Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

There are generally two ways to relocate people during the Jianbei and Qingye period.

The first is to drive them away by force.

Burn down any house you see and force the people to leave their homes. The people can flee to the mountains or to the rear, as long as they do not leave manpower and supplies for the enemy.

This method is often accompanied by looting.

That is, the country's army sent out to disperse the people will rob them when they are on duty.

The second method is administrative relocation.

This is relatively civilized, but it requires a high level of grassroots organizational strength and is often mixed with force.

The Xixia people were mainly inclined to the second method when they were Jianbei and Qingye.

Because their grassroots organizations were tribes, the chiefs of each tribe had the ability to organize the migration of the people. Moreover, all the people were soldiers, and the young and strong were all drawn to fight. The people were all soldiers' families. If the people were driven away indiscriminately, the soldiers would lose their fighting spirit.

On the west bank of the Yellow River, outside Huaizhou City.

There are patches of curtain beams in the suburbs, which are a kind of Xixia small tents. You can use trees in the wild as supports, or you can use wood to build supports, and then cover them with felt to keep out the wind and rain.

When marching and fighting, three Xixia soldiers share one curtain beam. And a camel is assigned to transport baggage and carry the basic equipment of these three soldiers.

Now, tens of thousands of soldiers have entered the city, and more than 100,000 people live in the curtain beams in the suburbs.

These people who moved here to clear the fields often have conflicts with local people because they occupied large tracts of farmland in the suburbs.

Passing through a large tent area, Li Cunhui rode back to the city alone, showed his officer's badge and went in.

He was not suspected.

He led a team out of the city on horseback for reconnaissance, and it was normal to run away when he encountered the Ming army.

That night, Yue Fei led his troops to the outside of Xingqing Prefecture again. Not only did each cavalryman hold a torch, but each horse also had two torches tied to the saddle, and then blew the horn and shouted to pretend to attack the city.

The soldiers and civilians in the city were shocked. Li Renzhong invited Li Renxiao to come again and climb the top of the city wall to organize the soldiers and civilians to defend the city.

For the Xixia soldiers and civilians, the night was even more terrifying.

It was originally pitch black outside the city, but now it was surrounded by countless torches. It seemed that tens of thousands of enemy troops had come.

Yue Fei asked the soldiers who were familiar with water to lie on the door panels and swim across the moat to set fire to the houses outside the city.

The door panels were dismantled from rural houses.

The torches were also made of wood, cloth, and grease from houses within a radius of 20 miles.

At three o'clock in the morning, many houses outside the city of Xingqing Prefecture began to burn. The fire was getting bigger and bigger, and the whole street was ignited, and even the outer skin of the city wall was blackened.

The Xixia soldiers and civilians did not dare to go out of the city to put out the fire, and could only watch the houses in the city burn down.

The people in the city did not sleep all night, and rumors began to spread.

As the capital of Xixia, there are at least ten or more Ming spies in Xingqingfu. Most of them are in single-line contact and do not know each other's existence. They have been spreading rumors in the city for the past two days.

The rumors are varied, and the content is as follows:

The Ming Dynasty has sent a total of one million troops this time.

Emperor Zhu personally led the army and has already attacked Lingzhou.

Wang Shu's army was annihilated at Keyi Gate, so the Ming army was able to come from the north.

The Ming army did not come from the north, but from the east. It was Brother Richard who was annihilated.

There are more than thousands of Ming troops outside the city, and there are as many as 100,000. The main force is stationed in Dingzhou waiting for food and grass. It will take at most three to five days to reach Xingqingfu.

Lingzhou commander Ren Dejing has surrendered to the enemy. This guy is originally a Han Chinese. He surrendered as soon as the Ming army arrived.

In fact, Wang Cunli had surrendered to the enemy. He retreated without fighting when he held the three major military commanders, and also released 200,000 Ming troops to Xingqingfu...

All kinds of rumors, messy, and contradictory.

Yue Fei's threats at night made the rumors spread faster in the city. Even without the need for the Grand Secretary to spread rumors, the panicked Xixia army and civilians had already spread their own rumors.

Rumors from the people soon affected officials and soldiers.

After dawn, although Yue Fei had led his army to disappear without a trace, the people in Xingqing Prefecture were still in panic and could not live forever.

Li Renzhong selected warriors and sent people out of the city to ask for help again.

The people who asked for help went in three directions, some went southwest to Shunzhou, some went south to Jingzhou, and some went east to Huaizhou.

Yue Fei deliberately let these messengers go, but he still did not give up the siege and reinforcements.

...

Huaizhou City.

The second group of messengers for help had arrived and handed Li Renai's handwritten letter to Wang Cunli.

After reading the letter, Wang Cunli felt even more entangled.

On the day Yue Fei approached Xingqing Prefecture, Wang Cunli had already received the letter for help. While he sent light cavalry out to inquire, he sent someone to inform Richard.

Richard led 20,000 cavalrymen and was stationed in several grasslands at the edge of the desert.

