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Chapter 1017 The monarchs and ministers who are addicted to peace talks, the officials are suspicious
In order to let Zhou Chen lead the army with peace of mind, Zhao Zhen had to reward Zhou Chen again.

Confer the post of Taibao to Prince Zhou Chen, General of Hushi, General of Liao, and Duke of Liang.

When Zhou Chen received this edict, he couldn't help but sneer a few times.

Our official in the Song Dynasty has not learned much about the overbearing ambition of the king. This suspicious character is very suitable for the emperor.

He was a Taiwei before, but now he has become a Prince Taibao. The Prince Taibao has a very high rank, reaching the first rank, but in terms of real power, he cannot compare with the commander in front of the palace.

What is the purpose of taking away his position as the commander of the former commander of the palace and giving him the position of Prince Taibao?

Needless to say, the vacancies of military officers, General Hussars, and General Faliao, will this position be useless after the war is over?

As for Liang Guogong, his rank is several levels higher than that of the Marquis, but the problem is that the hereditary dukes will be lowered by one level from generation to generation. The unreplaceable Marquis of Loyalty?

Zhao Zhen's careful thoughts were clearly seen in his heart, but Zhou Chen didn't show it. His main goal now is to complete the side missions first, and wait for the rest to finish the missions.

When I was studying history before, I knew that the emperors of the Song Dynasty were more strange than each other, and each more cowardly than the other, but that is history after all.

But now after experiencing it himself, he realized that the Song Dynasty was a dynasty with a glamorous appearance but a mess inside. Not to mention compared with Tang Ming, even compared with the short-lived Sui Dynasty, it was more than a star and a half behind.

This Zhao Zhen, who will be honored as the "Emperor Renzong" in the future, was really brainwashed by the civil official group. Those civil officials slapped him in the face. He could bear it and deal with it with a smile .

But as for myself, I helped him destroy Xixia, resolved the threat on the border between Song and Xia, and resisted the invasion of the Liao army. Now I want to meet the angry Liao army again.

In the end, Zhao Zhen was lucky, since the battle hadn't been fought yet, he had already started to plot against him.

He is really a good player in internal fighting, but he is full of cowards externally.

But Zhou Chen doesn't have the time or energy to think about these things now, so all his energies are now on the Liao Kingdom.

Before he fought Xixia, he did his mental calculations but did not intend to. After planning for a year, he was able to wipe out Xixia in one fell swoop, and captured the founding emperor of Xixia alive, which can also be said to be the emperor who destroyed the country.

The Xixia in this overhead world is not as powerful as the Xixia in the official history. It can defeat both the Song Dynasty and the Liao Kingdom.

The Dingnan Army, the predecessor of Xixia, was wiped out once by Zhou Chen, so although Xixia was established, the emperor who established Xixia was not the same person as the founding emperor of Xixia in history, and his strength was far inferior, so Zhou Chen After more than a year of deployment, the country was destroyed with less than 20 troops.

But the Liao Kingdom is different. The military strength of the Liao Kingdom is stronger than that of the Song Dynasty. Although the Song Dynasty has a large population and a large land, it has almost never won a few battles against the Liao Kingdom.

Because Song people and Liao people have different living habits, it is extremely difficult to send spies to Liao.

Although Zhou Chen had already made a plan, the spies sent to the Liao Kingdom could only give him limited information, and even fewer could touch the core resources of the Liao Kingdom.

According to the detected information and his own analysis, he roughly came to a general result.

The most prosperous period of the Liao Kingdom should be the era of the previous emperor Liao Shengzong. At that time, the standing army of the Liao Kingdom had 40 million troops. If the whole country's strength is devoted, it can reach 80 million, nearly a million.

However, with the succession of the current emperor, Yelu Zongsheng, internal struggles broke out in the Liao Kingdom, and the national power has gradually weakened, and it is no longer what it was 20 years ago.

