My father, Li Shimin, please call me Crown Prince

Chapter 370 King Wei: I also inform on you

The Mansion of the General of the Right Jinwu Guard.

Returning to this office again, Li Zhi felt many emotions.

The idea of requesting to be a vassal was his own, but it was also thanks to Mei Niang's reminder.

It is very important for Li Zhi to be able to control the Jinwu Guard again.

Military power is an indispensable part of the fight for succession.

Today the Crown Prince is so powerful that sometimes even my father has to give way to him.

After all, it was brought by the 30,000 Shenwu Army in Chang'an City.

Since ancient times, which prince could rebel like my eldest brother?

They have already launched an attack on the city, but now they are just acting like nothing happened.

The edict deposing the crown prince listed all the ten major crimes of the crown prince.

The results of it.

It’s not the restoration of the crown prince’s position.

He then returned to Chang'an City to supervise the country.

It seems incredible, but in fact it is just the emperor's helpless compromise.

Even if we seize the Daming Palace, my father will just watch.

"Prince Jin, it is said that Lu Tong went to Daming Palace."

"It seems that this guy has gone to seek refuge with the Crown Prince again. I heard that after coming out of Daming Palace, Lu Tong called a lot of his brothers to drink and looked very happy. Maybe the Crown Prince accepted his refuge again?"

"I really don't understand how a person like the Crown Prince could tolerate such a villain."

Li Yifu said somewhat indignantly.

At the beginning, if it weren't for Lu Tong, they would have been able to mobilize more Jinwu Guards.

Lu Tong has been in the Jinwu Guard for many years and has recruited many talented people.

If Lu Tong had wholeheartedly assisted Prince Jin, he might have been able to capture the crown prince on Suzaku Street.

After all, the prince also had such concerns, so he arranged Du He to carry out the destruction.

Although he had some distrust, Lu Tong did not make any explanation for it.

Li Zhi's good mood worsened a bit after hearing this.

"Forget it, leave him alone. I think the prince is just taking advantage of him by doing this."

"This is an opportunity to take away my military power."

Li Zhi was somewhat helpless about this matter because he had no way to face the prince directly.

For the time being, I can only compromise and turn a blind eye to Lu Tong's affairs.

It was at this time that a servant from the mansion came to report.

The Prince of Wei’s Palace sent an invitation.

Li Zhi frowned: "An invitation from the Prince of Wei's Mansion?"

I took it and saw that it was an invitation to a dinner party tonight.

"Yifu, please take a look at this post."

Li Zhi pushed the gilded invitation across the sandalwood table. "The King of Wei suddenly held a banquet to congratulate me on my reinstatement. It's clear that he has other intentions."

Li Yifu said decisively: "No banquet is good, it seems that the King of Wei has some doubts."

Li Zhi knew that this was about informing on the King of Wei.

The Prince of Wei must have many spies in the palace, so the fact that he was going to meet his father could not be concealed.

I just don't know how much the King of Wei knows.

If he didn't go, the King of Wei would suspect him of being a snitch.

If I go, I'd be like a sheep walking into a tiger's mouth.

"Prince Jin cannot go."

Li Yifu advised: "The King of Wei's invitation to the banquet must be a test. If he really knew, he would not do this."

"So if the King of Jin doesn't go, the King of Wei can only be suspicious."

Li Zhi nodded: "So the King of Wei invited me to the banquet just to force me to reveal my true colors. But he doesn't know that at this moment, his own feet have already stepped into the quagmire?"

Li Yifu smiled and said, "Prince Jin is wise."

Li Zhi thought for a moment and asked, "How should I respond?"

Li Yifu thought for a while and said, "The King of Jin said that he had caught a cold and was feeling unwell, and he also gave him some snow ginseng slices from the Western Regions as tribute, with gold edges, to imply that the King of Jin had nothing to do with the Western Turks."

"In this way, even if the King of Wei is suspicious, it will only be suspicion."

Li Zhi nodded: "Okay, let's do it."
-
Prince Wei's Mansion.

Li Tai looked at the reply in his hand, his face so gloomy that it looked like water was about to drip out of it.

"What a sickly young slave!"

"Yesterday I was kneeling in the Taiji Palace to thank my father for his grace, but today I caught a cold? Do you think I'm a three-year-old child?"

Chai Lingwu said: "King Wei, calm down. If King Jin really did something wrong, he should come to the banquet openly. The more he evades, the more it shows that he has something to hide."

Li Tai turned around abruptly: "You mean, he really told on me?"

Chai Lingwu affirmed: "Nine out of ten."

Li Tai suddenly panicked.

"If the emperor really knows about this, then I..."

He knew very well what it would mean if his father knew that he was colluding with the Turks.

From now on, he will no longer have the chance to become the crown prince.

But I didn't expect that I would be betrayed by Zhinu.

Chai Lingwu comforted him, "King Wei, please do not lose your composure."

"Let's take a step back and say, even if Prince Jin informed on the matter, what evidence can he produce?"

"You are slandering me out of thin air?"

