bookrandom Chapter 1202 Obsession
Chapter 1202 Obsession
Chapter 1202 Obsession
In the West Hall of the Secretariat, Zhang Yue was signing the imperial edict.
This emperor was a hot-headed person and often issued decrees without consulting Zhang Yue.
For example, when it was mentioned before that Xihe Road would be exempted from taxes for one year, Zhang Yue told him that it was only agricultural taxes that were exempted, but not commercial taxes.
The government directly understood it as all taxes.
Zhang Yue had no choice but to correct it immediately.
The Qinfeng Transport Route and the Yongxing Transport Route pardoned criminals, but all those convicted of serious crimes were sentenced to exile.
Xihe Road has now replaced Shamen Island and International Tourism Island as the Song Dynasty's exile holy land.
Before the war, taxes were reduced and criminals were pardoned.
In any case, under Zhang Yue's repeated guidance, the emperor has deeply realized the spirit of "people-oriented".
Officials in history were trapped in endless torment. On one hand, they had the ambitions of Emperor Wu of Han and Emperor Taizong of Tang, and on the other hand, they had to endure the accusations of militarism from the court and the people, and sympathize with the people in Shaanxi who were living in poverty.
Although in his later years he proposed to let Mencius be worshipped together with the emperor, recognized the idea of "people-oriented", and advocated easing relations with the old party, he was always torn between his ambitions and his concern for the people, and finally died young.
Zhang Yue does not agree that one must torture oneself repeatedly to achieve any great goal.
And conquering Liangzhou, destroying the Dangxiang, and realizing the revival of the Song Dynasty did not necessarily require the people to suffer.
……
After finishing his official business, a huge sand table appeared in the duty room next to the west hall of the Zhongshu.
More than ten aides including Chen Guan, Su Che, and Huang Shang used small red and white flags on the map to indicate the current situation of the Song army and the party.
The Song Dynasty worshipped the virtue of fire, so it used a small red flag. The Tanguts called themselves the Great White Gao Kingdom, so they used a small white flag.
When Zhang Yue saw the color white, he recalled the snow-covered scenery he saw when he crossed Maxian Mountain. The Qingtang and Dangxiang people both favored white, and it was said that white symbolized the snow-capped peaks that never melted all year round.
Among them, to the south of Liangzhou is the Liuling Mountains, where most of the peaks are covered with snow.
This is also the Lenglong Ridge of the Qilian Mountains in the future. Lenglong Ridge extends to the southeast to Wushao Mountain.
It is much more vivid when viewed from a sand table. At the foot of Wushao Mountain is the Zhuanglang River Valley.
The Zhuanglang River Valley was the route that the Guiyi Army took to return east last time. This place was the main passage for Qingtang, Northern Song, and Western Xia.
For the Song Dynasty, by taking control of the Zhuanglang River Valley, they could go north to recover Gansu and Liang; for the Western Xia, they could go south to cross the Yellow River to attack the two states of Xihe and Qingtang; for Qingtang, they could go north to manage the Hexi Corridor.
This is a place that military strategists must fight for.
During the reign of Emperor Zhezong in another time and space, when Zhang Dun was prime minister, he proposed to send troops from Lanzhou to retake Liangzhou.
Zhang Dun believed that sending troops from Lanzhou to take the Zhuanglang River Valley to connect Gansu and Liang, cut off the convenient route for Xifan and Xia bandits to travel, thereby achieving the goal of isolating Dangxiang from Qingtang and connecting Longyou with Hexi.
This matter was opposed by ministers such as Zeng Bu of the Privy Council.
Zeng Bu believed that the Song army had not yet controlled the Huangshui Valley, and the idea of crossing the river and attacking Liangzhou with Lanzhou as the front line was absolutely unacceptable.
In fact, Zhang Yue had considered both the Zhang Dun and Zeng Bu options.
At first, Zhang Yue also planned to send troops directly from Lanzhou through the Zhuanglang River Valley to attack Liangzhou in order to achieve a quick victory over the Dangxiang. But later, Zhang Yue preferred Zeng Bu's plan.
Because the tactic of breaking through the center actually means being attacked from both sides.
