In the following days, the Khitan Restoration Army made preparations for defensive operations with Xianpingfu as the core of its base.
They destroyed roads everywhere, destroyed bridges, dug traps, implemented the tactics of fortifying walls and clearing fields, and then placed the cavalry on the periphery, ready to confront the Jin Army's logistics troops at any time.
On March 16, the Jin army was divided into two groups. Xiao Huaizhong led 10,000 people to attack Qui Nhon County, while the remaining 20,000 people led the main force to attack Pingguo County in Xianping Prefecture under the leadership of Xiao Tula.
Of course, military operations are not easy. They experienced various difficulties and obstacles along the way.
The Khitan rebels seemed to be everywhere, digging many holes for them on their way forward, seriously hindering the Jin army's advance.
Not only that, whenever night falls, they often appear around the Jin Army's camps and launch various harassing military operations, so that the Jin Army can't even rest well, and they are very ungrateful.
Moreover, along the march, we would occasionally receive reports from the rear about risks on the grain roads. It seemed that a considerable number of Khitan cavalry appeared on the Jin Army's logistics routes, posing an extremely serious threat to the Jin Army's logistics.
Xiao Huaizhong faced relatively few difficulties in the direction of his attack, but Xiao Tula faced particularly many harassments.
As a last resort, Xiao Tula had to devote part of his troops to protecting the logistics routes, and try to place the logistics routes on official roads to facilitate defense.
Because of such delaying and fatigue tactics, it was already March 21 when the Jin army finally arrived in Pingguo County. The Khitan Restoration Army had already been prepared here.
The tall, wide and deep city gave Xiao Tula a headache. Looking at the various flags erected on the city wall, Xiao Tula had no choice but to fight head-on with the Khitan Restoration Army here.
The two sides launched a fierce offensive and defensive battle for the city.
Because he was very concerned about this war, Wan Yanliang would basically send a handwritten military inquiry every five or six days to inquire about the latest war situation. If there was progress, he would be satisfied. If there was no progress, he would angrily accuse Xiao Tula of being incompetent and ask him to Attack immediately.
So Xiao Tula also learned the lesson.
Today he wiped out dozens of enemies, tomorrow he wiped out more than a hundred enemies, the day after tomorrow he repulsed several enemy attacks, and the day after tomorrow he uprooted several enemy military strongholds. In short, he made progress every day.
Dare not tell big lies, small lies... actually can't be regarded as lies. Just making a fuss about the number of enemies annihilated does not count as lying. At most, it will be enough to see a few more heads when the time comes.
Anyway, just deal with it.
In this way, Xiao Tula painted a very good military strategy map for Wanyan Liang, which made Wanyan Liang truly believe that Xiao Tula was making progress every day and that the Khitan rebellion would be quelled soon.
Then he continued to accelerate the ordering of Jurchen soldiers from all over the country to gather in the central capital, and intensified the recruitment and issuance of troops to prepare for larger-scale strategic mobilization.
Considering that the first destination of this trip south is Kaifeng, the reconstruction of Kaifeng and the construction of palaces cannot be postponed and must be carried out at the same time. Therefore, while the expedition is underway, the expansion of Kaifeng must continue without interruption.
Otherwise, his forward base for attacking the Southern Song Dynasty and his future capital would be gone.
This made Wan Yanliang feel quite busy.
It feels like there are things going on everywhere, and it’s a troubled time at all.
There are wars in the south and wars in the north. Palaces and palaces need to be built and large-scale construction projects are carried out. In short, there are endless things to do and endless money to spend everywhere.
Because many things that required financial expenditure were going on at the same time, Wan Yanliang found that his money was not enough.
Wan Yanliang, who has amassed money through various means since he came to the throne, is actually quite rich. If he kills a political opponent, he will plunder their property, and if he kills an unhappy person, he will annex all his property. Therefore, Wan Yanliang is really rich. Richer than his predecessor.
