Chapter 210 Zhao Ji’s final struggle (please vote for me!)

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Politically, Zhao Ji moved out Cai Jing, who was almost eighty years old.

In terms of military affairs, Zhao Ji returned all the powers that he had previously given away to Tong Guan.

This combination was the one that originally sent 100,000 troops to conquer the west, regain the lost territory of the Qing and Tang Dynasties, consolidate the border defense, enhance the prestige of the Zhao Song Dynasty and Zhao Ji, and enhance the international status of the Zhao Song Dynasty.

Zhao Ji hoped that the three of them, the emperor and his ministers, could work together again to eliminate the internal and external troubles of the Zhao and Song dynasties and create glory once again.

Tong Guan came to Taiyuan Xuanfu Division with Zhao Ji's ardent expectations and took over the mess left by Tan Zhen.

Here, Tong Guan also carried out an order given to Tong Guan by Zhao Ji, which was to recruit and surrender Emperor Yelu Yanxi of the Liao Kingdom.

Tong Guan's men found a monk for Tong Guan.

After Tong Guan inspected it, he recommended this monk to Zhao Ji.

Zhao Ji ordered the monk to take his imperial pen and go to Yunzhong Fucheng to contact Yelu Yanxi.

Monk Fan found Yelu Yanxi and handed Zhao Ji's imperial pen to Yelu Yanxi.

After reading it, Yelu Yanxi also wrote a reply to Zhao Ji.

At the beginning, both parties were very careful about keeping this matter confidential.

But as the number of contacts between the two parties increases, more and more people know about this matter.

Although Yelu Yanxi had been clamoring to regain his old land, he even made a pretense of regaining the Yan land.

But in fact, Yelu Yanxi no longer had any hope of restoring the country, so he had the idea of ​​selling Yundi to the Zhao and Song Dynasties.

However, Yelu Yanxi was somewhat concerned about Xixia.

After all, Yelu Yanxi had already promised part of the cloud land to Xixia, and Xixia had been sending troops to help Yelu Yanxi fight the war.

But the conditions Zhao Ji gave to Yelu Yanxi also made Yelu Yanxi very tempted.

Zhao Ji told Yelu Yanxi in his imperial writing that as long as Yelu Yanxi gave Yundi to the Song Dynasty and helped the Song Dynasty attack the Daqian Dynasty and drive the Daqian Dynasty out of the Yanyun area, he would treat him as a brother.

Yelu Yanxi, let Yelu Yanxi's status be higher than that of King Yan and King Yue (two brothers of Zhao Ji), build a thousand palaces for Yelu Yanxi, and have 300 beautiful women, treat each other with courtesy.

After a period of consideration, Yelu Yanxi agreed to Zhao Ji's surrender. In addition, Yelu Yanxi also agreed to help the Zhao and Song dynasties persuade Xixia to deal with Li Cun together.

But before Yelu Yanxi could start to implement what he had promised to the Zhao and Song dynasties, Yelu Yanxi was captured by Zhang Xian and Yang Zaixing. The autographed letters written by Zhao Ji to Yelu Yanxi also fell into the hands of Li Cun.

Tong Guan, who had been waiting for Yelu Yanxi to come to vote in Taiyuan, learned the news and quickly reported it to Zhao Ji.

Seeing this, Zhao Ji ordered Tong Guan to immediately organize his army and prepare to join forces with the Jin Kingdom to attack the Daqian Dynasty.

After Tong Guan received the order, he re-established a defense line for the Yisheng Army and immediately returned to Xiongzhou.

The military defense system in the north of the Zhao and Song Dynasties mainly consisted of two defense zones: Hebei and Hedong.

Hedong is Shanxi in later generations. There are many dangers inside and outside the mountains and rivers, making it easy to defend but difficult to attack.

Therefore, the Hedong area was not the focus of Zhao and Song Dynasty's defense.

The Hebei region is a vast plain stretching as far as the eye can see.

Therefore, the Hebei region was the top priority for the northern defense of the Zhao and Song Dynasties.

