In order to deal with the Song army's westward expedition, the Western Xia formulated a strategy of 'grasping with both hands and being firm with both hands': one hand stepped up preparations for war in an attempt to regain the lost territory, and the other hand launched a diplomatic offensive, inviting backers to come out of the background - lobbying the Liao State and asking the Liao State to intervene, and on the other hand, actively asking the Song Dynasty for peace talks.

But after half a year of fighting, the situation has changed dramatically. In the eighth year of Liao Tianqing, when Wanyan Agu forced Liao to be canonized as emperor, he wanted Liao to be named the emperor of the Great Sage and Ming Dynasty. The Liao Dynasty believed that the word 'Great Sage' was the same as its previous title, and asked Jin to reconsider the title, and the Liao sent an envoy in the tenth year of Tianqing to convey this opinion to Jin. Ah Guda was furious, thinking that this was a delaying tactic used by Liao who was unwilling to be canonized and was afraid of Jin's attack, so he immediately decided to send troops to attack Liao.

In April, Ah Guda personally set out on the expedition, divided the troops into three routes, traveled hundreds of miles day and night, and went straight to Shangjing, the capital of Liao. At that time, Liao Emperor Yelu Yanxi was hunting in the field, in May, the Jin army arrived at Shangjing, Aguta personally supervised the battle, launched an attack from the morning, less than noon, Liao Shangjing stayed behind and surrendered, Shangjing was captured by Jin.

At this point, Liao has lost nearly half of the prefectures and counties, Liao Emperor Yelu Yanxi was afraid day and night, played more than 500 bags of Zhuyuzhen, prepared 2,000 horses to escape, he threatened: "I am a brother with the Song Dynasty, and an uncle and nephew with the Western Xia, and I will not lose my life of wealth wherever I go!" Then he fled to Liao, Xia, Song, Xijing Datong Mansion at the junction of the three kingdoms, but soon Song and Jin had reached a 'maritime alliance' on the joint destruction of Liao, but the two sides had not yet officially declared war, but the prelude to the complete destruction of Liao had begun.

Just as the Western Xia was actively mediating, the Song army of the Western Expedition became more and more courageous. In several states, the king of Jin was defeated and disappeared, and the king of Wei committed suicide and martyrdom in the defeat of Wang Weiming, and the general Xiao He was beheaded before the battle. The loss of the army was as much as 150,000, and Lingzhou has become someone's bag. But the Song army does not seem to give up, their scouts have frequently appeared in Jing, Ding, Huai, Sanzhou, the farthest has reached a hundred miles away in the camel lane, there is a wave of troops across the river into Xingqing Mansion.

Now that the situation has developed to such an extent, the Liao State is too busy to take care of itself, which catches Xixia off guard. It is no longer possible to ask the Liao State to intervene in the war between the two countries, and all they can do is to be peacemakers, peacemakers, and witnesses, and send troops to threaten the border as they did in the past, and the era of commanding orders to the Great Song Dynasty is gone. And the Song State had an ambiguous attitude towards the envoys seeking peace. First agreed and then repented, so far there is no decision.

Now that the Song army has reached the doorstep, the Western Xia is in a panic, and the ministers of the DPRK and China are also divided into two factions, and the main fighters insist on gathering all the soldiers and horses in the Hexi prefectures. forcibly conscripted men over the age of thirteen to form a large army to cross the river and fight a decisive battle with the Song army to recover the lost territory; However, the Lord and the Peacemaker believed that the land of Henan was lost, and there was no grain and grass in Lingzhou, the finance and taxation of Yanzhou, and the land of soldiers in Hengshan. What to fight, I am afraid that it will be difficult to win with all the strength of Hexi. If it is not done well, it will provoke a popular uprising and be destroyed by the Song army. It's better to talk about peace, and wait for the breath to come back to Henan.

The two sides disputed, Li Qianshun had no idea at this time, he often couldn't sleep all night, and when the country was in trouble, he thought about the good general, and the person he thought about most at this time was the royal brother Chage! When he was there, how could those military ministers in the court dare to make a mistake, the big and small heroes were all trembling, and Tubo did not dare to act rashly. Although he defeated the Great Song Dynasty, there is no victorious general in the world, at least he can stabilize the country and lead the army against the enemy. Li Qianshun's thoughts seemed to move the heavens, and at this time, someone from Jingzhou reported that the King of Jin had returned...

When Brother Cha's feet stepped into Xingqing Mansion again, it was really like a world away, and it was difficult for him to look back on this period of time. On that day, he tried his best to persuade the prince of the Song Dynasty to get out, who knew that Lu Dao only came out of the tiger's mouth and into the wolf's den, and was actually caught by a group of horse thieves when he was resting, only because they had a few treasures on their bodies that the horse thieves felt that they had some oil and water, and wanted to collect the ransom in the future to save their lives. …,

Brother Cha wanted to reveal his identity and let the horse thieves let him go, but he was afraid that the horse thieves would be greedy for bounties and then give him to the Song army, so he could only delay the time on the grounds that the two armies were fighting and the information was difficult to communicate. The thieves sent them to their nests in the desert and worked hard for them every day. Brother Cha also wanted to escape, but there was no food and drink in the desert, no horses, no way, and he couldn't get out of the desert if he was let go, only suffering!

