The news that Yang Tong entered Guanzhong, entered the plateau, fought with Ertu in Jishi Pass and won a hearty victory, soon spread all over the world, and the Central Plains Killing God once again showed his hideous fangs to the world; Tubo, who crisscrossed the plateau without a reason, was defeated by Yang Tong on the frontal battlefield, and once made the big and small Bolu, Daughter Country, Zhangxiong, Subi, Vassal, Pengyu and other large and small countries and tribes have a headache Dang Ru Gongton, Niang Chisang Yangton, Niang Shangju, Gurlu Saigon, Geergu Ado, Niang Tonggu, Niang Chisang, Wei Moye...... and so on, dozens of fierce generals died at the hands of the Great Sui, which invisibly made the power of the Great Sui in the Western Regions even more powerful than it was at the beginning, and strengthened the hearts of the countries in the Western Regions to further make friends with the Great Sui. When the news reached the Central Plains, the Great Sui Dynasty was jubilant, which also made the Li Tang Dynasty, which was embarrassed internally and externally, breathe a long sigh of relief.

You must know that after the death of Li Mi, Yang Tong put on a posture of vowing to destroy the Tang Dynasty, hundreds of thousands of soldiers Chen Bian, sharpened their knives, and pointed directly at Jingzhou and Yizhou, which put the Li Tang Dynasty under great pressure, but on the other hand, the strong threat of the Sui army eased the sharp contradictions between the Li father and son.

At the beginning, Li Shimin took the army to Danchang without authorization, nominally to train troops and defend against the Sui army in the north, but in fact he controlled tens of thousands of troops, so that Li Yuan's plan to seize his army and kill his people and raise the army's family to sacrifice the dead completely failed.

Faced with the siege of hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers, Li Yuan had no choice but to issue an edict for his own crimes, send family compensation, and make a move to Zen. On the one hand, he set up the Yinping Governor's Mansion and sent Dou Liang to take over the 30,000 elite soldiers stationed in Pingwu, Yicheng, Wenshan, Jinshan, and Pu'an, on the other hand, Li Yuan issued ten holy decrees in a row, ordering Li Shimin to go to Chengdu to take over, but Li Shimin always ignored them, and his intention of respecting the Tang Dynasty and being self-reliant was clearly revealed.

Li Yuan even had the heart of pro-conquest of the rebels, but he never expected that when he entered Shu, he was ambushed by the bureaucrats and suffered a big loss in Luchuan Hejiang, losing tens of thousands of elite soldiers, countless treasures and nearly one million stone of grain, in order to redeem his family and Li Yuanji's eye, and to appease the bureaucrats, Li Yuan had to empty the 200,000 stone grain accumulated in Luchuan City, and the military food that was originally reserved was suddenly gone.

Seeing that the high-level contradictions between Li and Tang were about to intensify, but Yang Tong was stationed in Guanzhong at this time in a high-profile manner, and accumulated heavy troops in the two counties of Lintao and Heyuan, putting on a momentum of going south to destroy the Tang Dynasty, facing the fierce Sui army, in order to enable Li Shimin to abandon his previous suspicions and go all out to deal with the Great Sui, Li Yuan could only restore Li Shimin to the title of King of Jin, and crowned him as the generalissimo of the expedition to the Great North, which was regarded as admitting his control over tens of thousands of troops in Tangchang. However, the facts were once again out of Li Yuan's expectations, Yang Tong did not defeat Li Shimin of Tangchang at all, so he drove the army up to the plateau and fought Tubo and Tuyuhun.

This made Li Yuan very disgusting, if he had known that Yang Tong was going to make a second vomit, he would not have canonized Li Shimin, but now it is good, Li Shimin can stand on his own feet in the name of the generalissimo of the Great Expedition.

In addition to Hou Junji's 30,000 troops sitting in Tongchang and Liu Hongji's 30,000 troops stationed in Wudu County, the remaining 20,000 recruits and 5,000 Red Armor troops were all stationed near Lianggong County, and Li Shimin did not live in the county seat, he lived in the barracks with the soldiers and seized the time to train the army.

In the white tent, Li Shimin stood in front of a map with his hands in his hands, silent in thought, although he had stayed away from the center of Li Tang, cut off communication with the imperial court, and cut off intelligence sharing, he was still able to get the latest information from the intelligence agency he had built, the 'Hundred Cavalry Division'.