The current standing army of the Liao Kingdom can reach 30 when it is exhausted. Even if it is a national war, it can be as high as 60 to [-].

It's just that many of Liao's troops are elite, especially their cavalry, which is even more invincible.

Zhou Chen can despise the Liao army strategically, but he will definitely pay attention to it tactically.

Now, as the General of the Northern Expedition against Liao, he has summoned more than 20 troops from all parts of the North, which is definitely sufficient in terms of strength, but the elite is much worse. The cavalry who can fight against the cavalry of the Liao Army , which is even rarer.

In short, this battle is not easy to fight.

If it is just to repel the Liao army, Zhou Chen is [-]% sure, unless the Liao country goes crazy and attacks desperately.

But if you want to take back the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun from Liao, or even go to the capital of Liao, the difficulty will increase exponentially.

"Father, this is sent by Uncle Jiu."

Zhou Bai in black armor walked into the mansion and handed the letter in his hand to Zhou Chen.

Two years have passed, and Zhou Bai is no longer a member of the Guards, but a general of the cavalry battalion.

Of course, this was wartime, and he usually studied with Zhou Chen, and everyone in the army knew that he was Zhou Chen's son.

Zhou Chen didn't deliberately hide this matter, if Zhou Bai couldn't even bear this pressure, it would be a waste of his training for so many years.

Zhou Chen took the letter, opened it, and read it. Soon, he frowned.

This is the information sent back by Lei Jiu, saying that the Liao Kingdom sent 15 troops, with Xiao Hun as the chief general and Yelu Zongyuan as the deputy general, coming from Shangjing to the border of Song and Liao.

Zhou Chen also had a certain understanding of the Liao Kingdom. He knew who this Xiao Hun was. He is a descendant of a famous general of the Liao Kingdom. He is over [-] years old this year. He is a very famous military general of the Liao Kingdom and is very good at cavalry combat. Participated in the Song and Liao battles many times, including the battle of the Chanyuan Alliance.

And Yelu Zongyuan is the younger brother of Liao Emperor Yelu Zongsheng. Although he is young, he is also a fierce character that should not be underestimated.

Of course, the most important thing is the 15 army, half of which are cavalry, and the tens of thousands of elite cavalry, once they enter the battlefield, their lethality is really terrible. I am afraid that the 20 army may not be able to stop them. .

He would not doubt Lei Jiu's information. Lei Jiu had followed him for nearly 30 years and would never betray him, so this information was absolutely credible.

But just like that, he frowned. A 15 army is not scary. He has experienced more wars, but [-] to [-] cavalry are really scary. If they don't destroy the Liao cavalry, they have no chance of winning.

Although he had some headaches, Zhou Chen was still full of confidence. If he didn't even have confidence, there was no way to recover Yanyun Sixteen States.

"Cavalry is not invincible."

There are several ways to deal with cavalry in Zhou Chen's mind, some are unusable, but there are also available.

Let’s not go too far, let’s just say that General Yue’s method of dealing with the Jin cavalry can be used in the future. However, this method can be used to deal with heavy cavalry, but not light cavalry.

However, the Liao Kingdom is dominated by light cavalry, so it is not safe to use only one method. It also needs to train heavy infantry, equipped with heavy weapons such as sabers...

The war is imminent, Zhou Chen can only use the shortest time to start training the army, looking for craftsmen, and making weapons.

In fact, the population of the Great Song Dynasty was several times that of the Liao Kingdom, but the Great Song Dynasty emphasized civility over military affairs, which led to the fact that the domestic military power was not strong.

The military strength of the Great Song Dynasty is not small, but the status of the warriors of the Great Song Dynasty is not high, and there have been fewer wars in recent years. It is very difficult to get promoted through military exploits.

If things go on like this, many military attaches have no room for improvement, and naturally they cannot raise their ambition to fight. As time goes by, the combat effectiveness of the Song Dynasty army becomes worse and worse.

