The legendary Li Jiqian's eleventh - loyalty and ingenuity

After recovering the five states of Dingyan, Li Jiqian's satisfaction did not last long, and in his eyes galloping across the field, he always pressed a towering city - Lingzhou in his eyes.

Lingzhou was the western border of the Great Song Dynasty, a fortress leading to the Hexi Corridor, and a bustling city - and most importantly, it could also threaten the security of the five states at any time, and if Xiazhou and the Great Song went to war, sending troops from Lingzhou could create a situation of a flanking attack on the east and west of Xiazhou. However, it is far away from the Central Plains, and it has to pass through eight hundred miles of Hanhai to transport grain, which is fatal to Lingzhou. It is precisely because of this that Li Jiqian has long planned to take Lingzhou, resist the strong Song Dynasty, and can also complete the unification of the five states of Dingyan, and achieve a real king of the world.

However, it was not easy to take a state city in the Great Song Dynasty, and several attempts ended in regret.

However, conditions are better and more ripe than ever before.

However, careful planning is a must.

The most necessary thing is to convince the Great Song Dynasty that he, Li Jiqian, only wants to live an honest and stable life in the northwest and has no ambitions for the territory of the Great Song Dynasty.

In the second year of Song Xianping, one night in the late autumn of the seventeenth year of Khitan unification (999 AD), Li Jiqian was in front of his residence in Xiazhou, with a bang, sparks bursting, shining in the four fields, and a meteorite fell from the sky and fell to the side of Li Jiqian's residence impartially. Under normal circumstances, Li Jiqian's residence is not accompanied by anyone else, he has been born and died for many years, and he pays special attention to the safety of his life, and sometimes people often do not know where he lives.

Sure enough, after the meteorite fell, the people around were very surprised and gathered around. When people were talking about the meteorite, Li Jiqian also came to the scene in a cold sweat. He couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat, the landing point of such a big stone was slightly off, and Li Jiqian at this time was already in a state of meatloaf. When he separated from everyone and carefully examined this heavenly divine stone, he was surprised to find that the stone was actually engraved with words.

- "Don't suffer for China!" ”

Li Jiqian thought for a long time, knelt on the ground with a puff, kowtowed respectfully three times, and then asked the guards to burn incense, and then made an oath: "I, Li Jiqian, the little citizen of heaven, will abide by the warnings of the gods, abide by the way of ministers for the rest of my life, and will not intrude on the Central Plains or cause disasters to the Central Plains!" If I break this oath, let a boulder from heaven fall on my head! ”

He not only swore this oath in front of the onlookers, but also announced that he would summon the entire northwest, and from then on he would be a obedient citizen in the northwest with peace of mind. Li Jiqian, who has not been afraid of the sky or the earth for sixteen years, is now frightened by this divine stone. Song Zhenzong and his group of courtiers also felt relieved, the party members believed in God, and it seemed that Li Jiqian was telling the truth.

Of course, there are also very calm people, after hearing about this incident, Lu Jian's first reaction was: "Li Jiqian is cheating, he is going to make a small move, let's change our guard ("This fraud is also, it is advisable to be prepared!"). ”）。”

Sure enough, it didn't take long for Zhang Pu to carry out a small popularization of geographical knowledge among the army and hundreds of officials, so that everyone knew where the Central Plains was and where the Northwest was, and the Northwest would never be in trouble with the Central Plains, but the Northwest was the Northwest!

What is Northwest is Northwest? Everyone sighed, and they all understood.

Subsequently, Li Jiqian's party army first appeared in Yanzhou. Yanzhou belongs to the northwest, and Li Jiqian did not suffer from the Central Plains.

As a result, a minister in the Song Dynasty realized that the stone was just an attitude of Li Jiqian, and it was a gimmick to make the Song Dynasty believe in his performance, and the hidden saying inside was that the main direction of the party's main attack for more than ten years was about to be shifted. To meet my Li Jiqian's requirements, I will definitely not endanger the Central Plains, but the northwest is mine.

