In mid-August, Zhao Ji issued an edict appointing Liu Yanqing, the commander of the inspection school, and Liu Yanqing, the commander of the Sancheng Jiedu of Heyang, as the commander of the Northern Expeditionary Army, and Liu Guangshi, the envoy of Yaozhou Observation, and Yu Hou He Guan as the deputy commander, sent 200,000 troops to the north to recover Yanjing.

The imperial court decided to raise troops to the Northern Expedition again, so that the court was fried again - there were those who supported and those who were opposed, and everyone was gossiping and discussing.

Actually-

Since Zhao Liangsi offered the United Jin to destroy Liao and recover Yanyun, the debate between the high-level leaders of the Great Song Dynasty on recovering Yanyun has not been interrupted.

Tong Guan, Cai Jing, Wang Huang and others are supporters, Deng Xunwu, Zheng Juzhong, Li Bangyan and others are oppositionists, and Zhao Ji is completely according to his own mood, it can be said that he wants to play one out at a time, and as a result, the Great Song Dynasty always goes back and forth on the recovery of the sixteen states of Yanyun.

Cai Jing's attitude towards recovering Yanyun suddenly changed and became very inactive.

And Zhao Ji became firm for various reasons.

So, Zhao Ji thought that Cai Jing was old, so he replaced Wang Huang, who knew him better, as the prime minister.

Now, the ministers have begun a heated debate again on the rights and wrongs of sending troops north to recover Yanjing.

In order to unify the thinking and avoid disturbing the morale of the army and the people, under Wang Hao's repeated requests, Zhao Ji issued a stern edict: Those who discuss this matter in vain will be punished without forgiveness!

Most of the ministers were intimidated and kept silent.

However, the relaxed political environment of the Song Dynasty still made some bold people jump out to oppose it.

Like Chaosanlang Song Zhao, he gave Zhao Ji a fiercely spoken note against the Northern Expedition.

Song Zhao said in the recital:

"Your Majesty since the accession to the throne, the art of the royal Rong is really the best policy, the Liao envoy comes, the feast is given, and the grace is exhausted, therefore, they are afraid of virtue, to the wind and righteousness, the head of the audit is called the vassal, the people of the mediators, the bow is resting, the people of Qianli, and the belly is singing.

Over the past three generations, I have been pleasing to the heart, sincere and sincere, and it is not today, and it is a grand event of peace and prosperity.

For example, Wang Hao and Tong Guanli led Li Liangsi and Dong Pang'er's disciples to become mad, vainly stirred up side affairs, caused annoyance, sent ministers to raise heavy troops, and Jiutun was plugged, the treasury of Cangli was empty, and countless officials and militia died.

If the money can be restored, how can the dead be resurrected?

Wang Huang and Tong Guan deceived the king, harmed the people, and the crime was unforgivable, and the ministers were willing to cut off these heads to thank the world, not only to comfort the hearts of the Yan people, so that they knew His Majesty's virtue, no more suspicion, and kept the alliance, but also made the rest of the traitors and thieves who were vain about the border affairs punished.

Li Liangsi and Dong Pang'er were both traitors to the Northern Court, and they had resentment, so they attached to the border ministers and wrote false words, wanting to fake the momentum of China and revenge their personal enemies.

Now the Jurchen is brave and good at fighting, sweeping the northern country, Cai is still a thief, grabbing the entire territory of Yundi, defeating the two kingdoms of Liao and Jin, and neighboring the two, what will be the trick to resist it?

Destroying a weak country and becoming neighbors with two strong countries may not be China's blessing, but only for the Jurchen and Cai Yi'er.

The minister also heard the alliance between the two countries, and the defeat of the alliance caused disaster to the nine clans, His Majesty took filial piety to the world, and he forbears the spirit of forgetting the saints in the sky?

