Tip: The Song Dynasty has no "man" since Yang Ye? After the death of her husband, Xiao Yanyan of the Liao State found another "man"—Han Derang—and later, he became the "regent" of the Liao State and supported the development of the Liao State.
It can be said that the plan to recover Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures began because of a peach-colored news, which was called the Yongxi Northern Expedition in history, and the elite generals led by a group of men did not fight the army led by a woman, but let the real Yang family generals in history lose their lives.
In 986, the Song Dynasty's border general Zhao Guangyi wrote to Emperor Taizong of Song, which said: "Now the Khitan lord is young, and the state affairs are decided by his mother. And his mother and Han De are not clear about the bad manners and customs, it will definitely attract the hatred of the people of the country, the Liao country must be in civil strife, the upper and lower levels are not in harmony, who will be willing to listen to the command of a woman who corrupts women's morality? It was a great time to use troops against the Liao. The "mother" here is Xiao Yanyan, the empress dowager of the Liao Kingdom, and the news about her peach or old news is as follows:
In 982, the 35-year-old Liao Jingzong died of illness at jiaoshan palace in Yunzhou (present-day Datong, Shanxi) on a hunting trip. On his deathbed, he left a testament that "The King of Liang, Longxu, will take the throne, and the military state will obey the empress's orders", and handed over the Liao state to the 29-year-old Xiao Yanyan. In the face of the eldest son Yelü Longxu, who was only 12 years old, Xiao Yanyan's first thought was that the lord was suspicious of the country, and the prince of the clan was powerful and the situation was changeable. Subsequently, she thought of her "old lover" Han Derang, and tearfully said to Han Derang: "The mother and widow are weak, the clan is strong, and the border defense is not quiet. ”
The origin of the "old lover" is as follows: Han Derang is a Han Chinese, and his ancestral home is Yutian, Hebei. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, his grandfather Han Zhigu was captured by the Khitans and enslaved in the Liao State, but when Han De let his father Han Kuangsi, he became a rare general in the Liao State because he was able to fight in battle. According to legend, the young Xiao Yanyan had promised to marry Han Derang, but before she could get married, she was chosen by Liao Jingzong as a concubine, and there was nothing for Han Derang. After the death of Emperor Jingzong of Liao, Xiao Yanyan was orphaned and widowed, and even though she was the empress dowager, there were still too many difficulties. In order to stabilize the situation in the Liao kingdom, she once said to Han Derang: "I often promise to marry a son, and I wish to reconcile the old and good, then the young lord will be the country, and ruzi will also be." "Meaning, I promised you since I was a child, and now we should be reconciled, and when the emperor is young, you will be your son."
Han Derang, who is 12 years older than Xiao Yanyan, questioned the matter, and in addition to age, there was a large gap between the two people and their status; some people thought that this matter was a slander of Xiao Wei by the Song people. This is the peach-colored news about Xiao Yanyan's unclear and unconventional customs in General Song's book. We have no way to verify the authenticity of it, only that Han Derang, who had the courage and strategy, made many military achievements for the Liao state, and Xiao Yanyan appreciated him very much.
At the beginning of the war, the Song army launched an attack, and Xiao Yanyan, the empress dowager of the Liao State, was put on the battlefield. Let's focus on Huanzhou (桓州, in modern Shuozhou, Shanxi), one of the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun, where Xiao Yanyan led more than 100,000 troops to besiege this place, and the generals of the Song Dynasty began to have controversy, and the real "Yang family general" in history, Yang Ye, appeared.
