At the time of Tuoba Tao's destruction of the Xia Kingdom, he was planning an attack on Northern Yan and Northern Liang, but Emperor Wen of Song decided to go on a northern expedition, intending to regain the lost territory in Henan, including Luoyang, Hujiao, and Huatai. In 430 AD, Emperor Wen of Song sent the right general to Yanzhi to lead an army of 50,000 to fight north with the Anbei general Wang Zhongde and Yanzhou Assassin Shi Zhu Lingxiu. At the same time, Duan Hong, the general of the Xiao cavalry, led 8,000 elite soldiers to attack the tiger prison, while Liu Dewu, the assassin of Yuzhou, led 10,000 troops and followed, and then the general Changsha Wang Yixin led 30,000 mobile troops. In addition, he also sent Tian Qi, the general of the palace, to the Wei State to instigate Tuobatao, saying that Henan was originally the territory of the Song Dynasty and was occupied by it. However, Tuoba Tao was furious, claiming that he had heard that Henan belonged to them as early as he was a child, and that he would not give in, and even said that if the Song army dared to come and seize it, he would temporarily retreat and wait until the winter was cold and the river froze before retaking the land. Tuoba Tao adopted a strategy of retreating to advance against the Northern Expedition of the Song Dynasty, a strategy proposed by his right-hand man Cui Hao.
Cui Hao believed that the Song army should be treated with "the safest plan to wait for the Song army to be tired, wait until the autumn is cool and the horses are fat, and then quietly approach while the enemy is taking food, and then attack" (The Biography of Cui Hao in Wei Shu). The right general of the Song army, Zhi Yanzhi, led the army from Huaishui to Surabaya, because the water flow was not smooth, and he could only march ten miles a day. It took more than three months to reach Xuchang (in present-day Dongping, Shandong) in July, and then traveled west along the river. In view of the scarcity of defenders in the four towns of Henan (Kim Yong Yong, Tiger Prison, Huatai, and Xuanjiao), Tuoba Tao ordered all his troops to cross north. Subsequently, the defenders of Zhuan, Huatai, Luoyang, and Tiger Prison withdrew one after another, leaving the empty city behind. The Song army took advantage of the weakness to enter, and when it arrived at Yanzhi, he ordered his troops to defend various cities, and then the Song army entered Lingchangjin (now north of Yanjin County, Henan), and the forward reached Tongguan directly. As a result, Si and Yanzhou were all owned by the Song army, which made the Song army extremely happy, thinking that the success of the Northern Expedition was just around the corner. However, Anbei General Wang Zhongde told everyone: "You do not understand the actual situation in the north, and you will definitely misjudge the situation.
Although the Hu people lack benevolence and righteousness, they are very cunning**. Now that we are holding our stronghold in the north, they will definitely encircle and suppress it with all their might. As soon as the river freezes, they will go south again, shouldn't everyone be vigilant!?(Zizhi Tongjian, vol. 121). However, Wang Zhongde's warning did not attract the attention of the Song army. Sure enough, in August, the Northern Wei Dynasty launched a counterattack instead. Tuoba Tao sent the champion general An Jie to lead the armies and attack the main force of Hikoyuki. To Yanzhi ordered Wu Xing Yao Shufu to cross the river to attack Yesaka, and the two sides could not hold each other, and as a result, Yao Shufu was defeated, ** heavy. Then, Tuoba Tao sent the general of the Western Army, Changsun Daosheng, and the king of Danyang, Taibi, to garrison the north bank of the Great River to prevent the northern crossing to Yanzhi. The Northern Wei generals Zhi Yanzhi and Wang Zhongde set up a defense by the river and continued to maintain control of Dongping. Subsequently, the Wei army crossed the Weisujin River to attack Kim Yong, Luoyang and Hujiao changed hands one after another, and the Song army suffered successive defeats. Faced with this situation, Hikoyuki planned to burn the ships and lead his troops to retreat south. However, Wang Zhongde believes that Luoyang has been lost, the tiger is difficult to defend, and the general trend is inevitable.
He persuaded Hikoyuki that the enemy army was still thousands of miles away from us, and that the slippery platform still had a strong force. He advocated that the ships should be brought in, and that careful arrangements should be made after they arrived at the mouth of the Maergu Valley. At the same time, there was an outbreak of disease in the army, and there was no way to fight again. So he led his army to Licheng, burned the ships, abandoned the military supplies, and walked to Pengcheng. Another Song army also fled south to Hulu after losing Xuchang, but was heavily wounded by the Wei general's uncle Sun Jian, resulting in more than 5,000 dead and wounded. The army of the Northern Song Expedition was completely defeated. Although the Song army was very full of troops and equipment during the Northern Expedition, after the defeat, what was abandoned was close to exhaustion, and "the treasury and arsenal were also empty", and the Song State suffered heavy losses in both manpower and financial resources. The Northern Wei Dynasty had many expeditions to the north to Rouran, the west to the Xia, and the southern Song Dynasty, although they achieved victory, but the successive campaigns made the domestic people bear a heavy burden. Coupled with the impact of the flood, the strength of the Wei State also appeared to be somewhat insufficient. Therefore, when Wei Chen wrote a letter suggesting a large-scale attack on the Song Dynasty, Tuoba Tao did not accept it.
After that, there was no large-scale war between the Song and the Northern Wei Dynasty, and this relatively peaceful situation remained for more than 20 years.