Half a month after the end of the Qingzhou war, under the capital of Bianliang, the Song Dynasty emperor, Emperor Song Zhenzong Zhao Hengzheng, personally led the army to confront the Khitan army that had been besieging Bianjing for five months.

It has been almost a year since the Liao and Song dynasties officially started. In this nearly a year, Zhenzong Zhao Heng never showed any intention of taking the imperial throne in person.

Although he disliked and did not trust military generals like his uncle and his father, he did not have the ability to lead troops on the battlefield like his father.

Even when Bianliang was heavily besieged by the Khitan army for five months, before the imperial expedition, Zhenzong Zhao Heng had only once stepped on the city to inspire the soldiers, and the appearance of this time was the product of Kou Zhun's coercion and inducement.

Since then, Zhenzong has never left the palace again, even if the Khitan army almost broke through the northern gate of Bianliang once.

The reason why Emperor Zhenzong of Song Dynasty, who was abnormal in power, personally investigated the situation was because he received a news three days ago that Zhao Weiji had returned. Not only did he return, but he also took down Qingzhou City without any effort, which made Zhao Heng feel pressured.

Originally, Zhao Weiji was one of the candidates for the throne, although he later gave up the battle for the throne and chose to exile overseas.

But after all, he still has a certain influence in the Central Plains. In recent years, as the gold from Xinhua City entered the Central Plains, Zhao Weiji's name began to make a huge noise in the Central Plains again.

He and his Xinhua City suddenly turned from an exile place hanging overseas overnight to a paradise for realizing their golden dreams.

This made Zhao Heng feel the sense of crisis brought by Zhao Weiji for the first time after he ascended the throne. The last time he felt this way was after Zhao Weiji pacified the uprising in Shuzhong.

This sense of crisis made Zhao Heng unable to hear any news about Zhao Weiji for a period of time, and it would be best not to even see his name in Zhao Heng's ears.

What made Zhao Heng feel relieved was that in the later period, Zhao Weiji disappeared from his life again. Although gold coins were still circulating in the Song Dynasty, Zhao Weiji and his Xinhua City no longer had any impact on the Central Plains.

After a period of steadily spent this, the Liao and Song War broke out. With the arrival of the war, Zhenzong focused all his energy on how to fight against the invasion of the Khitans, and gradually forgot about Xinhua City and Zhao Weiji who were far away in the sky.

Just when Zhenzong and even the ministers in the court were about to completely forget Zhao Weiji's temporary surname, he actually appeared again. Not only did he appear, but he also won a super victory.

Although he only killed 5,000 defenders in Qingzhou City, this was the greatest victory achieved by the Song Dynasty in nearly a year after the war began.

Before this, the Song army could not even win any small battle, even if it was a tragic victory that hurt one thousand enemies and one hundred of them.

At this time, the morale of the Song army had been extremely low. If Kou Zhun had not been skilled enough, Bianjing City would have been taken down by Khitan, and the drama of Jianyan's southward transition might have been staged more than a hundred years ahead of schedule.

In this case, Zhao Weiji returned to the Central Plains with the momentum of returning from a king, used an army of 3,000 people to destroy the 5,000 Khitans, and took back Qingzhou City.

When the news came back to Bianjing City, the morale of the Song soldiers in the city suddenly recovered, and Zhao Weiji's victory made them see hope again and hope to defeat the Khitans.

At this moment, among the soldiers guarding the city, the veterans who had participated in the Yongxi Northern Expedition began to tell again how Zhao Weiji defeated Yelu Xiuge. This combination of inside and outside has brought Zhao Weiji's reputation to the height of the first general of the Song Dynasty after Yongxi Northern Expedition.

All of this put great pressure on Zhenzong Zhao Heng, which made him unable to help but develop a sense that once Zhao Weiji returns to the capital and successfully lifts the siege of Khitan, will anyone take this opportunity to launch a coup and oust him? Will Zhao Weiji himself even use this opportunity to launch a coup and abolish himself?

Thinking of this, Zhenzong felt that he could no longer sit still and wait for death. He had to do something to let the people return to him again. Only in this way can he have the confidence to face Zhao Weiji who is about to return.

In such a national crisis, nothing can win people's hearts than the emperor's personal battle and then win another big victory.

So, despite the dissuasion of the ministers, Zhenzong resolutely led his troops out of the city.

Although Zhao Heng had never led troops before, he was not stupid either. He knew that he would definitely not be able to defeat the Khitans by just leading troops to the war.

