Tang Dynasty Mingyue Song Dynasty Pass

Chapter 816 Return without success
It was early spring in the north, when the chill still lingered and all things were reviving. The vanguard of the Song army, totaling 50,000 elite soldiers, under the command of Li Jixun, marched towards the vast territory of Northern Han in a mighty force, with high morale and fighting spirit.

Zhao Kuangyin chose to launch the Northern Expedition at this delicate moment, and there were far-reaching considerations behind it. On the one hand, he was strongly stimulated by the fact that the Southern Han was annexed by the Wu Kingdom in the south, and he was eager to unify the north and expand the territory; on the other hand, more importantly, the domestic political situation in the Northern Han was turbulent.

The Northern Han Emperor Liu Jun died of illness, and Liu Jun's nephew Liu Jie'en sent an envoy to report to the Liao Dynasty, and officially ascended the throne after obtaining its permission. After ascending the throne, he alienated the powerful official Guo Wuwei and appointed him as the Minister of Works to undermine his power. However, Guo Wuwei had great power, so the new emperor Liu Jie'en could not really undermine him for a while.

Liu Jie'en didn't want to be sidelined, he wanted to take back the imperial power that belonged to him. So at a banquet, Liu Jie'en tried to find an opportunity to kill Guo Wuwei, but Guo Wuwei was cunning and even claimed to be sick and didn't go, so Liu Jie'en was the fish on the chopping board.

After the banquet was over, Liu Jie'en went back to rest. The attendant official Hou Bayong rushed in with dozens of swordsmen and hacked the newly enthroned emperor to death. This was a strategy behind the scenes by Guo Wuwei - killing with a borrowed knife.

After Liu Jie'en was killed, Guo Wuwei pretended to come here after hearing the news and led his troops to kill Hou Ba Rong and his accomplices, so that Liu Jie'en's brother Liu Jiyuan could succeed him. On the one hand, Guo Wuwei wanted to surrender to the Song Dynasty, but on the other hand, he also wanted to gain more benefits.

Zhao Kuangyin saw the turmoil in the court of Northern Han and felt that the people in the court of Northern Han were unstable and that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to send troops, so he dispatched a large army and first sent Li Jixun to lead the troops to attack Northern Han.

But after Liu Jiyuan came to power, he did two things: one was to confer titles on him and to request troops; the other was to deploy troops. He asked the Liao ruler to confer titles on him, and the relationship between Liao and Northern Han was restored. He sent people to deploy heavy troops in the military fortress Tuanbai Valley, and sent Liu Jiye (later renamed Yang Ye) to deploy defenses in Tuanbai Valley to deal with the Song Dynasty.

Liu Jiye's army met the vanguard of Song. This time, Li Jixun showed his bravery and the Song army was powerful, so they defeated Liu Jiye's army. Liu Jiye led the remaining troops back to Taiyuan City, and the Song army then surrounded Taiyuan City.

Before the battle, the Song army had already planned a dual strategy of attacking both the enemy's heart and the city.

The purpose of attacking is to break down the city and capture the stronghold with the force of thunder and lightning; the purpose of persuading is to undermine the enemy's morale and lure them into surrender.

To this end, the Song army carefully prepared more than 40 letters of persuasion for surrender, which were thrown into the city with large crossbows. In the letters of persuasion, a solemn promise was made: if Liu Jiyuan, the ruler of Northern Han, was willing to surrender, not only would his life be safe, but he would also be appointed as the governor of Pinglu and enjoy a high position; the prime minister and others would also receive the same treatment, with their official titles and power remaining the same.

This plan indeed caused the heart of Guo Wuwei, an important official of the Northern Han Dynasty, to waver. He looked at the current situation and gradually felt that returning to the Song Dynasty might be a wise move, so he began to persuade Liu Jiyuan to surrender and wanted to persuade him to join him in the plan of surrendering to the Song Dynasty.

However, Liu Jiyuan had just ascended the throne and was eager for power. How could he easily surrender and become a prisoner?

In addition, Jinyang City was impregnable, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and the Liao reinforcements were ready to move and could help the Northern Han at any time. Therefore, Liu Jiyuan was full of confidence and resolutely resisted surrender.

The battle was at a stalemate and Jinyang City could not be captured for a long time. Just when the Song army was exhausted from dealing with the situation, Khitan reinforcements arrived as expected and the situation suddenly reversed.

Seeing this, General Li Jixun knew that it was useless to fight further, so he had to reluctantly order the entire army to retreat immediately.

This Northern Expedition against Northern Han ended in failure.

A month later, Zhao Kuangyin heard that the 50,000-man vanguard army had failed to defeat the enemy, and he was so angry that he decided to lead the army himself to avenge the previous defeat and launched the Second Northern Expedition. He personally led an army of 100,000 men and swore to go to war, which showed his determination.

In this Northern Expedition, Zhao Kuangyin gathered many famous generals of the Northern Song Dynasty under his command. Brave and warlike generals such as Shi Shouxin and Murong Yanzhao all followed the army, making the lineup strong and the morale high.

