In 1122, the Liao state had lost half of the country, and the Tianzuo Emperor fled to the desert. In order to seize this golden opportunity, Emperor Huizong of Song and the State of Jin reached an "Alliance on the Sea" and mobilized 200,000 troops to attack Yanjing in an attempt to recover this coveted place. However, Emperor Huizong of Song did not expect that this dangerous Yanjing City had become a strong city and the most difficult bone to gnaw. This battle completely exposed the weakness of the Song army and laid the groundwork for the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty. In the Battle of Yanjing, the main general of the Liao state, Yelü Dashi, became famous in one battle and became a national hero of the Khitan tribe.
In 1118, Ma Zheng, an emissary of the Northern Song Dynasty, crossed the Bohai Bay by boat and entered the control of the Jin Dynasty. The matter of ma politicians negotiating with the Jin state was that Song and Jin formed an alliance and attacked the Liao state. In 1120, Song jin formally reached a covenant stipulating that the Jin state would attack the Liao state of Zhongjingfu, and the Song army would attack Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures. After the fact, the Northern Song Dynasty transferred the original coins to the Liao State to the Jin State.
This incident has exposed the weakness of the Northern Song Dynasty. However, for the Northern Song Dynasty, it was not a good thing to be able to use the power of the Jin State to destroy the Liao State and recover the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun. However, Emperor Huizong of Song did not expect that the weak Liao state would also be so difficult to deal with.
At that time, the Liaodong of the two countries had all fallen, and the Tianzuo Emperor's soldiers fled to the desert in defeat. However, the Khitan people were indeed a heroic people, and just when the Liao state was about to perish, two heroes appeared, Yelü Dashi and Xiao Gan. In particular, the Great Stone of Jerusalem is simply a military wizard that has never been encountered in ancient times.
Yelü Dashi was the eighth grandson of Yelü Abaoji, the grandfather of Liao, and was born in Linhuang Province, Shangjing. He was studious since childhood, good at riding and shooting, and knew both Khitan and Chinese, and was a rare all-rounder of the Khitan tribe. In 1115, Yelü Dashi passed the examination and was admitted to the Jinshi, and he became the only Khitan jinshi in the Liao Kingdom, and the Khitan clan entered the career for the first time by virtue of literary talent, not just force and origin.
After being admitted to the Jinshi, he was elected to the Hanlin Academy. In the Khitan language, HanlinYuan is called "LinYa", so people affectionately call him "Great Stone Forest Tooth". If in peacetime, then Yelü Dashi may have become a relatively famous literati in Khitan history. However, history has given the Stone of Jerusalem a bigger stage.
In the year of the Yelü Dashi Examination, the eastern Yan Aku was proclaimed emperor and established the Jin Kingdom. Subsequently, the Jin state launched a crazy attack on the Liao state, and the Liao soldiers were defeated like mountains, and the cities fell one by one. In 1116, Yelü Dashi began to serve as the assassin of Taizhou, but the Jin soldiers attacked Taizhou the following year. In 1119, Yelü Dashi was again transferred to the Xiangzhou Assassin History. In 1120, he was promoted to the post of Envoy of the Liaoxing Army, and was responsible for guarding the Liao state of Nanjing, also known as Yanjing, a place of the Northern Song Dynasty's dreams.
In 1122, the Jin army conquered Zhongjing, and the Tianzuo Emperor fled westward, passing through the mountains (around Hohhot) and hearing nothing. In order to stabilize the hearts of the people, Yelü Dashi consulted with the chancellor Zhang Lin, Li Chuwen, and Xiao Gan, the governor of Nanjing, and decided to establish Yelü Chun, the king of Qin and Jin, on the throne, and called him Emperor Tianxi, and the regime was called "Northern Liao". After the establishment of the Northern Liao, its main military power was taken over by Yelü Dashi and Xiao Gan, who became the last hope of the Liao state.
At that time, the Northern Liao only controlled Yanjing and parts of the Western Liaoning Corridor, the Jin State in the northeast was pursuing and fighting fiercely, the Northern Song Dynasty in the south was gathering a large army to prepare for the Northern Expedition, and the Tianzuo Emperor in the west also declared that he would attack YelüChun, and the situation was very sinister. After the establishment of the Northern Liao, it immediately recruited troops and bought horses, and formed a Han army in Yanjing, but the combat effectiveness was not strong. As a result, the Northern Liao recruited the "grievance army" withdrawn from liaodong and rebuilt it into the Changsheng Army.
