Zhao Kai's idea is right, the army under the command of Bai Sheng really does not have any offensive ability, it does not even have the minimum supply of grain and grass, and it cannot eat the enemy, and it is starving to death, how can it form combat effectiveness?

So when Bai Sheng took him to the foot of Yanzhou City and kicked the city in a hanging basket hanging from the city, a sarcastic smile appeared on his face.

Although Bai Sheng has already explained, saying that he came to Yanzhou this time not to fight against the Song army but to attack Western Xia, he still doesn't believe it, you don't even have the ability to fight Yanzhou, what are you fighting Western Xia?

"Don't laugh, you have to remember that after entering the city, I am Di Lie, otherwise don't blame me for being unkind to you. ”

Bai Sheng could only threaten his brother-in-law who was kept in the dark, lest he make any radical moves that would cause the misunderstanding of the Seed Master Dao, and once the Seed Master Dao misunderstood him, there would be bloodshed, and he didn't want bloodshed to happen here.

Although he did it without blood when he took Hangu Pass a few days ago, it was impossible to take Yanzhou without blood, so he didn't plan to take Yanzhou at all, but planned to have a showdown with the Seed Master Dao in a certain secrecy environment.

Everything was as he expected, he really couldn't take Yanzhou without blood, because Yanzhou's strength was too strong, not only in the army and the people, but also in the generals.

Since the war with Western Xia during the Song Renzong period, after more than 70 years of war, Yanzhou has never been lost. Even if Yuan Hao, the founding emperor of Western Xia, poured his troops into attack that time, in the end, he only defeated the Song army by encircling the point and sending reinforcements, but he was never able to gnaw the hard bone of Yanzhou.

And that time, the guards of Yanzhou were Chong Ge and Di Qing.

Since Wang Anshi's reform, the impact on the Western Army of the Great Song Dynasty has been the most significant.

Because of the needs of the Xia War, in the independent system of the Western Army of the Great Song Dynasty, the embarrassing situation of "soldiers do not know generals, generals do not know soldiers, and military generals have no military power and command rights" has been changed, and it has become a system in which military generals take charge of the border defense of a state.

The seed master guards Yanzhou, Zhe Keshi guards Huanzhou, and the seed master guards Weizhou.

In a state city, the defender has the most power, and has the authority to recruit, train, raise troops, and temporarily dispose of small-scale battles. This has greatly improved the armed strength of these important border towns.

In the city of Yanzhou, the cultivator is the first brother who is the best one, although there are also some civilian officials under him who are similar to the nature of the supervising army, but as long as the cultivator does not rebel, these civil officials are the ears of the deaf - ornaments.

As a civil official, of course, there are people who know Zhao Kai, and when he saw that there was a king of Yun among the two enemy envoys under the city, he immediately exclaimed.

So the master did not choose to use force in the city, but invited Toutuo and King Yun to the Jingluo Mansion court.

In the public court, Bai Sheng handed over a "letter of introduction" that Xiao Rang had just ordered to fill out yesterday to the planter, and the "letter of introduction" was the secret decree covered with the jade seal.

After seeing it, the seed master couldn't help but be moved, and said, "It turns out that you are Di Lie?

Today's Seed Master Dao is already a veteran who is over the age of six, with wrinkles like knives and axes on his face. Therefore, people who respect him will call him "the old man who is a little bit old".

And the "small breed of Jing and Xianggong" who guards Weizhou is his younger brother, not a junior.

Chong Shiheng, the grandfather of the seed master, and Di Qing, Di Lie's grandfather, can be regarded as "old colleagues", and the two belong to Fan Zhongyan's generals, but at that time, Chong Shiheng was already a famous veteran, and Di Qing was a fledgling general.

The second-generation leader of the Chongjia Army is Chong Ge, and he has a good relationship with Di Lie's father Di Yong, and has fought side by side in the Northwest Battlefield, so the two families of Chong Di can be regarded as friends of the generals.

Even the seed master Dao himself is familiar with Di Yong, so he can't help but have mixed feelings when he sees the famous family of "Di Lie".

Since it is a world friend, and there is the emperor's secret intendent, plus the entourage is pointed out by the civil official as the king of Yun, then it cannot be treated as an enemy army, and the master hurriedly ordered someone to watch the seat.

Bai Sheng greeted the seed master and sat in the middle of the public hall with Zhao Kai.

Both sides of the public hall were full of civil ministers and military generals, and only one person in the full seat stared at Bai Sheng for a while, and said in his heart, Is this Toutuo Di Lie? Why don't I look a little like it? It's just that Toutuo's long hair hangs down and covers half of his temples, and he can't confirm this suspicion by just his mouth, nose, eyebrows, and eyes.

Bai Sheng also noticed the existence of this person, and saw that this was an old man about fifty years old, with a righteous face, a beard under his chin, six feet tall, a straight body, and a bright eye, but he was a stranger he had never met.

simply didn't look at him, and just waited for the showdown to ask what was going on.

After the two sides sat down, the seed master Dao asked the most important thing: "How could Brother Di Shi and King Yun command the Tian Tiger Thief Army to come?"

