March of the sixth year of the Qingli period of the Song Dynasty and the fifteenth year of the Chongxi period of the Liao Dynasty.
The Yinshan Mountains tower into the clouds, as if God had scattered countless grass seeds from the sky at the beginning of the year, making the earth full of vitality and spring colors.
But after spring came in March, the weather did not get warmer, but remained cold.
The cold wind blowing from Siberia constantly harasses the northern grasslands. Compared with the spring breeze in the south of the desert, the spring breeze in the south of the Yangtze River is like a sharp knife and a gentle hand.
In the howling north wind, the wildly growing weeds swayed in the wind, as if they were about to be swept away by the cold and fierce wind, flying into the sky.
Sometimes, if there is an extremely cold air current, the Mobei grasslands may even experience heavy snowfall in June.
Despite the strong wind, the temperature never dropped below ten degrees Celsius. It was only at night that it felt chilly. During the day, the warm sun shone down, mixed with the fierce north wind, making it hard to tell whether it was cold or hot.
On the grassland of Dongsheng Prefecture, a large team was slowly driving from the east, heading south, passing Yulin County, and heading southwest.
This Dongsheng Prefecture is not the Dongsheng Shenzhou, but the southwesternmost prefecture of the Liao Kingdom.
It was probably located in the area of Ordos City in Inner Mongolia in later generations. At that time, it bordered the Song Dynasty and Western Xia. To the south were Fengzhou, Fuzhou, and Huoshan Army of the Song Dynasty's Hedong Road, and to the west was Henan Prefecture of Western Xia.
Yes.
Western Xia also had a Henan Prefecture, located in the southwest of later Ordos, and named because it was south of the upper reaches of the Yellow River.
The location of the convoy was on the border between Liao and Xia, and the specific location was basically in the area of Ordos City in later generations.
In addition to the fact that Ordos was once a place rich in coal resources, the most famous thing here is the Mausoleum of Genghis Khan.
At this moment, the young Yelu Zongzhen was riding on a horse, looking at the vast grassland in the distance.
At the age of thirty, he had no idea that further south, about fifty or sixty kilometers across the Yellow River, 181 years later, a great man who was countless times more powerful than him would be buried here.
At the same time, in the distance, on the southwest bank of the Yellow River, on a plain about twenty kilometers away from the Yellow River, a large team also appeared.
The border between Western Xia and Liao was not actually the Yellow River, but the land occupied by Liao. For this reason, Liao also set up two large armies, Heqing and Jinsu, here to guard against Western Xia and Song.
However, after the Liao-Song War, the Liao Kingdom slightly tightened its military forces in the border areas, especially the Heqing Army and the Jinsu Army, and transferred them to Ningbian Prefecture in the south to mainly deal with the Song Dynasty.
So this area became a no-man's land for a while. Some herdsmen would come here to graze, or herdsmen from the Western Xia and Liao Kingdoms would come here to exchange and trade.
However, since this place was nominally still the territory of the Liao Dynasty, Yelu Zongzhen still crossed the Yellow River and continued to walk southwest for about ten kilometers, which was almost the city of Ordos in later generations, before arriving at the place agreed upon by both parties.
The vast grassland was covered with a large area of low hills rising and falling in the southwest. On a small hill, Yelu Zongzhen stopped. The Liao army behind him was a little further away, about one or two miles away.
The Xixia team in front stopped three or four kilometers away, and then dozens of riders broke out of the crowd and galloped towards the small hill where he was.
This is something agreed upon by both parties.
Since we are coming to the alliance, there must be etiquette.
If Li Yuanhao had defeated the Song Dynasty and the Liao Dynasty successively as in history, then it would definitely not be Li Yuanhao who came to see Yelu Zongzhen, but both sides would have met at the same time.
But now Li Yuanhao has lost three battles in a row, and has been beaten and fled in disgrace. How can he still have the qualifications to call himself the emperor?
Therefore, he was forced to dethrone himself as king just after ascending the throne, and once again became a vassal of both the Liao Kingdom and the Song Dynasty. This time when the leaders of both sides met, naturally only Li Yuanhao was allowed to meet Yelu Zongzhen.
The wild grass on the mountains swayed gently in the wind, the horses' hooves trampled the soil, and the air seemed to be filled with the fragrance of green grass.
Li Yuanhao slowly walked to the foot of the hillside. He first raised his head and looked up at Yelu Zongzhen who was overlooking him from the mountain. A hint of hatred flashed in his eyes, but then he buried it deep in his heart. He took a few deep breaths, dismounted, walked to the bottom of the hillside, bowed with Liao etiquette, and said: "Greetings to His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Liao."
He spoke Liao language. The Li family had been playing both sides between the Liao Kingdom and the Song Dynasty since his grandfather, so his family could speak both Liao language and Song language.
"King Xia, no need to be polite!"
Yelu Zongzhen raised his hands and responded with the same Liao etiquette.
Li Yuanhao raised his head.
Yelu Zongzhen had already dismounted and walked over. He took his hand affectionately and said with a smile, "King Xia, we Liao and Xia have always been good friends, and you are the son-in-law of my Liao Kingdom, so we are even closer than we used to be."
"Thank you, His Majesty the Emperor of Liao, for your kindness."
Li Yuanhao lowered his head slightly to hide the displeasure in his eyes.
He has always been ambitious. Naturally, he not only wants to become emperor, but also wants to establish a powerful third-party empire between the Liao and Song dynasties, and even wants to annex the Shaanxi Road of the Song dynasty.
For this reason, when he attacked the Song Dynasty, he had already prepared for the same war with the Liao Kingdom in the future.
After all, in addition to the friction with the Song Dynasty, Xixia also had a long-standing rift with the Liao Kingdom on the border due to disputes over herdsmen, the Daier tribe of the Jiashan tribe, Princess Xingping, the various Dangxiang tribes in Shannan, and so on.
However, due to the growing strength of the Song Dynasty, these frictions that could have led to a war between Liao and Xia eventually came to nothing because of the threat from the Song Dynasty, forcing the two sides to unite and become close allies.
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