Connecting all kinds of scattered intelligence, Li Shimin discovered a huge crisis, but what it is has not yet been dredged.

"Your Highness." At this moment, a dashing young scribe walked in. This person's name is Chu Suiliang, and he is the son of Chu Liang, a scholar of Jin Wangfu University

At the beginning, Li Shimin was not like now, at that time he felt that the crown prince was 108,000 miles away from him, and he didn't have so many thoughts. But as more and more military exploits and fame grew, Li Shimin gradually found that he was not so far from the position of the crown prince. So he changed his previous style, began to make up for his political skills, learned how to govern the world, and under the advice of Yin Kaishan, Su Shichang and others, he followed Yang Tong's original 'one pavilion and three museums', set up a literature museum, and recruited a group of talented scribes, among them, the recruited talents included Chu Suiliang's father Chu Liang.

Chu Liang's ancestral home is Yangzhai, after traveling to Yuhang County, his reputation rose to fame, and he was appreciated by Chen Houzhu as an official, after Chen's death, he went out of the Great Sui, successively served as a bachelor of the East Palace, and Dr. Taichang, because he was implicated in Yang Xuangan's rebellion and was demoted to the Xihai County Division, after Xue raised his troops, he was forcibly canonized as the Yellow Gate Squire of the Western Qin, and participated in the secret, but Chu Liang did not have a good sense of the killing of the Western Qin, and later Li Shimin conquered the Xue family, Chu Liang simply took his son Chu Suiliang to Li Shimin, who was thirsty for talent.

As for Chu Suiliang, he is also a knowledgeable and proficient person in literature and history, especially if he writes a good hand, he is a martial artist like Xue Ju, and he can't put it down. After being thrown into Li Shimin's disciple, he was promoted to join the military by Li Shimin, who loved calligraphy, and his official position was not high, but his status was important.

Li Shimin looked back and saw that it was Chu Suiliang, so he smiled and asked, "What's the matter?" ”

"Your Highness, Yin Changshi asks to see you." Chu Suiliang hurriedly replied.

"Please."

"Whoa." Chu Suiliang hurriedly retreated and invited the dusty Yin Kaishan in.

At this time, Yin Kaishan can be called Li Shimin's Xiao He, in charge of the civil affairs of the three counties of Tangchang, Tongchang and Wudu, as well as the food consumption of the army, he is busy every day, and he just returned from the inspection of Tongchang County today. He saluted: "I heard that His Royal Highness hasn't entered a drop of water for a day, are you worried that on the Jingzhou side, attacking Ertu is just a strategy of the Sui Dynasty to divert the audio-visual?" ”

Li Shimin motioned for Yin Kaishan to sit down and said, "I always feel that Tang Sui's truce agreement is unreliable, and Yang Tong's march into the plateau at this time seems to have something to do with us. ”

"Why does Your Highness think so?"

"This is Yang Tong's usual trick." Li Shimin first made up his mind, and then came up with evidence: "When Yang Tong entered Jizhou and Youzhou, everyone thought that he would calm people's hearts and restore the civil affairs of Erchuan, but he flicked a shot, and one brain was enough for the Khitan and Xi people, and he also recovered Liaodong, which made Goguryeo, which was focused on the south, suffer a big loss; Immediately afterwards, Shi Bi went south, and everyone also thought that his center of gravity was in Mayi, but he bypassed the frontal battlefield, rushed thousands of miles, and took the city of Khan Ting Yicheng in southern Turkic China in one go...... All the wars since then have been so unexpected that people are caught off guard, but whether it is my Datang Dynasty, Dou Jiande, Li Mi, Liang Shidu, or the Eastern and Western Turks, everyone will always fall for him because of internal problems. And this time, because Yang Tong went to the plateau, we began to have signs of infighting again, which made me feel that we were going down the old path again. ”

Yin Kaishan sighed: "Actually, I also have this awareness. With the strength of the Sui Dynasty at this time, there is no need for a truce with my Tang Dynasty at all. And in the last battle with the Beizhen army, we were flooded, resulting in the annihilation of the whole army, if Xue Wanjun took advantage of the situation to cross south, Xiyang, Xicheng, Fangling three counties are all owned by the Sui Dynasty, and even can be under the city of Xiangyang, the only way for the saint is to let Jing King Li Xiaogong come to the aid from Chungling, the army rushed westward, which will give Nanyang Yang Shanhui the opportunity to break the enemy, if Li Jing goes north from Nanjun again, whether it is to capture Yiling, or to trap Xiangyang, the saint and the prince will not be able to escape, but such a good opportunity, Yang Tong let it go in vain. ”

"Could it be a truce agreement that binds Yang Tong?" Chu Suiliang, who was listening silently, suddenly said.

