Datang: From exiled prince to eternal tyrant

Chapter 171 Temporary Change
Since defeating the Turks, Li Ke has been thinking about Tubo.

Since Songtsen Gampo unified the plateau, Tubo has always been the biggest threat to the Tang Dynasty, and its location is the closest to the Shu land. Once it invades the Tang Dynasty, the Shu land will suffer from war.

In order to prevent his hard work from being threatened by the Tubo defenders, he must delay the development of Tubo.

His ultimate goal is to hit the plateau in one fell swoop and bring Tubo into the territory of the Tang Dynasty.

Nowadays, there are hidden turmoil in Tubo, which has slowed down the progress of Tubo's outward expansion.

Li Ke has to wait until Tubo fights together, and waits until the half-year appointment with Xiangxiong arrives.

At that time, all parties will send troops together to attack the plateau, and they will be able to completely disperse Tubo.

It is not easy to fight on the plateau. Soldiers are not used to the plateau climate. After going up, their combat effectiveness will definitely be greatly reduced.

And once the plain warhorses reached the plateau, it would be difficult to gallop, and Li Ke's cavalry troops would also be useless.

In response to these situations, Li Ke has already made advance deployments.

He started conscription long ago, and took the troops to the plateau in western Sichuan, where they trained and adapted to the plateau climate.

This time in the trade with Tubo, he exchanged woolen sweaters for a large number of plateau horses.

When everything is ready, he is waiting to report back the news in Tubo, and is ready to hit the plateau at any time.

During this period of time, there has been a hint of the expansion of the war situation in Tubo, talking about the constant war between Keri and other tribes, and even Tsangpo Songtsen Gampo came forward to mediate.

When the mediation failed, Songtsan Gampo withdrew publicly, but news came from time to time that the Tubo army suppressed various ministries.

This is obviously Songtsan Gampo using Lun Keri to suppress the plateau.

Li Ke was naturally satisfied with this, and if the quarrel continued like this, the Tubo people would all make a quarrel, and Songtsan Gampo's prestige would be wiped out.

Just as he was expecting the civil strife in Tubo to intensify, another accident happened.

On this day, while he was resting in the courtyard with his eldest Sun Yan, the maid came to report that Gu Wu had something important to report.

When Li Ke walked to the flower hall, Gu Wu hastily greeted him.

"Your Highness, something serious happened!"

With an anxious look on his face, Gu Wu took out a letter from his pocket.

"This is the message sent by the flying pigeon from Nivalo!"

Li Ke is full of doubts, isn't Nipoluo already settled down, what will happen?
He opened the letter, and when he saw it, he was shocked.

It turns out that there is also a tribe in the west of Tubo, which was suppressed in the early years and drifted to the border between Tubo and Nibala.

This time, the tribe who had drifted to the border also took advantage of the chaos and raised the banner to resist the Lunkeri who had suppressed them in the first place.

Of course, Lun Keri sent his army to suppress it, but in this fight, the tribal people were defeated and fled westward to the territory of Ni Borna.

Lun Keri's army drove straight in and directly attacked. They also sent a message to Niboluo to ask Niboluo to hand over the domestic rebellion.

Although Nibala reached an alliance with other countries at this time, he did not directly conflict with the Tubo people without Li Ke's instructions. They only asked Tubo to withdraw their troops and leave the country.

This request was not too much, but the Tubo people didn't want to ignore it at all, and drove straight in under the pretext of arresting rebels, and took down several towns in a few days.

This time, the Niboluo people quit. They quickly united with their neighboring small countries, organized an anti-Tubo coalition force, and declared war on Tubo.

"Your Highness, why is the second prince so restless!"

Gu Wu frowned, with a bitter look on his face.

Li Ke once mentioned that Nipoluo should stand still and everyone should send troops together. Now that the small countries in the Southwest took the initiative, they disrupted the deployment. Gu Wu's anxiety is also reasonable.

Li Ke was not angry at all. The Nivalo Kingdom cooperated with him for their own benefit, and they could not be required to act according to their own wishes.

He said: "Could it be that he can sit idly by when the Tubo people fight over?"

"Can……"

Gu Wu was just in a hurry, muttered a few words and then didn't speak again.

Li Ke was thinking in his heart, did the Tubo people just come to hunt down the defecting tribe this time, or did they come prepared?
Songtsan Gampo has been holding back lately, allowing Lun Keri to stir up trouble in the country, that's all, now that Lun Keri's army has hit Nibhara, won't he stand up and stop it?

In other words... Songtsan Gampo instructed this to be true?
The new king of Nivala came to the throne, and the second prince's hostile attitude towards Tubo, Songtsan Gampo, should be clear. Could it be that he was dissatisfied with Nibala, so he used the excuse of suppressing the rebellion to capture it?

Thinking of this, he immediately read the letter again, and finally found the clue.

He sighed and said, "It seems that the Tubo people have premeditated plans, and it's not as simple as suppressing the rebellion!"

"what?"

Gu Wu was stunned: "I've read this letter, it's clearly about crossing the border to hunt down defected Tibetan tribes!"

Li Ke shook his head: "Several towns were captured within a few days. Could it be that the speed of attacking cities and territories is really for chasing rebels?"

You know, those small tribes on the border of Tubo are really pitifully small in number.

Lun Keri has been busy suppressing opposition voices from all over the world recently, and he should have been devastated. He would not send a large number of people out of the country to fight for a small tribe on the border.

The only possibility is that this battle was premeditated long ago.

"His Royal Highness, there is news from the direction of Tubo!"

At this time, there was another letter sent by a secret agent, and Gu Wu hurried over to take it.

When Li Ke got the letter, he saw that something new had happened in Tubo. Prime Minister Shang Nang was severely criticized by Songtsan Gampo and fined for three years.

He sighed again: "It seems that Songtsan Gampo has seen the root cause of this civil turmoil..."

Linking the two things together, Li Ke tried to analyze Songtsan Gambo's real intention in this move.

The battle between Lun Keri and Shang Nang caused disputes between the central royal court and various tribes. Songtsen Gampo said nothing on the surface, but secretly instructed Lun Keri to send troops to suppress it, and at the same time criticized Shang Nang.

At the same time, he secretly ordered the army to leave the country to provoke troubles and harass the mudra.

"Sure enough..." Li Ke paused in his heart, "Songtsen Gampo wants to use foreign wars to divert domestic conflicts!"

He had thought before that the coalition of the southwestern countries against Tubo would subside the civil strife in Tubo carefully designed by Li Ke.

Therefore, Li Ke has been advising all countries to stand still and wait for the civil strife to expand, and then jointly raise troops to conquer.

But Songtsan Gampo was not easy to deal with. Facing the intensified chaos in the country, he took the first step and sent troops to Nivala first, stirring up the wrath of the southwestern countries.

Now, if the countries in the Southwest want to unite against Tubo, the tribes in his country will no longer dare to stir up trouble—the conflict between these tribes and Lunkori is nothing in the face of foreign enemies.

"Your Highness, what shall we do?" Gu Wu asked from the side.

Li Ke thought for a while, and said affirmatively: "If we wait any longer, we won't be able to wait for Tubo to completely fall into chaos. It's better to take advantage of his division of troops to the southwest, and let's fight up too!"

(End of this chapter)