In fact, it will be difficult to win the five states, and Li Jiqian is both happy and distressed. I am glad that the foundation of my ancestors has finally returned to my hands, and these fifteen years of hard work have not been in vain. What is distressing is that after 15 years of war, the five prefectures of Dingnan were made to be difficult because the Song army had left the Liao army, and the Liao army had to go over and over again, scraping over and over again, making the already barren five prefectures of Dingnan even more impoverished. It doesn't matter if you are poor, the party members have come from poverty, and they can still deal with it, but this must be difficult Wuzhou is really too close to the Song Dynasty, especially after Xiazhou City, which is known for its solidity, was burned by Li Jilong, it is almost impossible to defend. After fifteen years of rule by the Great Song Dynasty, in the hearts of the military and civilians, especially those "familiar households", the support rate of the Great Song Dynasty was even higher than that of Li Jiqian. In case the Song Dynasty wanted to regret it one day, the Song army could drive Li Jiqian back to the desert within ten days, and even let him die without a place to be buried.

Therefore, Li Jiqian needed to maintain peace with the Song Dynasty. It is not enough to simply maintain peace, but also to seek development, and to develop, there must be space, abundant space, so he faces the Great Khitan Kingdom to the north and east, and he can't afford to provoke it, that is his father-in-law's family, and it is the family he can't afford the most. Wanting to grab land from Empress Dowager Xiao is equivalent to snatching food from the tiger's mouth and seeking his own death. East? To the south? In the past, he had been attacking in this direction, and he had left his presence in Linfu, Yanyan, and Huanqing Prefectures. But what if these places are defeated? He even thinks that the five states are too close to the Great Song Dynasty, so he will not go back to the hinterland of the Great Song Dynasty to "beg for a living". Therefore, if he wants to find a place to live and "don't suffer from China", he has only one direction left. Only to develop to the west, to develop to the west will face Yanzhou and Lingzhou, he expressed an attitude by sending stones from heaven to warn, and it is really out of necessity to develop westward to attack Lingzhou.

It's really hard to stay in this place, so I'll have to find a new place to live.

This place is the West.

In fact, the West is not so easy to deal with. Li Jiqian first faced the Uighurs in the Gansha Prefectures, which were entrenched for thousands of years, and although they had declined and there were no large Uighur countries, the small countries were also very tough. Another important force was the Panluo branch of the Six Valleys of Tibet, which was entrenched in Xiliang, and he was the most powerful of the various forces in Tibet. After Li Jiqian recovered the five prefectures of Dingyan, this place in the northwest can be said to be "three parts of the world". In order to contain Li Jiqian's power, the Uighurs and Pan Luozhi of the Liugu tribe sent people to Tokyo almost from time to time to negotiate with Song Zhenzong, and the three families joined forces to destroy Li Jiqian. Although the Great Song Dynasty headed by Zhao Heng also had the intention of destroying Li Jiqian, he was worried that after destroying him, the two families would be dominant, and the Song Dynasty would also be troublesome, so he had always adopted a conservative attitude. I agreed first, but I didn't take a joint action.

This left a very good external environment for Li Jiqian's westward development. However, Li Jiqian had no choice but to take the road of developing the West. He had to take Lingzhou.

