I traveled with them to the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 124: The Plan of Extermination

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Although Song and Xia negotiated peace, the war in the northwest did not stop.

This was because the Zhao Song Dynasty was still waging a war of annihilation against the Qingtang Tubo.

Qingtang Tubo may not look big on the map, far from being comparable to Western Xia, but it occupies the densely populated area of ​​Longyou and Hexi. Its implicit national strength and foundation are enough to make it a powerful vassal state in the northwest.

Qingtang Tubo was founded by Zuosilo, a descendant of the Tibetan Empire's Zamp, and is also known as the "Tsongkha Dynasty" in many places.

Although this country could not reproduce the glory of the former Tubo Empire, it once dominated the western border and competed with the Western Xia and Uighur countries.

Its capital was Qingtang City, formerly Shanzhou, the seat of the Longyou Protectorate of the Tang Dynasty (which was later the capital of Qinghai Province, Xining City).

After the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty, Shanzhou was occupied by Tubo. Although it was briefly restored to the Tang Dynasty in name during the Guiyi Army period, it was actually always controlled by the Tubo forces.

By the time of Zhao Xu, this place had been independent of the Central Plains dynasty for more than 300 years.

The core area of ​​Qingtang Tubo was Shanzhou, Huangzhou and Guzhou. During its heyday, its rule reached Lan, Hui, Xi, He, Min, Tao, Dang and Die regions. The total population of the country was between 1.5 million and 2 million. Relying on such manpower and financial resources, Qingtang Tubo not only expanded its army by more than 200,000, but also built countless forts in the country.

Qingtang City is located at a key transit point on the Silk Road, connected to Qinghai Road in the west, Longyou in the east, Qilian Mountains in the north, and the Yellow River in the south. Most merchants from the Western Regions who wanted to trade with the Zhao Song Dynasty would pass by here.

This also makes Qingtang City not only of great significance in politics, religion and military, but also occupies an irreplaceable ecological niche in the East Asian continent economically.

Although the Dangxiang Li family rose to become the most powerful force in Hexi in the late Tang Dynasty, they were never able to occupy Qingtang City. Even a powerful man like Li Yuanhao was defeated by Zuo Silu in many wars.

But after Zuosilo's death, and even before his death, Qingtang Tubo was in constant internal strife. Zuosilo's descendants and some local chiefs each established their own state capitals and competed with each other.

Over the years, Xixia has been dividing Qingtang Tubo in order to seek multiple forces to strategically encircle the Zhao Song Dynasty.

However, the Qingtang Tubo occupied the main route of the Silk Road and made a lot of money just by collecting tolls, so they were naturally unwilling to attack the Song Dynasty with all their strength.

During the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song, Qingtang Tubo also assisted the Zhao Song Dynasty in attacking Western Xia.

But at the same time, there have always been many powerful chieftains in Qingtang Tubo who are close to Western Xia.

Later, even the second generation king Dongzhen was secretly communicating with the Western Xia, and his son even married a princess of the Western Xia. The two countries thus reached a friendly marriage and seemed to be on the verge of forming an alliance.

The Zhao Song Dynasty also realized that Qingtang Tubo was a hidden danger, and even more so, realized the strategic importance of the Hehuang region.

Wang Shao, the god of war during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song, advised the court that instead of watching Qingtang Tubo being wooed by Western Xia, it would be better to take the initiative and expand the border to Xihe area to counter Western Xia.

This was exactly what Song Shenzong and Wang Anshi wanted at the time, as they wanted to make a big splash.

So, with the support of Song Shenzong and Wang Anshi, Wang Shao personally led the army to fight, officially starting the Song-Turkish War.

After a bloody battle, the Song army expanded its borders by more than 2,000 miles, captured Xi, He and other states, recruited nearly one million foreign people, and established Xihe Road, an important border town of the Zhao Song Dynasty.

Dong Zhen later launched a counterattack, trying to retake the Xihe area, but was defeated by Wang Shao, Li Xian and others, and had to submit to the Zhao Song Dynasty again, and the two countries began to coexist peacefully.

Later, Dong Zhan was killed by his adopted son Aligu, who became the third Zamp.

