Chapter 243: Western Xia Yuanhao

For the Northern Song Dynasty, the alliance was an equal contract, and the negligible coins were exchanged for a long period of peace, which could focus on internal affairs and the war in the northwest. Pen Fun Pavilion wWw. biquge。 Info was also a very suitable treaty for Liao, and at that time Liao's internal undercurrents were surging, and it was wise to get out of the entanglement of the Song regime in the south in time.

Judging from the history of the development of the entire Chinese nation, the alliance has its positive side, which ended the decades-long war between the Liao-Song and Song dynasties, and made the Liao-Song border remain in a state of relative peace for a long time, which is conducive to the production and development of the border areas, and in the long run, it is also conducive to the development and integration of various ethnic groups in China.

Historians believe that the rapid corruption and decline of Liao was caused by the psychological Hanization and physiological feminization of the Liao rulers, but they do not know that the economic hollowing out is the fundamental reason for Liao's growing weakness.

For the civilians of the Liao State, they will encounter such a situation, the sheep that have been raised for several years are finally fat, and they go out to sell their own sheep, and the merchant who buys the sheep is a big customer from the Song Dynasty, and the money he gives is Daguan Tongbao. I went out to the bazaar to buy a few feet of fabric to make clothes for the children, and the fabrics I bought were produced in Bianjing, in fact, there was nothing decent in the whole bazaar that was not imported from the Song Kingdom.

Such days are repeated every day, every year is hard to raise sheep, but life does not become rich at all. I really can't think about what causes my poverty, in fact, I may never have thought about this question, why the people are poor, just like why the sun rises, is not worth thinking about.

Occasionally, who went to Bianjing, it was a major event worthy of his boasting for a lifetime, the prosperity of Bianjing, the wealth of the Song Dynasty, is a legend that everyone has heard since childhood, I heard that the farmers over there are silk shoes, pawn uniforms, only the officials in the county have silk shoes, and they are usually reluctant to wear them. It's a pity that Bianjing is like a paradise, and most people don't have the opportunity to see it in their lives.

At the end of the year, the official messenger came to collect taxes, and the official messenger still paid the grand view of Tongbao, and the official messenger didn't say anything, and he didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

If you want to talk about the currency war of the Song Dynasty, you have to start with the alliance of Lanyuan. Speaking of the alliance of the Yuanyuan, I thought of the unequal treaty and the Yang family's generals, the seven sons of the Yang family went to the sixth son, the death was tragic, and the girls who burned the fire were all on it, and in the end, the emperor was still greedy for life and afraid of death and signed the peace treaty of the Yuanyuan Alliance.

The content of the alliance of the Yuan Dynasty is basically like this, the Liao and Song dynasties are the country of brothers, and whoever is the emperor is older in the future will be the elder brother. The Song Dynasty supplied 100,000 taels of silver and 200,000 horses of silk to Liao every year, and the two sides carried out free trade.

Today, it seems that this is not only not unequal, but even completely in the interests of the Song Dynasty. The Han people scolded the unequal treaty, mainly because they had to offer the New Year's currency to Liao, but they scolded and scolded in their mouths, and they had to be clear in their hearts what the concept of 100,000 taels of silver was, the annual income of the Great Song Dynasty was 100 million taels, and the annual military expenditure was 50 million taels to fight the Song-Liao War. The point is that the two countries started free trade.

What kind of trade basis could the Great Liao have other than selling sheep and horses? He had almost no products to export to the Song, and every commodity of the Song was needed by the Liao. At first, Liao also sold some horses, but later found that there were more and more cavalry in the Great Song Dynasty, so he did not dare to sell horses anymore, and the Empress Dowager Xiao ordered whoever exported horses to kill his whole family, and as a result, the border trade became a one-sided huge deficit in the Song trade from the beginning. The New Year's coins collected by Da Liao were all earned by the Great Song Dynasty by the end of the year, and they had to be compensated every year.

Da Liao didn't know the economy, and then he didn't issue currency at all, anyway, if it was issued, no one recognized it, even the Great Liao Emperor himself felt that only the money of the Great Song Dynasty was real money.

The currency war that demanded the life of Da Liao began so quietly. As a result, there was no war between the two sides for a hundred years, and the wealth of the Great Liao was continuously imported into the Great Song Dynasty through currency wars, and the advanced cultural spread of the Great Song Dynasty penetrated into every pore of the Great Liao.

