Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

When the Jin Kingdom invited Xixia to jointly attack the Song Dynasty, they promised to cede the land of three cities and eight pavilions to Xixia as a reward for sending troops.

The three cities are in the west of Hexi and the eight halls are in the east of Hedong.

Now the three cities that Yue Fei attacked, as well as the surrounding large hills and grasslands, are the land of the three cities in Hexi.

To express it using the geographical concept of later generations, Ordos City has jurisdiction over: the entire Zhungar Banner, half of the Dalate Banner, the smaller half of the Yijinhuoluo Banner, and the entire Dongsheng District.

It was the main war zone between Xixia and Liao, and the two sides fought for it repeatedly for more than a hundred years.

Most of the time it belonged to the Liao Kingdom, and a small part of the time belonged to the Xixia Kingdom. Now it has finally become the territory of the Ming Dynasty!

There is a desert belt to the north and the Mu Us Desert to the southwest.

The rapid expansion of the Mu Us Desert is related to the perennial wars between Song, Liao and Xia. On the one hand, Xixia had to defend against the Liao Kingdom, and on the other hand, it had to deal with the Northern Song Dynasty, and over-cultivation and grazing in that area.

Of course, the current desert area is relatively small.

The area between Shenmu, Yulin, and Wushen Banner has not yet become desertified. It is mostly lush forest and grassland. It was not until the middle of the Qing Dynasty that rapid desertification occurred.

Of the three cities in Hexi, two were captured by Yue Fei and one was captured by Yao Pingzhong's artillery.

Yao Pingzhong was originally stationed in Fugu, but he gained military exploits inexplicably. He organized civilians to transport food to Yue Fei and planned to express his gratitude. However, Yue Fei had already abandoned the city and asked Yao Pingzhong to quickly send troops to garrison the city.

Yes, Yue Fei finally captured two cities and left after three days of rest.

When leaving, Yue Fei ordered the chief of the local tribe to go north with the young men of the tribe and slaughter all the non-local Xixia prisoners!

He was in a hurry and didn't want to waste time here.

Yue Fei led his troops north along the Hantai River, passing through the forests and grasslands on both sides of the river, passing through the desert belt on the south bank of the Yellow River, and crossing the Yellow River was the area of ​​Baotou. It was Han Shizhong's food transit station, where he could resupply and rest for a few days.

But they only rested for one day before rushing to Tiande Military City to join Han Shizhong who was besieging the city.

"So fast?" Han Shizhong was extremely surprised, "Have you captured all three cities in Hexi?"

Yue Fei said: "Ningbian Prefecture City has the most enemy troops. I just bypassed it and left it to Yao Pingzhong on the Fugu side. Yao Pingzhong has infantry and artillery, so he should be able to take it easily. The remaining two cities have enemies. The army was very small, and the whole army attacked without sleep, and it was captured without much effort. "

Han Shizhong didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "The shelling here just started yesterday."

"No field battle?" Yue Fei couldn't believe it.

Yue Fei's blitz attack on the three cities in Hexi was to make Han Shizhong worry-free.

That is, the Xixia generals in the three-city area were not allowed to recruit soldiers among the farmers and herdsmen. Otherwise, thousands of troops could be raised in that area. Although most of them were unarmored herdsmen cavalry, they could cut off Han Shizhong's food route once they went north.

The results of the battle were perfect. The herdsmen in the three cities were still grazing in their own pastures, but the three cities had been captured by Yue Fei.

Han Shizhong explained: "The enemies around Tiande Army City all retreated into the city and did not dare to come out. Weifu Army Division came with tens of thousands of reinforcements. When I led the troops to kill them, the enemies abandoned their livestock and food and fled. Maybe they wanted to I pretended to be defeated and set up an ambush, or maybe I was scared out of my wits. I didn't continue to pursue them. I came back and captured the Tiande Army City first."

"It should be so. There is no need to take risks." Yue Fei affirmed.

