The seventh of the legendary Li Jiqian - brothers fought and lost for the third time

Li Jiqian chose to vote at the most critical moment of the Khitan, so that the Khitan had to accept it; Han Dewei fully squeezed the potential value of Li Jiqian, opening up a buffer zone for the Khitan before the war.

Empress Dowager Xiao does have the qualities of a politician. Originally, she didn't want to take in Li Jiqian, a bereaved dog who was wandering around, and she felt that it would be shameless for the Great Liao Kingdom. However, after listening to Han Dewei's words, she changed her mind, but the official positions she rewarded Li Jiqian were all inherited by the Li family for generations, and there was only one "King Xia" who brought forth the old and brought forth the new, which gave Li Jiqian a sweet dream. With this dream, Li Jiqian will spare no effort to lay down the five states. Without a single soldier or a single inch of land, Empress Dowager Xiao opened up a second battlefield for the Great Song Dynasty out of thin air.

At the same time, Liao lost the battle with the Song and was demoralized, and "sent envoys to urge the army to move in" and "made Yi difficult in China (Northern Song Dynasty)". On the other hand, soon after making peace, Li Jiqian began to constantly attack the Northern Song Dynasty. In September of the eighth year of unification (990), "Li Jiqian offered Song prisoners"; In October, "the Song army was defeated"; In December, "Li Ji moved down to Songlin, Dun and other prefectures".

Li Jiqian's moves reflected from the side the intention of Liao-Israel to forge a military alliance with his relatives and to support the Western Xia to contain the Northern Song Dynasty. At the same time, it also fostered the Western Xia and expanded its political influence. In other words, in China at that time, the situation of the "three kingdoms" of Song, Liao, and Xia had been initially formed.

The guerrilla tactics of the Li family are becoming more and more proficient, and Li Jiqian leads a group of people to fight guerrillas around the five states of Dingnan every day, and if he does not fight with the Song army, the Song army has no problem with him.

At this time, rumors spread in the imperial court. Why did the Song army always fail to catch Li Jiqian, it must be someone in the DPRK who reported the news. Who is most likely? Only the superficially well-behaved Li Jitou was held. Since some people are already suspicious, then Li Jisheng can't stay in the capital, Prime Minister Zhao Pu considered the overall political situation, and said important words: "The matter of Xiazhou has to be solved by Xiazhou's own people, and others are useless at all!" ”

Zhao Guangyi felt reasonable after hearing this. Unfortunately, he realized this too late. If Li Jizhu came to consider how to accept Xiazhou, he realized this problem, not to send people to manage it directly, but to appoint people from the Li family to manage it together with the party clan, Xiazhou at this time must be calm, and the Song Dynasty only needs to accept tribute every year.

Now, he has done it in this direction, and he feels that if he wants to clean up Li Jiqian's "head snake", he has to use another "head snake". There was no suitable person in the northwest, so Li Jitou, who was suffocating to death in a small place in Chongxin, gave him the name "Zhao Baozhong" and transferred him to the front line in Xiazhou. In the first year of Song Duangong, the sixth year of Liao Tonghe (988 AD), after a lapse of six years, Li Jisheng returned to Xiazhou after the original difficult military festival. Zhao Guangyi's northwest strategy began to take the right path.

However, he underestimated the cunning of the party members and Li Jisheng's cunning.

Li Jisheng has been in office for less than half a year, just like the court said that Li Jiqian had been recruited, but Li Jiqian was afraid and did not dare to enter the Great Song Kingdom. Zhao Guangyi hurriedly sealed Li Jiqian as the envoy of Yinzhou Thorn History and Luoyuan. But Zhao Guangyi didn't expect that this was a strategy of Li Jisheng, he wanted to repay his merits, and he also wanted to use this to recruit Li Jiqian. Li Jiqian, who already had a certain amount of strength, ignored this stubble.

Immediately afterwards, Li Jisheng said one after another that many party clans came to attach, but in fact, only a few acquaintances came back. His purpose was to make Zhao Guangyi think that he could make great achievements in Xiazhou, which would help him re-establish his power.

