The weakness of the Song Army was not temporary. Most of it was caused by man-made disasters and also had institutional flaws.
Zhao Kuangyin and Chen Qiao rebelled and took away the power of the orphans and widowers of the Chai family, so they worried that the same would happen to him in the Zhao and Song Dynasties in the future.
Therefore, since Taizu, the Song Dynasty has continuously used various methods to weaken the rights of soldiers and generals.
Not even the top generals in the imperial court can straighten their backs and speak, let alone how much combat power the front-line soldiers at the bottom can retain.
In addition, court officials were extremely corrupt, such as the Privy Council and the Three Yamen who held military power.
It is not uncommon for officials at all levels to interfere with the court's pay and deduct military funds. What's more, they deliberately default on payments and exploit them, making it difficult for the soldiers to make ends meet.
This also leads to the fact that once soldiers cannot get enough pay, they naturally have little determination to fight bravely.
Secondly, there is no supplement of sophisticated equipment. Many of them use old weapons and armor all year round, which is difficult to perform, and their combat effectiveness is naturally even lower.
Gao Qiu, as the Taiwei of the Commander-in-Chief of the Tokyo Palace, commanded 800,000 imperial troops.
Ordinarily, this should be the most elite combat force in the hands of Zhao Song officials, but in fact Gao Taiwei regards the Forbidden Army as his private property. He doesn't care about embezzling the Forbidden Army's money on weekdays. Even the soldiers and generals are regarded by him as his servants. Come and do whatever you want.
The Taiwei Mansion was built magnificently, all of which was financed by money from the greedy Jin Army. The construction manpower was directly transferred from the Imperial Guards, using the most elite soldiers and horses from Zhao and Song Dynasty as craftsmen.
With the leader Taiwei setting an example, the officials at all levels below also followed suit.
If things go on like this, the 800,000 Imperial Guards in Tokyo are not counted as empty pay quotas. How much combat power will be left among the actual soldiers and horses?
Therefore, in fact, the so-called Song Dynasty, as an elite forbidden army, may have actual combat power far less than the border troops or even some Xiang troops.
The training of men and horses does not happen overnight.
Fortunately, Gao Kan has two great talents, Lin Chong and Yang Zhi. The former is the instructor of the 800,000 Imperial Guards in Tokyo. He is very skilled in martial arts and has a good way of training soldiers and horses.
The latter came from a famous family and was familiar with military formations and various tactics.
With the cooperation of the two, one can train soldiers to fight individually, and the other can practice army tactics, which complement each other.
At this point, Gao Kan was never worried.
All he needed was more time. Because the Jin army was coming so fiercely, he had to deal with immediate needs first, so he ignored the training. Once the war stabilized, it would be fully carried out.
People have a way, and the rest is naturally weapons and equipment.
The so-called clever woman can't make a meal without rice. No matter how talented Lin Chong and Yang Zhi are, no matter how well they train the army, if they only have fire sticks in their hands, they can't defeat others who hold steel knives, wear heavy armor, and ride war horses.
If you want to have sophisticated ordnance, you need to spend a lot of money.
The helmet and armor each soldier wears, as well as the military uniforms and cotton clothes, are all made of silver.
Not to mention, strong bows and arrows, swords, guns, axes, etc., the good ones are even more expensive.
Gao Kan was calculating in his heart, and first used the money he had on hand to equip an elite force of about 3,000 men, which could be regarded as a reinforced army.
At that time, the best soldiers will be selected from among the men and horses at hand and form an independent army.
Then ask Lin Chong to train with Yang Zhi together.
When this elite team is trained, he will have the capital to compete head-on with the elite heavy cavalry of the Jin Army. Only then can he negotiate the Zhending Mansion and outflank Wanyan Zonghan's retreat.
The rest of the people can feed themselves with war, continue to temper themselves, and eventually become tough warriors who can fight in a hundred battles.
Then in the future, the army will press forward and the elite will make surprise attacks.
As long as this step can be achieved, then fighting against the Jin army will be able to change the offensive and defensive positions, and Gaokan can also try the taste of "drinking horses from the vast sea, sealing wolves to live in Xu".
