The first prince of Song Dynasty

Chapter 1453
"This Wang Xu is really ignorant and fearless. He wants to be equal to my great Song Dynasty. I think he is wishful thinking. It seems that the policy of the previous dynasty towards Korea was very correct. Emperor Sui Yang is really a generation of enlightened masters."

When Zhao Xu was left alone, Zhao Xu recalled the three battles against Goryeo in the Sui Dynasty.

At first, Goryeo harassed the borders of the Sui Dynasty many times, and then did not send envoys to congratulate them. Therefore, after completing a number of major domestic basic projects and pacifying the eastern and western Turks, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty began to deal with Goryeo.

Goryeo successfully resisted the attacks of the Sui army many times, and the Sui army suffered heavy losses.In the end, King Yingyang of Goryeo surrendered and repatriated Hu Sizheng, a Sui rebel who had fled to Goryeo, because of the serious consumption of his own national power.

In [-] A.D., after Emperor Sui Yang ascended the throne, he overhauled the canal to connect the political center of northern China with the economically developed south. This canal, which was later used to attack Emperor Sui Yang, became a canal at this time. The River of Great Achievement.

This makes it possible to transport troops on a large scale across regions.In February of the seventh year of Daye, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty issued an edict to conquer Koryo on the grounds that Koryo was originally a land conferred by Jizi, but now he did not obey the etiquette of his ministers. Emperor Yang of Sui began to recruit troops.The recruited troops were concentrated in Zhuojun.In the first month of the eighth year, all the recruited soldiers were concentrated in Zhuojun.

The Sui Army has a total of more than 100 million main battle troops, which are divided into three groups, and the left and right routes are further divided into twelve groups. Each group of troops and horses has its own military purpose, plus a large number of auxiliary troops and food transportation troops, they are divided into 24 routes. , After planning to complete their respective tasks, they will eventually join forces in Pyongyang.

The imperial battalion commanded by Emperor Yangdi was an army of eleven guards drawn from the guards of the capital, and they were combined into the Sixth Battalion of the Son of Heaven. They joined forces with part of the left and right armies in Liaodong City to attack Liaodong City.Lai Huer led the navy to attack from the sea and raided Pyongyang. The total number of the four armies exceeded 130 million. In addition to the civilian husbands and laborers who transported food and grass for the army, the direct and indirect combatants of the Sui Dynasty had exceeded 500 million.

At the end of March in the eighth year of Daye, nearly one million troops of the Sui Dynasty arrived in Liaohe.

Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty ordered Yu Wenkai to build a pontoon bridge. After the pontoon bridge was completed, the Sui army attacked from the west bank.When the pontoon bridge was extended to a position that was several meters away from the opposite bank, Goryeo took the opportunity to attack and repelled the first attack of the Sui Dynasty. Many generals of the Sui Dynasty fought and died bravely. Therefore, the Sui army changed its strategy and advanced in multiple levels. , Only then did they successfully cross the Liaohe River and surrounded Liaodong City.

At the very beginning, when Emperor Yang of Sui joined forces in Liaoshui, he considered that some generals would go deep into the army alone because of the fault of personal heroism, so he ordered them to notify each other of the nearby troops and report to themselves whenever there was any military action in advance or retreat. to act.

But this order made the army generals worry a lot. Every time a battle opened a gap in the Goryeo army or the Goryeo army surrendered, the generals had to report to Emperor Yang of Sui to know before they could march.But after Emperor Sui Yang ordered it down, Koryo had reorganized an effective defense.

After repeating this many times, the Sui army failed to capture Liaodong City.Even though Emperor Yang personally went to the front line to command, the morale of the Sui army, which had already declined, was stalemate for another month under the stubborn resistance of the Liaodong defenders and failed to win the city.

As a result, nearly one million main combat troops of the Chinese army were blocked in Liaodong City for three months until the other armies were defeated.

Battle of Pyongyang
In the case of the setback of the Central Route Army, several other armies began to attack the hinterland of Koryo after completing the task of transitioning to battle.

