originally securities supported by the Central Plains in order to balance Goguryeo. In the later Tang Dynasty, they were important springboards and bridgeheads for attacking Goguryeo.

In addition to the enthronement, Goguryeo also asked for food and weapons, and even required Su Ze to recruit 5,000 craftsmen to come to Korea.

The most outrageous thing is that Baoyan also asked to marry the princess of Wei!
Su He wanted to curse loudly, "Why don't you take a piss and see what you look like? You actually want to marry the princess of Wei?"
Given the current situation of Goguryeo, why would you ask to marry the princess of Wei?
At the same time, the envoy sent by Gao Huan, Hu Sichun, also entered the territory of Goguryeo, and ministers from another faction within Goguryeo also welcomed Hu Sichun.

When Hu Sichun heard that Yuwen Tai's envoy had arrived in Pingcheng before him, he immediately sent someone to report to Gao Huan, agreed to various conditions proposed by the Goguryeo envoy, and then rushed to Pingcheng on horseback.

Hu Sichun's idea was very simple. He must rush to Pingcheng as soon as possible, sign a treaty with Goguryeo, and then kill Yuwen Tai's envoy to force Goguryeo to stand on his side.
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Ten days later, Yuwen Tai met the messenger sent back by Su He.

Yuwen Tai immediately unfolded the map, which was compiled by Su Ze himself, copied by the painter of the Duke's Mansion, and drawn on silk. It was named "Complete Map of the World" by Duke Su.

No one knows how Duke Su, who grew up in Luoyang, was able to draw this map. The map not only includes Goguryeo and Japan, but also the terrain of the South Sea countries.

It is said that Bodhidharma, who once crossed the sea, had also seen this map, and he confirmed the route he took from the map.

The description of Goguryeo in "Complete Map of the World" is more detailed than any historical book of the Northern Wei Dynasty.

The beach where Su He landed was also named "Incheon" by Lord Su and was marked as a key point.

In fact, if we calculate the distance from the sea, North Korea is really very close to the Central Plains.

It is easy to reach port cities such as Incheon by crossing the sea from Liaodong.

In the later Tang Dynasty, the route that the Japanese Kingdom often took when sending envoys to the Tang Dynasty was to go from the Sea of ​​Japan to Siberia, then go around the Korean Peninsula along the continental shelf, reach the port of Liaodong, and then go to Chang'an City, the center of the world.

Moreover, this section of the sea is relatively calm. During the Tang Dynasty's war to conquer Goguryeo, a general once proposed to cross the sea and take Pyongyang directly, but was rejected by Li Shimin, who sought stability.

In short, crossing the sea to fight was feasible in this era, and according to the intelligence sent by Su He, Pingcheng, as the capital of Goguryeo, had short city walls and very weak defenses.

Yuwen Tai was moved.

A famous general is one who can seize the opportunity quickly after discovering it.

Everyone can fight a war in a conventional way, but breaking out of the original framework is something that not ordinary people can do.

After all, if you do things according to the original old rules, making mistakes can be said to be due to institutional inertia. As long as you follow the rules, there will be no problem.

But if you want to break away from your original way of thinking, you have to take full responsibility.

For Yuwen Tai, Duke Su's order was to defend Shanhaiguan. If Gao Huan allied with Goguryeo, the worst that could happen was that he would ask for help from Murong Shaozong in the rear.

However, if they really crossed the sea to fight, first of all, there would be risks in crossing the sea to fight. If they encountered wind and waves, they might be wiped out. If they failed to capture Pingcheng after crossing the sea and failed to control the Goguryeo royal family, causing Goguryeo to turn to Khitan, that would be another layer of risk.

Those inspectors were not pushovers. Many important officials were impeached by them. Even Yu Jin and Hou Jing were caught by them for some faults and were finally punished by Su Ze with fines.

If you win the war, there will be no problem. But if you lose the war, you will not be able to escape the charge of "provoking border conflicts" for the sake of military merit.

But after thinking for an hour behind closed doors, Yuwen Tai made his own choice.

He called his deputy general and handed over the military affairs of Shanhaiguan to him. He also asked his nephew Yuwen Hu to go to Ji County, the capital of Youzhou, to explain his plan to Murong Shaozong in person and ask him to send more troops to Shanhaiguan.

