Half a month after the end of the Qingzhou War, under the capital of the Great Song Dynasty, Zhao Hengzheng, the emperor of the Great Song Dynasty, Song Zhenzong, led his troops to confront the Khitan army that had besieged Bianjing for five months.

It has been almost a year since the Liao and Song Dynasty officially started the war, and in this nearly a year of time, Zhenzong Zhao Heng has never revealed a trace of his intention to drive the expedition in person.

Although he dislikes and distrusts generals like his uncle and father, he does not have the ability to lead troops to gallop on the battlefield like his uncle and father.

Even during the five months that Bianliang was besieged by the Khitan army, before this imperial expedition, Zhenzong Zhao Heng had only been to the city once to encourage the soldiers, and that only appearance was the product of Kou Zhun's coercion and temptation.

Since then, Zhenzong has never left the palace again, not even once when the Khitan army almost broke through the north gate of Bianliang.

And the reason why Song Zhenzong's abnormal imperial expedition this time was because he got a news three days ago, that is, Zhao Weiji returned, not only returned, but also took Qingzhou City without much effort, which made Zhao Heng suddenly feel pressure.

Originally, Zhao Weiji was one of the candidates for the throne, although he later gave up the competition for the throne and chose to exile himself.

But after all, he still has a certain influence in the Central Plains, and in recent years, with the gold of Xinhua City entering the Central Plains, Zhao Weiji's name has once again begun to have a huge impact in the Central Plains.

Suddenly, he and his Xinhua City went from a lonely exile abroad to a paradise where golden dreams come true.

This made Zhao Heng feel the sense of crisis brought by Zhao Weiji for the first time after he succeeded to the throne. The last time I had such a feeling was after Zhao Weiji quelled the uprising in Shuzhong.

Such a sense of crisis made Zhao Heng unable to listen to any news about Zhao Weiji for a period of time. Even his name should not appear in Zhao Heng's ears.

What made Zhao Heng feel gratified. In the later period, Zhao Weiji disappeared from his life again, and although gold coins were still circulating in the Great Song Dynasty, Zhao Weiji and his Xinhua City did not have any influence on the Central Plains.

After a period of time, the Liao-Song War broke out, and with the arrival of the war, all of Zhenzong's energy was focused on how to resist the invasion of the Khitans, and he gradually forgot about Xinhua City and Zhao Weiji, who were far away in the world.

It's in the real sect. Even when the ministers of the court were about to completely forget about Zhao Weiji for the time being, he actually appeared again, not only appeared, but also fought a super victory.

Although it only killed the 5,000 defenders in Qingzhou City, this was already the biggest victory for the Great Song Dynasty in the nearly a year since the war began.

Prior to this, the Song army had not even been able to achieve any victory in any small battle, even a disastrous victory in which 1,000 enemies were wounded and 800 were self-inflicted.

At this time, the morale of the Song army was already extremely low, if it weren't for Kou Zhun's skillful enough, Bianjing City would have been taken by the Khitan. The drama of Jianyan Nandu may have been staged more than 100 years in advance.

Under such circumstances, Zhao Weiji returned to the Central Plains with the momentum of the return of the king. With an army of 3,000 people, he wiped out the Khitans of 5,000 people, and also recaptured the city of Qingzhou.

When the news reached Bianjing, the morale of the Song soldiers in the city suddenly recovered, and Zhao Weiji's victory gave them hope again, the hope of defeating the Khitans.

And at this moment, among the soldiers defending the city in the city, those veterans who had originally participated in the Yongxi Northern Expedition began to tell how Zhao Weiji defeated Yelu Xiuge again, and the combination of the inside and the outside made Zhao Weiji's prestige at this moment return to the height of the first general of the Great Song Dynasty after the Yongxi Northern Expedition.

All of this put great pressure on Zhenzong Zhao Heng, and he couldn't help but have a feeling that once Zhao Weiji returned to the capital and successfully lifted the siege of Khitan, would someone take this opportunity to launch a coup d'état to oust himself, and even whether Zhao Weiji himself would use this opportunity to launch a coup d'état to abolish himself.

Thinking of this, Zhenzong felt that he could no longer sit still, and he had to do something to make the people's hearts return to him again, only in this way could he have the confidence to face Zhao Weiji, who was about to return.

At a time of such a national crisis, nothing can win the hearts of the people more than to win the hearts and minds of the people than to win a big victory.

So Zhenzong ignored the dissuasion of his ministers and resolutely led his troops out of the city.

Although Zhao Heng had never led troops before, he was not stupid, he knew that he would definitely not be able to defeat the Khitans by leading troops on his own.

Before he set out on the expedition, he found himself a helper to be his lieutenant, and this person was the eldest son of the late Cao Bin, the founding general of the Great Song Dynasty, Cao Can.

