At the end of December, Zhao Jun crossed Dongting Lake by boat and arrived at Jinghu North Road.

It is not far from Bianliang, from Hanshui to Xiangyang out of the Nanyang Basin, you can go directly to Bianliang.

However, after spending more than a month inspecting Jinghu North Road, he did not go north to return to Kaifeng, but took a boat west to Sichuan.

In December of the same year, there was a small-scale earthquake in Bianliang Kaifeng, but the magnitude was small and did not cause much impact and harm.

However, some Taiwan officials immediately made a big fuss about this incident.

Under the pretext of heavy rain and hail in Lei, Lin, Fuzhou and Shaanxi at the beginning of this year, the drought in Gyeonggi in May, the insect eating mulberry in Cizhou, the heavy rain in Tanzhou in August, and the Bianliang earthquake at the end of the year, it is said that disasters are frequent, and there are small troubles, so please dismiss the Zhiyuan and many other prime ministers.

This kind of impeachment is a common routine in ancient times, especially in the Song Dynasty. As long as local disasters are frequent, the officials and the imperial historian will impeach the prime minister, saying that it is the prime minister's pot, and then the emperor will take advantage of the situation to remove the prime minister.

The most typical example is Wang Anshi, who was deposed due to drought.

In the past, this trick was still very useful, but unexpectedly, this time Zhao Zhen refuted it in front of many officials of the Imperial and Imperial Historical Platforms in the early dynasty.

He also explained that the drought was caused by the warmer weather, the insect plague was also caused by the drought was beneficial to the growth of insects, the earthquake was caused by the collision between the tectonic plates, and the heavy rain was caused by the southeast wind blowing the moisture inland.

A piece of scientific knowledge frightened the officials and ministers into a daze. They didn't understand, but they were shocked.

It can only be said that Zhao Zhen's popular science video has not been watched.

At the end of December, the imperial court sent out another 1 million Jinqi Ayaluo from the Zuozang Treasury, and went down to Shaanxi Road City to collect military reserves, plus the reserve grain that was transported to Shaanxi before and after.

In this case, Lao Fan ran the northwest like an iron bucket, which made Li Yuanhao feel a little clueless for a while, and he didn't know where to attack.

In history, he found a breakthrough in the direction of the security army, but at that time, it was Fan Yong who was in charge, coupled with the open terrain of Dunyan Road and the scarcity of fortresses, the chief officer was a civil servant who did not understand military affairs, so he naturally became Li Yuanhao's soft persimmon priority.

Now...

In the second year of Baoyuan, in January 1039 AD, the snow outside the northwest plug had not yet melted, and the white head could be vaguely seen on the top of Helan Mountain.

The sky is foggy, the vast grassland is full of grass, groups of cattle and sheep wander aimlessly in the meadows, dirty sheep are like a lump of gray clouds, the shepherd rides horses to drive away, and the smell of cow dung is on the spot.

Li Yuanhao has been living in a military camp outside the city for a while now, and the military camp of the party people is very interesting, with a forest of tents, and outside the tents is the grassland, and the soldiers graze their cattle every day.

They dismounted as a people, and when they got on their horses, they were troops, much like the later Mongol nations.

At this time, Li Yuanhao was looking at the map in the tent, accompanied by Yeli Yuqi, Yeli Wangrong, Yang Shousu, Zhang Yuan and others.

Although the weather was cold, the inside of the tent was as warm as spring.

Li Yuanhao looked at the points marked on the map, and sighed: "This Fan Zhongyan should not be underestimated, all the main roads of the Song Realm on the Yanyan Road have been built by him, and since last year, they have moved the people on the border and built beacon towers along the way. ”

"Your Majesty, there is a saying among the Song people that it is not good, but the minister thinks it makes sense. It is called "only a thousand days to be a thief, and there is no thousand days to prevent thieves". Even if the Song army repaired more fortresses, they only knew how to be beaten, but they did not attack, and they would eventually fall behind. ”

Zhang Yuan, the military advisor next to him, said.

