Traveling through Du He, Li Chengqian's rebellion begins

Yan Shigu pointed at a large group of people who were selecting poems and said with a smile: "Du Shaojian is truly vigorous and resolute in his work!"

Except for the young man Du He, all other officials in the Secretariat are old men in Dayan age.

Now with a group of young scholars and apprentices from the Chongwenguan of the Eastern Palace, he felt that the Secretariat was full of vitality.

Yan Shigu then asked curiously, "Du Shaojian, how do you plan to arrange the poems in the 300 Tang Poems?"

"According to the score of the poem?"

In a poetry collection, the order in which the poems are arranged is very important.

The poems placed in front are read by more people and are the most widely circulated.

If the poems placed in the middle or at the end are not particularly outstanding, people who read the collection will probably forget them after just a few glances.

Du He smiled and said, "Master Yan, I plan to divide the poetry collection into three themes: military, scenery, and Mid-Autumn Festival."

“After the poems are selected, they will be placed in the corresponding sections according to their themes.”

"In each section, the poems are ranked in order of their ratings."

Yan Shigu's eyes lit up.

He stroked his beard and nodded, saying, "This is a very good arrangement!"

"With so many people involved in compiling the poetry collection, it won't be long before it's printed."

"Du Shaojian, when the Three Hundred Tang Poems are printed, present the first copy to Your Majesty, and I will take the second copy for my treasured collection."

He didn't dare to compete with His Majesty for the first collection of poems.

Du He nodded: "Of course there is no problem with that."

He changed the subject and said, "But it's a bit monotonous to just print out the poetry collection in such a dry way."

A collection of poems is just one poem after another, which is not very interesting to read.

For someone like him who doesn't like reading, he would probably feel sleepy after reading a few poems.

Yan Shigu frowned slightly and asked curiously, "Du Shaojian, what else do you want to do?"

Du He smiled and said, "Please leave comments under each poem to increase the readability of the poems!"

"The scholars who bought poetry collections did not only want to read a good poem, but also wanted to see the understanding and evaluation of these poems by the great scholars of the time."

"The evaluation of poems by great scholars can help scholars better understand the ideological connotations conveyed by the poems."

Poetry annotations are of great help to ordinary people who lack cultural literacy.

In recent years, Yan Shigu has been annotating and revising ancient books.

He immediately agreed and said, "Master Du, your suggestion is very good. Let me complete the annotation of the poems."

“After the poems are arranged, I will ask my friends Wang Ji, Han Shan, Chu Liang and Shangguan Yi to come over and write annotations for the poems!”

Hearing that Yan Shigu took the initiative to take on this job, Du He was delighted and immediately clasped his fists and said.

"Then I'll trouble you, Master Yan."

After arranging the task of compiling poems, Du He hurried to the East Palace in a happy mood.

He was tricked by Li Chengqian yesterday, and now he has to go to the East Palace every day to learn military tactics from Li Jing.

In the side hall of the East Palace.

When Du He rushed over, Li Jing was already explaining the art of war to Xue Rengui and Pei Xingjian.

"Nephew Du, please come sit next to me. I am going to talk about "The Six Military Mirrors" next."

"Okay, Uncle Li."

After Du He saluted with his fists, he walked over to the cushion on the right side of Li Jing and sat down.

The full name of "Six Army Mirror" by Li Jing is "Li Jing Six Army Mirror", which is a military book he compiled in the past two years.

This book of military strategies integrates the essence of famous military strategies such as "The Art of War by Sun Tzu", "Wei Liaozi", "The Art of War by Sun Bin", "Six Secret Teachings", "The Sima Method", as well as his insights and experiences from many years of fighting.

This military book was compiled entirely for combat and is very practical.

Moreover, when Li Jing was explaining the art of war, he did not read it out verbatim, but listed and analyzed examples of his own military operations.

"Li Jing is indeed a famous teacher! Even a military novice like him can understand these military strategies."

Du He secretly admired in his heart.

Du He was so engrossed in listening that he didn't realize it, and two hours passed quietly.

Li Jing stopped, picked up the teacup and took a few gulps of tea, then looked at Du He, Xue Rengui and Pei Xingjian.

He smiled and said, "That's all for today. I'm going to test you now."

Seeing that Li Jing was going to question them on the spot, Xue Rengui and Pei Xingjian tensed up and sat up straight.

Du He didn't feel too upset. Whether he could answer the question or not didn't make any difference to him.

Li Jing looked at Du He with appreciation, then waved his hand at the other two and said.

"Don't be nervous, it's just a simple question and answer."

After that, Li Jing directly asked the question: "What if you lead a large army to attack a fortified city and fail to capture it after a long time?"

After hearing the question about siege, the three of them lowered their heads and thought at the same time.

Attacking a city is a difficult problem that every commander and general will encounter.

Especially for cities with very important strategic positions, not only are the city walls tall and strong, but the supplies and food reserves inside are also abundant.

Sometimes, even if thousands of lives are sacrificed, the victory may not be achieved.

A full quarter of an hour passed.

Xue Rengui was the first to stand up and answer: "If we cannot take down the city wall head-on, we can use tactics such as digging holes, building siege ladders, and using fire attacks."

"You can also build a river bank with earth, wood and stones upstream of the river that flows through the city to store water and flood the city!"

Li Jing nodded: "Yes, using a variety of siege methods is also an effective way to break the city."

Throughout history, countless siege battles have adopted the method described by Xue Rengui.

In order to avoid timely reinforcements from the enemy, sieges are time-sensitive, so the method of strong attack is generally adopted.

Pei Xingjian said nervously, "Duke Weiguo, I think when two armies are fighting, attacking the city is inferior, and attacking the heart is superior."

"You can send a large number of letters into the city, promising the city officials high positions and generous salaries, while spreading rumors that they have been abandoned and that their court has not sent troops to help them."

"In addition, we also sent troops to ambush the enemy reinforcements along the way, destroying their manpower while organizing their reinforcements."

"As long as we wait for a month or two, the enemy troops and civilians in the city will lose their morale if they don't see any reinforcements."

Because Xue Rengui mentioned many ways to attack the city, Pei Xingjian changed his idea.

Li Jing's eyes lit up, he nodded slightly and said: "When two armies fight, the best way is to attack the heart. Well said!"

He didn't expect that Pei Xingjian, whom he didn't think highly of, could give him such a big surprise.

Because he is a person who is good at using psychological tactics.

When the Eastern Turks were destroyed in the fourth year of Zhenguan, in order to capture the impregnable Dingxiang City as soon as possible, Li Jing placed scouts inside the Turks in advance and spread rumors that Kang Sumi, the defender of Dingxiang City, had defected to the Tang Dynasty.

However, there were too many rumors and the Tang army was at the gates of the city, so Jie Li Khan became suspicious of his trusted general Kangsumi.

Finally, Kangsumi was forced to open the city gate and surrender.

Looking at the thin Pei Xingjian, Li Jing felt that this little guy was smart and could become a great commander after being properly trained.

Unfortunately, Li Jing is already old and does not have the energy to train a commander-type disciple like Pei Xingjian.

However, allowing such talents to go uncultivated would also be a huge loss for the Tang Dynasty.

Li Jing smiled and said to Pei Xingjian, "Shou Yue, how about I recommend a master to you?"

"It is a great honor for me to be recommended by the Duke of Wei!"

Pei Xingjian stood up and bowed respectfully to Li Jing.

Du He was also very curious about who Li Jing would recommend to be Pei Xingjian's master.

After a short silence, Li Jing spoke loudly.

"I recommend my eldest disciple Su Dingfang to be your master. What do you think?"