A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 972: Attack the enemy and rescue Cang De, divide up Hebei Dinggongfu

December 19th, the seventh year of the Tang Dynasty

Duke Baijian of Song sent his generals Luo Hongxin and Kang Huaiying to lead troops out of Weizhou to attack Yongnian City.

Zhu Yourang, the governor of Mingzhou of Liang, and Li Sian, the governor of Weizhou, were ordered to lead their troops to fight against the Song army.

December 21

The Song army conquered Qingzhang County and advanced to Feixiang.

Zhu Yourang led 10,000 men to Feixiang, and Kang Huaiying led 6,000 men. The two sides fought at Yuan Gu and suffered losses on both sides.

22nd
Liang general Li Sian led 8,000 men to attack Weizhou, with the plan of besieging Wei to rescue Zhao.

Luo Hongxin crossed the Yellow River from Puzhou and led 5,000 people to station in Dongqiu. Neither side could do anything to the other, so they both refused to fight and waited for the outcome of the Baixiang battlefield.

Because of the fighting in Yuangu and Dongqiu, Wang Jingren, the commander of the Liang army in Baixiang, switched his offensive tactics to defense instead of attack, intending to wait until the rear was stabilized before crossing the river to attack.

The third day of the first month of the eighth year of the Tianyou reign of the Tang Dynasty

Duke Bai Jian of Song also sent Bai Xingjian as the chief general, leading 20,000 men from Dizhou to attack Cangzhou.

Sun He, the governor of Cangzhou of Yan, was unable to defend the city and fled to Jingzhou, and Cangzhou fell.

Because of the fire in the rear, King Liu Rengong of Yan, who had tied up most of Jin's military forces in Weizhou, hurriedly withdrew his troops.

Li Cunxu, who had freed up his hands, sent out several tokens in succession, urgently dispatching elite troops from Weizhou to Baixiang.

February 6
Jin general Zhou Dewei led thousands of elite soldiers and traveled day and night to reach Baixiang.

With sufficient troops and no worries, and with the help of allies to distract enemy reinforcements, Li Cunxu was ready to make a big move.

February 9
Li Cunxu ordered Zhou Dewei to lead 300 elite cavalry to challenge the Liang army camp.

Liang general Wang Jingren was enraged and personally led more than a thousand cavalry to attack.

Zhou Dewei pretended to be defeated and lured the enemy into the plain wilderness south of Hao.

Jin general Li Siyuan and Song general Bai Zisheng each led 500 cavalrymen to wait for the enemy to tire themselves out.

Taking advantage of the terrain and the fatigue of the Liang cavalry, they won a great victory.

Wang Jingren tried to escape, but the two generals from Jin and Song pursued him closely, all the way to the Liang army's formation.

Seeing their commander being chased, the morale of the Liang army was shaken. Then, 1,300 elite cavalrymen from the Jin and Song armies charged into the battle formation, tearing a hole in it.

Li Cunxu led a large army to attack at the right time, stormed through the gap and broke the main force of the Liang army.

In this battle, 285 Liang army officers were captured and 20,000 were beheaded.

Li Cunxu pursued all the way, Wang Jingren passed through the city of Xingzhou, and Xingzhou was captured by the Jin army.

February 13th

The defeated army arrived in Mingzhou.

At this time, the main force of Mingzhou was confronting the Song army in Yuan Gu, and the capital Yongnian City was empty, so Li Cunxu broke it with one blow.

Wang Jingren escaped again.

When Zhu Yourang learned that Yongnian had fallen, he withdrew his troops southward overnight.

Kang Huaiying had received news of Li Cunxu's attack early and pursued him vigorously, resulting in the defeat of the Liang army in Mingzhou.

Afterwards, the coalition forces of Jin, Song, Zhao and Beiping continued to chase the defeated armies of Wang Jingren and Zhu Yourang, and defeated Li Si'an's troops.

By the time Liang's defeated troops entered Weizhou City, the four-nation coalition forces were too exhausted to pursue them.

Li Cunxu captured Xing, Ming and Xiang states in one battle, Zhao recovered Ji state and Shen state of Beiping, and Song obtained De, Bei, Bo and Jing states.

After the disastrous defeat at Baixiang, Liang completely lost all the territories north of Weizhou, and his ally, Yan State, was immediately under the attack of other countries.

After the victory of the battle, Bai Jian immediately ordered Bai Xingjian of Jingzhou to withdraw his troops.

To better manage the land in Hebei.

Bai Jian decided to set up military governors in each state in Hebei.

However, this Jiedushi was different from the previous one. It only had military power, but no local administrative appointment and dismissal power, nor financial power, and was completely dependent on the supply of Bianzhou. The Song State decided to use Weizhou, Beizhou, and Bozhou as defense areas, set up a Weizhou Jiedushi, and the military headquarters was in Weizhou. Kang Huaiying was appointed as the first Weizhou Jiedushi.

The three states of Cangzhou, Dezhou and Dizhou were used as defense zones, and a Cangzhou Jiedushi was appointed, with Bai Xingjian as the commander.

