This humiliating defeat of Xixia in the second year of Baoyuan obviously became the laughing stock of Song, Liao and Xia.
Historically, Li Yuanhao also invaded the Song Dynasty, but he attacked Jintang City instead of Kaolin Village. The scale was not that large. He led 30,000 people to launch a small-scale sneak attack.
In this battle, Lu Shouqin, the garrison guard of Jintang City, and the troops of Yan Road were under the jurisdiction of Lu Shouqin, and Liu Huaizhong, the patrol officer of Fu Yan Road who came to support from Kaocheng City, only had 5,000 defenders.
The Song army responded very slowly. The battle lasted for several days, but no reinforcements arrived, but in the end Li Yuanhao withdrew his troops.
It was not the arrival of reinforcements, but in this battle, a young general named Di Qing, who led hundreds of his own men, resisted the enemy's attack and fought bravely to repel Li Yuanhao.
After this battle, Di Qing was promoted four levels in a row, from a junior officer to a mid-level officer. The main general Lu Shouqin also received the honor and was sent to Zuo Qiji, transferred to Shaanxi Province, and returned to Yanzhou.
It can be said that this was the battle where Di Qing rose to prominence.
But then in the first month of the first year of Kangding in the following year, Li Yuanhao made a comeback. He first used a plan to defeat Jinming Village and captured Li Shibin alive. Then he surrounded Yanzhou, encircled the point and called for reinforcements, defeating the Song army.
This was the first major defeat of the Song Dynasty in the Song-Xia War, the Battle of Sanchuankou!
Therefore, although Li Yuanhao also withdrew his troops this time in history, he did not leave in defeat. At most, it was considered that the war situation was unfavorable and he withdrew his troops normally, unlike now, where the losses were so heavy.
Throughout the Song-Xia war, Li Yuanhao's most painful defeat was the third battle of Dingchuan Village.
At that time, he divided his troops into two groups. One group mainly attacked Dingchuan Village of the Zhenrong Army, and the other group attacked Weizhou with a partial force. When passing through Pengyang City, they were blocked by Jingtai, the magistrate of Yuanzhou, and more than 10,000 people were wiped out.
It's just that the Song army also suffered heavy losses in the battle of Dingchuan Village, which obscured the fact that Li Yuanhao's partial division was also defeated, so it seemed that the Song Dynasty was so defeated.
But now the Song Dynasty has a full vision, and with the blessing of technology, the gunpowder has been highly purified and granulated, and its power can be called the pinnacle of black powder. After a few rounds of grenades, Li Yuanhao was blown away and lost.
If it weren't for the fact that the battle site between them was near the national border, and his troops were all cavalry and could withdraw to their border cities within a day, Li Yuanhao would have to answer for more than 100,000 people.
Even so, he became frightened. After escaping back to Hongzhou on the border, he didn't stay much and ran back to Xingqing Mansion almost non-stop the next day.
In the Xingqing Mansion, Li Yuanhao was furious and incompetent in the palace. Several slaves suffered the disaster of Chiyu, and he used it as an outlet to vent his anger. He was so angry that he drew his sword and slashed, scaring everyone and fleeing in a hurry. One of the slaves who ran slowly was killed. He chopped off the head.
Outside the imperial palace, Li Yuqi, Ye Li Wangrong, Zhang Yuan, Yang Su, Wei Ming Congshun and others were trembling and looked at each other, but they did not dare to enter the palace.
The crazy Li Yuanhao is really scary.
After about ten minutes, it finally became quiet inside. They heard Li Yuanhao roar angrily: "Everyone, get in!"
Everyone had no choice but to reluctantly enter the palace, salute him with Western Xia etiquette and say: "Your Majesty."
"Hoo ho ho"
At this time, Li Yuanhao looked ugly and was breathing heavily.
But to their surprise, Li Yuanhao did not get angry. Instead, he gradually calmed down and said in a deep voice: "Have the chiefs of the various ministries been appeased?"
Yeli Wangrong glanced at the corpse on the ground and whispered: "The chiefs of various tribes did have some complaints, but no one took the tribe away."
Although Xixia has completed the transformation from a primitive tribe to a country, and Li Yuanhao has also formulated the official system, military system, and etiquette, in the final analysis, Xixia is still an alliance country composed of various tribes in the party.
Strictly speaking, father and son Li Jiqian and Li Mingde were only the largest tribal leaders in the Dangxiang tribe. By conquering and annexing other tribes, they became kings in the hearts of the Dangxiang people.
But once this king is defeated and loses the strength to suppress various tribes, then just like Mongolia later, it will fall apart in an instant.
Therefore, what Li Yuanhao is most concerned about now is the attitude of the tribal leaders. If his defeat causes those tribal leaders to have dissent and leave with their tribal soldiers and return to the northwest grasslands, then he will really be ruined.