So what he was thinking about was that the money from the salt gangs in Wanshan would come as soon as possible, and the money from Bianliang in Tokyo would soon be filled with gold and silver.
If that doesn't work, wait until Lingshou is defended and enters into a strategic stalemate with the Jin army that is attacking Zhending Mansion, then he can take the opportunity to consider playing the role of a bandit in the green forest, killing corrupt officials and destroying local tycoons.
Not to mention anything else, the officials at the Hedao Yamen of Zhending Prefecture must have a lot of money on their hands.
Gao Kan felt no burden at all in dealing with these people.
After dealing with the matter of the Salt Gang, after waiting for another day, Cao Qi and the others entered Lingshou. There was no news yet, so the spies sent out to follow the vanguard of the Jin Army in Cigu Town came back first to report.
The Jin army was stationed in the city over there, and there was no movement for the time being. Even the sentry sent out was not sent out.
Those responsible for guarding the city on weekdays are also the original Xiang army soldiers from Cigu Town.
After Gao Kan heard this report, he felt strange in his heart. The vanguard of the Jin army broke away from the rear of the army, sent out first, and headed straight for Ci Valley.
The march was so urgent that after entering Ci Valley, there was suddenly no movement.
The difference between before and after is obviously a big problem.
It's just that the Cigu Town side is heavily guarded. Since the Jin Army's vanguard entered the city, the gates on all sides have been under martial law. Only a small number of people and horses are allowed in and out of the city every day. Their identities must be carefully checked, and the carriages and horses must be searched before they can be released.
The spies sent out had difficulty sneaking into the city, so they had no idea what the real situation was inside the city.
Suppressing the strangeness in his heart, Gao Kan called Yang Zhi over, thinking of discussing it with him to see if he could tell what Jin Jun wanted.
The two of them sat down in the room. Yang Zhi held the secret letter from the spy in his hand and frowned.
"The difference between the golden thief before and after his march is so big, there must be something up his sleeve."
Gao Kan nodded and said: "What Coach Yang said is true, but Cigu Town is currently heavily guarded. It is difficult for our scouts to enter the city to investigate, so they cannot know the truth inside the city, but it is a troublesome matter."
"It's a pity that I don't know how many people the Golden Thief's vanguard actually has. It would be great if I knew." Yang Zhi put down the secret message in his hand and sighed in a deep voice.
"So what if you know?"
Gao Kan's eyes lit up when he heard this and he asked.
Yang Zhi hurriedly said: "If we can know the size of the gold thieves' troops, we can identify their possible targets. Take the second village occupied by our army as an example. If the gold thieves intend to attack, although the two strongholds are not far apart, they can reinforce each other. , but the mountain stronghold is not as strong as the city, and the gold thieves’ cavalry are very defensive, so even if they attack by force, they don’t need many soldiers and horses.”
Hearing this, Gao Kan's mind suddenly moved and he thought of an extremely bold possibility.
"It's not difficult to attack the stronghold, but the difficult part is to attack the city!"
Yang Zhi heard this and said in surprise: "If the gold thieves want to attack a city, which city should they attack? To the left of Ci Valley, there are only two strong cities, Lingshou and Xingtang, but both of them are in their hands."
"That's not necessarily true." Gao Kan narrowed his eyes, a cold light flashing in his eyes.
"The gold thieves who went south this time are here for reinforcements. What they knew when they came was that Wanyan Bowen's group told us to encircle and ambush them before, and they could not confirm the subsequent movements of our army."
"Wanyan Bowen knows that we have an army of more than ten thousand, and he can guess that they are the soldiers and horses of the Xiang army who had passed away when they first entered Zhending Mansion."
"In this way, in the eyes of the Jin Army, after we ambush Yan Bowen's soldiers and horses, the next step will be to attack Lingshou!"
The Jin army was not good at attacking cities, which was a flaw.
Previously, Gao Kan made a tough move, but no one of the more than two thousand soldiers and horses survived, so naturally we have to be more cautious next time.
