Chapter 238: The strategy does not distinguish between the noble and the cheap
Should we fight the Northern Expedition to Youyan?
There must be a fight, but not now. The military power of the Song Dynasty is actually not as strong as it seems.
In the past few years, there has been a series of good news, but none of them has been a real hard-fought victory.
Yang Lin knew this very well. The fall of Xixia was mainly due to Xixia's hope that a battle would determine the outcome and restore the disadvantage of being gradually eroded.
This gave Tong Guan an opportunity. He was able to conquer Xixia so successfully by accident, and the territory of Xixia has not been completely pacified so far. Many party nobles still control large areas of territory and have soldiers and horses in their hands.
If it weren't for Yang Lin's deception and a real battle with the thirty-seven Wuman tribes of Dali in the high mountains of the southwest, 99% of the Song Dynasty would not have won.
As a huge empire with weak and mediocre leaders, the Khitan was about to die but its heritage still existed. It also lost its ambition to send its troops south. The emperor and his ministers were immersed in the last afterglow of the Liao Dynasty and enjoyed themselves.
Such a behemoth is a natural barrier that can block the Song Dynasty, which is not strong enough, from the more ferocious and cruel alien races from further north, and buy more time to develop and become stronger.
The Ancient Tea Horse Road, the land of horse breeding in the northwest, and the sources of powerful foreign troops at various borders, are facing a great situation. At this time, instead of taking advantage of the situation to train strong troops, we must use the long-tired Western Army, Tong Guan's private soldiers, and untrained soldiers recruited from Hebei.
It would be extremely stupid for the newly trained soldiers to provoke a war between the two largest empires in the world.
For the sake of their own power, these people forcefully gamble on the fate of the Han Dynasty, and Yang Lin must stop them both in public and private matters.
Yan'an Mansion is an important town in the North, with a dense population. Yang Tianai sat on his horse and looked at a towering tower in the city, about nine feet high. He leaned over and asked, "Father, look at that tower, it's so tall."
Zhong Guiyi was very proud and said triumphantly: "That's the Zhenqiang Tower, built by my great-grandfather!" Yang Lin laughed dumbly, scratched her little nose, and said: "Everyone knows your majesty.
Already."
Yang Lin rode very slowly, and was only delayed by Lu Qian for three days. When he entered the city with the troops of the Long Live Battalion, all the generals and generals of Yan'an Prefecture came out to greet him.
Nowadays, Yang Lin is the backer of the entire Western Army. It seems like yesterday that the Western Army veterans went to Beijing to ask for help and met with obstacles everywhere. They gritted their teeth and tightened their belts, hungry and fought to the death with the party members. Naturally, the Western Army paid special attention to it.
This big tree.
After sitting down in rows, generals from the Western Army who heard the news came one after another from various military states.
After a while of pleasantries, Yang Lin got straight to the point: "The Mongols' request to open border trade has crossed the Khitan. The entire grassland is under the rule of the Khitan. They may not condone such cross-border affairs."
When Master Zhong heard this, his heart skipped a beat and he said: "Young Master, the Khitan nominally controls the Mongolian tribes, but in fact they have never regarded them as their own subjects. The Khitan nobles have been marching westward for a long time, hunting herdsmen and plundering women and children.
As slaves, now that the Mongolian tribes have chosen to open the market, it will not do much harm to the Khitan, so there shouldn't be an overreaction."
After all, the border general is not a high official in the imperial court, so he has limitations in his vision.
Yang Lin sipped tea and said: "It is not ordinary to open border trade. The Khitan does not care about this, which is equivalent to opening a new chapter for other tribes. Moreover, what Mongolia imported to the Song Dynasty were all armaments, especially war horses.
No matter how stupid the Khitan people are, they will not sit idly by while we have endless war horses. Who doesn’t know that the Song Dynasty was rich and opened up the border markets, so it would not be difficult to buy all the Mongolian horses."
All the generals smiled heartily, and Yao Gu stood up and said: "Young Master, this is not difficult. If the Khitan dares to go south, my subordinates are willing to serve as the vanguard."
The master still looked arrogant and said calmly: "We can attack Heishan first, go out to Xijing Road, capture Dading Mansion, surround Shangjing, and capture the Liao Emperor alive."
Yang Keshi slapped the table and spitted: "Incite the Mongolian tribes and let us all march north together to capture the faint king Yelu Yanxi alive."
The generals in the northwest started a heated discussion, and the scene was very joyful for a time.
Yang Lin's fingers trembled with anger, he grabbed the teacup and threw it to the ground, and he suddenly became quiet.
"Now that the Western Xia campaign has just been completed, all the Dangxiang tribes have not yet returned home, and Tubo is eager to try. The northwest frontier is not monolithic. At this time, instead of thinking about gathering the right wing and consolidating the river, they actually want to attack the Khitan!
Although the Khitan is no longer as brave as it once was, it still has millions of troops and thousands of generals. How can it be so easy to defeat them?
The territory of the Khitan extends to the East China Sea in the east, the Tianshan Mountains in the west, the Xing'an Mountains in the north, and the Baigou River in Hebei Province in the south. It is several times larger than that of the Song Dynasty. Can you annihilate and occupy it?
Now the Khitan is plagued by all kinds of diseases and is gradually declining, and all races in the country are unwilling to surrender. If we attack the Khitan now, won't we help them integrate the country and rise again?"
In fact, the Khitan nation is really not as ferocious as the Jurchens and Mongols.
In 947, Emperor Taizong of the Liao Dynasty led his army southward to the Central Plains and captured Kaifeng Bianliang. Yelu Deguang ascended the throne in Bianjing and proclaimed himself emperor, changing the country's name to "Liao". After that, they withdrew from the Central Plains and only occupied Yanyun Sixteen.
State, returned to the grasslands to rule as king.
The generals were speechless, Zhongshidao laughed, clasped his fists and said: "The warriors are ignorant, Shao Zai calm down, what Shao Zai is going to do, our Western Army will all listen to Shao Zai."
He waved gently, and someone brought new tea. Yang Lin sighed and said: "To solve this matter, Mongolia, Khitan and our Song Dynasty must sit down and talk."
"Shao Zai just said that the Khitans will definitely be intolerable. If they sit down and meet the Mongols, wouldn't it mean that they would lift the table and start a war?"
Yang Lin smiled and said: "From the perspective of the interests of the entire Khitan nation, they are not allowed to talk, but from the perspective of the interests of individual Khitans, this may not be the case. Now the Khitan government is in the hands of brother Xiao Fengxian.
People are greedy for money and power, and if you bribe them, the Khitans will be able to do anything!"
Bribing the powerful officials of the enemy country and selling out their national interests looks like what foreigners used to do to the Han Dynasty in the past.
Acting like this is not only Feng Jiyue, but also has the character of the Song Dynasty.
Seeing a group of generals who were all a little embarrassed, Yang Lin wiped his eyelids and said: "The strategy itself is not high or low, but depends on the purpose and identity of the person who uses the strategy. Our actions today are for the long-term stability of the Song Dynasty and for the border.
Enjoy peace forever, and you will surely leave your name in history for people to look up to in the future."
Yang Lin said
Everyone bowed their heads and remained silent, fighting for the general to achieve great achievements. This kind of thing was still a bit embarrassing for them to be accomplices. Only Master Zhong said: "In this case, we will ask the imperial court for bribes?"
"The princes in the court have no plans and are short-sighted. How can they come up with money? I have taken over this matter. You only need to send people to escort my people to Khitan and use money to kill Xiao Fengxian!"