In this way, Song Taizong did not investigate, so he was crowned the supreme ruler of the special entry and the Pingzhang matter under the Tongzhong Shumen. Although it is a fictitious title, Li Jizhuo is also very useful.

At the beginning, he was forced by his clansmen to take refuge in the capital of the Song Dynasty, but later he went to Chongxin as a small place to serve as a festival envoy, and he felt that he couldn't raise his head in the face of the old party department that came back. Now, when he returns to Xiazhou as the supreme ruler, he is a little proud. He had to get back everything he had lost.

Of course, Li Jiqian will not follow his heart. However, Li Jiqian also has to consider how to deal with his arrival? He thought about it, and what he came up with was almost the same as his baby brother, but to a slightly worse degree.

In the second year of Duangong of the Song Dynasty and the seventh year of Liao Tonghe (989 AD), Li Jiqian reported to Liao Shengzong and prepared to formally surrender his old chief and eldest brother Li Jishuang (when Li Jishuang reported to the Song Dynasty, he directly said that Li Jiqian had surrendered). Yelu Longxu and Empress Dowager Xiao were more serious about this matter, worried that Li Jiqian would be recruited and surrendered by Li Jiqian in the end, after all, Li Jitou was nominally here to recruit Li Jiqian. For the sake of insurance, Liao Shengzong did not agree to Li Jiqian's request.

But I didn't agree, I didn't agree, after all, the two of them are the descendants of the Li family in Xiazhou, and the contact between the two brothers is not something that your master can stop. So, the two brothers of the Li family talked and fought in Xiazhou, you win me, I will win you, neither of us should suffer, but we can't let anyone take advantage. The two brothers colluded with each other to put on an extremely wonderful show. Of course, there are more tentative elements on both sides, and the two sides adopt the strategy of preserving their strength to develop themselves.

In April of the first year of Song Chunhua, the eighth year of Khitan unification (990 AD), Li Jiqian felt that Li Jishou could support it because of the support of familiar households. The so-called "shenghu" are the residents who live in the mountains and forests, and the "familiar households" are the residents who live in the cities near the Song-Xia border. If you have to divide relatives and distance from each other, then simply divide the "raw household" is the party that supports Li Jiqian, and the "familiar household" is the party that supports Li Jiqian. These "familiar households" generally have a higher standard of living, have a strong dependence on the Great Song Dynasty, and have a deeper degree of sinicization, and are the most powerful supporters of the Great Song Dynasty in the northwest. When Li Jizhu didn't come, these "familiar households" still had a scruple about Li Jiqian. But as soon as Li Jisheng returned to Xiazhou, all these "familiar households" didn't listen to Li Jiqian.

In order to solve these "familiar households" who don't know each other inside and outside, Li Jiqian was fighting with Li Jishang, and took the opportunity to come to clean them up.

At first, Li Jizhui didn't think so, he always thought that his younger brother was acting like this. Every time he saw his subordinates being robbed, Li Jisheng always sent someone over to negotiate with Li Jiqian and said: "Brother, you're not right, everyone is a brother, how can you always bully others?" Don't do this in the future, don't blame your brother for being polite if you do it again! But he said that Li Jiqian promised to be refreshing and happy every time, and he brought someone to cut it over again in two days.

It's been a long time, and there have been more times, but Li Jishuang can't ignore it anymore. Li Jiqian always cleaned up these familiar households, didn't that just slap him in the face of Li Jiqian, and secondly, he also hollowed out his foundation. So, Li Jizhu sent troops to An Qingze (60 kilometers north of Xiazhou, in the west of present-day Wushen Banner, Inner Mongolia) to find Li Jiqian and fight.

At the beginning, Li Jiqian had the upper hand, and Li Jiqian, who had not really gone through the battle array, where was the opponent of his younger brother who fought guerrilla drills in the ravine every day? However, in the ranks of the Song army, including Li Jisheng, there were soldiers who were good at shooting, and in the chaos, an arrow from the bald hair pierced Li Jiqian's ass with an arrow. Li Jiqian fell off the horse with an upside-down onion and a saddle. In the battle at that time, the main general was injured, even if he failed, Li Jiqian was defeated from An Qingze with an arrow wound on his buttocks.

