Prince Yun's Mansion, study room.
The secret conversation between Tong Guan and Zhao Kai continues.
Tong Guan, an old traitor, not only did not realize the reality that he was a traitor, but he also imagined that he could be remembered as a loyal and good man in the annals of history, receive a good posthumous title, and be buried in the earth with great glory.
So when he saw Zhao Kai, whom he had fully supported, show his true face as a "Li Shimin type", he immediately saw the hope of becoming a loyal and good man. After the court ended today, I found an excuse to find out the truth from Zhao Ji, and then took advantage of the darkness to come to have a heart-to-heart with Zhao Kai.
And the heart he showed to Zhao Kai was of extremely great significance to Zhao Kai, who had just arrived and didn't understand the history of the Song Dynasty!
"King Gu understands!" Zhao Kai nodded lightly, "The grand master means that if you want to win the Northern Expedition, you cannot rely on tens of thousands of Western troops alone. You must let the officials and people of Hebei contribute money and efforts!"
Isn’t this the principle of people’s war? Zhao Kai understood immediately. Although it was not taught in the "Four Military Books", this principle was taught in school. I didn't expect it to be effective in the Song Dynasty.
"Your Majesty is wise!" Tong Guandao said, "In fact, when we fought against the Western bandits in Shaanxi, the army, civilians, officials and gentry also contributed together, and we did not just rely on the Forbidden Army. Along the northwest border, the Forbidden Army was only one of the armies, not the only one that could fight. The Forbidden Army In addition, there are archers and soldiers along the border, all of whom are capable and capable soldiers, and their strength is not inferior to that of the Forbidden Army."
"The archers and soldiers along the edge..." Zhao Kai muttered for a moment, then thought about it again, "Their strength is not small!"
The so-called "archers" do not refer to archers who draw bows and shoot arrows, but a kind of militia that integrates farming and fighting in the northwest border area of the Song Dynasty. This kind of militia generally began to appear in large numbers in various pacification envoys in the northwest after the rise of Dangxiang. They are local armed forces under the jurisdiction of the pacification envoys. These militiamen did not receive military pay, but official fields near the border were allocated for them to cultivate by the appeasement envoys. In several relatively loose land areas in Shaanxi, an archer can get about 200-250 acres of land. Of course, these 250 acres of land are tax-free. In addition, the archer himself and a certain number of family members can also be exempted from corvee. Although the land in the northwest is barren, the amount of 200-250 acres is not too small. Coupled with the benefit of family members being exempted from military service, it is enough to attract strong men from all over the northwest to recruit archers, and the archers rely on those lands. As well as the rewards and trophies obtained from often accompanying the army in battles, one can also have enough food and clothing.
In addition, because these border archers often fight at home, with their homes and wives and children behind them, they often behave very tenaciously, even surpassing the serious Northwest Forbidden Army (that is, the Western Army).
The commanders and generals along the northwest border also know that these archers can fight, so every time there is a big battle, a considerable number of archers will be directly incorporated into the main force, so that they can charge into battle like the regular Western army! In this way, the strength of the Northwest Forbidden Army was amplified-the number of these border archers was quite large. There were hundreds of thousands of border archers on the five border roads in Shaanxi (not counting Yongxing Military Road)!
In addition to the archers along the border, the Northwest Forbidden Army also has a group of reliable helpers, the so-called Fan soldiers. Fanbing is the army of Xifan (Tubo) or other tribes loyal to the Song Dynasty. The Zhejia Army, which has led Fuzhou for generations, is the most outstanding representative among them.
Tong Guan continued: "In addition to archers and soldiers, the Fusi along the five border roads in Shaanxi and the prefectures and military counties below have been in war for a long time, so they are good at mobilizing civilians to help the Western Army transport supplies. Build cities.
Therefore, when the Northwest Forbidden Army fought in Shaanxi, they were assisted by archers and soldiers on the left and right, and there were countless civilians behind them to transport and build castles. They were by no means fighting alone.
But the situation in Hebei is completely different. Hebei has been in peace for so long that even the local imperial guards have decayed, let alone others? When the Northwest Forbidden Army arrived in Hebei, not only did they lose their archers and soldiers, but they also had difficulty mobilizing the civilian officials responsible for transportation and building fortresses and cities. It can be said that they became a lonely army! It is of course very difficult for the lone army, which has been exhausted by seventy or eighty thousand consecutive years of fighting, to defeat the Khitan who have become a poor bandit... Now the king is about to go to Hebei to lead the army, but he must learn from The lesson learned by the old minister is that you cannot fight alone! "
Zhao Kai frowned a little after listening to Tong Guan's words, "Grand Master, it's probably not easy to be a lone soldier in Hebei, right?"
