Song Zhenzong was shocked by the good news that Wei Sheng and Wei Chun came back, and Wei Sheng and Wei Chun reported the capture of Xiao Tzu Rin and 293 Sini Iron Cavalry, and Emperor Zhenzong immediately ordered Kou Zhun to arrange to welcome Zheng Shuang and prepare for the sacrifice of prisoners; He also asked Zhang Di, Zhou Zhou, and Zhou Huaizheng to inform the six ministries of the three provinces, the Privy Council, and the three yas to deploy palace guards to hold a huge ceremony to present prisoners in the capital.

Emperor Zhenzong couldn't sleep for a long time, and his extremely excited cranial nerves made his spirit vigorous.

It has been 7 years since Zhenzong ascended the throne, and in the 7 years, the war between Song and Liao has occurred almost every year, but the Song army has been defeated and won less, and has to build fortresses on the border to confront the Liao people, but when the Liao people's horse team comes, there is a gust of wind; The Song army couldn't resist it at all.

The helpless Song army could only hide in the castle to confront the Liao army, but once the castle was besieged by the Liao army, it ran out of food and water; If the Song army does not die, it is surrender.

In the 44 years since the founding of the Great Song Dynasty, there seems to be no complete number of how many Song Dynasty soldiers have been taken prisoner of the Liao, but Song Zhenzong knows it in his heart; Every year, tens of thousands of people are captured by the Liao army, and there are only a few, so count; The four or five hundred thousand soldiers on the Song Dynasty became the soldiers and civilians of the Liao State; The source of soldiers in the Liao State became more and more extensive.

Zheng Shuang became the marshal of the unified army, and within a few days, he annihilated the Sini iron cavalry of Xiao Tzulin, the king of the Southern Courtyard of the Liao State; captured Xiao Tzu and sent 293 soldiers back to the capital, which was tantamount to opening a historical precedent.

For the Liao State, a fierce enemy that could hardly be destroyed, Emperor Zhenzong had studied it before he ascended the throne; For seven years after ascending the throne, he studied the politics, economy, and military affairs of the Song State almost every day.

The Khitans of the Liao State are really a strange people, more ferocious than the Xiongnu and Turks who appeared in the north before.

In the 10th century, the Liao Empire was a veritable hegemon of East Asia.

At that time, the territory of the Khitans was bordered by the Sea of Japan in the east and the Altai Mountains in the west, and within the scope of the power of the Liao Empire, an East Asian tributary system comparable to that of the Central Plains regime was established. Goryeo, Northern Song, Hui, Western Xia and other countries had to pay tribute to Emperor Yelu.

In the process of conquering the surrounding forces, the Khitans embraced all rivers; While maintaining the tradition of the nomadic people, it also constantly borrowed the advantages of the conquered peoples to establish an armed force that crushed the Northern Song Dynasty and the Liao State in terms of combat strength, and the combat system of the Liao State was not inferior to that of the Tang Dynasty.

The Khitan people originated from the Mongolian steppe at the junction of the forests of the Great Khing'an Mountains, where two large rivers run - the Xilamu River and the Laoha River.

The Xilamu River and the Laoha River are known as the mother rivers of the Khitan people, and the Khitan ancestors who lived in the two river basins lived an idyllic life of fishing, hunting, gathering, and living in pursuit of water and grass.

The title "Khitan" was first seen in the annals of the Central Plains in the Book of Wei.

In the 5th and 6th centuries AD, the Khitan was still very weak, and was plundered and enslaved by the regional powers of Goguryeo, Sui, and Turkic.

Internally, the Khitan was divided into nearly 10 tribes, large and small, and at the same time, the Khitan people also faced competition from Xi tribes from the same ecological niche. It was not until the 7th century AD that the Khitan officially became a political entity.

The powerful Tang Dynasty took over the Dong. Suddenly. the legacy of the Turkic Khanate, in order to facilitate the administration of the newly conquered territories; The Tang Dynasty set up the Songmo Prefecture on the land where the Khitans lived, integrating the various Khitan tribes that were originally dependent on the Turks into a single framework; And appointed the pro-Tang Khitan nobles as the local chief executive.

The Khitan tribal alliance, which initially achieved unification, soon burst out with tremendous combat effectiveness.

In 696 AD, dissatisfied with the excesses and miscellaneous taxes of the Tang court, Li Quanzhong, the governor of Songmo, launched a huge rebellion.

Under the command of Li Qianzhong, the Khitan army repeatedly defeated the official army and sacked the entire Hebei.

