On April 27, the eighth year of the Great Song Dynasty Qingli and the seventeenth year of Liao Chongxi, Liao Xingzong Yelu Zong Zhen personally served as the generalissimo of the world's soldiers and horses, with Xiao Hui, the privy envoy of the Northern Yuan, as the commander of the right army, and Yelu Chongyuan, the emperor's younger brother, as the commander of the left army, mobilized more than 700,000 palace tent troops, tribal armies, and Hu Cong troops, and launched a fierce attack on the Hedong Road on the Song-Liao border and the east and west roads of Hebei.

The Great Song Dynasty appointed Fan Zhongyan as the commander-in-chief, Han Qi and Xia Zhu as the deputy commanders, mobilized 100,000 forbidden troops from Beijing to march eastward, and converged with 300,000 troops on the border roads for a total of 400,000 to meet the enemy, thus opening the prelude to the life-and-death war between the Song and Liao countries.

The Great Song Dynasty entered a state of full combat readiness, and although the four national highways were not completed, they played a huge role, and food and materials were collected from various states along these four major arteries and sent to the battlefield.

Prime Minister Yan Shu asked Zhao Zhen to agree to use the Hebei refugees as the people to strengthen the fortifications of the state capitals north of Bianliang as the second line of defense, and implement the strategy of delaying time and allowing Su Jin's army to penetrate directly into the Liao army.

At the same time, Su Jin, the deputy prime minister and privy deputy envoy, led the Northwest Army of 200,000 into the Xia realm in the name of the general of Zhenbei, and quickly went north along the side of the Xia-Liao border line to obtain the horses borrowed by the Xia State in Longzhou without delay, and after more than ten days of rapid marching, arrived at the northeastern town of the Xia Kingdom, Kedun City.

After the army rested for a day, with Pan Jiang as the commander, Wang Ma Han as the deputy commander, the vanguard army of 50,000 cavalry galloped out of the canyon in the north of the city and came to the Mobei wasteland.

Su Jin led 40,000 cavalry to follow up with the Chinese army, and the remaining 110,000 were infantry, escorting heavy grain and grass and other materials to keep up.

On May 15, the vanguard army arrived at the Helan Pass, and after the Helan Pass was the boundary of the Liao State, due to the southward transfer of the main force of the Liao State, only 5,000 soldiers guarded the Dasan Pass of the Mountain Pass, in addition to the 1,000 regular army, the other 4,000 were newly recruited rookies from the Hu Army; That night, taking advantage of the cover of night, the dynasty led 10,000 cavalry to raid, and only paid more than 100 casualties to annihilate the defenders of Dasanguan who were still asleep, thus opening up a smooth road to the Liao State.

At the third watch of the night, Su Jin led the army to Dasanguan, and by the bright moonlight, he looked to the east of the mountain pass, only to see a white and vast land, which was an endless prairie under the moonlight, in the northwest of Liaoguo, surrounded by Helan Mountain, forming a rich grassland.

Su Jin returned to the main hall, convened the generals to discuss the direction of the attack, after prior preparations, the information in the territory of Liao was summarized into a map, but there was a military sketch, but it was not very intuitive, Su Jin picked up the soil for the mountain, put the lamp for the city, and copied a three-dimensional topographic map on the ground of the hall of the defenders of Dasanguan, and the generals stood around with long branches to point and discuss.

To the east of Dasanguan is the grassland, but if you follow the grassland to the east, you will enter the territory of Datong Mansion in the Xijing Road of the Liao State, and the south of the Xijing Road is the battlefield of the Song-Liao war, if it is said that it is also a way to attack the right army of the Liao State directly from the rear flank, Xiao Hui's 250,000 army is facing Han Qi's 180,000 Western Route Army, plus his own 200,000 army, should be able to break through; But the problem is that the Xijing Prefecture is densely packed with towns, and it is very likely that his whereabouts will be exposed immediately, and he may not reach the battlefield hundreds of miles away in the south, he will be discovered by Xiao Hui, so that he will retreat into the city, or draw the left army to encircle and suppress it, which will not be good at that time.

After analyzing the pros and cons, Su Jin decided to raid Shangjing according to the original plan is a strategy to draw salaries from the bottom of the kettle, but the problem is that Shangjing is thousands of miles away, he only has 90,000 cavalry, and the rest are infantry, and the time to rush to Shangjing is a problem, and confidentiality is also a problem, if it takes too long, the pressure on the main battlefield in the south will inevitably be tightened, and once the defense line is broken through to the Tokyo area, the Liao people will not be able to pull back even nine cows.

