I traveled with them to the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 140 Five Women: Zhao Yu is just a lump of Tang Monk flesh!

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This time, Zhao Yu not only planned to expand the Shenji Army into five armies: the front, rear, left, right, and center, but he also had even bigger plans to expand the army.

Zhao Yu planned to deploy hundreds of thousands of troops around Bianliang (Kaifeng) in order to build the Four Auxiliary Regions.

The so-called "Four Auxiliary Prefectures" refers to the system of the Three Auxiliary Prefectures in the Han Dynasty, which involved building auxiliary prefectures and expanding the army to protect the capital.

Based on the situation around Bianliang (Kaifeng), the four advisors Zhao Yu chose to support Chanzhou in the north, Yingchang in the south, Xiangyi County in the east, and Zhengzhou in the west.

These four locations are close to the capital region, strategically important, easy to defend and difficult to attack. In addition to defending the capital region, they also facilitate the deployment of troops at any time to wage war against the Western Xia, the Liao Dynasty, and the yet-to-be-established Jin Dynasty.

The person who first proposed the idea of ​​the Four Assistants was not Zhang Dun, nor Zeng Bu, but Cai Jing.

Cai Jing had always wanted to become prime minister and also wanted to get involved in military affairs.

However, Zhao Yu knew that Cai Jing was talented, but he also knew that Cai Jing had no bottom line. More importantly, Zhao Yu did not want to repeat the humiliation of the Jingkang Incident. Therefore, he had to restrict Cai Jing's use.

Based on this, Zhao Yu only allowed Cai Jing to manage the economy, and forbade him to handle anything else, especially the military. In military matters, Zhao Yu trusted Zhang Dun and Zeng Bu more.

However, Cai Jing was unaware of Zhao Yu's true intentions. He assumed Zhao Yu was unaware of his military talent, so he devised the "Four Assistants" military plan for Zhao Yu, hoping that Zhao Yu could use it to enter the military field.

Putting everything else aside, if the Song Dynasty had a well-developed system of four auxiliary regions when the Jingkang Incident occurred, how could tens of thousands of Jin troops have been able to enter as if the country were empty?
More importantly, Zhao Yu had to learn from the historical experience of Zhao Ji's recapture of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun, during which the Song army could not defeat the Liao army in open battle.

At the beginning of the founding of the Song Dynasty, the Imperial Guard was a large and powerful central army that played an important role in maintaining the rule of the Song Dynasty and resisting foreign invasion.

But after Zhao Kuangyin died, the Imperial Guards gradually changed and eventually became what they are now. They can do anything but fight, and no one can say for sure how many Imperial Guards the Song Dynasty actually had, and they still had to spend a lot of money on military expenses every year.

This necessitates reforming the Imperial Guard.

Zhao Yu's strategy was simple: since the Imperial Guards were no longer effective, he would recruit capable soldiers to form a new army. Historically, the best place to recruit new troops was wherever strong soldiers were found.

The Divine Machine Army came into being in this way.

However, the number of Shenji Army soldiers was too small. Even after expansion, the regular army only numbered 25,000 men, and with the auxiliary army, it was only 75,000 men.

This number of troops is sufficient for small-scale wars, but it is clearly not enough to eliminate the Western Xia, the Liao Dynasty, or the potentially emerging Jin Dynasty.

It should be noted that, under the plan of Emperor Zhao Yu and his ministers, the war to destroy Western Xia could break out at any time.

Moreover, as long as the Song Dynasty launches a war of annihilation against the Western Xia, the Liao Dynasty will never stand idly by. Therefore, the Song Dynasty will inevitably have to fight a major war, and it is even possible that it will fight a war of annihilation against the Western Xia.

If that were the case, the Zhao Song Dynasty would have no choice but to mobilize troops nationwide.

The problem is that Emperor Huizong of Song did the same thing when he recovered the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun in history.

At that time, there were the Northwest Imperial Guards scattered across the six routes of Shaanxi, and the Imperial Guards of the capital region, Hebei, and Jiangnan, which were even more scattered. In addition, there were the Xiang Army and the local army. At its peak, the Song-Liao border was home to hundreds of thousands of Song troops.

At that time, the Northern Liao only had tens of thousands of troops.

However, the result of the battle was that hundreds of thousands of Song soldiers were defeated by 20,000 Liao soldiers.

There are many reasons why we suffered such a crushing defeat.

First of all, those Song soldiers had never met before, let alone cooperated with each other. Their combat habits and living habits were completely different, and they couldn't even understand each other's languages.

This is equivalent to a series of independent local regiments being hastily assembled to deal with more than 20,000 elite cavalrymen of the Liao Kingdom who were fully staffed, well-trained, well-equipped, and determined to die.

Moreover, fighting on Liao territory meant the Song army was fighting on foreign soil, completely unfamiliar with the geography, terrain, customs, and local conditions.

The result is predictable.

Later generations have summarized that the Song army in the late Northern Song Dynasty was certainly capable of fighting pacification wars within its own territory, and even fighting against the elite forces of Western Xia for years without any problems. However, once tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people were gathered, the Song army could no longer fight, and its combat effectiveness declined rapidly.

