Death
After this point, however, Eastern Tujue was itself in internal turmoil and had less ability to aid Liang. Emperor Taizong therefore wrote Liang Shidu several times to try to persuade him to submit, but Liang refused. Emperor Taizong sent raiding forces to pillage Liang periodically, as well as to burn the crops, reducing Liang's food supplies, and also sent agents into Liang territory to damage the relationships between Liang and his officials. In summer 628, when a number of Khitan tribes surrendered to Tang, Ashina Duobi offered to trade Liang for the Khitan tribes, but Emperor Taizong refused.
Meanwhile, Emperor Taizong sent his brother-in-law Chai Shao (柴紹) and the generals Xue Wanjun (薛萬均), Liu Lancheng (劉蘭成), and Liu Min (Liang's former subordinate) to pressure Shuofang. They soon defeated Eastern Tujue forces and put Shuofang under siege, and Eastern Tujue forces were unable to lift the siege. When the food supplies ran out, Liang Shidu's cousin Liang Luoren assassinated Liang Shidu and surrendered the city to Tang.
Read more about this topic: Liang Shidu
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps afield.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“O mortal folk, you may behold and see
How I lie here, sometime a mighty knight;
The end of joy and all prosperity
Is death at last, thorough his course and might;”
—Stephen Hawes (1474–1528)
“We should stop looking to law to provide the final answer.... Law cannot save us from ourselves.... We have to go out and try to accomplish our goals and resolve disagreements by doing what we think is right. That energy and resourcefulness, not millions of legal cubicles, is what was great about America. Let judgment and personal conviction be important again.”
—Philip K. Howard, U.S. lawyer. The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America, pp. 186-87, Random House (1994)