History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 582: The Battle of Yangcheng 5
Fu Yanqing and others asked the military supervisor Li Shouzhen whether they should engage in a tug-of-war in which the enemy advances and we retreat, then we advance, or just keep charging forward regardless of anything.

Li Shouzhen's pupils were filled with blood. "Given the current situation, there is no reason to turn back. Charge, charge, charge!"

The sandstorm grew bigger and bigger, with flying sand and rocks covering the sky and the sun. The entire earth was shrouded in darkness, just like night.

Fu Yanqing and his 10,000 cavalrymen quietly circled behind the Khitan formation, turned the headwind into a tailwind, and then fiercely attacked the rear of the Khitan, shouting loudly. In the darkness, the Khitan army was frightened by the sudden arrival of the Later Jin cavalry, mistakenly thinking that reinforcements had arrived, so the Khitan cavalry was defeated and fled, with an impact like a landslide.

Li Shouzhen ordered the infantry to dismantle the wooden fence and the entire army to attack and fight the barbarians!

The most elite heavy armored troops of the Khitan, the Iron Harriers, had all dismounted to dismantle the stakes. In such a panic, they had no time to remount, so they could only abandon their armor and horses and flee in despair in the darkness and fear.

The Later Jin army chased the enemy northward for more than 20 miles in one breath, all the way to the water's edge southeast of Yangcheng, before they gradually gathered the remaining troops and prepared to deploy their troops in an attempt to reverse the situation.

Du Chongwei finally made the right decision, saying that we should not give the enemy a chance to catch their breath, so he sent cavalry to continue the pursuit.

The Khitan army was utterly defeated and fled north across the river. Even Yelu Deguang had to abandon his luxurious and heavy "Khitan No. 1" Da Xi carriage and ride a camel to flee north.

The soldiers of the Later Jin Dynasty were greatly encouraged and prepared to cross the river to pursue.

"Stop!" Du Chongwei ordered the pursuit to stop, and shouted loudly: "We are lucky to be alive until now, do you still want to covet the spoils? Don't you want to die?"

Li Shouzhen thought what he said made sense, saying that our soldiers had not had water for two days and their feet were so swollen that they could hardly walk, so it would be better to retreat safely and preserve their strength.

As a result, the Later Jin army withdrew to Dingzhou; Yelu Deguang ran back to Youzhou in one breath.

As the supreme commander of the army, Du Chongwei has always been criticized for his cowardly behavior. If his performance in the Battle of Yangcheng can be barely considered cautious, then his other performances in this war are difficult to justify, as will be mentioned later.

At the end of March, troops from various routes returned from Dingzhou.

In early April, Shi Chonggui returned to Bianzhou from Chanzhou, assigned Taizhou to the Dingzhou Yiwu Army, and then sent officials to Luoyang to offer sacrifices to heaven and earth, the ancestral temples, and the state, thanking heaven, earth, and his eight generations of ancestors.

Shi Chonggui announced a general amnesty and rewarded meritorious officials:
Liu Zhiyuan was conferred the title of King of Beiping; Du Chongwei was given the title of Grand Tutor; Li Shouzhen was given the title of Inspector Grand Tutor and Deputy Commander of the Imperial Guard; An Shenqi was given the title of Palace Attendant; Huangfu Yu was given the title of Co-Prime Minister... There is no need to list them one by one, but there is one obvious little detail: Liu Zhiyuan.

As mentioned above, in the second battle, the Battle of Yangcheng, Liu Zhiyuan had nothing to do, not even a substitute. Shi Chonggui did not assign him any tasks, but when the merits were awarded afterwards, Liu Zhiyuan was ranked first on the reward list. After Liu Zhiyuan received the imperial edict, he could not smile. "Has the emperor already suspected me to this extent? Alas!"

Yelu Deguang fled back to Youzhou on a camel, and held a post-war summary meeting. The core theme was one word: "beating"! The tribal chiefs and generals who followed the army were severely beaten. It is said that each of them was beaten with hundreds of military sticks. Only one person was not beaten, and that person was Zhao Yanshou.

The second battle, the Battle of Yangcheng, lasted less than five months at most and ended with the victory of the Later Jin.

The first two battles were basically a template:
That is, the Khitan took the initiative, penetrated and cut in with lightning speed, and gained an initial advantage; the Later Jin responded quickly, using the vast strategic depth advantage to exchange space for time, and after blocking the first wave of Khitan's offensive, it immediately entered a stalemate phase, and carried out positional warfare in mobile warfare on the Hebei Plain; the Khitan tribes knew when to stop and stopped when they encountered difficulties. After entering the stalemate phase, their fighting will was sharply reduced and they fought passively, so the Later Jin started the counterattack phase, and then the Khitan retreated, and the Later Jin did not dare to go deep into enemy territory. The two sides returned to their camps and the battle ended.

After the battle, the Later Jin Dynasty adopted a consistent approach. It first sent troops to launch a tentative attack on the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun, and then was repelled. Then it sent envoys to Khitan to request negotiations and a ceasefire.

After the Battle of Qicheng, Zhang Hui was sent to Khitan to negotiate peace, but was detained and not sent back; after the Battle of Yangcheng, the Later Jin sent Meng Shouzhong in June to negotiate peace.

The failure of the two battles put Yelu Deguang under tremendous political pressure.

The war was fair. It not only dealt a heavy blow to the economy of the Central Plains Han area, but also destroyed the national strength of Khitan. A large number of people in the border areas died or fled, and a large number of livestock on which the herdsmen depended for survival also died. The Khitan country was filled with anti-war sentiment.

At this time, Empress Dowager Shulü, who supported the Jin faction, stood up and reminded Yelu Deguang not to pursue war. If he continued to act on his own, Khitan would be in danger of falling apart.

In comparison, nomadic civilization is more fragile than agricultural civilization. A snowstorm or an unsuccessful war (not necessarily a failure, as long as there are not enough spoils, it is considered an unsuccessful war) can cause a huge empire to collapse in an instant.

Because the political ecological environment of nomadic civilization is more primitive, simpler and more brutal, and the law of the jungle is more superficial. Whoever can lead us to rob wealth will be our boss and Khan; otherwise, we will choose a new and more capable Khan, and you can you up.

A humiliating defeat would cause the Khan's authority to be greatly questioned, and what would follow would be a simple and crude chicken-eating competition, just like choosing the wolf king or the lion king.

For example, the previous Khan of Khitan was Yaonian Qinde (also known as "Hen Dejin") of the Yaonian clan. He failed in his attack on Youzhou and was defeated by Liu Rengong, the then governor of Youzhou. Therefore, Yelu Abaoji of the Yelu clan replaced him and became the new Khan.

Agricultural civilization is more likely to evolve a management system called "ritual and law" and to extract the core ideas of "loyalty, filial piety, chastity and righteousness". Therefore, when facing military failure, agricultural civilization is more likely to be inspired to develop cohesion. The more tragic the defeat, the more united the people will be.

This is what the nomadic invaders find most puzzling: why are the people of the Central Plains not afraid of death? Why do they become more resolute in their will to resist the more they are massacred?
Now, Yelu Deguang has suffered two major defeats in less than a year and a half. His prestige in the country has dropped sharply and anti-war sentiment among the people is rising. If the war continues, I am afraid that your grandson will still be your grandson, but his grandfather will no longer be his grandfather.

(End of this chapter)