Why couldn't the Song army fight battles with more than 10,000 soldiers back then?

Besides the problems with the military system of the Song army at that time, the most important reason was that the Northern Song Dynasty did not train generals for large-scale operations.

At that time, in the Northern Song Dynasty, no matter how high your rank was, the army that a general could directly command would never exceed five thousand men.

This is only the personnel on paper; in reality, due to reasons such as receiving salaries without working, the actual number is probably less than half.

This means that while those military officers may appear to be "corps commanders" or "division commanders," their actual combat command ability is at most that of a "regimental commander," or even just a "battalion commander" or "company commander."

Once these military commanders are pulled to the front lines to participate in large-scale battles involving tens of thousands of troops, they are required to strategize and deploy troops. However, they have no idea what to do because they are used to the work of battalion commanders and company commanders. Suddenly, when they are given the position of commander-in-chief of an army group, they immediately become incompetent. They cannot even read maps, and naturally, they can only be easily defeated by the enemy.

The reason for this was that the Song Dynasty at that time did not trust military generals and insisted on governing the military with civil officials.

This meant that when the Song army assembled for a national war, it would consist of a large group of military generals leading their respective troops, with a civil official in charge of commanding them in battle.

If a pure scholar like Fan Zhixu, who only knows how to talk about war on paper, were to be appointed as commander, his army of hundreds of thousands would be defeated in no time by a few thousand Jin soldiers. If someone like Li Gang, who understands military affairs, were to be appointed, he would be defeated a little later.

Why did they still suffer defeats under the command of Li Gang, a scholar who had some military knowledge?

That's because they have too little power and no room to command.

When it comes to a major battle, it's always those ignorant scholars in the court who give orders. Sometimes, the enemy runs away like stray dogs, preventing you from pursuing them. Other times, even when it's clearly a trap set by the enemy to lure you in, you're forced to go into battle.

There were countless examples of this during the Song Dynasty, and many great generals perished because of it.

Having learned these bloody lessons, how could Zhao Yu not establish four auxiliary states and create four large army groups capable of waging major battles?
Therefore, despite Zeng Bu's hesitation and concern that the problem of redundant troops, which had just been barely suppressed, might reappear, Zhao Yu, with Zhang Dun's support, still issued an imperial edict to build the Four Auxiliary Army.

It's worth noting that, according to the plan, the equipment of these four new armies would still mainly consist of older equipment (the Song Dynasty did not yet have the production capacity for gunpowder weapons and crossbows, making it impossible to equip so many troops with them at present), but their organizational structure would follow the model of the new army, adopting the dual-command system designed by Li Lin and the new system of appointing civil officials as military supervisors. The generals and supervisors of the four armies were all personally selected by Zhao Yu.

General Zhong Pu of the Northern Army, and Supervisor Sun Lu;
Wang Shan, the General of the Western Army, and Zhang Xun, the Commander-in-Chief;
General Gao Yongnian of the Eastern Army, and Supervisor Fan Chunyi;
Wang Min, the General of the Southern Army, and Sun Lan, the Supervisor.

These four military commanders had all proven themselves in a series of battles in the Northwest, each demonstrating both literary and military prowess. Zhang Chun had analyzed them one by one and concluded that their abilities and loyalty were beyond question.

Of the four generals, apart from the veteran Wang Min, the other three either died fighting for their country or committed suicide due to unbearable humiliation. They were all fearless and capable generals who could definitely shoulder great responsibilities. The veteran Wang Min, in particular, led two thousand poorly equipped Song soldiers in a fierce battle against tens of thousands of Xia-Tu allied troops, ultimately holding off the attack.

Of these eight people, the majority were Zhang Dun's confidants. Sun Lu and Zhang Xun were Zhang Dun's staunch confidants, and the latter was even Zhang Dun's brother-in-law.

This will also make it easier for Zhang Dun to command these four new armies in future battles.

However, Zhao Yu did not hand over all of the new armies of the four provinces to Zhang Dun, or even to the New Party.

Fan Chun was the fourth son of Fan Zhongyan and the fourth younger brother of Fan Chunli, the newly appointed prime minister of the old party. He was a member of the old party with impeccable revolutionary credentials.

—During the Yuan You era, the Western Xia invaded Jingyuan Road. Fan Chun Cui dispatched General Qu Zhen to its aid. Qu Zhen galloped three hundred li and decisively defeated the Xia army at Qulu, destroying Hengshan Mountain, forcing the Xia army to flee. Furthermore, while serving as prefect of Qingzhou and Yanzhou, Fan Chun Cui actively constructed fortresses and strengthened border defenses, contributing to the consolidation of the northwestern border defenses of the Northern Song Dynasty. He possessed considerable military talent.

Sun Lan's elder brother was Sun Jue, a minister during the Yuan You era. He himself was also not very fond of the new laws and belonged to the old party.

In his early years, by chance, Sun Lan joined Zhang Dun's army and advised Zhang Dun on the expansion of the Meishan border. At that time, he demonstrated excellent military skills and made great contributions to the expansion of the southwestern border during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song. Later, he was transferred to the northwest, where he continued to perform well.