Su Jin's brows twisted into a pimple, he would naturally think of these problems in advance, but he didn't have so much time to prepare, and the lack of war horses was not something that could be solved in a while.

The commander of the rear army is Jingtai, who was newly transferred to the northwest Qinfeng Road to deploy, and he proposed a method: "Commander, can you divide the troops and advance, the cavalry is advanced, the infantry is coordinated in the rear, the destructive power of 90,000 cavalry is not small, and the infantry should be cut off." ”

Su Jin shook his head and said: "Deep behind the enemy, the division of troops is a taboo for soldiers, at present we have to solve the mobility, and then there is secrecy, 200,000 people seem to be a lot, but the Liao people are soldiers with knives, and the Khitan men and women on horseback can fight, as soon as they step into the territory of the Liao State, we will be surrounded by heavy enemies, and then divide the troops, it will be a dead end." ”

Jingtai nodded, he also had no way, he didn't know the taboo of dividing the troops, looked at the topographic map, Jingtai said: "It's not difficult to be secretive, please see, Helan Mountain Pass goes north is a narrow desert, Jiashan and Tanshan are one south and one north, surrounded by deserts, originally these two mountains should be grasslands, many years of wind and sand invasion have besieged the two mountains in the desert, starting from Yunnei along this desert to the north, are large areas of no man's land, two hundred miles north of Tanshan is Huaizhou of Shangjing Road, This road should make it difficult for the Liao people to find a trace. ”

Su Jin looked in the direction of his finger, the desert march was not easy, but it was not impossible, just walk along the edge of the desert and avoid densely populated places.

"It's feasible, it's this road, Yunnei to the north, if it goes well, it can be reached in ten days, but before that, we have to do one thing."

"The marshal commands." The crowd stood solemnly and obeyed.

"Look at this grassland, just under our noses, how can there be a reason for Baoshan to return empty-handed, tomorrow we will borrow some horses and livestock from the Liao, although it is not a war horse, but we want foot strength only." Su Jin said with a smile.

"That's right, the grassland is right under his nose, how can he be worthy of Yelu Zongzhen if he doesn't rob tens of thousands of horses?" Mahan shouted.

"But Dashuai, in this way, won't our whereabouts be exposed? Doesn't this tell the Liao that we have made a detour into their territory? Pan Jiang said worriedly.

"Take the Dasan Pass has been exposed, the defenders of the Dasan Pass confessed, the supply is ten days away, today is only two days from the day of the supply of the Dasan Pass, that is, we don't do it, two days later the Liao people also knew, pass my order, tomorrow before the front army under the Dasan Pass to the east to grab horses, not close to the city, try not to hurt the people, give you half a day, in the afternoon Shen must all return, because we will open at night."

Panjiang Dynasty, Ma Han and other forward army generals stood tall and folded their bellies, and solemnly received the order.

In the early morning of the next day, the horses' hooves rumbled outside the Dasan Pass, Pan Jiang led 50,000 forward troops like wolves and tigers to the east and galloped into the grassland, Su Jin stood on the tower of the Dasan Pass, watching the grassland rise up one after another thick smoke, there was no sense of regret in his heart, he was no longer as compassionate as before, born in this era, killing or being killed is the two necessary choices, although the people are innocent, but Su Jin has no intention of being sentimental, all this is not something that he Su Jin can shake, he can't lose his life and his relatives because he can't bear it, This is the truth, whether it is selfish or cruel, it is the best weight to survive in this era.

At the end of the day, the forward army came back with a large number of war horses like a storm, and everyone had excitement on their faces, Su Jin observed that there was blood on the armor of the soldiers, and he faintly sensed what was happening.

"Dashuai, I have more than 30,000 horses, but I don't have a saddle, I don't know if I can ride them." Pan Jiang reported excitedly.

Su Jin stared at his blood-dripping scabbard and asked lightly, "You killed someone?" ”

Pan Jiang said in a low voice as if he had done something wrong: "The brothers can't control it as soon as they go, and it will be difficult to contain it when they see the blood, and those Liao people are really tough, riding horses and holding knives to fight hard, if we don't kill them, we will be killed by them." ”

Su Jin sighed and said: "That's it, it's a good thing to see some blood, maybe a few of these 200,000 people can go back alive, it's not difficult to make a big deal if it's not fierce, but you have to remember that you can kill but don't kill indiscriminately, otherwise you will be damned." ”

Pan Jiang breathed a sigh of relief and said, "I know. ”

Su Jin waved his hand and said: "Distribute the horses, immediately organize the army, and the troops will be sent to the clouds in an hour." ”