Yuwen Tai assembled a thousand elite soldiers and three hundred war horses, and requisitioned all the ships that could go out to sea in the entire Liaodong region. He also hastily completed the two large sea ships that were still under construction in the dock and launched them into the water. Loading the thousand men and three hundred horses, he crossed the sea directly to Pingcheng without even taking heavy armor!
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Sichuan.

After capturing Baidi City, Hou Jing moved his military governor's office back to Chengdu.

Although Hou Jing also wanted to continue attacking Kuimen and gain control of the Three Gorges, after more than half a year of continuous fighting, Yizhou had run out of food.

Why were wars in the classical era often fought like a turn-based system, where one side always had the upper hand and would stop and wait for the other side to make a move? This is because the total amount of food and the rate of output in the agricultural era were fixed, and could not support any force to wage continuous wars.

The cost of tens of thousands of troops was enormous, and Yizhou and Guanzhong were separated by the Shu Road, and Hanzhong had no food to support Hou Jing.

It can even be said that the reason why Hou Jing was able to fight for so long was all thanks to Southern Liang, because he captured Chengdu so quickly that Xiao Ji was unable to take away the wealth he had plundered, and it all went to Hou Jing.

Even so, all the accumulation of Xiao Ji over the past few years was consumed by Hou Jing in just half a year.

The war had reached this point, so Hou Jing left Yang Jia to guard Baidi City and returned to Chengdu with his army.

Chengdu was already a bit hot and humid in June, but when the news of Hou Jing's triumphant return was heard, long queues still formed outside the city. Officials and gentry in Chengdu stood respectfully on both sides of the road outside the city, waiting for Hou Jing's triumphant team under the sun.

In fact, Hou Jing easily captured Chengdu City, and the people in the city were dissatisfied with Hou Jing.

The surprise attack on Yinping was a deadly move, just like what Deng Ai did back then. In fact, the team was already exhausted after crossing the mountains and their combat effectiveness was limited.

If Xiao Ji hadn't been so weak, Hou Jing would not have been able to capture Chengdu so easily.

So when Hou Jing took control of Chengdu, these officials and gentry adopted an uncooperative attitude. Many officials went into hiding, and even those who remained in office did not put in any effort.

At that time, when people in Chengdu talked about Hou Jing, they all referred to that rough northerner with a pointed chin and monkey cheeks, and jokes about Hou Jing were flying everywhere.

But at that time Hou Jing was busy fighting in Ba County and had no time to deal with these officials in Chengdu. As long as they did not cause trouble and maintained public order in the rear, Hou Jing would just hold his nose and endure it.

After Hou Jing suppressed the Liao rebellion in Ba County, changes took place in the city of Chengdu.

At this time, a group of scholars who had graduated from Chongwen Pavilion had also entered Yizhou. They quickly filled the vacancies and, with the help of the accompanying officials, quickly took control of the place.

At this time, some former officials and gentry in Chengdu began to panic. They had been fearless because Hou Jing needed them to be responsible for the rear, so they still tolerated them.

But now they found that Guanzhong had no shortage of grassroots officials capable of governing the area, and even these outsiders had begun to compete for the jobs of local people in Yizhou. They finally began to panic.

Hou Jing's series of military victories in Yizhou made these big families dare not rebel against Hou Jing.

After all, the so-called gentry were not actually a closely-knit interest group, and their organizational capabilities were even worse than those of the peasant army.

There is no way. The gentry is a group that unites for the sake of interests. They may reach a consensus on certain things, but when it comes to specific issues, they are powerless against power.

It can even be said that the gentry themselves were also competing for precious opportunities to enter officialdom. In times of chaos, they were also busy seeking to join future wise leaders. Faced with a situation like Hou Jing, it was impossible for them to form a team and rebel.

Hou Jing was also sure of this group of people, so he dared to appoint officials without fear.

These people were also despicable, and Hou Jing treated them in the same way. However, they began to respect Hou Jing instead. Many nobles in Chengdu began to write poems to praise Hou Jing.

By the time Hou Jing defeated Wang Sengbian, the public opinion in Chengdu had completely changed.

(End of this chapter)