My father, Li Shimin, please call me Crown Prince

Chapter 339 How Can the Prince Be So Strong?
"Brother, it's never too late to mend your ways."

"Brother, please tie yourself up and plead guilty. I believe that the emperor will be lenient."

Naturally, Li Zhi could not be persuaded.

His goal is to emulate the Xuanwu Gate built by his father.

Even if he had hesitated before, when he saw this situation, he had already made up his mind and it was impossible to be shaken.

After saying this, Li Zhi's eyes also became sharp.

"Well done, young slave."

Li Tai laughed loudly, then looked at Li Chengqian and said, "Brother, please stop struggling in vain."

"From the moment you entered the city, everything has been settled."

Li Chengqian shook his head slightly: "Qingque, do you think you can defeat me?"

After saying this, Li Chengqian picked up the longbow from his side and said, "You are about 180 steps away from me now."

"Within a hundred steps, I will shoot you dead. The next hundred and eighty steps will depend on your luck."

Before he could finish his words, when Li Chengqian picked up the longbow, Li Tai quickly turned his horse around and retreated, and the guards beside him immediately stepped forward to block it with their bodies.

Li Chengqian's archery skills are terrifying.

Li Tai had neglected this point before. When he saw Li Chengqian's memory of dying with a bow, he immediately woke up and was almost scared to death.

If he was shot on the spot, he would really have nothing left.

Li Zhi, who was standing next to him, also had his pupils constricted and subconsciously retreated quickly, while his bodyguards also rushed forward.

Both of them hid behind the guards and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hahaha."

"I thought you were so brave, but you are nothing more than this."

Li Chengqian laughed sarcastically.

At a distance of one hundred and eighty steps, Li Chengqian's archery skills were not so outrageous. The main reason was that it required time to aim, so it was difficult to kill directly.

The purpose of taking out the bow is to break their morale.

This gives them more advantages in the ensuing fight.

In a sense, Li Tai and Li Zhi were the main generals.

A raging soldier, and a raging nest.

On the battlefield, once the commander shows weakness, the morale of his soldiers will naturally drop.

Sure enough, seeing that the King of Wei and the King of Jin were extremely frightened, the soldiers under their command also showed deep fear of the prince who was holding a strong bow.

Li Tai gritted his teeth and roared at the soldiers behind him: "Hold still! How dare you be scared like this by a mere bow!"

However, there was still a hint of panic in his voice that tried to be calm.

Li Zhi also forced himself to remain calm and shouted to his soldiers: "Don't be fooled by the prince's bluffing."

"It is a fact that the Crown Prince has started a rebellion. Today we are fighting for the Tang Dynasty."

The two were really worried.

For the soldiers, whether they were the Jinwu Guards or the guards under the command of Prince of Wei Li Tai, it was naturally impossible for them to rebel.

If it is a rebellion, then we definitely cannot follow suit.

My family and clansmen are all in Chang'an.

Li Tai and Li Zhi told their subordinates that they were the righteous side and that Crown Prince Li Chengqian was the one who was plotting a rebellion.

Everyone firmly believes in these things.

After all, the prince had his own troops in Luoyang and the imperial army was defeated, so this news was no secret.

Now they pretended to welcome the prince into the city, but in fact they ambushed and captured the prince.

From the perspective of the soldiers under the King of Wei and the King of Jin, this is correct.

Li Chengqian did not have these worries.

Because most of his subordinates were from Liaodong, whether the prince was rebelling or doing something else, they would just follow him.

"Li Chengqian!"

When Li Tai saw the soldiers under Li Chengqian's command, he suddenly remembered something.

"How dare you collude with foreign nations and bring the Liaodong foreigners to bully our Tang soldiers!"

This was not discovered by Li Tai, but by Chai Lingwu.

Chai Lingwu was thoughtful and carefully observed the soldiers under Li Chengqian, and found that they obeyed his orders.

However, although they look the same as the people of the Tang Dynasty, they are actually different.

Everyone knew that there were people from Liaodong under Li Chengqian's command, but they did not expect that most of the 1,000 soldiers he brought in were from Liao.

This was an opportunity, Chai Lingwu quickly realized.

An opportunity to boost the morale of your men.

Sure enough, when the Tang soldiers heard that most of the soldiers under Li Chengqian were Liao people, they immediately looked at it carefully.

'That's true.'

'He is from Liao.'

"I've seen it. Koreans are like that."

"Are all the people under the Crown Prince's command barbarians?"

The Tang Dynasty did not exclude foreigners, but the prince's personal guards were all foreigners.

What does it mean.

Is this still the crown prince of their Tang Dynasty?

For a time, the crowd was excited and morale was high.

This gave Li Tai and Li Zhi a boost in confidence.

The reason for this is that for a group of a hundred or more people, when the physical fitness and armaments of the soldiers are not much different and the disparity is not that great, morale is the most important thing.

