Chapter 81: Two Remnants
Li Shimin saw Wang Wendu come in with a weapon, his face showed a hint of surprise, this is a military camp, weapons are naturally the most common, and military generals are also allowed to bring weapons, but what makes him strange is that the weapon in Wang Wendu's hand is full of blood, and it looks like a horse lance, but the lance has been broken, and only the head of the lance in front is left.
"The last general, Wang Wendu, meet Your Majesty!" Wang Wendu held the remnant lance in his hand and bowed down.
"Wendu, why did you come to see you with a broken lance?" Li Shimin asked with a puzzled face, it was already very strange for Wang Wendu to ask to see him at this time, and now he was still holding half a horse lance in his hand, which made Li Shimin a little confused.
"Your Majesty, please see, what is the difference between this lance?" Wang Wendu took two steps forward, presented the remnant lance and said.
Li Shimin was curious, so he asked people to take the remnant lance, take it in his hand and look at it carefully, and found that this lance was really not the standard equipment of the Tang Army, and the head of the Tang Army's horse lance was flat, which could be pierced and chopped. But the lance in front of him is triangular, and there is a bloodletting groove on each side, from this lance, it can be seen that this kind of horse lance is actually similar to a gun, only the function of the thorn is left, and the chopping is abandoned.
"Huh? This weapon is very familiar, it seems that the guards in the Rokuro Mansion today use this kind of horse lance? Li Shimin asked with some uncertainty. Today, the guards of the Qi Wangfu are in the limelight, not only saving the besieged Wang Wendu with 5,000 people, but also capturing Yuangai Su Wensheng, so miraculous feats, almost covering the limelight of the three thousand Xuanjia troops on the frontal battlefield, so Li Shimin deliberately paid attention to the tiger force and them, and also had some impressions of the weapons of the tiger head army.
"Your Majesty has good eyesight, this horse lance was taken by the last general from the hands of a Qi Wangfu guard who died in battle, according to the soldiers on the battlefield who saw it with their own eyes, this person lost his front hooves because of his horse. Falling from the horse, even the horse lance was broken, but in the encirclement of the Goguryeo people, he was not afraid, and used this broken lance to kill more than a dozen people in a row, including two Goguryeo generals, and finally died due to exhaustion and outnumbered! Wang Wendu replied truthfully. He was also grateful to the guards of the Qi Palace, who saved him from the encirclement, but he remembered the old things back then, but he had to make him feel frightened.
"Kill more than a dozen people in a row with a broken lance. This man is a fierce man! Li Shimin imagined the tragic scene at that time, his face was red with excitement, and he couldn't help but praise loudly.
"That's right, such a warrior. It must be ordered to be buried thickly, as well as other soldiers who died in battle. I will erect a monument under this Pyongyang city to record their bravery for future generations to admire! Li Shimin was in a surging mood, and as soon as his brain was hot, he thought of an idea and blurted it out.
Be part of this battle. Hearing that His Majesty was going to erect a monument for the soldiers who died in battle, Wang Wendu was naturally very happy. Loudly praise the benevolence of His Majesty the Emperor. However, he didn't forget the business he came to today, and soon his face turned pale, and he took out a relatively short weapon from his arms and said, "Your Majesty, please see, this is the self-defense weapon that the last general has always carried with him!" ”
Li Shimin was puzzled, and asked Wang Wendu to bring his sidearm, when he pulled the weapon out of the sheath. I was stunned all of a sudden, because of Wang Wendu's sidearm. It turned out to be a lance with a handle, looking at the worn grip, it is estimated that it has been used for many years, and what is even more surprising is that this ruler-long lance is exactly the same as the residual lance in his hand.
"Your Majesty, the last general has been with me for more than ten years, and the predecessor of this weapon is actually a horse lance, but the owner of this horse lance died in battle, and the last general admires the other party's bravery, so he changed the head of the lance into a short blade, and always carries it with him!" Wang Wendu bowed and replied.
"Oh, who is this person, who can make you admire it so much, is it a general?" Although Li Shimin asked easily, he already had some guesses in his heart, at the beginning, Li Su only said that Hu Li and Zhou Long were recruited by him in Dengzhou, and did not say where they came from, but Wang Wendu seemed to have guessed some from the weapons.
"Your Majesty, this person is just a little-known soldier, and even the ministers don't know what his name is, but the bravery of this person made me feel extremely shocked at the time, and even I almost died under the other party's horse, so I was very impressed!" Wang Wendu hurriedly replied, and when he remembered the scene back then, his face even showed a little surprise.
"Wang Wendu, if you have anything to say, just say it directly, I'm too lazy to be dumb!" Li Shimin saw that the other party was talking secretly, as if he had something to do, so his face sank and he opened his mouth to reprimand.
Wang Wendu was taken aback, he didn't dare to turn around any circle, and said with a dignified expression: "Your Majesty, this horse lance of the last general is a trophy obtained on the battlefield more than ten years ago, when the last general was just a commander of Zhichong, leading a Zhichong Mansion of 2,000 men and horses, accompanied by the King of Hejian and the Duke of Weiguo to participate in the battle of destroying Liang......"
With Wang Wendu's explanation, Li Shimin finally knew the origin of the lance in his hand. It turned out that Li Xiaogong led the army to besiege Jiangling, the capital of Liang State, and Wang Wendu was in the army at that time. At that time, they were alone in the depths, although they fought successively, but they did not dare to be careless, and the siege of Gangneung City was impassable.
