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

Chapter 1033: Withdrawing the Navy to Show Loyalty, Revenge on Northern Liao and Zhan Deshan

The first month of the twelfth year of Daxia Pingning

The 400,000-strong Daxia army withdrew northward.

Xia Ting changed Jinling into Jiangning Prefecture, and used the prefectures and counties along the south bank of the Yangtze River as Jiangnan Road, with Jiangning as its capital.

The Jiangning Military Governor's Office and the Jiangzhou Military Governor's Office were set up, and together with the Changsha Military Governor's Office, they were the "Three Military Governor's Offices in Jiangnan".

Each military governor's office has 10,000 soldiers stationed there, and there are 30,000 Xia soldiers in the entire Jiangnan region.

In addition, 90% of the warships of the Southern Tang were confiscated.

The Kuizhou Navy and Jiangling Navy were abolished, and the "Yangtze River Navy Office" was established, with its seat in Jiangling Prefecture.

The chief officer of the Yangtze River Naval Office was the 'Yangtze River Naval Governor', a third-rank government office with the same rank as a local governor's office.

There were also five "Superintendent's Offices" in Yuzhou, Kuizhou, Changsha, Jiangzhou and Jiangning, which were fourth-rank offices with the same rank as the Lower Governor's Office.

The Dengzhou Naval Force was abolished and replaced by the "Beiyang Naval Forces" and "Nanyang Naval Forces", with the "Beiyang Naval Forces Commander-in-Chief" and "Nanyang Naval Forces Commander-in-Chief" respectively. The system was the same as that of the Yangtze River Naval Forces, and it was a third-rank government office.

The Beiyang Naval Division had jurisdiction over six admiralty offices: Jinkou, Dengzhou, Haizhou, Pyongyang, Seoul, and Busan, with its capital in Yangzhou.

The newly built Nanyang Naval Military Prefecture only governed the three governor's offices in Suzhou, Hangzhou and Wenzhou, and its seat of government remained in Yangzhou.

In the end, the entire navy of Daxia had more than 500 old-style warships and more than ten new-style warships.

Not only that, because of the conquest of Suzhou, Daxia's territory finally bordered the Wuyue Kingdom.

In view of the fact that the King of Wuyue sent troops to capture Suzhou for Daxia, Bai Xi conferred the title of King of Wu on Qian Zong, granted him a palace in Kaifeng, and conferred the title of prince on several of Qian Zong's sons.

In contrast, the price paid by the State of Wu was to open all ports and allow Xia army warships to station in ports.

This is also the reason why the Nanyang Navy has two admiralty offices in Hangzhou and Wenzhou.

March
Li Jing, the seriously ill King of Southern Tang, died in Nanchang in grief and anger.

Because Nanchang was the new capital, the new palace where Li Jing lived was only the size of a royal palace, far from comparable to the majestic Jinling Imperial Palace.

March 21

Li Jing's sixth son, Prince Zheng Li Yu, ascended the throne in Nanchang. He honored his mother, Mrs. Zhong, as the Holy Queen, made his concubine, Mrs. Zhou, the empress, and made his brothers kings.

More importantly, the first imperial decree issued by Li Yu after he ascended the throne was to send the Secretary of the Central Secretariat Feng Yanlu to Xia to pay tribute, and to personally submit the "Memorial to the Emperor of Great Xia on Accession to the Throne" to explain the changes in the Southern Tang Dynasty.

After reading it, Bai Xi praised the writing highly. When he heard the Tang envoy Feng Yanlu say that it was written by Li Yu himself, he said happily:
"It seems that you have made a good choice for the ruler of Southern Tang. In time, he will become a great scholar."

Feng Yanlu frowned when he heard this, but ultimately did not open his mouth to argue.

After that, Bai Xi gave back an imperial edict and sent people to Southern Tang to offer condolences and congratulate Li Yu on his succession to the throne.

May 16

Bai Feng, the eldest son of Bai Mu, the Crown Prince of Daxia, turned twenty and came of age. Bai Xi appointed him as the King of Qin and the Prefect of Kaifeng, in charge of the affairs of Kaifeng City.

When Li Yu of Southern Tang and Qian Zong, the King of Wu, learned about it, they sent envoys to the court to pay tribute.

December

Li Yu of the Southern Tang Dynasty went to Longxiang Army in Quanzhou to train the navy.

The 13th year of the Great Chaupenin

The Emperor of Daxia raised five armies, with Crown Prince Bai Mu as the military supervisor, Grand Commander Tong Ce as the chief commander, and Commanders Li Bing and Bai Ming as deputy commanders, to march north to attack the Liao Kingdom.

Bai Mu and Tong Ce were the main force, with 100,000 infantry and cavalry, who left Jibei Prefecture and passed through Juyong Pass, heading straight for the Liao capital - Linhuang Prefecture.

Along the way, Lanzhou Governor Bai Mufeng was the commander-in-chief, with 30,000 infantry and cavalry, they attacked the Ganzhou Uighurs, a vassal of the Liao Dynasty, from Lanzhou and recaptured the Hexi Corridor.

