Chapter 30 9. The resurgence of the war between the north and the south

The year Cui Hao was punished happened to be in the middle of the fifth century AD. A whole century ago, the chaos of Hou Zhao and the massacre launched by Ran Min (see ) seemed like yesterday. Then it was the turn of the most prominent Han clans in the north.History always plays jokes on people, be it reincarnation or retribution, similar scenes appear again and again.One hundred years ago, it was the Murong clan's large-scale invasion of the south. A hundred years later, it became a big confrontation between the north and the south world. Four months before Cui Hao was executed, Emperor Tuoba Tao of the Northern Dynasty and Emperor Liu Yilong of the Southern Dynasty thought of going to war with each other almost at the same time.The first person to attack was Tuoba Tao, a "war madman". He had just adjusted from the war against Rouran, and he pointed his blade at the land of Song State in the north and south of Huai River.

Since the failure of the Northern Expedition in the seventh year of Yuanjia (AD 430) (see "The Reign of Yuanjia"), the Southern Dynasties have not fought against their northern neighbors on the battlefield for a full 20 years.Song Wendi probably healed his scars and forgot about the pain. In addition to the situation of governing the world in the past 20 years, he eliminated one by one the dissidents and powerful officials, which made him quite proud. Neglecting it, it is now a promising year, so doing a few things well can overshadow the great events of those wise monarchs in history.When Gai Wu started the incident, he had an idea, but because he didn't put the Northern Expedition on the agenda at that time, he didn't prepare enough, so he didn't take action immediately.This time the army of the Northern Wei Dynasty was dispatched first, so he thought of a policy and countermeasure - to preserve his strength and wait for a counterattack.He gave an order to the generals on the Huai and Si front lines: "If the Wei army has few soldiers, each will stand firm; if there are many soldiers, they will take the common people and retreat to Shouyang in Huainan."

Tuoba Tao personally led the cavalry unit, and hundreds of thousands came.The intelligence collection work of the guards reconnaissance on the border of the Song Dynasty was extremely ineffective. When the Wei army was discovered in the front-line cities, the distance between the two sides was already quite close.The prefects of Nandun (now west of Xiangcheng, Henan) and Yingchuan (now Yuxian, Henan) were terrified when they received the information, and immediately abandoned the city and retreated. The commander of the Wei army drove straight in and killed Xuanhu (now Runan, Henan).Stationed in Xuanhu was Chen Xian, the prefect of Xingrunan (Xing means agent, which means to exercise). Before the Wei army entered the country, he was sent here by Liu Shuo, the governor of Yuzhou in Shouyang and the king of Nanping.Time was running out, Chen Xian had no time to retreat, and he did not confiscate many soldiers. There were only less than a thousand people in the whole city.Tuoba Tao's army soon surrounded Xuanhu City.

The number of the Wei army was a hundred times larger than that of the guards in the city. Tuoba Tao thought he could take it easily, but he didn't expect to hit a snag.Although Chen Xian had few people, his fighting spirit was very high, and he repelled wave after wave of attacking Wei soldiers.Wei Jun built tall buildings around the city and shot arrows at the city frantically.The soldiers in the city thought of a way. Each of them took a door panel and carried it on their backs when they went to fetch water. Wei Jun's random arrows didn't have much effect.Tuobatao ordered to switch to a rushing cart, with a hook on the top of the rushing cart to drag the city wall, and the hanging south city would soon collapse.Chen Xian also had a countermeasure. He built another inner wall inside and erected a wooden fence outside to block it with all his strength. The trick of rushing the car failed again.The Wei army had no choice but to rely on the large number of people to attack the city desperately. Under Chen Xian's call, the Song army fought bravely and fought hard. Stepping on the mountain of corpses piled up in front, you can rush to the top of the city to meet Song soldiers hand-to-hand, and the battle is extremely tragic.

Xuanhu City is a matter of life and death for the defenders, but it is only a dispensable city for the opponent who is constantly attacking.Tuoba Tao's strategic policy was not clear. The 100,000 army was dragged in Huaibei by hundreds of people, and the loss was tens of thousands.Song Guo won enough time, and the two rescuers set off from Pengcheng and Shouyang respectively, all the way to Ruyang, and all the way to Xuanhu.The Wuling king Liu Jun was in charge of the Pengcheng team, who caught Tuoba Ren, who had come to plunder the people in the Northern Wei Dynasty, by surprise. The luggage was burned and the army was scattered.However, Tuoba Ren was also considered shrewd, and soon found out that the Song army was not enough to succeed, so he returned to the division to fight back, beat the Song army into chaos, and got a lot of horses and weapons.

The road in Shouyang was led by Zang Zhi, the internal historian of Nanping, and Liu Kangzu, the Sima of Anman.Both sides of the Northern Wei Dynasty failed to gain any benefits, so Tuoba Tao had no choice but to say to his subordinates: "Huainan seems to have a large army coming, maybe there will be surprise soldiers, if you don't retreat, I'm afraid you will fall into the enemy's trick!" Wave your hands and withdraw your troops. Unexpectedly, there were no major losses in this defensive battle, and Emperor Song Wen's already inflated confidence was greatly enhanced.A series of problems that should be paid attention to, such as the lag of frontline intelligence work and the disadvantages of contact warfare, were all overshadowed by the light of Xuanhu's one-on-one defensive battle.It just so happened that at this time Tuoba Tao didn't know which tendon was wrong, so someone sent a provocative letter.

