Five Dynasties River Mountains Fengyue

Chapter 230 Go North, Continue North!
To the north of Youzhou, the elite army of the Liao Kingdom is busy gathering. It has been many years since the large-scale deployment of the Daliao imperial tent pro-army, especially since the current emperor ascended the throne, so there is also a lot of discussion in Beijing. I don’t know what happened in the south thing.

Some people said that His Majesty wanted to go south to the Central Plains in accordance with the last emperor's behest, and some people said that the southern army was going north in a big way. Many people began to worry about this person.

During the reign of Emperor Sejong, the people of all ethnic groups and the Khitan tribe had lingering fears when they went south for years. Later, Emperor Sejong was assassinated because the whole country could not bear the loss of his continuous military deployment without making much progress.

Emperor Taizong also sent troops year after year, but at that time the Liao army could often go deep into the hinterland of the Central Plains, looting a lot of goods, food and grass, and even crossed the Yellow River to capture Daliang, the capital of the Central Plains, so people didn't have so many complaints.

Seeing that His Majesty, who had been silent before, suddenly gathered an army, many people began to worry whether they would follow the old path of Emperor Sejong.

Although Shangjing is next to the grassland, it is not surrounded by grasslands. The surrounding area is dominated by mountains and hills, with a lot of cultivated land.

This is because the predecessor of Shangjing was Hancheng, which was built by the emperor Taizu of Liao Dynasty who placed Han people and let them farm around. It was the foundation of Liao Kingdom and later became the capital of Liao Kingdom. In the army, there is a branch mainly composed of Han Chinese Jingqi.

Today, there is already a lot of cultivated land around Shangjing, which has led to the fact that the Liao Kingdom is no longer a pure nomadic empire. There are many cultivated lands distributed in the vast area from Shangjing (near the Bahrain Left Banner in Inner Mongolia today) to Youzhou in Nanjing, and then to Liaoyang in Tokyo. After the development of several generations of emperors, especially the management of Nanyuan King Yelv Talie and others, the farming population of Liao Kingdom has gradually surpassed the nomadic population.

Many of the Khitan's own population has also gradually turned to farming, which has brought about a huge problem, that is, they are becoming more and more war-weary.

The fertility rate of nomadic peoples is much higher than that of farming peoples, but the total population is much smaller than that of farming peoples.

The reason is that the nomads are affected and restricted by the living environment and social technology, and have no concept of chastity, etc., so that while the birth rate is high, the death rate is also high, the average life expectancy is short, and the production and life are most affected by natural disasters. In that way, long-term and stable survival guarantees can be obtained, and too many people cannot be supported.

In this case, life is not easy anyway, and death is always with me like the wind, so it is better to fight and go all out to grab it, so the nomads have high enthusiasm for combat and low war exhaustion.

However, as the entire Liao Kingdom gradually transformed into farming, the degree of war weariness immediately increased. Farming can obtain survival resources relatively stably, and more and more people are unwilling to work hard. What farming needs most is stability, and farming must be coordinated. When the weather is different, if you often fight, it is easy to miss the opportunity to cultivate.

Some members of the Yelu family and the Xiao family of the emperor and queen clan understood this change in the Liao Kingdom and followed the trend, such as Yelu Talie, the great king of the Southern Academy.

But there are also many people who don't understand that the Liao Kingdom paid a high price for this.

The last emperor of the Liao Kingdom, Liao Shizong, still had an old nomadic mindset, constantly launching wars to the south, trying to gain profits through plundering. As a result, this move mobilized the army and cost the people money. No matter the Khitan clan, the Han people, the Xi people, etc. were dissatisfied with him, Rebellions broke out frequently, and in the end he himself was assassinated and killed during the Southern Expedition.

So when Shangjing began to deploy troops on a large scale, people in the Liao Kingdom were divided, causing varying degrees of panic, because although the current Emperor Yelujing of the Liao Kingdom did not waste money and people like Sejong, he ignored political affairs, had no intention of making progress, and did nothing.

If the emperor of the Liao Kingdom can clearly recognize this general trend, follow the trend, continue to vigorously promote Sinicization, and completely build the Liao Kingdom into an empire with farming as the main economic structure and nomadic supplementation, it will definitely bring Liao to another level. steps, but obviously Yelvjing is not that kind of person.

These things need future generations to do.

By the beginning of June, 5 people from the Pishi Army and the Shanshan Army near Shangjing had assembled. This is a quick-response force that has been stationed near Shangjing. It does not need to be recruited temporarily for fighting, and the response speed is very fast.

Pishi means "King Kong" in Khitan, and Shan means "treasure of coral". In just a few days, [-] troops were ready to go. As the vanguard, Ta Lie set off from the south of Shangjing to aid Youzhou.

At the same time, eighteen of the 49 tribal armies that are closest to Youzhou have been recruited, and the troops will be assembled and marched towards Youzhou. If all the troops are in place, the number of troops will reach about [-]. However, it takes time for the tribal armies to assemble and recruit, and it will take about a month. In order to reach Youzhou as many as possible.