"No, it won't." Yin Kaishan shook his head: "Yang Tong has a saying that is quite good, this sentence is 'the only function of the covenant is to tear it up', how can a person who can say such things be bound by a truce?" In fact, if we have the opportunity to dominate the enemy, we will also tear up the agreement and deal a fatal blow to the enemy. Therefore, Yang Tong must have a bigger plan. ”

Chu Suiliang saw that Li Shimin was silent, so he asked again: "What does Yin Changshi think Yang Dong's plan is?" ”

"Yang Tong's scheming is very deep." Yin Kaishan smiled bitterly: "The biggest problem of the two emperors of the Sui Dynasty is that they are unwilling to exchange the price of the turmoil in Guanzhong for the complete destruction of the Guanlong nobles, and finally cause the Great Sui to fall apart in the hands of the Guanlong nobles. So in the name of a truce, he asked Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui to send an envoy to Xiangyang, although the purpose of the truce was not successful, but Fang Du and the two took the general trend of the world, blatantly separated the relationship between the saint and the Guanlong nobles, and instigated the Guanlong nobles to rebel, and finally realized the goal of using the power of the Guanlong nobles to consume the war potential of the Tang Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty to get rid of the Guanlong nobles. After that, the prince sent an envoy to Luoyang to bring up the truce again, and among them, there was a condition that was not written on paper, that is, I wanted the Tang Dynasty to slaughter the scholars. ”

Chu Sui's conscience was shocked, and he originally thought that Li Jiancheng was killing in Xiangyang in order to confiscate the grain, pig iron, gold, and copper coins of the Shi clan as military expenses, who would have thought that behind this, there was also the shadow of the Sui Dynasty, so to speak, the Guanlong nobles, the Guandong Shi clan, and the Southern Shi clan were obviously killed by the Sui, Tang, and Wei jointly, Sui was the mastermind behind the scenes, and Datang and Li Mi were the direct murderers.

After a long while, he asked: "In this way, Yang Tong is planning to repeat his old tricks, and is ready to borrow the power of my Tang Dynasty to cut off Yizhou Haoqiang?" ”

"I think so." Yin Kaishan said: "Due to the unfavorable transportation, the second emperor of Sui Zhiwen and Wu has insufficient control over Yizhou, making it the world of Yizhou nobles and Guanlong nobles, Guanlong nobles are now crushed, and there is a situation where Yizhou Haojia is dominant, if Yang Tong destroys my Tang Dynasty, he will inevitably face the Yizhou Hao clan with the land as the lifeblood and the abnormal xenophobia, but he obviously doesn't want to carry this behemoth, and wants to annihilate it, so he simply prolongs the Sui and Tang Dynasty Armageddon, so that my Tang Dynasty faces the Yizhou Hao family. The saint and the officials of the court knew that this was a conspiracy, but they had to pinch their noses and admit it. ”

After Yin Kaishan said this, Li Shimin's chaotic thinking was clear, but there was still something incomprehensible, he said: "As far as I know, Yuanji, Li Shentong, and Li Xiaoji have also cleaned up the Yizhou wealthy family." Now there are very few influential wealthy families left, even if they survive, even if Yang Tong finally defeats my Datang, if he deals with these people, it will not have much impact on Yizhou. ”

"This is Yang Dong's cleverness." Yin Kaishan smiled bitterly, "The Yizhou Hao clan is dead, but it is still beneficial to the people of Yizhou, the people of Yizhou have just been allocated to the fields, and the support of my Tang Dynasty has reached an unprecedented level, if the Sui army enters at this time, these people will flock to the army in order to protect their hometown and fields, even if Yang Tong gets Yizhou, but also in the war, he killed a lot of Yizhou young and strong, and the people of Yizhou have formed an indissoluble enmity." Without the support of the people, Yizhou will eventually be a bane of instability. After all, if I want to get a glimmer of life in the Tang Dynasty, the only way is to expand the army, if the source of soldiers is in the people, then the money and food needed by the army are in the Yizhou Hao family, and the money and food of the proud family will be exhausted one day, and the court will naturally increase taxes on the people. ”

In fact, Li Shimin's power is a microcosm of the Tang Dynasty, in order to deal with the Sui army in the north, in the three counties of Danchang, Tongchang and Wudu, the army was expanded to as many as 80,000, which is also a lot of money and grain brought when going north, in order to maintain the supply of the army, if it is exhausted, only relying on the three counties that are small and barren, with few fields and few people, can not raise so many troops, at that time, Li Shimin only has two choices, one is to disarm, the other is to increase taxes.

