Song Taizong's three defeats were due to triangular relations and logistical difficulties
The Dangxiang Tuoba clan took advantage of the Huangchao uprising, mastered Xia, Sui and other prefectures, and established its own power, which was known as the "Dingyan Army Festival". This period was the starting point of the later Western Xia regime.
During the Five Dynasties period, although the party and tribes went their own way, they gradually formed several major separatist regimes with the "strong people with big surnames" as the core. These include the three main party groups: the Dangxiang Tuoba clan that has been entrenched in the four prefectures of Xia, Sui, Yin, and You since the end of the Tang Dynasty, the Dangxiang Zheshi that has risen in the five dynasties in Fu and Lin Erzhou, and the Xilu Dangxiang located between Qing and Ling.
The war between Song and Liao for more than 40 years enabled the Dangxiang tribe to grow rapidly in the cracks of Song and Liao. In the decades from Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty to the first year of Jingde of Zhenzong, the Song court was unable to deal with the Dangxiang tribes in the northwest with all its strength because of the war with the Khitan.
At the same time, the party received economic and military assistance from the Khitan. On the other hand, the Khitan adopted the strategy of "using the party item to control the Song Dynasty", supported the growth of the party item, and forced the Song court to divide the army in the northwest, unable to go all out to pass through Youyan.
During the period of Zhao Kuangyin, the party Xiang Dingyan Army maintained a good relationship with the Song court. After Zhao Kuangyin ascended the throne, although the military regime of Dingyan was called a minister, it still maintained relative independence.
Liu Jun, the lord of the Northern Han Dynasty, once formed a Khitan Koulin Mansion, and the party leader Li Yiyin sent Li Yiyu to reinforce Linzhou, and changed his name to Li Yixing to show his attachment. Li Yixing offered 300 horses to Song Taizu, who personally selected jade materials, made a royal belt for him, and personally summoned party envoys to ask Li Yixing's waistline.
After learning that Li Yixing had a large waistline, Song Taizu praised him as a blessed man and asked the envoy to hand over the jade belt to Li Yixing. Li Yixing died in the fifth year of Qiande, and his son Li Guangrui succeeded to the post of envoy of the Dingyan Army.
In the ninth year of Kaibao, Song Tingxing invaded the Northern Han Dynasty, Li Guangrui sent troops to help the Song army, led the troops to break the Northern Han Wu Fort, beheaded 700 levels, obtained cattle and sheep dry plans, captured the owner of the village Hou Yu to dedicate, and accumulated the inspection of the school captain.
In the ninth year of Kaibao, Zhao Kuangyin, Taizu of the Song Dynasty, died of illness, and Zhao Guangyi, Taizong of the Song Dynasty, ascended the throne. In order to avoid the name of Taizong, Li Guangrui changed his name to Li Kerui. Although he changed his name to Li Kerui, his behavior did not change, and he remained loyal to the Song court and played an important role in the war.
Li Kerui died in 978, and his son Li Jiyun took over as the queen of the Dingyan Army. The following year, Li Jiyun sent troops to cross the river in formation to strengthen the army. But he died of illness in July and was succeeded by his brother Li Jisheng.
Soon, the Li clan in Xiazhou had an internal **, and Song Taizong intended to seize the military power in Dingyan. After Li Jiyong entered the court, he voluntarily offered four states and eight counties, and it became an opportunity for Li Jiqian to rebel.
Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty used Cao Guangshi as the inspection envoy of Yin, Xia, Sui, Lin, Fu, Feng, and Youzhou, in an attempt to weaken the power of the Li clan in Xiazhou. However, this move seriously underestimated the party's power in the northwest and the Li family's century-long operation in Xiazhou.
In the first year of Yongxi, Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty ordered Li Jizhuo's relatives to go to Que, and Li Jiqian took advantage of this opportunity to falsely claim that his nursing mother had passed away, fled with dozens of people and horses, and began to rebel.
