On the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, in the Zhenguan Hall of Ziwei Palace in Luoyang, the first military meeting in the Zhenguan Hall in the third year of Hongwu's reign was held, and the atmosphere was somewhat depressing.
The reason for the depressing atmosphere is, of course, the bad news coming from the front!
There are three pieces of bad news:
First, the Mongol tribe who migrated from Mobei did not invade Hedong in a large scale. Instead, they settled in the three states and one army of Yunnei Prefecture, Fengzhou, Dongsheng Prefecture, and Tiande Army on the Xijing Road of the Jin Kingdom. He also established a sweat tent at the foot of Jiashan Mountain in Fengzhou, and also used methods such as marriage, alliance, and conquest to conquer the White Tatar tribes north of Yinshan Mountain to expand his strength.
After hastily settling in, the Mongols also launched several tentative attacks on the Hedong area under the Northern Song Dynasty. However, the scale of the attacks was not large, and the number of troops invested was limited, and only the cannon fodder was used. They are some stupid raw Tatars... Zhao Kai's plan to lure the enemy deep into the hinterland of Hedong and eliminate Hebule completely failed!
After testing it several times with raw Tatar cannon fodder, Hebule also sent a caravan mainly composed of white Tatars in the twelfth lunar month of last year, hoping to use horses to fight with the Zhejia in the three prefectures of Fu, Lin, and Feng. Exchange ironware.
Obviously, Hebule was not stupid at all. He would not invade on a large scale before he found out the true and false situation of the Northern Song Dynasty and found an opportunity.
But Hebule's lack of large-scale invasion does not mean that Zhao Kai can't fortify the Hedong front line tightly - now there is no Great Wall on the Hedong front line to stop this group of barbarians who may come south to grab things at any time.
It has to be said that Wu Qimai deceived the Mongol people from the banks of the Onan River, which sounds very miserable, to the foothills of the Yinshan and Jiashan mountains with abundant water and grass. It was a clever move.
In fact, Wu Qimai's clever move was natural - in the original history, the Jurchens occupied the entire northern China except the Xixia land. Naturally, they have become the first target of robbery for most grassland nomadic tribes, including the Mongols.
The contradiction between the Jurchens and Mengwu is difficult to reconcile, let alone becoming friends.
But now, the fertile grasslands at the foot of Yinshan and Jiashan Mountains and Hedong under Zhao Kai can become bargaining chips for the Jurchens to win over the Mongol and other grassland tribes.
This group of people was originally a problem for the Great Jin Kingdom, but now it has become a problem for the Northern Song Dynasty!
The second bad news is that Xiao Heda, who went north to try to contact Yelu Dashi, suffered a huge defeat at the foot of Black Mountain!
The one who defeated him was the Jurchen-Mongol coalition led by Wanyan Loushi, the southwest recruiter of the Jin Kingdom!
Wanyan Loushi and Hebule were both veterans of fighting on the grasslands. Although Xiao Heda was also a veteran, he became famous in the mountains of the northwest and was not very familiar with the grasslands. As a result, the headquarters was attacked by the enemy at the foot of Black Mountain. Before Zhao Kai had time to throw out the explosive pot, people from Lou Shi and Hebule snatched more than a hundred of them. Xiao Heda's men (including those who fled to The Black Mountain Khitans) also lost tens of thousands... The remaining tens of thousands (including family members) retreated across the Yellow River and then fled south to Lingzhou.
The third bad news was caused by Wanyan Lou's room. After the victory, Wanyan Loushi went south along the north and west banks of the Yellow River, and in one fell swoop captured Keyi Gate, the gateway to Xingzhou, the home base of the Hexi Jiedushi (Xixia)!
Now the plains between Helan Mountain and the Yellow River are all exposed to Lou Shi's soldiers!
Li Qianshun, the governor of Hexi Province, had already sent an envoy to ask for help from the Northern Song Dynasty court... This really embarrassed the Northern Song Dynasty court!
If you don't save him, Li Qianshun might turn against him and become a pawn of Dabai Gao Kingdom!
Save... Not only does it cost a lot to send out a large army, but there is also a risk of defeat! Lou Shi is a famous general of the Jin Dynasty, and he also leads a powerful Jurchen army.
Moreover, Li Qianshun is a ruthless person who even wants to kill his mother, son and wife! Who knows if he will join forces with Lou Shi to trick Da Song?
As for the frontal battlefield between the Northern Song Dynasty and the Jin Kingdom, that is, the section of Hebei West Road, it remained stable as expected.
The Jin army was obviously frightened by the quick defeat of the Western bandits and the power of the explosive pot. They did not dare to attack Xindefu, Cizhou, and Xiangzhou, the three important iron smelting towns in the Northern Song Dynasty. Instead, they took the initiative to retreat about 50 miles from the front line and retreated. When they arrived at the old Yellow River route between Puyang and Nangong, they began to build fortifications to hold on.
This section of the Yellow River's old course is the west one of the old Yellow River's northern courses. There are many forks in the Yellow River's northern course. This one is the most westerly. It flows from Puyang to the north, flows into the Hulu River, and then merges into the other through the Hulu River. A river flowing north of the Yellow River.
Now the Yellow River has changed its course to the south and is in close contact with the Huaihe River, so the river channel flowing north has become the "abandoned Yellow River"... The river channel is still there, but the water is gone, and it has turned into several "high ditches", which means it is high above the ground. of ditch.
After the Jin army retreated for dozens of miles, they used the westernmost one of these "high ditches" to start building a defense line.
