A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 1008: The three armies fight against the rebels

The 16th year of Xia Chengqian, the 2nd year of Later Jin Tianfu

March
"On March 16th of the Chengqian Period of the Great Xia Dynasty, the Great Xia Emperor issued a proclamation to all officials and people of the Jin State:

The Chinese clothing and customs are in China, not in the hands of the barbarians. The Chinese people of China rose up in all directions and followed one another for thousands of years, and that is how China came into being.

Today, there is a spy named Shi Jingtang who stole the Chinese tripod, put on Chinese clothes, recognized the barbarians as his fathers, crawled under the feet of dogs and sheep, and was a bully and traitor. This is truly a shame for China.

In the past, our Hua ancestor Huangdi founded Zhongxia and controlled the nine realms.

Tang and Yu succeeded each other, and the Three Kings made great efforts, and the culture was prosperous and unique in the world. The glorious history lasted for more than three thousand years.

He is broad-minded and benevolent, and his people's virtues have long been well-known. Compared with the other barbarians, he has surpassed them in terms of order and civilization for a long time.

The people of foresight, the descendants of the gods, are rich in wisdom. They should occupy the top of the land, conquer the universe, subdue the four seas, and spread their knowledge in all directions.

The ancestor of the Xia Dynasty began with Xia Yu, who pacified the rivers and lakes, established the nine provinces, passed on the clothing and etiquette, and governed the people in all directions.

Later, there was Xiongzu, who rose up in the pre-Zhou Dynasty. He had some military achievements, wiped out the Dongyi, and conquered most of China's territory.

In addition, our ancestors inherited the writing system, respected rituals and music, and passed on poetry. Therefore, all Chinese characters belong to the Bai family, and therefore there has been some literary virtue for thousands of years.

I have the blood of Dayu, I was born in the Bai family, made great achievements in the Central Plains, established my capital in Kaifeng, and my ambition is to travel around the world.

I often trace back to the aspirations of my ancestors and revive the Chinese civilization. I dare not slack off for a moment, for fear of losing the virtues of my ancestors.

It is appropriate to follow the will of Heaven and the people, to uphold the distinction between Chinese and barbarians, to rectify the origin and clear the source, and to drive out the people living in the water and grass.

I hope that the heroes of the four directions, after having judged this righteousness, should each lead their sons and daughters, seize the opportunity to leap up, and gather in numbers to respond. No matter how big or small, we should eliminate all the harm, arrest and capture the ugly, and then achieve superficial success.

You are a disloyal man, a forced soldier. You have a life, you are also a Chinese. After you have understood this righteousness, you should repent. You should quickly change for the better, cherish your roots, think about your ancestors, turn your weapons and spears, do not rebel against the righteous army, and do not be a spy.

Xia Ting made the following offer: 'All the Hu people in the Han Dynasty who were threatened and coerced, but have surrendered, will be pardoned and no further questions will be asked.

If the prisoners reform themselves and are willing to return to farming and herding, they will be pardoned without further questioning.

Anyone who uses the crowd to raise his weapons and acts in opposition to the emperor will be killed without mercy; anyone who acts as a spy will be killed without mercy; anyone who violates military law will be killed without mercy!'"

Bai Jian wrote a letter of more than several hundred words, detailing all of Shi Jingtang's crimes. He then sent people to announce it to all directions.

Especially in the counties and cities within Jin, Xia's spies secretly announced the news at night, so that within just a few months, the whole world knew about it.

"Damn it! It turns out that the emperor above us was established by the Hu people. No wonder the Hu cavalry have been raiding our territory so often in the past two years. I swear I will never associate with them."

"How can the Chinese people be inferior to the barbarians? The Xia Emperor is right. We must expel these traitors."

"We are descendants of the Tang Dynasty, and we also know benevolence and righteousness. We will never associate with them."

In the territory of Jin State, the lower-level officials and civilians who originally did not know the truth suddenly realized it after seeing the manifesto issued by Xia State.

It turned out that the top leaders had already surrendered to the Khitans, and they were filled with resentment and considered it a humiliation.

Therefore, before the Xia State sent out its troops, war had already broken out in the territory of the Jin State, with countless people rising up in rebellion.

They all carried the banner of upholding justice and expelling the traitors.

When Shi Jingtang in Chang'an heard the report from his subordinates, his face turned pale and he ordered his troops like crazy to rush to various places to quell the rebellion immediately and not to take any prisoners.

When the Jin soldiers heard this, they were overjoyed.

Is this something you can do whatever you want?
So, with Shi Jingtang's tacit approval, more than 10,000 Jin troops marched to various places to suppress the rebellion.

When they were not suppressing the rebellion, they plundered everywhere and were even more cruel than the local bandits. So much so that within a hundred miles, the soldiers passed by like combs and not a sound of chickens or dogs could be heard.

However, such harsh suppression did not suppress the uprising.

In just over a month, throughout the State of Jin, from Taiyuan and Mingzhou in the east to Longyou and Shuofang in the west, hundreds of rebel armies, large and small, were roaming among the mountains and fields.

