Chapter 1,333 The storm rises again

The Yellow River is at the mouth of the gorge, which is above Qingtong Gorge in later generations and below Yingli Pass. Today it has a special name called Mingsha River.

Two hundred miles upstream from the mouth of the gorge, the south bank of the Yellow River is Mingsha City, and another two hundred miles further, the north bank of the Yellow River is Yingli Pass.

This place is four hundred miles away from the prosperous areas of the Ningxia Plain. It is located at the southernmost foothills of the Helan Mountains. It forms a narrow channel with the remaining mountains of the Liupan Mountains to the south, through which the Yellow River happens to pass.

Because of the existence of the Yellow River, the originally narrow passage between the North Bank and the Helan Mountains has become even narrower.

Behind it on the northwest side is the vast desert, where Shapotou, a famous scenic spot in later generations, forms a huge and perfect barrier behind this small exit.

During the Qin and Han dynasties, the Great Wall was built here to protect Beihu.

After the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, construction was carried out here, and it became one of the most important passes on the West Road of Ningxia, earning it the famous Golden Pass.

As the saying goes, "The southern branch of the Black Mountain is like an angry rhinoceros rushing to drink from the river, which is the victory of Jinguan. The stone peaks stand across the river and face the Quanyan Mountain on the south bank across the river. They hug the county seat and are a key cloud."

"It is said that it moved to Tongguan after passing the Jin Dynasty, so it is famous for its Jin."

Later generations wrote poems to describe this place: "The floating sand is high and the wall is hidden, and the misty clouds meet the wilderness. The mountains lead to the Helan Peak and are covered with green, and the river leads to the stars and the water flows yellow."

"The clouds are vast, the peaks are steep, and the Xiongguan Mountains rise steeply. There are deserts in the north, and long rivers in the south. Yinchuan opens its key point here, and the mountains and rivers cannot be crossed."

In the current Song Dynasty, what is more terrifying than in later generations is that there are vast swamps on the side of Yingliguan close to the Yellow River, making the passage even narrower.

Even in the middle of winter, the moat and swamp here will not freeze. In the Tang Dynasty, this swamp area was called Wenchi.

When King Luo Bin passed here, he specifically visited the place. "According to the locals, it is the old site of the county. There is a hot spring in the south of the city moat that overflows into the pool. It does not freeze in winter, hence the name."

When Zhong Ji inspected the military map, he discovered this place that had been ignored by the Xia people at a glance. Before they could shrink their troops to defend Xingqing Mansion and Xiping Mansion, he suggested to Su You to let the strongest Chan'an army stay at night.

Cross the Yellow River and seize this key point!

Later, he ordered Baoshun from the West to lead 30,000 people to strengthen the defense here, rush to transport a large amount of supplies, and rely on the Qin-Han Great Wall and Yingli Pass to rebuild the entire Guancheng frantically!

When the war stopped, Liu Changzuo's three elite troops were dispatched!

Su Lie believed that such a concentration of troops was unnecessary. After all, the front facing the enemy at Yingli Pass was quite narrow. Five thunderbolt cannons were moved to the top of the city. Not only was the frontal defense powerful, it could even block the Yellow River.

So I discussed with Liu Changzuo and decided to capture Liangzhou. Not only could we take care of each other's retreat, but we could also form a west-route iron triangle with Lanzhou.

Its defensive posture and depth immediately made Zhongzhi feel more comfortable, and he praised Su Lie: "Although he studied at a young age, his general skills are almost given by heaven."

This also created the illusion that the Song army would take the western route as its main force and cross the river to attack Xingqing Mansion. The Xia people had to adjust their strategy and attack Yingli in an attempt to regain this place, form a large siege of Liangzhou, and regain the strategic initiative.

However, the military thinking of the Xia people was still stuck in the old times. The fact that the Dun'an army was able to easily win over Yingli did not mean that Weiming Awu and Renduo Baozhong could also be recovered from their losses.

This area was not suitable for cavalry operations. The Song army relied on the mountains, the Great Wall, and the rebuilt Xiongguan to create layers of defense.

In addition, after the Dun'an Army, which was far superior to Bubazi in the old army era, was transformed into a new army, Su Lie thoroughly implemented Su You's "offensive defense" strategy in Yingguandong.

Dun'an's army, armed with Fulu artillery and continuous artillery, moved to fight within two hundred miles of the foothills of Helan Mountain, appearing and disappearing and continuing guerrilla attacks.

Night raids, grain robberies, ambushes... the "Sixteen-Character Guerrilla Policy" that Su You once discussed back then has finally been fully realized with the development of military technology.

And compared with the guerrilla tactics of later generations, which relied on weak enemies to attack strong ones, today's guerrillas have achieved astonishing results.

It can be said that the most correct tactic of using a small number of new troops to fight against a large number of old troops truly reached its culmination in the defensive battle of Yingliguan commanded by Su Lie.

