In September, the night is already very cold.

The north wind whistled, and the fences that prohibited the Southern Dynasty's monarchs and ministers were dead silent.

After dark, everyone tried not to go out for activities and lie on the thatched bed and suffer from the hunger of the long night.

In the case of food scarcity, avoid consuming calories. This is the lesson learned after dying of cold last year and starving many people.

The Khitans don’t care about the lives of these people. Apart from checking the heads every few days, they just dragged the dead bodies out to boil oil.

In the shaking thatched hut, Zhao Ke stared at the faint flame, his eyes full of doubt, resentment and fear.

The fire reflected his face, sometimes ferocious and terrifying, sometimes muttering to himself, sometimes blue veins on his forehead, sometimes full of worry. But he just curled up cowardly in a corner of the house. Zhao Ke was once rich in the world and was one of the most powerful emperors in the world. However, when he lost his powerful armor, his soul under the protection of the armor was weaker than ordinary people. Even though his former ministers gradually lost their respect for him and walked past him indifferently, even after Zhao Zhifu and others were beheaded, the captured Song Chen completely lost hope and turned to the emperor with a resentment and hatred look, Zhao Ke no longer had the courage to scold him. It was like a crab hiding in the conch shell, the armor that lost its power, and the most powerful emperor immediately became the weakest and most cowardly man in the world...

The north wind whistled outside the hut, and the former emperor could not muster up any courage to ask the Khitans for the missing queen.

"This bitch Ye Ronghuiyin, seducing a man, something really happened! What a bitch! I should have deposed her long ago!"

Zhao Ke's face was dark and he suddenly cursed fiercely, as if it could offset his anxiety and humiliation.

As early as the way north, women were constantly missing in the captive team. The Khitans attached great importance to craftsmen. After arriving in Beijing, the North Court rewarded all the palace maids and some ministers' wives and daughters to craftsmen. From then on, not only the Khitans, but also these Han craftsmen who went north stepped on the heads of the king and ministers. Zhao Ke once saw a blacksmith openly hugging the wife of the ministers' edicts. After arriving in Beijing, many ministers' wives and daughters suddenly disappeared. Even humiliated in front of him, the female relatives in the captive camp disappeared from time to time, some disappeared from now on, and some appeared haggardly after a few days. It is obvious that their experience is unknown. Zhu Ying's face is dignified, and some people have been salivating. However, due to the status of the Southern Dynasty queen, he was worried that Yelu Dashi would not be able to explain if he thought of this woman. Now that Zhu Ying is missing, Zhao Ke did not expect that she elopes, but speculated that the Khitans had finally attacked Zhu Ying.

The lives of prisoners in the Southern Dynasty were like ants to the Khitan officials, let alone women.

"Damn bitch, bitch! It's a big deal to lose his morals! Why didn't you die?!"

Zhao Ke cursed angrily. Only in this way can he resist the humiliation and anger that was as sucked by thousands of ants.

If Zhu Ying appeared again in a few days like other ministers’ wives and daughters, he wouldn’t even know how to face this woman who lost her integrity.

Destroy her? Is she punished? Will that anger the Khitan officials?

He suddenly realized that he was deeply jealous and even hoped that she would keep her chastity alive.

Zhao Ke was praised for not being close to women, but he was not a monk who was ruled by the rules and regulations. This woman has always been looking for reasons to shirk his favor, which was unforgivable and impossible in the past, but now Zhao Ke cannot use force against her. Other palace maids and concubines were stolen by the Khitans, so he has not touched a woman for nearly half a year. Now, when he thinks that she is forced to live a favor under another man, jealousy is swallowing his heart like flames.

"Aren't you the daughter of the general? You should be loyal to me like her father and brother?"

Zhao Ke suddenly thought by chance that he had secretly hoped for the death of his father Zhao You before, and a hint of guilt disappeared in an instant.

The long night was long, and jealousy and pain repeatedly tormented Zhao Ke's heart, but he did nothing in the end.

Three days later, when the captives were counted, the Khitan guards discovered that the Queen of Song was missing.

After passing Zhao Ke, the Khitan officials sent people to search for it, only looking for a few lost clothes by the stream.

In the afternoon, the news was reported to the North Courtyard, and Yelu Tiege didn't care much. Since Zhao Zhifu, Qin Hui and others who tested the attitude of the Southern Dynasty were beheaded, the captured Song Dynasty monarchs and ministers became useless. Their status in the North Courtyard was not as good as that of a cow and a horse. At least it was useful. What's the use of these people? Yelu Tiege felt that if all these people were killed, the Southern Dynasty emperor might be secretly relieved. The reason why these people were kept was that they were just disgusted with the Southern Dynasty and did not do anything to make the other party happy.

Brother Yelu Tiei casually ordered the guards to go back and search, and then transferred his energy to dealing with the upcoming war.

The Song State prepared for the Northern Expedition with great fanfare, and even sold Hebei and Youzhou coupons in Yangzhou, which was a provocation of the majesty of the Great Liao Kingdom. Although the defeat in Henan caused pessimism among some Khitan generals, most Khitans still looked down on the Southern Dynasties, especially those eight Khitan nobles who had never been to the battlefield. They instinctively believed what they saw, how could those Southern Dynasties who worked in groups under the whip defeat the Khitan warriors? "If it weren't for the treacherous Xia people stabbing the knife from the back." This is the Eight Dynasties.

