It has been a year since the Liao State lost Yanyun, and this year can be regarded as the most difficult year for the Liao State since the founding of the Liao Taizu Yelu Abaoji.

Looking at the history of the Liao State, whether it is the rebellion of the younger brothers, the power of the Shulu clan, or the struggle for the throne of the three princes and their descendants, they have not lost the serious blow that Yan Yun brought to the entire Liao Empire.

The saddest thing is that after the loss of Yanyun, the whole Liao State was surprised to find that this land does not seem to be just a strategic role, and this land even affects the entire livelihood of the Liao State.

Because a large part of the grain problem of the Liao State now depends on farming to solve, and although the entire Great Liao Empire is vast, the real main agricultural area is only Yanyun, and now after the loss of Yanyun, the Liao State has returned to the situation that the whole country relies on grazing to solve the food problem.

The house leak happened to rain overnight, and in the winter after Yanyun was lost, the northern grasslands were hit by a cold snap, and the blizzard swept through three-quarters of the entire territory of the Liao country, so that almost all the herdsmen's cattle and sheep were killed and injured.

All of a sudden, the vitality of the powerful Great Liao Empire was greatly damaged, and something more unfortunate happened, that is, the Great Song Dynasty in the south came up with a desperate plan, which made the Liao State even worse.

……

"Big brother deserves to be big brother, this Liao country is now miserable by you."

In the year he was stationed in Yanyun, Yang Yanzhao could be said to have witnessed how Liu Rang made the entire Liao Kingdom jump up and down, which deepened his admiration for Liu Rang's ability.

Regarding Yang Yanzhao's praise, Liu Rang was a little embarrassed: "Brother praised, this strategy can achieve the effect like today." It can be said that it is caused by the combination of the right time, place and people. Being a brother is actually not as great as you say. ”

"The right time, the right place, and the right people? Big brother elaborates. ”

"Oh my God. There was a snowstorm in the winter of Liao, you know? ”

Yang Yanzhao nodded, basically no one in the north didn't know about the heavy snow in the winter of Liao, although Yanyun was not too affected by that cold snap, but a large number of victims who fled from Liaoguo spread the news throughout Yanyun, and even to Bianliang City. Is

"If it weren't for the heavy snowfall, this strategy really wouldn't have worked so quickly."

"What about the location?" Yang Yanzhao then asked.

"I have to thank Your Majesty for the location, Your Majesty's support to me is really not to say, I have never seen such an emperor who is so unsuspicious. Maybe in addition to Han Gaozu and Tang Taizong, it will be Your Majesty. To put it mildly, now in the entire Hebei North Road, there is really no difference between me and the Tu Emperor, except for the military power in the hands of you Yanzhao, I have the entire road of political power, financial power, and even personnel appointment and dismissal.

With all this, it can be said that there is no obstacle for me to implement this strategy, and it is His Majesty who can implement this strategy smoothly is the greatest hero. ”

When Liu Rang said this, Yang Yanzhao could clearly feel the sincere admiration and loyalty for Zhao Weiji. The death of a confidant here is really a full embodiment.

"Then now the eldest brother has to talk about the people."

"Human? This man and ah? Of course, this person is our Lord Xiao. Liu Rang said and pointed to Xiao Qi, who had been smiling beside the two of them just now, but didn't say a word.

This conversation between Liu Rang and Yang Yanzhao can be described as torture for Xiao Qi. When he came back a year ago, he realized that all his plans were no longer possible. When his defection to the Song army was known to the Liao State, he became the public enemy of the entire Liao State.

Even if he now found all the weaknesses and imitations of the new weapons of the Song army and brought them all back to the Liao State, he would not be able to wash away his stigma as a traitor, and no one would believe that he defected to the Song army just to take revenge on Yelu Tiger Bone, and then have a plan to save the country.

When he saw this reality clearly, Xiao Qi could only serve the Song court with all his heart, because now even the entire Han people of Yanyun despised him, and if he broke away from the Song court, he might not even be able to guarantee his personal safety.

And in such a situation, he was recruited by Liu Rang. If Liu Rang knows a lot about the Han people and Han land in Liao, then Liu Rang is not too clear about the Khitan people and the places where they traditionally live.

But Liu Rang found Xiao Qi to help him solve this problem. As early as when he stayed in Xijing, Liu Rang had heard of Xiao Qi's name.

This rising star in the political arena of Liao State is famous all over the world in the entire Liao State, and Liu Rang never dreamed that such a person would surrender to the Great Song Dynasty.

However, when Liu Rang understood the entire process of Xiao Qi's surrender to the Song Dynasty, Liu Rang really felt that the person who drove Xiao Qi to a dead end was even more terrifying.

