Wubei Zhi (Vol. 17)

Records of Official Duty: Tang Dynasty, Volume 6

Having provided them with food and drink, he also gave financial relief to their families. They all wept and prostrated themselves, shouting with joy and vowing to fight to the death. He converted all of them into cavalrymen and placed the cavalry general Shi Zongben in command of them. He also petitioned the throne and obtained two hundred horses from the Longbei A Tang Dynasty imperial horse pasture Pasture.

With the cavalry now fully sufficient, someone suggested lighting beacon fires to lure the rebels into a trap. Shi General Wang Shi laughed and gave no reply. Instead, he selected the weakest soldiers, mounted them on the strongest horses, and gave them very few weapons to serve as scouts. The troops were resentful original: "慍" (yùn); the soldiers were frustrated or puzzled by what seemed like a waste of good horses on poor soldiers but did not dare to ask why.

He then inspected the various camps and found four thousand men from among the regular soldiers and the sons of the local militia original: "土團" (tutuan), local self-defense units. He used them as guides for the various armies as they set out on different routes to suppress the rebels. He issued an order to them: "Do not argue over whose path is difficult or easy. Do not burn down houses. Do not kill civilians Is already here simply to increase your count of severed heads In the Tang military, merit and promotion were often calculated by the number of enemies killed, leading to the frequent slaughter of innocents. Recruit those who were forced to join the rebels to surrender. Regarding any gold or silk captured from the enemy, the authorities will not inquire about it A strategic move to allow soldiers to keep loot as an incentive to fight harder."

From that point on, the various armies engaged the rebels in nineteen battles, and the rebels suffered continuous defeats. Liu Ya said to Pei Fu: "If [Qiu] Hui Referring to the rebel leader Qiu Fu had followed my plan, would he be in this desperate situation?" They captured Wang Lu and others and executed them. Shi remarked: "The rebels are in dire straits and..."