Chapter 105: Patrolling the Border (3)

The continuous wars formed a winding military demarcation line between the Song and Xia Dynasty that stretched from Shenmu Fort in the east to the middle of Pingliang in the southwest, and was more than 1,000 kilometers long -- commonly known as Hengshan. Hengshan includes the Hengshan Mountains in the north of Shaanxi and the northern end of the Meridian Ridge and the watershed between the Malian River Valley and the Qingshui River between the Meridian Ridge and the Liupan Mountain, the north of Hengshan is the vast desert of Mu Us Desert, the south is the Shaanxi-Gansu Loess Plateau, and Hengshan is a loess hill with undulations in the southwest and northeast, Gaosaka is dangerous, separated from the north and south, there is a condescending terrain advantage, and the river valley originating from the north and south slopes of Hengshan can be used as a hole for the war march, which is an insurmountable natural danger in ancient times without heavy weapons such as aircraft and artillery.

The forts set up between the valleys of the two sides have played a certain defensive role, although these military fortresses are related, the city, the walled fortress is different from each other, the size is different, but the nature is the same, there is no strict distinction, with the development of the military situation and the increase and decrease of the importance of the border defense of these fortresses, the castle can be a walled city, the walled fort can also be a city, the walled can also be a fortress, the walled city can be promoted to a state, the army; The state and the army can also be reduced to a walled city.

Zhao Ta and his entourage along the Jialu River valley thirty miles to the Yamato village, the terrain here made him gasp, the river water washed so that here formed an open valley, the village was built in the mouth of the river, the surrounding terrain is flat, the main purpose of its construction is to control the traffic road and the valley of the tuntian, the open terrain ahead, almost no danger to defend, once it is attacked on a large scale, it is difficult to protect itself, not to mention blocking the enemy's attack, its military role early warning is far greater than defense!

The fort was defended by a commanded forbidden army and 200 feudal archers, and the lord of the fort welcomed the prince and others into the fort. Zhao Ta rested slightly, then went to the city to inspect, the fortress is built according to the bank, about 200 steps in length and width, across the road leading to the river valley, rammed earth version is built, the city wall is three zhang high, less than two zhang wide, the enemy tower, the female wall, the horse face, the beacon tower and other defensive measures are complete, and the number of rolling wood thunder stones prepared is also quite a lot.

Then he went around the city again, and found that it was much more deserted than the walled fort elsewhere, except for the occasional soldier wandering in it, and rarely saw the people, and the only shop was also deserted, and the shopkeeper and man were lying on the counter with the fire and dozing off, and the variety of goods in it was pitiful.

"Lord Liubao, I see that the terrain around this fortress is open and close to the river, why are the people so scarce, are the fields all barren? Why don't you recruit people! Zhao asked as he walked, because the fortress fully considered factors such as water sources and tuntian fields when selecting the site, and strived to be close to the water source and a large number of fertile fields, so as to facilitate survival and food production, so he asked.

"Lord Qiqi, this fort was indeed prosperous thirty years ago, you see that there are a lot of houses built in this fort, there are several villages outside the fort, there are thousands of households, the population is nearly 10,000, there were thousands of hectares of fertile land here, and there are countless merchants who come and go, but now the soldiers and horses of the Xia Kingdom harass from time to time, and the fields outside the fort are mostly destroyed, and now there are less than 100 people left, barely farming in the river valley, it is difficult to be self-sufficient, and the grain and grass in the fort are now all imported in the house!" The castle lord also seemed to have a bitter stomach, and said with a sigh.

"Tell the king in detail!" Zhao Ta also knew that the Western Xia and the border people of the Song Dynasty were competing for arable land, but he didn't expect the matter to be so serious, and the once prosperous fortress was so decayed.

