Chapter 700 Encirclement and reinforcements
Goryeo, Baekje and Silla were all tiny countries.

Su Mingzhe believed that even if there were only three to five thousand troops, it would be enough to conquer such a small country.

However, Su Mingzhe also wanted to leave enough forces for the vassal kings who were guarding their fiefdoms after the conquest to suppress the rebellious forces.

Therefore, in this conscription, Su Mingzhe recruited a total of 20,000 soldiers.

It takes two to five laborers to serve one soldier.

Therefore, the total military strength still reached more than 100,000.

There are over 10,000 people, and there are no boundaries.

An army of one hundred thousand strong could be said to be connected to the sky and the earth, winding like a long dragon.

Cars rattled and horses rustled.

The pedestrians all had bows and arrows at their waists.

Ye Niang and his wife walked off to see each other off, but Xianyang Bridge was nowhere to be seen.

Qianyi stopped his feet and cried, and the cry went straight to the sky.

"Your Majesty, let's go."

As the commander-in-chief of the army, Li Jing was in charge of the entire process.

Logically speaking, even Su Mingzhe, the emperor emeritus, has to obey his orders.

"lets go."

Su Mingzhe didn't want to watch these farewell scenes anymore, so he jumped on his horse and galloped towards the front of the team.

"Your Majesty, wait for Old Cheng."

Cheng Yaojin is only fifty years old this year, and is in his prime. Years ago, he was appointed General of the Left Guard, responsible for protecting Su Mingzhe's safety.

At the same time, Cheng Yaojin's eldest son Cheng Chusi, Qin Qiong's eldest son Qin Huaiyu, Yuchi Jingde's eldest son Yuchi Baolin and other heirs to the title were all in the army.

The army marched no more than a hundred men a day.

If you walk more than a hundred steps a day, you will surely become a general!

The normal marching speed of the army is about sixty to eighty miles a day.

Of course, if all the members were light cavalry and not carrying heavy armor, the speed would be faster, but it could not exceed 150 miles.

These are all written in military books.

Therefore, Su Mingzhe led his army eastward and after a month's journey, they finally arrived in Weizhou, Hebei.

Weizhou, which later became Daming and Handan!
In Su Mingzhe's opinion, this marching speed was so slow that it was almost fatal.

However, despite this situation, Fang Xuanling praised the great military might of the Tang Dynasty.

"After a month of marching, we are still able to maintain high morale. This is all thanks to Your Majesty!"

As the advance officer of grain and fodder, Fang Xuanling had been waiting in Weizhou early. When he saw Su Mingzhe, he immediately stepped forward to greet him.

"Xuanling, you don't need to flatter me, right?"

Su Mingzhe laughed and pulled Fang Xuanling into Weizhou City.

When passing through a city, the army had to camp outside the city overnight, but as the emperor emeritus, he could go into the city to rest.

Weizhou was once the capital of Dou Jiande's Xia Kingdom.

After Dou Jiande became the ruler, he implemented benevolent policies, lived frugally, distributed wealth to the people, encouraged farming and sericulture, and restored agricultural production.

The people of Weizhou spontaneously built the Temple of King Xia and held sacrifices there every year.

The Tang Dynasty government never destroyed it.

Just passing by this time.

Su Mingzhe let the army rest for two days, and he went to the Xiawang Temple and burned three incense sticks to Dou Jiande.

Before leaving, at the request of the temple keeper, Su Mingzhe also wrote a plaque with the words "Dou Wang Temple" and an obituary.

The plaque is hung in front of the temple gate, and the sacrificial text is carved into a stone tablet.

From now on, these things will be cultural relics.

The army rested in Weizhou for two days and then set off again.

Ten days later, the army passed through Youzhou (Zhuo County), which was not far from Khitan and Goryeo.

Before setting out, the Tang Dynasty had already issued an imperial edict to attack Goryeo.

Therefore, when the Tang army arrived at the border, Goryeo and Khitan both quickly sent people to "pay their respects" and "ask for surrender."

