Map of the Kingdom's Warfare.

Summary

The Northern Sui's centipede boats and water ghosts dominated the battlefield, destroying the Tang army's rafts and capturing over 5,000 soldiers. Li Xiao Gong was forced to retreat, and he proposed the "Severing an Arm to Survive" strategy, which involved surrendering 60,000 soldiers to the Northern Sui and using the remaining food supplies to make a last-ditch effort to cross the Jiugong Mountain area towards Baling County. Huang Jun Han volunteered to lead the surrender, and Li Xiao Gong guaranteed that he would be a hero of the Tang Dynasty and that his family would be sent to Zhongdu. The Tang army split into two routes, with Li Xiao Gong leading the elite troops west and Huang Jun Han remaining with the 60,000 soldiers to surrender to the Northern Sui. Zhang Xuan accepted the surrender and reorganized the soldiers, while Li Xiao Gong's decision allowed the Northern Sui to smoothly take Jiangxia and Jingbei without losing a single soldier.

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