Morale is all about fighting spirit.

In later generations, the Central Plains could use one punch to avoid a hundred punches, and that was all based on fighting spirit.

Combat with cold weapons is even more demanding.

"joke!"

Li Chengqian sneered and shouted, "I am the crown prince, and now I am in the city to supervise the country. All the officials in the court have recognized me. This is the ancestral system of the Tang Dynasty. If you accuse me of treason, do you have the evidence of the court officials and the imperial edict of your majesty?"

"According to Tang Dynasty law, I am the crown prince, and when I am regent, I am equivalent to a saint."

"You are blocking us in the street, are you planning a rebellion?"

After hearing this, the morale of the two men suddenly dropped.

Yes, the Crown Prince is the regent, which is equivalent to His Majesty.

The King of Wei and the King of Jin did not issue any imperial edicts, and no one in the court said anything, so were their actions right or wrong?

Who is the real rebel?
Seeing this, Li Yifu hurriedly said to Li Zhi: "Prince Jin, the advantage is on my side, I can't say more to the crown prince."

"Strike first is the strongest."

Li Zhi nodded immediately and ordered, "Who is right and who is wrong? Wait until the emperor wakes up and he will make the final decision."

"All the generals, listen to my orders and arrest those who are colluding with foreign nations to commit treason."

Li Tai also realized that he could not get any good out of his verbal attacks, so he immediately issued an order: "Catch the traitor and hand him over to the saint for judgment."

Li Tai and the King of Wei had the advantage of more people, and under the order, they immediately charged into Li Chengqian's army.

In fact, the normal way is to use a strong crossbow to defeat the enemy first.

But this didn't mean much to Li Chengqian's cavalry.

Because the cavalry were all iron cavalry and their horses were covered with armor, the powerful crossbows and projectiles did not cause much damage to the iron cavalry.

The other thing is that the distance is too close. If the enemy cavalry charges, the crossbow will be useless. "General Su, defeat the enemy."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Su Dingfang bowed and shouted: "Shenwu Army, follow the prince's orders and follow me to defeat the enemy!"

At the command, the Shenwu Army cavalry immediately began to prepare for the charge.

Li Tai and Li Zhi also had a lot of cavalry, about two thousand in number.

Seeing that the Shenwu Army cavalry began to charge, the Tang Dynasty cavalry also prepared to charge.

As for battlefield command, Li Tai and Li Zhi had some trouble controlling it. After all, they were not good at commanding troops in battle.

This is nothing, after all, isn’t that what the prince does too?

The cavalry clash is always the most tragic scene.

At the order, the cavalry on both sides immediately charged.

The Jinwu Guard Cavalry and the Wei Wang Palace Guard Cavalry are both elite cavalry of the Tang Dynasty.

The cavalry teams of both sides collided violently like two turbulent rivers.

The spears thrust out and the sound of chopping and killing was endless.

A Shenwu Army cavalryman thrust his spear fiercely at a Jinwu Guard cavalryman, who dodged to the side, and the spear rubbed against his armor, sparks flying. The Jinwu Guard cavalryman took the opportunity to draw his sword and slashed at the Shenwu Army cavalryman, who reacted quickly and blocked the attack with his spear.

The figures of war horses were crisscrossed. Some were stabbed, neighing in pain and falling, throwing off the riders on their backs.

Some riders were hacked to death, their bodies falling from their horses and instantly being trampled by horses’ hooves, blood splattering on the ground and on the armor of the soldiers on both sides.

This is a real bloody battle, a fight to the death.

Blood spurted everywhere, and life was the cheapest at this moment.

Every moment, there is a lot of death.

Seeing this cruel scene, Li Zhi's face turned pale. This was the first time he faced the bloodiness of war.

The air smelled of death.

After all, he had never seen it before, and the intensity was high at the beginning, which made Li Zhi feel very uncomfortable and even a little dazed.

Li Tai felt much better, after all, he had been to the Liaodong battlefield and had experienced it once.

Li Chengqian had a calm expression and sharp eyes as he watched the situation on the battlefield closely.

The advantage in numbers is not very friendly to Li Chengqian. The combat power of the elite troops of the Tang Dynasty is top-notch in this era.

The individual combat effectiveness of the Shenwu Army is not bad. These one thousand soldiers are the best of the best. However, when the opponent is strong and there are too many of them, it will be difficult to fight.

Seeing this, Li Chengqian decisively took the full moon longbow and shot the arrow out at high speed.

A Lieutenant General of the Jinwu Guard who was fighting against Shenwu had not yet reacted when an arrow pierced his shoulder, and the huge force caused him to fall off his horse.

In a cavalry battle, falling off the horse means death. Before he could make any move, the cavalry of the Shenwu Army saw an opportunity and immediately stabbed him in the chest with a spear.