At this time, as Li Yuanhao's commander of the Song Dynasty, he naturally had to make suggestions and strategies in order to win progress.

Li Yuanhao felt that Zhang Yuan was very reasonable, and asked: "Yes, I am the attacker, the Song army did not dare to go out of the border, and even they shrunk the border army back, retreating from Tumen to Long'an Mountain, more than a hundred miles away, and even the border was given to us. ”

This is the initiative in war.

Originally, the Song-Xia border was near Tumen, that is, the area of Tianciwan Town, Jingbian County, in later generations. But now that Fan Zhongyan has taken the initiative to shrink his strategy and actually conceded Song Tuxiang, it has undoubtedly greatly increased Li Yuanhao's confidence.

This shows that the Song army was afraid of them, and did not dare to come out to fight at all, so they could only retreat to the fortress and fight a defensive war.

Wouldn't he fight when he wanted to, and leave when he wanted?

With such an idea, Li Yuanhao looked at the map and pointed in the direction of Weizhou and said: "The Song army has laid heavy troops on Yanyan Road and Huanqing Road and built a large number of fortresses. However, there are not many fortresses on Jingyuan Road, and the soldiers and horses have also retreated to Zhenrong and are stationed in the area of Sanchuan Village and Dingchuan Village. ”

Zhang Yuan immediately said: "This must be a treacherous plan set by Fan Zhongyan, if our army attacks from Jingyuan Road, the Song army can rush to the aid from Huanqing Road, and take advantage of our attack on Zhenrong to cut off our retreat, and when the time comes, the situation of our army is worrying." ”

"Well, that's what I thought, too."

Li Yuanhao sighed, put his hands behind his back, slowly walked to the main chair in the conference hall next to him and sat down, and said, "Fan thief is cunning." ”

"Your Majesty does not need to be worried, as the military advisor said, "only a thousand days to be a thief, there is no thousand days to prevent thieves", although there is a meaning of comparing our army to a thief, but the truth is such a truth, the Song army only knows how to defend, if we blare and attack in multiple ways, they can always be unguarded. ”

Yeli Wangrong followed behind Li Yuanhao and said: "What's more, we have many internal responses in the Song army, and we know their movements well. If we use it properly, we will attack in all directions, and the Song army will defend in all directions, and we will be able to defeat them if we are exhausted. ”

"Hmm"

Li Yuanhao pondered for a moment and said, "If I feint to attack Jingyuan Road and mobilize the help of Huanqing Road, then do you think where should my main force attack?" ”

Zhang Yuan, Yeli Wangrong and others glanced at each other, and almost said in unison: "Dingbian Army, Security Army!" ”

The security army and the Dingbian army are located in the middle of the Yanyan Road and the Huanqing Road, if the Song army judges that the main force of the Western Xia is going to attack the Jingyuan Road, then the soldiers and horses of the Huanqing Road will definitely rush to the aid as soon as possible, as Zhang Yuan said, cut off the retreat of Yuan Hao, come to a two-sided attack, close the door and fight the dog.

At this time, the Huanqing Road must be empty, and the border army and the security army will bear the brunt. This place can shield Yanzhou to the east, communicate Huanqing Road to the west, and connect with Yanzhou and Youzhou in Western Xia to the north.

If the Western Xia army can occupy here, it can not only lay nails in the Song army's defense line and break through the opponent's defense line step by step, but also threaten the flank of Yanzhou, and can also ensure its own retreat when the main force attacks Yanzhou in separate ways, and protect Yanzhou and Youzhou in their own country.

The most important thing is that Yan Yan Road has been made into a turtle shell by Fan Zhongyan, and it is definitely not wise to rush to the turtle shell, once the security army and the Dingbian army are attacked, then Yan Yanlu's side will definitely rush to help.