At that time, Xiao Mo in the city was in internal and external difficulties, and finally surrendered. However, the night before the surrender, a Liang army came out from the east gate, and it was from Wang Wendu who happened to be guarding in that direction. At that time, the main general in charge of the eastern defense led his troops to desperately intercept them, but he did not expect that although the other party was only 2,000 people, they were all wearing heavy armor, and they were extremely brave, and they fought a bloody way out of tens of thousands of people, and they only had dozens of people injured, and they still had the strength to take the injured away.
At that time, Wang Wendu's defensive place was a little off, and when he arrived with people, the other party had already broken out of the encirclement and only left two hundred people behind. Wang Wendu saw that the other party was only one-tenth of his own side, and felt that he had eaten the other party, so he waved his army up to surround these two hundred people, but he didn't expect to be killed by the other party.
Wang Wendu was young and vigorous at the time, and when he saw that the other party broke his own 2,000 people with 200 people, he did not lose one person and calmly retreated, and he was even more angry in his heart, and took off the strong bow on his back and shot an arrow at the leg of one of the opponent's soldiers, causing the other party to fall to the ground on the spot, and the others were rescuing their companions, but at this time, the Tang Army Brigade behind had already chased and killed, forcing the other party to retreat.
Wang Wendu wanted to capture the soldier alive, because the fool could also see that the other party was definitely not an ordinary Liang soldier, so he wanted to catch the other party and ask about the origin. But what he didn't expect was that the other party's ordinary soldier was also extremely brave, even if he was besieged, he didn't have any intention of surrendering, but instead stood up and picked up more than a dozen people in a row, almost exactly the same as the Qi Wangfu guards on the battlefield today.
In the end, Wang Wendu personally went into battle and fought with the other party for a long time, and then killed the other party under the knife, but the opponent's death-defying counterattack also stabbed him in the thigh, using the lance in Li Shimin's hand. Originally, the wound on Wang Wendu's body was not deep, but for some reason he was bleeding non-stop, and he almost died of excessive blood loss, and it took several months to heal.
Talking about the experience of the year, Wang Wendu was also full of shame, after all, he was defeated very badly, but when he talked about the pawn who would rather die than surrender, and was extremely brave, he was full of admiration, although the other party died in his own hands, but he almost killed him, the two were even, and he was also very interested in the horse lance that almost killed him, and took off the lance head to make a short blade, in addition to keeping it as a souvenir, it is also a very good self-defense weapon.
Listening to Wang Wendu's explanation, Li Shimin also remembered the battle of destroying Liang more than ten years ago, although he did not directly participate, but he also knew everything about this war, and he also knew some inside information about what happened the night before Xiao Miao's surrender, so after listening to it, he groaned for a while, and then asked in a deep voice: "Are you talking about the tiger head army next to Xiao Miao?" ”
Li Shimin single-handedly created the elite cavalry of the Xuanjia Army, and he naturally knows everything about the elite soldiers in the world who can be compared with the Xuanjia Army, such as the Longyou Army, the Xutuo Army, the Xiaoguo Army, etc., and the Tiger Head Army of Xiao Milling in the south is also one of them, but it is a pity that during the Battle of Liang that year, this Tiger Head Army only appeared once under Jiangling City, and then it was like a mud cow entering the sea, and no one knew their news anymore.
"Your Majesty is wise, at that time we all guessed that the cavalry was the Tiger Head Army, and later after Xiao Mo surrendered, there were also officials of the Liang State who confirmed it, and the last general also learned that this kind of lance in His Majesty's hands is the special weapon of the Tiger Head Army, as long as it stabs the human body, the wound is extremely difficult to heal, even if it seems not to be a serious injury, it may also cure death." Wang Wendu bowed down again and said, but when he spoke, his tone was trembling.
Li Shimin knew that he glanced at Wang Wendu, and he could see that the general Wang, who was galloping on the battlefield, was now extremely nervous, because he was revealing a big secret to himself, that is, the tiger head army under Xiao Mo in the past had now become the personal guards of the Qi Palace, and he also found today that most of the thousand Qi royal palace guards led by Hu Li were middle-aged people around forty years old, and the calculation of age just coincided.
Who is Li Su? He is not only Li Shimin's favorite son, but also deeply involved with the large and small families in Chang'an City, but it is this prince who is loved by tens of millions of people, but there is a group of remnants of the Liang State under his hands, if this kind of thing is known to others, it will definitely involve him in a crime of plotting against him, and it is even very likely to affect the replacement of the throne. It is precisely because this matter is so important that Wang Wendu is so nervous.
Li Shimin pondered for a while, then suddenly turned his head and asked calmly: "Besides you, is there anyone else in the army who knows about this matter?" ”
"Your Majesty, the last general knew that the matter was very important, so he didn't tell anyone, and besides me, there were no other generals in the army who participated in the battle to destroy Liang that year, so no one else should know." Wang Wendu replied nervously.
"Excellent! You remember to me that the Tiger Head Army had already died out with the fall of the Liang State more than ten years ago, and now there are only the guards of the Qi Palace! Li Shimin said lightly, but there was unquestionable majesty in his tone.