The Sui army's navy reached the Datong River before the army, but the Sui army's army did not arrive. King Yingyang sent a small group of troops to fight the invading Sui army.After a brief confrontation, Goryeo's army pretended to be defeated and retreated towards the city.Lai Huer thought that Goryeo was not capable, so he personally led 10 troops to attack Pyongyang.

When the Sui army came to the outlying castles in Pyongyang, they found the gates open and the walls unguarded.After entering the castle, they found money and weapons lying on the ground.At first, Lai Huer was very cautious and ordered that plundering be prohibited.But when the Sui Dynasty army was ambushed by Goryeo in a temple and defeated it.Lai Huer relaxed his vigilance and began to plunder the outer castle.

Just as the Sui army was looting, a Koryo army consisting of thousands of people ambushed the Sui army.The Sui Dynasty army was defeated immediately.Only 2000 of the [-] Sui troops managed to escape back to the warship.In this way, the Sui army could only wait for the arrival of the army before launching an attack together.

At the same time, the army sent by Emperor Sui Yang also had problems on the road.Marching in Sui's country, the Sui army's logistics is very secure.But once it enters the territory of Goryeo, the logistics supply of the Sui Dynasty army will be ambushed by Goryeo.To solve this problem, Emperor Sui Yang ordered every soldier to bring his own food.This greatly increased the burden on the soldiers.In order to reduce the burden, many soldiers dropped the food they brought.After the Sui Dynasty army arrived at the Yalu River, there was a severe shortage of supplies.

Yu Wenshu decided to give up this military operation considering his lack of supplies on the Yalu River, but was stopped by Yu Zhongwen. Because Yu Zhongwen was appointed by Emperor Yangdi, more than 20 Sui troops crossed the Yalu River.

Ulji Wendeok found that all the Sui soldiers were hungry, so he fought and retreated to let the Sui soldiers be exhausted.However, Ulji Mundeok's deliberate weakness caused the generals of the Sui army to begin to underestimate the enemy.

Thirty miles away from Pyongyang, Ulji Mundeok surrendered again, saying that Koryo would definitely meet Tai Sui when he returned.Yu Wenshu considered that the opponent surrendered sincerely, and his soldiers were extremely tired, and Pyongyang was difficult to conquer, so he agreed to the enemy's surrender and prepared to retreat.When the accompanying army had just retreated, the Goryeo army raided from the east, west, and south, and the morale of the Sui army was greatly reduced, so they could only fight north and retreat.

When they arrived at Sashui, Goryeo attacked the Sui army when the Sui army was halfway across the river, and defeated the army behind the Sui army. With the assistance of the army, the Goryeo army was held back. When the armies from all walks of life retreated to Liaodong City and joined forces with Emperor Yangdi, the army suffered serious casualties, escaped, and became separated. There were only 450 people left.

In this way, the morale of the Sui army plummeted, and with autumn approaching, it was difficult to transport food and grass, so they had to retreat.

In the ninth year of Sui Daye, Sui Shizu launched an attack on Goryeo again.This time it failed again.When Emperor Yang of Sui personally conquered Korea, Yang Su's son Yang Xuangan rebelled in China.Worried about being attacked on both sides, Emperor Yang was forced to retreat back to the country to suppress Yang Xuangan's rebellion.

After suppressing Yang Xuangan's rebellion, Emperor Sui Yang attacked Korea again in the tenth year of Daye.Although the Sui army broke through Goryeo's first line of defense, due to Goryeo's continuous ambushes and the cutting off of the Sui army's supply line, the Sui army was still unable to take down the Liaoshui line of defense.Because Goryeo's own national power was also seriously consumed, King Yingyang finally repatriated the Sui military minister Hu Sizheng who fled to Goryeo after Yang Xuangan's rebellion to the Sui Dynasty.Emperor Yangdi accepted King Yingyang's request to surrender and withdraw his troops.

The three expeditions to Goryeo all failed, but it proved that the Central Plains Dynasty never gave up on Goryeo, and it was impossible to give up. It is still necessary to recover these places when there is time.

(End of this chapter)