Lingzhou, known today as Lingwu, belongs to the Ningxia Autonomous Region. Lingzhou is located at the confluence of the Yellow River and the Puluo River, according to the shape of the place, a radius of thousands of miles, there are mountains and rivers as its natural barrier, easy to defend and difficult to attack. The water and soil here are fertile, the grass and trees are lush, and it is the best place for grazing and farming in the northwest land. Moreover, since the Middle Tang Dynasty, due to the rise of Tibet, one of the Silk Roads has been changed to Lingzhou, making Lingzhou a choke point that "controls Heshuo in the north and leads Qingliang in the south". If Li Jiqian can occupy this vast and rich land, then he will not only have no worries about eating and drinking, but also have a logistics reserve to dominate the world. Moreover, the Song Dynasty's Huanzhou and Gyeongju were about a thousand miles away from Lingwu in the north, echoing each other and forming a line, which simply divided the Hexi Zhongfan Department into two. The two sides are acting independently and containing each other, and after all, a group of rabble cannot become an atmosphere. But once he has Lingwu, Li Jiqian may be able to connect the entire Hexi. In this way, the war horses needed in the Central Plains, which are not good at raising horses, are completely controlled by Li Jiqian alone. Not to mention how to enhance the strength of the Dangxiang clan after the unification of Hexi, in terms of the comparison of arms alone, under the circumstances at that time, the advantage of the Dangxiang cavalry over the infantry of the Song Dynasty would be more obvious. In this way, the defeat and retreat will be more handy, the depth of the advance, and the quick retreat will be more convenient - the Song army is helpless against the party members, but the party cavalry can attack any part of the Song army at any time. If Li Jiqian wants to dominate the world in Hexi, he must take Lingzhou; If Zhao Song wanted to keep his northwest territory and continue to make Li Jiqian surrounded by himself, then Lingzhou must not be lost. When "must" meets "absolute", it depends on who can hold the last breath.

Since the day it was built, Lingzhou City has been an important town in the northwest to resist the northern nomads. In the Tang Dynasty, the Shuofang Festival was established, which made Lingzhou the largest military town at that time. During the "Anshi Rebellion", Tang Suzong Li Heng succeeded to the throne here, which made the Tang Dynasty last for more than 150 years, and Lingzhou also became the political and military center of the Tang Dynasty during the counterinsurgency period. Like such a northwest town, its solidity is definitely no less than that of Xiazhou City. If Li Jiqian plans to attack, it will undoubtedly be a dream, a daydream.

From the very beginning, Li Jiqian had no intention of seizing Lingzhou by attacking the fortifications, and he was ready to let the Great Song Dynasty give up automatically.

It's a pipe dream. With such an important border town, how could the Great Song Dynasty give it up automatically? But there is nothing in this world that is impossible.

Li Jiqian's battle for Lingzhou can be summed up in six words - cutting off grain, clearing the border, and taking it.

In the "Battle of Luopu River", Li Jiqian got 400,000 quintals of military grain from Lingzhou for nothing. The biggest headache for the Song Dynasty was the 700-mile Hanhai from Guanzhong to Lingzhou, and it was difficult to recruit husbands on a large scale at that time. When the Great Song Dynasty finally got together the grain, and the levy was enough, as long as he went to Hanhai, Li Jiqian would take the party cavalry to rob halfway, that is, not let a grain of rice enter Lingzhou smoothly. In the face of banditry like him, Da Song did not fight back, but the vigorous five-way attack became a bit like a farce in the end. In the end, Lingzhou City was able to hold on to relying on the guard Dou Shenbao to send people to Hexi to buy food.

The grain road was not smooth, which made the Great Song Dynasty court very noisy and divided over the choice of Lingzhou. Prime Minister Zhang Qixian, Li Xin and some other ministers thought that it was a waste of money to defend Lingzhou, and as long as Li Jiqian did not die, Lingzhou would one day fall into his hands, so it was better to give up Lingzhou and leave him an empty city. They persuaded Song Zhenzong to order the Lingzhou garrison to join forces with the local military and civilians in advance, empty the city, and retire Huanzhou. This can not only reduce the burden on the imperial court, but also make Li Jiqian not get any benefits.