"No one can provide evidence that the King of Wei is colluding with the Turks, so it is obviously not true."

Li Tai frowned: "What about Cui Wenxin? If he is caught, he will betray me."

Chai Lingwu smiled faintly: "Since Cui Wenxin prepared to do this, his fate is destined to follow his brother's old path and commit suicide to thank the world."

Li Tai asked again: "That Turkic envoy?"

Chai Lingwu said: "Of course I won't leave anyone alive."

Li Tai felt relieved immediately after hearing this.

Even if my father had some guesses, they were just guesses. Without real evidence, who could prove that he was colluding with the Turks?

Chai Lingwu suggested again: "King Wei, if you want to completely cut off ties, there is actually another plan."

Li Tai asked, "Tell me quickly."

Chai Lingwu smiled mysteriously: "A few days ago, I heard that the Cui family of Qinghe sent a lot of food and grass to the Turks. If the King of Wei tells your Majesty about this, I think your Majesty will no longer doubt the King of Wei."

Li Tai frowned and asked, "What do the Cui family of Qinghe think about this?"

"After all, they have supported me for so many years. If they stab me in the back, it will affect my reputation."

The Five Surnames and Seven Families were the foundation of the Wei Wang Party, which was tantamount to cutting themselves down.

Chai Lingwu said, "Of course, this needs the consent of the Cui family of Qinghe." "I think they are smart people, they will definitely agree."

"The matter of colluding with the Turks is too serious. It is almost impossible to completely hide it from Your Majesty. The Qinghe Cui family has many members, so they have naturally prepared scapegoats long ago."

"I'm going to die anyway, why not take on more?"

Li Tai's eyes lit up: "Good idea."

"Tomorrow morning, I will go to see my father."
-
On the tenth day of the tenth month in the nineteenth year of Zhenguan, on the wilderness outside Shuozhou City, the iron hooves of the Turkic cavalry crushed the morning frost.

Three thousand elite Tang troops formed a neat square formation, their bright armor formed a silver wall under the morning sun, and their Mo Daos pointed obliquely at the sky like a forest.

The leading commander, Wang Zhong, stood with his spear in hand, the Turkic scout's head poised on the tip of his spear still dripping with blood.

"Report!" Scouts came running from behind.

"Five thousand enemy cavalry were spotted in the northwest, and another three thousand in the south!"

Wang Zhong gripped the gun tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force.

He looked back at his brothers behind him.

Three thousand men had to stop the charge of more than ten thousand cavalrymen, which was a deadly situation. But he remembered Li Jing's advice before he left: "Delaying the main force of the Turks is to buy a way out for the people of Hedong."

Chuli Teqin reined in his horse and laughed loudly in Turkish: "The Tang people are indeed cowards, they only dare to hide in their turtle shells!"

He waved the wolf-head flag, and twenty light cavalry rushed out of the formation, stopped abruptly twenty steps in front of the Tang army formation, cut off heads with scimitars and threw them into the square formation. The heads rolled in the bushes of Modao, startling the crows.

"You bastard!" Li Zhu, the swordsman in the front row, shouted angrily and swung his sword, splitting the flying head in half.

There was still a gap on his arm armor from the battle with the Turks yesterday, which was paid for with the lives of three brothers.

"Ugh——!"

The Turkic horns sounded, and without any unnecessary nonsense, the first wave of charge began.

Five thousand cavalrymen formed a wedge formation, with scimitars raised like a forest, and the dust raised by their iron hooves covered the sky.

"Raise your shields!" Wang Zhong shouted. Three thousand large shields instantly closed together, forming an impenetrable shield wall.

The arrows of the Turkic cavalry made dense muffled sounds on the shield, but they could not penetrate the jujube wood shield wrapped in three layers of cowhide.

Immediately afterwards, there was a charge from the Turkic cavalry.

"Cut off the horse's legs!"

At Wang Zhong's order, a crack suddenly appeared in the shield wall, and fifty rows of Modao soldiers leaned forward one after another, sweeping out with their blades close to the ground.

The Turkic war horses in the front row neighed miserably and fell to their knees. Their bellies were cut open by the sharp Mo Daos, and their riders were thrown to the ground and immediately crushed into meat paste by the following horses' hooves.

The first wave of attacks was repelled, with hundreds of Turkic horse corpses lying on the ground. But there was also a gap in the Tang army's shield wall.

In order to cut off the horses' legs, many Modao soldiers were exposed to the cavalry's attack range, and countless people had their arms chopped off.

Just as the Tang army was reorganizing their formation, a deafening horn sounded suddenly from the northwest. Wang Zhong turned his head and saw two thousand Turkic light cavalry approaching like a dark cloud, with a rain of arrows breaking through the air.

"Scatter!" Before he finished speaking, the shieldmen in the front row had been shot into hedgehogs. One soldier's shield was full of arrows, like a giant porcupine, but he was still roaring: "Son of a bitch! Come down and fight if you dare!"

However, this was just a feint. When the Tang army turned to the northwest, 3,000 Turkic cavalrymen from the south had already launched a surprise attack.