Han Shizhong pointed to the city in the north: "I didn't bring any civilians with me, so I had to let the cavalry from all the grassland tribes fill in the river. So far, only one part of the moat has been filled in, and a passage of about three to four feet wide has been filled in. At the beginning, there were no craftsmen. We took the lead and sent some prairie cavalry to cut down the trees. Yesterday, we finally brought the craftsmen and artillery by boat, and the follow-up infantry is besieging the two cities along the way."

"When I came here, I saw the siege. One of the obstacles has been captured," Yue Fei asked, "How many enemy troops are there in this city?"

Han Shizhong shook his head: "I'm not sure. If the old, weak, women and children are also brought to defend the city, there will probably be tens of thousands of them. It depends on whether the people here are united."

Yue Fei smiled and said: "I'm afraid they won't be united."

Tiande Military City is very important to the Liao Kingdom. It is the frontier node of the Liao Kingdom's grassland Silk Road and the bridgehead for the confrontation between the Liao Kingdom and Xixia.

Therefore, there is a high proportion of Khitan herdsmen here, and there are even many Huhua Han people who make a living by growing rice.

Xixia has occupied this area for several years and has not done anything frivolous or insignificant. How can it make the Khitans and Huhua Han people return?

Yue Fei asked: "Are you trying to persuade me to surrender? I am trying to persuade you to surrender and divide the non-Party tribes in the city."

"I have been trying to persuade him to surrender, and it should have had an effect." Han Shizhong grinned.

"Boom boom boom!"

After another two rounds of shelling, more than a dozen cavalrymen of various ethnic groups under Han Shizhong, all wearing armor, rushed across the moat.

They faced the rain of arrows fired from the city, dodged and shouted:

"The land of the Liao Kingdom has been merged into the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Emperor is very kind and treats the Han and Khitan people equally. I am a Khitan from Fengzhou. Life is very good. You must surrender quickly. Those who have made meritorious deeds will be rewarded heavily! "

"Khitan, Tanggu, and Tubo tribes, stop working for Xixia! Kill the party members and vote for the Ming Dynasty!"

"..."

The ancient Tang Dynasty has said that it was caused by the long-term mixing of slaves of various ethnic groups in the Liao Kingdom.

However, most of the Tubo people are Han Chinese, and we don’t know when they moved here. Anyway, they have been growing rice here for a hundred or two hundred years.

At this moment, non-party soldiers and civilians of all ethnic groups have already had various thoughts.

When the Jin Kingdom ruled here, it was too cruel and the exploitation became more and more serious. So the Xixia army came to kill them, and they helped Xixia drive away the Jin soldiers.

The rule of Xixia was slightly better than that of Jin.

It's just a little better, and all races have chosen to surrender - who is willing to rebel if they can survive?

But that's just not rebelling.

Do you want them to desperately help Xixia defend the city?

Stop talking nonsense.

So far, there has been no internal rebellion among the tribes in the city. It was purely out of fear that they would not be able to defeat the Xixia defenders.

Ye Li Degui sent people on horseback to gallop through the city, shouting along the way: "Don't believe the lies of the Han people. The Ming army is more ferocious than the Jin soldiers. If the city is broken, they will massacre everyone in the city. All of your wives, children, and children will be killed." Kill him, defend the city with me and wait for reinforcements, and you will win!"

Inside and outside the city, everyone shouted for a while and engaged in a public opinion propaganda war.

"Boom boom boom!"

The sound of cannons was heard again outside the city.

At the end of another day of shelling, the city wall was actually brought down.

The city here was built by the Jiedushi of the Tang Dynasty, and was expanded and reinforced by the Liao Kingdom. Xixia drove away the Jin soldiers and reinforced it again. The artillery could not be destroyed in a short time.

…

Xiao Lvdung led his tribe back to the rest area and ate rice porridge and mutton in silence.

There are too many livestock and not enough fodder, and sheep are being killed all the time in the city. Not only can the chiefs of various tribes eat mutton, but even ordinary herdsmen can get the offal and drink a bowl of mutton fat soup.

Xiao Lvdung is not a Khitan descendant, but an ordinary tribal chief.

In the middle and late period of the Liao Kingdom, since most Khitan people did not have surnames, Khitan civilians also adopted the surnames Yelu and Xiao.

As for donkey dung, it is purely a transliteration.