In Anqingze, Li Jizhuang turned defeat into victory and picked up a big bargain, but he understood that although Li Jiqian was injured, his strength was still there, and he still didn't provoke him. So he nested in Xiazhou City every day and didn't come out, so Li Jiqian was helpless. Li Jiqian fought guerrillas, drilled ravines, and ran into the desert, and he was really a layman for attacking the city, as long as he didn't go out, he would be safe. Suddenly, one day in October, Li Jiqian's general Po Chou Chongyu brought people to the city of Xiazhou, and cried when he saw Li Jizhui: "Big leader, after Li Guanye was hit by your arrow, he was too seriously injured and died." Big Chief, although there is a place where Guan Ye Li can't live with you, but after all, you are also brothers, please take us in in the original love! ”

Looking at the crying of the ugly re-encounter with your tears, Li Jisheng was skeptical. He is not Cao Guangshi easy to be fooled, but he has a fluke mentality, he has already reported to the Great Song Dynasty that Li Jiqian has surrendered, in case the court knows that he is deceiving the Great Song Dynasty one day later, the account will be terrible. If Li Jiqian is really dead, and he takes the opportunity to subdue these rebels, then he will have an explanation in front of Zhao Guangyi in the future. Therefore, whether he believed it or not, he had to go out to the city to find out what was true.

However, Li Jizhuo still made detailed arrangements. When he went out of the city, he saw Li Jiqian's ambush soldiers in all directions, and he ran back to Xiazhou City on horseback and picked up a life. He ran into the city, but Li Jiqian was not finished, after cleaning up the troops he left outside the city, Li Jiqian led his troops and began to besiege Xiazhou. Li Jiqian, this guy, is really rough and thick-skinned, and that arrow should not be shot lightly, but now that he is healed, he can command the battle on horseback.

The two battles to defend Xiazhou in the five dynasties have fully demonstrated to us how easy it is to defend and difficult to attack. The difference is that in the past, Xia Zhou had to resist foreign enemies, but this time it was fratricidal. The younger brother took turns attacking outside the city, and the elder brother held on day and night in the city. The two brothers launched a "tug-of-war" inside and outside the city of Xiazhou, which their ancestors had painstakingly operated for hundreds of years.

This dozen is more than a month. In the midst of this "tug of war", Li Jiqian took advantage of the time to rest in Wangting Town, and sent Zhang Pu to go to his father-in-law's house in Daliao to greet his "mother-in-law" - Empress Dowager Xiao.

After Zhang Pu arrived in Khitan, he talked about the war in Xiazhou, as if Li Jiqian had entered Xiazhou City at this moment. At this time, the Empress Dowager Xiao was worried, in July last year, the flower of the famous generals of Daliao, the guerrilla warfare expert who was feared by everyone, Yelu Xiu Ge was given a "counter sneak attack" by the Song general Yin Jilun in Xu River, and Yelu Xiu Ge was only spared.

This was the heaviest blow to Daliao since the Battle of the Gaoliang River, and negativity began to appear in the Khitan. In order to boost the morale of the people, Empress Dowager Xiao desperately needed a victory over Song. This time, like last time, Zhang Pu came at the right time. Although the war took place in Xiazhou, the two sides of the war were the two brothers of the Li family. However, the current Xiazhou is considered the territory of the Great Song Dynasty after all, Li Jiqian is regarded as a vassal of the Great Liao after all, and the siege of Xiazhou is also a breakthrough after all.

What Empress Dowager Xiao wants is just a symbol, and what Li Jiqian gives her is just a symbol, what she wants, this is what a qualified employee should do. As soon as Empress Dowager Xiao saw that her family's "son-in-law" was so sensible and would definitely be a material that could be made in the future, she waved her pen and crowned Li Jiqian as the "King of Xia" to encourage him to continue to forge ahead, enter Xiazhou, and liberate the whole northwest.

All the rewards that Empress Dowager Xiao gave him were a metaphor for a mission - he must regain the difficulty, otherwise everything will be empty. After Li Jiqian received the letter of appointment from the "King of Xia", he had only one way to go directly to Xiazhou. can't beat Xiazhou, this letter of appointment is not even as good as waste paper. He worked hard for the real "Xia King", but the soldiers he brought under him were in chaos.

