At the end of December in the second year of Baoyuan, Fan Zhongyan, the governor of Hebei Road and deputy director of the Political System Council of the Song Dynasty, led the troops of Hebei Road and defeated the Liao army.
The Liao army suffered heavy casualties, losing at least 70,000 to 80,000 soldiers and horses, and fled back to the country in a panic.
Such a huge loss was a serious blow even for the Liao Kingdom, which had a strong military force, and it terrified the Liao Emperor Yelu Zongzhen.
He gathered a large number of defeated soldiers, restored morale, and with the addition of the 30,000 soldiers left behind in Nanjing, he managed to deploy 200,000 men in the towns around Xijin Prefecture to defend against the attack of the Song army.
However, the unexpected surprise was that when the Han people on the Song-Liao border learned that the Song army was coming, they were terrified and fled north with their belongings overnight.
They even gave up their land and houses, and brought their families with them. Some of them disliked the slow running of their chickens, ducks and sheep, and carried them on their shoulders and ran all the way.
Moreover, it was not just the people in the border areas, but even the Han people in Xijin Prefecture, when they heard that the Song State was attacking, they all enthusiastically joined the army and asked to go to the front line to kill the enemy, as if the Song State, which was also Han, had some deep hatred with them.
So in less than half a month, tens of thousands of people in the counties south of Laishui fled, leaving no one behind. They even gave up the food that was about to be harvested next year and just wanted to escape.
Fan Zhongyan was speechless when he saw this, although he had already found a way to post a notice to reassure the people, stating that Han people would not fight against Han people and would never oppress the people.
But it was obvious that the Song army had a bad reputation in the past, which made the people panic and uneasy, so it had almost no effect.
In fact, if the taxation was really just harsh, people would not abandon all their belongings, even the land they cultivated, and leave their homes and flee their homeland in order to make a living.
After all, for ordinary people, land is the foundation. In an agricultural society, no one is willing to abandon what they eat.
Unless there is something else that could be more important than land.
What could it be?
That would of course be their lives!
In addition to the fear felt by the people of Liao State due to the Song State's exorbitant taxes, what frightened them the most was the issue of killing innocent people and taking credit for it.
This is an old and difficult problem from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.
It was an era of chaos no less chaotic than the Five Barbarians' Invasion of China. Military generals were plundering and the people were suffering. Killing innocent people to claim credit was common.
Even when the Northern Song Dynasty was just established, this situation occurred when Zhao Kuangyin fought against the Northern Han and Zhao Guangyi launched the Northern Expedition.
Therefore, the local people were extremely frightened, fearing that the Song army would repeat its old ways, and had to flee their hometown.
In fact, there has been such a problem. The Northwest Border Army is fine. After all, Fan Zhongyan has been governing there for two years. The Northwest Army has strict discipline and has not massacred Han people or killed innocent people to claim credit.
However, the Hebei Army encountered such a situation that some units actually massacred the villagers and sent the heads to the military merit office, saying that they were the Han Chinese troops of the Liao Kingdom.
Fortunately, Lao Fan was strict in examining military merits, and someone reported the massacre of civilians and villages within the Liao territory, so these problems were discovered. Otherwise, the situation might have escalated further.
Even so, Fan Zhongyan was furious and ordered all the troops involved, from the generals to the soldiers who took action, to be punished by military law, with all of them sentenced to death.
But that’s all in the past.
At least for now, due to the invasion of the Song Dynasty, the Han people in Liao are still quite scared. Even if Fan Zhongyan sends people to appease them, it will be of no avail.
no way.
He wanted to send troops to intercept them.
But the troops on the front line had to confront the troops on the front line of the Liao Kingdom.
The troops in the rear were either transporting food or cleaning up the remaining Liao soldiers, and had no way to take care of the people.
Therefore, we can only let it go for now.
After all, there are still some people who are not afraid of death and are reluctant to leave their family property and continue to stay.
As long as we occupy these places in the future, appease the people, and manage people's livelihood well, those who have escaped will eventually come back after seeing the situation here.
Soon, this year's war came to an end with the arrival of the new year.
Yelu Zongzhen fled back in a panic.
Fan Zhongyan marched northward deep into Liao territory and engaged in a standoff with the Liao army.
Time came to the second year, January 1040 AD, and the Emperor of the Song Dynasty changed the reign title to Kangding.
Kangding.
It means wealth and stability.
I pray that after the war is settled this year, the country will become prosperous and strong.
In January of the first year of the Kangding reign, Fan Zhongyan basically wiped out most of the remaining Liao troops in the rear, and a large number of Song troops crossed the border and entered Liao territory.
Although the Liao Kingdom responded actively, its decline was already evident, especially among the soldiers of its vassal tribes, whose morale was completely shattered.
They suffered the greatest losses in this battle. In a sense, this seriously shook Yelu Zongzhen's rule and caused the Liao Kingdom's prestige in these vassal states and tribes to plummet.
But there is no way.
War is so cruel, just like when the Jin people rose to power, these vassal states and tribes could not bear the oppression of the Liao Kingdom, and finally joined the Jin Kingdom and destroyed the Liao Kingdom.
Once those vassal states and tribes discover that the suzerain state is declining, it is inevitable that they will devour their suzerain.
Fan Zhongyan's army approached the border, but did not attack the city.
Strictly speaking, the Song army was strong in siege. After all, since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the history of wars of the Han people has often been a history of sieges.
Countless wonderful stories have been derived around the battle between siege and defense, such as the duel between Mozi and Lu Ban, and a large number of siege tactics, equipment and defense tactics and equipment have also emerged.
But a siege is different from a defensive battle. The Song army's grenades are useless, and it is impossible to break the city with just a few cannons. For example, during the Anti-Japanese War, the Nanjing city wall was bombarded by the Japanese army with modern artillery. Except for some damage to the outer wall, the inside was still extremely strong.
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