It will take a while to cut down trees and build bridges, so take advantage of this effort to go to the other side of the river to see the lineup of the Tangut people. Who led the southern invasion this time? It's a woman, not very old, in her thirties, but with a noble status.

She is the empress of Emperor Huizong of Western Xia Li Bingchang, the empress dowager of the current Western Xia Emperor Li Qianshun, the niece of Empress Dowager Liang, and the daughter of Liang Yiburi, also called Empress Dowager Liang.

This Empress Dowager Xiao Liang and her aunt Empress Dowager Liang are carved out of a mold, 100% strong women and careerists, giving birth to a woman's body, but with a heart that is tougher and braver than a man.

In the year that Hong Tao left Ganliang Road, Li Bingchang, who was probably the most depressed emperor in the history of Western Xia, died, and he reigned for more than ten years, and he was imprisoned for more than a year, and lost more than half of the country. said that he died of illness, it is estimated that he died of depression, and sometimes the mother is too strong to make her son die of sorrow.

When her son died, her grandson should succeed to the throne, and Empress Dowager Liang had already prepared for it, and this grandson was her niece's son, Li Qianshun, who was just three years old at the time.

At the age of three, she definitely couldn't get into politics, so Empress Dowager Liang taught her niece her best skill, or this niece had already learned it.

In the second year, Empress Dowager Liang and Liang Yibury also died one after another, so Empress Dowager Xiao Liang took over her aunt's will, sat behind the little emperor, and united several party nobles to continue to control the power of Western Xia.

Compared with the Empress Dowager Liang, the Empress Dowager Xiao Liang is brave and dark enough, and the only flaw is endurance. It can't be said that it is a defect, Empress Dowager Liang stepped on the blood of the enemy step by step from a series of palace fights, and she is the first generation to create the glory of the family, and she must be particularly tolerant.

Empress Dowager Xiaoliang was born with a golden key, and she can learn everything the day after tomorrow, but she can't copy the hardships and dangers, and she doesn't have a chance to get this kind of exercise.

So as soon as she took power, she actively restored her military strength and planned to snow the national shame, but she only endured it for seven or eight years, and she didn't want to pretend to be a grandson anymore as soon as she restored the national strength of Western Xia, and she wanted to take back the lost land, and by the way, she had to collect some interest from the Great Song Dynasty.

In fact, her patience didn't last so long, but because the Great Song Dynasty took Youzhou back, her combat effectiveness was really a bit scary, and she was scared in the past few years, and she didn't dare to stab her.

Originally, she planned to consume Wang Shu to death, and in this regard, she and her son had an age advantage. However, as the little emperor grew up day by day, the call for the emperor to govern himself became higher and higher within the Western Xia aristocracy.

The little emperor was also reluctant to continue the war with the Great Song Dynasty, but listened to the opinions of some courtiers and planned to continue to submit to the Great Song in exchange for peace. They believe that the Great Song Dynasty is not aggressive, and as long as it does not provoke it, it will not take the initiative to invade.

Compared to the Liao State in the east, it is more dangerous, it is better to unite with the Great Song Dynasty to destroy the Liao State first, so that you may be able to get a little leftovers.

For the little emperor's idea, Empress Dowager Xiao Liang must not agree at all, she thinks that since she wants to fight, she has to pursue the maximization of interests, what can she get by robbing the Liao State? There are no farts except for the pasture. If you want Western Xia to be rich, you have to go south, where there are fertile lands, prosperous cities, and an innumerable number of farmers and artisans.

And the actual situation seems to be encouraging the Empress Dowager Xiaoliang to invade the south, since the Liao State lost Youzhou, the emperor's prestige is not as good as day by day, and the Jurchens in the east take the lead in rebelling, and the momentum is growing. The troops sent by the Liao State to suppress them were often defeated and had to send fresh troops from the west.

However, once many tribes in the west lost the deterrence of heavy troops, they were slowly ready to move, and the most representative and largest were the diviners.

They are pure shepherds, who have been treated as slaves by the Khitans all year round, and the seeds of hatred have long been planted, and they must sprout as soon as the temperature and humidity are suitable.

To say that the Empress Dowager Xiaoliang is indeed chasing her aunt in the overall situation, seeing that the Liao State is about to fail, instead of stepping on it again, it is better to take the opportunity to subdue the Great Song Dynasty first, so that when the inheritance of the Liao State is distributed in the future, the lion can open her mouth.

However, with the presence of the king of horses, the generals of Western Xia were afraid and did not dare to send troops. What to do? Empress Dowager Xiaoliang simply did not do anything, deliberately raising a group of young generals, gradually replacing the backbone of various ethnic groups with them, and simply finding excuses to kill those who could not be replaced.

In this way, the young nobles of the party, who had never seen the battle of Liangzhou, mastered the military power of Western Xia.

They are just like the current post-90s and post-00s, when it comes to resisting US aggression and aiding Korea, the counterattack war against Vietnam, including the buzzing period, they always feel that the older generation is too stupid, and they will definitely do better if they go into battle.

Southern invasion? That's a must, and not invading the south is not enough to prove that they are better than their parents. At this time, even if the Empress Dowager Xiaoliang did not agree, she had to work hard, so the conditions in Western Xia were ripe.