The Zhao and Song Dynasties established four important military towns in Hebei, namely four pacification envoys:

1. Gaoyangguan Road, Hejian Prefecture where the government is located;

2. Dingzhoufu Road, Zhongshanfu where the government is located;

3. Zhendingfu Road, Zhendingfu is where the government is located;

Fourth, Damingfu Road, where the administration is located is Damingfu, Beijing.

The garrisons on Gaoyangguan, Dingzhou and Zhending Roads and the garrisons on Hedong Road in Taiyuanfu, Daizhou and other places form a north-south vertical depth defense system.

The garrison on Damingfu Road was distributed from east to west along the Yellow River and defended horizontally, forming the second line of defense in the north of the Zhao and Song Dynasties.

In addition, during the process of recovering the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, the Zhao and Song Dynasties also surrendered the Ever Victorious Army and Zhuozhou.

In this way, Zhuozhou and the Changsheng Army became the first line of defense of the Zhao and Song Dynasties in the direction of Hebei.

Previously, the reason why Zhao Ji tried to recruit Yelu Yanxi to surrender was not only because the Zhao and Song Dynasties wanted to take back Yundi and re-establish contact with the Kingdom of Jin, but there was actually another reason.

That means the morale of the Ever-Victorious Army is somewhat unstable.

Ever since the Chang Sheng Army surrendered to the Zhao and Song Dynasty, they have received the highest military pay and the most generous treatment from the Zhao and Song Dynasty.

But every time when Yelu Yanxi was mentioned, from Guo Yaoshi down, the people of the Changsheng Army were saying: "We are our old lord. How dare we surrender to the Southern Dynasty even if the lord is here? But the old lord is dead, so I swear

He did not follow the Jurchens, so he returned to the Southern Dynasties!"

After Zhao Ji heard about this incident, he was always worried that at Yelu Yanxi's order, the victorious army would rush to Yelu Yanxi, causing the Zhao and Song Dynasty to lose a capable army.

Someone else reported to Zhao Ji that Medical Master Guo was not trustworthy and that he had the potential to become the second best person in Anlu Mountain.

But Zhao Ji has never believed in the reports of these people - Zhao Ji was conceited and felt that he was very favored by Pharmacist Guo. The imperial court would try its best to satisfy Chang Sheng with all the strategic materials such as weapons, armor, troops and horses that Pharmacist Guo needed.

Army, and he has already asked Yaoshi Guo to reach the limit of being a military attache. Why does Yaoshi Guo still have different intentions?

Although Zhao Ji did not believe that Pharmacist Guo had any rebellious intentions, Zhao Ji still asked Tong Guan to test Pharmacist Guo. If he found out that Pharmacist Guo had ulterior motives, he could take Pharmacist Guo to the capital.

After Tong Guan arrived in Zhuozhou, Pharmacist Guo immediately invited Tong Guan to inspect the Ever Victorious Army.

Pharmacist Guo took Tong Guan to a wild place, and everything was deserted.

Pharmacist Guo dismounted and stood in front of Tong Guan's horse.

I saw that as soon as the command flag in Guo Yaoshi's hand was waved, tens of thousands of cavalry suddenly rushed out from all sides, overwhelming and murderous. People were like dragons and horses, like tigers. It was like people blocking the way kills people, and Buddha blocking the way kills the Buddha.

Even Tong Guan, an old soldier who had been fighting all his life, was intimidated by the power of the Ever Victorious Army.

After demonstrating the power of the Ever-Victorious Army, Medicine Master Guo waved his command flag again, and tens of thousands of cavalry quickly retreated, leaving the countryside as silent as ever.

With Tong Guan's knowledge, how could he not see that the Ever Victorious Army is definitely the strongest army among the Song armies at present, and the Yi Sheng Army, which had high hopes from the Zhao and Song dynasties, simply cannot compete with the Ever Victorious Army.

Compare.

With this cavalry of tens of thousands of people, the Zhao and Song dynasty would achieve twice the result with half the effort, whether they were attacking the Daqian dynasty or defending against the Daqian dynasty's attacks.

