Su Jin smiled and said: "Your Majesty, the minister didn't quite understand at first, what prompted Li Yuanhao to entangle more than 100,000 troops to invade my northwest roads, the war in the northwest has lasted for several years, and my great Song Dynasty is still exhausted by this war, a small Li Yuanhao, the territory is less than one of my Song tenths, and the people are less than three million, what does he use to consume with us to this day?" What kind of details can he have to entangle the hundreds of thousands of troops and put on a posture of waving the army south? ”

Zhao Zhen said: "Yes, I also want to ask these questions, if a few years ago, they relied on stored grain to confront our Great Song Dynasty on the border, and they could still deal with small-scale battles, but now they have sent peace envoys, but they have waved their troops to attack, which is incomprehensible." ”

Su Jin said: "I discussed this answer with Han Shuai and Fan Shuai for a long time, and finally understood the reason under the inspiration of the two marshals, Li Yuanhao is desperate in this battle, his purpose is not to wave the army south to annex my Great Song Dynasty, although he wants to, but he doesn't have the ability; The peace talks between the two sides have been open for a long time, and the western thieves must have opened many conditions for the lions to open their mouths by virtue of the advantage in the northwest, and of course my Great Song Dynasty could not agree to them, so Li Yuanhao just wanted to use the victory of a big battle to force us to sign a covenant under the city; This is the madness before death, the end of the so-called strong crossbow; Once Weizhou is taken, the imperial court will inevitably be shocked, and Qinzhou will become a frontier battlefield, if Qinzhou is taken again, they can go around the rear to attack the two roads of Yanyan and Huanqing, and the entire northwest barrier will collapse, and the capital of our Great Song Dynasty will be exposed to their gaze. ”

Everyone suddenly realized, thinking that if Weizhou is lost, according to the development situation, the situation that Su Jin said is very likely to happen.

"Joke, since it is said that the western thieves are already at the end of the crossbow, after taking Weizhou, how can they have the strength to fight again? Nonsense. "Xia Zhu has stayed in the northwest and fought with the western thieves for a few years, he is an expert, and it is not easy to deceive him.

Su Jin said with a smile: "Lord Xia is right, if the Western Thieves take Weizhou, they really have no strength to fight again, when the war just started, I told Han Fan and the two marshals that even if Weizhou is lost, I will use the 50,000 soldiers and civilians defending the city in Weizhou to fight off half of his 120,000 enemies, so that they have no power to attack; Even if he didn't kill many soldiers and horses, according to the situation of hunger and cold within the Western Thieves, they would definitely not have the power to attack, so in fact, the situation I mentioned above would not have happened. ”

Everyone was in an uproar, is this guy a chameleon? The situation that I said just now was critical, and Xia Zhu immediately changed his words as soon as he broke it, did this product dare to talk nonsense in front of the emperor's ministers?

Su Jin waved his hand and said, "Everyone, be quiet and listen to me." ”

Du Yan sneered: "Master Su is playing us like monkeys." ”

Su Jin smiled: "How dare you, Lord Du is not a monkey, how dare he play tricks on you; If Weizhou is lost, will you be worried that Qinzhou will be broken through and threaten the safety of the Jingshi? You all know afterwards that the Xia army is the end of the strong crossbow and has no strength to fight again, if Weizhou is swept away, will you be worried if you don't understand the situation? Once we are worried, the peace conditions proposed by the Western Thief and the safety of the Jingshi are naturally insignificant, and it is very likely that we will agree to the peace conditions under heavy pressure, which will be exactly what Yuan Hao is treacherous, and Li Yuanhao actually fought this idea. ”

Everyone silently thought about this possibility, they had to admit that once Weizhou was lost, hundreds of thousands of Western thieves approached to the southwest, and in the safety of Beijing, it was absolutely possible to hastily negotiate peace, and the peace conditions proposed by the Western thieves were too rude, they proposed to the Great Song Dynasty to recognize the establishment of the Western Xia state, give 500,000 taels of silver every year, and allow the party members to cross the border for grazing and planting, and asked the Song State to open the restrictions on the export of cotton, steel, etc.; Once these conditions are agreed, it will be a great blow to the Great Song Dynasty, which is equivalent to raising a white-eyed wolf with fattened meat, knowing that it will bite back after fattening, and continue to fatten it, which is a great humiliation.

Zhao Zhen understood what Su Jin meant, and he was also weighing the possibility of agreeing to the conditions, asking himself, once the safety of the Jingshi is threatened, I am afraid that in order to keep the Jingshi, he will also make an order to agree to the peace conditions, what Su Jin said is not a fiction, in Zhao Zhen's mind, nothing will be more important than the safety of the Jingshi; This can be done at a great cost.

