"Old husband, Tubo has taken it."

"So fast?" Wen Yanbo murmured.

In his mind, there was no problem with Wang Ju taking down Tubo, but the problem was that Wang Ju dragged until Xiachu, and then sent troops to Guzhou tepid. If he didn't do it well, he wouldn't even want to take over the entire Huangshui area this year.

In fact, the others have similar ideas. In their hearts, Tubo is the big country, not Jiaozhi and Dali.

In fact, Jiaozhi was not as weak as they imagined. If Wang Ju didn't use a ship to sweep a large number of refugees, and mixed with troops among the refugees to sweep them and fight them in a unified manner, even if Wang Ju wanted to eat Jiaozhi, he would not know how many soldiers would be sacrificed. After actually taking Jiaozhi, the Song Dynasty spent four or five years to suppress it, including Zhang Dun leaving Jiaozhi, and Jiaozhi had local battles. It was not until Wang Ju became prime minister again the previous year that the territory of Jiaozhi gradually became quiet.

Tubo looked very powerful, but it was when Dong Wen was at the time of the sage. As for how Dong Wen established Ali Gu as the successor, Wang Ju has not figured it out yet, but this step of chess made Tubo lose its strong cohesion again. Therefore, in history, since Ali Gu, Tubo was first taken down by the Song Dynasty, the Northern Song Dynasty was destroyed, and then eroded by the Western Xia Dynasty. Later, he was recruited by the Jin Dynasty, and became the territory of the Yuan Dynasty. When the Ming Dynasty came, it became the territory of the Ming Dynasty. Without cohesion, Hehuang was just like that.

In terms of individual warriors, Tubo soldiers are very powerful, but this tribal alliance system lacks cohesion. It can be said that Tubo is not as good as Dali when Wang Ju sent troops.

However, others would not think so. What they thought was that Tubo defeated the Xixia people many times, many times. Whether during the time of Yusilu or Dongwu, Xixia had nearly ten large-scale invasions, and was defeated by Tubo one after another, and even suffered several defeats from the Xixia people.

I was really wrong, and Wang Ju couldn't say that he had started slowly since Xia Chu. In fact, when Aligu defeated Taoshui and Dingxi City, the Song Dynasty had already taken action. In the spring, he sent envoys to various troops to recruit pacify, which was also considered a move.

But Wen Yanbo is in his hometown and has little information and does not know the inside story.

Officials in the capital also congratulated Zhao Xu.

Zhao Xu said: "Even so, it's still far from the time of the prosperous Tang Dynasty."

Fan Chunren was anxious and immediately said, "Your Majesty, you must not learn from the Tang Dynasty. When the Tang Dynasty was at its peak, the territory reached Persia (referring to the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang, the West included the entire Aral Sea, and the southwest Jiling City reached Iran). However, because it was too far away, it was beyond reach. In just a few years, several Persian banished states were all lost. Although they still occupied the river later, they were dragged down by the river. Therefore, the ancestors used jade axes to draw the Dadu River, and I did not want to go west to avoid harming China's power."

"I understand," said Zhao Xu.

In fact, Zhao Xu was just saying that, and the smile on his face was endless, and he could also tell his mood.

Indeed, in terms of territory, the Song Dynasty was far inferior to the Tang Dynasty. However, although the Tang Dynasty was large, it was mostly a jailed area. Although the Song Dynasty was small, there were very few jailed areas, including China, the southwest country. Basically, more than 90% of the areas can be directly managed.

It is hard to say about the Western Regions. In fact, the areas controlled by the Hehuang area are now in the Tang Dynasty. Did the Tang Dynasty take over the Jishishan area? No! Did the Tang Dynasty control the entire Jiuqu area? No! Even though the two sides of Qinghai Lake west of Chiling, although the Song Dynasty would not directly send officials to govern in the future due to local conditions, it was still detained.

He was very satisfied.

But Wang Ju wrote this memorial not to report the victory. Of course, it was also to report the victory. At this point, it means that the entire Qingtang City area was included in the Song Dynasty.

But besides winning the victory, there are four other things.

The list of soldiers who have made meritorious and sacrificed soldiers was a great victory, but there was a punishment for the defeat of Gao Lianghe. After the victory, the court's rewards and pensions must be issued immediately. In this way, the soldiers of the three armies can maintain good morale. This morale is the most important thing in the next two years.

The food and supplies that need to be supplemented on the front line. Although this battle attracted the main force to the bottom of Pingxi Fort and the Qingtang area was not seriously damaged, the entire Qingtang area also began to lack food and grass, and the soldiers of the three armies were insufficient. These foods should be transported to Hehuang in time. If the troops were allowed to spend this winter and spring smoothly, the people of each troops would be further brought back to their hearts.