Before he went to war, he found a helper for himself as his deputy general, who was Cao Can, the eldest son of the late founding general of the Song Dynasty.

Zhao Heng distrusts Li Jilong. In addition to being a military general, the more important reason is that Li Jilong is the national uncle and has made great contributions, so such a person is not easy to master.

But Cao Can is different. Although Cao Can is Cao Bin's eldest son, Cao Bin was demoted because of the failure of Yongxi's Northern Expedition, which implicated several of his sons.

His sons did not get the chance to make meritorious service during the most successful period, but instead showed their strengths by Zhao Weiji, Li Jilong, Li Jiguang and others.

However, at this time, when Li Jilong was kicked out of the army, Li Jiguang was trapped in the northwest and could not return, and Zhao Weiji basically would not obey the command of Zhenzong. Cao Can had a certain talent like this, but the generals who had been buried for many years gradually entered the sight of Zhenzong.

In addition to being more secure in using such generals, they were also buried during the Taizong Dynasty. Once they were promoted in this dynasty, they would be equivalent to the direct descendants of Zhenzong, which is the same as Taizong's appointment of Li Jilong back then.

So Cao Can became the deputy general of Zhenzong's personal expedition this time, and the actual commander of the army...

To be honest, when Cao Can received this appointment, he really wanted to hang the rope at home. Being the emperor's deputy in person has never been a good job, especially the Emperor Wen like Zhenzong.

This kind of deputy, who is said to be a deputy general, is actually the commander of the three armies, but what he does is the work of the commander of the three armies, but what he takes in the end is the credit of the deputy general. If he wins a great battle, he will definitely be the emperor's credit.

If you defeat it, you will definitely take the blame yourself.

These are not the most annoying things. What they hate most is that they have to always pay attention to the safety of their own emperor while fighting. If the emperor accidentally dies, it will not be as simple as a commander. The family is being confiscated and the clan is being destroyed.

However, although this position of general is difficult to be used, Cao Can finally agree, because with such a great risk, there are greater opportunities.

Although Cao Can is a second-generation official, he is not young anymore. He is over fifty years old and has no more time to spend on himself.

He knew deeply that if he could seize this opportunity well, he would become the second in Li Jilong and become the direct military general whom this generation of emperors relied on. He was unwilling to give up such an opportunity.

But after he arrived on the battlefield, he began to regret it. Not only did he begin to regret it, but even Zhenzong Zhao Heng also began to regret it. Before they went to the battlefield, they all chose their surnames to ignore a serious problem, that is, the Song army had no signs of victory over Liao in the past year.

They simply thought that Zhao Weiji could win, and they could win too. If they could win easily, Bianliang City would not have been besieged for almost five months.

In fact, since Zhao Weiji appeared, he set a tone for the war between Song and Liao, that is, the disadvantages in the military were compensated by weapons and tactics, so he developed many weapons such as bed crossbows and continuous crossbows, as well as special formations for cavalry such as the Star Scattering Formation.

His idea was basically inherited by later generals of the Song army. Whether it was Li Jilong, Li Jiguang, who came from under him, or even Yang Yanzhao, they all followed this idea in fighting the Khitan cavalry and achieved good results.

However, after Li Jilong handed over military power, this idea began to change gradually. Since Li Jilong was the number one general of the Song Dynasty after Zhao Weiji, the three armies led by him naturally continued this idea well.

After he handed over the military power, Zhao Heng personally intervened in the army. Under the guidance of the idea that Zhao Heng adhered to the idea that I must firmly oppose anything that Zhao Weiji insisted on, the tactic of tactics created by Zhao Weiji was gradually abandoned. Although Yang Yanzhao and Li Jiguang were still in the army, they, who were just guards, did not have much influence on the overall Song army. At most, they could only maintain their own one-acre and three-point land without making too many changes.

This also led to the fact that the Song army has not even won a battle for more than a year since the war started.

At this time, Zhao Heng, who was in charge of the army, still did not learn from the previous failures. It was obvious that Bianliang City had weapons such as crossbows, iron-arm crossbows, bed crossbows, etc., but he didn't use it. He forced himself to use infantry to fight against the Liao cavalry with traditional formations.

The result is imagined. As soon as the two armies confronted each other, the Song army was defeated. On the wide plain outside Bianliang City, the Khitan cavalry came and went like the wind, rushing repeatedly in the Song army's infantry formation, as if entering a nobody's land.

Seeing that his army was defeated so quickly, Zhenzong Zhao Heng could not believe everything in front of him. When Cao Can kept asking him to retreat, he remained motionless.
Chapter completed!