After the audience was over, Su Jin and Fu Bi left the palace. They saw a row of ceremonial guards waiting outside the palace gate. The leading guard knew Fu Bi and came over to see them.
Fu Bi agreed calmly and ordered everyone to follow in formation. He rode alongside Su Jin and headed for the official post near Xingguo Temple on the second right side.
Su Jin saw that Fu Bi seemed a little unhappy, so he asked, "Brother Fu is not in a good mood after coming out of the palace. Did he say something wrong in front of the emperor?"
Fu Bi sighed: "Brother Xian, what you just said is too full. How can you guarantee those three points like the emperor? You have to know that you are facing the Liao people who are looking at you eagerly. How can it be what you think?
You can do whatever you want?"
Su Jin chuckled and said: "So you are worried about this, what do I think? Don't worry, rich brother, one person is responsible for the work, and if what I say cannot be realized, I will send it to the emperor to behead myself. Absolutely
Not a word about your rich brother."
Fu Bi glared and said, "What are you talking about? Not to mention that you and I are both plenipotentiary negotiators and share the responsibility for honor and disgrace. Even if you can bear it alone, how can Brother Yu know how to protect himself? You treat me like a brother?"
Who have you become?"
Su Jin hurriedly held up his hands and said: "I'm not very good at talking. Please forgive me if I offended you. But since I dare to boast in front of the emperor, I will naturally respond accordingly. Lord Sansi is right, this is not my job this time."
Losing one's head means a smooth career. As for the temporary peace of mind of compensating for money and gifts, it can only save your and my head. There will be hardships for us in the future, so there is only one way, that is between me and the emperor.
The three things mentioned.”
Fu Bi said happily: "It turns out that you already have a countermeasure, but it's hard to hide it from my brother. Please tell me quickly."
Su Jindao: "It's not like we have any countermeasures. I just couldn't sleep last night, and I took a good look at the future. I basically figured out the bottom line of the Liao people, so I have some ideas in my mind."
Fu Bi said: "What is the bottom line of the Liao people?"
Su Jin did not answer directly, but only asked: "Brother Fu, what do you think the real purpose of the Liao Kingdom this time?"
Fu Bi thought for a while and said: "I think the Liao people want to take advantage of the Song Dynasty's internal and external troubles to come and extort money. If they can't get any benefits, they will use this as an excuse to launch a massive attack. In fact, they have already attacked me."
Song has been coveting it for a long time."
Su Jin nodded and said: "The expectation is good, but it is not entirely true; the blackmail is real, but it may not be a large-scale attack."
Fu Bi asked: "How can we see it?"
Su Jindao: "The war between the Song Dynasty and Xixia has been going on for almost five years."
Fu Bi interjected: "More than four years."
Su Jindao: "Yes, if the Liao Kingdom wanted to take this opportunity to devour the Song Dynasty, there would be plenty of opportunities in four years. According to Master Sansi, in the first year of Baoyuan, the war started with the Western Bandits. That year was first flooded and then plagued by locusts.
The country's land output has been reduced by half, and there has been a rise in thieves in the country, and the people have been displaced; why did the Liao Kingdom not come to extort that year, but chose this year instead?"
Fu Bi thought for a moment and said, "Maybe something happened suddenly and there was no time to prepare."
Su Jin shook his head and said: "I don't think so. Since there was no preparation back then, now four years have passed and we must be fully prepared. Now there are only 150,000 Liao soldiers gathered on the border, and tribal troops are still the main force. Do the Liao people really
Do you think that with these 150,000 soldiers and horses, you can go south and defeat the Song Dynasty? The total number of soldiers from all over the Song Dynasty plus the imperial army guarding the capital is 1.3 million. Why do the Liao people think that they can do it?
Can we win? People say that a skinny camel is bigger than a horse. Don’t the Liao people understand this truth?”
Fu Bi hesitated and said: "It is said that all the people of the Liao Kingdom are soldiers, and the entire country's strength is said to be an army of three million. Maybe once a war breaks out, a large army will be mobilized for reinforcements."
Su Jin pointed at the bustling crowd in the market and said: "Brother Rich, fighting a war is not about the number of people, but the strength of elites and logistics. The Liao Kingdom is in the north, part of it is livestock farming, part of it is farming, and all the people are fighting against it."
What to eat and drink? Once the war
When the war entered a stalemate, what could he use to fill the stomachs of his soldiers and horses? Don't tell me that the Liao Kingdom has sufficient reserves. I live in the south of the Song Dynasty and sit on a vast and rich land, but I am still so stretched. I don't believe that the Liao Kingdom will
It’s good weather and good harvests every year.”
Fu Bi nodded and said: "That's not true. The Liao Kingdom has not been peaceful in recent years. When there was heavy snowfall in the south last year, according to border reports, the snow disaster in the Liao Kingdom was even worse. The livestock, horses, cattle and sheep froze on the large pastures north of Shangjing Road.