Li Jiqian was like a wolf who fled into the earth, he first took out the portrait of the ancestor Li Yixing and asked the party members to kneel and cry. Then, he pulled out Li Yixing's banner and declared that "the descendants of the Li family should aim to restore their ancestral legacy", in order to incite the rebellion of the party and tribes.
In September of the same year, Yin Xian of Zhixia Prefecture found that Li Jiqian was hiding in Dijinze, so he and Cao Guangshi sent troops at night. After a fierce battle, although Li Jiqian escaped alone, it was obvious that he would not give up.
Penniless, he can only rely on the banner of his ancestors to get support. As a result, Li Jiqian began to marry various feudal chieftains in order to expand his own power, and continued to incite and unite the party departments.
In February of the second year of Yongxi (985), Li Jiqian surrendered. Cao Guangshi wanted to monopolize the credit, and thought that Li Jiqian's power had been eliminated, so when Li Jiqian sent dozens of horsemen into the city to meet Cao Guang, Cao Guangshi believed it and only took hundreds of horsemen deep into the enemy camp, and was ambushed and killed by Li Jiqian.
After that, Li Jiqian occupied Yinzhou, and called himself "the queen of the Dingyan army", continued to pull the banner of his ancestors, and the next month he attacked Huizhou (now Jingyuan, Gansu). From this detail, it can be seen that the Song court generally had a down-looking attitude towards the party members at that time.
This kind of overlook often stems from the victories of the Song army in the past, but this attitude indirectly leads to the defeat that follows the victory. Sadly, in the struggle between Song and the party, this cycle of "pride after victory, pride after defeat, modesty after defeat, modesty and victory after modesty" is often repeated.
The news of Cao Guangshi's death made Song Taizong furious, and he immediately sent Tian Renlang, Wang Yu, and Li Jilong to lead thousands of men to crusade against Li Jiqian. After arriving in Suizhou, Tian Renlang found that the rebel army had grown in strength, and it was difficult to suppress Li Jiqian with his existing forces.
Therefore, he sent a request for reinforcements, and stood still for the time being, waiting for a reply from the imperial court. During this period, the general of the party and the three clans who originally defected to the Song Dynasty met the envoy of the prison army and united with Li Jiqian.
Song Taizong was misled by Wang Yu and mistakenly thought that Tian Renlang was not moving and delaying the military plane, so he decided to replace Tian Renlang and send Liu Wenyu to replace him. At the same time, the Song court sent Wang Yu to send troops from the north of Yinzhou and defeated Li Jiqian at the Xunlun River.
Guo Shouwen and Yin Xian jointly attacked the Zhuxia tribes in Yancheng, Yin, Lin, Xia and the three tribes, and the 125 tribes of the party tribes joined the Song court. As a result, Li Jiqian was defeated in the struggle against the Song court.
Under these circumstances, Li Jiqian adopted the strategy of uniting the Liao state against the Song court, hoping that the Khitan, the main enemy of the Song court, would give him assistance. He sent an envoy to Liao in February of the third year of Yongxi, and asked the Khitan for marriage in December of the same year.
The Khitan agreed to his request, married Princess Yicheng to him, and gave him three thousand horses. After receiving strong support from the Khitan, Li Jiqian made a comeback and continued to harass Xia, Yin and other states.
The Song court repeatedly solicited Li Jiqian and his accomplices in edicts, but Li Jiqian always insisted on his position and constantly violated the Song court's borders. In May of the first year of Duangong, Prime Minister Zhao Pu suggested using Xiatai's hometown as a bait to wait for an opportunity to seek Li Jiqian.
Taizong adopted this suggestion, gave Li Jizhuo the surname Zhao, changed his name to Baozhong, and granted him the envoy of the Dingyan Festival, and gave him the money, silk, grain, grass and pastoral fields of the five prefectures of Xia, Yin, Sui, You, and Jing.
