Let's review the environment of the Southern Song Dynasty during the Jianyan and Shaoxing periods:

It is no exaggeration to say that the Jiangnan region has gradually turned into a hell on earth, and it is not much better than the fallen area in Jiangbei. In some ways, the Southern Song court was more brutal than the Jurchens.

The first is the suffering of the people of Jiangnan.

Originally, the people of Jiangnan lived freely and prosperously, as if they were in heaven, but the northerners rushed over at once, and when they came, they were in tattered clothes, their faces were colorless, and they were penniless, but suddenly the best land, houses, property, children, jade silks, and so on in Jiangnan were all theirs.

This is a blatant robbery in broad daylight, using the various titles of the extinct Northern Song Dynasty government to carry out blatant robbery against the people of Jiangnan.

For example, when Zhao Gou entered Hangzhou, he picked a big house to live in, and the eunuchs roared to relive the life of princes, behind these scenery is the sorrow of many rich people in the south of the Yangtze River.

This is true for the rich and those with status, not to mention the ordinary people who live a peaceful life and are at peace with a small fortune, and all kinds of resources are forcibly seized.

For the Northern Song Dynasty, the Jurchens were invaders; For the Jiangnan people, the northerners were the same invaders. This was the reality of society at that time.

Mao Taizu quotes, where there is oppression, there will be resistance.

As a result, the resistance of the local people quickly formed all kinds of "bandits", and the indigenous people revolted, such as Zhong Xiang and Yang Mo in Dongting Lake.

Next is the suffering of the people of the North.

Among the people who fled the river, the proportion of members of the royal family, government officials, and military officers and soldiers was not the largest, but the largest proportion of people who fled across the river were civilians from the north.

After these people arrived in Jiangnan, they had no food and clothing. It is difficult to make a living; They don't just live at the bottom of society. also have to face the anger of the people in Jiangnan.

Civilians fleeing from the North. Their misery is unimaginable!

The day really couldn't go on, so he had to join the armed forces from the north, which were called "Youkou" by the imperial court

These large and small "wandering bandits" and "local bandits" not only undermined the social order, but also greatly affected the tax revenue of the small court of the Southern Song Dynasty.

The financial resources of the place were plundered by the thieves, and where was there any room to pay the taxes of the imperial court.

If there is not enough fiscal revenue, how can we maintain the operation of the government and the expenditure of military spending. Wait a minute.

Therefore, in the early days of Shaoxing, when the pressure from the north relaxed slightly, "suppressing bandits" became the most important work of the small court of the Southern Song Dynasty.

To govern troubled times, of course, we must use fierce men.

At this time, Emperor Gaozong suddenly remembered a candidate - the former prime minister Li Gang.

This gentleman is resolute and jealous, and he is the best person to be responsible for suppressing bandits.

In the May 1st volume of the "Records of the Years Since the Establishment of Yan", there is a holy decree promulgated by the imperial court, which reads as follows:

"The scholar of the Senior Administration Palace, promoted Li Gang of Dongxiao Palace in Lin'an Mansion as a bachelor of the Guanwen Palace, the Xuanfu envoy of Jinghu and Guangnan Road, and the pacification envoy of Quanhu East of Zhitan Prefecture Yue Fei led Ma You, Li Hong, Han Jing, Wu Xi, etc., the deputy governor of Hudong, to fight against Cao Cheng's thieves."

In other words, the imperial court asked Li Gang to do the co-ordination. Let Yue Fei be mainly responsible for the work of suppressing bandits

Why is there such an arrangement? Why is Yue Fei and not other generals in charge of suppressing bandits?

The reason is simple: character

Among the various armies of the Southern Song Dynasty. The Yuejia Army's military discipline is the strictest, and there is no crime against the local Qiu, coupled with the Yuejia Army's super combat ability, the work of suppressing bandits can be said to be none other than Yue Fei.