When he arrived outside the city of Jinyang, Zhao Kuangyin looked up and saw the towering city walls, solid as a rock. He thought to himself: Although this city is difficult to attack, it is in the interests of the country and I have to do it.

Therefore, he ordered the entire army to attack Jinyang at all costs. At the same time, he also needed to deploy tight defenses to block the Khitan reinforcements to prevent them from taking the opportunity to attack.

Therefore, Zhao Kuangyin sent out two troops to block the reinforcements. The first one was stationed in Dingzhou and Zhenzhou. As expected, the Khitan army really came, with thousands of troops, and engaged in a battle with tens of thousands of Song troops. Since the Song army was well prepared, this blocking battle drove away the Khitan cavalry.

The second route of the Song army to block the reinforcements was in Yangqu, a strategic military town with only one exit to the south. The Song army stationed tens of thousands of troops there. Another cavalry unit of 10,000 Khitan troops arrived and a fierce battle broke out, but the Khitan army was blocked and repelled again.

Zhao Kuangyin felt relieved when he received the news that the Khitan reinforcements were blocked. He knew that this was an attempt by the Khitan troops to rescue, and the real main force had not arrived yet. He needed to capture Jinyang City as soon as possible to prevent the Liao army from moving south on a large scale. After all, there were only 10,000 or 20,000 cavalry coming to rescue now. If 100,000 cavalry came, the situation would be completely different.

"Speed ​​up the siege!" Zhao Kuangyin looked at the majestic Jinyang City and gave the order to launch a violent attack without wasting any more time.

He knew that this battle was related to the fate of the Northern Song Dynasty. If he won, he would be powerful and powerful, but if he lost, his morale would be frustrated. Therefore, he personally supervised the battle and encouraged the soldiers.

During this siege, the Song army adopted four methods: one was a violent attack, using human wave tactics, but it failed after half a month.

The second attempt was to use fire attack, firing rockets into the city, but this also failed.

The third method was to set up camps in the four cities, station heavy troops in the east, west, south and north, and attack the cities at the same time. The battle lasted for a month, cutting off all supplies to Jinyang City. In this way, the city was besieged but still could not be taken.

Finally, someone suggested using the Fen River near Jinyang City to flood the city.

Zhao Kuangyin thought this was a good idea and immediately sent troops to divert the Fen River to launch a water attack.

All of a sudden, the river water surrounded and soaked Taiyuan City. A few days later, a breach was created in Jinyang City.

"Come on!"

"The city has been breached, we must charge into Jinyang City!"

Many Song soldiers paddled bamboo rafts and rushed towards the gap in the city wall, but when they were about to break through, an accident occurred. The defenders had blocked the gap with templates and aquatic plants, and there was water in the city, so a large haystack floated at the gap, which just happened to reach here and got stuck.

Moreover, the archers in the city kept shooting arrows, and many corpses were shot, which were also floating here, blocking the entrance. When the Song army attacked here, they were blocked.

After a day of fighting, the Song army had no choice but to retreat.

That night, the Song army caught a cold because they were sleeping on a grassland and the river flooded. Many of them ate bad food and got acute enteritis, and many in the army had no fighting capacity.

In addition, the Song army received news that the Liao army had gathered nearly 100,000 troops and was heading south to rescue the Northern Han.

Taking all these reasons into consideration, Zhao Kuangyin discussed with his generals at night and had no choice but to retreat.

The reasons for the failure of the expedition against Northern Han were: first, the city of Jinyang was strong and difficult to capture; second, there was external aid, the Liao army was always watching and would attack the Song army from the side; third, there was poor planning, flooding the city was a temporary measure and there was no detailed planning beforehand; fourth, there were uncertain factors, such as Song soldiers having diarrhea and haystacks, which were all uncertain and led to the final failure.

Although the Song army failed in its attack on the Northern Khanate, it had an important achievement: the battle reduced the number of Northern Han troops. In these two northern expeditions, 10,000 to 20,000 Northern Han soldiers were killed, and the people outside the city were relocated. According to historical records, when the Northern Han Dynasty fell, there were 35,000 households, and more than 10,000 households were relocated this time.

At this time, Su Chen had already returned to Jinling City. After hearing the news, he nodded slightly. Everything was recorded in history and there had not been much change.

In the south, Su Chen's time travel created a butterfly effect, which changed the historical course of the southern regime.

However, he did not go to the north. In the northern part, the original history of the Northern Song Dynasty, Liao Dynasty, and Northern Han Dynasty was not changed because of Su Chen, so their interpretation was almost the same as the history.

This time, Zhao Kuangyin led the army in person, but failed to destroy the Northern Han, so both sides suffered losses.

"Yes, this time Zhao Kuangyin's influence has been greatly weakened, and some Song generals have also been injured or killed. The Song army has suffered some setbacks, which is beneficial to Wu!"