The most talked about when discussing matters implied ridicule of Yelu Tiege. He blatantly mocked Yelu Dashi, which no one dared to do. Even if the Khitan nobles had complaints, they only dared to secretly target the Privy Council envoy of the Northern Court. Some even secretly promoted the discussion, which even affected the views of the tribe warriors of Yelu Tiege. In order to maintain the emperor's prestige, the Privy Council envoy of the Northern Court did not defend himself, which further encouraged the slander of him. Fortunately, Yelu Dashi still trusted him very much, and the important task of dealing with the Song army's northern expedition this time still fell on Yelu Tiege.

Yelu Tiege was the most trusted subordinate of the Shishi. He might even break the tradition of father and son established by Yelu Abaoji and directly elected it as the leader of the new emperor by the Eight Tribunals. He participated in almost all battles between the Liao and Song dynasties, and knew the pros and cons of both armies. Therefore, Yelu Tiege was different from most of the Khitan nobles. When most of the people advocated counterattacking Henan, he tried his best to consolidate Hebei and persuaded Yelu Dashi to send envoys to Xia and Song tentatively concluded a peace treaty.

The news that the Song State was preparing to launch a large-scale Northern Expedition came, and the Khitan nobles who had just obtained land in Hebei were in an uproar.

When the Eight Tribes were determined to attack the Song army head-on, Yelu Tiege advocated trying to reduce its troops and lengthen the supply line of the Song army. As long as the Liao Kingdom defended the three passes, Hebei would let the cavalry gallop across the board. When the Song army was tired, they would gather the army to fight together. Although Yelu Dashi did not make any public statement, he actually supported Yelu Tiege's plan with silence. The several great victories achieved by the Song Kingdom in Henan fully proved that they could defeat the Liao army on the plains. However, every time the Liao army retreated to the north, the Song army's baggage burden increased by one point. The longer the war dragged on, the more trouble the Song Dynasty's chaotic court might cause for the front. This has been the case for a hundred years of the Liao and Song Dynasty struggle.

No matter how much land you give up at the beginning, as long as you defeat the main force of the Song army and kill tens of thousands of Song army, you can force the Song army to surrender.

If the cavalry could turn the defeat of hundreds of thousands of Song troops into massacre, it might force the entire Song Kingdom to surrender.

By fighting, Yelu Tiege had this idea from beginning to end. This war defeated the arrogance of the king and ministers of the Song State. Before Xia State intervened, he signed a decent alliance with the discerning people in the Song State's court. When most of the Khitan nobles were attracted by the Northern Expedition of Song State, the most important factor he considered was the Xia State, which had not taken action yet. Compared with the weak and chaotic Song State, the Xia State, which had been sitting on the mountain and watching the tiger fight, was a real beast. For this reason, he did not hesitate to strengthen his political enemies in the court, Xiao

The son-in-law Xiao Tachi, the son-in-law of the later son-in-law, not only acquiesced to the Meerbo tribe entrenched in Xijing Road to recruit Han craftsmen to establish artillery teams, but also transferred 5,000 pairs of iron armor, 15,000 pairs of leather armor, 20,000 kilograms of gunpowder, and 300,000 s of grain to the Meerbo tribe under the urgency of various military supplies. At his suggestion, Yelu Dashi also summoned Xiao Tachi many times, asking him to restrain the Meerbo people from taking the initiative to provoke the Xia Kingdom, and also expressed that if the Xia army invaded the west, the Liao Kingdom would definitely support the Meerbo tribe in fighting to the end.

Before the Liao army evacuated Henan, it left countless detailed works, and the Song army's preparations for the Northern Expedition were almost open.

The various armies left by the Tokyo Department drove to the front line in an orderly manner. With the joint guarantee of Yue Fei and Cao Liangshi, Lu Mingyu, who had been instructed by Zhao Xingde, led 25,000 elite troops to join the Northern Expedition and listed them as the right wing of the army. Deng Yuanjue and Luo Xianshi led their troops to stay in the three towns of Jingdong to prepare for unexpected accidents. The musket camp, cavalry and baggage troops gathered south of the Yellow River. The Liao Dynasty's scout cavalry could even see the towering haystacks, which were the forage prepared for the army's livestock. In the large area on the north bank of the Yellow River, after transporting the last batch of hay, the Liao army would rather burn all the remaining autumn grass in a fire. The Khitan powerful and the Liao cavalry carried out the last round of plundering the Han people in Hebei, and then drove the two-legged animals back north. The Liao army did not give up a large area of ​​land in Hebei in one breath, and oppressed the Song army's momentum with cavalry.

On the vast battlefield, there were clouds of yin, and a storm was growing. Sometimes a small lightning burst out, making it impossible for everyone to ignore the mountain of battle clouds piled up above the battlefield. The army of both sides had not met yet, but the battle had already begun. On the north bank of the Yellow River, countless battles were in progress every day. The Liao army fought and retreated, and continued to burn down cities and villages during retreat, leaving a scorched earth for the Song army. The camps of the Song army's forefront continued to search for Liao cavalry, and the cavalry kept intercepting and shooting down the Liao army squad behind. The war started in the most cruel way. The number of people killed by the Liao and Song sides was almost the same as the number of injured people. Being captured must be a dead end, and there were almost no prisoners who voluntarily surrendered.
Chapter completed!