Especially Goryeo, perhaps because they were accustomed to feigning surrender during the reign of Emperor Yang of Sui, they actually expressed their willingness to surrender, but asked the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty to observe the etiquette of a great power and not send troops across the border after accepting their surrender.

"What a joke! Do they think I am Emperor Yang of Sui?"

Su Mingzhe almost burst out laughing when he saw the letter of surrender handed over by the Goryeo envoy.

When Emperor Yang of Sui launched an expedition to Goryeo, he was actually almost destroying Goryeo.

I don’t know if Emperor Yang of Sui felt that he couldn’t lose with a flying dragon on his face.

Faced with the King of Goryeo's false surrender, Emperor Yang of Sui agreed to accept the surrender and began to arrange the withdrawal of troops.

If one says surrender, the other believes it.

Goryeo and Emperor Yang of Sui played this kind of situation more than a dozen times.

In other words, Goryeo pretended to surrender more than a dozen times, and Emperor Yang of Sui believed it more than a dozen times.

The result of each false surrender was that the Sui army's camp was ambushed and suffered losses of thousands or tens of thousands.

Under such circumstances, the aristocratic families who followed Emperor Yang of Sui on the Eastern Expedition began to suspect that they were being manipulated by Emperor Yang of Sui and the King of Goryeo.

The final result was that the aristocratic families betrayed Emperor Yang of Sui, making him taste the bitterness of being a king who lost his country.

Now, Goryeo is pretending to surrender to Su Mingzhe again, and Su Mingzhe naturally feels speechless.

Just when Su Mingzhe was thinking about whether to drive the Goryeo envoy out directly, Fang Xuanling reminded him:

"Your Majesty, when attacking a city or a country, loyalty and trust come first. Since Goryeo has offered to surrender, we cannot refuse..."

More than half of the ministers in the tent nodded in agreement, feeling that Fang Xuanling was right.

Su Mingzhe frowned immediately. After all, he was not an ancient man, so after thinking for a moment, he said to the Goryeo envoy:

"Go back and tell the mayor of your Anshi City that if you want to surrender, you must tear down the city gates before noon tomorrow as a signal. If you don't tear down the city gates after noon, you will bear the consequences."

Although Su Mingzhe really wanted to start fighting directly, Fang Xuanling said that as the Celestial Empire, we must be magnanimous.

Then give them half a day to think about it.

The Goryeo envoy did not expect that not only did his mission fail to falsely surrender, but it also only delayed the mission for half a day. He immediately left with a sad face.

The Goryeo envoy left, but the Khitan envoy stayed.

After all, the Tang Dynasty came to attack Goryeo, not Khitan.

The Khitan envoy also wanted to ask whether Khitan cavalry was needed to help.

It was just an attack on a small Goryeo, so the Tang Dynasty would naturally not let the Khitan have a share of the spoils.

In order to intimidate the Khitan, Su Mingzhe also invited the Khitan envoy to accompany him to watch the Tang army attack the city tomorrow.

After the Khitan envoys left, the generals in the tent began to quarrel over the gifts brought by the two envoys.

The generals were not interested in the specialties brought by the two envoys.

But those Khitan noble ladies and Goryeo maids made the generals in the tent start drooling.

The army had been away from Chang'an City for nearly two months, and now they couldn't take their eyes off the young and beautiful women.

Su Mingzhe was speechless when he saw the generals' performance.

"Xuan Ling, please distribute these gifts to everyone."

Goryeo maids, Kunlun slaves and Bodhisattva barbarians were the "three treasures" of domestic slaves of the Tang Dynasty's dignitaries.

Among them, the Kunlun slaves were dark-skinned slaves.

There are two reasons why powerful families like Kunlun slaves.

The first reason is that the Kunlun slaves are strong and have greater physical endurance than ordinary people.

The second reason is that if a woman in the family dares to have an affair with a Kunlun slave, the skin of the child born will be the same as that of the Kunlun slave, which is black and cannot be concealed at all.

