The struggle of the reborn prince

In order to deal with the Western Expedition of the Song Army, Xixia formulated a strategy of "grasp both hands and both hands must be tough": on the one hand, step up preparations for war, trying to regain lost ground, and on the other hand, launch a diplomatic offensive, please come out of the backstage - lobbying the Liao Kingdom, requesting the Liao Kingdom to intervene, On the other hand, he actively asked the Song Dynasty for peace talks.

But half a year after the war, the situation changed drastically.In the eighth year of Liao Tianqing, when Wanyan Agu beat Liao to confer the title of emperor, Liao was required to confer him the title of great sage and emperor of Ming Dynasty. After several rounds of envoys between the two sides, they failed to achieve unity.The Liao Dynasty believed that the word "Great Sage" was the same as the title of its ancestors, and asked Jin to discuss the title again. In the tenth year of Tianqing, Liao sent envoys to convey this opinion to Jin.A Guda was furious, thinking that this was a tactic used by Liao to delay the canonization and was afraid of Jin's attack, so he immediately decided to send troops to attack Liao.

In April, Aguda went out in person, divided his troops into three groups, traveled hundreds of miles day and night, and went straight to Shangjing, the capital of Liao.At that time, Emperor Yelu Yanxi of the Liao Dynasty was hunting in other places. In May, the Jin army arrived at the capital of Shangjing. Aguda personally supervised the battle and launched an attack from the morning. Gold was captured.

So far, Liao has lost nearly half of the states and counties. Liao Emperor Yelu Yanxi was worried day and night, packed more than 500 bags of pearls and jade, and prepared [-] horses to flee. He threatened: "I and the Song Dynasty are brothers. Xixia is an uncle and nephew, and he will live a lifetime of wealth and honor wherever he goes!" Then he fled to Liao, Xia, Song, Xijing Datong Mansion at the junction of the three countries, but soon Song and Jin had reached a "sea alliance" to jointly destroy Liao, but the two sides War has not yet been officially declared, but the prelude to the complete extermination of the Liao Dynasty has begun.

Just as Xixia was actively mediating, the Song army on the western expedition became more and more courageous.After going down to several states, King Jin was defeated and disappeared, Xian Wangwei's name An Hui was defeated and committed suicide. General Xiao He was beheaded before reaching the battle.As many as 15 troops were lost, and Lingzhou has become someone else's pocket.But the Song army didn't seem to give up. Their scouts had frequently appeared in Jing, Ding, and Huai, the three prefectures, and the farthest was Luotuo Lane, a hundred miles away, intending to send troops across the river and enter Xingqing Mansion.

Now that the situation has developed to such an extent, the Liao Kingdom is overwhelmed and caught Xixia by surprise.It is impossible to ask the Liao state to intervene in the war between the two countries. What they can do is to be a peacemaker, make peace, and be a witness, sending troops to threaten the border as in the past, and pointing out the arrogant order to the Song Dynasty Gone are the times.However, the state of Song had an ambiguous attitude towards the envoy seeking peace.First agreed and then backtracked, so far no decision has been made.

Now that the Song army has reached the gate, Xixia is in panic, and the ministers of the court and China are also divided into two factions. The main fighter insists on gathering all the soldiers and horses in the Hexi states.Forced to recruit men over the age of 13 to form a large army to cross the river and fight the Song army to regain the lost land; the peacemaker believed that the land of Henan was lost, without the food and grass of Lingzhou, the taxation of Yanzhou, and the source of soldiers in Hengshan.No matter what to fight for, it may be difficult to win even if Hexi's strength is exhausted.If it is not done well, it will stir up civil uprisings and the country will be destroyed by the Song army.Peace talks are the top priority, and we will plan Henan after we recover.

The two sides could not settle down, and Li Qianshun lost his mind at this time, and often stayed up all night, thinking of good generals when the country was in crisis, and the person he missed most at this time was Yudi Chage!When he was there, the military officials in the court would not dare to make mistakes, the powerful and powerful were all trembling, and Tubo did not dare to act rashly.Although he defeated the Great Song Dynasty, but there is no general victorious in the world, at least he can stabilize the country and lead the army against the enemy.Li Qianshun's longing seemed to have moved the heavens. At this moment, someone from Jingzhou came to report that King Jin had returned. . .

When Brother Cha stepped into Xingqing Mansion again, it seemed like a lifetime ago, and this period of time made it hard for him to return.That day at the Situ River, he tried his best to convince the prince of the Song Dynasty, and he was able to escape. Who knew that he had just stepped out of the tiger's mouth and into the wolf's den, and was caught by a group of horse thieves when he was resting, because they had a Only a few treasures made the horse thieves feel that they were a little oily, and they wanted to collect a ransom in the future to save their lives.

Brother Cha originally wanted to reveal his identity and let the horse thieves release him, but he was afraid that the horse thieves would give him to the Song army after they were greedy for rewards, so he could only delay time on the grounds that the two armies were at war and information was difficult to communicate.This group of horse thieves sent them to their lair in the desert, and did hard labor for them every day.Brother Cha also wants to escape, but in the desert there is no food or drink, no horses, no way to go, even if you let him go, you can't get out, you can only suffer!

Brother Cha and the others spent more than a month without enough food and warm clothes. Thinking about him, a majestic prince who has never done rough work, it is inevitable that he will be beaten and scolded.After a long time, the horse thief saw that they were honest, so he relaxed his vigilance, and finally escaped a few days ago by taking advantage of the opportunity of herding horses for the horse thief. On the way, he drank horse blood, ate horse meat, and drank horse urine. Eat up. . .