Hundreds of thousands of heads were killed, and the herdsmen suffered great losses. They gathered to make trouble. The Lord of Liao was furious and I heard that he also killed many people."
Su Jin smiled and said: "You also know that every family has scriptures that are difficult to recite, and his life is not easy. Besides, I don't believe that the harmony between Liao Kingdom and Yuan Hao is so good. If it is really
If we are harmonious, why haven't the Liao people sent a single soldier to help Yuan Hao after we have been fighting against the Western bandits for several years? It is only now that the war in the northwest has stabilized, and they have just come out to rip off the enemy. This timing is too bad."
Fu Bi's eyes lit up and he nodded: "It makes sense, it makes sense. There must be bad blood between the two countries, and it is not a joint attack on the Song Dynasty. Yes, I remembered it. Last year, I organized the Hedong Road delivery
The secret report came, once mentioned the Shannan Party of Liao Kingdom
Regarding the rebellion of the Dai'er tribe of the Xiang tribe, the target of the Dai'er tribe's defection was Yuan Hao. The Lord of Liao, Yelu Zongzhen, sent people to ask Yuan Hao not to take in the traitor, but Yuan Haoli ignored him, and the Lord of Liao still refused.
We have raised 200,000 troops to Ningren and Koujing Town, planning to attack Yuan Hao."
Su Jin said happily: "As expected, why didn't we fight?"
Fu Bi said: "It is said that Yuan Hao relented, sent envoys to negotiate peace, and brought Princess Xingguo, who was married to Yuan Hao from the Lord of Liao, to come out to negotiate, and then there was no fight."
Su Jin sighed: "It's a pity, it's a pity. If these two countries fight, we, the Song Dynasty, will benefit."
Fu Bi clicked his tongue and said: "It's a pity that we didn't start a fight. Now it's our turn to have a headache. Did Brother Xian just say for a long time that the Liao Kingdom actually didn't want to start a war with me at all?"
Su Jin waved his hand and said, "It's not that I don't want to, but that I don't have the ability."
Fu Bi said: "So that's it. Brother Xian's analysis is very accurate, and it makes sense. But Brother Yu is still a little worried. What if the Liao people really fall out and start a fight?"
Su Jin smiled and said: "It's just a small fight. Do you know that the Song Dynasty and the Western Bandits have been fighting each other in the past few years, and who has taken advantage of it? You can't kill me, and I can't kill you.
Precisely because they have equal strength, there is a chance for peaceful coexistence; during the Chanzhou Alliance, the Song Dynasty failed to conquer the Liao Kingdom, and the Liao Kingdom also failed to conquer the Song Dynasty. In the end, it was meaningless to fight back and forth.
, so peace talks are inevitable."
Fu Bi, tall and tall, pointed out: "Jing Pi, this is indeed the truth."
Su Jin smiled and said: "If my estimate is correct, the peace agreement between me, the Song Dynasty, and the Western thief Yuan Hao will come to an end within a year. This is because we are not strong enough to eat each other in one bite."
, it’s just a waste of energy to keep fighting, so in the end I naturally chose not to fight.”
Fu Bi stared blankly at Su Jin's assertion that there would be peace talks between Song and Xia, and was in a daze; in fact, he learned a lot of secrets from the emperor's side, one of which was that the Western thief Yuan Hao had indeed entrusted someone to someone else
A letter was sent to the Song military camp in the northwest to discuss an armistice and peace treaty; however, Zhao Zhen secretly summoned Du Yan, Lu Yijian and others. Both of them thought this was disgusting and intolerable, so they did not agree.
In fact, the emperor sighed afterwards: "The two snakes will swallow each other, and there will be no end. It is better to let go and save each other." Unfortunately, Lu Yijian and Du Yan were unanimously opposed. Their opinions naturally represented the opinions of the majority of the courtiers, and the emperor was helpless.
Su Jin naturally had no chance of knowing such a confidential matter, but he could actually assert that there would be a truce and peace. This far-sighted vision alone was enough to make Fu Bi look highly at him.
If Fu Bi knew that Su Jin had calculated this ending based on vague memories and chronology, he would probably have fainted on the spot; and the reason why Su Jin dared to boast about Haikou in front of the emperor was naturally because he was not thinking about countermeasures last night.
, but put the fragments of his memory together, and finally remembered that Renzong had no bad military affairs with the Liao Dynasty, so he dared to speak out.
Of course, Su Jin didn't know the specific details, but where the general direction lay, Su Jin naturally had a good idea. The analysis just now was indeed over the top, and what he said was to the point; from the results to infer the reasons, Liao
The reason why people are at peace with the Song Dynasty is nothing more than a matter of strength. The nonsense about true friendship and brotherhood is just a tacit lie.