Anyway, the Western Xia and Liao Kingdom couldn't invade, so the worst that could happen was that we could just spend money to buy peace.
Zhao Jun's statement that a nation should have a martial spirit is certainly correct in later generations, but in the Song Dynasty?
Haha, just outrageous talk.
"Then let Fan Zhongyan go to the northwest?"
Zhao Zhen said again.
Lu Yijian's face was expressionless, but he was secretly delighted. He bowed and said, "Your Majesty is wise."
After making this decision, Zhao Zhen did not take immediate action. Instead, he returned to the house and listened to Zhao Jun talk about the causes and consequences of the battle of Dingchuan Village.
In general, due to the Song army's backward intelligence, contempt for the enemy, indecision of the top leaders, and command disorders, etc., the execution of the lower levels was chaotic, and they were eventually ambushed three times by Li Yuanhao and suffered three crushing defeats.
These three major defeats caused a serious decline in the combat effectiveness of the Song army in the northwest, which made the already deficit finances even worse, making the Song Dynasty no longer able to take the initiative to attack Western Xia.
The Western Xia was too weak. Although it had strong combat capabilities and won three battles in a row, it still suffered defeats in several small-scale battles, such as the Battle of Jintang City where Di Qing won a great victory.
So after the two sides had been entangled with each other for several years, and neither could do anything to the other, they naturally had no choice but to accept each other.
With Zhao Jun's help in summarizing the reasons, Zhao Zhen and his team of prime ministers came up with a plan.
They wanted to nip Li Yuanhao in the bud.
In response to the problem of poor command, Fan Zhongyan was appointed as the chief officer, with full responsibility for the Northwest War. In addition, due to the slackness of military preparations and the decline of people's livelihood, Fan Zhongyan was also asked to train the army and improve people's livelihood.
As for the fact that the internal intelligence of the Song Dynasty was almost like a sieve, they also planned to make comprehensive deployments before officially appointing Fan Zhongyan as the governor of Shaanxi Road.
For example, you can deliberately provide Li Yuanhao with some false information, and at the same time tell Fan Zhongyan that Li Yuanhao will deliberately send some Xixia tribes to surrender as internal accomplices, so that he should be careful and never fall into the trap, etc.
According to Zhao Jun, the war with Western Xia would not start for another two years. As long as Fan Zhongyan managed the situation properly during these two years, he might be able to reverse the defeat or even defeat Li Yuanhao, forcing Li Yuanhao to submit again and not dare to rebel again.
So in the next few days, Zhao Zhen went to Zhao Jun to listen to history, and at the same time he and his team studied how to counter Li Yuanhao's self-proclaimed emperor.
But Zhao Zhen never expected that just when he was about to appoint Fan Zhongyan to go to the northwest, Fan gave him a big job.
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