The "grievance army" is an army formed by the residents who have a vendetta against the Jurchens, most of whom are composed of Bohai people. They are more effective, but less disciplined. When the Jurchens invaded, the Jurchens burned and plundered together, and when the Jurchens retreated, the Jurchens obeyed, which made the Tianzuo Emperor very angry. Therefore, the Tianzuo Emperor decided to murder the rebel army, and the reinforcements killed their generals and surrendered to Xiao Gan. In this way, the combat effectiveness of the Northern Liao was strengthened.
In 1122, the Song army sent 100,000 troops to attack Yanjing in two ways. Yang Keshi, a general of the Song Army's Eastern Route Army, declared that as soon as the Song army arrived, the residents of Yanyun would "eat pot pulp to welcome the king's division", so they led thousands of light horses straight to Nanjing. Yelü Dashi attacked Yang Keshi in Landian Ditch, and the vanguard of the Song army was defeated. Subsequently, Yelü Dashi led the Liao army of 30,000 and the Song army across the Baigou River.
On May 28, Yelü Dashi took the initiative to attack, commanded the cavalry to cross the Baigou River, and defeated the Song army's defenders of the bridge. Soon, Xiao Gan also began to launch a counter-offensive against the Song Western Route Army, and the Song Army's Eastern Route Army saw that the situation was not good, so it led its troops to withdraw. Yelü Dashi Naken easily spared the Song army, and he immediately led the cavalry to follow the Song army, and the Song army was shocked to pieces, and the history said that "from the south of Xiongzhou, the north of Mozhou, between Tangbo and the west of Xiongzhou, the west of Baozhou, and the area around Zhending, the dead bodies are invincible."
Subsequently, the Song Hui sect sent Tong Guan to dispatch a larger army to attack northern Liao, and Li Chuwen consulted with Yelü Chun and decided to surrender to the Northern Song Dynasty. Coincidentally, the Northern Song Dynasty also sent an emissary Ma Kuo to surrender. Ma Kuo was sharp-tongued and aggressive, and Yelü Chun let Ma Kuo negotiate with Xiao Gan and Yelü Dashi.
Although Xiao Gan had ambition, he did not say much in view of Yan Jing's danger. Yelü Dashi was different, and he asked Ma Kuo: "After a hundred years of communication between the north and the south, why did you raise an army and seize the land?" Then he said, "For the sake of the children, if you want to make peace, you will still be at peace, and if you don't want peace, please send troops to see the battle." Due to the opposition of Xiao Gan and Ye Lu Dashi, yelü Chun and Li Chuwen surrendered to song and failed. Soon after, Yelü Chun fell ill and died, and Li Chuwen plotted to contact the Northern Song Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty, and eventually the incident was leaked and forced to commit suicide.
In July 1122, the Northern Song Dynasty sent Tong Guan and Cai You to lead an army of 200,000 to attack Yanjing again. By September, The commander of the Changsheng Army, Guo Yaoshi, led 2,000 of his troops to surrender to the Northern Song Dynasty. The Song army was overjoyed and expanded the Changsheng army to 50,000 people, making it the vanguard of the attack on Yanjing. Soon, Tong Guan ordered Liu Yanqing to lead an army of 100,000 to advance towards Yanjing, but was intercepted by Xiao Gan in Liangxiang, and Liu Yanqing lost the initial battle, so he chose not to hold out. Guo Yaoshi led a light horse raid on Yanjing and attacked Yanjing City. However, the discipline of the Changsheng army was very poor, and they wantonly burned and looted in Yanjing, which caused the people of Yanjing to revolt.
Tong Guan
Xiao Gan saw that Yanjing was not safe, and immediately led 3,000 elites to return to help, but Liu Guangshi, who had originally agreed to attack and support Guo Yaoshi, did not return to the agreement, and in the end, the Song army failed, and only a few generals such as Guo Yaoshi and Yang Keshi escaped. Subsequently, Xiao Gan's troops cut off the Song army's grain supply road and burned fires everywhere. When Liu Yanqing saw the fire, he mistakenly thought that the Liao soldiers had arrived, that is, he burned the camp and fled, and the soldiers trampled on each other and ambushed the corpses for more than a hundred miles. The next morning, Yelü Dashi suddenly found that the Song army had retreated, so he led the cavalry to continue the pursuit and defeated the Song army again. After this battle, the Northern Song Dynasty "lost all the troops it had since Xifeng" and basically lost the strength to recover Yanjing.