This kind of day of not having enough food and not enough clothes to cover Brother Cha is more than a month, thinking that he has done rough work as a dignified prince, it is inevitable that he will be beaten and scolded, and it can be said that he lives like a year. After a long time, the horse thieves saw that they were honest, relaxed their vigilance, and finally escaped a few days ago by taking the opportunity to herd horses for the horse thieves, drinking horse blood, horse meat, and horse urine on the road, and eating all the hardships of this life...

When Brother Cha returned to the Xia realm, he found that the Song army had captured Lingzhou City, drank the Yellow River, and under the capital of Chen Bing, Western Xia had reached the verge of destroying the country. At this time, Brother Cha faintly felt that he was calculated, but he couldn't be sure, if he wanted to kill himself, he only needed to do it in the Situ River, at that time he was chased like a dog, and he couldn't escape from his palm at all; If it weren't for that, he would have coveted the terms of his promises, he wanted things, but there was no need to intercept himself in the middle of the road and imprison him for so long...

Zhao Ta is also very busy these days, and this stall is approaching the Tianning Festival - his father Zhao Ji's birthday, Zhao Ta selected a batch of calligraphy and painting cultural relics from the Lingzhou Forbidden City, together with the fake letter of Wang Wei's name and Hui, the map account book of the Lingzhou area, packed 50 boxes, and selected 100 horses produced locally, and ordered to see Xi as the birthday envoy to return to Beijing with a birthday gift to congratulate the emperor on his birthday.

Lingzhou City after the siege of the war and more than a month, it can be said that all industries are depressed, prices are soaring, people in the city are panicking, every household is closed, there are few pedestrians on the street, and there is a dead air. Zhao Ta ordered people to go out to set an example for the people, and sent law enforcement teams to patrol the streets to picket soldiers who violated discipline and prevent soldiers from disturbing the people; Later, he led the crowd to the largest Jinguang Temple in the city to worship the Buddha, and gave millions of money to ask the monks to do a nine-day water and land dojo for the deceased, so as to surpass the souls of the dead, and give compensation and treatment to the dead and injured people on the day of the city break. At the same time, the grain was opened and sold to the people at a low price, prices were stabilized, porridge sheds were set up to help the orphaned and elderly, and people were dispatched to repair the houses destroyed by the fire.

After the implementation of this series of measures, the shops in the city opened their doors and began to open one after another, and then caravans began to enter Lingzhou City to purchase goods and sell goods. Zhao Ta didn't dare to breathe a sigh of relief, the officials and tribal leaders of Lingzhou, the local heroes died or fled in the war, and there was not one out of ten, the grassroots power was almost destroyed, the population was scattered, and a large area of land became a terra nullius.

The protracted war has caused serious damage to agricultural production and social and economic collapse in the border areas, so the reconstruction of social order after the war must be based on a certain degree of economic strength. Therefore, the first priority is to rebuild the economic system; Second, how to consolidate the frontiers, reap the effect of long-term peace and stability, and turn the Hetao area into a strategic rear.

In traditional Chinese society, the main threat of the central dynasties came from the nomads in the north, mainly because in places where it was relatively easy to make a living, people did not need to spend too much energy to fight against nature, and in the nomadic areas with poor living conditions, wealth was cattle and sheep rather than land, and plundering was much easier than production, so nomads were often able to fight well, and it became commonplace to attack cities and plunder land. The rule of the grassland society is not based on land ownership, as in China, and no single pasture is valuable, because no pasture can withstand long-term grazing, so the right of movement is more important than the right of residence; When food was scarce, their interest in the Central Plains Dynasty was far greater than that of the Central Plains farming in the grasslands, so their contradictions were impossible to reconcile. …,

Located in the northwest frontier of the Song Dynasty, the Lingxia region was the hub of the Silk Road and the frontier of China's links with South Asia, Central Asia, West Asia and Europe. At this time, the frontal threat faced by the Song Dynasty came from the Liao state established by the nomadic Khitan in the grassland, and flanked by the grassland oases and desert oases occupied by the Dangxiang ethnic groups in the northwest. With the rise of the Jurchens, the nomads will inevitably penetrate deep into the Chinese mainland, and to prevent the Jurchens from continuing to move south, the Great Song Dynasty must occupy farther bases to attack and defend the flanks of the grassland, and the oasis in the Western Regions will surely become the key strategic area of Zhao Ta.

In order to deal with the invasion of the Central Plains Dynasty by the nomads, the security threat to the Northwest Frontier of the Central Plains Dynasty in successive dynasties can be described as very painful. The construction of the Great Wall and the development of the northwest frontier are all related to the defense against the invasion of the northern nomads, and the invasion of the hostile forces of the nomads has posed a major threat to the Central Plains.

From the beginning of the Han Dynasty to the present, military conquest has often been a strategy adopted by successive central dynasties in the early days of unifying the northwest. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty launched three large-scale military campaigns against the Xiongnu and achieved major victories, but the last time was to withdraw military strength from the Western Regions with the 'Edict of Rejection of Luntai Tuntian'.

"Military conquest, momentary effect!" Through this expedition, Zhao Tan understood this truth, and the main reason why it was difficult for military conquest to have long-term results was that the northwest was far from the interior, the land was vast and sparsely populated, and a large number of troops marched into battle, and it was very difficult to supply logistics. Even if the war is won, if a large number of troops are stationed, the cost of defense will be too great, and vice versa, it will be difficult to consolidate the results of the war. (To be continued......)

p