It's just that no matter how Liu Rang asks Yang Yanzhao about this person, the answer he waits for is nothing to comment, which makes Liu Rang feel extremely regretful, and in Liu Rang's mind, if he can get this person's help, the governance he is about to start in Yanyun will become extremely smooth.

However, even so, Liu Rang still successfully started his plan in Yanyun, because he knew that the emperor's place gave him so much power was not just to implement a small range of northern and southern official systems, there must be greater ambitions for him Liu Rang to realize.

In fact, when Liu Rang became the owner of Yanyun, the entire environment of Yanyun was already very conducive to his governance, because Zhao Weiji used the strategy offered by Liu Rang to sort out the entire internal environment of Yanyun.

Here, we have to mention Liu Rang's previous policy for Zhao Weiji. In Zhao Weiji's words, this policy is to fight local tyrants and divide the land.

In Liu Rang's previous strategy, in order to get the support of the local Han people in Yanyun, the method given by Liu Rang was to give them land.

Yanyun is not like the Central Plains, where arable land is no longer so important to the people due to the beginning of initial industrialization.

But Yanyun is different, because it is still under the governance of the Liao State, it is still quite attractive for ordinary civilians to have a piece of land of their own.

And Liu Rang took advantage of this, so he put forward a set of strategies with the core of fighting local tyrants and dividing the land. However, although it was said that he was fighting the local tyrants, Liu Rang did not use violence to drive the local tyrants out of Yanyun.

People in this era know what kind of power the family clan has, and these Yanyun family clans are still thriving even under the rule of the Khitans.

Moreover, Liu Rang, who stayed behind in Xijing, has also dealt with these big clans for many years, so he naturally knows that it is not easy to deal with these big clans.

But because of this, he also knew what these big clans wanted.

What do those Yanyun clans want? It is a political status that is in line with one's family status. Although the influence of the clans in the imperial court began to be gradually weakened after the Ziwu Zhou, no one dared to really ignore the power that these clans could produce.

Because of this, the families of the Central Plains still have a good political status. But this is limited to the big families of the Central Plains.

Since the great clan of Yanyun in the north has been ruled by the Khitans for nearly a hundred years, their ambitions have not been realized.

After all, the hearts of those who are not of my race will be different, not only for the Han people, but also for other ethnic groups. In the political arena of the Liao State, there are too few Han people like Han Derang.

It was precisely because of this that Liu Rang gave Zhao Weiji a suggestion, asking Zhao Weiji to use part of his official position to the northern Yanyun clans in exchange for part of the Yanyun clans' land interests in the Yanyun Prefectures, so that this strategy of dividing the land could be implemented.

And Zhao Weiji also accepted his suggestion, Zhao Weiji, who was reforming the official system, happened to need some fresh blood to supplement the imperial court, which also means that when Liu Rang became the master of Yanyun, the political situation in front of him was already very favorable.

It was precisely because of the extremely favorable political environment within Yanyun and the strong support of Emperor Zhao Weiji that Liu Rang began a desperate plan after initially completing the northern and southern official system of the Great Song Dynasty.

This desperate plan is to hollow out the foundation of the Liao Empire and turn the edifice of the Liao State into a castle in the air.

Liu Rang learned an important thing about the Liao Empire from Xiao Qi's mouth, that is, although the Liao state has been in power for more than a hundred years, and has also carried out a certain degree of centralization like the Central Plains under the leadership of Han Derang over the years, the country was established by nomads after all. The tribe is still the main body of the country, and since the tribe is the main body of the country, then the people of the country will definitely put the interests of the tribe before the interests of the country, just as the big tribes of the Central Plains put the interests of the family first.

Based on this, Liu Rang devised a set of strategies to poach those marginal tribes from within the Khitan, and he asked these Khitans who were still living in Yanyun to contact those tribes who were living on the margins. Give them some favorable conditions and let them migrate to Yanyun.

Since ancient times, there has been a tradition of nomadic migration to the interior, and after the Yanyun War, the two countries entered a period of temporary peace, which also made the psychological guilt of these tribes who migrated to the interior feel less guilty.

Coupled with God's help, a super snow disaster hit most of the Liao Kingdom in winter, and countless livestock froze to death in winter, plus the loss of Yanyun made it impossible for the Liao court to take out so much food for disaster relief.

Under such circumstances, those tribes who could not even guarantee their lives could not resist the temptation from the Song court and migrated to the interior in large numbers.

This made Liu Rang's policy show amazing results in a short period of time, making it even more difficult for the Liao court, which was already in internal and external difficulties.

And the predicament of the Liao State is far from over, at the end of this year, a person who has sheltered the Liao State for many years passed away, and a generation of legendary women Xiao Xuan, the Empress Dowager of the Liao State, passed away.

With the death of Empress Dowager Xiao, the great earthquake in Liao began. (To be continued......)