In addition to the 8000 members of the Sixth Army of the Southern Academy composed of Han Chinese in Youzhou, the total strength of Youzhou will reach about 11 by then.

It has been a long time since such a large-scale dispatch of troops, the last large-scale dispatch of troops was the [-] reinforcements when Zhou Guo attacked the Northern Han Dynasty five years ago, but it is completely incomparable with this time.

All of a sudden, the entire Liao Kingdom began to operate. Naturally, news of such a huge troop dispatch spread quickly.

However, the people of the Liao Kingdom only cared about their own country's affairs. For the south, they only knew that the Southern Army was coming and was going to attack Nanjing, so the imperial court sent a large army.

As for who Nan Mian is and what the situation is, there are not many people who are worried.

Regarding wars, most people are not so worried. Since Emperor Taizu, the Liao Kingdom has sent troops to the south many times in the past few decades. Most of the time, they can make money even if they can’t fight. They can always make money by robbing food, money, people and livestock. .

But there are also bad times, such as the worst time when Emperor Taizong's [-] troops marched south, and almost the entire army was wiped out.

However, regardless of whether they win or lose, the common people are far less worried than the people in the Central Plains. The reason is very simple. No matter whether they win or lose in a war, they go to fight on other people's land. What they burn are other people's houses, what they rob is other people's property, and what the war destroys. It is an enemy country, and has little impact on our production and life here.

Just like why the Huns were so afraid of the Han Dynasty at the beginning, because after the Han Dynasty's self-defense battle of Qinglong City, no matter whether they won or lost the war, they had to rush to the Huns' territory to fight. , Those who can surrender surrender, and those who do not surrender also pack up and leave.

In such an atmosphere, the army of the Liao Kingdom went south, and the news spread that the southern army was going north, but the people in Shangjing of the Liao Kingdom were not so panicked, but rather calm.

In Daying of Chanzhou, the official was wearing mink fur and stood at the gate of the imperial tent to look north. His eye sockets were much deeper, his expression was a little sluggish, his lips were pale, but he was in a good mood.

Shi Congyun lived up to his expectations and quickly won the land south of Sanguan. After the news came, the whole country was excited, and he was so excited that he couldn't sleep for several days, and his health improved a lot.

Guo Rong crossed the river this time with an illness. Since the year before last, he has often suffered from chest tightness, shortness of breath, and numb hands and feet.

He himself knew it well, it may be due to the hard work when he was young. His original surname was Chai, but he changed his surname to Guo after he was adopted as an adopted son by Xianjun.

When he was young, he was in charge of doing business for the Guo family, and later he was responsible for raising and dispatching military rations for the army. He traveled around north and south, eating and sleeping in the open, and suffered a lot.

At the beginning of this year, the symptoms became more serious, and often accompanied by weakness in limbs, soreness in the back and back, dizziness and other symptoms.

However, he still insisted on Shengjia crossing the river, even if he did not go north, he would accept Shi Congyun's suggestion and station in Chanzhou.

This time he will come no matter what. It has always been his wish to restore the glory of the Han and Tang Dynasties. He travels around all the year round and has seen too many sufferings of the people.

Since the end of the Tang Dynasty, compared with the north, the people in the south have been more ravaged by war.

The Khitan army repeatedly went south from the east and west sides of Taihang Mountain. Regardless of whether they won or lost in each battle, the people in Hezhong, Hedong and Hebei would suffer.

Most of the time as long as there is a war, the people will suffer. The people pay a lot of attention to the war. Except for the young people who have to go to the battlefield, if the situation is not right, the whole family needs to run to the mountains in time. As for the livestock and houses at home, thieves often Army border crossings would be looted and burned, and those who were too late to escape were either taken as slaves or killed on the spot. It was lucky that people were okay.

This is the helplessness of a weak country. If the south is strong and unified, it can push the battlefield to the grasslands and fight in other people's homes like after Emperor Wu.

The literati and aides of his Imperial Academy often said that the Han Dynasty was full of war after Emperor Wu, and he heard it as fart. Maybe so, but in the face of a strong enemy, no matter whether the Han people win or lose, their own people will never suffer from the disaster of war and can feel at ease. farming.

Since the end of the Tang Dynasty, the Khitan people can easily reach the Weizhou line when they go south, and it is only three miles away from the Yellow River. Although the official records of the Jin Dynasty and the Later Han Dynasty always say that they repelled the Khitan people, most of the so-called repulsion is natural enough for others to grab. and left.

There are very few battles in which the real encirclement and annihilation caused great losses to the Khitan people. The Battle of Yangcheng fought by Fu Yanqing and others is one of those few battles.

But no matter the winner or loser, the people along the way in Hebei will all suffer, and the surplus of wealth accumulated by generations of labor will be taken away by others, because the war is fought on their land!

Therefore, although the Khitan people "repeatedly fought and failed repeatedly", they continued to go south with enthusiasm.

After the Battle of Gaoping, he continued to go south to harass the frontier, Xiande even worse in three years, when he went south to fight Huainan, the Khitan took the opportunity to send troops to attack and captured several cities of Zhou in the north.

