Chapter 40: Where to Go and Where to Come From
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For the Goguryeo warriors, this time following Eulji Mundeok northward was a journey to witness with their own eyes the shattering of the myth of the war god Eulji Mundeok. At the beginning of this northern expedition, they were excited to witness another great victory like the one at Salsu a few years ago.
However, they did not see a great victory, but a great defeat. The greatest military god of Goguryeo, Eulji Mundeok, suffered the greatest defeat of his life. First, the 3,000 vanguard were annihilated, and in the end, they were defeated by the Sui army's heavily armored cavalry, resulting in heavy casualties and losses of nearly 30,000 men.
After they retreated for twenty miles, the army reorganized and attacked the broken military camp and the two branches of the Sui army that retreated into the valley. The two routes attacked fiercely until noon without breaking through the defense line. When the sun rose to its peak, the main reinforcements of the Sui army finally arrived, with Yuwen Shu, the Left Guard General of Liaodong, leading an army of 100,000 as the vanguard.
Yuwen Shu, the commander of the Sui army defeated by Xue Rengui last time, was Yuwen Shu. After Yuwen Shu's defeat last time, he was still favored in front of the emperor and ended up being locked up in prison for a period of time. This time, when they met again, it was only natural that they were extremely angry, especially since Xue Rengui had his son surrounded. With 100,000 troops, Yuwen Huaji, who had been wounded along with his soldiers, now totaling over 20,000 men, showed no mercy and led the charge directly.
The Sui army had been besieging the city of Liaodong for so long, and they were unable to breach its strong walls. However, in a pitched battle with swords drawn, where they outnumbered their opponents several times over, and against the Goguryeo people whose morale had already been broken by the destruction of their military camps, the outcome was naturally that the Goguryeo army was defeated like a crumbling mountain, and were pursued and killed by the Sui army for dozens of miles. In the end, Yeon Gaesomun fled in disarray with only over a thousand cavalrymen, crossing the Yalu River and retreating back to Pyongyang Castle.
Not long after Yuwen Shu arrived at the city of Liaodong, Pei Renji, the new commander of the city, finally led the generals and soldiers from the other three cities, totaling over 800,000 men, to launch a one-sided massacre against the 40,000 Goguryeo people who were fiercely attacking the military camp. The 40,000 Goguryeo people were even more unlucky this time, as their direction of retreat was exactly the same as the battlefield from that morning. However, they failed to join forces with Yeon Gaesomun, who had already escaped to Pyongyang. Instead, they encountered Yuwen Shu's returning army and were slaughtered, resulting in all 40,000 men losing their lives at Liaodong.
The total population of Goguryeo was only around 20-30 million, and the national army was about 300,000. However, as a semi-nomadic regime, Goguryeo could mobilize almost all its people to fight, with a maximum force of 600,000 soldiers. After years of fighting against the Sui dynasty, however, the number of armored warriors in Goguryeo had dwindled to around 300,000. This time, they lost 20,000 men at New City, and Eulji Mundeok's defeat cost them another 80,000, a crushing blow that Goguryeo had never experienced before. The country's mobile forces were almost completely wiped out, leaving only defensive garrisons in the major cities.
For the Sui Dynasty, this was also the first major victory since the three wars against Goguryeo. The three wars against Goguryeo resulted in one million casualties and finally achieved a decisive progress. As long as the Sui army took advantage of the victory to launch another attack or two, the conquest of Goguryeo would be imminent.
In this great victory, the Broken Army Camp can be said to be the most dazzling. First, there was the New City Great Victory, and finally, the Broken Army Camp's heavy cavalry broke through the tens of thousands of troops led by Yuwen Shu, and the Broken Army Camp also used 2,000 soldiers and more than 10,000 civilians to withstand the impact of 40,000 Goguryeo people, making great contributions to the final victory of the Sui army.
Such a great achievement, even if someone wants to suppress it, cannot be suppressed. Pei Gong relied on the two favored ministers in the court to move up and down, but ultimately failed to block the dazzling military achievements of the broken army camp. Especially in Chen Kefu's report to the emperor, he greatly exaggerated Yuwen Huaji, this scum, and forcibly added many merits to Yuwen Huaji and Gao Liang, including the great achievement of defeating Yuchi Jingde's hundreds of thousands of troops, after which the Yuwen family gave full support to Chen Kefu. With the full assistance of Yuwen Shu, the first favored minister in front of the emperor, Chen Kefu's achievements were basically nailed to the board, and no one could cover them up.
For this great achievement, the major families of Yuwen, Pei, Li and Xiao all went all out to reap benefits for their own families. As for what alliances were formed or concessions made between these families, Chen Kefu did not know and did not want to know. After returning to Liaodong City, Chen Kefu petitioned the emperor to replenish the casualties of the Broken Army Camp with new soldiers.
Yang Guang was very interested in Chen Kede's feat of defeating tens of thousands of Goguryeo cavalry with just one thousand heavy armored cavalry. Upon learning that Chen Kede still had two thousand sets of armor and horse equipment, Yang Guang waved his hand and transferred elite cavalry from various armies to the Broken Army Camp, increasing the number of soldiers under Chen Kede's command to ten thousand. He then selected three thousand crack troops to form a heavy armored cavalry unit, with the rest temporarily serving as light cavalry.