But fortunately, it seems that the development of things has not reached that point yet. After all, the Li Yuanhao family has been running the northwest for three generations, and they still barely have this prestige.
Hearing Ye Li Wangrong's words, Li Yuanhao finally felt relieved and said: "That's good. I will summon many chiefs to meet again in two days to appease everyone. I must ensure that they will not betray me at this time. go."
At this time, he didn’t even call himself me.
Then Li Yuanhao said: "Let's talk about the most important issue now. I never expected that the Song Army had such firearms. Their firearms were not so powerful before. Why did it suddenly happen?"
As he spoke, he sighed and said, "If I had known about this thing earlier, my men would not have been killed. For us, this battle was really a disastrous defeat, and it was too frustrating."
Zhang Yuan rolled his eyes and whispered: "I wonder what your Majesty wants to do in the future? Are you going to surrender to the Song Dynasty?"
"What do you mean by military advisor?"
Li Yuanhao frowned and said, "Are you mocking me?"
Seeing that he was not angry, Zhang Yuan boldly said: "I am not taunting your majesty, but I am asking your majesty whether your majesty will continue to fight with the Song Dynasty. If the defeated army seeks peace, I am afraid that the Song Dynasty will not only force your majesty to commit suicide." He was reduced to a king, but his majesty was asked to submit as a vassal and pay tribute, and he surrendered completely."
"Am I still going to continue fighting with the Song Army?"
Li Yuanhao asked back.
"It depends on whether His Majesty still wants to continue to build an empire and call himself an emperor!"
Zhang Yuan said.
"Well"
Li Yuanhao pondered.
After all, he is the hero, and he does not want to continue to be a minister of the Song Dynasty. He has already ascended the throne as the emperor, who is willing to give up?
But if he sued for peace because of this disastrous defeat, he would probably be forced by the Song Dynasty to make himself a king. He might not even be a king, but at most he would be given the position of Jiedushi.
So deep down, he definitely didn't want to surrender to the Song army, but still wanted to retain his position as emperor.
Even if he did not defeat the Song army and achieve the original strategic goal of capturing Shaanxi Road, he would at least retain his current title of Emperor of Xixia.
But when fighting the Song army, he was frightened by grenades.
That thing is a nightmare for the cavalry. The reason why the cavalry is so powerful is that when the cavalry launches a charge, the infantry cannot stop it, and they can come and go freely, moving like the wind.
But when a grenade is thrown into a pile of cavalry, it explodes so fast that it is difficult to dodge. Even if the simultaneous explosion did not kill the cavalry, the loud thunderous sound could easily scare the horses and cause them to run around.
Therefore, Li Yuanhao said bitterly: "Of course I want to continue to be the emperor, but the Song army is strong, and after they cut off mutual trade, the border people complained. If I can't defeat them and force them to open the mutual trade again, I am afraid that the territory of Daxia will also have to It’s chaos.”
"Your Majesty has forgotten that if the Song Army becomes stronger, we will not be the only ones who are uneasy."
Zhang Yuan said calmly.
Almost at that moment, Li Yuanhao suddenly opened his eyes: "Liao Kingdom!"
Originally, with his intelligence, he couldn't have thought of it so slowly, but he couldn't bear the defeat just now, and he was so frightened that he forgot this for a moment.
"good."
Zhang Yuan immediately said: "The Liao Kingdom has used force to intimidate the Song Dynasty for many years, but the gunpowder is powerful and restrains our cavalry. It also restrains the Liao Kingdom's cavalry. Your Majesty, think about it, will the Liao Kingdom feel at ease? If we pass this news to the Liao Kingdom , I’m afraid the leader of the Liao Kingdom won’t be able to sleep peacefully.”
Li Yuanhao nodded in agreement and said: "Yes, in the past, between Song and Liao, Liao was strong and Song was weak. The Liao State forced the Song State to pay annual tribute every year. On the birthday of Empress Dowager Xiao, the Song State had to send a large sum of money as a gift. Now the Song State The Liao Kingdom will never be willing to be strong and prosperous."
Zhang Yuan said: "As long as we can unite with the Liao State, attack from two directions, and make the Song State be attacked from both sides, we may not be able to defeat the Song State, force them to pay us annual tribute, and reopen mutual trade."
"Um"
Li Yuanhao thought so.
Zhang Yuan said: "Even if the Liao Kingdom defeated the Song Army in Hebei, the Song Army would probably transfer its northwest troops to Hebei to defend the Liao Kingdom. The northwest would be completely empty, and we would still have a chance to capture the Shaanxi Road."
This is a big pie.
But this is what Li Yuanhao is doing now. Unless he doesn't want to be the emperor and continue to show off his power in the northwest, he can only eat this cake.
As for Li Yuanhao, he was naturally unwilling to pay tribute to the Song Dynasty, so he immediately said: "Yes, hurry up, tell me my will and send an envoy to the Liao Kingdom immediately."