"Yes, please go to the yazhong and tell me more!" It's not sunset yet, but the valley is shading and the sky is getting darker, and spring is the windy time of day, making it even colder. When he arrived in Yazhong, the lord of the castle asked the feudal clan inspector who had been reclaimed here for many years to explain the ins and outs of this situation to the prince in detail: ...,

In order to restore the city as soon as possible, the Western Xia sent envoys to negotiate with the Song Dynasty on the boundaries of the Song, Xia Lin and Fu regions, and the two sides agreed: "From now on, the people in the western boundary will not have to cultivate in the east of the building." It is in the old luxury Russian village outside Fengzhou and Fuzhou border, and the restoration is completed, and the old luxury Russian village along the border of Fuzhou is thirty-three, and it is not created. Linzhou borders households, and they do not cultivate Quye Hexi. The land that is not cultivated by the Lin and the government is also allowed to be used by the households of the two realms to the nearest woodcutter, that is, they are not allowed to insert a ring and build a nunnery, and the violators will be arrested and sent to the official and strangled in the city. The patrol personnel of the two realms are not allowed to carry more than 30 people with clothing and armor. "A basic agreement was reached on the issue of encroachment on farming by the Lin and the government. However, the Song Dynasty did not fully fulfill the agreement to open up the mutual market, the relationship between the Song and Xia was still very tense, and the encroachment of the Western Xia in Lin and Fu did not completely stop.

During the Yuanfeng period, the cultivated land of the Western Xia Yilin and the government was undecided, and the Tibetan Ministry was ordered to shoot and kill the Chinese border people. In addition, there were many forbidden lands in the border areas of the Song and Xia dynasties, and some of the forbidden lands were fertile fields suitable for cultivation, which created conditions for the Tangut people to invade and cultivate. In particular, the land in the Quye River area of Linzhou is fertile, and it is suitable for farming and grazing because of the irrigation of the Quye River. For the forbidden land on the border of the Song Dynasty, there was no cultivation and no fixed owner, and the captives were able to occupy the land from the emptiness, which caused the northerners to fight for the boundary year after year. "The Song people did not plow, which created a cultivable opportunity for the Xia people to invade and cultivate.

On the other hand, after the main function of the fortress shifted to tuntian, the Xia army immediately formulated the strategy of "disturbing farming" and "encroaching on farming". They neither attacked the fort nor lured the archers out of the fort to fight, but instead worked on destroying the cultivated land around the fort and interfering with the normal cultivation activities of the archers. If the Song army fortress can not smoothly carry out food production, not only the supply of the regular army is threatened, even the archers themselves are difficult to gain a foothold, the fortress naturally loses the significance of the establishment, the Western Xia's "disturbance" tactics hit the Song army's key point, the Song Dynasty's fortress is numerous, and close to the border, the Western Xia people come and go like the wind, the Song soldiers take care of one and lose the other, and the flow of the land makes the Han residents of Tuntian have to leave, resulting in the situation that the enemy is now advancing and retreating.

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Early the next morning, a team of cavalry out of Dahe Fort went north, the leader was not old, wearing gold armor, wearing a golden helmet, the red helmet and red daze flew with the wind, a sturdy black horse under the crotch was a divine horse, and a team behind him was also a black horse closely followed, from a distance, it looked like a group of old eagles flew over against the ground, and then behind it was the main point of the castle of Yamato Fort, more than 100 horsemen in the fort accompanied the protection, no need to ask, it must be Zhao Ta's group.

"Lord Liubao, Yuanfeng demarcation, how far is it from Dahe Fort?" Zhao Ta was in a good mood today, the sun was shining, and the open field was refreshing, and he swept away the stuffiness of marching in the canyon, and ran out of five or six miles in one go, he slowed down his horse and asked the castle lord who came up.

