In all fairness, although Zhao Huan is a very mediocre, weak and even incompetent emperor, his personnel are changeable, strictly speaking, he is frivolous, but the frivolity of the Daojun is changed by personal likes and dislikes, and he is a noodle soup ear, has no opinions, and listens to the villain. But he was not promiscuous or cruel, he was very good to the ministers, to the people, and very diligent in his administration, so he was very loved by the people.

At this time, although the situation of the Song court was very difficult, didn't it necessarily mean that it would not be able to escape the tragic fate of the country? Not necessarily. Just imagine, even with a newly built city in Taiyuan and a few thousand tired soldiers in the city, it can hold on to the Jin army for up to nine months, and the fortification of Bianjing City must be the first in the country:

The frequent national wars between the Song and the Liao and Western Xia and the intensification of class contradictions in the Song Dynasty were the direct causes of the defense system of Song and Tokyo. In order to avoid the recurrence of the historical tragedy of "Shi Jin is unprepared, and the Khitan fell into the Beijing division in one fell swoop", the city was vigorously constructed and the forbidden army was stationed to guard it, forming a complete defense system of "a strong city in front and a heavy army in the back", and the construction of the Tokyo city defense system can be described as deliberate.

After Taizong destroyed the Northern Han Dynasty in the fourth year of Taiping Xingguo, he attacked Liao in order to regain the land of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, but was defeated in the Battle of the Gaoliang River. In the third year of Yongxi, the Song army was defeated again in the battles of Qiguan and Shuozhou. Since then, Song Taizong and his ministers have gradually turned from offensive to defensive against Liao, and there has been a negative situation of "if you come, you will be royal, and if you go, you will not be chased".

Since there was no hope of recapturing Youyun's hometown, the Song Dynasty's defense line against the Liao Dynasty's most important Great Wall was lost, and the North China gateway was completely open to the Khitan Iron Cavalry Cave, and there was a "south of the swallow thistle." Pyongyang is thousands of miles, the nameless mountains and rivers are blocked, and the Han and Han are together". And the North China Plain was militarily conducive to the gallop of Liao cavalry. However, the Song army, which was dominated by infantry, was at a disadvantage. These unfavorable factors have made Jingshi Kaifeng objectively fall into a situation of "the situation is sloppy and it is difficult to prevent maintenance". Thereupon. It is imperative to strengthen the defensive function of the Jingshi itself.

Yuan Hao proclaimed himself emperor and established Western Xia. The relationship between the Song and Western Xia also directly affected the defense of the Song city. After Yuan Hao established Western Xia, he launched three major offensives against the Song and the Song were defeated. Subsequently, Yuan Hao led his army to Weizhou, "covering an area of six or seven hundred miles, burning down the houses and slaughtering the inhabitants", which posed a great threat to the western border of the Song Dynasty and directly stimulated the defense construction of Tokyo. Renzong ordered the inner and outer cities to be restored at the same time.

In order to cope with the war against Western Xia, Shenzong and his later emperors further transferred the garrison of the Jingshi to the west, and the defense of the Jingshi people was weakened. Thereupon. The Song Dynasty intensified the construction of urban defense facilities in Tokyo to make up for the lack of civil defense capabilities...

In order to build a safe capital, the emperors of the Song Dynasty spared no effort and wasted a lot of manpower and material resources to build the city of Tokyo and improve the city defense facilities to serve as artificial barriers. The castle was built with a triple ring of the outer castle, the inner castle, and the imperial castle, and the inner and outer castles were built to protect Tokyo solidly and tightly, forming a super fortress.

The outer city of Tokyo was built in the Zhou period after the fifth dynasty. At that time, Zhou Shizong built the capital and took the tiger prison soil for it, which was as dense as iron, even if it was hit by a stone cannon, it was just a pit. In the past dynasties, the outer city has been repeatedly added and repaired. The city has also been dredged many times, until this time it is surrounded by a moat more than ten zhang wide, and willows are also planted on both sides. Logging is forbidden to block the besieging enemy.

Tokyo Satojo. It was the second barrier to defend the Jingshi, and it was used as a buffer zone between the outer city and the imperial city militarily. to further secure the palace. Zhao Ji ordered Zhaoxing in December of the sixth year of Xuanhe to renovate and repair the city walls, city walls and city gates to strengthen the defensive function.

The Imperial City, located in the north-central part of Tokyo City, was the seat of the Song Dynasty and some central government offices. This was originally the office of the Tang Xuanwu Army's envoy. In the first month of the fifth year of Zhenzong Dazhong auspicious symbol, the edict "to build the imperial city with bricks", which is the beginning of the bricks of the ancient city wall in China. In addition, the four corners of the imperial city were built with a height of dozens of zhang, and the bricks outside the city and the corner towers were built on the city, which greatly strengthened the defense capability of the imperial city, which was inherited by successive dynasties.

The city gate is a weak link in the defense and becomes the place where the Song court deliberately operates, the outer city has opened a total of 12 city gates, except for the four main gates such as the Nanxun Gate because of the royal road and belongs to the straight gate double, the rest are repaired urn city three layers, bend to open the door. In addition to reinforcing the city gate and building the urn city, it also sealed the enemy horse face in the Yuanfeng period of Shenzong, which is an appendage of the city wall, and its function is to strengthen the defense, so that the besiegers are attacked on three sides, and it is conducive to strengthening the wall.

In addition, the Song Dynasty outer city is also equipped with weapons to resist the enemy, every 200 steps to place a city treasury, store the imperial weapon, the city wall is widely placed war shed, and the outer city gates are wrapped with pure iron, and then open a historical precedent. In addition, 20 commanders of the 'Guanggu Army' were specially set up in the forbidden army, which was a professional engineering corps, and their job was to build and maintain the city's defenses.

The first time the Jin army approached Kaifeng City, they chose the weak points in the city defense, such as the Suzao Gate, the Fengqiu Gate and the Bianhe Shangshui Gate, as the breakthrough point, but none of them were captured. In other places, due to the wide outer city, the Jin soldiers could not approach the city, and used the method of 'cave house' to transport earth and wood from the cave to fill the city, and after filling part of the city, they launched a strong attack, but they all returned in vain, which shows the solidity of the outer city's defense.

After the Jurchens withdrew from the siege last time, Zhao Huan sent people to repair the defense of Loulu City, but he felt that there was no one in the Manchu Dynasty who was worthy of entrusting him with great affairs, and he was afraid that these people would take advantage of this "national project" to corrupt and enrich their own pockets, so he sent an inner attendant in the palace around him to preside over this important national defense matter.

This chamberlain is even less than the previous Zhao Ji's use, but he is honest and dedicated, thinking that since the official family is so trusted, he must work hard to complete the task and live up to the high expectations of the official family. He took into account that the Jurchens came from the south, and the first thing to bear the brunt of it was the northern city, so he repaired the defensive things of the back city tower and the city wall was very serious, but for the other east and west sides, the south did not care about it at all.

Outside the city of Chen Bing of the Jin army, everyone found that the Jurchens not only came from the north, but also had Jin people stationed on the four walls of Bianjing, and they captured the strong men along the way and drove them as servants. Bianjing City is full of people coming and going, and the flags are hunting and fluttering in the cold wind, a busy and hot scene.

Originally, the city's defense force was insufficient, and now the city is a disability, and everyone was shocked to see the city, feeling that the city was difficult to follow, and they were all afraid, and they blamed the eunuchs for misleading the country and mistaking things. And when the city was repaired, everyone saw it, but no one mentioned it, and no one pointed out its shortcomings, but I don't know if they feel guilty now... (To be continued......)