The first month of the new year is already over, but the heavy snow that started falling at the end of last year has no intention of letting up at all. The fluttering snowflakes continue to fall from the sky, completely covering the city of Bianliang in Tokyo in the pure white. .
Even the Imperial Street Straight Road, where people have always been responsible for clearing the snow, now has a thick layer of snow, and people can make a squeaking sound when they step on it, not to mention other streets and streets. Such bad weather is a disaster for people all over the city, especially those businesses that have not opened since the Chinese New Year.
In the past, Tokyo was extremely lively in the first month of the year. Not only were the shops along the streets booming, but even the small stalls set up casually could make a lot of money. But this year, the capital of the Song Dynasty seemed It was extremely deserted, with almost no one visible on the streets everywhere.
The shopkeeper of Suding Pavilion held a heater in his hand, puffed on the white steam, and sighed long and worriedly: "I didn't expect that a natural disaster would hit us at the beginning of the new year. Our seventh year of Xuanhe will be really difficult. !”
The accountant next to him also smiled bitterly: "Yes, the war in the north is tense now, and the capital is like this. This year has been really difficult for us in the Song Dynasty. Is this God's warning and punishment?"
As soon as he spoke, the shopkeeper quickly reached out and covered his mouth: "How dare you say such a thing, you old guy, you are desperate for your life? If someone hears it and reports it to the government, don't bring me and our whole family down." The shops are all implicated.”
The cashier felt scared and immediately nodded, indicating that he didn't dare to talk nonsense anymore. The shopkeeper just let go of his hand and looked around carefully to confirm that no one was around. He breathed a sigh of relief and lowered his voice and said: "Now Even in the city of Tokyo, the situation is tense. The government arrested a few drunken guys a few years ago who complained that my Northern Expedition would be defeated. Please don't harm others."
The accountant was busy and nodded vigorously, but he was sighing in his heart. What's the use of just doing this? Could it be that if no one in the capital or even anywhere in the Song Dynasty said that the Northern Expedition would be defeated, then victory would be achieved? But he didn't dare to say these words, he just felt that his heart was getting more and more congested.
In just one year from the sixth to the seventh year of the declaration of peace, many major events occurred in the Song Dynasty. To sum up, they were even more troublesome than the previous years combined. In fact, if we really talk about it, since the year of Xuanhe, there have been two major disturbances in the Song Dynasty, namely the Liangshanbo and Jiangnan uprisings, and both of them were quickly put down and suppressed.
But last year, uprisings broke out one after another in the southeast and northwest. Although the power of these rebels was far from being comparable to that of Liangshanbo and Jiangnan, they also made the officials in various places jittery and exhausted. After several battles to quell the chaos, all the money and food in the official warehouse were consumed.
Then in autumn, floods occurred again, and the Yellow River suddenly changed its course and burst, causing disasters in several counties in the Gyeonggi region and displacing more than 100,000 people. When the imperial court finally made great efforts to settle the victims, a locust plague broke out in places that had not been affected by the disaster. As a result, the local autumn grain harvest was almost eliminated. The imperial court could only reduce or exempt grain taxes in these places and then urgently transfer a large amount of money and grain relief from the national treasury. place.
If such successive disasters had occurred in other dynasties, the imperial treasury would have been stretched long ago and would have been unable to sustain itself. But in the Song Dynasty, they had not yet exhausted their muscles and bones, and they were even able to send troops to the Northern Expedition this year to fight against
The Liao people launched successive wars.
You must know that no matter in ancient times or today, the battle of conquering the country is ultimately about financial and national strength. The Song Dynasty, which was hit by natural disasters one after another, was like a two-front war at this time, but it still relied on the wealth accumulated over the years to carry it out. Living.
Although in fact sending troops to the Northern Expedition to attack the Liao Kingdom was a national policy that had been decided many years ago, and by the sixth year of Xuanhe, the arrow was ready and had to be launched. In the past few years, the Song Dynasty had continuously mobilized troops to the border between the two countries, and also sent a large amount of military supplies. The continuous flow of weapons and armor and other baggage to the border has long aroused the suspicion of the Liao people. Moreover, they had already made an agreement with the Jin people. The other party had chosen to suddenly send troops to attack the Liao cities during this year, so that the Song Dynasty would no longer be able to survive. Room to retreat - Although Tong Guanbing left Yanmen Pass to launch the Northern Expedition in the spring not long after the beginning of the new year, when natural disasters had not occurred frequently in the country, everything could proceed in an orderly manner, but after autumn, the situation took a turn for the worse. But even so, the Song Dynasty court's support for the front line never made any mistakes. Whether it was providing food and supplies or replenishing troops, they did it to the end.
But what all this resulted in was not a series of great victories, but the terrible news of constant defeats. In this year, even though Tong Guan had tried his best, even though the Jin people in the north had fought and won consecutively, they had already killed half of the Liao Kingdom and were in a panic. It seemed that even the capital could not be saved. However, the Song army always suffered losses at the hands of the Liao people. Not only did they lose troops and generals, they could not even capture a few cities. In the end, they could only temporarily retreat to Baigou River and confront the Liao army guarding the border. The situation looks quite bad.
