Chapter 21 Twenty, the dust is initially determined

As the discerning Cui Hao saw, the Song Army's troops were too scattered, and it was extremely difficult for them to defend the Yellow River in the face of the powerful Northern Wei iron hooves.This is like playing Go, every part wants to be occupied, but everywhere is thin, the result is naturally attacked everywhere, and no one can really be transformed into a solid ground. Da Yanzhi, who is overly optimistic about the situation, does not feel that the crisis is approaching.He tried to send general Yao Shufu to cross the Yellow River north and attack Yeban (now west of Mengxian County, Henan Province).Yao Shufu was defeated by An Jie and returned, but Yanzhi still did not realize the urgency of the battle.He simply set up a defense line along the river, and returned to Dongping, east of Baodong, with Wang Zhongde, thinking that the four towns in Henan could rest easy.

In the third year of Shenzhu (AD 430), the cold winter came very early, and the Wei army, who had been on standby for several months on the north bank of the Yellow River, finally took action.In late October, the champion general An Jie led most of his troops across the Yellow River from Weisujin (to the east of Fanxian County, Henan Province) and approached Jinyong, the westernmost stronghold of the Song army.Since the last battle between Wei, Song and Henan, the defenses of Jinyong City have been in disrepair for many years. The Song army won the city not long ago, and there is no food reserve.The guard Du Ji had no intention of defending to the death at all, but was afraid that he would be punished for escaping like this, so he lied to Yao Shufu, who had a small army by the Luoshui River, and said, "The defense of Jinyong city is all right now, and there is enough food. I'm short of people, if the general comes to help me, he will make great contributions."

Yao Shufu had just lost a battle and was eager to make meritorious service and atone for his crimes, so he came to Kim Yong to report for duty.When I came to the top of the city and took a look, hey, what kind of broken walls are these, how can I guard them?Seeing that Wei Jun is about to kill the city, let's run, and retreat south as soon as we turn our horses. The cunning Du Ji also fled. He returned to Jiankang and said to Emperor Wen of Song: "My minister wanted to stick to Jinyong, but Yao Shufu fled when he came to the city. The morale of the army was depressed and difficult to control, so he fell." Emperor Wen of Song was very angry. , ordered Yao Shufu to be beheaded. (The combat effectiveness of the Song army itself was weak. Yao Shufu was a very brave general at the time, but he was framed to death by his own people; Emperor Wen of the Song Dynasty was good at martial arts, but his military level was very low. He knew too much about the character and ability of his soldiers. Less, far worse than Emperor Taiwu Tuoba Tao.)

Anjie captured Luoyang, killed all the more than 5,000 soldiers left by the Song army, and then attacked Hulao with Longxiang General Lu Qi and quickly broke it (this result is a great improvement compared with the previous war. It can also be seen from this It can be seen that because the Wei army did not pay much attention to the fortifications of the cities themselves, but more on the combat effectiveness of mobile soldiers, they did not spend a lot of time building and renovating the city defenses when they occupied these cities. As a result, important passes like Hulao were no longer so easy to defend. Difficult to attack), Song army defender Yin Chong was captured and killed, Xingyang prefect Cui Mo surrendered.

At this time, the Wei army in Hebei gathered at Qinujin in the northwest of Dongping. When they arrived in Yanzhi, they were afraid that the Wei army would cross the river, so they hurriedly sent Wang Panlong to the river to seize the ferry of the Northern Wei Dynasty, but was killed by Wei general Du Chao and others.Luoyang and Hulao were lost one after another, leaving only a sliding platform in the west of Qingzhou, which was guarded by Song general Zhu Xiuzhi.When Yanzhi refused to listen to the dissuasion of the general Yuanhuzhi, he stopped cooperating with the anti-skid platform and ordered the troops to retreat.