In December of the same year, Zhao Baozhong announced to the imperial court that Li Jiqian had surrendered, and "induced the feudal army to invade and asked for troops to be sent to defend it." Song Ting hesitated for a while, worried that there would be changes, so he hurriedly granted Li Jiqian the official positions of Yinzhou Assassin and Luoyuan Envoy.
However, at this time, Li Jiqian did not really surrender, and he colluded with Zhao Baozhong to deceive the Song court.
In the second year of Duangong and the first year of Chunhua in 990, the three northern ethnic groups of Khitan, Dangxiang and Jurchen secretly supported Li Jiqian's Zhao Baozhong, and told the Song court that Li Jiqian had won many victories in the frontier in order to deceive the Song court, thus gaining valuable time for Li Jiqian to expand his troops, expand his power and train elite soldiers.
After several years of careful preparation, Li Jiqian led his troops to attack Xiazhou and defeated the Song army. Zhao Baozhong begged for reinforcements, and Li Jiqian immediately reported to Liao. In the second year of Chunhua, the Song Dynasty sent Zhai Shousu to rescue Xiazhou.
At this time, Li Jiqian surrendered again, and the Song court granted him the official positions of Yinzhou Defense Envoy and Suizhou Observation Envoy, and gave him the name Zhao Baoji. As a result, Li Jiqian played with the Song Dynasty and obtained the two states of Yin and Sui without blood.
The reason why Li Jiqian was able to quickly establish considerable power after fleeing was due to internal factors: first, the Song and Khitan were in constant war at this time, and it was difficult for the Song court to go all out to crusade against the Northwest Party, and the Khitan also wanted to contain the Song army with the Party, so they continued to support the Party; Second, there was only a short period of five months between Cao Guangshi's extermination of the Dangxiang tribe in Dijinze and his ambush and death by Li Jiqian, which obviously reflects the strength of the anti-Song forces in the northwest at that time; Third, since the end of the Five Dynasties, only the Xiazhou Tuoba clan has been left in the party departments, and the other two larger forces have declined, and the party and clan have been leaderless for a long time, so they naturally have a lot of responses to Li Jiqian, who stood up at this time.
Song Taizong's laissez-faire for Li Jiqian had three reasons. First of all, because of the invasion of the Khitan, the Song Dynasty could not directly invest troops in the northwest region; Secondly, Song Taizong hoped to strengthen his control over the northwest region by supporting the Li clan in Pingxia; Finally, the contempt for the party issue made the Song dynasty not anticipate the possible rebellion of the party tribe triggered by Li Jiqian.
The Song Dynasty was primarily concerned about the Tibetans, who had conquered Chang'an, and were wary of the Uighurs' might as well as their might to expand their territory with their power. Therefore, the Song Dynasty implemented a policy of checks and balances on the Li clan in Xiazhou, but it would also suppress Li Jiqian's power when it was too large.
However, the Song dynasty's policies also had their limitations, including limited control over the northwest region, closed information, and an underestimation of the power of the Li clan in Pingxia and their anti-Song determination.
Li Jiqian entrenched in the northwest for many years, controlling the five prefectures of Xia, Yin, Sui, You, and Jing and the Li clan of Pingxia, as well as Ling, Wu, Gua, Liangzhou and other places. The coexistence of the Dangxiang tribe and the northwestern tribe in these places made Li Jiqian have great influence in the northwest region.
The Song court also tried to use economic means to restrain Li Jiqian, but with little success, and instead prompted Li Jiqian to become more rebellious. In the end, Song Taizong had to send troops to conquer the party, which was their first crusade.
The Song army led by Li Jilong defeated thousands of feudal soldiers at Shibaozhai. At that time, Zhao Baozhong was outside the city, and Li Jiqian thought that Zhao Baozhong had reported to the Song court, so he led his troops to attack.
As a result, Zhao Baozhong was defeated by Li Jiqian, fled into the city of Xiazhou alone, and was imprisoned in a separate room by the general Zhao Guangsi, and then was escorted into the court.
