Chapter 616

It was the arrival of this young man that was like a stagnant pool. Although it caused a stir occasionally, it quickly calmed down. The Song Dynasty and the Western Xia have been coming and going for nearly a hundred years, and although they have won and lost each other.

But in fact, the Song Dynasty lost more than the defeat and lost a lot of territory, such as Xiazhou, Yinzhou, Youzhou, Shizhou, Longzhou, Hongzhou, Yanzhou and many other territories, which were all seized by the Western Xia from the Song Dynasty.

Although the Song Dynasty has been unwilling to give up and repeatedly strived for it, it has also seized a lot of territory, such as the Suide Army, Mizhi and other territories, once the Song Dynasty gained the upper hand, the Northern Liao army began to face the enemy, making the Song Dynasty unable to attack Xia with all its strength, forming an embarrassing recurrence and stalemate.

With the support of the Northern Liao Dynasty, the Western Xia was like a messing stick, which gave the Song Dynasty a headache. Even the Song Dynasty had to give Western Xia more than 200,000 taels of silver, tea, and silk every year in the hope of being able to exchange for peace.

Unfortunately, peace is not obtained through money, but by strength. However, it is difficult for people who know these principles to speak in the court of hypocrites in the court.

Especially in this era when geniuses led the army and deliberately suppressed military personnel as generals, although military generals could receive more salary and rewards than civil officials, they lacked the right to speak.

Whenever they fought, the court liked to send civil officials who were ignorant of martial arts to supervise the army. They often ordered blindly, which led to many sure-win battles in the Song Dynasty, which ended up with success and failure.

It can be said that after joining the army for more than 30 years, Zhe Kexing had been depressed for more than 30 years. After all, since he led the army, the emperors he experienced, except for the slightly excited period of Emperor Shenzong, the rest of them were all in a state of harmony.

The Battle of Yongle City also destroyed the confidence of Emperor Shenzong, and eventually suffered heavy casualties and severe political changes. In the end, Emperor Shenzong was exhausted physically and mentally and eventually died of depression.

Just after Emperor Shenzong passed away, Emperor Zhao Xu ascended the throne at the age of nine, and Empress Dowager Gao Taotao ruled the country from behind. He asked the old party that had originally opposed the reform to return it to the court and began to expel the new party that supported the reform.

After the old party came to power, the old party, which was inclined to conservatism, abandoned the new party's policy of opening borders, and Sima Guang even advocated retreating to all the cities, villages, states and troops occupied by Xixia during Xifeng.

Maybe Xixia would be able to be grateful for the kindness and righteousness of the Song Dynasty, and finally shake hands with the Song Dynasty. Such remarks were quite popular even among the old party, but fortunately not everyone was so irrational.

The key to the problem is that no one can guarantee that with the capricious nature of the Xixia barbarians, they will be able to maintain peace with the Song Dynasty after they have to return to the city.

On the contrary, I was worried that if the Song Dynasty did this, it would be very likely that the barbarians of the Western Xia would be deemed to be showing weakness in the Song Dynasty. On the other hand, the other party would be more aggressive and invading the border again.

As a result, the old party also quarreled over this issue and could not get into the relationship. In the end, with the support of a neutral and familiar military affairs minister, such as Han Zhongguo, and the approval of the Empress Dowager, the Song Dynasty decided to adopt a compromise line.

He retained Lanzhou as the Xihe General's Mansion and only returned a few cities to Xixia, so as to examine the attitude of Xixia to observe the future. As a result, it came out soon and Xixia, who had obtained the cities seized by the Song Dynasty, was not only not grateful, but was very imposing.

One is urging the Song Dynasty to continue to return more cities, while the other is garrisoning troops on the frontier, as if you don’t give it to me, I will kill you.

Under such circumstances, Sima Guang, who had always been accustomed to benevolence and righteous, also realized that his policy was wrong. Therefore, Song Ting's main topic changed from shaking hands with Xixia and singing the song of friendship again to how to set up the strategic defense of the Northwest Border Mirror, to guard against the invasion of the Xixia barbarians who only knew how to play with big blades.

The defeat of Suide Army can be said to be another heavy defeat in the Song Dynasty after the Battle of Yongle City. It was a shame in the hearts of every soldier in the northwest border army of the Song Dynasty. The Suide Army was invaded, Suide City was destroyed, and the soldiers and generals were lost.

Afterwards, Xixia was even more ambitious to take advantage of the reinforcements from Jinning Army, Linzhou, and Prefectures to retreat to Xia before they arrived, and then came towards Huanqing Road. Xiaoliang then excitedly led troops to help, as if he wanted to take down Huanqing two important towns in the northwest of the Song Dynasty.

As a result, Su Dongpo and this Lord Xiao Wang came. When they arrived at Shaanxi Road, Zhe Kexing was worried that although Su Xueshi was famous all over the world, it was his name for talent and did not mean that he was proficient in military affairs.

If the Shaanxi Road Master Pleasant was replaced by Han Zhongyan, who had a family background, it might be easier for Zhe Kexing to feel more at ease.

However, who could have imagined that Su Dongpo, a talented and talented military appeaser who was not aware of military strategy, and the top scholar in the current academic field who only heard of his mischief in Bianliang, Tokyo.

Although Su Xueshi was not a military strategy, he was very knowledgeable and good at using it. He always took his own subjective opinions as the guide, but was good at accepting words. Wang Yang, the top scholar in Wen who once defeated the top scholar in Kewu in a fight, was only a seventh-rank rank and took on official business, but he was able to make all kinds of tricks.

The Suyuan Village was demolished, an exaggerated village wall was built in front of Hongde Village, and the Xiaoliang Hou and 60,000 elite Xixia soldiers were killed, which led to an unprecedented victory in the Song Dynasty. Even the Empress Dowager of Xixia became a prisoner of the Song Dynasty.

And that seemed to be just the beginning. In just over a month, he had done a big thing in the Dingbian Military Office, which was to seize Yanzhou, which had been coveted by the Song Dynasty.

In the past, Yanzhou was occupied by the Western Xia, and the salt used on Shaanxi Road in the Song Dynasty could only be purchased from other places. Not only was the price expensive, but the journey was still long.

Xixia took the opportunity to start a private salt transaction and made huge profits. Although the Song Dynasty repeatedly banned private salt, it was difficult to achieve results. Now with Yanzhou, the northwestern border of the Song Dynasty, there is no longer any shortage of salt, and it also eliminated the source of wealth of Xixia.

The impact of one's rise and the other's decline is definitely not just as simple as obtaining a Yanzhou, because the land of Yanzhou is only 400 miles away from Xingqing Prefecture, the capital of Xixia, and it only takes two days to fast horses. If a large army advances, it will be able to climb to the next ten days.

Moreover, from Yanzhou to Xingqing Prefecture, as long as you cross a ridge northwest along the ancient Great Wall, you will be flat and smooth and you will enter the hinterland of Xixia.
Chapter completed!