Zhao Heng doesn't trust Li Jilong, in addition to the fact that he is a military general, the more important reason is that Li Jilong is the uncle of the country and has made great contributions, such a person is not easy to master.

But Cao Can is different, although Cao Can is Cao Bin's eldest son, but because Cao Bin was deposed because of the failure of Yongxi's Northern Expedition, several of his sons were affected.

As a result, several of his sons did not get the opportunity to make meritorious contributions in the most capable period of succession, but were exposed by Zhao Weiji, Li Jilong, Li Jiguang and others.

However, at this time, when Li Jilong was kicked out of the army, Li Jiguang was trapped in the northwest and could not come back, and Zhao Weiji basically would not obey Zhenzong's command, Cao Can had a certain talent, but the generals who had been buried for many years gradually entered Zhenzong's sight.

In addition to being more safe with such generals, it is also because they were buried in the Taizong Dynasty, and once they are brought into play in this dynasty, they will be equivalent to the descendants of Zhenzong, which is the same as when Taizong enabled Li Jilong.

So Cao Can became the deputy general of Zhenzong's imperial expedition and the actual commander of the army.

To tell the truth, when Cao Can received this appointment, he really wanted to hang himself directly on the rope at home, and being the deputy of the emperor's imperial drive has never been a good job, especially Emperor Wen like Zhenzong.

This kind of deputy, who is said to be a deputy general, is actually the commander of the three armies, but he does the work of the commander of the three armies, and in the end he gets the credit of the deputy general, and the credit for the big victory must be the emperor's.

If it is defeated, the black cauldron will definitely have to carry it on its own.

These are not the most annoying, the most annoying thing is that while fighting, you have to always pay attention to the safety of your own emperor, if the emperor accidentally hangs up, it is not a simple matter of simply burping a boss, and the family is waiting there.

However, although the position of the deputy general was not easy to do, Cao Can finally agreed, because with such a big risk is a greater opportunity.

Don't look at Cao Can, he is the second generation of officials, but he is not young anymore, and he is over fifty years old, and he no longer has much time to squander on his own.

He deeply knows that if this opportunity can be grasped well, he will become Li Jilong's second and become the descendant of this generation of emperors, and he is unwilling to give up such an opportunity.

But after arriving on the battlefield, he began to regret it, not only did he begin to regret it, but even Zhenzong Zhao Heng began to regret it, they all chose to ignore a serious problem before going to the battlefield, that is, the Song army had no victory against Liao in the past nearly a year.

They simply thought that Zhao Weiji could win, and they could also win. If it was really easy to win, Bianliang City would not have been besieged for almost five months.

In fact, since Zhao Weiji appeared, the war between Song and Liao was set a tone by him, that is, the disadvantages of the troops were made up for by equipment and tactics, so he made up a lot of weapons similar to bed crossbows, repeating crossbows, and special formations for cavalry such as the Star Scattering Array.

And his kind of thinking was basically inherited by the later generals of the Song army, whether it was Li Jilong, or Li Jiguang, who was born under him, or even Yang Yanzhao, they all adhered to this kind of thinking in the fight against the Khitan cavalry, and also achieved good results.

However, after Li Jilong handed over military power, this idea began to gradually change, because Li Jilong was the first general of the Great Song Dynasty after Zhao Weiji, the three armies under his command naturally continued this idea very well.

After he handed over the military power, Zhao Heng personally intervened in the army, under the guidance of Zhao Heng's idea that everything Zhao Weiji insisted on and I must resolutely oppose, Zhao Weiji created this kind of tactics with ingenuity began to be gradually abandoned, although Yang Yanzhao and Li Jiguang are still in the army, but they are only one side of the guard, they can't have much influence on the whole of the Great Song Dynasty army, at most they can only maintain their own one-third of an acre of land without too many changes.

This also leads to why the Song army has not been able to win even a battle since the start of the war for more than a year.

At this time, Zhao Heng, who was personally driving, still did not learn the lesson of the previous failure, and it was clear that there were crossbows, iron arm crossbows, bed crossbows and other weapons in Bianliang City, but he didn't use them, so he used the infantry to fight the Liaoguo Iron Cavalry in a traditional formation.

The result can be imagined, the two armies just clashed, the Song army was defeated, on the broad plain outside Bianliang City, the Khitan iron cavalry came and went like the wind, in the Song army's infantry array repeatedly rushed to kill, as if into a no-man's land.

Seeing that his army was defeated so quickly, Zhenzong Zhao Heng couldn't believe what was in front of him at all, and when Cao Can kept asking him to retreat, he still stood in place, motionless.

At this moment, a feather arrow suddenly flew out of some direction and came towards Zhenzong. (To be continued......)