After Zhong Yan seized Mizhi, he wanted to continue to march successfully, but a problem occurred in the feed. Li Ji, who was in charge of food and money, was extremely harsh. He grabbed the civil servants to transport food, but beat and scolded them all. Many civil servants could not bear the abuse and fled in all directions. Of course, he could not tolerate it, so he ordered people to pursue them everywhere. He cut off his stubborns and put them in the deep mountains and valleys, allowing them to die slowly. Thousands of people who were punished were accumulating. Due to Li Ji's harshness and violence, the upward and downward action, and his soldiers and officials chopped the civil servants at will without asking for instructions. As a result, more civil servants escaped. No one carried the food and money, which caused many soldiers on the front line to starve to death, and Zhong Yan was unable to advance or retreat.

Zhong Yan wanted to kill Li Ji to warn him. It happened that Li Ji sent his confidant Lu Dajun to ask for the matter of "settle the food". When Zhong Yan heard this, he became angry and said, "I was ordered to lead troops to fight. How can I know the food route? The supply of grain is not enough, and I missed military affairs. This is a death sentence. You ask Li Ji to come and talk to my sword!" Lu Dajun said, "The court has gone to the army and go far to block the emperor. You will kill the emperor's personal salary transfer envoy. Do you want to treat the king and father like this?" Zhong Yan was speechless and had no choice but to say to Lu Dajun: "If you want to repay Li Ji with this, I will fulfill you."

Lu Dajun couldn't help but be angry and sneered and said, "Do you think these words can scare me? I'm ordered to come and ask you for instructions. If you kill me, I will naturally have no complaints, for fear that you will suffer." Seeing that Lu Dajun was upright, Zhong Yan had to agree with Lu Dajun's opinion, and then allowed Li Ji to be exempted from the treatment.

Zhong Yan wanted to continue attacking Xiazhou, so the troops stationed in Suojiaping. But suddenly heard that the baggage behind was intercepted by the Xia army, and the soldiers started to make noise. Colonel Liu Guiren actually fled first, so the soldiers fled with him. It happened that heavy snow was everywhere, and the soldiers had no food, and the people starved to death along the way were invincible. There were 93,000 troops when they sent troops, and only 30,000 were left when they returned.

Wang Zhongzheng traveled from Youzhou to Naiwangjing, and also asked about food. Sixty thousand people starved to death and 20,000 people also retreated to Qingzhou. Li Xian led his troops to the east, set up a camp at the foot of Tiandu Mountain, and burned them to the Nanmu Inner Palace in Xixia. Xia General Renduo Ding led his troops to help, but was attacked by Li Xian's army at night, defeated the Xia soldiers, captured a hundred people, and entered the Hulu River. He heard that all the soldiers had retreated and did not dare to advance again, so he immediately set up his troops.

Besides, after Liu Changzuo led his army to capture Mingsha City, he dug out the millet in his cellar to serve military wages, and decided to attack Lingzhou directly. Liu Changzuo wrote a letter to Gao Zunyu and said, "This is less than 300 miles away from Lingzhou. Our army will go out first and attack the city directly. Now we bring ten days of food and gallop for three days. The army is fine. I hope the general will order the soldiers to protect the food and wages, and wait for Mingsha to wait for the Xia army to seize the retreat." Unexpectedly, after receiving the letter, Gao Zunyu was afraid that Liu Changzuo would steal the first merit, so he ordered the entire army to follow him quickly and advance to Lingzhou with all his might, leaving the warning of "awaiting Mingsha to wait for Mingsha" behind his mind.

The Xixia defenders in Lingzhou City put down the suspension bridge and were receiving the defeated troops into the city. Liu Changzuo had already reached the city and was about to attack the city. At this critical moment, a cavalry suddenly saw a flag in his hand and flew to Liu Changzuo's horse and shouted: "The soldiers of Jingyuan cannot enter the city!" Liu Changzuo did not dare to disobey, so he had to order: "Press the armor and do not attack", losing the best opportunity for the fight. Gao Zunyu's reason for not allowing Liu Changzuo to attack the city was that he had sent envoys to recruit peace", but in fact he was afraid that Liu Changzuo would take the lead.

