Emperor Shenzong and Wang Anshi supported Wang Shao's strategy without reservation, which is known in history as the Xihe Frontier Opening.
When Xihe was opening up the border, Wang Shao was sent to the Northwest to command troops. Several military leaders in the Northwest refused to cooperate. "You, Wang Shao, can't even pass the imperial examination, yet you dare to come to my military headquarters and point fingers."
This is equivalent to a college graduate from a third-rate, unaccredited university in later generations wandering around in society for a few years and then being sent to a major military region to discuss strategy with the military region commander.
Of course, they wouldn't stand for it. They even submitted a memorial to Emperor Shenzong, denouncing Wang Shao as worthless and also criticizing Wang Anshi for his foolishness in supporting such a young upstart.
What did Emperor Shenzong and Wang Anshi do?
Of course, the solution is to replace him! Anyone who doesn't support Wang Shao should step down!
Get back here and be the prefect!
And so, the grand opening of the Xihe border began amidst much controversy.
Wang Shao did not disappoint Zhao Xu and Wang Anshi's expectations of him; he truly recovered the Hehuang region!
This was the first time the Song Dynasty had expanded its territory since Emperor Taizong!
The Tanguts were surrounded. After the failure of the five-pronged attack on Xia, the Song Dynasty realized the strategy proposed by Fan Zhongyan decades earlier and began to build fortified cities in the Hengshan area, taking steps one by one and slowly encroaching on the territory.
Once this strategy was implemented, panic immediately gripped the Tangut people, and the Song Dynasty had effectively seized the lifeline of the Xia Kingdom in an instant.
After that, the Xia Kingdom repeatedly launched attacks on the cities and fortresses repaired by the Song Dynasty with hundreds of thousands of troops, and the Xia King even personally supervised the battles.
At this point, the Song Dynasty's war against the Tanguts officially shifted from a passive to an active phase.
If Emperor Renzong hadn't been fooled by Li Yuanhao and had adopted the strategies of Fan Zhongyan and Han Qi, the Tanguts might have been wiped out decades ago, and the subsequent large-scale bloated army and financial difficulties might not have occurred.
In this way, they would still have spare strength when facing the Jin Dynasty.
But this strategy was thwarted once again; the Song Dynasty was truly plagued by misfortune.
What happened after Hehuang was defeated?
In the struggle between the old and new factions, Sima Guang felt that maintaining the newly acquired territory was too costly and not worthwhile, so he decided to give it up. He even planned to return the Hengshan region, which had been conquered from the Xia state, to the Xia state.
The Qing Tang tribe was prone to rebellion, and the court had been constantly debating the issue of managing the Hehuang region. Due to the conflict between the old and new factions, the court was also uncertain about foreign wars.
But at least at this point, the Tangut front was stretched thin.
As a resource-rich nation, the Song Dynasty was superior to smaller resource-rich states like the Tanguts in terms of long-term warfare.
After Emperor Shenzong's death, the old faction revived, Sima Guang seized power, and implemented a comprehensive contraction.
When Emperor Zhezong came to power, he reinstated the New Party and began to expand the borders and attack the Xia.
By the time Zhao Ji ascended the throne, inheriting Fan Zhongyan's strategy, the Hengshan area was already dotted with Song Dynasty fortresses, and finally Tong Guan came to fight this war.
Later generations often commented that Tong Guan possessed considerable military talent.
Some idiots even say that Yue Fei's military talent cannot be compared with Tong Guan's.
However, they knew nothing about the causes and consequences of the Song Dynasty history.
Tong Guan can be said to have reaped the fruits of his predecessors' labor. The Xia Kingdom had become extremely weak after being eroded by several generations. As long as the Jin Kingdom did not rise, the demise of the Xia Kingdom was only a matter of time.
Even after strategic locations like Hengshan were eroded by the Song army, Tong Guan's performance was only so-so.
In the era that Zhao Huan surpassed, Tokyo had not fallen.
In the first year of the Jingkang era, the Xia state did indeed take advantage of the Jin state's invasion of the Song dynasty to march south and capture Hengshan, even reaching Jingyuan Road and Huanqing Road at one point. Later, it was only through the counterattacks of Yao Pingzhong, Zhe Keqiu, Liu Guangshi, and others that it was driven back.
Moreover, the fortress in Hengshan was temporarily preserved.
This time, however, Richard's army directly penetrated into Song territory, and Li Ganshun personally led his army south to Hengshan to launch a fierce siege of Song city fortresses.
Zhao Huan's victory in this battle hinges on Hengshan, on that vast desert stretching seven hundred miles.
If the Song Dynasty regains control of Hengshan, the Xia Kingdom will completely lose the protection of Hengshan and be completely exposed to Zhao Huan's sharp blade.
At the same time, they also lost the fertile land and food of Yokoyama.
The overall situation is almost settled.
At this moment, the emperor, full of vigor, looked north from the Divine Hall Fortress at the distant, desolate wilderness, the cold wind making his cloak flutter in the air.
A hundred li ahead lies Hengshan, the border between the Song and Xia dynasties. Within this hundred li, the Song army also had dozens of fortified towns and strongholds, densely distributed south of and between Hengshan, interconnected and mutually reinforcing each other, forming a solid barrier that firmly blocked the Xia army's iron cavalry to the north.
Back then, when Li Yuanhao rebelled, he used the mobility of his cavalry to charge back and forth against the Song army in this region, leaving the Song army with no chance to fight back.
After Emperor Shenzong launched his five-pronged attack on the Xia dynasty, fortified towns and strongholds sprang up all over Hengshan.
The arrogant and domineering Tangut people were shocked and terrified when they learned that the Song army had built fortresses in the desolate desert and on the steep cliffs of Hengshan.
Whether it was the far-sighted Fan Zhongyan and Han Qi, the Wang Shao who expanded the border by two thousand miles in a fit of anger, or the brilliant general Zhang Jie in the late Northern Song Dynasty, they had all brought the war against Xia to its end.
It only takes one person to end it.
Zhao Huan was this person.
In the twelfth month of the third year of the Jingkang era, a cold wind from the distant northern desert swept across the entire northwest land, turning the whole world into an endless expanse of white.
Only amidst the brutal slaughter do crimson blossoms bloom.
Countless lives perished this winter, their remains forever buried in the yellow earth.
That year, the Tanguts went mad.
First, Song general Cao Sheng rebelled and massacred various cities and strongholds in the northwest.
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