After he finished speaking, he glanced at Zhang Yuandao: "Strategic Advisor, how about you do it?"
He felt that if Zhang Yuan was eloquent, he would definitely be able to persuade the Liao Kingdom.
Zhang Yuan did not refuse, but said: "I can send envoys, but before Liao agrees to send troops, we still have to consider how to face Song. If nothing unexpected happens, Song may send people or even directly send troops." .”
"That's me."
Li Yuanhao frowned, then relaxed after a moment, and said with a smile: "Then I will surrender first."
Yang Su wondered: "Your Majesty, how can you surrender?"
Yeli Wangrong glanced at him and said: "You idiot (in Xixia language), your Majesty means to stabilize the Song Dynasty by surrendering."
"Your Majesty is wise."
Yang Su quickly patted the horse.
Li Yuanhao confirmed his plan, and his original fear of being confused about the future gradually calmed down.
After all, this battle was indeed too great for his losses.
The total number of troops in Xixia is only 150,000.
Nearly one-seventh of his body was lost in the first battle, which really made Li Yuanhao's body hurt.
The Dangxiang people really lost one if they died, unlike the Song people who had so many people.
But as Zhang Yuan said, what is before him now is nothing more than two paths, one is to surrender, and the other is to continue fighting.
The two sides have already broken each other's skin, and it is impossible for the Song Dynasty to continue to live in peace with him. The Song Dynasty may directly send troops to attack him, so he must be prepared.
Unless he no longer wants to be the emperor and can be content with being an envoy entrusted by the Song Dynasty, the only way to continue the fight is to seek help from the Liao Kingdom.
In the past, the Liao Kingdom might not have attacked the Song Kingdom because of the battles in Xixia. After all, for the Liao Kingdom, the Song Kingdom had many cities and border fortresses, which were as hard to chew as ox hair and turtle shells.
Anyway, Song State will give them annual coins every year. If they win, there won't be much benefit. It is impossible to go south and destroy Song State. If they lose, they will lose the coins, so why bother.
But things are different now. The Song State has developed powerful firearms. If the Liao State does not take action and the Song State waits for a few more years and continues to explode the technology tree, I am afraid that the Liao State's capital will be blown through.
Therefore, Li Yuanhao was confident to win over the Liao Kingdom and deal with the Song Dynasty together.
But before the Liao Kingdom agreed to send troops, he still had to pretend to be a grandson. Otherwise, if the Song Dynasty took advantage of the victory and pursued it and came to Xingqing Mansion, wouldn't he be in the cold?
At that moment, Li Yuanhao quickly made arrangements. He wrote to Fan Zhongyan and then to Zhao Zhen. In the letter, he burst into tears, saying that he was deceived by lard and should not claim to be emperor or attack the Song Dynasty. Please invite the Song Dynasty. Forgive, he is willing to surrender.
On the one hand, he immediately sent an envoy to the Liao Kingdom to make a true statement to the leader of the Liao Kingdom, Yelu Zongzhen. He also brought over the only dumb bomb picked up by the Xixia soldiers in the chaos on the battlefield as evidence.
In fact, there are still many such dumb bombs. Even high-end torpedoes in later generations have dumb bombs, let alone hand grenades. During the Anti-Japanese War, due to the poor quality of hand grenades made in the border areas, two or three out of ten were dumb bombs, leaving soldiers They are miserable.
It exists even in later generations, not to mention ancient times.
Each of the 8,000 troops brought by Zhang Kang carried two or three grenades, but only less than 10,000 actually exploded, which shows how high the probability of a dumb bomb is.
One of them was thrown into the arms of a Xixia soldier in the chaos. During the tense and exciting charge, the soldier had no time to throw away the dumb bomb. In an instant, he was defeated like a mountain and fled in defeat. As a result, there was a dumb bomb. He was taken back by this person.
However, the Western Xia people can't research anything even if they have dumb bombs, because this thing is not something you can get by knowing black powder and being able to make gunpowder. What is needed is a complete formula, pure raw materials, proportions and manufacturing methods.
Therefore, unless Zeng Gongliang acted as a traitor and leaked the complete formula, even if the Liao people obtained this dumb bomb, they still would not be able to restore the formula and material proportions through the high-purity gunpowder in the dumb bomb.
But the dumb bomb was still able to detonate, but the pull tab did not ignite the fuse inside. It’s not like the Xixia people didn’t know about gunpowder, so they wanted to use this dumb bomb as evidence to show it to the Liao people.
The Liao people only need to verify the power of grenades. If Yelvzong is really not stupid, he should understand that uniting with Xixia and attack the Song Dynasty is the best strategy.
So under this national policy, Li Yuanhao embarked on the strategy of uniting the Liao Dynasty to resist the Song Dynasty!
(End of chapter)