The Lieutenant General of the Jinwu Guard opened his eyes wide, his face full of surprise and resentment.

With the death of this General, the surrounding cavalry also fell into panic.

This is their chief.

But this is just the beginning.

Li Chengqian bent his bow and drew his arrow again and again, and people were either shot directly to death or pierced through the body.

This is the archer's dominance on the battlefield.

Li Chengqian's move was even more terrifying.

Because this was a melee, the cavalry of both sides had already collided with each other and fought, but Li Chengqian was still able to find gaps in the fight to shoot and kill.

In most cases, archers dare not shoot arrows in melee combat, as this may easily injure friendly forces by mistake.

But Li Chengqian dared to do it.

Suddenly, the situation on the battlefield changed.

The Jinwu Guards and the guards of the Prince of Wei's Palace all had to pay some attention to the Crown Prince, and some even subconsciously wanted to stay away from him. No one wanted to be shot to death like this.

Moreover, Li Chengqian always picked out officers to shoot, and every time he shot an officer, it would cause a small riot.

For soldiers, they all obey their immediate superiors.

It was normal for Shangguan to be confused for a while after being shot.

Mid-level officers are the backbone of the army.

How can you exert strength if there is a problem with your skeleton?

In this chaotic and bloody battlefield, Li Chengqian's magic arrows were like the summons of the god of death. Every time the bowstring sounded, an enemy officer fell.

The cavalry teams of the Jinwu Guards and the Wei Wang Palace Guards began to show obvious chaos. Fear was revealed in the eyes of the soldiers, and their movements were no longer as uniform as at the beginning.

However, the cavalry under Li Tai and Li Zhi were the elite of the Tang Dynasty after all. After a brief panic, they began to reorganize their defense line.

A lieutenant of the Jinwu Guard shouted loudly, gathering the soldiers around him and trying to stabilize the situation: "Don't be afraid! The prince is alone, how many arrows can he shoot? Kill him hard, this is the time to make a contribution!"

Under his encouragement, a part of the cavalry regained their spirits, brandished their weapons, and launched a more fierce counterattack against the Shenwu Army's cavalry.

Li Tai and Li Zhi seemed a little anxious, but they didn't know what orders they should give.

At the same time, the infantry on the battlefield also engaged in fierce fighting.

Although the Shenwu Army only has one thousand cavalrymen, each of them is well-equipped and has high morale.

On the other hand, Li Tai and Li Zhi had more than 2,000 cavalry and about 4,000 infantry, and had an absolute advantage in military strength.

However, the Shenwu Army Cavalry demonstrated amazing coordination capabilities under the combat system carefully constructed by middle-level officers in the Martial Arts Hall.

As soon as the two sides came into contact, the Shenwu Army cavalry did not charge blindly, but quickly changed into a wedge formation under the precise commands of the squad leaders.

This formation was like an extremely sharp spear, piercing directly into the junction of the enemy's cavalry and infantry.

When dealing with enemy infantry, the Shenwu Army cavalry fully utilized its mobility advantage.

Bypass the enemy infantry's front line of defense, quickly penetrate from the flank, and launch a surprise attack on the enemy infantry.

The cavalrymen were in a superior position, stabbing the enemy infantry with their spears, or wielding their long swords and chopping at the enemy's heads and shoulders.

The enemy infantry were thrown into chaos by the sudden attack of the Shenwu Army cavalry.

In this brutal battle, every soldier is fighting for his beliefs and survival.

The situation on the battlefield changes rapidly, and both sides are constantly adjusting their tactics in an attempt to gain the upper hand.

However, even though the military strength was weak, as time went on, the Shenwu Army gradually took control of the battlefield rhythm.

This involves the cutting and interweaving of the battlefield.

Li Chengqian's one thousand cavalrymen were divided into ten groups of one hundred.

In addition to those in direct confrontation, other cavalrymen strictly followed the cutting tactics they learned in the martial arts hall to divide the entire battlefield into several small battlefields.

Coupled with the high mobility of the cavalry, the troops of the King of Wei and the King of Jin could not be organized effectively.

If an officer of the Shenwu Army was killed, a deputy captain would immediately take over.

But the King of Wei and the King of Jin did not have these preparations.

Moreover, the guards of Prince Wei's Palace and the Jinwu Guards belong to two different gangs and are not familiar with each other. There is a big gap in their coordination compared with the Shenwu Army.

"how so."

"It's obvious that we have more soldiers and horses."

Li Tai and Li Zhi were somewhat incredulous.

Even if one does not understand much about war, one can see that the current situation shows that they are gradually losing.

The prince was able to defeat the strong with only a thousand soldiers.

This is a head-on confrontation.

Under their command are the elite troops of the Tang Dynasty.

(End of this chapter)