The outer city of Kaifeng City was inherited from the outer city of Bianliang in Tokyo during the Song Dynasty. It was built by Emperor Shizong of the Later Zhou Dynasty and later underwent many large-scale additions by the Song people.
In the fourth year of Dajin Tianhui, Zong Wang, the famous general at the founding of the country and the second prince, and Wanyan Zonghan, the later king of Jinyuan County, led the nation's troops and attacked Kaifeng twice. Zong Wang grasped the characteristics of Kaifeng city's shape like a lying cow, with its northwest high and its southeast low, and determined that the southeast corner of the outer city would be easy to attack.
Immediately, the Jin army built fire ladders, fire ladders, side bridges, bumping poles, goose carts, caves and other equipment, and attacked the city. They also built more than 200 towers below the city, and placed seven-foot, five-foot, whirlwind, and tiger Squatting and waiting, he threw huge stones weighing fifty kilograms, and even stone tablets, stone mills, stone sheep, stone tigers, etc. outside the city, destroying all the buildings in the city.
Later, King Wan Yanliang of Hailing mobilized two million military and civilian craftsmen to repair Kaifeng, with the idea of locating in the world and connecting with all nations. All the time was spent on repairing the palaces and buildings in the city, paying attention to the elegance and inscriptions, and the carved walls and majestic buildings. The walls are made of gold and the pillars are made of jade. They don't care about city defense.
Therefore, it was not until King Sui arrived in Kaifeng and felt the pressure from Zhongdu and the Southern Song Dynasty at the same time that he began to have the intention of repairing the city defense. Considering that the outer city was more than ten miles away and was difficult to defend due to the hasty police presence, it was decided to build a new city based on the old foundation of the inner city of Tokyo in the Song Dynasty.
Shortly after this decision was made, there was a farce in Zhongdu where the emperor fell from a building, which triggered a series of subsequent changes in the court. Naturally, Kaifeng had to deal with it. For example, it had to arrange important ceremonies first, support the king's enthronement, and fight against the ill Xingding Emperor Wanyan Shouzhong in Zhongdu.
Not long after, the changes in Zhongdu caused Jurchens in Hebei and other places to panic and flee. Kaifeng successively accepted nearly one million Jurchens who fled from Hebei, Zhongdu and other places.
After Dajin occupied the Central Plains, the Jurchen military households that moved from the northeastern interior to the Central Plains, Hebei, Shandong and other places reached 130 Meng'an and nearly 4 million people.
However, because the Jurchen poor households were not good at farming, no matter what preferential policies the court gave, the Jurchens who belonged to Meng'an Mouke continued to disappear. Coupled with the losses in wars over the years and even those who died in the ongoing Haner uprising, by the Da'an period, there were only more than forty or two million people in Meng'an Mouke under the full control of the imperial court.
On the one hand, they try their best to protect the Jurchen privileges, even at the expense of forcing the tens of thousands of people of all ethnic groups under their rule to grind their teeth and suck blood. On the other hand, they actually cannot protect the interests of the Jurchen group, so that the number of the entire group does not increase. reduce. This shows the poor governance of the Jin Kingdom over the past century since its founding.
Two million people may seem like a lot, but you must know that the Jurchens' land of Longxing can now be controlled by Guo Ning. The number of Meng'an Muke in the hands of the Kaifeng court was very small, and there was no way to replenish it.
Therefore, the Kaifeng court must take over these Jurchens who have escaped through countless hardships and deaths no matter what, and must place them in place as the foundation of Dajin.
To accommodate them, we must first come up with money and food. Kaifeng Mansion's original savings were immediately spent like water, and the finances that could still be maintained, and even seemed a bit surplus, suddenly became tense.
In order to make up for the shortfall, the Kaifeng court doubled the land tax on Nanjing Road, or followed the old method of classifying the fields owned by local people as wasteland and then allocating them to Jurchens for farming.
In the process, the local people's power was exhausted, not to mention that there were many conflicts between Jurchens and Haner on Nanjing Road, causing no less than a dozen riots.
Since King Sui arrived in Nanjing, he relied mostly on Han ministers such as Tian Zhuo and Hou Zhi for government affairs. Another Mongolian gangster with a higher status was a Jurchen, but he was also a Jinshi and served as an assistant to the Imperial Academy. He was a proper Confucian scholar. Therefore, what the entire regime has always shown is the traditional Confucian attitude of a wise king. It has the generosity to regard the Jurchens and Han'er as one family, and the benevolence of working hard to govern and being deeply aware of the sufferings of the people.
As a result, this generosity and kindness were all lost after King Sui ascended the throne and became emperor.
From the standpoint of Tian Zhuo, Hou Zhi and other Han ministers, there is still no way to persuade them. In any case, the problem is all there. If we don't find a solution from the Han'er on Nanjing Road, we will have to sit back and watch the Jurchens who defected to starve to death. Who dares to make this decision?
In the next few months, Tian Zhuo focused his energy on Henan Prefecture, while Hou Zhi was given the title of Third Secretary-General and concentrated on building the city.