But no matter how rich he was, he couldn't support the deployment of troops on both fronts and a large-scale construction project at the same time. With the astronomical expenditure, Wan Yanliang also felt a little overwhelmed.
Officials from the Ministry of Revenue told him many times that the treasury was too empty to be used. If he continued to use the few remaining savings, Jin Ting would not be able to deal with any natural or man-made disasters in the future.
The current bad situation made Wan Yanliang realize that even if he wanted to optimize the financial system, he couldn't do it. The only way to break the situation was war.
Eliminating war through war, plundering the losers' property to make up for the shortfall, and closing the financial gap are the fastest and most effective courses of action.
As for actions such as reforms, that will happen a long time later. When he eliminates the Southern Song Dynasty and unifies China, he will naturally have the prestige to promote any reforms, and everything will get better naturally.
So he asked Xiao Tula more urgently to solve the Khitan rebellion, but he was quite cowardly and chose to temporarily tolerate the attack by the Liberation Army in the south.
The southern defense line was mainly defensive, and no attack was allowed under any circumstances. He also ordered that once he knew who attacked rashly, he would be punished with death even if he won the battle, and he would never get a reward.
Under such circumstances, the Six-State Defense Line moved toward a more conservative state.
Su Yonglin, who was pretending to attack Xiongzhou and Bazhou, noticed that the Jin army's defense was becoming more conservative. Although it did no harm to Su Yonglin, it also gave him almost no loopholes to exploit.
So he changed his mind.
He himself didn't want to fight with the Jin army here, but he wanted to attract Jin Ting's attention and prevent Jin Ting from attacking the Khitan Restoration Army with all his strength. At the moment, Jin Ting's actions were obviously to attack the north and defend the south, while the south pretended to be dead. Unless he concentrates his main force to break through with all his strength, he will definitely not be able to achieve results.
No, if this continues, it will not be beneficial to the Khitan Restoration Army, which has just been established.
Since a land attack cannot cause Wan Yanliang to make more mistakes, wouldn't it be better to launch an attack from the sea?
I had received intelligence before that Wan Yanliang was building warships in the coastal area of Daxing Prefecture, preparing to use them in the southern expedition.
This is a very good opportunity.
I can't exploit any loopholes on land, so I'll launch an attack from the sea, and destroy your unformed navy in one fell swoop.
In any case, it consumes Wan Yanliang's war potential, and it's the same on land and at sea.
Moreover, Su Yonglin felt that it was indeed necessary for him to start building a naval force that was good at fighting.
The navy of the Southern Song Dynasty was much more elite than the Jin army. It was almost a strategic force that saved the Southern Song Dynasty many times. In the future, when going south to destroy the Southern Song Dynasty, it would be almost impossible to do without the navy.
The main force on our side is still the well-deserved army, and the navy is not used very often.
Of course it won't work if it goes on like this.
Su Yonglin was also a smuggler of salt. The earliest armed group was also an armed smuggler of salt at sea. It can be said that it started from the navy.
At the beginning, Su Yonglin placed the more than 20 usable sea-going ships of the Su family's private salt team in the coastal areas of Shandong and on the small island, but they never had time to use them.
Isn't now the best time?
Moreover, I also have people here who are familiar with naval warfare. The old brothers who followed me at the beginning are all good at naval warfare. Just pick a few and you can build the skeleton of a naval officer.
As for the navy soldiers, a group of soldiers who had fought water battles in the rivers from Sun Tzu's Rebel Army were selected into the navy to prop up the navy's frame and look decent.
They also started almost from scratch, but their water warfare experience and water warfare capabilities are stronger than that of the Jin Army. Even the early Jin Army, in an era when it was almost invincible on land, was repeatedly defeated by the Song Army's navy. This shows the incompetence of his navy.
As soon as he thought of this, Su Yonglin, who was very capable, immediately ordered to go down and prepare for the opening.
Su Yonglin's regiment wants to add a military-level unit for naval warfare to build up a naval force and prepare to dominate the East Asian waters.