Later, the Khitan was attached to the Later Turkic Khanate and was an enemy of the Tang Dynasty for a long time; As a last resort, Tang Xuanzong adopted a peaceful approach to eliminate the hostility of the Khitan.

With the collapse of the Tang Dynasty at the end of the 9th century AD, the Khitan power grew stronger.

At the beginning of the 10th century AD, the Khitan had already conquered the Bohai Kingdom to the east; To the west, it subdued a large number of tribes on the grassland, and also went south to destroy the Later Jin Dynasty and occupy the 16 states of Yanyun.

In 916 AD, the Khitan leader Yelu Abaoji officially proclaimed himself emperor and established the Liao Empire.

In the early days of the Khitan tribal alliance, the whole people were all soldiers, and the leaders of the alliance and the leaders of the various tribes were only brave warriors; They may have had great influence in tribal councils, but the chiefs did not establish a clear subordinate relationship with their tribesmen; Minions can follow any of their beloved leaders.

The continuous development of Khitan society inevitably led to the emergence of a gap between the rich and the poor; In the 8th century, some tribal leaders with equally outstanding minds and martial arts began to form a private subordinate group "Tart Horse" - "Liao Shi Chinese Interpretation" said: Tart Horse, the official of Hu Obey.

When Yelu Abaoji established the empire, due to the expansion of the Khitan territory and the changes in the war situation, he took his original personal servant as the core; The crude tribal military system was reorganized.

According to the proximity and proximity of the relationship with the royal family, the army of the Liao Empire can be divided into four categories: the forbidden army, the tribal army, the Han army, and the subject army.

In 907 A.D., Yelu Abaoji seized the throne of Khan. Like all barbarian monarchs, he deeply felt that the framework of tribal alliances could not well realize the will of individuals.

In order to get rid of his dependence on the tribal army, Yelu Abaoji selected athletes from the Khitan tribes and the conquered Xi and Han groups to form the "Leather Room Army".

"Leather room" is the slang word "leather solid" in today's Northeast China, and it has the meaning of "strong" in the Khitan context.

The Leather Room Army is the emperor's Praetorian Guard, not only assuming the duties of the emperor's subordinates; It was also often sent as an independent field army to participate in the war against the Song people.

At its peak, the number of the Leather Chamber Army could reach more than 30,000. In the later period of the Liao Kingdom, the emperor's subordinate function of the leather room army gave way to the emperor's palace guard "Huluduo".

Empress Shulu's personal subordinate belonged to the Shan Army, and was also part of the Imperial Guard.

The army was composed of the queen's palace sub-households, and was named after "precious as coral".

Although the army of the Shan is smaller than the army of the leather room, it also has 20,000 people; This reflects the delicate balance that existed within the Liao royal family in the early days.

The Shan army participated in the war of the Liao State against the Murwei people and made many contributions.

Unfortunately, after the death of Empress Shulu, the Shan army was quickly disbanded.

The Tribal Army was an armed force inferior to the Praetorian Guard, and maintained a relatively intact tribal structure.

The tribal army is one of the main local military forces of Liao, and it is also the main body of Liao's previous foreign wars.

In addition to the eight Khitan tribes, there are dozens of tribes such as Hui, Turkic, and Shatuo.

Tribal armies were basically cavalry and were subject to the command of chieftains who were approved by the central government; The chief's side also retains his own personal soldier "private armor", and he is one of the best warriors in the tribe.

There was also a Han army in Liao, which was similar to a tribal army; It is the main garrison force of the 16 states of Yanyun.

The Shanbei Eighth Army was the first "Han army" incorporated by the Liao State, and although they wore the hat of the "Han army", they were actually an army composed of Hu people and Huhua Han'er.

Since the Tang Dynasty, northern China has been absorbing exiles from the direction of the grassland; The Central Plains regime often hired them to fight, and the two strong armies of the five dynasties, "Yinhulu" and "Yin'an Khitanzhi", came from here.

The second Han army to defect to the Liao State was the Youzhou soldiers of Zhao Dejun, the king of Beiping in the Later Tang Dynasty, whose backs in the Battle of Jin'anzhai directly led to the demise of the Later Tang Dynasty.

For historical reasons, the emperor had a deep prejudice against the Han army; Even they showed exceptional loyalty during Song Taizong's Northern Expedition.

The vassals of the Liao State also needed to bear certain military obligations to the suzerain.