Decades later, the Kingdom of Jin broke into Bianjing, captured the two emperors alive, and overthrew the Northern Song Dynasty. It was simply a shame for the Central Plains Dynasty.

Throughout the thousands of years of Chinese history, there are really few dynasties as weak as the Song Dynasty.

…………

Zhou Chen originally thought that the battle with the Liao Army would be a difficult battle, but to his surprise, the Song Army led by him won an astonishing victory in the first collision between the two sides, beheading thousands of Thousands of Liao people were captured alive, and the Liao army was defeated.

This battle stunned Zhou Chen. What about the invincible Liao Army?How could it be so brittle when they fought for the first time?

But he quickly realized that it was not that the Liao army was too weak, but that they were underestimated.

In previous battles between Song and Liao, the Song army was not an opponent at all, with almost no victories. The Liao army who invaded last time was destroyed. They thought more about not being incapable of fighting, but being defeated by the despicable Song people with tricks and tricks.

Therefore, in the first battle leading an army of 15 this time, the Song army was still underestimated, so it was defeated.

Although very weird, this should be the most reasonable explanation.

The Liao army was obviously more cautious when they suffered this defeat, and began to use light cavalry to open the way. Even though Zhou Chen had been prepared, he still suffered heavy losses in the face of the charge of the Liao army cavalry.

The Liao army is the invading party, and it is impossible for Zhou Chen to just defend. With the mobility of the Liao army, if they do not stop them, they can use their flexible mobility to bypass the Song army and invade the hinterland of the Song state. was bloodbathed.

So Zhou Chen knew that the cavalry of the Liao army was unstoppable, but for the sake of the innocent people of Song Dynasty, he must lead the army to block the offensive of the Liao army.

The Song army outnumbered the Liao army. Coupled with Zhou Chen's iron-blooded order, no one on the battlefield retreated. No matter how strong the Liao army's cavalry was, they could not break through the Song army's defense line.

It's just that in this way, the number of casualties of the Song army far exceeded that of the Liao army.

Zhou Chen has experienced battles for a long time and is used to life and death. He knows that casualties are inevitable for victory, so his heart can be ruthless.

On the contrary, his son Zhou Bai, who has seen so much life and death these days, is in a trance, and his mind has not yet been tempered.

This time was different from the last conquest of Xixia. Under Zhou Chen's command, that battle almost ended in a crushing victory. But this time, although they were able to resist the Liao army every time, they even kept pushing back The Liao army won, but the casualties far exceeded the Song and Xia battles.

The Liao army originally had only 15 people. At the beginning, Zhou Chen took them by surprise and killed many prisoners. Later, Zhou Chen surrounded them. Even though countless Song troops were killed and wounded, they themselves suffered heavy casualties, especially when they were targeted by the Song army. The light cavalry suffered heavy losses.

After more than a month, more than half of the 15 troops were lost, and it happened to be winter again. In the absence of food and grass, the Liao army had to retreat.

The news of Zhou Chen's defeat of the Liao army came back to Bianjing, and the government and the public were shocked. Even the civil officials who did not like Zhou Chen were relieved and did not target Zhou Chen as before.

As for the folks, it caused an uproar even more. Zhou Chen was originally a celebrity in the Song Dynasty. He became famous as a young man. He defeated Xixia before, and now he repelled the Liao army.

For a time, his prestige among the people reached its peak. Even young children knew about General Zhou Chen. Many people even called Zhou Chen the God of War of the Song Dynasty.

The war between Song and Liao was temporarily stopped, but strange things happened again. Zhao Zhen, an official of the Song Dynasty, sent envoys to Liao again to hold peace talks with Liao.

Zhou Chen was used to all kinds of coquettish manipulation tactics by the imperial court. These elders didn't treat the frontline soldiers as human beings at all.

Losing the peace talks, winning the peace talks, in their eyes, the life and death of the frontline soldiers is not important at all, the victory or defeat of the war is just a bargaining chip for them to negotiate.