But that was the time when Gao Taotao and the Old Party were in power. They were unwilling to wage war against other countries and even wanted to give Xihe Road to Western Xia at one point.

This is equivalent to watching Aligu unify Qingtang Tubo.

As a result, Aligu unified Qingtang Tubo with his extraordinary skills, and the Qingtang region once again broke away from the control of the Zhao Song Dynasty and became a major concern for the Zhao Song Dynasty.

When Aligu's son Xia Zheng succeeded to the throne and became the fourth Zamp, he had neither prestige nor skills, and only knew how to kill. As a result, nearly half of the powerful families in his country rebelled against Qingtang City, causing chaos in the Qingtang area, with people fighting each other and killing each other.

The Zhao Song Dynasty entered the period of Zhao Xu's personal rule.

At that time, many powerful chieftains of Qingtang Tubo came to surrender to the Zhao Song Dynasty.

Later, the powerful chief Bian Sibojie even brought the four important border towns of Qingtang, namely Jiangzhucheng, Yigongcheng, Cuozaocheng and Dangbiaocheng, as well as his entire clan, to surrender to the Zhao Song Dynasty.

Anyone with a discerning eye could see the situation of Qingtang Tubo at the time, and it would be a waste not to take advantage of this opportunity.

So, Zhao Xu agreed to go to war against Qingtang Tubo.

In this battle, Sun Lu was the commander, and General Wang Shan and General Wang Min were the vanguards.

As soon as the war started, too many foreign tribes were willing to surrender to the Zhao Song Dynasty.

The officers and soldiers of Xihe Road all felt that this time they would surely destroy Qingtang Tubo, and the calls for war grew louder and louder.

Wang Shan even led a surprise attack by crossing the Yellow River, killing the Tubo chieftain Mi Jian who was guarding the pass and capturing the important town of Miaochuan (also known as Huangzhou) in Qingtang.

A month later, Chief Sheqinjiao, who was stationed in Zongge City, an important town west of Qingtang City, also surrendered to the Zhao Song Dynasty and sent envoys to offer the city to Wang Shan.

Zongge City has always been known as the gateway to Qingtang City. Once this place falls, Qingtang City will be in danger.

Then, the Song army advanced steadily outside Qingtang City, capturing a number of surrounding small cities one after another, cutting off Qingtang City from the outside world.

Seeing that things were not going well, the local chieftain Xin Mouqinzhen placed the puppet Zanpu Longza under house arrest and sent envoys to the Song army to surrender.

Wang Shan accepted Xin Mouqinzhen's request and led his army to the city of Qingtang.

Xin Mouqinzhen took Longzha, the Khitan princess who was the wife of the second king Dongzhen, the Xixia princess who was the wife of the third king Aligu, and the Uighur princess, and left the city to surrender.

——Later, Wang Shan captured the former Zamp Xia Zheng.

At this point, the Qingtang Tubo, which had been established for nearly a hundred years, was destroyed.

Zhao Xu's personal achievements reached the peak of his life.

This war of annihilation went extremely smoothly. It took only more than two months for the Song army to successfully capture Qingtang City, the capital of Qingtang Tubo.

However, just one month later, rebellions broke out again in Qingtang.

The Song army, which was originally enjoying a favorable situation, suddenly fell into a predicament with enemies everywhere.

Not only were the Song troops in Qingtang City and Miaochuan City surrounded and cut off from the rear, but even important fortresses such as Yigong City and Dangbiao City, which were close to the heart of Xihe Road and had recently surrendered to the Zhao Song Dynasty, were all under siege.

The reason why the situation took a sharp turn for the worse was mainly because Zhao Xu and his ministers wanted to completely control the Qingtang area by using the prefecture-county system of the Central Plains dynasty, which affected the interests of the slave-owning tribal chiefs.

So, only one month after the Song army occupied Qingtang City, the Tibetans in Qingtang were filled with "cries all over the mountains, shouting day and night, more than 100,000 people, attacking from all sides."

The Western Xia also took the opportunity to send tens of thousands of troops to support the Qingtang Tubo. Suddenly, the Song army that had penetrated deep into the Qingtang area became an isolated force.