Li Yanxian was currently in Yanzhou, dispatching grain and troops. Zhong Yanchong and Xiao Heda were the vanguards and were heading towards Huaizhou City, but the marching speed was extremely slow because the grain transport team was attacked several times.

Both sides fought very unsuccessfully.

Since Li Yanxian led the main force to stay in Yanzhou, Richard could only attack grain on a small scale again and again, trying to lure the Ming army in Yanzhou deeper.

The reason why Li Yanxian stayed in Yanzhou was because there was a problem with the transportation of grain and grass - Wang Cunli retreated too quickly, and Li Yanxian's troops chased too quickly, the grain road was suddenly stretched, and the baggage could not keep up.

And the generals under Li Yanxian were all asking for battle, wanting to chase and kill them quickly, and to capture Huaizhou so that they could directly take Xingqing Prefecture.

Wang Cunli was a terrible fighter, and the Ming army won too easily. The whole army was filled with an arrogant mood of underestimating the enemy. They thought that they didn't need to worry about the food and grass problem at all. As long as they chased and killed the enemy all the way, the enemy would be defeated and Xixia could be easily conquered!

"General Li, another batch of food and grass arrived yesterday, and the whole army can set out." Zhang Xian suggested.

Li Yanxian shook his head: "It's not enough. We need to store more food and grass here. Then bring more civilians and transport food with the army all the way to Huaizhou."

Yao Pingzhong said: "From Yanzhou to Huaizhou, it's only 300 miles. Leave an army to garrison Yanzhou, so that subsequent food and grass can be transported continuously. As for the food of the front-line troops, it will be transported from Yanzhou 300 miles away. How can the enemy cut off our food supply? Just relying on Wang Cunli? Dare he go out of the city to cut off the food supply? If he sends fewer soldiers, the food protection team can solve it. If he sends more soldiers, we can just return to annihilate him completely!"

"General Yao is right." Zhang Xian couldn't help it.

Yao Pingzhong said anxiously: "If we don't hurry up, Xingqing Prefecture will be captured by friendly forces!"

They have lost their minds in order to gain credit.

Or, they know there may be danger, but they still want to take a gamble to gain credit for destroying the country.

Li Yanxian comforted: "Three days, wait for another three days. You two send your generals and take more cavalry to explore everywhere. I always feel that there are still enemies hiding somewhere. If Yanzhou City is stronger, I will agree with your way of fighting. But Yanzhou City is short and broken. If we use it as a food and grass transfer point, it will be easy for the enemy to break through and cut off food after our main force leaves."

Zhang Xian said: "Leave more thunder bombs in the city!"

Li Yanxian shook his head: "There are many infantrymen under Wang Cunli. They are good at climbing mountains and climbing city walls, and they don't care about their lives when fighting. If there are fierce If the generals lead the infantry and attack the city regardless of casualties, Yanzhou City may not be able to be defended. "

Yao Pingzhong said: "Then let the garrison troops and civilians gathered in Yanzhou pretend to be elite troops and follow the main force to Huaizhou, and lure the enemy to attack Yanzhou. We will quietly leave a few thousand elite troops, and not arrange many soldiers on the top of the city, and suddenly attack when the enemy comes!"

Li Yanxian smiled: "This is a good idea."

The "main force" under Li Yanxian finally moved. Because they were "in a hurry" to get on the road, they did not send out a large number of cavalry to cover up, and were soon "detected" by Richard's light cavalry.

"Don't worry, let them march for another two days." Richard felt that he had caught the loophole of the Ming army.

"Da Da Da Da..."

A horse galloped over, and the messenger handed the letter for help to Richard.

This was the first wave of requests for help, and the second letter for help had not yet arrived.

After reading the letter, Richard was not very anxious, and he immediately wrote back to the Xixia court.

The content of the reply can be summarized as follows:

First, even if Keyi Gate was breached, it would not be so fast. The Ming army must have come from the desert.

Second, if they came from the desert, they must have had a small number of people and not much food.

Third, the Ming army was short of soldiers and food, and it was impossible for them to capture Xingqing Prefecture or Huaizhou, which was heavily guarded.

Fourth, the defenders of all cities should not send troops to rescue indiscriminately to prevent the Ming army (Yue Fei) from sieging and attacking the city. Xingqing Prefecture, defend to the death. Huaizhou, also defend to the death!

Fifth, Keyi Gate should divide its troops and go south, but not to recapture Dingzhou, which would be too dangerous and easy to fail. Instead, they should cross the Yellow River to the west and set up a camp to block Yue Fei's retreat route due to lack of food.

If Xixia could really strictly implement Richard's plan, Yue Fei would not be able to do anything in the Yinchuan Basin, and it might even be possible that his entire army would be wiped out due to lack of food.

But Richard missed two points.

First, he didn't regard the relocated people outside Huaizhou as human beings, so he subconsciously ignored them.