If they lose, they will pay more tribute coins, gold and silver, land resources, etc.;

There is also another possibility, that is, they have always regarded the Liao people as barbarians, thinking that the Liao Kingdom invaded the Central Plains just to grab some yellow and white things, some food and so on.

That being the case, it would be better to simply 'reward' them points and send them away, there is no need to start a war at all.

In their view, wars cost money, and at the end they have to pay tribute coins. It is better not to fight, and it is more cost-effective to give money directly. Wouldn’t the world be stable?
Use money and dignity to pray for the enemy to let go, only the Song Dynasty can do it.

The emperor of the Liao Kingdom was already furious because of the defeat. When he heard that the Song Kingdom wanted peace talks, he was very confused, but he quickly reacted and sent someone to approach him.

All the money-giving boys have come to your door, why not?
Still the same sentence, Zhao Zhen wanted peace talks, but Zhou Chen didn't let him. Taking advantage of the peace talks between Song and Liao, he directed and acted on his own, and staged a scene where the Liao people invaded the frontier again. Then his generals led The soldiers went out to fight, massacred the Liao army, and entered the hinterland of the Liao country, imitating the invasion of the Liao people, killing and plundering the Liao people wantonly.

This behavior directly angered the Liao Kingdom, and the peace talks collapsed again, and the angry Liao people even beheaded the envoy of the Song Kingdom's peace talks.

The battle between Song and Liao, which had been suspended for several months, broke out again.

The monarchs and ministers of the Song Dynasty who were far away in Bianjing all felt that their hearts could not bear it. For more than a year, back and forth, the war has never stopped, and the peace talks have never stopped. It is difficult for the monarchs and ministers who have ceased fighting to accept it.

Especially Zhao Zhen, who was the emperor, always felt that things were out of his control and was very disturbed, so he made a decision.

Gu Qianfan walked into the hall slowly, and paid homage to the official Zhao Zhen: "My minister, Gu Qianfan, pay my respects to the official."

"Gu Qing is here."

Zhao Zhen nodded when he saw Gu Qianfan. Gu Qianfan has been in charge of the Imperial City Division for 20 years. He has made many contributions and is loyal. He is someone he trusts very much.

"I heard that Gu Qing and Liang Guogong were Jinshi scholars at the same time. You should have a good relationship, right?"

While asking questions, he fixed his eyes on Gu Qianfan, trying to see Gu Qianfan's reaction clearly.

Gu Qianfan's heart skipped a beat, but he replied with an unchanged expression: "Back to the official's house, the minister and Liang Guogong did know each other, but it was only limited to the friendship of gentlemen."

Zhao Zhen nodded, and asked again: "Then what do you think of Liang Guogong?"

Gu Qianfan obviously sensed that something was wrong, and replied cautiously: "Mr. Liang Guo is a famous general in the world. He has devoted himself to the court and is loyal. I also admire him."

"Faithful?"

Zhao Zhen's heart moved, and he refused to answer, but said: "Liang Guogong is indeed an important minister of the court. I am a confidant, and I have no doubts about him. It's just that some remarks in the court are not good for Liang Guogong recently, and there is even a memorial to impeach Liang Guogong. Supporting the self-respect of the soldiers, repeatedly sabotaging the peace talks between Song and Liao."

"Of course I don't believe the words of these villains, but in order to prove the innocence of Liang Guogong, this matter still needs to be investigated carefully. Gu Qing has been in charge of the Imperial City Department for many years and is a good hand in this area. I want to send you to the northern border to investigate This matter must be investigated thoroughly, and Liang Guogong should be cleared."

Gu Qianfan lowered his head: "I will live up to the orders of the officials, and immediately arrange for people to go to the frontier."

After Gu Qianfan withdrew, Zhao Zhen recruited another person. He couldn't figure out how close the relationship between Gu Qianfan and Zhou Chen was, so Gu Qianfan was the only one. He was worried, so he secretly sent another person.

(End of this chapter)