The Northern Song Dynasty began with Zhao Guangyi, Taizong of the Song Dynasty, and it had nothing to do with "martial arts". Song Taizong's position was not right, so he could only further tie up the generals' fists and feet, and the Song army, which was dull in battle, completely lost the opportunity to recover the sixteen states of Yanyun. Of course, the Liao State, which rose in northern Xinjiang, did not have enough strength to cross the Yellow River and take Kaifeng. Song Liao maintained peace for a hundred years since the "Lanyuan Alliance".
The rise of the Jin Kingdom broke this balance, so there were two historical events of Song and Jin's "Maritime Alliance" and "Ransom Yanjing". These two events hastened the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty and rewrote the history of the Han dynasty. If you look at these two incidents now, it is indeed a pit dug by the Jin people for the Northern Song Dynasty. Song Huizong was "so happy" again, and willingly jumped into the fire pit.
Although there was no large-scale military conflict between the Song and Liao countries after the alliance between the Song and Liao, it did not mean that the two countries had really become fraternal countries. The Liao State has always regarded itself as the successor of the Tang Dynasty, which shows that they are different from the previous minority regimes and do have the ambition to enter the Central Plains.
Sixteen states of Yanyun.
The Northern Song Dynasty also never forgot the homeland of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, because this land could support the old Great Wall defense line and prevent the cavalry from rampage on the plains. Song Liao actually started a war of ** people. The Liao State financed Western Xia to harass the Northern Song Dynasty's borders, and the Northern Song Dynasty also funded Goryeo to threaten the Liao State to the northeast. However, this kind of petty fighting did not change the military pattern of the Song and Liao countries in the end. The real change was the rise of the Kingdom of Jin.
No dynasty can escape the cyclical law of history, not even a minority regime. In the last years of the Liao Kingdom, the Jurchens continued to attack this dynasty that had been confronted by the Northern Song Dynasty for a hundred years. At this time, the Northern Song Dynasty also had a plan to recover the sixteen states of Yanyun by force. In 1111 AD, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty decided on a plan to recover Yanjing, which led to the 1120 Maritime Alliance and the subsequent military campaign to recover Yanjing.
The action of recovering Yanjing, Song Huizong did not come up with it in his head. Due to the continuous military attacks of the Jurchens, many Liao people began to take refuge in the Northern Song Dynasty, and there was Zhao Liangsi here.
Zhao Liangsi kept stating the corruption and decline of the Liao State in front of Song Huizong, as if he could kick the Liao State down with just one kick. Therefore, there is a plan to "marry the Jurchens and meet them to attack Liao". Dong Cai, a Liao man, also said that "Chen Khitan is very desirable", and said that the Northern Song Dynasty should send troops to recover the sixteen states of Yanyun as soon as possible. These suggestions are very consistent with Song Huizong's great achievements.
Although historically, Song Huizong was an out-and-out faint monarch. But judging from Song Huizong's own subjective consciousness, he wanted to carry out Wang Anshi's reform like Song Shenzong. It can also be seen from his year name Chongning to take "advocating Xining". Cai Jing and these people are a group of people who have brought disaster to the country and the people, but their banner is to restore Wang Anshi's new law. If Yanjing can be recovered, then Song Huizong will be able to blow for a lifetime.
Wang Anshi. Is it feasible to recover Yanjing? If you look at it from a purely military point of view, it is very feasible to recover Yanjing. We can look at the nine-sided defense system of the Ming Dynasty after that. The nine sides of the Ming Dynasty were: Liaodong, Jizhou, Xuanfu, Datong, Taiyuan, Yulin, Guyuan, Ningxia and Gansu. Most of these nine important military towns were set up along the Outer Great Wall, thus establishing a system of defense in depth.
Take the three towns of Datong, Taiyuan and Xuanfu as examples. Xuanfu and Datong are the first layer of defense. Due to the relatively gentle mountains in the Shuozhou and Datong areas, this line of defense was easily broken by nomads, and then it was inserted directly into the hinterland of Gyeonggi, bypassing Xuanfu. At this time, another line of defense is needed, which is the Inner Great Wall. Taiyuan supports the defense of the three passes of Bauhinia Pass, Baoma Pass and Juyong Pass. When the first line of defense is attacked, the second line of defense can immediately organize forces to defend or even counterattack.
The same is true in the Yanjing area. The defense line of Jizhou is very long, stretching from the westernmost Gubeikou to the easternmost Shanhaiguan. Jizhou's defense force is also very large, and it has risen to more than 100,000 people in the Wanli period. The Yanshan Mountains can indeed block the Hu people from going south, but this section of the Great Wall has more than 200 passes from Gubeikou to Shanhaiguan, and even if 100,000 people defend a pass, there are only a few thousand.