Emperor Huizong of Song launched the Northern Expedition twice and the Expedition of the Labor Division, but failed to retake Yanjing, and he himself was full of disappointment in the combat effectiveness of the Song army. As a result, the Northern Song Dynasty attempted to use the power of the Jin Dynasty to recover Yanjing. During this period, the Jin side successfully captured Zhongjing, but it remained stationary and observed the northern expedition of the Yanjing Song army. The Failure of the Northern Expedition of the Song Army also completely exposed its weakness to the Jin Dynasty.
After Yelü Chun's death, Concubine Xiao defei of the Northern Liao wrote to the Jin Dynasty five times, requesting that the Northern Liao be canonized and that it exist as a vassal. At the same time, Xiao Defei also sent emissaries to explain to Tong Guan the truth of "cold lips and dead teeth", but they were all rejected. In November, the Jin army entered Guannei, the Northern Liao army was difficult to resist, Yanjing fell, and northern Liao perished.
After the fall of the Northern Liao, Xiao Gan and Yelü Dashi had a disagreement. Yelü Dashi believed that he should unite with Emperor Tianzuo to jointly realize the revival of the Liao state, so he decided to go to Emperor Tianzuo; Xiao Gan thought that Emperor Tianzuo was incompetent, so he called himself emperor in the xi clan's hometown, trying to unite the Xi clan to complete the great cause of rejuvenation. However, Xiao Gan soon fell into a food crisis. In 1123, Xiao Gan sent an army to attack Jingzhou, defeating The Changsheng army Zhang Linghui and Liu Shunren at Shimen Town and capturing Jizhou. In July, Guo Yaoshi led an army to fight Xiao Gan, who was defeated and killed by his subordinate Bai Dege, and the first rank was dedicated to Song.
The currency issued by Xiao Gan
The Tianzuo Emperor, supported by Yelü Dashi, gathered forces around the grassland and prepared for a counter-offensive to retake Yanjing. Yelü Dashi believed that he should raise troops in the northwest to win the support of all ethnic groups in the northwest, and use the 20,000 elites of the Northwest Recruitment Division as a backing to compete with the Jin Dynasty. However, Emperor Tianzuo did not listen and was determined to launch a counterattack against the Jin Kingdom. Yelü Dashi led his 300 cavalry away from the Tianzuo Emperor and advanced northwest. In 1125, emperor Tianzuo was defeated and captured, and the Liao state was destroyed.
Yelü Dashi, on the other hand, reached Zhenzhou, the garrison of the Northwest Recruitment Division, and was supported by 20,000 elite cavalry here. After resting, Yelü Dashi led his cavalry to defeat the Jin Kingdom and gain a respite. Later, Yelü Dashi believed that there was no hope of recovering his homeland, so he abandoned Zhenzhou, led 20,000 cavalry into the western region, conquered dozens of countries such as gaochang Uighurs and Qarakhanids, and established the Western Liao Empire to dominate Central Asia. Yelü Dashi also spread China's prestige to the West, and the Western world at that time referred to China as "Khitan", which was related to the strength and prosperity of the Western Liao. Yelü Dashi became not only a national hero of the Khitan people, but also a national hero of China.
The Great Stone of Jerusalem moved west
In 1123, the Northern Song Dynasty sent Zhao Liangsi and the Jin State to negotiate to recover Yanjing and other issues. Jin Guo occupied Yanjing through its own strength, and certainly did not want to hand over Yanjing. After arduous negotiations, the Jin state finally agreed to hand over Yanjing, but the Northern Song Dynasty needed to add a million taels of Yanjing on top of the original annual coin, and in addition, the three states of Ping, Ying, and Luan were not within the scope. In April 1123, the Jin State moved all the supplies and population of Yanjing, leaving the Northern Song Dynasty with only an empty city.
Nevertheless, the Northern Song Dynasty regained the city of Yanjing, so it held a large-scale celebration and rewarded the main generals who had previously participated in the war. However, the Northern Song Dynasty mishandled border affairs, and the Zhang Jue Incident occurred, which eventually led to the breakdown of relations between Song and Jin. After that, Guo Yaoshi also surrendered to the Jin Dynasty, and the situation in the Northern Song Dynasty became worse. Subsequently, the Jin State began to launch two large-scale attacks on the Northern Song Dynasty, and by 1127, the Northern Song Dynasty had fallen, and the Northern Song Dynasty had since fallen, and the Northern Song Dynasty had lured wolves into the house, eventually harming itself.