When Yue Fei was garrisoning, the troops under his jurisdiction were not allowed to leave the barracks at will, walk the streets and alleys, and were not allowed to do business or bully the market like other Northern Song Dynasty forbidden troops.

When Yue flew into the army, taking the road from Hongzhou to Hunan as an example, the gentry of the common people of Hongzhou wanted to see his military appearance that was popular in the world, but they missed the opportunity. That day, before dawn, Yue Fei's army set off. When they received the notice and walked into the market, they only saw Yue Fei himself and a few old and weak soldiers, leading the horses for him.

According to the military order of the Yue family's army: borrow a house along the way, and clean the master's house before leaving; Borrowed cooking utensils must be washed before being returned to their owners.

Yue Fei himself sat and lay down with the soldiers, and when he passed through Luling, the county guard set up a special military tent for wine and food, and rushed to the suburbs to get acquainted with Yue Fei, but he saw the army passing by, and after seeing it, Yue Fei did not appear.

He asked the soldiers, only to know that Yue Fei had been with the partial generals all along, and he had long since passed a long time ago. These performances seem to have become a time-traveling version of Uncle Red Army.

What would happen if Yue Fei was replaced by several other generals to suppress bandits?

Han Shizhong's performance is still good, but he pulls out the robe and brings out the mud when he does things. When he sent troops, the local casualties were often very large, and it was inevitable that some of them were killed by mistake.

Zhang Jun's characteristic is that he loves money, known as Zhang Locust, and everything he passes through is gone, but basically there are still many living people.

The most ruthless is Liu Guangshi in the Dayan, this person's philosophy of life is "raising authority and avoiding trouble". Avoiding trouble means hiding from the Jurchens, and raising power is to send troops to suppress bandits. But whenever there is trouble in the rich areas, he will definitely rush to send troops, and when he succeeds, the whole area will be in vain.

The good guys and the bad guys all died, and the wealth of an entire region went into his personal pocket

Li Cheng left, Zhang surrendered with Zhao'an, and there were still four bandits left on Hudong Road: their leaders were Cao Cheng, Ma You, Li Hong and Liu Zhong.

In addition to Liu Zhong, Cao Cheng and the other three had all accepted the official title of the Song Dynasty and were in a state of rebellion and impermanence.

These four tributary gangsters, since they flowed to the Jinghu area, but each of them formed an army, cut the land and became the hero, the gap between each other was very deep, attacking each other, and raping and plundering the people, doing all kinds of evil, known as the four great gangs.

Among the four major Kou, the strongest military is Cao Cheng.

Cao Cheng is a native of Huang County, the Daimyo Mansion, with strength and good at archery. There are more than 70,000 of his subordinates, including about 30,000 elite soldiers, and it is even recorded in volume 66 of the "Complete Works of Liangxi": "All that is fed by people is the food, and there are many kinds of people."

Cao Cheng's troops not only ate people, but also captured Hudong's pacification envoy Xiang Ziyan as a hostage. Entrenched in Daozhou. Thereupon. Cao Chengcheng became the number one target of the Southern Song Dynasty's new round of suppression of bandits.

That's it. Yue Fei set off with his 10,000 Yue family troops.

Before leaving, Yue Fei erected a big banner with the word "Yue" in white characters on a red background on the place where the military dependents lived in Jizhou, and announced it everywhere: "Those who enter here will die!" ”

Yue Fei's domineering spirit can be seen from this.

Let Yue Fei use 10,000 soldiers and horses to clear Cao Cheng's 70,000 army, the Southern Song Dynasty court was a little weak-hearted, so it ordered Ma You, who was stationed in Tanzhou, Li Hong, who occupied Yuezhou, plus two small troops of Han Jing and Wu Xi. "And listen to the handsome minister Yue Fei's moderation", "Work together to break the thief"

Regarding the issue of Yue Fei's departure, the courtiers of the imperial court were controversial.

The opinion of the Confucian minister Hu Anguo was: "Cao Cheng repeatedly violated the Shuai Si....There is no forgivable reason." It is advisable for Yue Fei to cover up Cao Cheng and enter the division as soon as possible."