When attacking Liangzhou from Lanzhou, the Zhuanglang River Valley was under simultaneous attack from Qingtang and Dangxiang. As long as one point was cut off, the connection between Liangzhou and Lanzhou would be severed.
Therefore, not only did Zhang Yue decide to prioritize stability, but the Song Dynasty in history also finally chose Zeng Bu's plan.
However, there is a record of the Song Dynasty sending troops from Lanzhou through the Zhuanglang River Valley.
In the first year of Xuanhe, in order to break the siege of Zhenwujun City, the Song army launched a pincer attack from Huangzhou and Lanzhou to the north. After crossing the Yellow River, the Lanzhou army went upstream along the Zhuanglang River Valley, killing generals and attacking barriers along the way, and captured three cities in the Western Xia Kalachuan, including Gaizhu City.
This time, the main force of the Song army led by Wang Hou, 150,000, marched along the Zhuanglang River Valley, and after leaving Lanzhou and reaching Yujing Pass, they built a pontoon bridge at the mouth of the Kaluo River to cross the river.
From the mouth of the Kaluo River, forty miles north to Gaizhu City, and then going north for another three hundred miles, there are more than ten ancient cities, each only thirty or forty miles apart. Finally, you will reach Jisang, the easternmost end of the Hexi Corridor. This section of the road is relatively flat.
The total distance from Lanzhou to Liangzhou is 500 li, which is equivalent to 260 to 270 kilometers (Song li is 530 meters).
If we change to the highway, it will only take three hours.
If an army of 150,000 marches 30 miles a day, it will arrive in less than 20 days. If the vanguard is ordered to march lightly, it will only take 10 days.
However, considering the obstruction of the Dangxiang along the way, the army's advance was not so fast.
In addition to Gaizhu City, the Zhuanglang River Valley also has the natural barrier of Gulang Gorge, as well as Zhuola, one of the twelve military inspectors of Dangxiang, and the Southern Military Inspectorate, which is located in Zhuola City behind Zhuola River.
Behind Zhuo Luo and the Southern Army Supervisory Office is the Luo Pangling Military Supervisory Office.
These were the six new military supervisory offices set up by the Dangxiang after the Twelve Military Supervisory Offices, including the Tiandu Mountain Military Supervisory Office. This road could go from Lingzhou, through Huizhou, directly to Liangzhou.
In those days, Pugu Huai'en led the Uighur and Tubo army of more than 100,000 people, and they took this road from Liangzhou to Huizhou, then to Yuanzhou, and finally to Lingzhou, directly attacking the rebels' lair. Therefore, the Dangxiang set up this Luopangling Military Supervision Office as a passage from Xingzhou to Lingzhou to assist Liangzhou.
Therefore, this time Wang Hou led the Lanzhou army to the Zhuanglang River Valley, while Miao Su sent troops to attack the Luopangling Military Supervision Office to cut off the reinforcements from the Xingling and Ling prefectures of the Dangxiang.
As for Wen Xixin, Wang Shan's Qing Tang and the Song Dynasty coalition forces marched out directly, and after crossing the Liuling Mountains, they faced the Dangxiang Right Wing Chao Shun Military Supervision Office stationed in Liangzhou.
Wang Hou's 150,000 troops are of course the main force, but Wen Xixin in the west and Miao Shou in the east are also strong.
Compared with the previous two-way expeditions against Xia and the five-way expeditions against Xia in history, the 500-mile supply line of the central army was the shortest in history, and it was under the flanks of the eastern and western armies.
For many years, the step-by-step construction method shortened the supply lines and was criticized by both the government and the public as a waste of money and manpower.
But this is the only way to deal with the Dangxiang.
Now the Xihe Route has dispatched an army of 270,000, facing the three Dangxiang military supervisors with less than 60,000 troops. If the Dangxiang do not have reinforcements, it will definitely be a difficult battle. Zhang Yue's goal is to achieve victory in one battle.
The money and food that have been accumulated for so long, the soldiers that have been trained for so long, as well as the years of hard work and planning are all here.
Can I go further than Cai Jing and Tong Guan in history?
