(Thanks to the book friend bobby75222 for the tip)

The two roads of Qinfeng and Yongxingjun in the northwest were originally barren and desolate places, with a total household registration of less than 120,000 households and less than one million people; In normal times, in addition to the people who originally lived here, only the soldiers and merchants stationed by the imperial court would go.

The population is small, the output self-sufficiency is still insufficient, and there is drought and famine every year, which has actually become the focus of the Great Song Dynasty. To put it mildly, if it weren't for the fact that these two roads were the only barrier to Bianliang City, which was strategically undefendable, and if it weren't for the fear of being infamous for the encroachment of their ancestors, someone in the DPRK would have proposed to give up this place where birds don't.

However, since the first year of Baoyuan, Li Yuanhao, a party member, got rid of the Song Dynasty and became independent, changed the Yuan Dynasty to "Heavenly Rite Law Yanzuo", and founded the country "Daxia", Qin Feng and Yongxing Army suddenly became very lively. In the first year of Song Renzong's Baoyuan, Li Yuanhao, who established himself as the emperor of Great Xia, wrote a letter to inform the Great Song court, hoping that they would admit this fact, which immediately caused great indignation in the Great Song court, and Zhao Zhen issued an edict in June of that year to cut off Yuan Hao's official title and offered a reward for his arrest.

After that, the Song-Xia War broke out in full force; So the soldiers and horses gathered, the city swarmed, in just over three years, along the border fortress line actually built dozens of soldiers, the border garrison also gradually increased from the original more than 50,000 people to nearly 150,000 people, in this land, some people have made great achievements in the war and become famous, some people have been defeated and ruined, more ordinary people and soldiers have died here, and they will sprinkle their blood on this barren land.

In general, in the more than three years of war, the Great Song Dynasty suffered many losses, and regardless of the small defeats, the Song State suffered a big loss in the battle of Sanchuankou and Haoshuichuan in the second year of Baoyuan and the second year of Kangding. In the two wars, more than 100,000 officers and men of the Northwest Army were killed and wounded, and nearly 150 generals were killed.

But the death of the army is not the main loss, the real loss is the people who were plundered by the western thieves, the damaged city and the looted goods, the loss of the army and the people are simply insignificant, just in the first year of Qingli one year, the two roads for the western thieves plundered the people are enough to have 30,000 people, hundreds of thousands of cattle, sheep and livestock.

In order to prevent the border people from flowing into the interior to cause rebellion, the imperial court issued a strict order prohibiting the people from retreating, and at the same time ordered the local people to turn into civil labor on the spot, paving roads and bridges for the army to build cities and villages; Although this is inhumane, it at least allows the people to earn a living from their labor.

After entering the second year of Qingli, the proposal of Fan Zhongyan and Han Qi was approved by the imperial court, and the previous hard-fought battle strategy was changed to a strategy of defensive counterattack by fortifying the walls and clearing the field, strengthening the city wall and setting up more long-range attack weapons, and refusing to fight a large-scale battle with the soldiers of the Western Thieves, which eased the situation slightly.

Li Yuanhao sent troops to harass several times, but all the villages were empty houses and ghost villages, and all the people took their belongings to hide in the various walled cities.

When the war is fought to this point, the two sides are fighting for internal friction, no one dares to relax, no one refuses to give in, and they are secretly gasping for an opportunity to bite each other.

During this period, although there were no big battles, the small battles continued one after another, the most uplifting was the Yanzhou commander Di Qing commanded several small-scale battles, under his command, the Song army successively conquered Jintangcheng, Youzhou and other places, burned tens of thousands of grain and grass in Western Xia, and seized countless tents, weapons and materials, etc., and also plundered back more than 5,700 head of livestock, and commanded the soldiers to repair the city in the strategic Qiaozi Valley, build Zhao'an, Fenglin, Xinzhai, Dalang Forts, and inserted nails one by one in the key places of the front line.

Fan Zhongyan's strategy of defending and counterattacking the strong wall and clearing the field was mixed in the imperial court, and some people ridiculed Fan Zhongyan for losing the backbone of the Great Song Dynasty and becoming a turtle with a shrunken head; But it turned out that this move reversed the decline in one fell swoop, allowing the Great Song Dynasty to successfully suppress Li Yuanhao's arrogance.

Black cats and white cats, if you catch a mouse, you are a good cat, and the improvement of the battle situation will naturally make these opposing voices gradually die out, in Han Qi's words, 'Fan Xiwen's move is to avoid the enemy's edge, and it is a wise move to make the brave cavalry of the western thieves useless." ’。

This is to the point, the most ferocious thing about the Western Xia army is their iron cavalry, which comes and goes like the wind, and the people of the Dangxiang clan are all good at riding and archery, and they are hard to fight with the infantry on the wilderness plains, which is the strength of attacking the enemy with their own shortcomings, and the defeat is inevitable; After holding the walled city, the strong walled city blocked the advance of the cavalry, and the main force of the Great Song army was the archers, which were condescendingly supplemented by bed crossbows and other distant weapons, which naturally made the Western Xia army helpless.