Because of the above two important reasons, powerful families like to use Kunlun slaves.

The Goryeo maids refer to women from the three kingdoms of Goryeo, Silla and Baekje.

Most of these Goryeo maids were servants of the powerful Goryeo families. They were not only gentle in character and attractive in appearance, but more importantly, they could speak the same language, so there was no need to spend much effort to train them.

(Goryeo also spoke the official language of the Sui and Tang dynasties. Moreover, the Goryeo dignitaries were proud of being able to speak the most fluent Chang'an dialect.)
Bodhisattva Man refers to the beautiful women with fair skin and blue eyes from the Western Regions.

Most of these Bodhisattvas are based on the beauties in the murals in the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. Like the Bodhisattvas in Buddhism, they have exotic styles.

Moreover, these Bodhisattva barbarians were not only beautiful and fair-skinned, but most of them were good at singing and dancing, so they were naturally welcomed by the powerful and wealthy in Chang'an.

The number of these three types of slaves also represents the power and wealth of the aristocratic families.

Su Mingzhe asked people to recruit those Khitan noble ladies and Goryeo maids, and they were indeed quite good.

However, for Su Mingzhe, none of these women looked familiar and could not attract his attention.

He immediately asked Fang Xuanling to share some with everyone.

As a result, Cheng Yaojin, this old fellow, relying on his high position and being the most shameless, did not even wait for Fang Xuanling to assign one and took the lead in grabbing the most beautiful Korean maid.

Li Jing was a reserved person and did not try to snatch it.

Fang Xuanling was afraid of his wife, so he didn't try to snatch her away.

The other generals, according to their positions, divided up the remaining beauties.

After the women were distributed, Su Mingzhe asked the eunuchs to detain and guard them.

If you want to enjoy these beauties, you have to wait until you capture the city.

Most of Goryeo's cities were located near mountains and rivers, making them easy to defend but difficult to attack.

However, because most of these cities are located near mountains and rivers, the city walls are only one or two meters high.

When Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty marched eastward, he relied on the siege weapons of the Central Plains to advance straight into the country and almost destroyed Goryeo.

Now Su Mingzhe wanted to reduce casualties, so he told Li Jing to use the newly built cannons to fire a few rounds as a deterrent.

As the military god of the Tang Dynasty, Li Jing naturally didn't need Su Mingzhe to teach him how to fight.

However, since Su Mingzhe said so, Li Jing naturally would not refuse.

On the second day.

The 30,000-strong army surrounded the Goryeo city tightly, with cannons pointed at the city gate tower.

Just wait until noon and then start firing.

The soldiers defending Goryeo City were panicked when they saw the boundless Tang army, but they were also puzzled as to why the Tang army had formed their battle formation but did not attack.

One of the lieutenants could not help but ask his city lord: "Lord Liang, why did the people of the Tang Dynasty have to wait until noon to attack? Did they have so much food that it wasted?"

"That's smart!"

Liang Wanchun, the Lord of Anshi City, sighed and said, "Our city is high and the water is deep. We are not afraid of their attack. I am afraid that they will surround it without attacking."

The deputy general was confused again:

"Master Liang, wouldn't it be better if they didn't attack?"

"Besieging without attacking must have a deeper purpose. I suspect the Tang people want to 'besiege the point and attack the reinforcements'."

As the lord of Anshi City, Liang Wanchun was also familiar with military books. He sighed in his heart and said helplessly: "Now I hope Mo Lizhi will not fall into the ambush of the Tang people."

Molizhi was the highest official of Goguryeo, similar to the prime minister of the Central Plains court.

The current Mo Lizhi is the famous Yeon Gaesomun of Goryeo in later generations.

Yeon Gaesomun was able to hold power in Goryeo for many years, so he must have been very capable.

Therefore, although he had already led an army of 50,000 and arrived at a place thirty miles away from Anshi City, he did not rush to rescue.

He is also waiting for the best time.

(End of this chapter)