The so-called defense line, of course, is not to stretch the limited troops out for 400 miles, but to build a fortress and a beacon every 10 or 20 miles, and to station in several large cities behind this "Gaogou Defense Line" Heavy troops - If the Northern Song army attacked, they would be able to attack in time.
The Northern Song Dynasty army stationed in Hebei did not push the front line in front of the Jin Army's "Gaogou" defense line. Instead, they built a defense line along the old path of the Zhang River and Yongji Canal flowing north. At the same time, the castles in Liyang, Linhe, Neihuang, Wei County, Julu and other places abandoned by the Jin soldiers were taken as forward strongholds.
In addition, the Jin Army now launched an active offensive on the eastern front facing the Southern Song Dynasty and invaded south of the Huaihe River.
Therefore, looking at the entire big map, it is not difficult to find that the Kingdom of Jin has given up its plan of a comprehensive attack and instead launched a focused attack on the western and eastern fronts at the same time. Because the battlefields on the east and west fronts are too far apart, it is impossible for the Song army to move back and forth on these two battlefields. Moreover, the main battlefield in Hebei in the middle is still facing off, and it has to maintain a considerable number of troops...
Obviously, in today's "Controversy of the Later Three Kingdoms" between "Two Song Dynasties and One Jin", Da Jin plays the powerful Cao Wei, while the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties play the relatively weak Sun Liu.
However, one of the two Song Dynasties has black technology and the other has the ability to make money, but they are overwhelmed by Dajin, who only has the trump card of the Barbarian Warrior. Both of them are passive. It is really unpleasant!
Under such circumstances, the atmosphere at the Zhenguan Palace military meeting was inevitably depressing.
However, Zhao Kai, an official, seemed to be in a good mood. He sat on the throne with a smile, listening to the ministers below speaking one by one, but without any comments. I really don't know what he was thinking about?
After all the people below had finished speaking, the official, who was not sure if anyone was listening, said with a smile: "Well, it's very good... Our Song Dynasty is getting stronger day by day, and the golden thief It’s getting worse day by day! It seems it’s time to launch a major counterattack!”
"The officials... isn't it the time to counterattack now?" It was Yue Fei who jumped out to oppose Zhao Kai.
Although the military ministers here in Zhao Kai are relatively well-behaved and do not dare to beat people in court, they still dare to speak!
Yue Fei said: "My brother went to see the test firing of the 'Casserole Cannon' yesterday. The power is already satisfactory, and it is also quite light. It can be dragged on the battlefield by two to four horses... If every general can be equipped with four of these 'casserole guns', the time will be ripe for a major counterattack."
Yue Fei now likes black technology and spends all day on "casserole cannon". Under his supervision, Xijiacheng Cannon Foundry has cast 20 various "clay pot cannons" one after another. And these "casserole cannons" are becoming more and more like cannons, and their performance is gradually approaching actual combat requirements.
It shouldn't take long and it should be ready!
However, the requirement of "four guns per general" is a bit high!
Zhao Kai has more than 160 generals' troops. Each general has four cannons, which means he needs to cast more than 600 casserole cannons!
Of course, more than 600 cannons are not a problem, there is still some copper. The problem is the draft horses. A cannon plus ammunition cart and blacksmith cart requires at least 16 horses to drag. If it is to be moved over a long distance, the same number of auxiliary horses must be prepared, which is 32 horses.
More than 600 cannons would require more than 20,000 draft horses... This is not a small number!
Although the number of official horses currently owned by the Northern Song Dynasty far exceeds 20,000, cavalry and heavy troops all need horses. Moreover, the group herding supervisors had to give birth to a sufficient number of horses to give birth to babies. Due to the lack of excellent and established horse breeds, only a small part of the foals produced by Zhao Kai's group herding supervisors were suitable for use as war horses. Therefore, more stallions and mares are needed for breeding...
Therefore, it was impossible for Zhao Kai's hundreds of thousands of soldiers to have a sufficient number of draft horses and war horses until five or six years ago.
However, the strategic counterattack cannot be delayed until five or six years later! Because the golden thieves will not stop, they will not wait for the Song Dynasty's heavenly soldiers to counterattack. They will continue to launch key attacks on the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties to hinder their preparations for war.
Zhao Kai smiled and said: "Yesterday, I met with the Southern Envoy Yu Wenxuzhong in Shangyang Palace and learned that the Southern Army now has the strength to fight the Jurchens. So I came up with the idea of advancing by sea and land to surround the Jurchens. ......I want to unite the Kingdom of Wu, the Kingdom of Korea, the Hexi Jiedu Envoys, and the Khitan Dashi Linya to establish a major anti-Jin alliance! This will make the Jin people limited to the situation of being surrounded by enemies on all sides and unable to attack us. We will launch an attack on the DPRK. In this way, our DPRK can prepare for war with peace of mind, and within five years, we will be able to succeed in the Northern Expedition! What do you think of my thoughts?"
"Officials," Privy Councilor He Guan came out of class and asked, "Will King Wu agree? In addition, there is no enmity between the Goryeo Kingdom and the Jurchens. Are you afraid that they won't be willing to work with us to deal with the Jurchens?"
Zhao Kai said: "I can send troops to Songzhou to relieve the Wu State from the danger in Huainan... In return, the Wu State should cooperate with me in the anti-Jin siege. As for Goryeo... as long as Wu State's The envoy will take the navy to have a good talk with them, and they should join us."
Bring the navy?
Can you still talk well?
The ministers in the hall were a little confused about Zhao Kai's diplomatic thinking... Could it be that if the Koreans didn't join, Zhao Huan still had to send a navy to fight against Korea? Zhao Huan is not that unreasonable, right?
