October 20, Heungin Province.

In the council hall of the Shuaifu, Yang Congyi, Yuan Hua, Pan Cheng, Su Zhong, Xue Wang and others gathered together to discuss major matters.

"My lord, this time in Qi County, we would not have been defeated, we lost nearly 10,000 soldiers, and the responsibility is really Chengmin!" Su Zhong argued.

"When it's gone, don't mention it again, there's no point in holding anyone accountable. I remember telling you many years ago that you must fight a war with people who are reliable and can advance and retreat together, otherwise defeat is inevitable. In fact, you should not have lost so badly, if you didn't want to run back to the camp to seek refuge, but reflexively faced the enemy, this victory or defeat is unpredictable, even if you can't win, you can calmly retreat. At the end of the day, it's still the usual training negligence. It doesn't make sense to reflect on their own reasons and blindly find other people's problems. Do you understand? Yang Congyi stopped the other party's whining.

"Yes, sir." Su Zhong's heart has been lost.

"Tell me what's next." Yang Congyi's gaze swept over the four of them one by one, and then said: "There is news from the Shandong Righteous Army, Wan Yan Liang and Wan Yan Yong of Liaoyang are fighting in the area of Hejian Mansion, and they have fought many times in a row, and they have won and lost each other, but from the current situation, Wan Yan Liang's army is a few points stronger than Wan Yan Yong, and Wan Yan Yong wants to take advantage of the fire to rob and seize Hejian Mansion and Zhending Mansion from north to south during the Northern Expedition of the Great Song Dynasty, there should not be much chance, and it is estimated that they will eventually return to Yanjing and form a confrontation." ”

However, if the Great Song Dynasty attacked Bianjing too quickly, Wan Yanliang was likely to retreat to Zhending Mansion, abandon Hejian Mansion, shrink the battle line, and focus on defense in the north, and then mobilize a large army to go south, first defeat the Northern Expeditionary Army of the Great Song Dynasty, and try to negotiate peace. To tell the truth, the Great Song Dynasty is now underprepared, there is no strength for the Northern Expedition, there is no civil foundation for the Northern Expedition, there is not much willingness to go north south of the Yangtze River, but there is a willingness to go north in the Jianghuai region, but it is a pity that the Jin army went south and wreaked havoc for several months, causing the people to flee, the fields are barren, and the population is only four or five tenths of the past, and it takes time to recuperate. If the people's livelihood in the Lianghuai region is not restored, the Northern Expedition of the Great Song Dynasty cannot be successful. Yang Congyi's expression was serious.

"What do you mean, my lord, that there is no hope of capturing Bianjing in this Northern Expedition?" Xue Wang asked in surprise.

"Nope. Within three years, it was impossible for the Great Song Dynasty to succeed in the Northern Expedition. Yang Congyi gave a positive reply.

"Wan Yan Liang fought Wan Yan Yong in the north, Bianjing's troops are empty, why is there no hope?" Not only did Xue Wang disagree with Yang Congyi's statement, but even Yuan Hua, Su Zhong and others had doubts.

If the Northern Expedition fails, they have never heard Yang Congyi say it before, and now they suddenly talk about it, how can they accept it?

"I just said, first, the Great Song Dynasty is not well prepared, whether it is the court or the people for decades, from top to bottom has not prepared for the Northern Expedition, let's not talk about what the people think, let's just say that in the army, what has always been thinking about the most is not to let the Jin people cross the Yangtze River, and the army training is mainly based on defense, and how many armies have practiced the formation of charging and fighting? Such an army cannot attack. You have all seen the forbidden army on the right track, how they fought, you all know, how can an army without special training recover the Central Plains? Is it just a matter of having a lot of people? Even if it works, how many troops can the imperial court mobilize now? 100,000, 200,000, or 300,000? There was no sufficient number of troops, and there was no food and grass and military resources, which was one of the reasons why the large-scale Northern Expedition could not succeed at this time. ”

Yang Congyi paused slightly, and continued: "Another reason is in the geographical location of Bianjing, to the north is the rich plain, rich in products, can provide a steady stream of grain and grass for Bianjing, to the west is Zhengzhou, Luoyang, is the west gate of Bianjing, do not take these two places, don't want to take Bianjing, but to take Luoyang, you have to consider the Hangu Pass in the west, Hangu Pass is easy to defend and difficult to attack, it is easy to go east from there, if you want to go west, Bianjing, Zhengzhou, Luoyang all have to be taken first." So there is a problem, if you want to take Bianjing, you have to take Hanguguan first, and if you want to get Hanguguan, you have to take Bianjing first, this is a dead knot, unless Sichuan and Shaanxi and Lianghuai jointly send troops, so that the Jin people and things can not take care of each other, otherwise it is absolutely impossible. In addition, how high and thick the walls of Bianjing City are, who of you has seen them? Thinking that the Jin army of 200,000 besieged Bianjing in September, the defenders in the city were only 50,000, and they failed to capture it. The Song army is now attacking Bianjing, even if it can be surrounded by 300,000 troops for several months, it is impossible to easily break the city. ”

"What I said is clear enough, at this time, it is impossible to succeed in the Northern Expedition, you can only win step by step, and slowly figure it out." Yang Congyi looked at everyone, and only today did he confess to them.

Everyone was silent, and after thinking about it carefully, it was true, it was impossible to succeed in the Northern Expedition, and it was already an unexpected joy to be able to capture Xingren Mansion and Guide Mansion.

"Since you already know that it is impossible for the Northern Expedition to succeed, why do you want to take us north?" Yuan Hua had a lot of questions in his heart, and this one was the first one.

