Chapter 66 157 Yan Gaoqing scolds the thief

At this critical moment, Yan Gaoqing (sound gao), the prefect of Changshan (now Zhengding, Hebei), was the first to rise up to attack the rebels. Yan Gaoqing was originally a subordinate of An Lushan.After An Lushan launched the rebellion, Yan Gaoqing was ready to resist.When the rebels arrived in Gaocheng (in today's Hebei Province, Gaoyin gao), Yan Gaoqing had recruited more than a thousand strong men.He knew that he was not strong enough to fight recklessly with An Lushan, so he pretended to surrender to the rebels with his official Yuan Luqian.An Lushan still asked him to guard Changshan, but he was worried. While taking Yan Gaoqing's son and nephew as hostages in the barracks, he sent a rebel general to guard Jingxing Pass (in Jingxing, Hebei today).

After An Lushan crossed the Yellow River and captured Luoyang, Yan Gaoqing decided to raise troops. His cousin Yan Zhenqing, the prefect of Pingyuan (now Shandong Plain), also recruited more than 10,000 people and sent people to contact Yan Gaoqing, asking him to capture Jingxing. Pass, cut off the back road of Anlu Mountain. Yan Gaoqing found out that the rebel general guarding Jingxing Pass was a foolish drunkard, so he falsely passed on An Lushan's order and sent someone to comfort him with good wine and food. Killed and occupied Jingxing Pass. Yan Gaoqing captured Jingxing Pass, and his morale was boosted.The next day, two traitor generals were captured alive one after another.Yan Gaoqing sent people to the counties in Hebei to tell the officials: Now that the imperial court has sent 300,000 troops to attack Anlu Mountain, they have already left Jingxing Pass and will arrive in the counties of Hebei sooner or later.Those who were coerced by An Lushan to rebel could be rewarded if they surrendered as soon as possible;

Officials from various counties in Hebei responded to Yan Gaoqing when they heard that Anlu Mountain was untenable.Of the twenty-four counties in Hebei, seventeen counties have joined the Tang army. An Lushan was preparing to march towards Tongguan. When he heard that all the counties in Hebei responded to Yan Gaoqing, the rear was unstable, so he had to change his mind and return to Luoyang.He called himself Emperor Dayan in Luoyang, and sent generals Shi Siming and Cai Xide each with 10,000 horses to attack Changshan in two directions. Although Yan Gaoqing fought a few victories, he had only raised his troops for eight days. The fortifications around Changshan had not been repaired, and his troops were few. How could he defeat the two rebels!When the rebels arrived at Changshan City, Yan Gaoqing sent people to Taiyuan to ask for help, but Taiyuan guard Wang Chengye refused to send troops.

Shi Siming's rebels besieged Changshan tightly. Yan Gaoqing led the soldiers and civilians of Changshan to resist desperately for four days. The food in the city ran out and the arrows were gone.Chang Shan finally fell into the hands of the rebels. Shi Siming connived at the rebels and killed more than 10,000 Changshan soldiers and civilians, then arrested Yan Gaoqing and Yuan Luqian, and escorted them to Luoyang to meet Anlushan. An Lushan ordered the soldiers to bring Yan Gaoqing to him, and asked Yan Gaoqing: "You are just a small official in Fanyang. I promoted you to be the prefect. Why did you rebel against me?"

Yan Gaoqing scolded angrily: "You are a shepherd boy. The country made you the governor of the three towns. How can I be sorry for you? I am fighting for the country, and I wish I could cut off your head. What do you call rebellion?" ?” An Lushan became furious and asked the left and right soldiers to drag Yan Gaoqing and Yuan Luqian to a pillar beside a bridge and tie them up, and tortured them cruelly. Yan Gaoqing looked stern, while enduring the torture, he still scolded An Lushan severely.The rebel soldiers cut Yan Gaoqing's tongue with a knife, and Yan Gaoqing's mouth was full of blood, and he uttered vague curses.

Seeing the cruel scene of Yan Gaoqing being tortured, Yuan Luqian was so angry that he bit his tongue and sprayed blood and tongue on the face of a traitor next to him. Yan Gaoqing and Yuan Luqian continued to curse until they died. It took Yan Gaoqing only a dozen days from the start of the army to the defeat, but their resistance dragged down the rebel forces and bought time for the Tang Dynasty to dispatch troops and generals; their spirit of resistance to the death inspired more people against the rebels. One month after Yan Gaoqing was killed, Li Guangbi, the Jiedu envoy of Hedong, led more than 10,000 infantry and cavalry and 3,000 Taiyuan archers to Jingxing Pass to repel the rebels and regain Changshan.Then, Shuofang Jiedu envoy Guo Ziyi also led elite soldiers to join Li Guangbi in Changshan.Some people in Hebei suffered from the anguish of the rebels in Anlu Mountain. When they heard that Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi's army was coming, they spontaneously assembled and built camps to resist the rebels. When Guo and Li's army arrived, they joined the army.The two armies of Guo and Li were strong and strong, and their morale was strong. They attacked the rebels in Anlu Mountain one after another, and more than a dozen counties in Hebei returned to the hands of the Tang army.

The great victory in Hebei cut off the retreat of the rebel army, and the rebel army was shaken.An Lushan panicked and complained about the counselors Gao Shang and Yan Zhuang, saying: "In the past few years, you have advised me to rebel, saying that this is a perfect strategy. Now Tongguan is being attacked in the west, and it cannot be penetrated for several months; the road to the north has also been cut off. We are trapped here, what are you calling Wanquan!" He planned to abandon Luoyang and flee back to Fanyang. When Anlu Mountain was in a dilemma, the ruler of the Tang Dynasty himself opened the gate of Tongguan for the rebels.