Needless to introduce, this Hu Guoan must be a fan of Yue Fei.

Li Gang, who was in charge of coordinating this matter, was in Fuzhou at the time and did not go to his post; In addition, he was assigned by the imperial court before, and his information was blocked, so he didn't know about Yue Fei's situation.

Therefore, Li Gang played to the court and said that Yue Fei did not have many soldiers. Money and food are scarce, and it is difficult to shoulder heavy responsibilities. Resolutely asked the imperial court to send another army of Han Shizhong from Fujian Road to Hudong Road and other places to reinforce Yue Fei.

In the minds of those old ministers, Han Shizhong's combat power is the most trustworthy.

Jiangnan West Road's reassurance ambassador Li Hui's opinion was the most detailed and conservative than Li Gang's.

He said that Cao Cheng is in Daozhou, Ma You is in Tanzhou, Li Hong is in Yuezhou, and Liu Zhong is in Tanyue. Although they also attacked each other for a little profit, after hearing that the imperial court had appointed Li Gang as a Xuanfu envoy to come to the court, they would definitely make friends in private, spread everywhere, and rescue each other.

Among them, Ma You has occupied Tanzhou for more than half a year, and the money and grain there have been requisitioned by him, and now the imperial court has appointed Yue Fei as the prefect of Tanzhou, how can Ma You not doubt the motives of the imperial court?

And when Yue Fei led his troops straight to Tanzhou, how did he get along with Ma You?

If Yue Fei went to Daozhou to pursue Cao Cheng first, Ma You would definitely suspect that it would be very likely to intercept the transportation of grain and wages, which would make Yue Fei suffer from the enemy and make it difficult to continue.

It is better to put Cao Cheng aside, ignore it, and let Yue Fei lead the troops to Yuanzhou first, where he will negotiate with Ma You and Li Hong back and forth, only saying that he wants to ask Liu Zhong as a plan to delay the army.

Waiting for the arrival of Li Gang and Han Shizhong's troops, the officers and soldiers have the advantage in numbers, and there is no problem in how they fight.

Regarding Li Hui's suggestion, Zhao Gou, Lu Yihao and Qin Hui all agreed very much.

The wanderers there are indeed headed by Cao Cheng, followed by Ma You and Liu Zhong; These teams are indeed intertwined with each other, constituting a kind of auxiliary vehicle dependence on each other.

If we first hold our troops and wait for Li Gang and Han Shizhong's troops to join forces and then attack together, we can not only pacify the Hunan Zhukou, but also take advantage of the situation to advance between Hunan and Han in Hubei, so as to connect Sichuan and Shaanxi.

Therefore, they issued an edict to Yue Fei on the journey, asking him to "consider the thief's situation, and if he is not able to attack, he will temporarily be stationed in Yuanzhou, so as to wait for Han Shizhong's troops to come and rendezvous."

In the end, it turned out that the opinions of these civil officials were wrong; There is nothing wrong with their entire reasoning logic, but the fault lies in the judgment of military strength.

For these civilian officials, the number of people is the most important factor in determining the size of the army, so when they know that the Yue family's army is only 10,000 people, they will conclude that Yue Fei's strength is not as strong as the four kou.

But they didn't know that there were certain armies whose strength could not be measured by numbers, and it just so happened that Yue Fei's troops were such a team.

There was one minister in the court who had the most say, but he did not say a word on the matter.

This minister is Zhang Jun.

Zhang Jun knew that not to mention one Cao Cheng, even ten Cao Cheng would be easily defeated by Yue Fei.

The reason why Zhang Jun did not speak was because he was waiting, waiting for the imperial court to send him to take over Li Gang's position and take charge of the affairs of suppressing bandits.

At that time, he will not have to go to the battlefield, he will have a lot of credit to take, and he will be able to pick peaches, so why not!. (To be continued......)

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