"Lord Qiyu, twenty miles away from the fort, basically bounded by the ancient Great Wall of the Qin Dynasty, but the people of the Xia Kingdom have reclaimed the forbidden realm and have penetrated ten miles into my Great Song Dynasty, and the enemy cavalry is even more intrusive in our realm at this time, adults must be careful!" Lord Liu's face is very ugly, he is now eager to jump off the horse and rummage in the ground to see if there are two coptis digging two chews, he has been guarding the border for many years, and it is not the first time to see the upper patrol, usually he just takes a look and leaves, that is, he looks at the upper border, and it is at least a few thousand steps to ride with him. Tong Taiwei also encountered it when he patrolled the border, accompanied by 50,000 victorious troops, with flags covering the sun, and the team was mighty and terrifying. It's good to serve this master by himself, and he dares to go out with more than 100 people, it's really a newborn calf who is not afraid of tigers!

"Oh, I don't know how lucky we are today, can we meet a Xia countryman, I haven't seen a real person when I'm so old!" Zhao Ta said with a look of fascination.

"Hmm... My lord is mighty, those barbarians must have fled early when they heard the prestige of the prince, how dare they show up! "Lord Liu Bao was almost frightened and fell off the horse, he recited the Buddha for a night last night, blessed today's Xixia people suffered a disaster, every household hung white, no time to wander here, go out in the morning is not at ease, tell the commander who stayed behind to make him not go back at night, remember to take someone to collect his body! …,

"Ha Luha, Lord Liu Bao is really joking, I'm afraid that they will know that I am here, and they will not send a large army to arrest me, could it be that Lord Liu Bao sent someone to deliver a letter to them last night!" Zhao Ta said with a smile.

"Don't joke, don't be joking, don't dare to give a hundred guts to the subordinates!" Lord Liu Bao hurriedly waved his hand, and even said that he didn't dare, for fear that the prince would say something 'rebellious', so he consciously stepped forward and led the way. But Zhao Xin and the others who accompanied him did not dare to be sloppy, and Jiang Fei sent several teams of scouts to gallop back and forth to investigate the enemy's situation.

Zhao Ta's mood became worse and worse as he moved forward, and the wasteland in front of him still had traces of cultivation, he roughly estimated that there were four or five thousand hectares of cooked land here, but now it has become a pasture overgrown with weeds and wild beasts, even if an acre of land only produces one stone of grain, there are hundreds of thousands of stone of grain in the account, how much is that, his heart, only dripping blood. Go further, the intermittent ancient Great Wall has been faintly visible, but there is a different scene, Qianmo vertical and horizontal, the harvested fertile fields can not be seen at a glance, at this time Zhao Ta's heart is not dripping blood, but bleeding, they are planting their own land, but they don't pay taxes for themselves!

"Lord Qiyu, the enemy horse has been found in the northeast!" Just when Zhao Ta was angry, a scout Pegasus came to report.

"There are ten horsemen, like soldiers on patrol!" The scout reported again.

"My lord, it's noon, let's go back to the fort!" Lord Liu Bao said as if he hadn't heard the scout's return, he also learned to be obedient, knowing that those who are officials have to save face, and they will run away when they see enemy soldiers, so how can they let the leader come to power, so he changed his tactful statement.

"Cut, do you want to bring back those enemy soldiers of the Xia Kingdom and invite them to eat together, we found them, they must have discovered us too, just ten people are afraid of him!" Zhao Ta didn't give him face, and said with a cold snort.

"Lord Wang, the enemy cavalry is coming!" Another scout galloped, Zhao Ta listened, looked in the direction the scout came from, and saw a team of Western Xia knights looking at them three hundred steps away.

"My lord, let's go, this is the enemy's reconnaissance horse, the brigade will not be too far away, I will break off, you go first!" Lord Liu Bao was in a cold sweat at this time, and he couldn't care about any face, urging the prince to run quickly!

"Hehe, can you be worried about it clearly, let's go and arrest them back to see clearly, if you can't live or die, you can do it!" Zhao Ta's group of guards also saw it for the first time, and they all stretched their necks to look over there, and then the prince began to 'mess around' again!

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