He gathered people on April 1st and started construction of the new city. It didn't take long for him to encounter a shortage of money and food from the court. At first, the people could only drink some water, but later even the basic supplies were cut off. Hou Zhi simply cut off many unnecessary contents in an effort to save money, and also sent people to demolish the Nanjing Imperial College nearby to use as materials.
The Kaifeng court itself was also trying to figure out a way to solve this situation, so it sent several waves of people to Lin'an to press for new coins.
As a result, Lin'an Xing clearly wanted to weigh between the two Jin Dynasties, and he was moved by the benefits of trade and became more and more inclined to Zhongdu.
Kaifeng and the Song Dynasty were close to Chi Chi, and a lot of spies were sent out. So at that time, someone got an extra confidential piece of information, saying that the Song Dynasty would jointly open Qianjian in Huainan and Zhongdu, and the output of the Qianjian would be used to make up for it. The currency required for trade.
Doesn't this mean that delicious dishes with full flavor and aroma are cooked under the nose of the Kaifeng court and then served to the traitors in Zhongdu?
Is it tolerable, which one is intolerable?
At present, the Kaifeng court sent all the troops of the thirteen captains to go south, intending to plunder the Song Dynasty and seize supplies.
At the beginning of the war, many battles were won in succession. All the ministries reported that our army might not be able to deal with the rebels in Zhongdu, but it had more power to control the weak Southern Dynasty. In just half a month, in the two directions of west Beijing and Huainan, They all came back with a lot of money and food.
This is good news.
At that time, the ministers discussed together and felt that the traitors in Zhongdu had made more messes than the Kaifeng court, and the scale of the imperial court they built was larger than that of Kaifeng. It was impossible to launch an army in a short period of time, and we had Wanyan Heda in Hebei. , there are people like Mo Nian Zhongzhong in Xijing, and Bilan Arudai and others on Damingfu Road, which are enough to intimidate.
Therefore, the money and food looted in advance were not rushed to the north, and Wanyan Heda and others were allowed to tighten their belts for a few more months. The city here in Kaifeng has been repaired first, so everyone can sleep peacefully at night.
Hou Zhi got the money and food, and continued to work quickly. By July, he finally felt that things were getting better. He reported to the court that the inner city had been built on both the north and south sides, with towers and other buildings in place, and the outer city had also been slightly repaired, which could be used as a basis for city defense.
This is of course good news. The emperor personally inspected the two circles of the Great Wall inside and outside Kaifeng. He felt like a Jincheng hot spring and was very satisfied. He praised Hou Zhi's ability in government affairs on the spot, cited his merits, and was promoted to an official rank.
But now, the war with the Southern Dynasty has turned into a mess, and the powerful enemy from the north is coming again. No one can tell clearly whether the construction of this city has advantages or disadvantages, merits or demerits.
"Both marshals, Mo Ni Jinzhong and Wanyan Heda, were defeated? Are Bilan Alu too timid to fight and just sit back and watch the enemy troops move south?"
"I have already said that Bilan Alu is incompetent, but Mo Nien Jinzhong and Wanyan Heda each have 30,000 to 50,000 soldiers, how can they be defeated? Maybe Guo Ning is spreading rumors and disrupting the morale of our army... "
"Guo Ning's general Zhao Jue has led his troops to Ligudu! More than a hundred soldiers guarding the pontoon fled back. They all saw it with their own eyes. What else is suspicious? Look at Guo Ning personally leading his troops from there. The troops are approaching Qi County from the east... This, the troops are really approaching the city, Your Majesty!"
"Fortunately, the two walls of Kaifeng City are newly built and extremely strong, capable of withstanding a long-term fighting..."
"Speaking of the city wall, I want to scold you Hu Tu! Marshal Wanyan Heda had to carry out a dangerous night attack because his army had no reserves. If the court had not spent money and food to build the city wall, it would have been transferred to the north to replenish it for Hebei. How could the defenders allow people to rush to the Yellow River crossing so easily?"
"You're just Hutu! Is now the time to dwell on this matter? If the city wall hadn't been strong, Guo Ning's ferocious force would have already invaded the city and killed your whole family!"
The young emperor felt dizzy listening to the nonsense of the Jurchen nobles.
He smiled bitterly and turned his gaze to Tian Zhuo: "Mr. Qi, could you please ask Hou Zhi to talk about the preparations for city defense..."
Tian Zhuo had been privately persuading the emperor for the past two days to be prepared to abandon Kaifeng and flee to Henan or Jingzhao with a small number of elites. But when I came to see Tian Zhuo today, the circles under his eyes were a little dark, but his expression was calmer:
"I have already gone to see Hou Zhi and asked him to patrol the city carefully. Looking at the situation in the past few days, there is no need to worry about the enemy attacking the city for the time being. We still have time and available reinforcements... Your Majesty, we still have a chance."
"Mr. Qi, I don't have much education, please don't trick me!"
