Chapter 299 Qiu Yu
Gao Shouyi, the Western Xia envoy, never thought in his life that he would receive such a short and shocking note from the palace of the Song Dynasty.
The content of the note was so absurd and so devoid of etiquette, but it had the personal signature of the Emperor of Zhao Song, and he received it in person after entering the palace of Zhao Song and standing in front of the famous nameless stone pavilion in the autumn rain for a stick of incense... At that time, a fat and white-faced and elegant scholar of the Yutang of Zhao Song personally handed him the note and gave him a hardcover copy of "Records of the Grand Historian". It could not be faked at all.
To be honest, after Gao Shouyi returned to the Western Xia Embassy on the banks of the Bian River west of the city with this heavy note and the "Records of the Grand Historian", he did not sleep all night. He once thought about making a pot of mutton soup in his bedroom, using the book as firewood, and then stuffing the note into the pot to stew it and eating it together with the meat.
But in the end I didn't dare.
The threat from the Zhao Song government on the note was so explicit that he couldn't imagine covering up the matter. What would he do if it appeared in the Song Dynasty gazette one day and became known to the world?
What this matter boils down to is that no matter how dilapidated and messed up the Song Dynasty was after the Jingkang Incident, this huge country still stood up again after the Battle of Yaoshan and is still the largest country in the world. Therefore, the emperor of the Song Dynasty is still the most powerful person in the world... He is really the most powerful person in the world. In the north, there are still three brothers ruling together, and in the south, there is only this one person whose words count.
No matter how absurd the things done by such a person are, he, as an envoy from a small foreign country, must treat them as a huge matter and with extreme caution.
So, after a sleepless night, the next morning, the Xixia envoy finally called his ghostwriter and carefully wrote a memorial, roughly describing what happened, as a buffer for his own king. Then, he ordered someone to seal this humiliating note and the "Historical Records" together in a tightly sealed box, and rushed out of the Tokyo rain curtain in the autumn of the fifth year of Jianyan along with the ghostwriter's memorial.
He honestly followed the wishes of the Zhao Song government.
Of course, even so, it is almost conceivable that by the time the news reached Western Xia, it would probably be late autumn.
Therefore, instead of expecting a response from the Xixia ruler who had experienced countless Song and Liao emperors, it would be better to focus on the Imperial College and Palace Examinations postponed to late autumn this year, and on the package of financial reforms to be rolled out in winter. Even from a military perspective, it seems that the Jin people's movements are more worthy of attention.
Isn't it that the peace talks failed and it's autumn again? According to past customs, the Jin people should have come.
really.
All we can say is that as expected, just as the confidant of the Western Xia envoy rode at full speed and traveled thousands of miles just to deliver a note, an expected conflict broke out between Song and Jin at an expected time and in an expected place... Fuzhou, where Wu Lin, deputy commander-in-chief of the Imperial Camp Rear Army, was stationed, was suddenly attacked by the Jin army from Yan'an Prefecture in the north. Wanyan Huonu, commander-in-chief of the Jin army's Yan'an Marching Division, personally led his troops south, and his own flag also appeared on the front line.
Of course, since it was an expected offensive, Wu Lin, who had been well prepared, would certainly not suffer any loss. Relying on the Diaoyin Mountain Camp that had been established as early as the Qu Duan era, he successfully blocked Wanyan Huonu's offensive at the Diaoyin Mountain Pass. After two days of fierce fighting that broke out suddenly, the two sides quickly turned into a tactical confrontation.
But the interesting thing is that, during the confrontation between Song and Jin in Diaoyin Mountain, the Danzhou area (east of Fuzhou), which had been greatly alert, did not engage in fighting as expected. Instead, the Bao'an Army and Qingzhou areas northwest of Fuzhou were attacked by the Jin army.
The Jin army's detachment was clearly heading up the Beiluo River, attacking cities and strongholds along the way.
Caught off guard, the Jin army captured several strongholds in the northern part of Gyeongju and the core area of the Bao'an Army. Even the main city of the Bao'an Army, Taoluo Village (the area around Zhidan County in later generations), was cut off from news. Guo Hao, the commander of the imperial camp rear army stationed there, and his 3,000 elite field troops were temporarily out of touch.
When the news reached Fangzhou, south of Fuzhou, Wu Jie, the commander-in-chief of the imperial camp's rear army, was shocked for a moment, but was also dazed. For a moment, he did not dare to send troops to rescue Guo Hao without authorization. He just asked for instructions from three senior officials in Chang'an behind him, Yuwen Xuzhong, Han Shizhong, and Hu Yin.
Relatively speaking, as the Guanxi base camp that had repeatedly been authorized and guaranteed by Emperor Zhao, Chang'an responded very directly and quickly. Yuwen Xuzhong, as the prime minister, issued an official order, requiring Wu Jie to immediately send troops via Fuzhou and turn to Qingzhou in order to rescue Guo Hao; at the same time, Hu Yin, the transport envoy of the five routes of Guanxi, went north to Fangzhou in person and took over the logistics of Fangzhou; and Han Shizhong, the Prince of Yan'an, immediately mobilized part of the troops to go to Tongzhou in person to respond.
I must add one more thing here. Wu Jie's hesitation and trance were not due to his incompetence, but his thinking was restricted by his identity as a soldier, which is why he was temporarily stunned by Wanyan Huonu.
You know, from a big strategic perspective, the Jin army had no reason to attack the Bao'an Army, because even if they occupied the Bao'an Army, if they wanted to turn south, they would have to face complex terrain and the castles that had been built during the nearly 100-year war between the Song Dynasty and the Western Xia...and the remote and poor Bao'an Army could not even provide any logistical relief to Wanyan Huonu's more than 20,000 main forces of the Jin army.
Of course, the entire northern Shaanxi is a remote and poor area, and Wanyan Huonu’s logistics have always been transferred from the Jin army’s own Xijing (Datong) area.
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