At that time, the entire battlefield will be mobilized, and maybe Li Yuanhao may take advantage of the main force of Yan Yan Road to rush to the side of the security army, and sneak attack the turtle shell that touched Yan Yan Road.

"Yes, this is it."

Li Yuanhao's eyes were deep, he looked at the map on the side and said: "Since the Song army wants to build fortresses everywhere, then I will attack everywhere so that they can't parry." ”

The sky slowly darkened, the howling northwest wind bent the grass, and more than ten days later, in early February, the Western Xia launched an attack.

At this moment, the Songxia border is hundreds of kilometers long, and the population is already sparse.

On the vast wasteland north of Shunning Village of the Security Army, the street buildings left behind by the original mutual market have been decayed and dilapidated, and it was originally a long street built on the grassland, but now the wooden houses are falling apart and collapsing, and only the shop flags are still fluttering in the wind.

Four months ago, the Song people moved away from the Han people who operated the mutual market here, and after the Han people were gone, the Dang Xiang and Qiang people who came to do business naturally could not stay, and it became an empty street.

Li Yuanhao personally led an army of 30,000 and galloped his war horses, like a torrent, and appeared on the wilderness grassland north of Shunning Village.

He looked around, his eyes fixed on the ruined market.

At that time, Zhao Guangyi, Taizong of the Song Dynasty, and Zhao Huan of Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty wanted to use the Western Xia to contain the Liao State, so they not only rewarded Li Deming and Li Yuanhao father and son, so that they could establish a country and call themselves kings, but also gave a lot of preferential treatments, such as the Song and Xia mutual markets.

But as Li Yuanhao insisted on establishing the country and becoming emperor, the border areas of Song and Xia became barren.

Originally, more than a dozen markets on the border were forcibly closed by the Song army, who took the Han people away and forbade Song merchants to sell tea, rice and wheat, porcelain, lacquerware, silk, incense, etc.

I don't know what the situation was at that time, anyway, tea seemed to be addictive, not only the Song people liked to drink, but also the surrounding countries liked it, and even exported overseas, becoming the existence of porcelain in the Song Dynasty's foreign trade.

The Tangut people, on the other hand, often exchanged salt, horses, cattle, sheep, camels, felt blankets, beeswax, and bupleurum, musk, and safflower.

Strictly speaking, this is mutually beneficial for the two countries, after all, the Song Dynasty only had the source of horses in Tubo and Western Xia, although there was also a mutual market in Liao, but Liao banned the sale of horses to the south, and even issued a ban on "every person who captures a horse out of the realm is killed, far worthy of his family".

Therefore, Li Yuanhao's claim to be emperor and his friendship with the Song State are not a good thing for both sides, whether they are officials or ordinary people. And the harm to the Western Xia is far from the harm to the Song State.

Because the Great Song Dynasty could continue to trade and exchange horses in Tubo, although it was much less than before, there was still a source.

In addition to the lack of tea to drink, the things produced in the Western Xia could not be sold, and the economy collapsed, which was bound to cause a serious burden in the country.

For this reason, many people oppose Li Yuanhao.

However, Li Yuanhao still became the emperor, because he firmly believed that he would be able to defeat the Great Song Dynasty and snatch the Shaanxi Road of the Great Song Dynasty.

Once he occupied Shaanxi, the entire Qinfeng Road and Shaanxi Road were in his hands, the territory was doubled, and with the manpower and material resources of the Song State, he did not believe that the harm of canceling the mutual market could have any impact on him.

Therefore, Li Yuanhao just glanced at the dilapidated mutual market, and then waved his hand and said: "Continue to march, our time is only one day, and the Song army will find us one day!" ”

"Let's go!"

Behind him, he will wave the big knife in his hand and shout.

Thousands of troops and horses poured into the territory of the Song Dynasty like a tide.

Li Yuanhao's internal should have figured out the situation of the nearby Song army's beacon tower.

He had already sent assassins to the bottom of the beacon in the middle of the night and assassinate the people inside.