As for Zanpu's candidates, and the new interpretation of Zanpu, it is not a king, but equivalent to the King of Hehuang County. It is nominally higher than that of Duan Zhengming in Dali, but in fact its freedom is not as good as Duan Zhengming. However, the establishment of Zanpu is conducive to the court to appease the people in this area.

Comfort is still very important. Don’t occupy it in front, and there will be wars everywhere in the future and throw away Hehuang. Then this time, the use of troops will have no meaning at all.

Finally, we should seize the time to immigrate, or we should be called moving troops.

The Qingtang area suffered heavy losses in this battle. After the Battle of Pingxi Fort, Wang Ju forced Aligu to lead soldiers of all races to fight with Xixia. After this battle, only more than 10,000 Tubo troops remained, and 60% of the troops were lost.

Not only the losses in the Battle of Pingxi Fort, but also the losses in Maoniucheng and Aligu's Eastern Expedition to Taoxi, resulting in nearly 40% of the losses in the Qingtangcheng area.

Wang Ju also migrated some nobles and forced them to migrate to Weiyuan to resettle, and surrounded them with Dangxiang people, so that they could never gain power. Therefore, a large number of vacuum areas appeared in Qingtang area, which were just used to resettle border troops.

Qing Tang is stable, and the entire Huangshui River and even Jishi Mountain can be stable. The most important thing is not military force, but food. Even in the year after, food will be the most important focus. Whether it is direct release or labor-for-relief, the food of the Qiang people in each foreign tribe will not be bewitched by some people who are interested.

More than 40,000 border troops took their families to farm. Even if one household produces more than 50 stones of grain, it can save two million stones of grain for the court. Think about how much consumption it will take from the Wei River to Qingtang City, or even the more distant Shazhou area in the future.

This strategy has seen some results, just like the thousands of immigrants in northern Suizhou, thousands of immigrants in Huizhou, and more than 10,000 border troops in Hezhou. Not to mention ethnic integration, they are all Chinese households, and they are good at planting, not animal husbandry. The autumn harvest is coming soon, because the cultivation of these more than 30,000 households actually saved a lot of food for the court, and they were also the food paid on the front line! They even saved freight.

But the battle is not over yet.

Liang Yibi finally assembled an army of 150,000 and began to set off to Xiazhou.

There are two core areas of Xixia. One is from Lingzhou to Xingqing Prefecture, but some people in Lingzhou have forced the Song Dynasty to migrate to Weiyuan, and the second is the Yinxiayou area. The Song Dynasty cannot be allowed to poach half of it, so Xixia will be left alone.

The army quickly rushed to Youzhou, but the main army of the Song Dynasty had already arrived in Longzhou. Now Liang Yibi had only two choices, one was to divide the troops. The Great Wall built by the Song Dynasty was actually the ancient Qin and Han Great Wall. However, this Great Wall had not been repaired for a long time, and there were more broken walls left. The Song army led the people to repair it, so it could only build one approximate one. It was impossible to really build such a long-distance majestic Great Wall. It was too late to go to Shizhou Yinzhou. Therefore, part of the troops could be distributed directly from Xiazhou to Shizhou.

There is also the gathering of main forces and going to war with the Song army in Longzhou.

The army kept coming, and the scouts also brought a lot of news. When the Song army heard that Liang Yiji led a large army, they had already returned to the villages and the remaining troops retreated to defend the forts and cities.

Liang Yibu thought about it over and over again that the siege was not the director of Xixia, and his troops looked huge in number and their actual combat effectiveness was far less than that of the original Xia army. Once they were divided into the rear of the Song army, as long as the Song army guarded the various cities and forts and villages in the rear, it would be equivalent to weakening the strength of their own army. More importantly, the rear of the Song army was Hengshan, which had been occupied by the Song Dynasty. Last year, the relevant forts were built at eight important intersections, which was really not possible. When they retreated to the rear of Hengshan, Xixia could do nothing.

In fact, there is another option, which is to divide the troops from Fulin Road. At this time, Fulin Road's troops were very empty, and maybe they could attack the tactic of siege Wei to save Zhao. However, the journey was too far, and Liang Yimeng passed through Dingxi City and was even more afraid of being defeated by the Song army one by one.

Therefore, one force will surrender to ten times, and did not lead the three armies to Xiazhou, but went straight down the southeast and headed towards Longzhou.

The two armies began the battle through the ancient Great Wall that was almost invisible.

Liang Yiji took several attacks but none of them succeeded. Zhang Yu took several attacks but also failed.

So the two armies were in a stalemate here.

However, this stalemate is very unfavorable to Xixia, because every day of stalemate is equivalent to a large amount of consumption. How can Xixia withstand such huge consumption now?

