The surrender ceremony was very simple; after all, this place couldn't be complicated.

Li Jue sat upright in the central command tent. Generals Gao Yanshou and Gao Huizhen, bare-chested and wearing only loincloths, crawled into the tent on their knees.

"Gao Huizhen, the defeated general!"

"Gao Yanshou, the defeated general!"

"We pay our respects to the eldest grandson of the Great Tang Dynasty, and beg for his mercy in sparing our lives..."

Li Jue did not humiliate the two. In fact, he watched the entire battle from the mountain and could see that the two had fought very hard.

However, the military quality of the Tang Dynasty's soldiers was too high, and their 150,000 ragtag troops were no match for them, which led to this crushing defeat.

To put it bluntly, given the strategy devised by Li Er, let alone in the Tang Dynasty, even in the Republic of China era, there wouldn't be many teams that could execute it perfectly.

Therefore, these two deserved to lose!

"Heaven cherishes life!"

"Our Great Tang is a righteous army. We only want to retrieve the remains of the Sui Dynasty soldiers who died in Liaodong. As long as you cooperate with the Great Tang and properly discipline your soldiers, I will naturally spare your lives!"

Upon hearing this, Gao Huizhen and Gao Yanshou kowtowed repeatedly until their foreheads bled, but neither of them showed any sign of stopping.

In the end, Li Jue couldn't bear to watch any longer and ordered his men to help the two up and put clothes on them.

"Generals, please don't do this!"

"You fought bravely, but your defeat today is truly a matter of fate, and you do not deserve this humiliation..."

Gao Huizhen and Gao Yanshou were moved to tears upon hearing these words.

"The eldest grandson, I..."

"We swear to follow the eldest grandson to the death, sob sob sob..."

Li Jue didn't believe a single word the two men said.

There was no way around it; the Tang Dynasty had far too many capable ministers and generals, and it seemed impossible for two surrendered Goguryeo generals to pledge their loyalty to them.

"You two can leave now and get some rest. We'll host a proper banquet for you another day after our Tang army has captured Anshi City!"

"ah?"

The two were both taken aback by these words, and then exchanged a glance.

Anshi City was the last line of defense for Goguryeo. If the Tang army could break through Anshi City, they could advance straight into Pyongyang!

"Eldest grandson, Anshi City is not easy to conquer..."

Li Jue smiled jokingly upon hearing this.

"Do either of you generals have a good strategy for breaching the city?"

Upon hearing this, the two fell silent, then shook their heads in unison.

"No!"

"Anshi City is high and deeply fortified, and it's built halfway up a mountain. Not to mention that the Tang Dynasty would find it difficult to conquer, even we Goguryeo couldn't do anything about them..."

Li Jue had long known that these two would not truly surrender, so he was not angry upon hearing this. He simply waved his hand and ordered his men to take the two away.

Only when all his own men were left in the tent did Li Jue look at Li Shiji beside him.

"Uncle Li, with so many prisoners kept outside the camp, won't this cause trouble?"

Upon hearing this, Li Shiji immediately stood up.

"What are the eldest grandson's thoughts?"

"I don't have any particular ideas, I just think we should kill a bunch of chickens to warn those monkeys in Goguryeo!"

Upon hearing this, Cheng Yaojin immediately cheered with delight.

"Killing is good!"

"Back then, Goguryeo killed Han Chinese like dogs. Now it's finally our turn to kill them! Hahaha!"

Li Shiji echoed this sentiment.

"Give the order, eldest grandson! Tell us how to kill them, and we'll do it!"

Li Jue pondered for a moment before speaking.

"First, pick out the Mohe people, then have the Goguryeo people dig pits themselves and bury them alive!"

Upon hearing this, Li Shiji pondered for a moment before replying.

"This plan is feasible!"

"In this way, the Mohe people will not only not hate the Tang Dynasty, but will hate the Goguryeo people to the bone!"

This was Li Jue's goal: only by fundamentally severing the ties between the Mohe and Goguryeo people could this land enjoy lasting peace and stability.

"We should treat the Goguryeo people with more leniency. We should select the most prestigious among them as hostages and settle them in areas under the actual control of our Tang Dynasty. Then we should send the rest back."

"After all, we've marched thousands of miles, and we simply don't have enough food to feed them!"

Li Shiji nodded again upon hearing this.

In fact, this was also the idea of ​​him and several senior officials.

After all, there were far too many Goguryeo people captured this time. Killing them all was obviously unrealistic, but if they were all released, they might come back with a vengeance.

Therefore, a group of hostages were left behind first, and the rest were released later.

This would ensure that they wouldn't dare to act recklessly, and it would also relieve us of the burden of feeding these people, achieving two goals at once.

"The eldest grandson is wise!"

"Oh, by the way, this is the list of spoils seized this time. Please take a look, eldest grandson!"

Normally, this list of spoils would have been shown to Li Shimin. However, since Li Shimin was now grooming his eldest grandson, Li Shiji naturally had to follow the emperor's lead.

When Li Jue took the list of seized items, he gasped in shock.

The force consisted of 50,000 horses, 50,000 cattle, and tens of thousands of armored soldiers. As for the number of swords, spears, halberds, bows, and arrows, only an approximate figure was given, and the exact numbers were still being tallied.

"Was Goguryeo quite wealthy?"

"Don't release these prisoners yet. Let them build a prison and lock them up for ten days or half a month first!"

Upon hearing this, Li Shiji immediately frowned and asked.

"May I ask what the eldest grandson plans to do?"

"What else can we do? Of course, we'll have them participate in Goguryeo's post-war reconstruction efforts!"

"Post-war reconstruction?"

"May I ask what the eldest grandson means by this?"

Li Jue asked in bewilderment upon hearing this.

"Post-war reconstruction is reconstruction!"

"You won't fight a battle and then run away, letting Goguryeo surrender and then rebel again, then rebel and then surrender again, pulling us back and forth between our Great Tang, will you?"

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!