The Han people in the north call it "donkey dung" smoothly.

Some Khitan nobles thought it was indecent, so they translated it as "Lvfen" when writing.

Xiao Donkey Dung was still eating mutton when a herdsman came over carrying a bow and arrow.

The herdsman whispered: "The leader of Donkey Dung has not made up his mind yet? Your neighbor has agreed to defect."

Xiao Donkey picked the minced meat between his teeth with his nails: "When will we do it?"

The herdsman said: "When one part of the city wall collapses, we will start that night."

"No," Xiao Lvdung shook his head and said, "We will start the next morning. I brought many tribesmen to escape, as well as old, weak, women and children. It would be too chaotic to kill them at night."

"That's okay, I'll inform other tribes." The herdsman said with a smile.

The herdsman's name is Guo Sichang, and the Khitan's name is Xiao Gou Gou.

He himself doesn't know which ethnic group he belongs to. Anyway, he has been working half-farming and half-grazing in Dezhou (Liangcheng County) of the Liao Kingdom since his great-grandfather.

During the Liao-Jin War, his father died.

During the battle between Ming and Jin, his brother died and he himself was captured by the Ming army.

Because he could speak Chinese, Guo Sichang was selected from the Shanxi prison camp and released to the grasslands to provide various intelligence to the Ming Dynasty.

After the Jin Dynasty was destroyed, Guo Sichang stayed in Yunnei Prefecture and followed the merchants to Dongsheng Prefecture for trade. After getting acquainted with the leader of Dongsheng Prefecture, he frequently went to Tiande Military City to fool around.

When Yue Fei and Han Shizhong reached Dongsheng Prefecture, why did the chiefs there choose to join the Ming Dynasty instead of fleeing all the way to the west? In addition to being afraid of the Ming Dynasty's military power, the chiefs there also wanted to continue doing business with the Ming Dynasty merchants to make money!

Iron pots, tea, and salt, these three commodities win over the chiefs of Dongsheng Prefecture!

It was a transit point for trade in the northern part of the Hetao. The chiefs of various tribes made a lot of money and were even accustomed to using Ming Dynasty copper coins.

It was getting dark, and Guo Sichang walked towards the defense area of ​​another tribe.

"Chief Yili Tu, Xiao Donkey also agreed. Why are you still hesitating?" Guo Sichang said.

Yelu Yelitu handed Guo Sichang a bowl of kumiss and whispered: "The Xixia garrison has excellent armor, and there are only two or three of my tribesmen wearing armor. I don't dare to use iron arrows more often. I usually use bone arrows and stone arrows for archery." If we act rashly, my people may be killed before the Ming army enters the city."

Guo Sichang smiled and said: "The Xixia permanent garrison in Tiande Military City is only over a thousand people at full strength. The rest are party herdsmen, with less than 10,000 people to control strings. Our Khitan, Tubo, and Tang tribes combined There are more than 10,000 young people. There are more people than Dangxiang, and there are soldiers from the sky outside the city. What is there to be afraid of?"

Yelu Yilitu shook his head: "The party soldiers in the city can be commanded in a unified manner. But the warriors of all races have no one to command them. When chaos breaks out, they may even kill each other."

"Then wait until the Ming army enters the city and slaughter you all?" Guo Sichang threatened and asked.

Yelu Yilitu was hesitant. In fact, he didn't want to help anyone. He was afraid of the Ming army outside the city and the Xixia Weifu Army Division.

This tribe was relatively strong, so Guo Sichang began to induce: "As long as you change sides, I will give you 50 iron pots, 200 kilograms of tea, and 200 kilograms of salt. There are also rewards for meritorious service: seizing a city gate and 30 iron pots. , 300 jins of tea, and 300 jins of salt. If you can kill the Xixia general, you will be rewarded according to your military rank. If you can capture the Xixia deputy capital, you will be rewarded with 2,000 jins of tea, 3,000 jins of salt, and an additional 150 pounds of silk. Ten pieces, twenty pieces of brocade.”

"So many?" Yelu Yilitu's eyes lit up when he heard that, and he immediately patted his chest and said, "I did it!"