Yue Fei, Wang De, and Qu Duan were obviously elite troops, and most of their generals and soldiers were locals who could adapt to the battlefield right away. At the same time, the proportion of cavalry was also quite high, and they were aggressive as soon as they started fighting. Under the fierce attack of these Song armies, the Hulu River Basin, which was called Wei Ru River by the Xixia people, quickly collapsed the surrounding defense line, and the fortress was quickly divided and surrounded. It can be imagined that if large-scale reinforcements could not be quickly dispatched, then Li Ganshun's efforts after Jingkang would be completely in vain.
This made Li Ganshun's situation even more difficult as he was already in a difficult situation due to the sudden outbreak of war.
Having been the ruler of Western Xia for nearly fifty years, he certainly knew the importance of Pingxia City. He also knew that if Pingxia City, which was taken with great difficulty during the Jingkang Rebellion, was recaptured by the Song army, Western Xia would never have peace. But he did not dare to easily withdraw troops to fight... Because in early March when the Song army was attacking and advancing on all fronts, a piece of accurate news repeatedly received from captives and small tribes in the border areas was that the dragon flag of the Zhao Song government moved north again, but it went directly into the northernmost city of Fangzhou.
Fangzhou City is of course a strategic point, as can be seen from the previous achievements of Wu Jie here, and it is natural for the Song army to deploy troops here. However, there is no need for the dragon flag of the Zhao Song officialdom to just deploy backup.
It is obvious that the Zhao Song government wanted to directly command the troops of Han Shizhong and Wu Jie to fight against the eastern battlefield of Yan'an-Hengshan.
The appearance of the Emperor of the Song Dynasty less than a hundred miles away from the front line was commonplace for the Jurchens, but it was still a great shock to the Xixia people, to the small Dangxiang tribes in Hengshan, and to the people in the occupied areas of northern Shaanxi.
Many small Dangxiang tribes have repeatedly changed their ways. Although they still consider themselves to be Xixia people most of the time, after hundreds of years of influence, they still know who the emperor of the Song Dynasty is, and they have a sense of fear in their bones.
Therefore, the shock and pressure brought by the sentence that the emperor of the Song Dynasty was in Fangzhou directly caused panic in the Hengshan area. Many small Dangxiang tribes inside and outside Hengshan were shaken, and there were frequent riots and defections by the people in the occupied areas of northern Shaanxi.
For both Yue Fei and Wu Jie, the offensive became obviously smoother.
Under such circumstances, Li Ganshun really did not dare to withdraw troops from the Hengshan defense line, let alone transfer his troops in Lingzhou to fight, because once there was a mistake and a major defeat in the field battle, even if there were only tens of thousands of troops, it would likely lead to a chain reaction and end up in a total loss.
After only a few days of fighting, the experienced Xixia ruler was fully aware of a reality: the Song army of today is by no means the Song army of the past, and the Song Dynasty of today is by no means the Song Dynasty of the past.
Expecting Xixia to form a strategic balance with the Song Dynasty on its own was wishful thinking from the beginning.
In the midst of agony, Li Ganshun's only hope was the Jurchens. Letters asking for help began to arrive one after another, sent from Xingqing Prefecture at the fastest speed and delivered to the Jin army-occupied area from the rear of Hengshan. Huo Nu, Wu Zhu, and E'erluguan were all able to get a share of the credit.
Daning City is the main passage from the Jin army's hinterland east of the Yellow River to Yan'an.
This is because the Xinshui River flowing through here is only a dozen miles away from the mouth of the Yellow River on the opposite bank of the Yanhe River, and the mouth of the Yanhe River is downstream, making the logistics transfer from east to west very convenient.
Therefore, Wanyan Wushu, the fourth prince of the Jin Dynasty who came to Yan'an, regarded this place as his headquarters very early on, and almost successfully divided and disintegrated the Huonu Group here.
Now, in early March, after the full-scale outbreak of the war, the first letter for help arrived here, with countless horses killed. The King of Wei of the Jin Dynasty, who actually controlled the entire Western Route Army and the Western Front, read the letter roughly and made a judgment in the lobby of the headquarters in Daning City:
"We need to save Xixia."
"Your Highness, save Huo Nu first!" Because the war broke out suddenly, the commander of the Western Army, Wanyan Balisu, who came from Taiyuan City, spoke directly to persuade the crowd. "Although Huo Nu and I have a grudge, we should not abandon the 10,000 veterans of the Western Army... Compared with them, what does it matter if the Xixia people lose their country?"
The rest of the people in the hall nodded.
Moreover, in the past, Yan'an Prefecture gathered nearly 20,000 soldiers and horses, but they took advantage of the favorable conditions of the Zhao Song government's entry into the pass and the truce after entering the pass. As a result, nearly half of the soldiers had already retreated to Hedong with Wanyan Salihe and Pucha Huzhan.
Therefore, there are only 10,000 people in the living woman's hands now. However, Wanyan Salihe and Pucha Huzhan were sitting in this hall.
"Even living girls must be saved." Wushu did not give much explanation. He just stood up and paced in the lobby with his hands behind his back for a while, and then gave a definite response.
"So what the King of Wei means is... to send a large army across the river to Yan'an?" Balisu stared at Wuzhu so hard that his brows were furrowed.
"No!" Wuzhu shook his head decisively. "I've been here for a long time and I can see clearly that it's easier to go to Yan'an from Daning than to return. Moreover, Yan'an is mountainous and has two large rivers that are gradually rising. It's not a good place for our Jurchen cavalry to perform... I even suspect that Han Shizhong may have enough troops to cut off the Yan River and force Huo Nu to withdraw from the north. The reason why he is keeping his troops in Danzhou is to set a trap for us to send troops over and then bite us hard."
Balisu remained silent, and the generals beside him, Wanyan Salihe, Pucha Huzhan and others were also silent... They could understand Wushu's thoughts very well, because the biggest loss in the last battle of Yaoshan was the two Wanhu led by Wanyan Wushu himself. The reason why the two Wanhu suffered heavy losses was not because of how bloody the battle was, but because after the battle, unlike other troops who could evacuate in an orderly manner, they were isolated on the other side of the battlefield and could not return, and then they were annihilated on the bank of the Yellow River without supplies.
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