In June of the same year, Li Jiqian surrendered again, and he sent his younger brother Li Yanxin to Beijing to petition for guilt, and claimed that Zhao Baozhong instigated the rebellion. Song Taizong summoned Li Yanxin and comforted and rewarded him.
In the second year of the Daoist reign (996), Song Luoyuan asked Bai Shourong to escort 400,000 stone of grass grain to Lingzhou. When he arrived at the Qingyuan army, Bai Shourong was attacked by Li Jiqian, and the grass and grain were all robbed by Li Jiqian.
This marked that Li Jiqian had joined forces with the local party departments and controlled the Song Dynasty's transportation arteries from Huanqing to Lingzhou. Because the Song court's grasp of the situation in the northwest was too weak, the news was closed, and it was not until this time that it was discovered that the Li clan in Xiazhou had "taken control of the whole soil of Pingxia and choked the sea", and its power had far exceeded the imagination of the Song court.
So, in April of that year, Song Taizong ordered Li Jilong to crusade against Li Jiqian. By May, Li Jiqian led more than 10,000 troops to besiege Lingzhou City, and was repelled by Dou Shenbao, but the grain route was broken, Lingzhou was lonely, and the situation was still not optimistic.
Therefore, Song Taizong ordered Prime Minister Lu Duan and others to offer advice to solve the difficulties of Lingzhou, and even considered whether Lingzhou should be abandoned. At that time, Zhang Xun, the governor of the political council, said: "Li Jiqian's victory or defeat is not enough to affect the security of the country, and the survival of Lingzhou is not enough to affect the importance of the frontier.
The gains and losses are very obvious. ”
Your brother will ruin my business if he does this. In the end, Li Jilong and his younger brother joined forces with Ding Han and went to Li Jiqian's lair, but they walked for more than ten days without seeing the enemy, so they had to return.
1.Although the two armies of Fan Tingzhao and Wang Chao achieved some victories, the main force Li Jilong did not meet, which led to the exposure of supply problems and the final failure.
Li Jilong should not be fully responsible for this, after all, Ding Han and Li Jilong's hasty withdrawal from the army reflected this problem. 2.Song Taizong once raised troops to the west to invade the party three times, but failed to succeed three times.
The first time was because of Li Jiqian's fraudulent surrender, the second time was because Li Jilong changed his strategic goals without authorization, and the third time was because Song Taizong died of illness. These historical events have revealed the complexity of the party-affiliated regions.
3.The Li clan of Xiazhou has four prefectures: Xia, Sui, Yin, and You, and these places are all in the southern region of the Ordos Plateau. When Dang Xiang established the Western Xia Kingdom, its footprints had spread all over the Hetao area.
At that time, there were many large and small lakes in the place where the party lived, which was the basis for the survival of the Xiazhou Tuoba clan. These lakes are the basis for the reproduction of the Dangxiang tribe, but their ecological environment cannot be overestimated.
4.Desertification in the northwest is becoming more and more serious, and there was already a scene of "flying sand as a pile and as high as a city wall" during the Tang Dynasty. By the mid-to-late Tang Dynasty, there was already serious desertification in this area.
This brought great challenges to the Dangxiang tribe and also brought difficulties to the march of the Song army.
In ancient times, the vast desert became an impenetrable natural barrier for infantry-based armies. The Ulan Bu Desert was formed earlier in the Hetao of the Western Xia Army, and continued to expand between the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, which became a difficulty for the Song army to march.
At the same time, this desertification also put the logistics of the Song army under serious threat. In the wars of the past dynasties, there were two main ways of food supply, one was transportation, and the other was tuntian.
Although the cost of Tuntian is small, the operation is protracted and difficult to achieve immediate results. In the early Northern Song Dynasty, the food supply in the northwest battlefield was still mainly transportation. At that time, the closest agricultural developed area to the northwest battlefield of the Song Dynasty was the Guanzhong Plain, but the distance between the two was still more than 300 kilometers.