What's even more rare is that Pharmacist Guo remained humble throughout the whole process and treated Tong Guan like a father, showing indescribable respect.

I don’t know whether it’s because Yaoshi Guo is so good at acting, and his superb acting skills can even deceive the cunning Tong Guan, or because judging from the current actual situation of the Zhao and Song Dynasty, the Zhao and Song Dynasty must use the Ever Victorious Army, and they must use it.

Pharmacist Guo.

The ever-victorious army has become a very difficult problem for the Zhao and Song dynasties to deal with. If it is not handled well, it will face the risk of mutiny.

Once the ever-victorious army breaks up and flows into society, it will inevitably cause chaos.

The most suitable person to control the ever-victorious army is Guo Yaoshi, and no one else can replace him.

The key point is that the Zhao and Song dynasties really didn't have a very capable army, and they really couldn't do without the victorious army.

Perhaps it was because of this that Tong Guan chose to believe in Yaoshi Guo and tried his best to win over Yaoshi Guo.

Of course, you can also say that Tong Guan was too stupid and failed to live up to Zhao Ji's great trust. He failed to see the true nature of Guo Yaoshi and failed to deploy the Hebei border defense well.

Perhaps it can also be said that the most stupid person is Zhao Ji. Why did he send Tong Guan to inspect Pharmacist Guo?

If it were another person, there might be another result.

In short, Tong Guan chose to believe in Guo Yaoshi and the Chang Sheng Army. He did not capture Guo Yaoshi back to Bianliang City in Tokyo. Instead, he asked Guo Yaoshi and the Chang Sheng Army to continue to protect the north gate of the Zhao and Song Dynasty, and spent a lot of money.

Reward Pharmacist Guo and the victorious army.

Then, Tong Guan asked Zhao Ji to "set up a fourth general manager" on Hebei Road, that is, a fourth military general manager, to strengthen Hebei's defense.

The first is the military director of Zhongshan Prefecture, headed by Xin Xingzong.

——Zhongshan Prefecture, the Dingzhou Road pacification envoy was established in the eighth year of Qingli, and the eight prefectures of Tongding, Bao, Shen, Qi, Guangxin, Ansu, Shun'an, and Yongning were promoted to prefectures in the third year of Zhenghe.

The second is the military manager of Zhending Mansion, headed by Ren Yuan.

——Zhending Mansion, in the eighth year of Qingli, a pacifying envoy was appointed to unify Zhen, Xiang, Xing, Zhao, and Mingzhou.

The third is the military commander of Hejian Prefecture, headed by Yang Weizhong.

——Hejian Prefecture, named Gaoyangguan in the first year of Taiping and Xingguo. In the eighth year of Qingli, a pacification envoy was appointed to control the Ying, Mo, Xiong, Bei, Ji, Cang, Yongjing, Baoding, Qianning, and Xin'an prefecture armies. In the second year of Daguan, he was promoted to

Mansion.

The fourth is the military director of Daming Prefecture, headed by Wang Yu.

——Daming Prefecture, in the eighth year of Qingli, a pacification envoy was appointed to control Beijing, Chan, Huai, Wei, De, Bo, Bin, Di, Tongli, and Baoshun Prefecture Army.

The military commanders of these four routes also serve as deputy commanders-in-chief of all routes.

Tong Guan asked the military commander-in-chief of the Fourth Army to actively recruit fugitive soldiers and assassinate idlers from all over the country to join the army, in order to prepare the border.

Tong Guan wanted to use these four general managers to establish a military organizational system in Hebei. Through this system, he could recruit troops and strengthen his strength, thereby consolidating and strengthening Hebei's defense.

Because the Hebei plain is flat and there are no dangerous passes to defend, so since the founding of the Zhao and Song dynasties, many defensive measures have been taken on the Hebei border defense line to prevent the Liao army from going south.

For example, large-scale planting of elms and willows to form defensive forests, excavation of ponds to build the "Great Wall on the Water", strengthening of city construction in Hebei to build a city defense system, etc.
To be continued...