37. External and Internal Troubles (I)

There were secret agents on both sides of the north and south, so Jin Guoba had already learned about the implementation of the new law in the Southern Song Dynasty. {Bubble.} Book. It's small. Say. However, as soon as it was opened, the ministers of the Jin State, including the emperor Wanyan Yong, did not think so, because they all knew the process of Xining's change in the Southern Song Dynasty back then, and thought that this time the Southern Song Dynasty's change was just the same as last time, and in the end, there was more internal friction. But later, according to the report of the spies, the Southern Song Dynasty tried the new law for a year and achieved good results.

And after the beginning of the year, I heard that the Southern Song Dynasty had begun to reform the military system again, and Dajin was a little panicked at this time. The ministers of the Jin State also knew that the current emperor Zhao Chen of the Southern Song Dynasty was obviously not comparable to the previous emperors, and he was a person with a tougher attitude towards Dajin. And it is assisted by a famous general like Yang Yan who is good at using soldiers. If the Southern Song Dynasty reform is successful again, it will inevitably bring abundant treasury. Once the military system is reformed again and again, an elite soldier like the Yuejia army back then will be greatly disadvantageous to the Jin State, so we must think of ways to stop it.

Just after the New Year, Wan Yan Yong immediately sent an envoy to the Western Xia Kingdom, asking the Western Xia to send troops to attack the northwest border of the Southern Song Dynasty. And provided some weapons and materials to the Western Xia, and at the same time promised that if the Southern Song Dynasty sent troops, then when necessary, the Jin State would also send troops to help.

Wan Yan Yong's wishful thinking was to let the Western Xia send troops to harass the borders of the Southern Song Dynasty, so that the Southern Song Dynasty would be exhausted and consume the national strength of the Southern Song Dynasty. And after more than a year of recuperation, the national strength of the Jin State has also recovered, although it is not enough to support a full-scale battlefield, but it is still possible to create some border conflicts and fight a few limited local wars.

Therefore, it also increased the garrison on the Song-Jin border, on the one hand, to contain the forces of the Southern Song Dynasty, so that the Southern Song Dynasty could not fully cope with the invasion of the Western Xia, and on the other hand, if the Western Xia army could win in the northwest, the Jin State could also take the opportunity to send troops immediately, although it was temporarily impossible to fully conquer the south, but to seize some of the land of the Southern Song Dynasty, or force the Southern Song Dynasty to re-sign the peace treaty, and pay more tribute to the Jin State. Even if the Western Xia army failed, it would consume the national strength of the Southern Song Dynasty, and at the same time, the Jin state could maintain sufficient interference ability to maneuver around to protect the interests of its own vassal states.

After receiving the letter of state from the Jin State, the Western Xia Emperor Li Renxiao also immediately gathered ministers to discuss countermeasures. Although Li Renxiao can also guess the intentions of the Jin State, but the Western Xia was originally a vassal of the Jin State, and now Li Renxiao also needs to use the Jin State to restrain the Prime Minister Ren Dejing, the last time the Jin State rejected Ren Dejing's thanks, which made Ren Dejing's prestige plummet, and also made Li Renxiao feel a lot more relieved, and he was also very grateful to the Jin State, so although Li Renxiao did not like to use troops, he also knew that this time he must not refuse the request of the Jin State.

The ministers of the court also understood this truth, so they also persuaded Li Renxiao to agree to Jin Guo's request, even if it was for show. And some of the generals in the Western Xia Kingdom are also tired of this idle life, and they all feel that now is an opportunity to reorganize the national prestige of the Western Xia, find the feeling of the era of Emperor Jingzong Li Yuanhao, and also make themselves establish military merits, increase officials and knights, and also advocate sending troops to attack the Southern Song Dynasty.

Seeing the situation, Li Renxiao also agreed to the envoy of the Jin State.

The failure of the Song attack two years ago, and the rejection of the letter to the Jin State last year, and the two setbacks, also greatly reduced the power and influence of the state minister Ren Dejing, so Ren Dejing only remained silent about the decision made by Li Renxiao, and did not raise any objections.

Compared with the Song, Jin, Liao and other countries, although the Western Xia is only a small country, but it is a country with a strong army, the implementation of the national military system, in the Jingzong Emperor Li Yuanhao time, the country maintains 300,000 regular troops, and once the war really starts, nearly 700,000 troops can be mobilized. Although the current strength of the Western Xia is not as good as before, it is not difficult to recruit four or five hundred thousand troops in the country. It can be said that purely in terms of military strength, Western Xia may not be much worse than Song and Jin.

It's just that before that, more than half of the country's troops were controlled by the Guoqi Ren Dejing, and the emperor Li Renxiao was able to control less than 150,000 troops. But now that Ren Dejing's prestige has plummeted, some military generals have immediately turned their rudder and turned to the emperor's side one after another, which has also made Li Renxiao's ability to control more than 200,000 troops.

This unexpected result made Li Renxiao also feel that this time it was not a bad thing to send troops to attack the Song Dynasty, at least he could use this opportunity to gradually cut Ren Dejing's military power and regain control of the whole country's power. Therefore, he ordered the generals Wei Ming Jizhong and Gao Shandu, each leading 50,000 troops, to attack Lanzhou and Xinhui Prefecture in the Southern Song Dynasty respectively. He also ordered the privy envoy to take charge of the logistics of the army's grain and grass.

