The family of the emperor did not care about kinship.
In order to monopolize power, everything could be sacrificed.
As the leader of a generation, Li Longji was never soft-hearted. In the process of his ascension, he had experienced the Divine Dragon Rebellion and Tang Long's coup.
In order to let his father Li Dan take the throne, Li Longji killed his aunt, Empress Wei, and his aunt, Princess Taiping. Then, he forced his father Li Dan to abdicate and ascend the throne himself.
It could be said that Li Longji's throne was obtained by trampling on human relations and kinship.
Therefore, he valued the power in his hands the most. He did not allow anyone to touch it, not even his own son.
Li Longji also knew that An Lushan wouldn't surrender without a fight.
After sending Li Heng out of the capital, he had made two more preparations.
He gathered troops and headed to Luoyang and Xiangzhou. He also sent people to the Anxi Protectorate to send Gao Xianzhi, Feng Changqing, and Li Siye back to the capital.
Although Li Longji was a little muddle-headed, he knew very well that the two most elite legions of the Tang Empire were in the hands of An Lushan and the Anxi Protectorate.
If they wanted to stop An Lushan, they really needed the elite soldiers of Anxi to take action.
Thus, he placed his hopes on Gao Xianzhi and the others returning in time.
However, Li Longji forgot one thing.
At this time, the elite soldiers of Anxi were far away in Russia, thousands of miles away from the Tang Empire, while An Lushan's Youzhou soldiers were less than thousands of miles away from Luoyang.
An Lushan's reaction was also surprisingly fast.
He knew that Li Longji would never let him go. Less than ten days after the broadcast, he joined forces with Shi Siming and raised the banner of rebellion.
And this time, Emperor Xuanzong had backfired. He only wanted to send Li Heng to his death, but he didn't know that Li Heng was no pushover.
He slowed down his speed along the way.
As soon as he arrived at Ye City, he learned that An Lushan had openly rebelled. He immediately changed his route and headed west in an attempt to escape to the Anxi Protectorate.
Unfortunately, Li Heng's luck wasn't very good.
Before he could escape Hebei, he was captured by An Lushan's rebels and became the best chess piece in the hands of An Lushan's rebels.
Li Heng was Master Houhei.
In the original history, in order to ask the Huihe soldiers to help quell the rebellion, he actually offered the shocking condition of " on the day the city is conquered, the land, the people, the gold, silk, and children will all belong to the Huihe." They directly sold the lives of ordinary people to the Uighurs.
In this aspect alone, Li Heng's shamelessness was comparable to that of Song Huizong and Song Gaozong.
The Uighur Khan was naturally reluctant to reject such a condition.
When they recovered Chang 'an, the Huihe soldiers had restrained themselves, but when they recovered Henan and Hebei, the Huihe soldiers directly plundered and killed the people of the Tang Empire more ruthlessly than the Anshi rebels.
They killed the people of Heshuo and chilled their hearts.
Why was it that after the An Lushan Rebellion was pacified, Henan and Hebei became the world of several rebel generals?
The reason was simple: the people of these two places were extremely disappointed with the Great Tang Imperial Court. They would rather support these rebel generals than be controlled by Li Heng.
This time, Li Heng naturally wouldn't sacrifice his life.
He was escorted to An Lushan and Shi Siming's army and had a long talk with An Lushan and his generals.
An Lushan and his military counselor, Yan Zhuang, both believed that Li Heng's status as the Crown Prince was very valuable. Thus, he supported Li Heng as the new Emperor and raised the banner of justice,'Purging the Emperor's side and killing the treacherous Prime Minister Yang Guozhong.'
They dressed up a rebellion as an internal struggle between father and son.
Li Longji was fatuous in his later years. He appointed Yang Guozhong as prime minister, causing the court to be in a foul mood and had long lost the hearts of the people.
With Li Heng, the real Crown Prince, as their banner, An Lushan's army was unstoppable. In less than two months, they had taken Henan and Hebei and were approaching Luoyang.
The reason why An Lushan's march was so successful was because of the national policy of the Tang Dynasty.
The Tang Dynasty had always carried out a policy of strengthening the outside and weakening the inside.
The elite soldiers were all at the border, and the inland cities were mostly weak soldiers who could not withstand a single blow.
Faced with the hundreds of thousands of elite border troops under An Lushan's command, they were naturally defeated.
In addition, the old Li Longji was overly selfish, and the generals he appointed were all idiots promoted by Yang Guozhong. As for Guo Ziyi, Li Guangbi, and the others mentioned in the projection, they were all Li Heng's direct subordinates, so he didn't need them at all.
Therefore, An Lushan's hasty uprising had achieved greater results than in the past.
Yang Guozhong saw that An Lushan was coming menacingly, so he quickly sent his number one trusted aide, Jingzhao Prefect Xianyu Zhongtong, to lead an army of 30,000 to guard Luoyang.
Luoyang was the eastern capital of the Tang Empire, and it was also the most important pass in the world. If a general who was good at defense guarded this place, he would definitely be able to stop the rebel army's attack.
However, once the news of Xianyu Zhongtong becoming the general of Luoyang spread, An Lushan's side was overjoyed. The entire imperial court was lamenting.
Because Xianyu Zhongtong was simply too famous.
It was not that he was particularly good at fighting, but that he was particularly useless.
A few years ago, he had led 100,000 elite soldiers of the Great Tang to attack Nanzhao, but they had actually been completely defeated. Not a single one of the hundred thousand elite soldiers of the Great Tang had returned home. Not only had Xianyu Zhongtong not been punished, he had even been promoted.
It was because he was Yang Guozhong's number one confidant.
Letting this guy guard Tongguan now was basically the same as sending An Lushan's trusted aide, Shi Siming, to guard Tongguan.
As expected, An Lushan's army reached Luoyang and used a feigned defeat to lure Xianyu Zhongtong out of Tough City. Then, they returned to attack and wiped out Xianyu Zhongtong's 30,000-strong army.
Xianyu Zhongtong died in the army.
Once Tongguan was down, An Lushan's army was heading straight for Tongguan.
Chang 'an City was in chaos.
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