"The reason is very simple, the imperial court cannot be allowed to negotiate peace with the Jin people. Once the peace negotiations began, the Great Song Dynasty would no longer have the opportunity to go on the Northern Expedition, because Lin'an might lose the will of the Northern Expedition, the emperor would be disappointed, and the Lord and faction would inevitably take advantage of the situation. Now that the new emperor has the intention of restoring the Central Plains, we should give him hope no matter what, and besides, it is time for the court to change its atmosphere, and the lord and faction must no longer control the government. In order for the main battle faction to gain a firm foothold in the court, we must be able to win battles on the front line, which is why I hurriedly led troops north to Xingrenfu after the failure of the Northern Expedition in Xuzhou. Now that everyone has doubts, Yang Congyi doesn't want to hide it anymore, if you want to achieve great things, you have to talk to your surroundings and share some secrets.

When everyone heard this, they were shocked.

It has always been taboo for front-line generals to be involved in the government and politics, but now that Yang Congyi directly told them, they would be suspected of complicity, and once the Lord and faction were in power, this matter would be dug up, and none of them would be able to escape.

At this time, it was said that since then, they and Yang Congyi have a solid bond of people in the same boat, and no one can get rid of it.

"Don't worry, the Northern Expedition is a major event of the imperial court, as long as we win the battle on the front line, we will only have merit and no guilt!" Yang Congyi saw that everyone seemed to be frightened, and hurriedly relieved them.

"But now that the Northern Expedition is doomed to fail, where do we go from here?" Yuan Hua's face was a little difficult to look at.

"The Northern Expeditionary Army can fail, but we can't. As long as he held the Xingren Mansion and went north to capture the prefectures and counties at every opportunity, giving hope to the imperial court, the Northern Expedition could continue. The best result of this Northern Expedition was to break through the defensive circle outside Bianjing City and reach Bianjing City, but it was limited to this, and the worst result was that the Northern Expeditionary Army led by Zhang Jun was defeated by the Jin Army and retreated to Chenzhou, Bozhou, and Suzhou, but as long as Xingren Mansion was not lost, the ministers of the main battle faction of the imperial court would not agree to negotiate peace, because the hope of recovering the Central Plains was still there. ”

Yang Congyi's gaze swept over everyone's faces one by one again, and then said: "Therefore, our next task is to train our troops well, strengthen the city defense, and prepare to defend Xingren Mansion!" ”

"If the Jin army defeats Zhang Jun's troops and besieges Xingren Mansion with a large army, how long can we hold out?" Yang Congyi suddenly told them that the Northern Expedition could not succeed, and all the generals had doubts in their hearts, and at the same time they were a little disappointed.

"Hold out for three months at most, and then the Jin army will have to retreat." Yang Congyi is confident.

But Su Zhong, Pan Cheng and the others didn't seem to believe it too much, and it could be seen from their eyes that they wanted to get further explanations.

I only heard Yang Congyi say: "I might as well tell you, we are not a lone army in the north, even if Guide is reoccupied by the Jin army, we also have room for slowdown, east of Jiaxiang is Jeju, east of Jeju is Shandong occupied by the Loyal Army, the entire Shandong East Road south to Yizhou, north to Jinan Mansion, west to Dongping, all in the hands of the Loyal Army, I have been in contact with the Shandong Loyal Army, when necessary, they will send troops to respond." I think that once the Jin army dares to transfer most of its troops to the south, the loyal army will lead the army westward and directly attack the important state capitals between Bianjing and Zhending such as the Daimyo's Mansion, forcing Wan Yanliang to lead the army to return north. ”

"Shandong Loyal Army? Without a peasant army with unified training and command, can it attack cities and plunder land? Su Zhong was the first to express his doubts.

"Can't attack the city, how did they take the entire Shandong East Road? Don't doubt their strength. Jeju's more than 30,000 gold troops annihilated Dayozawa, which was the handiwork of Shandong's loyal and righteous army. I heard that among the rebels, there are no longer a few capable people, and they can attack cities and plunder land without training, and if they are trained a little, it will not be a problem to directly capture the important state capital of Jin. Yang Congyi gave an example to explain his doubts.

Without waiting for everyone to ask questions about the righteous army, Yang Congyi said again: "As far as I know, the Shandong Loyal and Righteous Army actually has a certain relationship with Wanyan Yong in Liaoyang, although it is not a subordinate relationship, but at least there is cooperation between them, otherwise they can't afford to raise more than 100,000 people only by relying on the Loyal and Righteous Army themselves." Therefore, as long as Wan Yan Liang dares to transfer the main force of the Jin Army south to the vicinity of Bianjing, the Loyal and Righteous Army and Wan Yan Yong's Yanjing Jin Army will definitely not miss the opportunity to attack the north and south, and Wan Yan Liang's army will have to be obediently transferred back to Zhending Mansion at that time. We have 80,000 troops in Xingren Province, as long as we don't attack rashly, we can protect ourselves. ”

This is a relieving word, but everyone's focus is on the relationship between Shandong Zhongyi Army and Liaoyang Wanyan Yong, and when they heard the news, their hearts trembled again.

Yang Congyi always pays attention to their colors, how can he not understand the reason for their worries.

So he immediately said: "Don't worry, the Shandong Loyal and Righteous Army has no intention of being self-reliant, and Liaoyang Wanyan Yong has not made contact with the Great Song Dynasty, let alone been recognized by the Imperial Court, even if the Great Song Dynasty knows that Liaoyang Wanyan Yong, it will only regard him as a force in the Jin civil strife, and there is not much difference from the righteous army from all walks of life, there is a connection between them, and we have a connection with the Shandong Loyal and Righteous Army, and it will not have any impact, after all, the opponent of the imperial court is Wan Yan Liang, not Wan Yan Yong." ”