When Brother Cha returned to the Xia Realm, he found that the Song Army had captured Lingzhou City, drinking horses and the Yellow River, under the capital of Chen Bing, Xixia was on the verge of destroying the country, and that Prince Yan did not abide by the agreement reached with him—— The soldiers stopped in Xiazhou, but hit the door of the house.At this time, Brother Cha had a faint feeling that he was being calculated, but he was not sure. If he wanted to kill himself, he only needed to do it in Situ River. At that time, he was chased like a dog, and he simply escaped If it wasn't like that, he must be greedy for the terms of his promise. He wanted something, but there was no need to stop him halfway and imprison him for such a long time. . .

Zhao Tun is also very busy these days, and this stall is approaching the Tianning Festival - the birthday of his father Zhao Ji, Zhao Tun selected a batch of calligraphy and painting relics from the Lingzhou Forbidden City, and even faked Wang Wei's name Anhui I packed fifty boxes of the seals and the map account books of the Lingzhou area, and selected a hundred horses from the local area. I ordered Jianxi to return to Beijing to celebrate the emperor's birthday with a birthday envoy.

Birthday celebrations are one of them, and there are still many worries. After the great war and the siege of more than a month, Lingzhou City can be said to be in depression, with prices soaring.Zhao Tong ordered people to go out to comfort the people, and sent law enforcement teams to patrol the streets to pick up discipline-violating soldiers to prevent the soldiers from disturbing the people; then he led the crowd to worship the Buddha at the largest Jinguang Temple in the city, and donated millions of dollars to ask eminent monks to build a nine-day water and land dojo for the dead. Save the souls of the dead, and give compensation and medical treatment to the people who were killed and injured on the day when the city was broken.At the same time, open warehouses to release grain, sell it to the common people at a fair price, stabilize the price, set up porridge sheds to help the orphans, and dispatch civilians to repair houses destroyed by war.

After the implementation of this series of measures, the shops in the city opened their doors one after another, and then caravans began to enter Lingzhou City to buy and sell goods. The people in the city stabilized, and the bustle of the past gradually resumed.Zhao Tong did not dare to breathe a sigh of relief. The officials and tribal leaders in Lingzhou, the local tyrants either died or fled in the war, and none survived. land.

The protracted war severely damaged the agricultural production in the frontier areas, and the social economy collapsed. Therefore, the reconstruction of the post-war social order must have a certain economic strength as the basis.Therefore, the first priority is to rebuild the economic system; the second is how to consolidate the frontier, achieve long-term peace and stability, and turn the Hetao area into a strategic rear.

In traditional Chinese society, the main threat to the zhong yang dynasties in all dynasties came from the nomadic peoples in the north. In nomadic areas with poor living conditions, the wealth is cattle and sheep rather than land, and plundering is much easier than production. Therefore, nomads are often good at fighting, and siege of cities and land has become commonplace.The governance of the grassland society is not based on land ownership as in China. No single pasture is valuable, because no pasture can withstand long-term grazing, so the right to move is more important than the right to live; When lacking, their interest in the Central Plains dynasty is far greater than that of the Central Plains farming in the grasslands, so their contradictions are impossible to reconcile.

The Lingxia area is located in the northwestern border of the Song Dynasty. It is the hub of the Silk Road and the frontier of China's connection with South Asia, Central Asia, West Asia and Europe. The Zhongyang dynasties since the Han Dynasty have attached great importance to its strategic position.At this time, the frontal threat facing the Song Dynasty came from the Liao Kingdom established by the grassland nomadic Khitan, flanked by the grassland oases and desert oases occupied by the Dangxiang people in the northwest.With the rise of the Jurchen, the nomads will go deep into the mainland of China. To prevent the Jurchen from continuing to go south, the Song Dynasty must occupy farther strongholds to attack and defend the flanks of the grassland, and the oases in the Western Regions will definitely become the key strategic areas of Zhao Tang. .

In response to the nomadic invasion of the Central Plains dynasty, the security threats of the Central Plains dynasties to the northwest frontier can be described as a headache.The construction of the Great Wall and the development of the northwest frontier are all related to the defense against the invasion of the northern nomads. The invasion of the hostile forces of the nomads has caused a major threat to the Central Plains. The strategies of the Northwest are different, ranging from active military conquest to passive and conservative kinship and seclusion policies. For the nomads living far and near outside the Great Wall, these policies are mostly timely.

From the beginning of the Han Dynasty to the present, military conquest has often been the strategy adopted by the central and Yang dynasties in the early stages of unifying the Northwest. Although it is effective for a while, it is difficult to last.Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty launched three large-scale military operations against the Xiongnu and achieved major victories, but in the end he withdrew his military forces from the Western Regions with the "Stop Luntai Tuntian Edict".

"Military conquest is effective for a while!" Zhao Tun understood this truth through this expedition. The main reason why military conquests are difficult to have long-term effects is that the northwest is far away from the interior and the land is sparsely populated. A large number of troops marched into battle, and logistics supplies were very limited. difficulty.Even if the war is won, if a large number of troops are stationed, the cost of national defense will be too high, otherwise it will be difficult to consolidate the results of the war.

p



Chapter 250 Long-term Strategy of the Struggle of the Reborn Prince