The struggle of the reborn prince

On October 25, Zhao Tun led all the generals in Hedong to bid farewell to the two groups of troops in Shaanxi. At this time, the Song army in Lingzhou was reduced by half. Not to mention the offensive, even the defensive forces were inevitably stretched.

The scout battalion cruising around the outskirts of Lingzhou intercepted the messenger sent by Marshal Wanyan Zongwang of the Jin Kingdom to Xixia. The book said, "The power of the Liao Kingdom is exhausted. I advise Xixia to understand the situation, as long as it surrenders to Jin and captures Liao Emperor Yeluyan." Jubilee, the Kingdom of Jin will cede to Xixia the land north of Zhizhai and south of Yin Mountain in the northwest of Liao Kingdom.The letter tried its best to coerce and lure, at this time, Xixia lost a large amount of land, and Jin Guo's promise was extremely attractive to Xixia! .

Jingzhong Shunzi also sent back the news at the right time. He found out that the purpose of the Xixia Mission was to lobby important officials in the court to negotiate peace with Xixia and stop the Western Expedition.The targets they bought were Wang Fu and Li Bangyan who were newly in charge of the government, and Bai Shizhong and others who had returned to the court. Gold, silver, jewels and jewels were scattered like dung, and the voice of the court changed drastically.

Liang Shicheng mentioned the matter of the previous dynasty to the emperor many times, saying that when the Song Dynasty attacked Xixia, there was always a vicious circle that could not escape, that is, there must be frequent success reports at the beginning, and there will be a huge pit waiting there in the future.He also mentioned the example of Yuanfeng's five-way attack on Xia. At the beginning, Li Xian led a large army to conquer Lanzhou; Wang Zhongzheng captured Youzhou; , the Song Army's five-way victory report flew into Beijing.However, the city of Lingzhou had been besieged for eighteen days, but they could not take it for a long time.The Xixia army decided to flood the Song camp with the water from the Yellow River, and cut off the Song army's food road. A large number of Song soldiers died of freezing and drowning.Only [-] people survived.

Later, in the fifth year of Yuanfeng, in view of the experience and lessons of conquering the Xixia states during the Western Expedition and not being able to defend them, Shen Kuo, the appeasement envoy of Fuyan Road, and Chong Er, the deputy envoy, suggested building a city in the Hengshan area as a bridgehead to look at Xixia.Shenzong immediately sent Xu Xi and eunuch Li Shunju to manage the matter.But the result was that Yongle City was defeated, with hundreds of thousands of troops lost.Lingzhou and Yongle were defeated twice, and 60 people died in the battles of the Song army and civilian laborers and the border vassal Qiang. As for the cost, it was an astronomical figure.

Liang Shicheng's words were like "enlightenment", and Zhao Ji recalled the events of the year as if they were right in front of his eyes.Father Huang has high hopes for the battle of Lingzhou.Hearing the news of the fiasco in the middle of the night, he got up and walked around the bed, unable to fall asleep all night, so he contracted a disease; Yongle was defeated.The Song Dynasty once again lost troops and lost generals, and returned home in defeat. When Shenzong received the news of the fall of Yongle City, he wept with grief and indignation, and didn't think about eating.In the early court, he cried bitterly in front of his assistant ministers, and the ministers did not dare to look up.The Battle of Yongle greatly hurt Shenzong, and it was said in history that "when Yongle fell, he knew the difficulty of using troops. So he stopped conquest."After that, Shenzong was not only mentally depressed, but also became increasingly ill.The physical condition took a turn for the worse in less than three years.He bid farewell to this world in deep disappointment.

Even more than ten years ago, Zhao Ji, who had just ascended the throne, wanted to take advantage of the victory to take Xixia again after he captured the Dzongkha Kingdom. After the counterattack, he failed to persevere under the pressure of the Liao Kingdom and hastily negotiated a peace with Xixia. The current situation is very good for him.

Wang Fu and others also took advantage of the needles to encourage the courtiers to write a letter to prepare to attack Liao, saying that Xixia is just a "moss of the skin" and Liao is "a trouble in the heart". Now that the Western Expedition has won victory, it should adapt to the situation and accept it as soon as it is good. Negotiate peace with Xixia as soon as possible, reach an agreement, and mobilize the Western Army to prepare for the expedition against Liao.And Zhao Kai, the king of Jia, took out many crimes of "Zhao Tuan" in the northwest collected by the Imperial City Secretary at the right time, saying that he had the suspicion of supporting the army and separatist rule of the northwest.Although the prince didn't say anything, he also privately expressed his concern about Zhao Tong's rise, worried that his status would be endangered, and he couldn't escape the suspicion of secretly fueling the flames.Under the attack of many parties, the emperor Zhao Ji began to hesitate to continue the westward expedition and seize Xingzhou...

Zhao Tong knows his father very well, he is a guy who thinks he is smart and incomparable, and he wants to become a hero of the world. However, to achieve great things, in addition to shrewdness and ambition, he also needs to have a firm heart that can withstand blows and pressure .But he lacks the quality that a person who achieves great things should have. His mind is full of fantasies and fantasies, and he lacks resilience in the face of adversity. They often don't know the truth of 'being greedy for small gains and suffering big losses'.

But God seemed to be testing Zhao Tong's strong nerves. The two priests of the palace, Lu Xiaoyao and Wu Song, came back, and brought back a reason for him to give up and continue fighting-Fang La's "revolt".