However, this suggestion was opposed by most people, and the most representative opinion was that He Liang of the Yongxing Army was sentenced, and after investigating Lingzhou Tuntian, he wrote to Song Zhenzong in the "Anbian Book" that the abandonment of Lingzhou would inevitably enable Li Jiqian to continue to expand his territory, enhance his strength, and unite with all ethnic groups in the Western Regions to jointly deal with the Song Dynasty, and the Song Dynasty would no longer be able to get the war horses that had always been supplied from the Hexi region, so Lingzhou could not be defended. After seeing He Liang's performance, Zhao Heng was enthusiastic, Emperor Zhenzong felt that he was interested enough to Li Jiqian, but now you Li Jiqian wants to take the northwest town of my Great Song Dynasty, so he still ordered the guard general Wang Chao and others to lead 60,000 troops to aid Lingzhou. And announced: "Lingzhou is the land of my Heavenly Empire, how can I give it to others and defend it for me!" ”

Pei Ji, a friend of the famous general Li Jilong, rushed to Lingzhou to train troops in Tuntian, preparing to hold on.

As soon as Li Jiqian saw that the Great Song Dynasty wanted to play a "protracted war", he also learned to fight a protracted war. Pei Ji Tuntian, he also Tuntian. In August of the fourth year of Song Xianping and the nineteenth year of Khitan unification (1001 AD), Li Jiqian led 50,000 soldiers and horses to attack Lingzhou again. As soon as Pei Ji saw that his comer was not good, he closed his door and waited for reinforcements. When Li Jiqian saw that there was no one in the city to fight, he actually sent people to occupy the surrounding * land, reclaim the tuntian, and settle down outside Lingzhou City. In September, Li Jiqian began to restart the "targeted killing" program on the outskirts of Lingzhou. Within a few days, the Great Song Dynasty carefully arranged to defend the Hexi and five towns of Lingzhou (Baojing, Yongzhou, Huaiyuan, Dingyuan, and Lingwu), and then attacked the Qingyuan army. Liu Yin, the commander of the Qing Yuan, and Ding Zhan, the prisoner, guarded the north and south cities, and endured the repeated attacks of Li Jiqian and his son Li Deming. The Qingyuan army repeatedly sent people to Gyeongju to ask for help. Unexpectedly, Qingzhou deployed Yang Qiong to only send a mere 6,000 people to the rescue, and in the end it only added a sum of income to Li Jiqian's "battle results book". Qingyuan was lost, and the impact on Lingzhou was almost devastating. Because the position of the Qingyuan army is in the middle of the Tongling Prefecture in Huanqing, after Li Jiqian occupied Qingyuan, it was equivalent to sealing the door of Guanzhong to rescue Lingzhou. So far, Lingzhou has really become a lonely city.

Food, gone; Barriers, no more. Li Jiqian is like this, consuming the confidence of the Song Dynasty little by little, forcing him to give up Lingzhou automatically.

The Empress Dowager Xiao of Khitan, who understands this situation, has made another move. In order to let Li Jiqian contain the Great Song Dynasty on the Western Front, as early as the third year of Xianping and the eighteenth year of Khitan unification, the Khitan crowned Li Jiqian's son Li Deming as the envoy of Shuofang Jiedu. Isn't Shuofang Junzhen Lingzhou, Empress Dowager Xiao came to this set again, only giving Li Jiqian a false name, and if you want to beat it down yourself, it will count. The current Song Zhenzong Zhao Heng can't say what he is suffering, and it is his decision to return the five states of Dingyan to Li Jiqian, if he takes another Lingzhou, wouldn't it be too much of a loss for the Great Song Dynasty. The dignified Emperor of the Song Dynasty said that he couldn't be a "king of the lost land" so easily, Zhao Heng still had to make a last fight in Lingzhou.

In August of the fourth year of Xianping, Zhao Heng named Wang Chao as the envoy of the western camp, and commanded 60,000 troops to aid Lingzhou.