But at that time, he didn't dare to fight on both sides. In order to concentrate on the war in Huainan, he had to endure it.

Guo Rong has always had a great wish in his heart, that is to take back the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun, keep the Khitan people out of the country, so that the people in Hezhong, Hedong and Hebei will never suffer from war and can live in peace.Just like Qin Huang Han Wu did in the past, if you want to fight, go to the north, go to other people's homes to fight, and pay back many times what the Khitan people have done in the past few decades!
Guo Rong knew in his heart that Shi Congyun and Wang Pu were people with great wisdom and great strategy. They both felt that they were too anxious and should unify the South and Shu, and then fight a decisive battle with the Khitan people.

In the past, the Qin Emperor destroyed the six kingdoms, and it was the survivors of Fen VI; the Han Wu soldiers came out of Mobei, and it was also the accumulation of several generations of kings and decades of achievements.

He understands these truths in his heart, and the generals who oppose him are also clear in his heart, but his body is getting worse day by day.

He once said to Wang Pu, "I will use ten years to open up the world, ten years to support the people, and ten years to bring about peace is enough!"

He originally hoped to complete his great cause in 30 years, so that there would be no rush or haste.

But now he has only been on the throne for six years, and the first ten years are not enough, but his health is getting worse day by day, and he eats very little every day. He knows in his heart that he may not have 30 years
So he immediately changed his deployment, forced the sick body to cross the river, and dispatched Shi Congyun, the most capable fighter, hoping to take back Youzhou as soon as possible.

Guo Rong stood at the entrance of the big tent, his palms and soles felt cold.

He was actually very scared in his heart, the eldest son Zongxun who was still alive was still young, only seven years old this year.

If he dies, the young lord can't take charge of the overall situation, there is chaos inside and outside the court, and there is no Youzhou in the north as a barrier, what if the Liao Kingdom gets the news and takes advantage of the chaos to go south?
This is not without lessons, 13 years ago the Khitan talents went south to cross the river to occupy Daliang, if their king didn't adapt to the southern weather and died of illness in the south, what a disaster it would be!

As for the Jiedu Envoys of the Zhaoyi Army, Tianxiong Army, Hezhong, Fengxiang, and other important border border envoys who hold heavy troops, will they continue to listen to the court's orders once they pass away?

Especially a person like Li Yun, who is fashionable and arrogant, if the young Zongxun succeeds to the throne, will he still bow his head and be obedient?
There were so many questions he had to think about, to think about.

After much deliberation, he could only think of one trick, that is, to capture Youzhou immediately, no matter what the cost, and then send a capable confidant general to guard Youzhou to prevent the Liao people from going south.

In this way, even if there is chaos in the court, capable ministers such as Wang Pu, Li Gu, Wang Pu, Fan Zhi, Wei Renpu can deal with it, otherwise the consequences will be disastrous.

It's just that Guo Rong didn't dare to speak out about these thoughts, and he couldn't let outsiders know. The generals didn't understand why he was so eager for quick success.

They are thinking about the country and society, but he has something to hide, and he has to think about it. Thinking about it, Guo Rong sighed helplessly, 30 years is too long
At this moment, footsteps were heard outside the big tent, and after a while eunuch Wei Min came in to report: "Officials, the third envoy, and the left servant shot Li Gu to see him."

"Let him in." Guo Rong said as he returned to the big tent and sat down on the sandalwood chair in the chief seat. The imperial doctor said that sitting on such a chair could calm his nerves and relieve dizziness. but he found it useless.

Wei Renpu was handling the affairs of the Privy Council in the capital, and when he crossed the river, he brought Li Gu, who had many years of experience in marching and fighting.

After he came in, he tidied up his clothes, and then cupped his hands and said: "Officials, Shi Congyun sent Murong Yanzhao to Xiangxun to capture Zhuozhou and Gu'an, and then continue to the north. The forward is only forty miles away from Youzhou." .”

Guo Rong was very excited after hearing this, and said on the spot: "Okay! Shi Congyun really did not disappoint me, cough cough cough." Just after he finished speaking, he was short of breath and coughed.

"Officials!" Li Gu worried.

Guo Rong stretched out his hand, "Don't worry, it's just a bit of wind and cold, I'm in good health; if it weren't for a good general like Shi Congyun this time, I might be more tired if I want to drive northward, but with him in front, I will be more tired in Chan There is nothing hard to do in Zhouzhou, you write an imperial edict on my behalf, condolences and praises to Shi Congyun and the frontline soldiers, and encourage them to continue going north."

Li Gu nodded, and then said: "Officials, the Liao Army has not made any movement so far, and the letter from Li Chongjin and Li Jixun seems to have new movements from the enemy in the east of the river, will it be dangerous to go north?"

He spoke carefully, but the meaning in his words was very clear, that he opposed the northward advance.

Guo Rong pretended not to understand: "It's okay, they have their own decision, you go down."

Li Gu had no choice but to back down.

How could Guo Rong not know the danger of going north, the Liao army did not show up at all, and they didn't know where they were going or why.but he can't wait
(End of this chapter)