"The process of the war is actually very simple, the west thieves attacked the east and the west, feinted to attack the east road, Yanyan and Huanqing roads, and then used the mobility of the cavalry to quickly attack my Weizhou city; Although their strategic intentions have long been seen through by me and Han Fan, the momentum of the hundreds of thousands of troops is still unstoppable; The east road was pinned down by the 30,000 cavalry of the Jianing Army of Youzhou, and Fan Shuai could not divide his troops to rescue, but a large number of fire oil, bows, arrows, armor, weapons and food supported by Fan Shuai played a big role, and Qinzhou, where Han Shuai was located, still allocated 15,000 elite soldiers to reinforce under the situation of tight defense, and transported a large number of food and weapons, and the two marshals played a huge role in the victory of the Battle of Weizhou. ”

Su Jin turned to Fan Zhongyan and Han Qi to salute and express his gratitude. Fan Zhongyan and Han Qi hurriedly returned the salute, secretly praising Su Jin in their hearts for not forgetting to mention the merits of the two of them, but they were quite friends.

"The Western Thieves' tactics are simple, they relied on the strength of the crowd from the beginning to launch a strong attack, I have to say that the Western Thieves Army Ji Yanming has good combat power, the first day of the attack on the Weizhou city wall was broken, fortunately, my Weizhou army and civilians fought to the death to kill the enemy, and the West Thieves did not take advantage of the numerical advantage to attack the city on all sides, disperse our defense of the city, this is the danger to pass."

"After the defeat of the first battle of the Western Thieves, I understood this, and prepared to build a large number of ladders to attack the city on all sides, I ordered people to burn the trees on the Longshan Mountain in the west overnight, and cut off the place where the West Thieves built the ladders, forcing the Western Thieves to dismantle the siege vehicles to build the ladders, and then several fierce battles, both sides suffered heavy casualties; However, the Weizhou army was too small to consume the western thieves, so I could only take a risk, leading the four heads of the subordinate dynasty Ma Han, Zhang Long, Zhao Hu and eight other good men to climb over the snow-capped mountains and sneak into the city of Huizhou, where the enemy army had hoarded grain and grass, and burned hundreds of thousands of stones of grain and grass of the Western thief army; The emperor was blessed by God, and the Weizhou guards Li Chong and Pan Jiang also worked hard to repel the crazy attack of the western thieves before the grain and grass were burned, and bought time for my actions in the rear; The western thieves had no food to eat, so they naturally retreated without a fight. ”

Su Jin briefly said the process of the war lightly, although Zhao Zhen had already heard it from Fan Zhongyan Han Qi last night, and now he heard it from Su Jin's mouth again, and he still felt sweat on his spine.

Most of the officials heard the process of the battle for the first time, the overwhelming siege of hundreds of thousands of troops, thinking about it is cold hairs, and what is even more incredible is that Su Jin actually took a dozen people to go deep behind the enemy and burn the enemy's grain and grass, although Su Jin did not say the details, but with his ass can also imagine that the place where the grain and grass are hoarded is naturally heavily guarded and guarded, the difficulties and dangers are really unimaginable, this Su Jin is not a fuel-efficient lamp, just this courage is enough to be proud of the world.

"Lord Su's move is comparable to the Han Dynasty general Wei Qing who led five hundred horsemen to raid the Huns' tent, and even surpassed it, with extraordinary courage and commendable loyalty!" Jia Changchao, the deputy prime minister who doesn't like to talk much, actually spoke; His words also represent everyone's voice, Su Jin's image in the eyes of everyone suddenly became taller, even Xia Zhu Du Yanpang, who hated Su Jin to the core, had to admire Su Jin, and asked themselves, if they were guarding Weizhou City, would they have such decisive courage?

Zhao Zhen sighed and said: "What a heart-wrenching battle, Su Aiqing can be described as an all-rounder in civil and military affairs, Wen is the champion of my dynasty, and Wu is the Northwest Optimus Prime, I am fortunate in my dynasty!" ”

Su Jin's face turned red and said: "The emperor praises me, in fact, I am not as brave and fearless as you think, I was also terrified at that time, but the city is broken, and the only way to fight is to fight hard, and I have no choice but to do it." ”

Everyone couldn't help but laugh, they were a lot closer to Su Jin in their hearts, it turned out that he was also afraid of death at that time, and he didn't have to be too ashamed of himself.

"Actually, you don't have to go yourself, just send someone to go, how can anyone who is in danger as the chief official personally go to danger, it's a bit nonsense." Zhao Zhen said.

Su Jin said: "That's not possible, I am not as good as a deployed head in defending the city and fighting, and this strategy is what I came up with, all kinds of plans are in my heart, first, I can't let others get into danger, and secondly, no one is more successful than me, so I will use my strengths and avoid weaknesses, and those who are good at guarding them will guard it, and I, who is good at making trouble, will make trouble." ”

Zhao Zhen and everyone laughed, Su Jin was telling the truth, although he was praised as a civil and military all-rounder, but everyone understood that Su Jin was a fledgling stubble after all, and he still lacked experience in really confronting the Western Thief face to face.

Zhao Zhen said with a smile: "This battle is very much to promote the prestige of our country, once this battle is over, the situation has changed greatly, this is the credit of the three of you, today's top priority is to reward the three people, the list of relevant meritorious personnel, you wait for the three to go down to the court after the plan to report up, together with the meritorious reward." ”

Su Jin and the other three hurriedly stepped forward and knelt on the ground, Zhao Zhen waved his hand, and Huang Peisheng, the head of the chamberlain, slowly took out a draft holy decree and said loudly: "Fan Zhongyan, Han Qi, Su Jin, listen to the decree!" ”