This is mainly because the Zhao Song Dynasty ignored the strength of the tribal chiefs in Qingtang Tubo. For this kind of tribal alliance regime with a relatively loose political structure, defeating a power core does not mean weakening all the chiefs.

Therefore, after Wang Shan entered Qingtang City, he was passively caught in an endless security battle.

As a result, Qingtang Tubo became a big mess.

When Zhao Ya ascended the throne, one of the difficulties faced by the Zhao Song Dynasty was whether to abandon or defend Qingtang Tubo.

Zhang Dun has always been very keen on expanding borders, that is, using force to solve the border problems of the Zhao Song Dynasty and help the Zhao Song Dynasty expand its territory.

As early as the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song, he personally led a series of battles to open up the Jinghu border.

During the reign of Zhao Xu, he made great contributions in restarting the Song-Xia War.

However, Xixia was different from ordinary nomadic tribes. As early as the Five Dynasties and the beginning of the Song Dynasty, Xixia had transformed into a feudal state combining agriculture and animal husbandry.

After Zhao Xu took power, the Zhao Song Dynasty fought back and forth with the Western Xia for four years. During this period, nearly a hundred forts were built, nearly one million people were mobilized, and countless manpower and financial resources were consumed.

If Shaanxi's economy is not adjusted, something serious may happen.

At this time, the Zhao Song Dynasty had finally penetrated deep into the Hengshan area and completely occupied Tiandu Mountain, an important town in Western Xia. It was time to quit while the going was good and completely stop the war in the northwest.

Before Zhao Ya succeeded to the throne, Zhao Xu had joined forces with Zeng Bu and Zhang Yu to reject the proposals of Zhang Dun and Sun Lu, the chief of Xihe Road, and refused to send troops to Qingtang, determined to restore peace on the border and reconcile the economy.

Later, because the domestic situation in Qingtang Tubo was too bad, Zhao Xu and his ministers sent troops to the Qingtang area in order to gain an advantage.

Unexpectedly, in the end, the Song army found itself in a dilemma.

The war to destroy Qingtang Tubo was naturally led by Zhang Dun.

This also became an entry point for his political opponents to attack him.

Han Zhongyan, the leader of the old party, impeached Zhang Dun, wanting him to take responsibility for underestimating the enemy and advancing rashly in the Qingtang Campaign.

The censors of the old party took the people's livelihood as the starting point. They believed that the people were exhausted during the Shaosheng period and it was all due to Zhang Dun's warmongering. They hoped that the Zhao Song Dynasty would completely abandon the Qingtang area.

To be honest, the financial and livelihood issues mentioned by the old party are true. The censor Ren Boyu believed that the Jieyan Salt Pond in Shaanxi was damaged at that time, and the annual financial losses alone were as high as more than 3 million. The Guanzhong area had been suffering from drought for many years, and goods were expensive and people were hungry. People fled Shaanxi one after another, and the living expenses were reduced by 60 to 70%. Even if people had a good harvest this year, the prices would still be five times that of normal times.

From this perspective, Shaanxi should indeed be given a few years to recuperate.

However, Zhang Dun believed that a harsh suppression policy should be implemented against the rebellious Tubo chiefs. He even proposed that all male members of the rebellious chiefs' clans should be killed and the women should be sent to the Jiaofangsi, just to preserve the military achievements of destroying the Qingtang Tubo as much as possible.

Undoubtedly, this difficult choice fell on Zhao Ya.

After Zhang Chun learned about this, he told Zhao Ya that Qingtang would be recovered sooner or later, and if they withdrew from Qingtang City and returned to Huangzhou, the cost of building auxiliary defense forts would be more than if they did not withdraw their troops, and it would definitely not save money.

Zhao Ya also had some impression of this, because in history, the ministers of the Zhao Song Dynasty later settled this account.

Zhao Ya also knew that if he chose to withdraw his troops, General Wang Shan would commit suicide because he could not bear the humiliation, and General Wang Hou, who would help the Zhao Song Dynasty recover Qingtang in the future, would also be demoted.

Therefore, Zhao Ya chose to withstand the pressure from the old party and help Zhang Dun delay the withdrawal of troops from Qingtang.