As soon as he saw the candidate for this commander, he knew that Zhao Heng really had no choice. Looking at the resume of this super-master Wang, it is not difficult for us to find that not long ago when Song Taizong went on a five-way expedition to summer, this master had a not very glorious experience. At that time, Cao Wei and Cao Can were both in the northwest, why didn't they have to choose a Wang Chao? Could it really be that Zhao Heng has no knowledge of people? This really wronged him, Zhao Heng didn't want to move the Cao brothers, but he didn't dare to touch the Cao brothers. At that time, Cao Can was stationed in Linzhou, which was a sensitive area of the Song-Liao war, and if Cao Can was easily transferred to rescue the "bottomless pit" of Lingzhou, what if there was a change in the Song-Liao border? The formal significance of sending Wang Chao to aid Lingzhou is higher than the practical significance, he wants to tell the Great Song Dynasty, especially the people of Lingzhou, that the emperor does not want to care about them, the emperor has done his best, and everything is providential. In other words, from the day he sent Wang Yue to conquer, he had already given up Lingzhou automatically.

At this time, Li Jiqian, he had already keenly felt the change in the situation, and the time to make a move was getting closer and closer. In the fifth year of Song Xianping and March of the twentieth year of Khitan unification, Li Jiqian took advantage of the fact that Wang Chao's army was still struggling in Hanhai and led 30,000 troops to attack Lingzhou for the third time. At this time, Lingzhou City has long been like an isolated island, and the people outside the city have already walked and descended, although Pei Ji tried everything he could, but after all, he was powerless to return to the sky. Li Jiqian besieged Lingzhou for more than two months, and there was not even a grain of rice in the city. Pei Ji had no choice but to write a blood letter asking for help, but Wang Chao's 60,000 army was blocked by Li Jiqian and Hanhai couldn't get out. In the end, Pei Jishen died with Lingzhou, and Li Jiqian finally stood on the "city of rejuvenation" that he had been dreaming about.

Li Jiqian captured Lingzhou, but for the Great Song Dynasty, the impact was great. As soon as Lingzhou was lost, the Great Song Dynasty lost its barrier in the northwest, so it had to shrink all its forces to Guanzhong, and the entire Hexi was occupied by Li Jiqian. More importantly, the great victory in Lingzhou greatly improved the prestige of the party, hit the morale of the Song Dynasty, and quickly strengthened its own strength in the process of seizing cities and attacking the wilderness, creating superior conditions for the eventual domination of Hexi.

Li Jiqian was named the king of Xiping by his ancestor, and he himself was canonized as the king of Xiping by Liao, so he changed Lingzhou to Xiping Mansion. After Li Jiqian occupied Lingzhou, he liked the mountains and rivers here very much and planned to move the capital here. His younger brother Li Jiyu said: "The area of Yin and Xia is the place where the ancestors have been operating for generations, and they will be abandoned soon after the recovery, which is afraid that it will disturb the hearts of the people." Li Jiqian said: "Those who have achieved great things since ancient times are not greedy for Gou'an; Those who have made great contributions do not follow the mediocrity. Xiping Mansion controls Heshuo in the north, leads Qingliang in the south, and guards the key points in the west according to the upper reaches of the road. If we can repair the city, dig trenches, train troops and accumulate food, once we attack from all sides, Guanzhong will not be able to guard against it. Moreover, the people here are accustomed to Chinese style and are still polite and studious, so we can use this place to become the capital of the future and become the hegemon of one party. Pingxia is a remote place, and the future is not so promising. So he ordered his younger brother Li Jiyu and dental school Li Zhibai to supervise the people to build palaces and temples, and the capital was tentatively set in Xiping.

Dingdu, now Li Jiqian has already thought about Dingdu, and I don't need to say more about what he wants to do next. Xiping, Xiping, Xiping is not the end of the Western Expedition, but only the beginning of the Western Expedition. In the case of a failed attempt to advance eastward, Li Jiqian concentrated on the westward expedition, crossed the Yellow River, crossed Helan, and marched to Liangzhou, thus opening the prelude to the war with Zhao and Song for the Hexi Corridor.