Then there was news of the disastrous defeat of Pingxi Fort. After Wang Wenyu took down Maoniu City, he blocked the entire Qilian Mountains. However, when Renduo Baozhong fought with Ali Gu, some timid Xixia soldiers began to flee blindly, most of them were arrested one by one after the war. However, a very small number were lost in these mountains and rivers because some soldiers had no food or drink halfway, and starved to death. Only dozens of people escaped for luck, and escaped from the vast mountains of Qilian Mountains. Therefore, it had nothing to do with cleverness. It can only be said that their luck was against the will.

It was not until Wang Ju was about to arrive in Lanzhou that the front-line tragedy was spread to Liang Yipeng.

After receiving this news, the three armies of the Xixia were all depressed. Although the ordinary soldiers below did not know the news, their morale was also low. The even more deadly Song army arrived, and the Song army on Huanqing Road. Liang Yibi was not unprepared. The Hengshan section from Longzhou to Hongzhou was still controlled by the Xixia people, and opposite was the Great Wall Ridge in Yanzhou. This section was also controlled by the Xixia people. It became the only Hengshan area controlled by the Xixia people. Now Xixia has strengthened its vigilance in this area, and even rebuilt some tall forts last year.

But Zhong Shidao did not send troops from the Great Wall Ridge, but directly sent troops from the Dingyuan army and headed straight to Hongzhou.

The troops in Hongzhou were relatively empty at this time, so Liang Yimang had to immediately divide his troops to defend Hongzhou, but when he was about to reach the city of Hongzhou, Zhang Shouyue and Qin Gui led two cavalry troops to fight.

After the Battle of Pingxi Fort, the Song army seized nearly 30,000 war horses in six places. In fact, from now on, the cavalry and the Fanluo Army in Hedong, Hebei, including Shaanxi Road, can be achieved by one person and one horse. Of course, the cavalry in Hedong, Hebei and Hedong will only obtain war horses, and it will take several years to form combat effectiveness. However, there is no problem with the Fanluo Army. If they have war horses, they are a qualified cavalry soldier.

The disadvantage is that it lacks relevant cooperation, but the army in Xixia is also scattered, especially the army organized by these soldiers, which is even worse than those lazy and imprisoned soldiers in the capital of the Song Dynasty.

The two armies met at the city of Hongzhou, and the Xia army was defeated.

Zhong Shidao led the main army and then arrived and took down Hongzhou City.

Liang Yiqi felt something was wrong and wanted to temporarily retreat to Youzhou. Only then did Zhang Qi show his sharp teeth and launch a fierce attack on the three armies.

The Xia army was defeated and fled to Youzhou one after another. Zhong Shidao had known this result for a long time. His tens of thousands of troops did not go to Longzhou to join the main force of Zhang Yan. Instead, he directly followed the upper west bank of Wuding River and directly grabbed the Xia army's retreat. Some of the Xia army escaped, but Zhong Shidao promptly captured most of the escaped Xia army. In this battle, Liang Yiji's 150,000 troops, less than half of them could escape. The rest were either shot dead by the Song army or captured.

Zhang Qi asked the army to set up a camp on the banks of Wuding River, divided the troops, and attacked Xiazhou again. After taking down Xiazhou City, he drove the people outside the ancient Great Wall, including those in Hongzhou, to Nanhetao.

It is the end of July. The Song Dynasty will not be able to take over Western Xia this year. If there is insufficient greed, when winter comes, if the Liao Kingdom sends another large army to provide assistance, it will be another disastrous defeat in the previous attack on Xia.

Wang Ju and Zhang Feng are just people who are not greedy.

Therefore, this year we still occupy the territory on this side of the ancient Great Wall. Before the severe winter comes, we will slightly repair this section of the ancient Great Wall, which will once again mobilize the poor people in Hedong to migrate to this area.

However, it is much less difficult to move the people this year. After all, everyone was a little afraid last year. However, with the arrival of autumn, the migrant people will gain something, which will make more people excited. Wang Ju deliberately used the other shore to explain this matter in his letter. There are also wars on the other shore and threats from indigenous people. However, in order to survive, many extremely poor people are still willing to migrate to the other shore. Therefore, as everyone's lives improve, they can be asked to write letters to their families and relatives and friends, and then there will also be many extremely poor people in the rear. Moreover, the proportion of extremely poor people in the Song Dynasty was so large that there was no need to worry about the number of immigrants.

In this way, Tuoba's old nest will be severely diluted by the Han people and will not become a harm to the Song Dynasty in the future. Moreover, although these immigrants have spent a lot of money to resettle them, by next year, they will be able to purchase a lot of food from these people, and the savings will also offset this year's expenses.