Because of the existence of the Cangzhou Jiedushi, the Qingzhou area is basically free of threats.

Therefore, Bai Jian abolished the Pinglu Jiedushi organization and replaced him with the Qingzhou Defense Commissioner, with only 5,000 soldiers under his command.

However, in order to train the navy, Bai Jian set up a naval headquarters in Dengzhou, and appointed Li Hanwei as the commander-in-chief of the naval headquarters, responsible for the training of naval affairs.

In order to guard against Zhu Wen, Baijian designated Xuzhou and Zhengzhou as defense zones and established the Zhengzhou Jiedushi, appointing Yuan Ziang to the position.

As for the south, the Caizhou Jiedushi was established in Yuzhou, Caizhou and Yingzhou, and Luo Hongxin was appointed to the position.

The Suzhou Jiedushi was established in Haozhou, Suzhou and Sizhou, and Gu Jiping was appointed to the post.

In the core area, Bianzhou, Songzhou and Huazhou were transformed into Kaifeng Prefecture, and Prince Bai Xi was appointed as the prefect of Kaifeng and concurrently the governor of Xuanwu Army.

In this regard, with the Xuanwu Army Jiedushi as the core, the five Jiedushis of Weizhou, Cangzhou, Zhengzhou, Caizhou and Suzhou, and the Qingzhou Defense Envoy, formed the defense system of the Song State.

Among them, the Xuanwu Jiedushi was in charge of the central army, and the other Jiedushi could be called local armies.

These Jiedushi led an army of 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers at most, or 6,000 to 7,000 soldiers at least. All together, they had nearly 100,000 soldiers.

After reorganization, the military power of the entire Song State was still in Bai Jian's hands.

Only the central army gathered around Bianzhou, including the "one division and two armies" of the Xuanwu Army's Personal Guard Division, cavalry, and infantry, and the "four armies" of Xuande, Xuanyi, Xuanren, and Xuancheng.

It constitutes the structure of "one division and six armies" and is the core of the central army, with about 60,000 people.

In addition, there were 40,000 guards in the four directions of east, west, south and north.

The "one department and six armies" were centered on the Imperial Guard Department, which served as the night guard of Kaifeng City.

Among them, the Imperial Guards include the Silver Sword Command, the Silver Spear Command, and the Mo Knife Command. They serve as the royal guards for Lord Bai's mansion, patrol the mansion, accompany the emperor, and go out on patrol.

June
At this time, the Duke of Song's Mansion was becoming more and more like a royal palace, with its walls getting higher and higher, and guards on guard.

The roads within the palace were widened to accommodate horse-drawn carriages.

Most of the gardens that originally existed in the form of courtyards can now be compared to ordinary houses.

The front yard of the mansion had been completely transformed into a government office, and the Xuanwu Army Office was separated out to become a separate government office, together with the Bu Government and the Duzhi Office to form the "Three Offices of the State of Song".

Among them, the Xuanwu Army Palace was in charge of military campaigns, the Provincial Governor's Palace was in charge of government affairs, and the Duzhi Palace was in charge of finances.

The Duke of Song's Mansion oversees the military and political affairs of the three prefectures.

Under the Mansion of the Duke of Song, there was a Privy Council, which consisted of one political minister and one military minister, most of whom were appointed by Bai Jian himself to consult with civil and military officials.

The Zhengsi was in charge of the Bu government, the Junsi was in charge of the Xuanwu Military Government, and the Duzhi Government was personally led by Bai Jian.

Under the two military and political departments, there are a number of military advisers and political advisers, who are appointed and dismissed at will, and are mostly middle and low-level officials and generals.

In addition to the Privy Council, there were also the Clan Court, the Internal Affairs Court, the National Academy, etc. under the public office as private establishments of the public office.

The clan house is under the jurisdiction of the Bai clan chief and other house directors, with the chief house director being the most important.

The Internal Affairs Bureau was in charge of miscellaneous affairs of the government office and also served as the messenger for the Duke of Song.

The National Academy was in charge of culture and education in the Song Dynasty, including the Bianliang Academy and schools in various states and counties.

In the Song Dynasty, except for the border areas, in order to prepare for military defense, there was no distinction between civil and military officials, and the Jiedushi or Liuhou served as the military and political chief of a state.

The hinterland areas such as Songzhou, Suzhou, Xuzhou, Taizhou, Haizhou, etc. have already initially implemented the separation of civil and military affairs.

The civil officials were the provincial governors, the military officials were the military commanders
Both are under the management of the Provincial Administration.

The provincial government's office has one left and one right provincial government, two judges of provincial government affairs, one director each of the six departments of personnel, household, military, punishment, rites, and works, and one deputy each, in addition to a number of provincial governors and provincial assistants.

The Duzhishi Office had one left and one right Duzhishi, two Duzhijudicial officials, and several Duzhilangzhong and Duzhiwailang.

From then on, the treasury and finances of local prefectures and counties were all under the control of the Duzhishi, and local officials only had the right to inquire but not to interfere.

However, every year, a portion of local taxes would be retained for local finances, and not all of them would be counted in Bianzhou.

(End of this chapter)