Yin Kaishan, as Li Shimin's chief steward, knows Li Shimin's predicament very well, but in fact, this is also the predicament of the entire Li Tang Dynasty.

Li Shimin couldn't help but gasp, all doubts suddenly became clear, in order to survive, their Tang Dynasty desperately expanded its army, desperately engaged in an arms race with the Great Sui, and the result was to see whose economic system fell first.

"It turns out that the real danger of our Tang Dynasty is not foreign enemies, but the huge military expenses that a weak country has to bear." Li Shimin immediately decided: "This matter must be immediately notified to my father, so that he can reduce the army, and the people cannot be injured because of the army." ”

Yin Kaishan sighed, "Your Highness, are you willing to disarm?" ”

"This ......" Li Shimin sighed dejectedly, of course he didn't want to be disarmed, why wasn't his father's mind like this?

Chu Sui's conscience moved, looked at Yin Kaishan and said: "Long history, although Yang Tong is good at making decisions and bravely covering the world, he is heroic and rash, and believes in the way of the emperor who is gracious and powerful. ”

Yin Kaishan shook his head and smiled bitterly: "Yang Tong fought from Luoyang to the north, and from the north to the south, all the heroes at home and abroad have suffered his losses, and now he is becoming more and more experienced in military methods, and he almost no longer charges into battle, it is not easy to plot against Yang Dong on the battlefield again, not to mention, even the Qihui Dao people, who are known as the first sword in the world, can't plot against him, and he was easily killed by him, and my Datang has no one who can beat Yang Dong now." ”

Chu Suiliang thought for a while and said, "Long history, do you still remember Xue Ju's death?" ”

How did Xue Ju, who was in the prime of life, die?

Of course, he didn't die of a violent illness, but was poisoned by Chu Liang, who had already secretly descended to Tang.

Yin Kaishan sighed slightly: "When I was able to kill Xue Ju, it was because Ling Zun had the opportunity to get close to Xue Ju." Yang Tong's side is different, we have also been secretly searching for many years, although there are many people who hate Yang Dong like the sand of the Yellow River, but these people can't calculate Sapporo at all, Yang Dong seems to be magnanimous, but attaches great importance to respect and humility, and generals who have not reached a certain level are not qualified to approach him. Even if he is poisoned, Yang Gongren, Yang Shanhui, Wei Yunqi, Yang Shidao, Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, Wei Zheng, Qin Qiong, Luo Shixin, Pei Xingyan and others will do their best to assist Yang Zheng to ascend to the throne, as long as these people are still there, the Sui Dynasty will not be chaotic; Poisoning Yang Dong will only provoke the cruel revenge of millions of Sui troops, and my Datang obviously can't afford to poison Yang Dong. ”

"In the past, he has become a confidant of Datang!" Li Shimin patted the table case, and said with a look of remorse: "If I knew this, I should have joined forces with Shibi at all costs, first killed this tiger in the north of the country, and then marched into Guanzhong." ”

Yin Kaishan did not answer, Li Yuan was the master of the Li Tang Dynasty, not Li Shimin, that is, Li Yuan and Shibi attacked Yang Dong from the north and south, and they could not threaten Yang Dong, after all, when Yang Dong and Shibi were at war, they also set up heavy troops in Xinkou Fortress, although the Tang army was numerous, but most of them were miscellaneous soldiers, and they couldn't help the upright division at all, if they were stalemate with the Sui army, Yang Tong, who returned from the big victory, was the first to clean up Li Yuan, Li Tang's ending was not much better than Liu Wuzhou, and naturally there was no such thing as occupying Hedong and entering Guanzhong.