It is not enough to support the southern invasion in China, although the Empress Dowager Xiaoliang is not patient, her brain is still very smart, and she knows that the army of Western Xia alone cannot defeat the forbidden army, what should she do? So he turned his eyes to the north, where there were fierce dividers.

As long as they can give enough benefits, these shepherds can attack any group without asking who the other person is. What benefits did the Empress Dowager Xiaoliang give? She didn't give it bullshit, and Hong Tao's little uncle was the same way, an empty glove white wolf!

The southern part of the Xijing Road of the Liao State, the entire Nanjing Road, that is, the Youzhou of the Great Song Dynasty, is the condition she offered, as long as the Divination people agree to help the Western Xia people attack the Great Song Dynasty, after winning the battle, the Western Xia army will help the Divination people to grab these best pastures and rich land, and the two sides will have an exchange.

I don't know what the divination blocker thinks, maybe he is poor, he is afraid of poverty, and when he hears that there are so many good pastures that can be owned by himself, the price is to go south to fight, is it a matter of dying people? I really don't count, it's done!

After unifying the thinking at home and finding foreign aid abroad, the Empress Dowager Xiaoliang still felt that it was not very safe. It is one thing to fan the young generals in the party to be enthusiastic, and it is another thing to really raise troops to invade the south, and it is King Liang who is like a fish in his throat.

Although he no longer has the power to fight, who can guarantee that he will not be in charge of the army again after the actual fight, this deadly threat must be eliminated by finding a way.

For this reason, the Empress Dowager Xiaoliang racked her brains and acted in a scene of orphans and widows begging for peace to show the monarchs and ministers of the Song Dynasty.

At the same time, he also had to cry that King Liang Wang Shu was too cruel, if he was not in the court, the Western Xia people would not even set up a single soldier, even if he was a subject of the Great Song Dynasty, he was willing.

This trick really worked, the Song Dynasty's military preparedness on the border was less and more relaxed, and the border restrictions were becoming more and more relaxed, and slowly no one even cared about smuggling good iron and steel, and some Song Dynasty craftsmen were attracted to the Western Xia by the generous treatment.

Through the two major battles of Liangzhou and Xijinfu, the Tangut people clearly realized that the way of war must change with the times, and cavalry alone could not deal with vicious crossbows and dense rockets.

To this end, they also secretly established an industrial base similar to Weiqiao Town in the north of Xingqing Province, intending to use craftsmen recruited from the Song Dynasty to develop their own industry.

But the effect is not very good, these Song Dynasty craftsmen are basically low-level craftsmen who can't get along in Weiqiao Town, and they understand that a certain process on the assembly line operation cannot establish the entire system. After tossing for several years, at best, steel has been smelted, and the quality is not spectra, and the output is not spectra.

Don't think about steel plate crossbows, you can only use smuggled good steel to create some imitations, not to mention the high cost, the quality is far inferior. If it goes on like this, I am afraid that it will not be able to catch up with the development of the Song Dynasty in another ten years, let alone the southern invasion.

Just when Empress Dowager Xiaoliang was losing her hair every day, the opportunity suddenly came. What is this called, this is called opportunity always favors those who are prepared.

What chances? The envoy stationed in the capital of the Great Song Dynasty secretly sent back two steel plate crossbows. If it's just two, it's nothing, and no matter how few powerful weapons are, it's in vain. But it's not just two, it's hundreds.

This incident immediately attracted the attention of the Western Xia privy envoy Ling Jieyu, who first bought the steel crossbows with a lot of money, and then found a Uighur to go to Kaifeng to contact the mysterious merchant under the guise of a Uighur merchant, pretending to be in demand for steel crossbows because the caravan was in demand.

After this batch of steel crossbows arrived, the Uighur merchants were also familiar with the mysterious merchants, and probably understood what he came from, and it was likely that there was a certain high-ranking official of the Great Song Dynasty behind him. These steel crossbows were originally intended to be armaments for the forbidden army, but they were detained and turned to make money.

Hearing that this was the case, Empress Dowager Xiaoliang was still not very relieved, for fear that it was the Song people who were testing the attitude of Western Xia, so she simply associated with the mysterious merchant in the name of Uighur merchants to see if she could get more benefits.

A year later, five craftsmen from the Great Song Dynasty were secretly sent to the border and brought back to Xingqing by the Western Xia army.

These five men were from the Daimyo's workshop, and they did not go to Western Xia voluntarily, but were tricked to the border by prison envoys to repair crossbows for the border army. By the time they understood that they had already become prisoners of the Western Xia army, they had to submit if they didn't want to.

The arrival of craftsmen completely solved the technical problems of steelmaking and the manufacture of steel plate crossbows, but it was still impossible to make spring steel. However, compared with the finished products of steel plate crossbows, it is much easier to buy some raw materials at high prices through smuggling channels than to buy steel plate crossbows directly.

Moreover, the five craftsmen also brought with them several other weapons manufacturing techniques that surprised the Tanguts, such as siege crossbows, rockets, thunderbolts, and trebuchets.

With these weapons, Empress Dowager Xiaoliang no longer pulls her hair, as long as she recuperates for three or five years, manufactures these weapons in large quantities, and intensifies training the Western Xia army to be familiar with them. One day, when the army goes south, there will be no need to worry about the haunting Liang King.