Although the various forces of the Song and Jin dynasties were still vying for credit for this great victory, Chen Kui was pouring all his energy into integrating and training the more than 7,000 new soldiers who had been added to the army. In order to integrate these 10,000 men as quickly as possible, Chen Kui directly mixed up the more than 7,000 new recruits with the original 2,000 or so old soldiers from the broken military camps. He incorporated all of the old soldiers into the new force and had many of them take on lower-level positions such as squad leader and team leader in order to integrate this army into an elite cavalry corps like the old Broken Army as quickly as possible.
The three thousand heavy cavalry were divided into fifteen teams, with fifty people forming a team to train in formation, and were divided into sixty small teams. All the leaders from top to bottom were all old broken army generals, and the old broken army soldiers directly accounted for one-third of the number among the three thousand people. This was Chen Kefu's true trump card troops that he had been building with all his heart. In this confrontation with Goguryeo cavalry, Chen Kefu realized that although heavy cavalry had many shortcomings, at the right time, putting heavy cavalry on the battlefield would also have a decisive effect. Such a team is a strategic team, and if it doesn't come out, it will be fine, but once it comes out, it will have a decisive impact on the outcome of the battle. For such a team, he naturally spent all his energy to build this heavy cavalry team, anyway, now he was the red man in front of the emperor, whatever he wanted, everyone would give him.
As for the other 7,000 light cavalrymen, Chen Kefu also dispersed all the remaining nearly 2,000 defeated soldiers into them, from the grassroots to the middle and upper-level generals, they were all those non-aristocratic family sons. Although those aristocratic families had some minor opinions about this, Chen Kefu's behavior was supported by Yang Guang. For Yang Guang, Chen Kefu is now his bodyguard, such military power, he certainly does not want those noble families to intervene, if all the generals who take charge of his bodyguards are from humble backgrounds, it will make him feel more at ease.
"Sir, all 10,000 soldiers have gathered on the training ground. Please go and inspect them." Old man Li Benlei has been in a very good mood recently. In his view, after this battle, the destruction of Goguryeo is imminent, and he will finally be able to avenge his family and country.
Chen Kefu smiled, "Old master has been in high spirits lately. Now I've handed over the training work of these 7,000 light cavalrymen to you. We'll have to rely on old master's efforts even more from now on."
"The adults are joking, as long as it is for the sake of conquering Goguryeo, even if I die from exhaustion, I am willing to do so. However, sir, now that our broken army camp has suddenly increased to 10,000 people, and they are all elite, I estimate that after this battle, many people will be assigned to us, and at that time, although the broken army camp will have more people, it may not necessarily belong to our command."
Chen Kefu nodded, now he nominally belongs to the Left Guard of the Four Guards, directly under the Emperor's personal guard. However, the Left Guard is the Emperor's personal bodyguard, and it's impossible for the Emperor to let his broken army camp become his own private army camp. At that time, he will definitely send some generals with similar ranks as Chen Kefu to share his power. This is something he least wants to accept, if at that time he can't even command this broken army camp, how can he stand firm in this chaotic world?
"We'll talk about this later, for now we can only play it by ear. If we show our hand too much and get caught by Pei Wu and others, it will become a big deal." Chen Kefu had never treated Li Benlei as an outsider, so he spoke these somewhat treasonous words without hesitation.
"Sir, this time the rewards for meritorious service will definitely make you first in line. As a third-rank official, you'll at least be promoted to a substantive position of the same rank. If possible, it would be best if you could secure a general's position in one of the Twelve Guards. That way, it would be much better than being stuck in the Left Imperial Bodyguard." Li Bolei said quietly. The Four Garrisons were always stationed beside the Emperor as his personal bodyguards, while the Twelve Guards took turns guarding the capital city. It was best for a young general like Chen Kefu, without any powerful connections, to stay far away from the central political circle of the capital.
Chen Kefu also deeply agrees with this. As far as he knows, the peasant uprising in the Central Plains has already caused chaos throughout the land. Even if the Sui army defeats Goguryeo this time, it will not have much effect on the deteriorating situation in the Central Plains. The Sui dynasty is bound to fall eventually. At this moment, he already has some chips in his hand and is unwilling to continue playing with Yang Guang no matter what. Now is a time for choice. Only by staying away from the political core circle of the Sui dynasty can he possibly do what he wants to do.
"This time I observed the situation of Goguryeo, although our army won a great victory, but after this defeat, the people of Goguryeo will be more determined to defend their city. In the future, if we want to fight against Goguryeo in the wild, I'm afraid there will be no chance. If we continue to confront each other like this, we can't hold on for too long either. When the time comes and the army returns to the capital, I will ask Your Majesty to let me stay in Liaodong. Now that we have conquered several cities in Liaodong, it would be better for us to stay here than to return to the capital."
The old man thought for a moment and nodded, "Staying in Liaodong is indeed a bit dangerous, but it's also a good idea. Liaodong is bitter and cold, I reckon that when the time comes, those generals from noble families won't be willing to stay behind. At that time, sir can use the Yuwen clan to make arrangements, and the chances of staying behind will be very high."
The old man was naturally very much in favor of staying, he and the Goguryeo people had a great feud of killing sons and grandchildren, staying here he could find the Goguryeo people to continue his revenge. As for Chen Kefu, he was distressed that although the Central Plains were vast, they did not have a place for him to stand, the land of the Central Plains had already been divided up by the aristocratic families, and what was left was even some barren lands, which had all become the territory of the peasant uprising army, it would be better to stay in Liaodong, where no one would come to compete with him, perhaps this could be his place to stand.
Vote for me, give more votes, and I'll let Yang Guang promote you all later...