In fact, doing so mainly shakes the foundation of the Western Xia. It is not to occupy the territory. In addition to the Hengshan area in the Great Wall Ridge area, it must be occupied, including Hongzhou and Youzhou, Wang Ju was not interested this year. Similarly, the Karochuan area in Hexi in Lanzhou is also rich. However, after the war, Wang Ju did not have any troops in Hexi and captured Karochuan.

After doing this, there is another very good thing, that is, the Liao Kingdom.

Why expel Nanhetao?

Nanhetao is the famous Mu Us Desert in later generations, but the current terrain is ultimately different from that in later generations of Wang Ju. Although the terrain in the northwest deteriorated severely since then, it is still not as bad as in later generations.

Just like Juyanhai, there were only a few small lakes in later generations. Now the area of ​​the two "seas" is almost equivalent to the area of ​​the Poyang Lake during the flood season, so it is called the sea.

There is also the Shiyang River in the north of Liangzhou. Its upper source comes from the two Shiyangzes in the Tengger Desert. All of them have dried up in later generations, but now each of the two lakes is almost the same size as Chaohu Lake. There are several large deserts in Xixia, which are rarely popular in later generations, especially the Tengger Desert and Badain Jilin Desert. However, there are a large number of nomadic people living in the three deserts, and these nomadic peoples sometimes harass Xixia. For this reason, Xixia has set up three castles in the Badain Jilin Desert to use this to deter these few nomadic groups in the desert.

However, this terrain is very unfit for the Song army, and the Liao army is also not suitable.

Therefore, Liao Xingzong defeated Xia and returned from defeat in this desert. When Li Jiqian rose, he took advantage of this desert area to hide and seek with the Song army. After the defeat, he sent envoys to surrender and fled into the desert. The Song Dynasty was forced to no avail and had to watch Li Jiqian grow stronger day by day.

In the future, this place will remain one of the most headache-inducing areas of the Song Dynasty.

So since last year, the Song Dynasty has continuously expelled the people into this desert.

These people were driven into the desert with nothing, and they had to eat and drink. If they forced them to fight against the tribes in the desert, they would weaken the forces of the tribes in the desert.

In fact, it is a reduced version of Wang Ju's attack on Jiaozhi tactic.

The front line continued to be stalemate, and it was not until early October that the people of Hongxia and the two states had almost expelled them together. Zhang Feng also asked the soldiers to harvest the crops planted by the people of the two states. The ancient Great Wall was almost built there, and three or four forts were built on the Hengshan Mountain in the Great Wall Ridge. Only then did the Song army slowly withdraw the army and end the stalemate.

But this stalemate undoubtedly made the Western Xia economy worse.

At this time, the Helan stone was also made.

In fact, it was easy to do last year, but Aligu betrayed and forced Wang Ju to postpone the time for attacking Xia, so it was put this year.

Han Yun began to sell a large number of Helan stones.

The reason why a good Helan inkstone is now sold at the price of even Duan inkstone is that Wang Ju and the court have jointly hyped it up, and the other is that its output is very low now. Ninety percent are circulated in the market or stored in Han Yun's hands. It is not that there is no Helan stone, but with the current technology and manpower of Xixia, more Helan stones can no longer be mined.

However, millions and tens of millions of Helan stones were thrown into the market at once. If they were all made into inkstones, they could ensure that one person in the Song Dynasty, two or three Helan inkstones were one person, and what else could be said to be rare and precious?

In just one month, the price of Helan stone was put into shape, and even the best Helan inkstone is less expensive than an Yi inkstone.

This wave of selling has affected countless people.

Especially in Xixia, Xixia also had copper coins, and the workmanship was pretty good, but because of the lack of copper, the amount of coins was very small. Therefore, Xixia was almost equivalent to a country without its own currency.

Therefore, the equal amount of wealth is even less standard than that of the Song Dynasty. The copper coins they carried themselves were negligible and too few. They mainly came from the Song Dynasty, gold, silver, cloth, their own livestock and fur, and jade from the Western Regions. Now there is one of the most important things to add. That is the Helan Stone.

As the wars failed step by step and the people were living in poverty, prices in the Western Xia also soared, including the Song Dynasty's tea, cloth, porcelain, and the prices of these Song Dynasty commodities rose, which meant that the prices of livestock fell.

Therefore, many tribes and nobles were hoarding Helan stones, and most of them also specially learned the knowledge of distinguishing the advantages and disadvantages of Helan stones.

Now the hardness of Helan stone is far more flexible than that of livestock, and even the exchange of copper coins and silk in the Song Dynasty. It is also invisibly equivalent to the most important currency in the Western Xia.

Think about the impact of the depreciation of fiat currencies on the people during the Republic of China, or the impact of the severe depreciation of the ruble in the last Soviet Union on the collapse of the Soviet Union.
To be continued...