When these war situations continued to spread back to the south, the people throughout the Song Dynasty could not accept it. You must know that before this year, people all over the world were quite optimistic about the Northern Expedition. After all, the Song Dynasty had been oppressed by the Liao people for hundreds of years, and they had to pay them annual coins and so on, which had already made countless bloody men angry, and Now, the Song Dynasty was strong, but the Liao people were in decline. Even the small group of Jin people in the north could beat them to the point where they were unable to fight back. Why did they lose consecutive battles on their own side
As the saying goes, there is no harm without comparison. Seeing the Jin people continue to expand their achievements, but their own family is like this, the people are naturally dissatisfied with the court and make strange remarks. After the commotion, everyone in Tokyo collectively looked down on the Northern Expedition and bluntly said that they should give up the war and make another alliance with the Liao people.
This made the monarchs and ministers of the main war faction headed by Zhao Ji and Cai Jing very angry. They were also worried that if this trend started, the discussion of peace would be spread, which would cause greater trouble and even affect the morale of the troops at the front. So they simply used strong pressure and arrested many people who spoke ill of the Northern Expedition of the Song Army in the street. This temporarily stopped this trend. However, if things want to turn around, the Northern Expedition still needs the Northern Expedition to make achievements.
But judging from the current situation where the Song army has switched from offensive to defensive and can only stalemate with the Liao people in the Baigou River area, it is quite difficult to reverse the situation of the war. For this reason, the emperor has issued several strict orders, ordering Tong Guan to go north as soon as possible to start a decisive battle with the Liao people and win a great victory.
The wording of this last decree was even more severe, and it was written clearly that if Tong Guan could no longer win a decisive battle, he would have to be removed from the post of commander-in-chief of the three armies, a new commander should be appointed, and he would be escorted back to Tokyo for trial. . And this decree was only sent out of the capital yesterday, and today it has been spread to a small extent in the official circles of the capital.
Sun
Tu only learned of this decree in the evening, which made him frown deeply: "Thousands of miles apart, His Majesty actually plans to command the frontline war remotely. No wonder our Song Army has been defeated in consecutive battles. Everyone said I can foresee that this is the main reason why the frontline suffered repeated defeats!"
Over the past year, there have been many changes in the world of the Song Dynasty, and the monarchs and ministers have been very busy. On the other hand, Sun Tu, who used to be a busy man, has become a rare idler in Tokyo. He no longer has any errands, but his status is valuable enough, and he has truly become a wealthy and idle prince that is envied by countless people.
In addition to eating and sleeping every day, I just read books and walk around the capital and surrounding areas with my family. Don't live your life too casually. After such a year of carefree life, Sun Tu looked fatter than before. Coupled with the beard he specially grew, his aristocratic air became much heavier.
Of course, this is secondary. More importantly, the Sun family has increased its population. After many attempts, Hu Rong finally gave birth to a daughter for Sun Tu. Although Hu Rong was a little disappointed by this, Sun Tu, the father, cherished his daughter so much that he not only named her Sun Rui, nicknamed Feng'er, but also held her in his arms all day long, almost all the time. He refused to let go, but this made his son Hutou quite jealous, and he always pestered his father, so that he could only hold him with one hand...
After seeing her husband loving her daughter so much, Hu Rong finally breathed a sigh of relief. However, she still made up her mind to give birth to a son for her husband.
At this time, Sun Tu was holding Feng'er in his arms, but he ignored his son pulling at his feet. He wanted to hug him, but his eyes were fixed on the big map hanging on the wall in front of him. On it was a detailed picture of the advance and retreat of the Song and Liao armies in the north, which made him shake his head repeatedly: "Although the Baigou River area is dangerous and can be defended, it is not a good place to use troops after all. If Tong Shuai really obeys his will, Risking a decisive battle with the Liao people, I'm afraid the result will not be optimistic, or even... "
Based on his limited historical knowledge before traveling, he only knew that the Song Dynasty failed to capture Youzhou in the end, and later relied on the Jin people to send troops to buy Youzhou City from them, which had become an empty city. But it was precisely this that completely exposed the weakness of the Song Dynasty, which caused the Jin people to invade the south on a large scale, resulting in a huge tragedy.
As far as Sun Tu is concerned, the battle at Baigou River is likely to be the key point that affects the entire war between the Song, Liao and Jin Dynasties. It was precisely because of the defeat in this battle that the Song Dynasty was severely weakened and ultimately unable to conquer the Liao Dynasty in the Northern Expedition. However, even though he saw this and knew the direction of history, he was still powerless.
During this year, although he had a noble status and lived a comfortable life, the only thing was that he no longer had any real power. Not to mention military power, it is extremely difficult to ask a certain yamen about even a trivial matter. Everyone is guarding against him like a thief. This makes it impossible for his words to be transmitted at all, so how can they affect the battle ahead
At this moment, the stewards of the palace suddenly ran over excitedly: "Master Marquis, there is a decree from the palace, asking you to come to the palace tomorrow to see your majesty!"
&&&&&
Who would have thought that one volume spanned two years. . . .
In the new volume, Sun Tu is about to go on an expedition again, and today happens to be Monday, so please vote for Yue Hou Zhuangxing. . . . .