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"On February 26, the western thieves divided their troops into two routes, attacked Jingyu Pass, Dongmen Pass and other places in Lanzhou, burned and plundered. More than 600 houses were burned, more than 1,000 civilians were killed, and 500 people were taken captive. Zhou Hongming, commander of the Lanzhou garrison, led an army of 2,000 and fought fiercely with the western thieves in the suburbs of Xinhe Village on the Yellow River in Jingyuguan. Yang Changpeng, the commander of the capital, led 5,000 men to help, but the thieves still retreated. More than 300 people were beheaded, and 20 horses were seized. ”

"On March 1, the western thieves attacked Lintan Fort in Jishi Prefecture and Xinquan City in Xinhui Prefecture, and our army was too late to save them. More than 400 houses were burned, more than 1,500 civilians were killed, and 1,000 people were taken captive. ”

"On March 4, the western thieves re-attacked Xinhui Prefecture, and the Xinhui Prefecture garrison commanded Liu Dapeng, led 2,000 troops to meet the battle, and was defeated, losing 600 soldiers."

"On March 6, 5,000 thieves attacked Xiguanbao in Lanzhou. More than 500 houses were burned, more than 1,000 civilians were killed, and 1,800 people were taken captive. ”

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At the end of February, at the beginning of March, the emergencies from the northwest border suddenly flew to Jiankang like snowflakes. Because they are thousands of miles apart, by the time Jiankang receives the emergency, it will be at least ten days later.

Western Xia suddenly sent troops and repeatedly attacked the northwest border of the Great Song Dynasty, and in connection with the fact that at the beginning of the year, the Jin State also increased its army on the Song and Jin borders, which also made the Jiankang court very shocked.

Although the Great Song Dynasty tried out the new law in the Six Roads last year, they all achieved certain results, and the harvest of the whole country was very good, and the treasury also accumulated some foundation, and there were tariff revenues from the Rongchang and Shibo Divisions, which also greatly reduced the pressure on the imperial court's finances. In time, the Great Song Dynasty will definitely be able to become rich, but now after all, the time is too short, and the current Great Song Dynasty is still in the time of recuperation, and it is still difficult to take on a full-scale war. Not to mention the joint attack of the Jin State and the Western Xia.

Therefore, at the court meeting, the ministers also had different opinions, some advocated increasing troops in Sichuan to give the Western Xia a head-on blow, some advocated strictly guarding the border, so that the Western Xia retreated in vain, and some advocated immediately sending envoys to the Western Xia to make peace, and perhaps give the Western Xia some coins every year to seek peace on the border, and some even advocated that the Western Xia was a vassal state of the Jin State, so it should immediately renegotiate with the Jin State and give them more coins, which can not only prevent the Jin State from taking the opportunity to attack, but also allow the Jin State to come forward and let the Western Xia withdraw its troops and so on.

At this time, the two privy envoys Han Yanzhi, Liu Hui and Yang Yan went separately to inspect the two Huai, and prepared to redeploy the imperial garrison of the two Huai, all of which were not in the court, and other ministers such as Chen Junqing and Zhao Ruyu were not very proficient in military affairs, and Liang Kejia and Hong Shi would only shout peace, ask Zhao Chen not to say anything, not to reward military merits, etc., so they discussed for several days, but they couldn't come up with an effective way. Zhao Chen had no choice but to issue an edict to urgently transfer Han Yanzhi, Liu Heng and Yang Yan to put down the affairs in their hands and return to Jiankang to discuss countermeasures.

And the more chaotic it is, the more people add to the chaos, and just when the northwest is constantly sending out urgent complaints, there are also problems in the implementation of the new law.

Zhao Chen is also full of confidence and intends to continue to implement the new law, and according to the results of previous discussions, the new law will continue to be implemented on the sixth road in Lianghuai, Liangzhejiang, and Liangjiang, and the Shecang Law, the Jingjie Law, the Exemption Law, and the Farmland Water Conservancy Law will all be implemented in other places. Therefore, after the beginning of the year, Zhao Chen appointed Fan Chengda as the envoy of Guangnan East Road and Guangnan West Road; Zhang Xiaoxiang was the envoy of Fujian Road, Wei Qi was the envoy of Jinghu South Road, and Li Yanying was the envoy of Jinghu North Road, and various new laws were implemented in these five roads.

It has been less than three months, and only Liangguang is in a slightly better situation, and the local officials of Lianghu Road and Fujian Road have spoken to the imperial court, saying that the new law is inconvenient and asking the imperial court to stop implementing the new law. Among them, Jinghu South Road was the most oppositional, and the local officials of the seven states and two armies of the whole road had a total of nine counties, and the local officials of seven counties jointly wrote to the imperial court, requesting the repeal of the new law.

And I don't know if it was influenced by these three roads, the new law was originally implemented well in the east and west roads of Zhejiang, and the east and west roads of Jiangnan, and many local officials also wrote to the imperial court, claiming that the new law was inconvenient, disturbing the people and misleading the country, and asking the court to abolish the new law. There is only two Huai Road and there is no movement for the time being.

After the local news reached Jiankang, some officials in the court who had been opposed to the new law immediately came to the spirit and wrote to the emperor one after another, saying that the new law was misleading the country and asking the court to stop the new law immediately. At the same time, all officials involved in the implementation of the new law, both locally and in the court, including Yang Yan and Yue Lin, who is now the ruler of the country, were impeached. At the same time, some people also gave full play to their associations, and said that the Jin State increased its troops on the border and the Western Xia attacked the northwest of the Great Song Dynasty, all of which were caused by the new law. The imperial envoy Zhang Dechen even sent a letter to the Golden Palace, guaranteeing that if the imperial court could repeal the new law, it would be guaranteed that within a month, both Jin and Western Xia would withdraw their troops.

The entire Great Song Dynasty seems to have fallen into internal and external troubles all of a sudden. Even Chen Junqing and Zhao Ruyu were a little helpless. Even Zhao Chen was a little breathless at this time, and he didn't know what to do, only then did he know that he wanted to be a saint and a king, but it turned out that it was so difficult to compete.