This made Bao Shun, who was guarding Yingli Pass, very depressed. I said, brother, don't just keep making troubles on your own. Why don't you send some troops over and let me take some credit?

My brother has a total of 30,000 troops here. From the time of the expedition until now, except for some tribes who heard about my brother's identity and surrendered, they haven't even made a fortune...

The two armies of 100,000 people were defeated by Su Lie and had a difficult time advancing. This caused the Xia people to seriously misjudge, thinking that this must be the main direction of the Song army's attack.

So after receiving reports from Weiming Awu and Renduo Baozhong that the Song army's military strength was definitely more than 60,000 and the two armies were insufficient, Empress Liang, who was stationed in Shunzhou, was furious and led 100,000 centimeters to Yingli.

.

She didn't believe that the Song army was all made of iron. There were 200,000 people, and even Ying Liguan could be killed!

However, she still remembered Mr. Jia's warning. Shunzhou is the head of the Nine Canals and the irrigation hub of the entire Xingqing Prefecture. It must be firmly guarded, so she sent 50,000 Makui female soldiers to defend Jingzhou, the gateway to Xingqing.

, moved forward to Shunzhou.

This is undoubtedly an extremely bad decision. No Xia people would have expected that in just two months, the Song Dynasty had established a Yellow River navy capable of carrying 40,000 people!

When Empress Liang was dressed in military uniform and led one hundred thousand men to gallop towards Yingli Pass, the feelings of the people of Song Dynasty, Zheng Guo, Ding Guo, Controlling Crane, Academy Corps, five new armies of 23,000 people, and Jing

The elite old armies of Yuan, Fuyan, and Lin Prefecture, composed of the five armies of Zhenrong, Dingbian, Baoan, Suide, and Huoshan, totaling 15,000 men, gave up their horses and used giant rafts instead, heading towards the north bank of the Yellow River, the gateway to Xingqing Prefecture.

Kill in Jingzhou!

At the same time, there were two old armies of Dingbian and Baoan with 6,000 men, together with the recruited veterans, driving carriages and horses along the east bank of the Yellow River towards Jingzhou across the river.

Set off to the narrow Linhe Town.

The waterway army was personally led by Gao Zunyu, and the east coast baggage army was led by Shen Kuo and Su You, accompanied by Shi Yong and other engineering talents.

In December, at the end of the month, the army arrived in Jingzhou, which was only forty miles away from Xingqing Mansion. It was only forty miles away from Xingzhou, the political center of Xia Kingdom!

Jingzhou was caught off guard. There were only 3,000 old and weak households in the city. The prefect Liu Hanchen only glanced at the sense of seizing the tidal flat from the top of the city. The 13,000-strong Crane Control Army and the Zhenrong Army returned.

Zhou Yamen committed suicide by hanging himself from a beam.

The remaining Song army continued to head downstream to Huaizhou and Dingzhou.

In the Youshi period, Gao Zunyu, Cao Nan, and Sun Neng defeated Jingzhou.

Geng Shen, early morning, Wang Hou, Zhong Er Ke Huaizhou.

At noon, Liu Shiheng and Wang Junwan were able to defeat Dingzhou.

Xingqing Mansion was besieged on three sides by the Song Army!

The Xia people from the three states, carrying the old and the young, cried and cried all the way to Xingqing Mansion to escape.

The Song army did not stop them, and only eliminated the weak resistance forces in the three states. After occupying the treasury, account books, household registers, and warehouses, they left thousands of people to defend each other, and the rest of the army went straight to attack Xingzhou!

The Xia people's army was all outside, and the heart of Xingqing Mansion was extremely empty.

In the nearest Shunzhou, there are only tens of thousands of female soldiers. The remaining army, Empress Liang is a hundred miles away, Weiming Awu and Renduo Baozhong are four hundred miles away, and Jialiang is six hundred miles away!

…

Xingqing Mansion, Guanqing Temple.

Weiming Jingsi's body was quietly placed on the wooden rafter tower in the center of the main square under the temple tower.

The great monk in red clothes led the monks and recited sutras for Weiming Jingsi, sending him away from this chaotic world to the auspicious kingdom of heaven.

There are three types of burial customs in Xixia: Qiang customs, Han customs, and Buddhist customs. The three burial customs influence and penetrate each other.

Most dignitaries have tombs made of bricks and wooden structures similar to those of the Song and Liao dynasties. However, in Xixia mausoleums, except for the ancestral chambers, they generally do not use niches and rarely have brick chambers.

Among the funerary objects, there are few utensils and mostly imitations of sheep, cows, horses, chickens, ducks, copper oxen, and stone horses.

More often, cremation is adopted, the bones are put into containers and buried in graves, and those with noble status are built into spiritual pagodas.

Weiming Jingsi's wish was to be cremated using the traditional funeral rites of the Dangxiang people.
Chapter completed!