When Zhao Yu decided to expand his army by hundreds of thousands, the conservative old party naturally advised against it, and some even suggested that Zhao Yu abandon the Qinghai-Tibet region and befriend the Western Xia.

In his memorial entitled "On the Three Prefectures of Huangkuo and Xining", Feng Xie, the prefect of Fengxiang Prefecture in Shaanxi, argued that the land of Qinghai and Tang was barren and there was no need to spend huge resources to occupy it. He suggested that it should be abandoned to allow the people to recover and the people to be at peace, and to make good relations with Western Xia so that the two countries could coexist peacefully. In short, it was still the old view of the land abandonment faction.

Feng Xie blatantly lied, describing the fertile lands, populous regions, and vital transportation hubs of the Tubo regime as barren wastelands. This deceitful act angered Zhao Yu.

Zhao Yu stripped Feng Xie of all his power, exiled him to Hainan, and vowed never to be employed again.

Zhao Yu then issued an edict warning the ministers of the Zhao Song Dynasty that repeatedly changing national policies would harm the people the most. Anyone who dared to change the national policies of the Zhao Song Dynasty would be the greatest sinner of the Zhao Song Dynasty. He would not let such a sinner off lightly. At the same time, he reiterated that the dynasty would never change its established course and policies.

Seeing that Zhao Yu was determined to turn the internal conflicts of the Song Dynasty into external conflicts, and that it was impossible to stop him, and seeing that Zhao Yu was able to appoint Fan Chun and Sun Lan as the two great commanders, and also let the military supervisors composed of loyal and patriotic literati go deep into the army, it was clear that he still relied on the old party members and had not been completely swayed by the new party members. Therefore, the old party members could only abandon their insistence and support Zhao Yu's decision for the time being, so as not to anger Zhao Yu and have him wipe out the entire old party.

The construction of the new army in the Four Auxiliary Regions has begun, and with the experienced veterans Zhang Dun and Zeng Bu directing it, the progress is very smooth.

However, in Zhao Yu's view, there was still a very important problem that had not been solved.

The problem is that the Divine Machine Army had Li Lin's guiding ideology, but the Fourth Auxiliary New Army did not have such conditions.

Therefore, Zhao Yu ordered Li Lin to compile a book called "Guiding Ideology of the New Army," which was based on loyalty to the emperor and patriotism. He instructed the scholars who went to the Four Auxiliary New Army to serve as supervisors to study it, and used their exam scores as an important reference standard for their rank.

"How is the compilation of 'Guiding Thoughts for the New Army' coming along?" Zhao Yu asked Li Lin.

“It’s finished. I’ll proofread it one more time before presenting it to Your Majesty for printing,” Li Lin said.

Zhao Yu nodded.

At this moment, the food was served, and Zhao Yu and the five women tried the authentic Northeastern cuisine.

I must say, this authentic Northeastern cuisine is truly extraordinary; Zhao Yu and the women ate it with gusto.

Zhao Yu's favorite dish was "Three Treasures of the Earth" (a dish of stir-fried potatoes, eggplant, and green peppers), and he ate almost the entire plate of meat by himself.

Yes, the three delicacies of the earth were delicious, but after eating them, Zhao Yu felt extremely hot all over!
That's normal. With tiger meat and venison, it would be strange if Zhao Yu, an extremely normal man, didn't feel hot and bothered after eating so much.

Zhao Yu looked at the five women and asked, "Why are you all unharmed?"

Wang Wen, the Imperial Physician, answered on behalf of the five women: "Tiger meat is extremely yang, and venison is warm. Women, especially pregnant women, should not eat too much of it. Therefore, I have already told the ladies not to be greedy. However, since Your Majesty is a man, eating more of it will be beneficial and harmless, so I did not stop you."

Zhao Yu said to Wang Wen, "You are causing me great suffering! Hurry up and come to cool me down!"

"promise!"

After speaking, Wang Wen walked towards Zhao Yu, undressing as she did so. Judging from her eagerness, it was hard to say that she hadn't planned this all along.

Surprisingly, Wang Wen did not eat alone. She came to Zhao Yu's side and helped him take off his clothes while saying, "Your Majesty has eaten a lot. Please have a few more people help me."

As soon as Wang Wen finished speaking, more than a dozen of her subordinates, including the chief clerk, physician, medical assistant, and scribe, rushed over, as if they had been waiting there for a long time.

In no time at all, Zhao Yu was overwhelmed by a large group of women...

The five women didn't even lift their eyelids, continuing to eat and drink as usual.

There was no way around it; Zhao Yu was the only man in the harem, so in the eyes of many women, he was like a lump of Tang Monk's flesh, and they would definitely want to take a big bite of him if given the chance.

In fact, weren't they the same way before?

Now that they're eating meat, they should let others have some soup too...

……

……

I was planning to write about Meng Xiang or Liu Qingjing, and I've already laid the groundwork.

But at the last minute, after much hesitation, he still didn't dare to touch something that many people couldn't accept.

Ugh!
(End of this chapter)