Dao Yanzhi planned to burn the warships and retreat southward on foot.Wang Zhongde persuaded: "It is inevitable that Luoyang and Hulao will be captured. Now the enemy army is still thousands of miles away from our army, and the sliding platform is still guarded by strong soldiers. If they abandon their warships and flee south, the army's morale will be scattered, and they will surely collapse. For the current plan, we should enter Jishui by boat and reach the mouth of Ma'er Valley (now southeast of Dongpingling City, Shandong Province) for further discussion." Song Jun went south along Jishui.The march was difficult, and Yanzhi's old eye disease suddenly recurred for many years, and the pain was unbearable. Many soldiers in the army were also infected with the plague.When he arrived in Licheng (now Jinan, Shandong), Dao Yanzhi finally didn't want to walk so slowly by water, and ordered to burn the boat and abandon the armor, and fled to Pengcheng on foot.The so-called raging soldiers are raging, and the generals are raging. Once the coach withdraws, the guards everywhere have no intention of defending.Zhu Lingxiu, the governor of Yanzhou, fled south to Hulu, and the Song army in Qingzhou and Yanzhou fell into panic.

The Wei army on the eastern front crossed south and came to Jinan. There were only a few hundred soldiers in Jinan city, led by the prefect Xiao Chengzhi.This Xiao Chengzhi is the father of Xiao Daocheng who will establish the Southern Qi regime in the future.This man was quite knowledgeable, and the Wei army was powerful, so he ordered his subordinates to give up their defenses and open the city gates to wait for the Wei army.Everyone was puzzled. He said: "Now we are guarding the isolated city. The situation is critical. If we show weakness again, the city will not be safe. It is better to impress the enemy that our army is strong and we are not afraid of them." When Wei Jun came to the city, he was really afraid of the city There was an ambush, but led the troops to retreat. (This is another example of an empty city strategy. There are still many such real battles in history.)

Most of the other cities in the Song Dynasty fled.Wei General Uncle Sun Jian pursued Zhu Lingxiu and beat him to death in Hulu, and the Song army lost thousands of people.When Yanzhi and Wang Zhongde returned to Jiankang, they were defeated in this battle, and the arsenal was empty.Emperor Wen of the Song Dynasty's trust in Dao Yanzhi was all in vain. Disappointed and angry, he dismissed Dao Yanzhi and Wang Zhongde from their official posts and waited to be dealt with; Zhu Lingxiu abandoned the army and fled without authorization, and was executed. (In this battle, Emperor Wen of the Song Dynasty relied too much on his old subordinates to Yanzhi, and could not reuse the old generals Tan Daoji and Wang Zhongde left behind by his father, resulting in heavy losses for the Song Army. Tan Daoji and others followed Liu Yu in the Southern and Northern Wars, using their experience to deal with The Northern Wei Dynasty used its strengths. It can also be seen during the war that several issues raised by Wang Zhongde were the most critical and did not get the attention of the commander-in-chief Dao Yanzhi. If Emperor Wen of the Song Dynasty could use Tan Daoji or even Wang Zhongde as the commander-in-chief, the defense line would not be strong. It may be so weak that the Wei army may still capture the towns in Henan, but the price will definitely be much higher.)

Slippery City, the last fortress in Henan, is still in the hands of the Song army.After the new year, that is, the eighth year of Yuanjia (AD 431), Emperor Wen of the Song Dynasty had to invite Tan Daoji, and ordered him to lead the army out of Qingshui to support the sliding platform with Wang Zhongde, Duan Hong and others, in order to make a final fight.The Wei army was led by Shusun Jian and Changsun Daosheng to block the Song army's route.Many of Tan Daoji's troops were Liu Yu's old troops, and they had strong combat effectiveness. They met with Shu Sunjian's army in Shouzhang (now southwest of Dongping, Shandong), defeated their opponents, and then moved to Gaoliangting (in today's Dongping, Shandong) area , the formation of Jizhou governor of the Northern Wei Dynasty Xi Fan Ku knot.

Song's reinforcements went up along the Jishui River, and in more than half a month, they fought more than 30 consecutive battles with Wei's army, and most of them won.After the Song army arrived in Licheng, it was not far from the sliding platform. At this time, Shu Sunjian, the general of the Northern Wei Dynasty, thought of a coup to stop Tan Daoji's reinforcements from advancing. He sent light cavalry to sneak around behind the Song army and set fire to the Song army's food and grass.When Tan Daoji reacted, the food was almost burned out. Without food, no matter how brave the army could advance, Tan Daoji was trapped in Licheng.