Your Majesty covers the world with benevolence, and he endures the people of Hebei in the midst of misery and makes the liver and brain smeared? ”

After reading Song Zhao's recital, Zhao Ji was so angry that he got up: "Song Zhao, a crazy student, actually said disrespectful words, I just issued an order not to discuss it, he dared to go against the wind, it was really bold!" ”

Wang Hao gritted his teeth with even more hatred for Song Zhao, and he suggested to Zhao Ji: "Kill Song Zhao, kill a hundred examples, kill a chicken and show monkeys, see who dares to be so arrogant and disrespectful!" ”

Zhao Ji was angry, but his mind was still very calm, he said: "It's better not to kill, a scholar, it is useless to kill him, remove him from the list and make the magistrate strictly disciplined." ”

Soon, Song Zhao was dismissed from public office and escorted to Haizhou.

Zhao Ji's appointment of 55-year-old Liu Yanqing as the commander of the Northern Expeditionary Army should be said to have some truth.

First, Liu Yanqing is the same age, not as old as the Seed Master, and not as young as Cai Ying.

Second, Liu Yanqing was born in a family of Jiangmen, and has many years of practical combat experience, fought against Tubo and Western Xia several times in the northwest, and was relocated to the post of general manager of Yanlu and deputy commander of the Ma Army due to his military achievements.

Third, Liu Yanqing had a very successful cooperation with Tong Guan, that is, the battle of Square La, which was the capital commander of Liu Yanqing.

But—

This is just Zhao Ji's unilateral idea.

In fact, Liu Yanqing had mixed feelings about being appointed as the commander of the capital this time.

On the one hand, Liu Yanqing felt that this was an opportunity - if he could win this time by raising troops to the north, then his prestige in the army would surpass that of the Seed Master, and he would become the first general of the Great Song Dynasty under the premise that Cai still rebelled against the Song Dynasty.

On the other hand, Liu Yanqing felt that this was a test - as a battle-hardened general, he knew that the advantage of the Liao army was cavalry, and the Song army did not have strong cavalry, and it would be difficult to win by relying on the flesh and blood of infantry alone to resist the Jin Ge iron horse. He felt that dealing with the Liao army was not as simple as dealing with the Fang La Yi army. Therefore, he warned himself that he had to be careful and careful when he sent troops north this time, especially after he saw the soldiers and horses that Zhao Ji had assigned him.

Some people may wonder what kind of soldiers and horses Zhao Ji allocated to Liu Yanqing to make Liu Yanqing so worried?

It turns out -

Zhao Ji felt that the troops in the north were not enough, so he asked Gao Yu to draw 50,000 horses from the central forbidden army to Liu Yanqing.

But how can there be any men and horses who can fight in the forbidden army - in fact, only the Jinwu army can fight, except for the Jinwu army, the rest of the men and horses who can fight are almost all disabled in the battle of Square.

Gao Yu really had no choice, so he passed the buck to his deputy, Liang Fangping, the deputy commander of the former division of the palace.

After Liang Fangping received this hot potato, he directly passed it to He Guan.

It took a lot of effort for He Guan to screen out 20,000 barely capable soldiers from the forbidden army, and temporarily recruited 20,000 new soldiers among the vagrants (hooligans and ruffians) in the Beijing Division.

Later, I don't know who mentioned that the Yaneijun had made countless meritorious contributions with Cai in the southern and northern wars, and could serve as the mainstay of the northward expedition.

So, Zhao Ji appointed Liang Bingcong as the commander, led the Yanei army as the main force, and went north to win glory for the country.

Liu Yanqing really couldn't imagine how such an army could fight?

In fact, none of the people in this army thought about fighting, they only went to promote the Great Song Dynasty, and by the way, they made some military merits, so that they could find a good messenger in the future, and the war would have their own Western Army and other armies.

Zhao Ji didn't know what kind of army he gave Liu Yanqing was, Zhao Ji only knew that he had allocated another 50,000 troops to Liu Yanqing.

In addition, with a wave of his hand, Zhao Ji transferred all the Hebei troops to the north, and roughly calculated, he allocated Liu Yanqing a full 200,000 troops.

plus the hundreds of thousands of troops who were already on the border, as well as the township warriors of Zhao Xu (Dong Pang'er), Zhang Guanyu and other righteous troops.