Second, he didn't realize how terrified the emperor, officials, soldiers and civilians in the capital of Western Xia were, and the emperor would send letters for help one after another. If Richard didn't go back, Wang Cunli would definitely not be able to bear the pressure, and sooner or later he would lead troops to rescue Xingqing Prefecture. Even Ren Dejing might not be able to bear the pressure, causing Jingzhou to fall after sending troops back to support, allowing Deng Chun's army to march straight in.

Any of these two points is extremely fatal.

But Richard didn't choose, he had too few chips in his hand.

Now is his only chance to defeat the Ming army, he can't lead his troops back.

Otherwise, even if Richard went back to annihilate Yue Fei, Li Yanxian's army would be able to take the opportunity to kill to the city of Huaizhou.

The Ming army had a lot of bombs in their hands, four twos, four A's and two kings, but Richard only had these four threes.

How could he break up the only four 3s, and then play a set of linked pieces and three stripes, and still have a bunch of scattered cards left in his hand?

"Rebel, traitor, how dare he not return to rescue the emperor?"

In Huaizhou City, Wang Cunli was shocked and angry when he received the reply from Brother Richard.

Wang Cunli wanted to lead the army to rescue Xingqing Prefecture, but he was scared by the Ming army and worried that he would be besieged and attacked. So he stayed back and asked Brother Richard to come back and lead the troops.

But Brother Richard did not return, which made Wang Cunli very angry.

Suddenly there was a commotion outside the mansion, and Wang Cunli called his personal soldiers to ask: "What happened outside?"

The personal soldiers were just running to report: "Father-in-law, the chieftains of various tribes asked to see him, saying that they could not control their soldiers. More than 100,000 people outside the city came from hundreds of miles away to defend the city, and they are all the families or clansmen of the soldiers. Now there is a rumor in the city that 30,000 Ming troops are heading south, and if they cannot capture Huaizhou, they will kill all the people outside the city."

This rumor was spread by Li Cunhui.

Hearing this, Wang Cunli was overwhelmed. He really didn't know how to deal with it.

Huaizhou City suddenly stuffed 50,000 troops into it, and also vacated civilian houses to store a large amount of food and grass. How could it accommodate more than 100,000 civilians? What's more, the civilians came from afar and brought their belongings with them. There were 400,000 to 500,000 cattle and sheep alone.

These civilians were originally to be sent to the outside of Xingqing Prefecture for resettlement, but they were left alone because Yue Fei suddenly came to kill them.

If the civilians were allowed to enter the city, the cattle and sheep would have to enter the city.

If only the civilians or only the cattle and sheep were allowed to enter, there would be a big mess.

But they couldn't really stay outside the city. If the civilians were left outside, the soldiers in the city would cause trouble. If the cattle and sheep were left outside, it would be sending food to Yue Fei.

Wang Cunli invited the chiefs of various tribes to come in, and after some discussion, they decided to let the civilians and livestock into the city.

No matter how crowded it was, there was room for them. People slept side by side on the streets.

Wang Cunli sent out a large number of light cavalry to observe whether there were any enemy troops nearby, and then carefully let the people into the city.

Li Cunhui was also sent out with a group of cavalry to investigate the enemy situation.

"Escort, have we gone too far?" a cavalryman asked.

Li Cunhui said, "If we don't go further, how can we investigate the enemy situation?"

"That's enough, it's already several miles."

"Ten miles is not enough! Your family is outside the city. If the Ming army suddenly attacks, will they have time to enter the city?"

Li Cunhui led the cavalry to wander for more than ten miles and came to a village to rest.

Just after entering, they were dismounting to feed, and a large number of Ming troops rushed out of the villages around.

Li Cunhui smiled and stopped his men: "Our own people, put down your bows and arrows."

Seeing that the Ming army did not charge and their superiors were confident, the Xixia cavalry also gave up fighting in a daze.

Li Cunhui asked, "Do you want to live?"

More than 30 Xixia cavalry nodded.

Li Cunhui asked again: "Do you want your family to live?"

The Xixia cavalry continued to nod, and one of them asked: "Captain, are you surrendering to the enemy?"

Li Cunhui smiled and said: "I was originally Emperor Zhu's man. Although I have been far away in Xixia for many years, I have already been promoted to the sixth-rank military officer. If I make great contributions this time, I may even be promoted three or four levels. If you follow me, you will have a good life in the Ming Dynasty in the future. Think about it, is it more cost-effective to be buried with Xixia or surrender to the Ming Dynasty with me?"

Everyone looked at each other, hesitating and struggling.

The deputy captain under Li Cunhui suddenly knelt down: "I am willing to surrender to the Ming Dynasty with my brother!"

"I am willing to surrender to the Ming Dynasty with the captain!" More than 30 cavalrymen knelt down one after another.

Li Cunhui turned to the Ming officers who surrounded them and said, "Quickly inform General Yue that Wang Cunli may let the people into the city tonight. Tell him not to worry too much. There are more than 100,000 people, hundreds of thousands of livestock, and other belongings. It will take too long to bring them in. It won't be too late to wait until tomorrow noon. Of course, it would be best to act before dawn tomorrow morning."