The Great Song Emperor actually mastered the financial power of the north through coinage. The surplus value of raw materials and labor in the north was continuously imported into the south through free trade and the use of coinage from the south, and exchanged for goods from the south, and this spectacular currency war between the north and the south lasted for more than 100 years of the confrontation between the Liao and the Song Dynasty.

I always feel that the rapid corruption and decline of Liao is caused by the psychological Hanization and physiological feminization of the rulers. As everyone knows, the economic hollowing out is the root cause of the growing weakness of the empire.

During the reign of Emperor Renzong of the Song Dynasty, the Western Xia Emperor Yuan Hao launched a number of large-scale military attacks on the Song Dynasty, and both sides suffered heavy losses. The peace agreement stipulated that Yuan Hao would cancel the title of emperor and accept the canonization of the Song Dynasty; the Song side would give the Western Xia 72,000 taels of silver, 153,000,000 horses of silk, and 30,000 catties of tea every year, which would be called the New Year's gift; and open up the border trade between the two sides. After the conclusion of the Qingli Peace Conference, the northwest frontier was calm for more than 20 years.

Yuan Hao, a member of the party, the founder of the Western Xia, fought against the Song Dynasty according to the northwest, and won three battles and three victories. Before him, his grandfather and father had always been vassals to the Northern Song Dynasty, and the Northern Song Dynasty had no trouble in the northwest and could concentrate on dealing with the Liao State. Yuan Hao was born, and the Song Dynasty entered an era surrounded by many powerful northern neighbors.

A group of thousands of light horsemen of the Northern Song Dynasty galloped to Haoshuichuan. This is a fortress in Liupan Mountain, Ningxia, with a narrow entrance, an open hinterland, and a road full of cliffs. The strange thing is that the Western Xia soldiers who were defeated as soon as they fought with the Song army just now and lost their armor along the way have disappeared here.

"Look, there are a few cages on the road. ”

There was a gurgling sound in the cage, and Song Jun opened it curiously. Ren Fu, who led the army, was immersed in the joy of pursuing victory, and had long forgotten what his boss Han Qi told him to fight if he could fight, and if he couldn't fight, he would go around the back. It wasn't until a flock of pigeons flew out of the cage that he suddenly came back to his senses: "Pigeons!

The Western Xia army poured in from the valley, and with the hovering of the pigeons, they easily locked on the position of the Song army and surrounded and annihilated it in one fell swoop. The 7,000 Song troops were either killed in battle or jumped off the cliff, and Ren Fu was also martyred. The tragedy of the war shocked the high-level of the Northern Song Dynasty and caused a personnel earthquake, and Han Qi, an important minister in the court, took the blame and resigned.

In the battle of Haoshuichuan, carrier pigeons were used for the first time in battle, and this plan was from the Western Xia Emperor Yuan Hao.

Just as Song Liao signed the alliance of Lanyuan and declared a truce, Yuan Hao was born. This coincidence, like a wry smile from God to the fate of the Song Dynasty, can prevent the Liao State, but cannot prevent the Western Xia. For the family, Yuan Hao's birth was also a bitter smile, his grandfather Li Jiqian died, this generation of heroes of the party, at the cost of being a vassal to the Northern Song Dynasty, gained a firm foothold in the northwest.

Yuan Hao's father, Li Deming, inherited the sandwich biscuit policy. In diplomatic documents, the Great Song Dynasty is called the southern kingdom and the Great Liao Dynasty is the northern kingdom. Neither side was offended, and quietly smuggled across the border to accumulate wealth.

When he was a child, Yuan Hao was very beautiful, with a round face, a high nose and deep eyes, and he read military books, studied Buddhist scriptures, and learned Chinese and Tibetan Uighur languages. One day, his father warned him: "Our people have been wearing fine clothes and food for 30 years, this is the grace of the Great Song Dynasty, and we can never turn our backs on the Song Dynasty and claim the emperor." ”

Yuan Hao said on the spot: "The birth of a hero is to be an overlord, not to be a jade food." ”

Yuan Hao did what he said, and when he became an adult, he fought in the Hexi Corridor, and successively captured Zhangye, Dunhuang, and Anxi, and for a time the party people swept the northwest land. When his legs stretched out and he reached Bliss, Yuan Hao showed his strength.