Zhao Tong was not surprised by this result, and had been waiting for this day to come. Of course, he also hoped that it would be best not to come. For this reason, he also made efforts to clean up the officialdom in the south of the Yangtze River. High-level officials strictly investigated Manichaeism.After arriving in the Northwest, he was still worried. At the beginning of the year, he sent two major priests of the palace to Jiangnan to look for Fang La. He wanted to take a "cut action", but now it seems that it was all in vain.

"Brother Lu, what's the matter with you? Are you bewitched by an evil spirit?" After Lu Xiaoyao and the two had finished washing, Zhao Tuo had already set up a banquet to wash them off, but he found that Lu Xiaoyao's attitude towards him was much more respectful. He asked in bewilderment about the informal look of a 'gentleman' back then.

"My lord, he is bewitched. After hearing Fang La's rebellion in the south of the Yangtze River, he became obsessed, always saying nonsense that the lord is not a human being, but a god!" Wu Song was still the same as before. , Drank a large bowl of wine, picked up a piece of meat and said while chewing.

"My lord, Xiaoyao made a mistake in the past. I heard Xi Ye and the others say that the lord can know the world's affairs, and they only thought they were flattering the lord. This time, the Jiangnan group knew that the lord is a true god. As early as two years ago when they went to Jiangnan, the lord sent him to the south of the Yangtze River. People searched for Fang La everywhere. At that time, I thought he had offended you. Even if we sent us to kill him this time, I still thought about it as before. Rebellion!" Lu Xiaoyao said after saluting respectfully, "It's just that the subordinates didn't do their job well enough to kill him, so I ask the prince to punish him!"

"Hey, I can't blame you for this matter. The country is in great trouble, and there will be evildoers. I wanted to change my fate against the sky, but God's will is hard to disobey. It seems that I, Song Dynasty, will have such a catastrophe!" Zhao Tong sighed and waved his hands. There was also a small drum in his heart. After the Western Expedition defeated Xixia, he thought he was already changing history, but he didn't expect that the wheels of the cart would still pass over his feet. Fang La's rebellion shook the foundation of the Song Dynasty, and he left the Five Kingdoms City Another step closer, it seems that the struggle is not enough.

After drinking for three rounds, Zhao Tang asked the two to talk about Jiangnan and his party. From the conversation between the two, he figured out that Lu Xiaoyao and the two were not stupid. They had approached Fang La infinitely, but because they provided too few clues , and there was a deviation, which caused the two to miss the opportunity, and finally the mission failed.

Zhao Tong has been looking for someone under the name of Fang La, but his rectification name is rarely known in the countryside. They call each other by name, but they don't know each other's true identities.And he thought that Fang La must be a great hero if he could quickly gather tens of thousands of people to revolt, and he must be a hero who donated righteousness and donated money, but from the information they brought back, he could see that he was wrong.

After all, Fang La is just a little witch. At the beginning of the incident, Fang La's wife dressed up in red makeup, dressed like a lady, and then embedded a big bronze mirror on her chest, moving lightly in lotus steps, walking towards the sun , Looking from a distance, the brilliance is dazzing, and the common people don't know it, and there are rumors that Fangla and his wife are auspicious.Then he took advantage of the situation where the Song court aggressively collected flowers and stones in the south of the Yangtze River, extorted violently, and oppressed the people.

After Fang La's incident, he killed Cai Zun and Yan Tan, the governors of Liangzhe Road who went to suppress them, and lost [-] soldiers. They then went down the Xin'an River to Qingxi City. As birds and beasts scattered, the county fell.After winning the county seat, he elected Fang La as the new monarch, named Shenggong, Jianyuan Yongle, his wife Shao as the queen, and his son Boer as the prince; Dagu, Tong Xiaogu, Fang Baihua and others are generals.

After that, Fang La led his army to break through Muzhou, occupied Xiuning County, and approached the city of Shezhou.Li Ke, the magistrate of Shezhou, abandoned the city and fled at night, leaving Guo Shizhong, the southeast general, still sticking to the city.A single spark can start a prairie fire. After more than ten days, the people in Tonglu, Fuyang, Shouchang, Suian, Yuqian, Changhua and other counties obeyed the orders of the "Sheng Gong" and took refuge one after another. His army snowballed and quickly grew to 20. How many people.

There are 9000 military prefectures in the whole Liangzhe Road, and there are only [-] infantry troops stationed in total. Apart from garrison and missions, less than half of the troops are capable of mobile operations.Although it is a regular army, it basically does not train at ordinary times, but it is often used to escort flowers and rocks and perform hard labor. It is basically a battle, and it is basically collapsed at the touch of a touch, and it has no resistance...

"The officers and soldiers were incompetent and lost ground repeatedly. After the bandit army broke through the city, they were extremely cruel to the captured officials. They frequently buried them alive, dug their hearts out, cut off their limbs, shot them to death with random arrows, and boiled them into ointment... the tragedy made People can't bear to see it!" Lu Xiaoyao said with a sigh.

"Oh, the law of heaven is clear, and the cycle of cause and effect. The people in the southeast are oppressed by corrupt officials, and they have brought it on themselves!" Zhao Tong sighed. The brutality caused by the government's ravages, the people hated them to the bone, he didn't sympathize with it, but now even the former killer leader can't stand it, it can be seen that his methods are too cruel, and using this extremely cruel If you are able to do something to vent your grievances, you will also lose people's hearts to a large extent.

But what makes Zhao Tong depressed is that they made troubles but they hurt himself. No matter how powerful the regime is, it will not be overthrown by others. It may also be God's will to not give up the victory in front of you and fall short!