This time, the Song army had a total of four or five hundred thousand people, and claimed one million to the outside world.

From the number of troops assigned to Liu Yanqing, it is not difficult to see that Zhao Ji has great hopes for Liu Yanqing, and it is not difficult to see that Zhao Ji is bound to win Yanjing.

Before setting out for the expedition, Zhao Ji met Liu Yanqing in the Yanfu Palace.

Zhao Ji said: "When pacifying Fangla, Liu Qing made great contributions as the commander of the capital. This time the Northern Expedition recovered Yanjing, and after careful consideration, I decided to appoint Liu Qing as the commander of the capital again, hoping that Liu Qing would make persistent efforts and make new contributions. ”

Zhao Ji gave Liu Yanqing a banner, a golden gun, a royal robe, and a colorful belt.

At the same time, Zhao Ji also gave Liu Yanqing "Seven Treasures".

The "Seven Treasures" are: gold, silver, glass (precious stones), pears (crystals), clams (sea shells), pearls (coral beads) and amber.

Liu Yanqing knelt on the ground to thank him, and said excitedly: "The minister bathed in the emperor's grace, sincerely remembered His Majesty's teachings, and must go to the soup to fight the fire, shatter his bones, and blood fertile Yanshan, and swear to plant the Great Song Dynasty flag on the head of Yanjing City!" ”

If Zhao Ji didn't want to really start a war with Liao when he sent troops for the first time in April this year, and he hoped to win without a fight, then Zhao Ji's idea of sending troops this time was very different from the last time - Zhao Ji hoped that this time the army would use real skills to recover Yanjing by force.

Therefore, Zhao Ji did not interfere with the guiding ideology and specific military deployment of the operation - he hoped that Tong Guan and Liu Yanqing would see the opportunity to act and complete the recovery of Yanjing, a strategic concept that their Great Song Dynasty had been planning for many years.

……

At the end of July, after more than 50 days of attacking, Yue Fei finally attacked the Confucian city.

After the city was broken, Yue Fei sent people to count it, and there were less than 10,000 old and young women and children left in the Confucian city, and the rest were all killed in battle.

Moreover, at the moment before the city was broken, Wu Yong burned the few remaining grain and grass in the Confucian city, and led the remaining people to fight with the Jinwu army until there were only a few hundred left, and they did not completely give up resistance until Wu Yong died in battle.

Coincidentally, the situation was even worse for Han Shizhong, and they fought until the beginning of August before they conquered the city of Concubine.

After the city was broken, Han Shizhong sent people to count it, and there were only more than 6,000 people left in the huge city, and almost all of these people were old and young women and children, and most of the adult men had died in battle.

In addition, Han Shizhong also inquired that Ma Renwang was shot to death by a swarm of rockets of the Jinwu army as early as ten days ago, and after that, it was a Han cultural official named "Zhao Zhong" in the city who led the people in the city to resist to the death - Zhao Zhong killed all his family before the city was broken, and then killed himself.

Cai still thought that the two cities of Confucianism and Concubine were his own dishes and meat, and he could eat them at any time if he wanted to.

I don't want to, Confucianism and Concubine actually slapped Cai Yi in the face like this, so that Cai Yi finally knew how terrible it was for a former great empire to fight back.

Not long ago, Li Shi, who joined Cai Ying, once said to the left and right in private: "The two dynasties have been peaceful for a long time, and the white-haired old man has never seen the north and the south use swords and guns, and now they are suddenly fighting, which is really worrying." You southerners always say, Yan people think of Han, in fact, Yan land has been ceded to the Khitan for nearly 200 years, how can the people of Yan land and the Khitan emperor not have the relationship between the monarch and the minister, father and son? ”

These words quickly reached Cai Ying's ears.

Before, Cai still didn't care about this, thinking that it was just one person's words.

It wasn't until these two battles were fought that Cai still knew that what Li Shi said was true.

This also made Cai still decide to postpone the capture of Yanjing by force, let the problem of Yanjing ferment for a while, so that Yanjing can complete the final desperate counterattack, and then send troops to recover Yanjing......

……