Obviously, this distance is not short for grain transportation, and the consumption of manpower and material resources is bound to be very large. In terms of transportation, "a husband hires about 30,000 or more, and a donkey about 8,000,000," and "whoever spends more than 70,000 stone of grain, and has more than 10,000 yuan of money, can get 210,000 stone of grain, and the road is groaning, which is called hell."
When the military transports grain over long distances, the cost of transportation may exceed the value of the grain, or even reach several times. For example, "Jiangzhou transports thousands of jujube stones to the scale of the mansion, each stone is straight at 400, and the cost of hiring a straight is about 3000."
In this way, the annual cost will be very large, so that the ** is insufficient, and the people will suffer because of it. When the Song Dynasty was preparing for the Third Western Expedition, he had already used his internal wealth and did his best.
The inhospitable location of the Northwest Territories made it very difficult to be self-sufficient, and the transportation costs were very large, which was a huge burden for the Song court. Therefore, when Zhang Xun persuaded Song Taizong to give up Lingzhou, he said, "Drive the people of Qin and Yong, and provide one of the Lingwu parties."
anoint the field with innocent people. The great plan of the imperial court, if it is", is to take this into account. If the supply was carried out by grain transportation for a long time, the Song court would inevitably be overwhelmed, and the grain transported could also be plundered by the enemy.
Therefore, it was an inevitable choice to conduct tuntian in the northwest battlefield. Starting from Song Zhenzong, the Northern Song Dynasty built forts in the northwest battlefield and carried out large-scale tuntian. Tuntian is not an original creation of the Northwest Battlefield, as far as the Han and Tang Dynasties, and even in the Song-Liao War, it was an important part of the army's food supply.
However, it is very difficult to build a fortress and to operate it for a long time, and it is difficult to see results in a short period of time. Since the first year of Yongxi reign of Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty, the smoke of the Northwest has gradually ignited.
During the Chunhua period, the Pingxia Li clan did not attract much attention from Song Taizong, but hoped to use the Dangxiang tribe to contain the Uighurs and Tibetans. It was not until the Zhidao period that the party departments really attracted the attention of Song Taizong and carried out large-scale conquests.
As for the rise of fortresses and tuntian, it was after Song Zhenzong. This highlights the negative factors of Tuntian. In particular, it should be noted that the essence of tuntian is to operate agriculture in the frontline area, so it will inevitably be constrained by the local geographical environment and climatic conditions.
As previously examined, during the Northern Song Dynasty, the desertification situation in the northwest region was already very serious. Under such circumstances, the distribution and income of tuntian in the northwest theater of the Northern Song Dynasty were also greatly restricted.
As a nomadic people, the way of life of the Dangxiang is very different from that of the Han people. At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, the party's economic model was still dominated by animal husbandry or semi-agriculture and semi-animal husbandry. The requirements of nomadism in terms of geographical and climatic conditions are very different from those of farming.
The oases in the Pingxia area are fertile, and while developing animal husbandry, the party also obtains food supplies by grazing grass and grains. However, the situation of the Song army was very different, and they could only transport grain through long transportation lines.
In the Song Dynasty, some problems arose due to the underdevelopment of animal husbandry and the increasing desertification of the Hetao area. There are three main problems: first, the lack of strong cavalry, the 700-mile Hanhai is like an insurmountable moat for the Song court; second, it has poor mobility, which has been greatly restricted in war; Third, it is difficult to replenish the fields, not only the geographical income of the tuntian fields has been severely restricted, but also has caused great difficulties in transportation.
In addition, at that time, the Song and Liao were still in the midst of a full-scale war. Therefore, only by ignoring the strategic intentions of the Northern Song Dynasty in the northwest, as well as the problems of the Song Dynasty's horse administration and supply difficulties, and the large amount of money spent, can it be said that because of the rise of military defeatism, coupled with the policy of weak branches within the imperial court, emphasizing literature over military force, the imperial court from the north did not dare to raise troops to crusade against the party departments in the northwest, but only adopted the method of restraint and appeasement to seek peace.
If you want to know more exciting content, come and pay attention to the battle of the soldiers!