Yin Kaishan completely understood, Yang Tong is a peerless hero who fights more and more fiercely as long as he does not die, a few years ago Yang Tong obviously made great contributions, but Yang Qi easily took away his war achievements and left Luoyang in a gloomy manner, of course, it is not that Yang Qi, who has the support of the Kwantung clan, is not good, but compared with Yang Tong's current momentum and achievements, it is difficult for people to imagine the embarrassment that Yang Tong once had.

At this time, Chu Suiliang suggested: "Your Highness, Changshi, I think it is imperative to get in touch with Tubo Langri Zampu, let him understand Yang Dong's tactical tactics, and use the power of Ertu to achieve the goal of consuming the Sui army's troops. In addition, they managed to get in touch with the Eastern and Western Turks, and if they were willing to send troops, at least part of the Sui army would be divided. ”

Li Shimin nodded, looked at Yin Kaishan, and asked, "What does Mr. think of the good strategy?" ”

"Lang Ri Zampu Chen's place is not far from Tongchang, we can contact him nearby, even if the Ertu coalition army can't kill Yang Dong, it should bite down more than 100,000 or 200,000 Sui troops." Yin Kaishan thought for a moment, and then said: "However, it is not easy for the Ertu coalition army to destroy the Sui army, just because Yang Tong only fought a beautiful victory a few days ago, and Tubo lost more than 30,000 people, but second, the key is that dozens of fierce generals died, and Langri Zampu couldn't find so many strong generals to supplement in his eagerness, so even if he was willing to deal with Yang Dong with all his might, just a stone pass could make the Ertu coalition army stop, as for the Eastern and Western Turks, forget it......"

"Why?" Chu Suiliang asked.

Yin Kaishan sighed and said to Chu Suiliang: "The Eastern and Western Turks were indeed torn apart by Yang Dong, and there are indeed many tribes that hate Yang Dong, but with Yang Dong's prestige on the grassland, I am afraid that these tribes would rather surrender Yang Dong than have the courage to move the territory of the Great Sui." Did you know......"

"In the past, every cold winter, the Turks would set up tents under the city walls to shelter from the wind and snow, whether the Sui Dynasty agreed or not. But now, Yang Tong has drawn a ten-mile-wide sphere of influence outside the New Great Wall, and whoever enters it to graze cattle will be an enemy of the Great Sui. For so many years, the Turks preferred to freeze to death rather than enter this sphere of influence. ”

"......" Chu Suiliang was speechless when he heard it, but for some reason, there was a vague sense of pride and honor in his heart.

"But I don't know who can send an envoy to Tibet?" Li Shimin asked.

Li Shimin, who is equivalent to self-reliance, has a rather bad living environment, he has no reinforcements inside, and he has strong enemies outside. What he is most worried about now is that after Yang Tong kills Tubo, he will kill from the Ruoergai grassland to Tongchang County, and once he reaches that step, he will be completely finished.

"Your Highness, I would like to make this trip. If I can, I'll get some horses for Your Highness. Chu Suiliang surrendered his hand and asked for his life

"Okay, it's up to Dengshan to go through this." Li Shimin thought about it for a while and found that Chu Suiliang was indeed the most suitable candidate at the moment.

。。。。。。。。。。。。。

The Nanyang Basin is like a revolving door between Guanzhong, Hanzhong and Jingbei, which can be entered on all sides and attacked on all sides. From an overall perspective, the Nanyang Basin has the characteristics of east-west extension and north-south convergence. Xiangyang and Nanyang are located at the north and south ends of the basin, and the formation of these two important towns also represents the confrontation and stalemate between the interests of the north and the south in this region. Whenever there was a confrontation between the north and the south, the north and the south often enjoyed the Nanyang Basin according to Xiangyang and Nanyang. In the time of the dispute between the east and the west, whether it is tackling key problems or coming out of the east of the Guandong, the Nanyang Basin is an attractive area.

Located in the Nanyang Basin, Nanyang County is located in the north and south, rich in water and soil, and has a prosperous population.

Xinye County in Nanyang County is located where many rivers converge, and dozens of rivers originating in the Funiu Mountain Range in the north converge in Xinye County, and finally flow into the Han River in Xiangyang in the south.

It is precisely because there are many rivers crossing here, abundant water sources, and fertile land, which makes Nanyang County also a rich land, but in the era of chaos, Nanyang County was burned and looted by the bandits Zhu Cang, Zhu Cang is the most brutal one of the princes of all walks of life, and there is no grass everywhere the army goes, and the people are used as food wherever the army goes, resulting in the Nanyang generation of white bones and extinction of the population.