The high zodiac sign is eleventh

On the first day of the month, he also arrived at the city of Lingzhou. The Liang clan of Western Xia had sent King Liang to station troops at the Yellow River port as planned to block the Song army and to support Lingzhou. Gao Zunyu set up a camp thirty miles away from Liu Changzuo's troops, and was ambushed by the Xia army that night. He was so scared that he ordered Liu Changzuo to rescue him. After Liu Changzuo received the news, he "raided for help". When it was almost dawn, the Xia army retreated.

Gao Zunyu, who was scared out of fear, blamed Liu Changzuo for his slow support, "It means killing Liu Changzuo." When he saw Liu Changzuo, Gao Zunyu asked Liu Changzuo, "How about going down the city?" Liu Changzuo said, "I was just about to take advantage of the victory to attack the city, because the shogunate did not dare. The day before yesterday, the troops of Xia State retreated to Dongguan. If they took advantage of the sharp defeat, the city would definitely go down." Gao Zunyu couldn't hear it, so he boasted: "I ordered each of the soldiers to carry a bag of dirt at night and build it under the city, and they could attack Lingzhou City at dawn!"

Gao Zunyu is a relative of Zhao Xu's mother, Empress Dowager Gao. Because Gao Zunyu was guarding the border in the west for many years and made several military achievements, Zhao Xu ordered him to be the commander of the army and horses. When Empress Dowager Gao heard about it, he said to Zhao Xu: "My uncle Gao Zunyu is loyal to serving the country and will not lag behind others. But he has a fatal weakness, which is that he is too small and has a strong vanity, and cannot tolerate others' merits above him. Then he always wants to give his merits to himself and not allow him to earn anything. This weakness is easy to lead to failure. Once he fails, the consequences will be unimaginable, so he can only be the deputy general and cannot be the commander." Zhao Xu did not listen to his mother and ordered Gao Zunyu to be the commander of the army and horses.

At that time, Gao Zunyu wanted to kill Liu Changzuo, but had no basis, so he wanted to hand over his military power to the deputy commander of the Jingyuan Army Yao Lin. Yao Lin dared not accept it and said, "Liu Changzuo's prestige is very high among the Jing soldiers. If he seized his military power, he would be afraid that the Jing soldiers would not accept it." Gao Zunyu had not yet seized Liu Changzuo's military power, so he had to order the Huanqing soldiers to carry the land and build the city of Lingzhou. However, the Xia soldiers guarding the city shot wildly with arrows, and many Song soldiers died, so Gao Zunyu had to give up.

Because Gao Zunyu did not listen to Liu Changzuo's advice and did not send troops to guard Mingsha. As a result, when Lu Fu, Peng Sun and others who were protecting food and grass to Mingsha, they were intercepted by Xia soldiers ambushed on Niushou Mountain. After three battles, Lu and Peng were eventually outnumbered and defeated by the Xia army, and the food and grass were also snatched away by the Xia army. The Song army besieged Lingzhou City was hungry because they could not get food and grass relief. In addition, the season was already winter and the cold was hard to bear, and the Song army's will had dispersed, and most people wanted to stop the war and return.

Since the Western Expedition, Liu Changzuo's army has been fighting for the vanguard and seized a lot of food and grass in Xixia. Therefore, if the soldiers had food to eat, Gao Zunyu ordered the Jingyuan soldiers to hand over all the food and grass in the food and grass in the Huanqing soldiers led by him, which aroused great dissatisfaction and indignation among the Jingyuan soldiers. Outside Lingzhou City, mulberry fruits and elm willows were planted in forests. However, in order to keep warm, the Huanqing soldiers cut down almost all these trees, arousing the resentment of the people.

Gao Zunyu and Liu Changzuo besieged Lingzhou City for 18 days, but they still could not break the city. The food and salary had long been gone. They encountered heavy snow from the sky, and the soldiers were hungry and cold, and their fighting spirit gradually declined. It was difficult to advance and retreat. Seeing that the time had come, the Empress Dowager Liang of Xixia ordered the opening of the seventh-level irrigation canal of the Yellow River, flooding Gao Zunyu's besieged army.

That day, the night was dark and the wind was high, and the Song army was dreaming. Suddenly, the flood rushed into the military camp, and the Song army was indestructible. Gao Zunyu was awakened by the shouts of the soldiers. He was so scared that he shivered in the tent. Suddenly, a man opened the tent and rushed in, saying: "General Gao"

Please get on the horse!" Then the man was carried on the horse. It turned out that this man was Yao Lin. Just when Gao Zunyu was anxious to escape, Liu Changzuo stood in the water on horseback and calmly commanded the Jing soldiers to retreat.