They marched north from Xiazhou, with Xiazhou governor Li Guangrui as the commander-in-chief, leading 30,000 cavalrymen to the north to attack the important western town of the Liao Kingdom - Zubu Palace.

One group was led by Yunzhou Governor Feng Zongdao, with 30,000 cavalrymen, who attacked Wugudilie City in the northern desert from Yunzhou. The last group was led by Joseon Governor Li Yixuan, with 50,000 infantry and cavalrymen, who crossed the Yalu River and attacked Liaoyang Prefecture, an important town in the east of the Liao Kingdom.

The reason why Bai Xi led a large army to the north to attack the Liao Kingdom was for revenge and to resolve the issue once and for all.

As early as two years ago during the Xia-Tang War, the Liao Kingdom took advantage of the weakness of the Great Xia Kingdom and mobilized the entire country, with 300,000 cavalrymen marching south.

It was precisely because the Liao Kingdom marched southward in large numbers that it accepted the surrender of the Southern Tang in order to end the war in the south as soon as possible.

Fortunately, Daxia's defenses in the north were strong, and no matter how fiercely the Liao emperor attacked, it was in vain.

The Liao army retreated only after leaving behind tens of thousands of corpses and reducing the domestic consumption of food and grass.

In contrast, Daxia lost hundreds of beacon towers along its tens of thousands of miles long northern border, and thousands of garrison soldiers were slaughtered by Liao soldiers because they had no time to escape.

Moreover, after several months of offensive and defensive battles, the border troops lost tens of thousands of troops, and one-third of the defenders lost their combat effectiveness.

If the imperial guards heading south had not boarded a ship from Yangzhou and headed north, they would have arrived faster.

I am afraid that there will be a gap in Daxia's northern defense line, and the tragic situation of the Khitans ravaging Hebei more than a decade ago will be repeated.

May 6
The main force of the Xia army broke through the important town of Zhongjing of the Liao Dynasty - Xinghua City in Bei'an Prefecture.

May 11

When the Xia army arrived in Zezhou, they encountered 100,000 Liao cavalry and won a great victory.

May

The Xia army fired hundreds of artillery pieces, and Zezhou City, known as the strong city of the Liao Dynasty, fell.

May 23
The Liao emperor Yelu Jing personally led 200,000 cavalry to Zhongjing Dading Prefecture, preparing for a major battle with the Xia army.

June
A total of 300,000 troops from the Xia and Liao countries fought a field battle near Deshan.

Hundreds of thousands of war horses galloped rapidly, pressing towards the 100,000 Xia troops, as if they were descending from the sky.

Xia army commander Tong Ce remained calm in the face of danger, ordered chariots to be pulled out, and quickly built a "Great Wall" more than ten miles long.

At the same time, tens of thousands of archers, thousands of musketeers, and hundreds of cannons of the Xia army fired at the same time. The dense firepower was like a sickle that cut down the Liao cavalry row by row.

"What kind of weapons did the Xia people use to create fireworks? Did they have help from the gods?"

Yelu Jing stood on the high platform, looking at the lingering smoke in the Xia army's formation and the incessant thunder.

I saw my own cavalry falling down in rows on the charge path.

In the face of such a dense cavalry charge, the Xia army's musketeers stood on the chariots, and with the cover of the side carriages, they shot without aiming, and then took over the new muskets loaded by the auxiliary soldiers behind them, and repeated this cycle over and over again.

This was a new type of battle formation developed jointly by the Xia Army's Grand Marshal's Office, the Privy Council, and the Firearms Manufacturing Institute, specifically to deal with grassland cavalry.

The chariots were in the front, the musketeers were shooting in the back, the archers were next in line, and finally the cannons were used.

Such a dense outpouring of firepower was like mowing the grass when confronted with the intensive charges favored by the grassland people.

The remaining Liao cavalry looked at the dense corpses of their comrades on the road. They had suffered such heavy losses before even encountering the enemy's battle formation. They could no longer suppress the fear in their hearts.

When the bravest cavalry in the front were almost wiped out, the Liao cavalry reined in their horses in fear and tried to run to both sides, but they were hit by the cavalry coming quickly from behind and were thrown off their horses.

This kind of situation occurred on the battlefield. Tens of thousands of Liao cavalrymen rushed to the front of the Xia chariot formation for only a few dozen steps before they collapsed automatically and fled backwards and to both sides in panic, trying to avoid this hellish battlefield.

Tong Ce, who was standing on a temporary wooden platform with the help of a telescope, saw the scene clearly and said with great joy:

"The enemy army collapsed. Order the cavalry, the left and right dragon guards, the cloud cavalry, the military cavalry, the swift army, and the dragon swift army to attack and kill the enemy cavalry and chase them north."

The tall flags of various colors on the stage were waving continuously.

The six imperial guards of the Great Xia Cavalry Division, who had been ready for action for a long time, totaling 30,000 soldiers, were like tigers out of a cage. They rushed towards the defeated Liao soldiers who had their backs turned to them through the gap in the chariot formation that had been opened long ago.

(End of this chapter)