Although Zhu Cang has been killed, the evil consequences he caused still affect today's Nanyang. Nanyang, which was originally famous for its wealth, was devastated and the people's livelihood withered, and Li Yuan later failed to conquer and returned in vain, but he was unwilling to fall into the hands of the Great Sui completely, so he forcibly relocated the people of Nanyang to Xiangyang, resulting in the population of Nanyang being less than three percent of what it was in its heyday.

Although the new Taishou has already taken office, the population and land census has been completed, and the land equalization system has been implemented, the most critical population has not yet been filled.

On the one hand, Zhu Cang's cannibalism and Li Yuan's forced relocation are because Nanyang County is close to Xiangyang and Chunling Counties, which is the forefront of the Sui and Tang dynasties, so even if someone escapes back from Xiangyang, they are also carefully placed in Yingchuan, Liang County, Huaiyang and other inner counties by the Sui Dynasty.

Not long ago, the Sui army that ended the Sui and Wei wars rushed to the Sui and Tang borders one after another, and prepared for the Sui and Tang wars in various important places, and Nanyang County confronted Li Xiaogong's 120,000 army, so Yang Shanhui was responsible for Nanyang County to become the key object of supplementation, and the strength has changed from the first 130,000 to the current 300,000, which includes the second army, the third army, the fifth army, and most of the main battle soldiers of the eleventh army.

Yang Shanhui saw that the land in Nanyang County was fertile, the irrigation was convenient, the land was vast and sparsely populated, and there was a foundation of fertile land, which was extremely suitable for the army's tuntian, so he simply divided the soldiers and slave soldiers recruited a year ago into tuntian soldiers, and took advantage of the opportunity of the truce to solve the problem of food for the army, realized the goal of self-sufficiency, and reduced the burden on the imperial court.

A wilderness in the south of Xinye County, close to the east bank of the river, stands a military camp covering an area of more than 1,000 acres, the barracks fence is constructed in the form of a plate wall, one zhang and five feet high, solid and tall.

The battle flags fluttering around the barracks, the flags are displayed, and the battle flag of the word 'Sui' is high above the four zhang high, and the momentum is fluttering in the sky due south.

On both sides of the camp gate stood two watchtowers with a height of three feet, each with five sentries patrolling the watchtowers, vigilantly watching the surrounding situation.

A few miles south of the camp was a low, jungle-covered hill through which a wide official road to Xiangyang, two miles wide from north to south, passed through the hill.

It was the height of summer, and the grass and trees on the mountain were full of life. All kinds of birds chirped, and at this time, on a lush tree, three Tang army scouts were overlooking this huge Sui army camp in the distance.

From where they were, they could clearly see the situation of the camp in the distance. One tent after another was neatly arranged, and groups of soldiers were neatly practicing on the school field in the south camp gate, and you could also see dense patrols patrolling back and forth on the camp.

"Do you count them? How many big tents are there? A Tang Army scout asked in a low voice.

"There are about 5,000 large tents, all of which are medium-sized tents of the Sui army, and generally speaking, one tent garrisons and one team."

"In other words, there are still 250,000 Sui troops in the military camp here?" The man under the tree frowned

The scout on the tree muttered for a long time and said: "The Sui army is mainly cavalry, even if it is a foot soldier, there are war horses, at least half of them are tents of ordnance, food, and stables, so there are about 130,000 Sui troops in the barracks. ”

The scout under the tree quickly drew the terrain and camp map on the paper, and marked the number of troops and horses aside.

After the scout finished taking notes, he asked, "Did you see the handsome flag clearly?" ”

The scout on the tree looked at it for a long time, and said softly helplessly: "It's still the Sui-shaped battle flag, a little lower than it, and it's still the banner of Yang Shanhui." ”

Because the Sui army was engaged in Tuntian in Nanyang, and the soldiers were constantly coming and going, no one knew how many people were in the barracks, and no one even knew whether the main general Yang Shanhui was still there, so Li Xiaogong would send scouts every day to investigate and closely supervise every move of the Sui army.

As he was talking, a group of Sui cavalry galloped towards this side from the official road, and the Tang army scouts hurriedly shrank up and hid in the branches and leaves of the trees and the grass under the trees.

When the Sui army rode away, they quietly left the hill, led their horses in the woods at the foot of the mountain, and galloped towards Chung Ling in the south......