The main means of maintaining the defense around Beijing in the Ming Dynasty was to replace defense with offense and containment in Liaodong. The so-called offense instead of defense is to continuously attack the Mongolian nomadic cavalry from Ming Taizu to ensure that the other side will not attack the Jizhou defense section with tens of thousands of people at one time. The second is to control the Liaodong region, so that even if the nomads break through the defense line of the Great Wall and enter the Gyeonggi region, it will have no effect.
The defense line of the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty was repeatedly broken by the Mongols and Jurchens, but these nomadic cavalry could not gain a foothold in the Gyeonggi region at all. When they run out of food and grass, they retreat. The most famous is the Battle of Beijing. Yu Qian relied on a large number of second-line troops to withstand several rounds of attacks by Warat, and finally consumed the Warat people. However, once Liaodong and Shanhaiguan are lost, a large number of material resources continue to flow into North China from the western Liaoning corridor, and Beijing will not be able to protect it. Li Zicheng's Battle of Shanhaiguan is an example.
Jizhou town in the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, the task to be completed by the Song army is to take advantage of the opportunity for the Jin army to capture Emperor Tianzuo in the old land of the Liao State and control the entire defense line of the Outer Great Wall. Once two lines of defense have been established, it will be very difficult for the Jin army to move south. But the problem lies in the fact that the iron still needs to be hard.
Deng Xunwu, a member of the Privy Council, told Song Huizong that the financial, military, and military strength of the Northern Song Dynasty could not support such a big move. The original text is "From the west, the army is forbidden, the brigade is reduced and the consumption is reduced, and the suburbs are close to the suburbs, and the number of people cannot be sufficient." "Professional things still have to listen to professional people, Deng Xunwu knows the current situation of the Song army very well, the defense is still reluctant, and the offense is simply self-defeating. If you want to recover Yanjing, you must attack on all fronts, and then use at least 200,000 people to build a strong defense system on the Great Wall outside. With the current Song army, it is very difficult.
Maintaining the current defense system would be beneficial to the Song army. The Song army used Yanmen Pass and the Yellow River as the two major defensive support points in the east and west, and even if the Jin army broke through the first line of defense, the deep Taiyuan, Xiongzhou and other places could still hold the Jin army. When the Jin army went south, Wanyan Zonghan of the West Road was blocked under the city of Taiyuan is an example.
Song Huizong. Reality also woke up Song Huizong. Let's not say that the direction of Yunzhou has not moved at all, and Youzhou is also disgraced. The Song army led by Tong Guan usually bullied the peasant army, but it had no chance of winning when it encountered the remnants of the Liao army. Even if the most elite Western army is sent, it still can't take Yanjing. In the end, Tong Guan asked Jin Jun for help without authorization, and ransomed Yanjing from the hands of Jin Guo. But the redeemed Yanjing was nothing more than an empty shell, because the Northern Song Dynasty, the defense system on which the Ming Dynasty depended, did not get any of it.
Due to the successive defeats of the Song army, Yanjing was actually broken by the Jin army, and the Song army changed from the main attack to the containment. Song Huizong used money to redeem Yanjing for the sake of face. At this time, the initiative was in the hands of Jin Guo. In order to exterminate the remnants of the Liao State, the Jin State returned the land of one capital and eight states to the Northern Song Dynasty as a pacification. However, the Jinren of Yingzhou, Pingzhou and Luanzhou in the east did not agree to the delivery. What's more, the Yunzhou region near Datong was also under the control of the Jin.
That is to say, while the Song army held the various passes of Yanshan, it also sent troops to monitor the movements of the Jin army in the direction of Liaodong and Shuozhou. This was very difficult for the Song army, which was moving very slowly. And it turned out to be as expected. When the Jin army eliminated Emperor Tianzuo, they began to use troops on a large scale in the Yanjing region.
In 1125 A.D., Wanyan Zongwang led 60,000 Jin troops, bypassed Yanshan and entered the hinterland of Yanjing, and launched a fierce battle with the Song army led by Guo Yaoshi. If the Song army at this time had the Liaoxi Corridor including Shanhaiguan and the Great Wall defense line in Taiyuan, the Jin army would definitely retreat after the logistics were poor.
In reality, the Jin army can be consumed with the Song army. Moreover, due to the poor mobility of the Song army, the Jin army could also loot and consume the logistics of the Song army everywhere in the North China Plain. In the end, Guo Yaoshi surrendered, and the Jin army crossed the Yellow River all the way south, and the tragedy of Jing Kang's shame was buried.