The cavalry of the Western Xia army is mainly cavalry, and never uses siege equipment such as catapults, at most it is a whirlwind cannon carried on the back of a camel, although this thing can reach far, but because it is not a counterweight catapult machine, but all rely on manpower to launch, so the distance of the stones thrown is limited, and the power is small to the extent that the Song army is ignored, the soldiers will be occasionally stoned to death, but the city wall is almost undamaged, and there is not much benefit in the battle, but it needs to be close to shoot, and was shot by the Song army's condescending bed crossbow.

Yuan Hao didn't want to use heavy catapults to attack the city, but the situation did not allow him to do so, first, the cost was expensive, the national strength of Western Xia really couldn't afford it, and it was his ultimate strategy to feed the war with war, and the looted materials and property could make up for his consumption, so that the Western Xia army would have the strength to fight again, otherwise when the production of all the people in the Great Xia Kingdom almost stopped, what would he use to fight?

The second is the problem of army allocation, the high mobility tactics of cavalry are already the watchman skills of the Western Xia army, even the whirlwind cannon is installed on the back of a camel and comes and goes with the army like the wind; Once equipped with bulky equipment such as heavy catapults, the whole army goes from being swift as the wind to crawling like a turtle, which is equivalent to giving away the advantage.

All in all, the northwest border is now calm and contains great changes, and thunder is brewing in the silent place, which is precisely because of the pattern of wits and courage between the two sides; Although there was no big war, small-scale attacks were in full swing every day in various parts of the border area.

……

Su Jin and his entourage left Beijing on June 26, and the imperial court's self-food was robbed several times by a small group of cavalry of Western thieves who broke into the Song Dynasty. Originally, the grain and salary were transferred to Yaozhou through Jiezhou, divided into two routes, and then sent north to Yanzhou and other places for distribution, and the other road continued west along Yaozhou through Fengxiang to Qinzhou for the state capitals of Qinfeng Road.

But most of this section of the official road through the mountains, one of the reasons for the defeat of the battle of Haoshuichuan is that the official road under the Bison Mountain in Fengxiang was washed away and filled by mudflow, and even the military food is unsustainable, although Pang Ji led tens of thousands of people to repair continuously, but the war will not wait for you to build the road again, so that the Song army has no food and is trapped, and can only break through is also one of the reasons for the defeat.

This time, the official of the three divisions to escort grain and grass is a director of the Du branch named Wang Lang, this person has traveled back and forth between the northwest and the capital many times to escort grain, grass and weapons and materials has never made a mistake, this time Yan Shu appointed him to go with Su Jin, but also to use his experience to help Su Jin arrive safely.

The secret of Wang Lang's mistake is that he did not go from the nearest official road at all, but detoured to Jingnan Road and then entered Lizhou Road and turned north, directly to Qinzhou Mansion, and then Qinzhou Mansion was responsible for notifying the state governments in various places to bring troops to escort grain and grass back.

Wang Lang's route is the bowback, and the nearest route is the bowstring, so that the time on the road is more than doubled, the original baggage team arrived in about 15 days, according to Wang Lang's route at least 356 days to reach Qinzhou.

Wang Lang still adheres to the safe way, after leaving the capital, he proposed to Su Jin to follow this route, Su Jin rejected him without thinking, Su Jin has Su Jin's reason, such a long road, it is less dangerous to arrive one day early, and it is more than double the half-moon arrival, which undoubtedly greatly increases the danger.

Moreover, although it seems safe to detour from the lower road, in fact, it is still unsafe for the enemy soldiers to enter Qinfeng Road from Lizhou Road to Qinzhou; Are the Western Xia soldiers stupid? If you don't find anything on the old road, won't you try your luck on the official road south of Qinzhou?

Moreover, the escort of the men and horses can be called a luxurious lineup, not only has its own 500 horse army escorts, but also more than 1,000 soldiers assigned by the imperial court to escort grain and grass, plus thousands of people who transport grain, such a huge team, a small group of enemy troops from a distance is afraid that they will be frightened, let alone come forward to pick up the tiger's beard.

"Lord Su." Wang Lang rubbed his hands and said: "I'm not afraid of 10,000, just in case, once something goes wrong with this batch of materials, I can't bear this responsibility, so it's better to be careful." ”

Su Jin said with a smile: "Lord Wang, I won't force you, or you will take the food team and weapons and materials from the safe road, and I will take my own guards from the upper road, so that everyone doesn't have to be entangled, and you don't have to worry about the food and grass materials." ”

Wang Lang was stunned and said, "This ...... I'm afraid this is not good, wouldn't this be a move to divide the troops, and it will be even more insecure, and besides, Lord Sansi strictly ordered that the lowly position must follow Lord Su all the way, how dare the lowly position disobey. ”

Su Jin smiled: "Then I'll walk from the top road, will you follow?" ”

Wang Lang was extremely depressed, he heard that this Lord Su Jin Su does not like to take the ordinary road, today is really worthy of the name, it is obviously not possible to go separately, the five hundred horse army around Su Jin is the main force, his own 1,000 infantry encounter the horse team of the Western Thief is not an opponent at all, and the cavalry against the cavalry is the opponent in chess, if he loses this big protection, if he encounters enemy soldiers in the section of Qinfeng Road, he will have no power to fight back.

Wang Lang had no choice, so he could only follow Su Jin to take an adventure, and said secretly in his heart: "This kid is still young, the newborn calf is not afraid of tigers, and he has to suffer a big loss, so you know that what I said is a good word; But I hope it doesn't hurt this time, I don't want anything to go wrong this time. ”