Due to the long distance, the Song army changed its guard every three days.

However, the security army and the area around the border have long been flooded by Fan Zhong, and a large number of fortresses have been built.

There are the security army to govern the village, there is Jintang City, there are Huaiwei Fort, Weibian Fort, Jiuyang Fort, Dingbian Village, Donggu Village, White Leopard City, etc., speaking of which White Leopard City was built by Li Yuanhao in the first year of Jingyou.

At that time, Li Yuanhao suddenly invaded the Song realm, occupied this place, and built a city here, and it didn't take long for the Song army to react and drive him out, and the city stayed.

In this way, even if they assassinate the soldiers of the beacon tower on the front line, they will soon be discovered by the beacon soldiers behind them within a day.

Even if you continue to send someone to assassinate, it will not only be easy to expose, but also alert the other party.

So there is really not much time left for Li Yuanhao.

At this time, Yanzhou.

In Fan Zhongyan's mansion, he had just received news that the Western Xia army was attacking the Zhenrong army on Jingyuan Road.

A large number of Western Xia troops were divided into several groups of soldiers and horses and attacked several border state capitals such as Huaide, Zhenrong, Xi'an, and Huizhou, and dozens of fortresses and fortresses in the border area were attacked.

According to the Tanmalai report, the enemy was either hundreds, or thousands, and the most was four or five thousand cavalry, which directly attacked the outside of the Zhenrong army, and the two sides fought fiercely.

Seeing this information, Fan Zhongyan quickly judged that this should be Li Yuanhao's bluff.

If Li Yuanhao really wanted to attack Jingyuan Road, it would be impossible to divide his troops to attack the villages, but concentrate his forces on a surprise attack.

The other party did this, in addition to setting up a suspicious formation, mainly because he did not want the Song army to discover the other party's true intentions and the total number of troops.

"Although Yuan Hao has the heart to annex the northwest, his biggest flaw is that he has few troops, and the troops that can be mobilized by the Communist Party are only 100,000, while my Great Song has 400,000, which is bound to make it difficult for him to break through."

Fan Zhongyan groaned: "However, the so-called "preparation before is the back, preparation is the front widow, preparation is the right widow, preparation is the left widow, everything is prepared, everything is all." If we take the defense everywhere, we will give him every opportunity to take advantage of it, and he wants to mobilize our army in this way. ”

Privy envoy Wang Deyong said: "Yes, in the old man's opinion, the main force of Yuan Hao must be on Huanqing Road at this time. He felt that Chong Shiheng's side might rush to the aid of Jingyuan Road, once this was the case, Huanqing Road would be empty, and it would be the time for Yuan Hao to take advantage of the void. ”

"Then should we immediately send someone to inform General Chong's side and ask him not to send troops to help Jingyuan Road?"

Linfu Road Soldiers and Horses Wang Zhongbao said.

"Nope."

After Fan Zhongyan groaned slightly, he shook his head and said, "Let him go, only in this way will Yuan Hao think that we have been fooled." ”

"What do you mean?"

The crowd was puzzled.

Fan Zhongyan drew a circle around Huanqing Road on the map and said: "As I said just now, Yuan Hao has few soldiers, so he can only attack the east and the west. Wang Yan and Ge Huaimin were suddenly attacked, they will definitely report it to me immediately, if I don't send someone, Yuan Hao will definitely know that I have guessed his intentions, what do you say he will do? ”

"Withdraw immediately?"

Everyone could guess in an instant.

"Yes, I thought this was an opportunity to defeat Yuan Hao, this thief understands that I already know his plan, so next time it will be more cautious and more difficult to guard against. It's better to pretend to be fooled and lure it deep into the hinterland to catch turtles in an urn. ”

Fan Zhongyan looked at Huanqing Road and said with a decisive word: "And this urn is the Dingbian Army and the Security Army." This turtle is naturally Yuan Hao. ”

Li Yuanhao's plan was seen at a glance!

(End of chapter)