Yelu Zongzhen was hesitant.
Zhang Jian shook his head and said, "Your Majesty, don't you see that the Han people in the city are actively joining the army to defend the country?"
"This is?"
Yelu Zongzhen didn't understand why.
"It is because Your Majesty has treated them with kindness that the people have won their hearts and minds."
Zhang Jian said, "The Song people are more ferocious than tigers in their heavy taxes. Even if they seize the land, the local people will not submit and will flee north to the Liao Kingdom. We will only lose land. As long as we have the population, the loss will not be too great. Now we have two urgent matters."
"Which two things?"
"First, we need to appease the country and prevent it from becoming turbulent due to this war."
Zhang Jian raised two fingers and said, "Second, we must do everything we can to obtain the Song Dynasty's gunpowder formula and create our own grenades and cannons. Otherwise, we will always be controlled by others. If we continue to fight, people's livelihood will wither, the country will be in poverty, and we will be completely defeated."
"Um."
Yelu Zongzhen felt that Zhang Jian’s words made sense and nodded slightly.
The losses he suffered in this battle were too great.
Not only did they not gain any benefits, but they also wasted national strength and lost a large number of men and horses.
He sent out 150,000 Pi Shi troops, and with the addition of other ethnic coalition forces from various departments, the total number was about 250,000 to 260,000.
Among them, the Pi Shi army lost 20,000 to 30,000 people, and the allied forces of various tribes lost at least 50,000 to 60,000 people. It can be said that it was a disastrous defeat.
Although the Liao Dynasty's foundation is naturally more than that, his father had 500,000 troops to conquer Western Xia. Now, with the troops in northern Shanxi and stationed on the Western Xia border, the Uighur border, and the rear hinterland, it would be no problem to organize another 500,000 troops.
The problem was that after the previous months of confrontation, the Liao treasury was almost empty. If the Liao army could not get supplies from the war, many soldiers would starve to death.
So it’s possible to organize so many people, but whether they can continue the fight is another question.
Therefore, instead of continuing to engage in war and risking the destruction of the country by continuing to fight against the State of Song, it would be better to gain some practical benefits and simply give part of the land to the State of Song, which is equivalent to selling the land.
Anyway, the Song State is rich, so this little amount of money probably doesn't matter.
Thinking of this, Yelu Zongzhen sighed and said, "Let's do it this way. Send another envoy to discuss it with Fan Zhongyan in detail!"
(End of this chapter)
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