Since the Great Song Dynasty began its all-out Northern Expedition, in more than a month, no small victories have been achieved on all fronts. (Q hand-hitting)

On the northwest front, the Song army obtained a large area of land in the Guanzhong region by Jingjing, not only Fengxiang Road and Qingyuan Road were basically recovered by the Song army, leaving only the area around Jingzhaofu, and also launched an operation at the northern end of the Jin State, and captured the three places of Xuzhou, Baode Prefecture and Kelanzhou, and the land of the sixteen states of Yanyun that the Great Song Dynasty had always dreamed of in the past was also within reach, and it can be said that it was a brilliant victory

On the front line of the Central Plains, the results of the Song army's military campaign to recover Kaifeng Prefecture were not inferior to those in the Guanzhong region.

In the middle battle, Yang Yan commanded the Song army to fight two fierce battles with the main force of the Jin army led by the monk Wanyan Chen, and won two great victories in the Battle of Xiaoshang River and the Battle of Chenzhou, which not only severely damaged the main force of the Jin army, but also successfully captured Xuzhou and Chenzhou, thus also opening the door to Kaifeng Mansion.

Under the command of Gao Zhen, although the Western Route Army had not experienced the great battles of Xiaoshanghe and Chenzhou, it was also steady and steady, advancing layer by layer, until it reached the city of Ruzhou. After a fierce siege battle, Ruzhou was finally captured. Not only opened up the flank of the attack on Kaifeng Mansion, but also took advantage of the victory to march and take Junzhou, and defeated Zhongmu County in the territory of Kaifeng Mansion, becoming the first man in the Song army to enter the Kaifeng Prefecture area.

However, compared with the middle and western routes, the Cao Xun division of the Eastern Route Army, which was responsible for attacking Maozhou, did not make much progress, and although it also fought fiercely with the Jin army many times, it hardly achieved any effective results. This is because although there are not many defenders in Maozhou, but in the west of Maozhou, it is the Jin army stationed in Shidingyue in Shandong, and frequently mobilizes men and horses to attack Suzhou, Sizhou and other places of the Song army, which involves a great part of Cao Xun's energy, so that the Song army on the east road is completely unable to attack Maozhou with all its strength, so the battle has been going on for a month, and the Song army has no other harvest except for the two counties of Chengfu and Yongcheng in Haozhou.

When complaining, this is also related to Yang Yan's arrangement. In Yang Yan's plan, the focus of the attack on Kaifeng Mansion was on the middle and west roads, and the east road was not the focus of Yang Yan's attack because of the strength of Shandong, and Cao Xun's army was arranged here, one role was to contain the defenders of Maozhou, and on the other hand, it was also to block the Jin army in Shandong, so that they could not easily assist Kaifeng Mansion.

Therefore, before attacking Kaifeng Mansion, when assigning tasks, Yang Yan also made a special trip to tell Cao Xun that if it is desirable, take it, if it is not desirable, don't do it brutally, as long as you can block the Jin army in Shandong, it will be a great achievement, and at the same time, it will also ensure that Cao Xun will have the opportunity to establish meritorious service in the future.

Yang Yan's arrangement, Cao Xun naturally understood, and he had no complaints about this side cover task, but in Cao Xun's heart, he didn't want to make a little more achievements on the basis of completing the task.

Because although Cao Xun knew that the situation he faced on the East Road was difficult from the beginning, the troops under his command were not a patchwork rabble. On the east road of Kaifeng Prefecture, the three imperial garrisons of Guangzhou, Haozhou, and Xuyi were concentrated, plus a part of the forbidden army and the local army, with a total strength of more than 100,000, and the imperial garrison of Guangzhou was under the control of Liu Fuwu, and the imperial garrison of Haozhou was under the control of Zhang Shiyan, who were all excellent generals in the younger generation of the Great Song Dynasty military. The strength of the soldiers and horses and the allocation of people are quite strong. The Jin army only had 30,000 troops in Maozhou, and only about 50,000 troops could be drawn out on the Shandong front, so even in the face of the two lines of troops of the Jin State, Cao Xun was confident that he could successfully capture Maozhou, and also opened a gap for the Song army to attack Kaifeng Mansion on the eastern front.

However, the course of the war was somewhat unexpected by Cao Xun, due to the foreign aid from the Shandong front, Shang Jingliang, the defender of the Jin army in Maozhou, did not take the initiative to attack like the other three counties, but abandoned all the counties except Haozhou City, and left all the men and horses in Haozhou City, never distracting his troops.

Therefore, when Cao Xun led the army to attack Maozhou, he also encountered great difficulties and repeatedly attacked him. Moreover, Shi Dingyue, who was guarding Shandong, took advantage of Cao Xun's attack on Maozhou, sent troops from Xuzhou, and frequently attacked Cao Xun's flank, and when Cao Xun led the army to rescue, Shi Dingyue immediately withdrew his troops back to Xuzhou, and never fought hard with Cao Xun.

After Shang Jingliang saw Cao Xun's army withdraw, he attacked from Haozhou and attacked other county towns captured by the Song army. Because of the need to ensure the strength of the main battlefield, the Song army only left a small number of troops to garrison in each captured county, which also gave the Jin army an opportunity to concentrate its forces and break through one by one. When Cao Xun led the army back to help, Shang Jingliang immediately abandoned those county towns and withdrew to garrison in Haozhou.