There are now countless small flags on the sand table, representing the strongholds and troop distribution of Song and Dangxiang.
Messages from the front line delivered by gold medals will arrive here.
Watching the busyness of the staff team, Zhang Yue seemed very dull at the moment. In fact, he had delegated the power of arbitrary decision-making on the front line. Even if there was a 600-mile gold medal to deliver the message from Qingtang to Bianjing, it would take more than 20 days for the message to come and go.
So the Zhongshu West Hall is like the highest staff, but it is unable to control the front line.
However, the generals can be rewarded or punished based on their trajectories afterwards.
Zhang Yue sat for a while and then returned to the prime minister's duty room.
I have already played all my cards now, and I will just leave it to fate as to what happens in the future.
Although he was confident that he had an 80% chance of winning this battle, confidence was just confidence, and no one knew how many variables there were. As long as there was a war, there would be variables.
As long as he won, he would be known as a hero who recovered Liangzhou and opened up the Western Regions; if he lost this battle, and the Liao Kingdom took advantage of the situation to invade again, his fate would not be much better than that of Cai Jing in history.
In theory, this is a gamble, but as long as the chance of winning is more than 70%, you have to bet on it.
The same is true of Bismarck.
In the Prussian-Austrian war, the outcome was just a fifty-fifty chance. If you won, you would be a national hero, and if you lost... it was quite like a real man eating from five different pots and cooking from five different pots.
At this moment, Zhang Yue raised his head and stared at the beams of the prime minister's duty room, then slowly closed his eyes.
The outcome will soon become clear.
…………
"Commander-in-chief, the Song army from Lanzhou has crossed the river from Zhuoluochuan. Gaizhu City only resisted for one day!"
Renduo Yading was also surprised when he heard this report.
He knew that the Song army was very powerful this time, but he did not expect that Gaizhu City could not hold out for even a day.
Renduo Yading looked at the map. If he lured the enemy deep into the territory from Lanzhou to Liangzhou via the Zhuanglang River Valley, would he have a chance to use the same trick to attack the Song army's supply line?
"It's useless," said Renduo Baozhong, "The Song army's fleet directly crossed the Huangshui River carrying food and weapons. The Song army has been planning for a long time and will not give us a chance to attack the food route."
Renduo Yading said: "If the three armies of the Song army gather at the city of Liangzhou, no one will be able to do anything."
"We need to stop the Lanzhou Song army in the Zhuanglang River Valley. We need to defeat Wen Xixin and the others first."
Ren Duo Baozhong smiled bitterly and said, "Grandpa, Wen Xixin has been dealing with us for decades. He is very familiar with us."
Renduo Yading looked at Renduo Baozhong and asked, "Wen Xixin has sent someone to talk to you again."
Renduo Baozhong nodded, and then said: "Grandpa, Wen Xixin said that the emperor of the Song Dynasty values you very much. As long as you are willing to lead Liangzhou to surrender, you will be appointed as the governor of Liangzhou! But you have to move back to Qinzhou for resettlement."
Renduo Yading listened and said in silence: "He is just a military governor, not the King of Liangzhou."
Renduo Baozhong said: "Wen Xixin said that the Song Dynasty was unwilling to give Yu the title of King."
After a while, Renduo Yading said, "I don't care whether I am a prince or not, but if I leave Liangzhou, I will be like a fish out of water."
"Without military power, who would care about us Renduo clan?"
Renduo Baozhong said: "But, sir, there are rumors all over Liangzhou now, people are in a panic, and the nearby tribes are also wavering. I'm afraid Liangzhou can't be defended."
Renduo Yading said: "Liangzhou is our base, I will not leave. Without military power, I am like a dog. I want to die here. You just said that the people in the city are in a panic."
"Go and prepare for the heaven sacrifices and more human sacrifices. Let the heavens bless our Renduo clan more. Then the city will be stable."
Renda Baozhong hurriedly said: "Dad, the world's affairs are already clear."
Renduo Yading took a step back and looked at Renduo Baozhong and said, "Since you have decided to surrender to Song, I can't arrange for you to lead the troops. I will keep you in custody and wait until after this battle."