They bypassed the front battlefield and attacked the rear of the Tang army from the flank, where the crossbowmen and baggage soldiers were located.

"Protect the crossbow carts!" Wang Zhong rushed to the rescue with his personal guards, but saw that the Turkic cavalry had already rushed into the crossbow formation.

A Turkic warrior picked up the crossbowman with one hand and threw him alive on the crossbow cart. The wooden crossbow cart was smashed to pieces, and crossbow arrows flew everywhere, some of which actually hit the Tang army's own people.

At the critical moment, Li Zhu arrived with 300 Mo Dao soldiers. They took off their heavy breastplates and wore only light armor, cutting into the enemy formation like the black god of death.

Li Zhu's sword swung in an arc, and the heads of three Turkic cavalrymen fell to the ground at the same time. The blood splattered on his face, which made him smile ferociously: "Come on! Grandpa's sword is not full yet!"

A Turkic noble swung a scimitar and slashed at him. Li Zhu dodged sideways and let the blade slash across the throat of the opponent's horse.

When the warhorse fell to the ground, he jumped up by stepping on the horse's head, cut off the nobleman's scimitar with one blow, and then swung his backhand to kill him.

The crossbowmen in the rear had pulled the crossbow strings to the limit, and with a "buzz" sound, the short crossbows fired a volley, and the Turkic cavalry in the front row were shot off their horses.

But the crossbow had a limited range and was soon approached by the cavalry.

At 3:30 pm, more than half of the Tang army had been killed. Wang Zhong looked at his brothers around him.

Some had broken arms, some were blinded, but they still held their weapons tightly. He drew the sword from his waist and carved the words "fight to the death" on the shield: "Brothers, behind us are the people of Shuozhou City and the direction of Chang'an! Even if there is only one person left, we must stop the Turkic thieves!"

"Fight to the death! Fight to the death!" The last thousand or so Tang soldiers roared in unison, and the sound frightened the Turkic horses.

Li Zhu's Mo Dao had already been blunted, so he pulled out a Turkic scimitar from the corpse and continued fighting.

There was a broken arrow stuck in his left rib, and every breath he took was in excruciating pain, but he still cut down seven enemies.

When the eighth Turkic cavalryman's lance pierced his lower abdomen, he grabbed the opponent's neck with his knife, dragged him off the horse, and used his last bit of strength to bite off the opponent's throat.

As dusk deepened, only about twenty of Wang Zhong's personal guards were left.

He looked toward the western horizon, expecting reinforcements to suddenly appear, but there was nothing but yellow sand all over the sky.

"Captain, the Turks are coming again."

A soldier handed over half a piece of hard bread with blood on it.

Wang Zhong took a bite, and the dry crumbs got stuck in his throat, but he smiled: "That's good, I won't starve to death."

Five thousand Turkic cavalrymen surrounded the remaining Tang army in the center. Wang Zhong ordered the seriously injured to be placed in the middle, and the lightly injured to form the final circle on the periphery.

He raised his bloodstained spear, the Turkic scout's head on the spear tip was unrecognizable: "Brothers, in the next life, we will still be Tang soldiers!"

The answer was the sound of swords and shields clashing. The afterglow of the setting sun shone on the faces of the soldiers, stretching their shadows very long, as if they were a group of war gods about to ascend to heaven.

Chuli Teqin looked at the Tang army surrounded and suddenly felt a little scared.

These Tang people were clearly in a desperate situation, but they still maintained a neat formation, without any fear in their eyes.

He remembered what the elders in his tribe said: "The Han people can never be killed. Fire is hidden in their bones."

"kill!"

He roared and waved the flag, but the moment he shouted the order, he felt a little guilty.

Shuozhou City was broken.

The Turks entered the city.

A Turkish centurion used a lasso to capture a wounded Tang soldier and dragged him behind his horse as he galloped away. The wounded soldier's armor sparked on the gravel and his skin was torn to pieces.

The Turkish cavalrymen burst into laughter and bet with each other on how long the next prisoner could last.

They piled the bodies of the Tang army into a pyramid and placed a wolf-head flag on top. A wizard jumped onto the pile of bodies and drew a spell on the flag with the blood of the Tang soldiers, muttering a curse on the land of the Tang Dynasty.

Meanwhile, the massacre in Shuozhou continued. The Turks drove the people to the square in front of the Chenghuang Temple and chained their ankles together.

A young girl tried to escape, but was picked up by a Turkic soldier with a spear and held high above his head.

Daming Palace.

Li Chengqian looked at the report sent from the front line.

It describes the tragic situation of the Turks entering the Pass.

There are not many words, but each word is precious.

For many people, the Turks' invasion of the country is just a simple matter of four small things.

But Li Chengqian knew that behind these four words were the souls of countless Han people.

A Jingguan is the result of many Han families being torn apart.

"Five surnames and seven families, damn them!"

Li Chengqian's voice was cold and hard.

In a country ruled by aristocratic families, who would care about the survival of the people?

But he cares.