Bai Sheng stopped Zhao Kai, who wanted to answer, with his eyes, and replied: "This is a top-secret military plane set by the saint, and there are inevitably more people in the court, general." ”

The meaning of this is very famous, that is, to let the seed master retreat left and right.

The martial arts of the Taoist family are extraordinary, and there are many strong martial arts people on the left and right, who are not afraid of any accidents, and immediately waved off most of the civil and military generals, leaving only four people to sit on either side of him, including the fifty-year-old man who stared at Bai Sheng non-stop.

The seed master said: "These are all my cronies and cadres......

As he spoke, he pointed to the fifty-year-old man: "This is Wang Jin, the head of the former 800,000 forbidden army." ”

He pointed to a general who was nearly thirty years old next to Wang Jin: "This is my close disciple Han Shizhong." ”

He pointed to the two opposites Wang Jin and Han Shizhong: "This is Shangguan Jiannan, the commander of my guards, and this is Yang Keshi, the first fierce general in Yanzhou, everyone is not an outsider, just say what Brother Di Shishi has to say." ”

Only then did Bai Sheng know that it was Shi Jin's master Wang Jin who was staring at him all the time, and he thought that this Wang Jin had probably seen Di Lie in the capital, so he had some doubts about me, and put this matter aside at the moment, and said:

"The 20,000 infantry army outside is actually incorporated by me in the Hangu Ancient Road, and this time I came to Yanzhou by the secret order of the official family, in order to surprise attack Western Xia and capture Hengshan!"

As soon as he said this, the faces of several people present became ugly, not for anything else, just because Bai Sheng's words were too outrageous.

Even the Seed Master Dao was stunned and said:

"Brother Di Shi, are you joking? My Great Song Dynasty border army and the Western Xia enemy army have been in a stalemate for decades, during which there is no lack of precedents for 100,000 troops to attack Hengshan, and each time they have returned in vain, and now how can you capture Hengshan with only your 20,000 foot soldiers?"

Hengshan is north of Yeonju. With Guqiao Mountain as the main peak, it is 1,200 feet above the ground, connected with the Caoliang Mountain of Ningtiaoliang, connecting the mountains of Ningxia, spanning more than 1,000 miles.

The situation of Qiaoshan is dangerous, there are many state troops distributed in the territory, and Hengshan in the Song population does not refer to the entire Qiaoshan area, but only to the northern part of Qiaoshan.

The land of Hengshan was extremely important to the Western Xia, and the Xia people relied on it for their livelihood, and the Song people called it the right arm of the Western Xia. It is extremely important because:

First, Hengshan is suitable for agriculture and animal husbandry, not only producing good horses, but also one of the important grain producing areas in Western Xia;

Second, the production of salt iron. The tea mountains in the eastern part of Hengshan not only produced salt but also produced iron, which guaranteed the lifeblood of the war in Western Xia;

Third, the Hengshan Qiang soldiers were brave and good at fighting, and they were the crown of the Western Xia armies. The famous Bubazi refers to the Qiang soldiers here. Yuan Hao once relied on this strong team to defeat the Song army repeatedly;

Fourth, the terrain is dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack. The Western Xia military took advantage of the dangerous terrain in this area to build many fortresses, as early as the Song Renzong era, there were more than 300 fortresses, and now it has increased to more than 1,000!

In the past, the Song army attacked Hengshan with 100,000 people, but once they entered the control area of Xixia Fort, they couldn't even see the opponent's figures, and they were already covered with corpses, and they couldn't fight at all.

Later, Di Qing and Chong Ge implemented the strategy left by Fan Zhongyan and Chong Shiheng - under the escort of hundreds of thousands of troops, they built a military village in the south of Hengshan, built a village into Hengshan, and defended it after building a village, intending to gradually encroach on Hengshan.

Of course, the Western Xia side refused to allow the Great Song army to build houses and cities in the mountains, and whenever the Song army was under construction, it would send the Divine Arm Bow Corps and the Foot Guards to attack and obstruct it, and it can be said that every city and village of the Great Song Dynasty in the mountains were built with the blood and flesh of soldiers on both sides.

It stands to reason that if this step-by-step method can continue, then sooner or later the Great Song Dynasty will be able to eat away from Hengshan, but the problem is that there are too many areas in the mountains that cannot find water sources, and where there is no water source, cities cannot be built, and building them is also a dead city.

Therefore, the final outcome was that the Great Song Dynasty occupied three-tenths of Hengshan, and the Western Xia occupied seven-tenths of Hengshan, and the two sides were in a stalemate in Hengshan.

Today you occupy a fortress for me, tomorrow I will take back a military village, the years have passed in this stalemate for decades, even if the Great Song Dynasty has several five-way expeditions in the process, but has not been able to seize the seven-tenths of the Hengshan in his hands.

It's such a Hengshan, and you "Di Lie" actually claim to take 20,000 peasant troops who lack armor to fight, isn't this a joke?

Everyone, including the seed master Dao, scoffed at Bai Sheng's statement, that is, Zhao Kai laughed, and said in his heart that you Bai Sheng This is no longer a paper talk, but a daydream.

In front of everyone's ridicule or disdain, Bai Sheng was calm as usual, and said, "There is no joke in the next place, just follow my strategy, and Hengshan is just around the corner." ”