Because Liu Changzuo's subordinates were stationed at the city of Lingzhou, the terrain was high, and the water in the seventh level canal could not be washed up, so they did not suffer from flooding, but the morale of the army was shaken by the flood. At this time, the Xia army guarding the city rushed out again, leaving the Jing soldiers in a dangerous situation of being attacked from both sides. Liu Changzuo ordered his general Guo Cheng to lead the army to wading in the water and follow the Huanqing soldiers to retreat to Niushou Mountain.

He drove his horse alone into a high ground in the water, bent his bow and arrow, and calmly shot the Xia soldiers who were chasing him. Liu Changzuo's archery skills were excellent and famous in Xixia. Because he shot arrows from all corners of the world, Xixia thought he was the "arrow god" and often picked up the arrows he shot and worshipped them as "gods". Thousands of Xia soldiers were blocked by him alone on the edge of the flood and did not dare to advance. Seeing that the Jing soldiers had almost retreated, Liu Changzuo shouted, whipped the horses, chased the front army, and went up to Niushou Mountain! Poor Song soldiers had more than 100,000, and countless people drowned in the cold and drowned, and there were only more than 10,000 people who escaped from the road.

In this large-scale battle against Xia, except for Li Xian's troops, all other armies were trapped near Lingzhou. Because the food and grass were cut off, they were defeated one after another, and the Song Dynasty lost a total of nearly 400,000 people.

The battle reports of the five armies were passed to the court, and Zhao Xu sighed: "Sun Gu had advised me before, but I thought it was a pedantic statement, but now I regret it." In the first month of the fifth year of Yuanfeng, he issued an order to demote Gao Zunyu to the deputy envoy of the Yingzhou Tuanlian and settled in this prefecture. Zhong Yan, Wang Zhongzheng and Liu Changzuo were also demoted respectively. Li Xian was unable to lead his troops to Lingzhou to help each other in time, and Dong Jin's troops also lost their time, and both of them were ineffective in their success.

Li Xian knew that this military failure was extraordinary, so he hurriedly submitted a memorial to Zhao Xu. On the one hand, he emphasized that he had made contributions to the development of Lanzhou and Huizhou. On the other hand, he was blocked in the middle and could not go to Xing as scheduled. Ling and the other prefectures were used to shirk the blame to other generals as much as possible, trying to use this to stop the blame. The Prime Minister Sun Gu believed that Li Xian did not meet as scheduled and should be executed according to the law.

However, Zhao Xu had serious differences with the court officials in handling Li Xian. Sun Gu reported: "Those who have lost their military strategy should be killed, not to mention that all the troops have arrived in Lingzhou, but Li Xian did not arrive. Is this a crime that can be forgiven?" Zhao Xu, however, said that Li Xian was incredible and could not bear to be punished, but how did he ask why he returned it without permission? Li Xian praised: "Because the salary was not continued, he had to retreat. When the army was ready in the future, he would make a big move."

Zhao Xu was confused by Li Xian, so he appointed Li Xian as the envoy of Jingyuan Jingluo and the governor of Lanzhou, and Li Hao as the deputy. Lu Gongzhu sent another letter to advise and obstruct him, but Zhao Xu refused to listen. Lu Gongzhu said that he was sick and asked to leave, and Zhao Xu appointed him as the governor of Dingzhou. At that time, all the official systems had been formulated, and the same as the minister of the minister of the Central Secretariat was changed to the left and right purshes, and the deputy governor of the minister of the Central Secretariat was changed to the left and right purshes. Zhao Xu immediately appointed Wang Gui as the secretary of the Shangshu Zuo Pushe, Cai Que as the secretary of the Shangshu You Pushe, Zhang Dun as the secretary of the branch, Zhang Yu as the secretary of the Central Secretariat, Pu Zongmeng as the left purshes, and Wang Anli as the right purshes.

In order to win loyalty and trust, three months after the defeat in Lingzhou, Li Xian wrote another letter to Zhao Xu, requesting to attack Xia again, hoping to make up for the mistakes. Zhao Xu was hesitant, so he asked Prime Minister Wang Gui. Li Xian's move was exactly what Wang Gui wanted, and he immediately said he could.
Chapter completed!