The war on the slippery platform did not wait for anyone. An Jie led his troops to attack day after day, and Tuoba Tao sent general Wang Huilong to assist.The food in the city was exhausted, Zhu Xiuzhi led the soldiers to dig for mice, smoked and roasted them as food.The Wei army finally conquered the sliding platform and captured Zhu Xiuzhi, Shen Mo, the prefect of Dongjun, and more than 10,000 Song soldiers in the city. The sliding platform fell, and his own food was exhausted, so Tan Daoji had to retreat from Licheng.Some soldiers fled to the camp of the Wei army and reported the food shortage of the Song army to Shu Sunjian and others.Wei Jun quickly chased up from behind and surrounded him on all sides. The soldiers of the Song Army were very scared, and many of them ran away.Tan Daoji was not in a panic, and went to the camp to check the grain with the soldiers that night. The soldiers counted with bamboo sticks and measured the rice with buckets. Wei Jun's secret work was mixed into Song Yingli, and he was also observing the situation at this time.The detailed work saw that the army rations in the camp were piled up, and the full rice bags were full of white rice, so they immediately ran back to report to Shu Sunjian: Tan Daoji has enough food and grass.Upon hearing this, Shusun Jian believed that the surrendered soldier was a spy, so he killed him. Tan Daoji's military rations are exhausted, where can there be so much food?It turned out that what was measured that night was not rice, but sand that had been temporarily piled up. In order to deceive people, a small amount of remaining rice grains were placed on the sand.This is Tan Daoji's trick of "drinking the sand to raise money", which cleverly deceived Wei Jun. The sky was about to turn pale, so Tan Daoji ordered his soldiers to wear armor, while he himself changed into white clothes, got into a carriage, and led the army slowly to the south.Wei Jun had seen Tan Daoji's power before, and when he saw such a posture, he thought that there was another ambush this time, and he would not advance but retreat, so he dared not pursue.Tan Daoji and others were finally able to retreat with their entire army. The second large-scale contact battle between the Wei and Song Dynasties around the four towns in Henan ended with the complete victory of the Northern Wei Dynasty.In this battle, Song State lost to Wei State comprehensively in terms of strategy and tactics, Cui Hao calculated almost every move first, while Tuoba Tao, the emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty, fully adopted Cui Hao's strategic thinking, with the main force Attack the remnants of the Xia Kingdom, wipe them out, avoid the Song Army's initial attack, and then take advantage of the weather and terrain to counterattack and regain Sizhou, Yuzhou, Yanzhou and other places. After this battle, the conflict between the northern and southern dynasties came to an end temporarily, and Tuoba Tao returned to the north to participate in the final battle of unification, nine years from the fourth year of Shenmen (AD 431) to the fifth year of Taiyan (AD 439) Among them, the three small countries of Xia, Beiyan, and Beiliang were wiped out successively (in addition, Western Qin was also wiped out by the Xia Kingdom before his death in the fourth year of Shenzhen), and attacked in the fourth year of Taiping Zhenjun (443 AD). In Hanzhong, the Houqiuchi Kingdom established by the Yang family was defeated, ending the era of disputes among the sixteen countries, and unified the northern Hus except Rouran and Tuyuhun under the banner of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Liu Yilong in the south also didn't have the strength to show his ambitions anymore, so he could only honestly consolidate the achievements of half of the country's "Yuanjia rule".The Song State was severely injured in the two Henan Wars. The only bright spot was the performance of old generals such as Tan Daoji. However, this little hope can only ensure that the Song State is on the defensive and will not collapse, not to mention the suspicious Liu Yilong Can you really let go of these first-rate subordinates?Where does Liu Song Jiangshan go... From a five-character poem written by Liu Yilong after the defeat in the war and the fall of Huatai, we may be able to get a glimpse of the monarch's state of mind at the moment: With the unification of the north and the stability of the south, Chinese history has officially entered a new period of competition between the Song and Wei Dynasties, or a dialogue between the North and the South. Please see the next part of "The Struggle Between Song and Wei".