However, Yuan Hao was very sober and was not in a hurry to fight abroad, but to shape the national identity internally. He announced that he would henceforth abandon the surnames of Li and Zhao given by the Tang and Song emperors and change them back to the surnames of the party; he issued an order to shave the hair of all men in the party, and all men in the party should shave the top of their heads within three days, leaving only one circle around the edges to form short braids, otherwise they would be killed, and he himself took the lead in changing into a new hairstyle.

This shaving order has the meaning of keeping your hair without keeping your head. But its cleverness lies in the fact that it is limited to party members to restore national traditions, and never forces others. Hundreds of years later, the Qing Dynasty copied this policy into forcing the Han people to shave their hair, resulting in the tragedy of the Ten Days in Jiangyin and the Three Massacres in Jiading.

In terms of clothing, Yuan Hao chose Uighur clothing. In the northwest, wearing a peaked crown and a white round neck, narrow sleeves, and waist-cinching robes were the most fashionable attire, and Uighur garments were all the rage.

However, the party and the clan, nomadic and scattered, relying on hairstyles and clothing alone to unify the national identity, is far from enough. Yuan Hao thought of words, since Qin Shi Huang, the book and the same text are the only magic weapon to unite the people. Yuan Hao created the single word of the twelve volumes, and the Dangxiang language became popular, and people in the northwest wrote an IOU, which was handily the Dangxiang text, not the Chinese character, until the Ming Dynasty, the Dangxiang text gradually disappeared.

The rule of culture is established, and other things such as states and counties, and the military system are just a piece of cake for Yuan Hao. Yuan Hao established the Great White High Kingdom, and the news reached Kaifeng, and the Song Dynasty called it Western Xia.

When everything was ready, Yuan Hao blew the first hurricane against the Song Dynasty and openly declared that he would no longer submit to the Song Dynasty. Song Renzong received the letter and slapped the case fiercely, and was angry, but the Song Dynasty was defenseless. The border was too long, and from the Liao State to the Western Xia, the Song Dynasty was exhausted by the battle. Yuan Hao was different, he came prepared and started the three most exciting battles in his life, the Battle of Sanchuankou, the Battle of Haoshuichuan, and the Battle of Dingchuan. Three battles and three victories shocked Lu Yijian, the prime minister of the Song Dynasty, and lamented that the first war was not as good as the first war.

In the battle of Sanchuankou, Yuan Hao's soldiers came to the city of Yanzhou, Shaanxi, and Fan Yong, who was stationed in Yanzhou, hurriedly posted a notice: Whoever can kill or capture Yuan Hao alive will be rewarded with 10,000 taels of gold. Yuan Hao looked at it and smiled contemptuously, and after a few days, a list of the Emperor of Western Xia was also plastered all over Yanzhou City: Whoever can kill or capture Fan Yong alive will be rewarded with two taels of copper coins.

Fan Yong is no longer incompetent, after all, the official is in Zhizhou, and the ability to dispatch troops is still there. The Song army of the two roads galloped to the rescue of Yanzhou, just outside the city, and the reinforcements met a person who claimed to be Fan Yong's subordinate: "Lord Fan said, I am afraid that there will be spies entering the city, so please enter the city in batches." ”

The reinforcements did not distinguish the authenticity, and hurriedly followed him forward, and when they arrived at the mouth of Sanchuankou, suddenly the sound of killing shook the sky, and the Western Xia soldiers rushed down from the mountains in all directions, Yuan Hao stood on a high place, triumphant, and the reinforcements from both roads were all destroyed. The Battle of Sanchuankou shocked the Northern Song Dynasty, but they couldn't defeat the Liao State, it can be said that they were full-fledged, and they occupied the danger of the sixteen states of Youyun. However, it is only a Western Xia, which has just established a country, and it will be a big defeat as soon as it fights, how can it be reasonable.

Han Qi and Fan Zhongyan were ordered to go to Shaanxi. After several small fights and temptations, Yuan Hao knew how powerful Fan Zhongyan was, so he warned his subordinates: "Little Fan Laozi Fan Zhongyan has tens of thousands of armor soldiers in his belly, which is not as good as Fan Yong, the big Fan Laozi." ”

He turned his target to Han Qi, but Ren Fu, who was under Han Qi's account, struck first and marched into the White Leopard City of Western Xia overnight, killing the whole city. Yuan Hao, who received the battle report, gritted his teeth, White Leopard City was an important place for grain and grass that he had painstakingly managed, and he decided to fight back, and he chose Haoshuichuan.