Although there were some chivalrous heroes who were resentful of Shi Jingtang's submission to the Khitan, most of them were ambitious people who saw opportunities and took advantage of the chaos to profit.

On April 18th, when the Jin court was busy suppressing uprisings everywhere, the Xia State finally sent troops.

The Xia army was divided into three routes.

One route was the Northern Army, with 50,000 soldiers. The marshal was Prince of Yan Bai Tao (who was renamed Prince of Yan due to his merits, and the original Prince of Yan was renamed Prince of Liao), and the deputy marshal was Huairong Governor Gao Du.

The main tasks of the Northern Army were to cut off the connection between Khitan and Jin State and to capture important cities in Hebei such as Taiyuan, Yedu, Wenxian, and Hedong, and take back the land of Hebei.

The first route was the Central Army, with 100,000 soldiers. The marshal was Prince of Qin Bai Mu (Bai Xi's legitimate son and the crown prince), and the deputy marshals were Infantry Commander Bai Ming and Cavalry Commander Li Cunqian.

The mission of the Central Army was to attack the Jin capital Chang'an, starting from Luozhou in the northwest of Beijing, and break through the center with superior forces to destroy the country and dynasty, thus paving the way for other routes to confront the main force of the Jin State.

The first route was the Southern Route Army, with 30,000 soldiers. The marshal was Prince of Liang Bai Chao, and the deputy marshals were Deputy Governor Zhu Lingde and Governor of Xichuan Kang Yanxiao.

The route started from Liangzhou of Shannan Road and Chengdu Prefecture of Jiannan West Road, and took Lizhou, Xingzhou and Fengzhou, which were the points through which Jin State penetrated Shu, and then went out from Fengxiang and directly penetrated the front and back of Jin State.

The three armies had a total of 180,000 soldiers and more than 300,000 auxiliary soldiers, so the Xia court announced to the outside world that it had an army of 500,000.

When the Xia army marched out, the whole world was in turmoil.

April 28
The Northern Army made the first achievements. Xia Cavalry General Li Jie led more than 10,000 cavalrymen to successively capture Yunzhou and Shuozhou, cutting off the connection between Khitan and Jin.

May 3rd
Marshal Bai Tao of the Northern Army arrived in Dingzhou.

Chai Tinghua, the governor of the Yiwu Army of the Jin Dynasty, surrendered the city.

As a result, several states in Hebei were conquered by issuing an edict.

May 11

The central army captured Shanxian and Hongnong and approached Tongguan.

Shi Jingtang no longer had enough time to suppress the domestic uprising, and despite opposition from his ministers, he forcibly conscripted sons of every family into the army. In just one month, he recruited 30,000 new troops, which, together with the original 60,000, totaled about 90,000 soldiers.

Shi Jingtang sent most of them to Tongguan, and a small number of them to fill the passes in various parts of Guanzhong, such as Dasan Pass leading to Shu and Wugu Pass leading to Xiangyang.

He had no desire to go to other places to provide support, such as all the territories south of Dasan Pass and east and south of Taihang Mountains.

He decided to rely on the complex and rugged terrain advantages of Guanzhong and Hedong to consume the Xia army's time and food supplies, and wait for the Khitans to recover their strength and come south to assist him.

He ordered Liu Zhiyuan, the governor of Taiyuan, to guard the pass and not lose the place where the dragon rose.

His strategy was based on giving up all lands except Guanzhong and Hedong.

Fortunately, the Xia army continued to capture cities and territories in Hebei, and the military governors of various places changed their flags and defected to Daxia, thus replenishing the Xia army's limited strength in the north.

As early as last year, when Shi Jingtang first ascended the throne, the vassal states in Hebei and Hanoi, disdaining his servitude to the Khitan, closed their cities and refused to obey his orders.

It was only because the Jin army and the Khitan had more soldiers and generals that they openly acknowledged Shi Jingtang's rule over the Jin State.

Just as Shi Jingtang was preparing to take action to deal with these vassal states, a decisive battle between Khitan and Bactria took place in the northern border.

The Khitans were the help to him ascending the throne, and they were also his confidence, so he had to save them.

Therefore, as he was in urgent need of domestic stability, he had to grudgingly acknowledge the current situation where they only followed orders and not propaganda.

Now that the Xia army was approaching, those military governors who were dissatisfied with Shi Jingtang rebelled and surrendered their cities.

He even became the vanguard of Xia's counterattack against Jin.

Among them, the most prominent were Fan Tingguang, the former governor of Tianxiong in Jin State, and An Zhongrong, the former governor of Chengde.

The two took advantage of the Jin army in Taiyuan being unprepared as soon as the Xia army set out.

Suddenly attack Jingjing and Baijing.

He successively defeated the main force of Zhaoyi's army and occupied Ze and Lu states, providing a way for Xia's army to attack Taiyuan. He was appointed by Bai Jian as the governor of Weizhou and Zhenzhou.

(End of this chapter)