Tong Guan smiled bitterly and said: "I have nothing to do, but the king still has some ideas."
"Please give me some advice, Grand Master."
"If you don't dare to give me advice, just give me some lessons!" Tong Guan looked at Zhao Kai and said, "The ancestral system of the Song Dynasty did not kill scholar-bureaucrats... So it is difficult to treat civil servants, and it is even more difficult for civil servants with a background (Jinshi) Governance. After your Majesty arrives in Hebei, if possible, he will use more military resources to govern the place. If these military talents are not effective, your Majesty can also engage in military law. And if your literary talents make mistakes, what can your Majesty do to them? These people How can we fight if we can’t fight or kill, we can only coax?”
Zhao Kai nodded slightly, but for some reason he thought of Qin Hui. Qin Hui is talented in literature! It seems that we can’t just find a reason to get rid of him... we need to get irrefutable proof that he is traitorous!
"I have learned the lesson," Zhao Kai made up his mind and asked again, "I wonder if the Grand Master has any more words of wisdom to say?"
"There are no good words of gold or jade," Tong Guan sighed, "They are just some lessons from defeat... The Western Army is unreliable, and the victorious army is not useful. If the king wants to achieve great achievements in Hebei, he cannot rely on it. They want to train new recruits!
If the king wants to train truly useful recruits, he needs to keep two points in mind. First, the more local soldiers you recruit, the better! Second, the smaller the ones used, the better!
The local soldiers are simple, brave, honest and reliable, far better than those soldiers of the Western Army.
But the young general, a newborn calf, full of vigor, eager to win, brave and daring to fight, is not much stronger than the old general like me. Of course, the veteran knows that there are two or three veterans available in Hebei... Yang Weizhong counts as one, and Liu Yan of the Red Heart Team counts as one. "
Tong Guan was really heartbroken!
The "three don'ts" he is now proposing to Zhao Kai are really good advice.
The first three things we don't want are civil servants - it's not that we don't want scholars, but we want to use as few civil servants as possible who can't be killed or beaten. The second is not to use veterans. Tong Guan is a veteran himself. Of course, he knows that most veterans have become foxes. They have a lot of calculations and can't do anything well at all. Third, we don’t want veterans. Most of the veterans are just soldiers. They are not good at fighting training, but they are good at cheating and slipping.
Zhao Kai thought about it and found that the troops he had on hand seemed to be mainly veterans, but most of the generals were relatively young, and only He Guan was older. In addition, there are not many civil servants who are difficult to serve. At the moment, they are Qin Hui and Chen Ji.
"The Gu family will remember what the grand master said!" Zhao Kai said with a smile, "Although the grand master is a veteran and cannot be used, but the grand master, you are the weakest of the solitary... I will report it to the official tomorrow, please adjust it." How about going to Hebei with the Grand Master?"
"Absolutely not. The old minister cannot leave the official family now." Tong Guan came to Zhao Kai today to talk to him. Of course, he wanted to find a way out for himself, but now is not the time for him to leave.
Tong Guandao: "Although the veteran is very old, he still knows how to hold on in Kaifeng Mansion after twenty or thirty years of military service!"
"Then there is Grand Master Lao here in Kaifeng Mansion." Zhao Kai thought for a while and then said, "Grand Master Lao will try his best to persuade my father to stick to it and never abandon the throne and run away!"
"Old minister knows what's appropriate," Tong Guan paused, "Your Majesty, it's best to leave as soon as possible...Today's Kaifeng Mansion in Tokyo is already a place of right and wrong."
"Gu Zheng wants to leave as soon as possible!" Zhao Kai said, "We will leave immediately after Gu goes to Moutuogang to choose a horse, and then takes the belongings that have been set aside from the hidden treasure."
Tong Guan thought for a while and said, "The property will definitely be distributed tomorrow or the day after tomorrow... As for the horses and the soldiers who raise them, I can go there for the king. I happen to be going to Moutuogang to take care of the horses there." The horses were driven into the city."