According to historical records, the Liao State at its peak had 59 vassal states and servant tribes; However, the Khitans do not pay much attention to these daily anti-water fish belly; Their role may be to decorate the emperor's court, in addition to gaining momentum.

The Khitans established their kingdom with bows and horses, and the number of cavalry was indeed very large; However, it is obvious that a pure cavalry unit cannot be applied to the external situation surrounded by strong enemies, the terrain is complicated, and the various battlefields are not applicable.

As a country that grew up under the influence of both the Turks and the Tang Dynasty, the Liao State developed a state violence apparatus with cavalry as the main force and other arms readily available.

During the Sui and Tang dynasties, almost everyone in the Khitan tribal alliance was a lightly armed archer, except for a few wealthy nobles.

They rely on the mobility of a single horseman, and are competent for long-distance raids, roundabout outflanking, and alert and reconnaissance combat missions.

These lightly armed cavalry archers later constituted the most numerous group of Liao cavalry.

But their equipment was uneven, and many of them had nothing but bows and arrows, and swords and guns; and he was clothed in a fur garment; This left them with little courage to confront a determined enemy.

The Song people referred to the Khitan cavalry archers as "rangers", and they rarely won victories when fighting independently in small groups.

The real leaders of the Liao cavalry were the heavy cavalry equipped with men and horses, such as the Sini Iron Cavalry captured by Zheng Shuang.

The Ao Han Banner Museum in Inner Mongolia has collected a remnant wooden coffin of the Liao Dynasty, and the right side of the coffin is painted with a "Eagle Army Map" using perspective techniques.

On the picture, there are 14 cavalrymen on horseback and 1 on foot, and the horses are all armored; Another person held a large flag with winged eagles painted with both hands, so the picture was named the Eagle Army.

The Khitan people love eagles, and take their fierce and fast characteristics, and name their heavy cavalry units "Iron Harrier Army".

In the Battle of Baituan Village in 945 AD, the Iron Harrier Army undertook the most dangerous combat mission; Dismounted, pulled out the antler position set up by the Jin army, and then attacked the Jin army camp on foot with short weapons.

Although the Khitan cavalry could occasionally work part-time as a dismounted infantry, the regular infantry was still an important part of the Liao army.

The Han army composed of Yanyun Han'er was the main body of the Liao infantry, and some of the conscripted Xi people, Bohai people, and Jurchens formed heavy infantry archers.

The Liao infantry was the auxiliary of the cavalry, and they either built defensive field fortifications, or formed an echelon to follow the cavalry to enhance the assault force of the whole army.

When the Liao besieged the towns of the Northern Song Dynasty, if they could not catch the neighboring people; They will also be cheap cannon fodder.

The Liao State set up a detailed and stable division of the gunner army, indicating that the siege equipment unit of the Liao army existed as an independent branch of the army.

Like the Northern Song Dynasty, the siege equipment of the Liao army was developed on the basis of the Tang Dynasty, including entrenchment bridges, cloud chariots, various manpower projectile machines and other necessary weapons.

Even if it was a bed crossbow that made Song Fan sit on the ground and ovulate, the Liao army also had equipment; Compared with the shoddy Xibei goods of the Song people, the siege equipment produced by the Liao State was of high quality, and it was said that "the edge is sharp and sharp, and it is covered with iron".

What's even more incredible is that the Liao army set up naval divisions in both the Yellow River valley and the Bohai Bay; However, the combat effectiveness of the naval division is not strong, and it mainly undertakes the task of logistics and transportation.

For example, it is basically impossible for those huge "building boats" to exert their due strength on the Yellow River, which has an extremely complex river environment.

According to the records of the Liao History and Bingwei Zhi, the soldiers of the Liao army needed to prepare their own food equivalent to 1 bucket of grain when they were conscripted, which could only last for 5 days of battle.

Therefore, during the war, the Liao army generals will release a large number of Dacao Valley to ride to the enemy's territory, while killing people and setting fire to spread terror; While looting for the supplies needed by the main army.

In some seasons of abundant water and grass, the Liao army generals would also hold large-scale hunts on the way to provide fresh meat for the soldiers, which was also an important supplement to the army's food source.

However, the disadvantage of the logistical supply method of using war to feed the war is that it is difficult to sustain and is not suitable for protracted wars.

In order to solve this problem, the Liao State set up a large number of military reclamation cantonments in the border areas to store surplus grain; In wartime, a small number of herdsmen can be used to carry food to the front line through herds or vehicles......