In order to support Zhang Dun, Zhao Ya tightened his belt and took out 5 million strings of cash to provide relief to the people living in the border areas and reward meritorious soldiers.

Zhang Dun saw through Zhao Ya's intention and fully cooperated with Zhao Ya to seize power from Empress Dowager Xiang as soon as possible.

This is how things turned out. Later, Zhang Dun fully supported Zhao Ya, and Zhao Ya always protected Zhang Dun. In order to show his loyalty to Zhao Ya, Zhang Dun even gave his own granddaughter Zhang Nan to Zhao Ya.

Now, Zhao Ya has taken back all his imperial power from Empress Dowager Xiang.

The question of whether to abandon or defend Qingtang Tubo can no longer remain unresolved, because if this continues, it will be very disadvantageous to the Zhao Song Dynasty and will also affect the morale of the soldiers on the front line.

At this time, although the Song army controlled the battlefield situation, Zhao Ya was well aware of the poor military discipline of the Western Army. Without asking, Zhao Ya knew that they must have burned, killed and looted in the Qingtang area.

What's more, not long ago, Yao Xiong not only impeached Wang Shan for being greedy for merit and reckless, which delayed state affairs, but also said that Wang Shan and Wang Hou looted the wealth and treasures from the treasury of the Tibetan nobles when they conquered Qingtang, and their greed was very ugly.

There were also people who impeached that when Yao Xiong went to rescue Wang Shan, he also plundered the Xilan Zongbao and burned the clan tents before returning.

It is obvious that the Song army can no longer expect to win the support of the people of Qingtang after doing this.

The original county policy was not suitable for the local conditions.

Now the Song army was bloodthirsty again and looting everywhere.

It would be too hypocritical to bring up Fan Zhongyan's benevolence in guarding the border at this time.

At this time, the ministers in the court, especially the conservative ministers, advocated that the Song army withdraw from the Qingtang area and implement a tributary rule over the Qingtang area.

But at the same time, when only Zhao Ya and Zhang Dun were left, Zhang Dun proposed a plan to wipe out the entire family to Zhao Ya, namely: arrest all the powerful chiefs in Qingtang who had participated in the rebellion, and implement a horrific policy of slow slicing to death one by one on their entire clan, from infants to the chiefs.

Zhang Dun explained to Zhao Ya that, compared to the rigid system of the Qingtang Tibetan state, which divided the people into three equal categories: nobles, commoners, and slaves, the social structure of the Zhao Song Dynasty was undoubtedly more friendly to the lower-class barbarians. While the opportunities for barbarians in the Zhao Song Dynasty were still limited compared to those of ordinary Han people, the life experience in the Zhao Song Dynasty was far superior to that of returning to Tibet as pariahs or slaves. This, of course, goes without saying: class mobility was virtually nonexistent in the Qingtang Tibetan state. On the other hand, in the Zhao Song Dynasty, barbarians who were highly valued by the court often rose to become veteran frontier generals. Therefore, the lower-class barbarians were undoubtedly willing to accept Zhao Song rule. Now, by eliminating the Qingtang Tibetan aristocracy, they could implement the prefecture-county system in the Qingtang region and completely control it.

Zhang Dun also said that as long as the Zhao Song Dynasty completely controlled Qingtang City and relied on the Silk Road for supply, Shaanxi's economy would recover quickly.

It has to be said that Zhang Dun's strategy was even more ruthless than the Mongolian army's policy of universal rebellion in history.

However, given the civilization of the Zhao Song Dynasty, the court would certainly be opposed to such indiscriminate killing.

But then again, it is impossible to restrain the Western Army from harming anyone now.

The key point is that it is impossible to control Qingtang if we are neither up nor down.

In addition, the food and fodder at the front line were no longer enough to sustain the Song army's garrison at the front line.

Zhang Dun meant to let the frontline troops learn from the Hu people to forage for grass and grain and get supplies on the spot.

In short, Zhang Dun wanted to preserve the victory of the Qingtang Tubo campaign by any means necessary to restore his prestige that he had lost due to his unsuccessful attempt to lead the war to destroy the Qingtang.

After hearing this, Zhao Ya pondered for a long time and said, "Liberate all the slaves and do not harm the common people..."

……

(End of this chapter)