Tuoba Tao's letter was included in the "Song Shu" in "Suolu Biography" in full, but "Wei Shu"'s "Daoyi Biography" was not included. I guess there are two possible reasons: 1. The content of the letter may be Second, from the perspective of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the content of this letter is not very decent and worthy of special mention, and it can even be said to be very embarrassing.As far as the enemy country Liu Song is concerned, such words can just show the arrogance, arrogance, and external strength of the Northern Wei emperor, and they are probably perfect for boosting the morale of the country's soldiers and civilians.

At the beginning of Tuoba Tao's article, he accused Liu Yilong of engaging in spy wars and insulting prisoners of war (it's a pity that a military court could not be held for trial at that time), and his taste was too low.The so-called "observing one's actions is enough to know the other's great interests. Since the school was identified, it has not been a day and a night." Then he questioned Liu Yilong's supporting and contacting Gai Wu, the "terrorist leader" in the Northern Wei Dynasty, for engaging in "state terrorism": If you are still a man, you should come to take my country by yourself, but you always use money to lure our country Frontier people, this is a stealthy act!How much land do I have from you now, how can it compare to the number of border residents you have obtained? (This is nonsense. People in the world take it from those with virtue. The common people are naturally willing to go to rich and prosperous places. This is human nature. It is better to use means other than war to get more support from the people than war means. The price is small, and it will last longer. Tuoba Tao spent his entire life in the army, but he failed to sit down and think about the policy of governing the world, and more or less ignored the importance of economic means for the prosperity of the country.)

Then he said: If you want to protect the country and still want to sit in the mountains and rivers, cede to me the north of the Yangtze River, and I can reward you with living in the south of the Yangtze River.Otherwise, let's quickly order everyone to stand in full force. Next autumn, I will personally go to capture your Yangzhou, and if you want to survive then it will be up to you.Back then I asked you for jewels, but you refused to give them to me. Now I just take a few skulls, which are not bad as jewels. (Hey! The tone is so loud, so cruel and savage!) Then Tuobatao began to boast about his martial arts: Back in the past, you were connected to the north, He Lianxia, ​​Juqu Mengxun, Tuyuhun to the west, and Fenghong to the east. I wiped out all these countries (this sentence is another It’s too much, Rouran, Tuyuhun, and Gaoli were not completely wiped out by the Northern Wei Dynasty, and they all lived longer than the Northern Wei Dynasty).Look at their end, and think about you again, do you think you can survive alone?

In the end, he showed disdain: When I go to attack you, what are you going to do, the most you can do is build a city to defend yourself.When it rained a little, the water flooded my chest, can you still shoot me in the water?When I went to fetch Yangzhou this time, it wasn't like you doing petty tricks. I caught those spies and put them back. The eyes of the world are bright and they understand it very well.Those heroes of yours can't tolerate any of them, how can they compare with me?You always want to fight with me, I'm not stupid, and I'm not Fu Jian, when are you going to fight?I will send cavalry to surround you during the day, and camp a hundred miles away from you at night; if your people surrender to me, take them back to the north; I will eat up all the food first, let your army have nothing to eat, let's see how long you can last?You southerners are good at stealing camps, and I know that, so the camp is a hundred miles away from you, even if you arrange a scout horse every three miles, end to end, it's not enough for you, let's see how you can plot against me.When you thought that I was going to attack your city, I didn't come close to besiege you (I learned the lesson of the failure of the siege battle), so I poured water into the city.Oh, by the way, I know that the old ministers from your father's time have all been exterminated. If those people are still alive, even though they are a bit old, they can still give advice.Now that you have been killed, isn't it God helping me?In fact, I don't need to go to war, I have some Brahmins who know magic, just send a few brahmins to tie you up!

Tuoba Tao's letter is full of insults and jokes between the lines, but it just reflects his weak side.The full text is basically bragging about how capable I am and how I can win battles, forgetting the principle of "a gentleman is slow in speech but quick in action".The more you talk about military exploits, the more it seems that Tuoba Tao is not sure about Liu Song's use of troops; the more you talk about tactics in detail, the more it seems that he is "poor in skills", just talking about masturbation.These words do not have the effect of intimidation and deterrence, but they are objectively showing weakness and emboldenment. In other words, Tuoba Tao was still more afraid of the Southern Dynasty at this time (a few years later, the Southern Dynasty was in chaos because of the royal family. The last fear of the Southern Dynasties no longer exists). The letters greatly stimulated the monarchs and ministers of the Southern Dynasties, and turned the confrontation into a collision.Both rulers made similar mistakes in the last few years of their reign. As a result, what should have been a wonderful war turned sour from the very beginning and gradually turned into a messy disaster.