Li Jiqian's current subordinates are uneven, and the old people who started an incident in the ground have a firm stance and a clear goal of struggle. Most of the new additions after Li Jiqian attached to Liao followed the trend, and whichever side had the greatest power would belong to whichever side, there was no position to speak of. The battle in Xiazhou lasted for more than two months, and there was no progress at all, and some people in the new army could not support it. Under the lure of the people sent by Li Jisheng, they began to reconsider the question of their whereabouts, believing that following the Great Song Dynasty was the best way out.

Under the guidance of this "return to the Song Dynasty" trend of thought, Li Jiqian's commander made Aji and others lead the tribe to secretly break away from Li Jiqian and throw themselves into Li Jiqian's "hidden companionship". This made Li Jiqian's position chaotic.

At this time, the Great Song reinforcements that Li Jisheng had been waiting for for more than two months finally appeared. The leader of the army was Zhai Shousu, the regimental training envoy of Song Shangzhou. Li Jiqian saw that the reinforcements of the Song Dynasty were coming, just catching up with his current unstable army, and after thinking about the previous achievements with the Song army, he felt that it was better not to fight against the Song Dynasty, so he took advantage of the fact that Qu Shousu came to help was almost surrounded, and officially "surrendered" to the Song Dynasty in the name of Li Jisheng, and Zhai Shousu chose a great achievement. Zhao Guangyi thought that Li Jiqian's surrender should be sincere, so he crowned Li Jiqian as the Yinzhou Observer Envoy and gave him the name "Zhao Baoji", Li Jichong gave the name "Zhao Baoning", and Li Jiqian's old mother who was captured alive by Cao Guangshi was canonized as the Lady of Hexi County. Zhao Guangyi really wanted to solve the Xiazhou problem peacefully.

But Zhao Guangyi was happy too early, Li Jiqian's begging surrender was just his delaying tactic, and he never gave up the ideal of comprehensively recovering the five states of Dingyan. He surrendered to Song Shangbiao in July of the second year of Song Chunhua and the ninth year of Khitan unification (991 AD), and immediately sent Zhang Pu to Khitan in August to report to Empress Dowager Xiao the results of his recovery of Sui and Yinzhou, and at the same time presented the letter of appointment of the Great Song Dynasty. The purpose is to prevent Empress Dowager Xiao from being suspicious of him, explaining that his Song Dynasty is a kind of "curve anti-Song Dynasty", which is a helpless move. At the same time, he did not leave Wangting Town at all, and had been resting his army there to prepare for another attack on Xiazhou. No matter how big the official is, it is also sealed by others, and Lao Tzu wants to close the door and be the upright "first person in the northwest".

Of course, Li Jizhui understood Li Jiqian's temperament, so he made the first move. Late one night when Li Jiqian's troops were resting and preparing for war in Wangting Town, Li Jizhuan led his troops out of Xiazhou City and attacked Li Jiqian at night. Li Jiqian was completely defenseless before, and he didn't even expect that he, the eldest brother, could make such a wonderful move. Caught off guard, Li Jiqian suffered another loss from Li Jizhuo, and led everyone to retreat to Yinzhou in a hurry. Halfway through the run, he ran into a group of familiar households who came to take revenge, and more than 20,000 horses including cattle and livestock were taken away. Li Jiqian didn't even go back to Yinzhou, he knew that there was only a dead end when he returned to Yinzhou, so he went straight to Tiejinze. It's not Dijinze, it's Tiejinze, but unfortunately I can't find out where it is today.

Li Jiqian resumed his life in exile.

He also understands that this time he lost in the hands of his brother, which was different from losing in the hands of Song Jun. Losing at the hands of the Song army, he could stir up the national sentiment of the party to fight again. And Li Jisheng already has a considerable mass base, and if he gets rid of Li Jiqian, many tribes will be obedient, and with the original familiar households, Li Jisheng will be able to stand on his feet. In other words, this defeat is even more severe than the last one.