Although Cao Xun also left enough troops in some important passes, it was impossible to station troops in all places, and the terrain around Maozhou, Suzhou, and Xuzhou was flat, and there were basically no dangerous roads to defend, and the troops of the surprise attack could completely bypass the strongholds guarded by the Song army and reach their own goals. Therefore, this tactic also made Cao Xun tired and had a headache. After repeatedly pulling the position for nearly a month, the Song army was also tired and physically and mentally exhausted.

Fortunately, Cao Xun is not the kind of person who blindly does things, and Yang Yan has always kept his advice to heart, so seeing that the situation is not good, he immediately withdrew the army to Linli County in Suzhou and stationed it for temporary repairs.

In fact, fortunately, Cao Xun was able to keep a cool head at this time, so that the Song army escaped a defeat. Because at this time, Shi Dingyue and Shang Jingliang both sensed that Song Jun was tired by himself, so the two were planning to find an appropriate time to concentrate their forces and deal a heavy blow to Song Jun. However, Cao Xun withdrew in time, which also made the Jin army lose the opportunity. After the Song army retreated to Suzhou, they did not dare to attack easily, so they had to guard their respective stations and wait for the next opportunity.

However, although Cao Xun withdrew his troops, he was always unwilling in his heart, and when he learned that the Song army had won major victories on both the west and middle roads, he couldn't sit still. Of course, he would not be jealous of the results of Yang Yan and Gao Zhen, and he would not complain that Yang Yan threw such a hot potato to himself at the beginning, but watching the meritorious service of his two friends, he still achieved nothing, and he would inevitably feel a little unhappy.

Moreover, after the generals of the Eastern Route Army learned of the results of the other two routes, they were all unable to hold their breath, and they came to Cao Xun to ask for battle, demanding that troops be sent to attack Bozhou immediately. In fact, Cao Xun didn't want to send troops, but he couldn't think of a way to deal with this harassment tactic against the Jin army, and even if he sent troops again, the result would not be better.

Therefore, Cao Xun was also in a dilemma, for a few days, he recruited Liu Fuwu, Zhang Shiyan, Guo Zhen and several other imperial garrisons to control and discuss how to send troops to capture Haozhou, although everyone thought of some methods, but they were not satisfactory, so they couldn't come up with a good plan, and a few people could only sit still, staring at each other, and there was nothing to do. Cao Xun couldn't help but think that it would be good if Yang Yan was here, with his resourcefulness, he would definitely be able to come up with a countermeasure. It's a pity that now we can only rely on ourselves here.

At this moment, the errand officer on duty suddenly walked into the lobby and said, "Report to the chief manager, Yang Xuanfu sent someone to send a letter to the chief manager." ”

Cao Xun was stunned for a moment, and hurriedly said: "Where is the person who delivered the letter?" Please bring it in. Several other people also came to the spirit, thinking in their hearts, at this time, what happened to Yang Yan sending the letter, could it be that he was urging himself to march?

After a while, the messenger came in and handed the letter in. And said: "Fu Shuai has a word, please take charge of Cao in a hurry and act according to the letter, and the official document is on the villain." ”

Cao Xun took the letter, opened it, and couldn't help but look happy, and said to the messenger: "Okay, you wait a while, I will write a reply immediately, and I will definitely act according to what the letter says." ”

After the messenger left, Cao Xun immediately said to the other three: "The three are all in charge, you go back to rectify the people now, we are about to send troops." ”

The three of them were also a little stunned, and Liu Fuwu said: "Boss, are we going to attack Haozhou again?" ”

Cao Xun smiled and said, "No, Yang Xuanfu has an order, let us attack Pizhou and capture Shandong." ”

It turned out that the four counties on the periphery of Kaifeng Mansion were broken by the Song army by three of them, and the southwest two sides of Kaifeng Mansion were completely exposed to the Song army by the Song army, and the Song army also formed a semi-encirclement situation on Kaifeng Mansion. In this case, the strategic role of the state has been greatly reduced. There is no need to throw in a large army to attack the state.

Now it is necessary to guard against the fact that the Jin army in Shandong will come to support Kaifeng Mansion, so Yang Yancai ordered Cao Xun to give up attacking Maozhou and go directly to capture Shandong. On the one hand, it is to contain the Jin army in Shandong, on the other hand, if the Shandong region is still in the hands of the Jin army, it will always be a huge threat to Kaifeng Mansion, even if the Song army recovers Kaifeng Mansion, it is not safe. At the very beginning, Yang Yan assigned such a strong force to Cao Xun, and it was precisely because he planned to let Cao Xun attack Shandong at the right time, forming a situation in which the two fronts of the Central Plains and Shandong went hand in hand.

What made Cao Xun even happier was that Yang Yan's letter opened a door for him and found a way to deal with Jin Jun.

It was precisely because of the intervention of the Shandong Jin Army that the Song Army could not attack Maozhou with all its strength, which led to the fact that nothing is seen now. Now there is no point in continuing to attack Maozhou in order to make a profit, just turn around and attack Shandong with all your might, and also force the Jin army in Shandong to engage the Song army head-on, and also make it impossible for the Jin army to use this scratching tactic anymore. In a head-to-head battle, Cao Xun still has enough confidence to defeat the Jin army.

At the same time, on the front line of Shandong, the Song army also had the help of Li Gongzuo's Chuzhou imperial garrison and the navy, and its strength was also stronger.

After resting in Suzhou for a few days, the fatigue of the whole army has basically recovered, so Cao Xun immediately ordered the whole army to go out to prepare to capture Shandong. Morale is also high.