The commander of the Song army was Pan Mei, and Yang Ye said to him: "Now the Liao army is at its most demoralized and cannot fight with them. After listening to the supervision, Wang Nong said: "You have always been called 'Yang Invincible', but now when you encounter the enemy, you bend to avoid the enemy and watch and refuse to fight, do you have any other intentions?" Yang Ye was a little angry after hearing this, and responded: "I am not greedy for life and afraid of death, only because the timing is not good for us now, and I cannot make meritorious contributions by sacrificing soldiers in vain." Now, if you rebuke me for your unwillingness to sacrifice, I will fight before you. ”
After that, Yang Ye pointed to a man named Chen Jiagukou and said, "Please generals ambush the infantry and archers here, divide them into left and right wings to support, and when I turn to battle here, you will use infantry to attack the enemy from the left and right to rescue me." Otherwise, I am afraid that I will destroy the whole army, and there will be no race left! ”
According to Yang Ye's account, Pan Mei and Wang Nong led their soldiers to line up at the mouth of Chen JiaGu and held out from 3 a.m. until dawn. At about 9 o'clock in the morning, Wang Nong sent people to climb the Tuoluotai to look at the battlefield in front of him, but he did not see any movement, and he had such a "strange" idea in his heart: Was the Liao army defeated by Yang Ye and fled? Oops, if that's the case, Yang Ye wouldn't have made a great contribution!
Then, Wang Nong ordered the troops to quickly leave Chen Jia Gukou to compete with Yang Ye for merit, but Pan Mei blocked it, but failed. Wang Nong led his army to the southwest for twenty miles, and soon heard the news of Yang Ye's defeat, after which Wang Nong and Pan Mei only ordered the army to retreat, forgetting about Yang Ye. Yang Ye fought hard, from noon to evening, and sure enough, he reached Taniguchi, but Taniguchi's "rescuers" were gone.
Yang Ye beat his chest and mourned, only to lead his subordinates to fight hard, dozens of wounds, almost all the soldiers were killed, and his son Yang Yanyu was also killed in this battle. Alone, Yang Ye personally killed more than a hundred enemies, and later was captured by the Khitan army because his warhorse was seriously wounded and unable to advance. Yang Ye Yangtian sighed and said, "Emperor Taizong treated me with kindness, I had hoped that I could repay the emperor's favor by crusading against the enemy and defending the frontier, but who knows, I was forced to send troops by traitors, resulting in a fiasco in the army, what face do I have to survive?" So he went on a hunger strike for three days and died.
Yang Ye was sacrificed, the Song Dynasty general ordered the army to retreat, and surprisingly, Xiao Yanyan did not forget to make some "articles" on Yang Ye's body at this time, she ordered Yang Ye's head to be cut off, loaded into a box, and transmitted to various border passes. The morale of the Liao army was greatly boosted, while the Song defenders were greatly hit, and they had lost confidence before they faced the enemy. This is the historical Yongxi Northern Expedition, which ended with the sacrifice of Yang Ye. Historians' specific evaluation of it is that the defeat in this battle changed the strategic relationship between the Song and the Liao from offensive to defensive, thus "ending the Song Dynasty" in relations with the Liao. Until the signing of the Alliance of Liaoyuan, Song Liao generally maintained a peaceful situation. In layman's terms, after this fight, the Song Dynasty increased its production capacity against the Liao, and it could not be "a lifetime". From a small point of view, Yang Ye's head frightened his own people, and later, he began to be somewhat afraid of the Khitan people.
The next thing is more interesting: Yang Ye's heroic deeds were rumored to be a good story, and then in the Liao Dynasty, people built the Yang Invincible Temple at the Gubeikou of Miyun to commemorate Yang Ye. When Emperor Taizong of Song heard this, he was very sad and sorry, and then issued an edict saying: "Take weapons to defend the country, and when you hear the drums, you will think of the general." Try your best to kill the enemy, be heroic and heroic, if you don't posthumously honor and commend, how to carry forward loyalty and righteousness! He also said that if his (Yang Ye's) soul is known, he should understand my deep meaning. Subsequently, he posthumously awarded Yang Ye the title of Lieutenant tai and datong army envoy, and gave his family a thousand horses of cloth and a thousand stones of grain. The general Pan Mei was demoted to the third rank; the overseer Wang Was stripped of his crown and exiled to Jinzhou.
The true historical story of Yang Ye thus ended in the Song Dynasty. What we want to say is that, like the Song Dynasty generals who wrote peach news to Song Taizong, Xiao Yanyan's use of Yang Ye's head was also a matter of catching wind and shadows, but it had different effects. In addition to the bad things of villains, such as Wang Nong's struggle for merit, people should realize that "the matter of catching wind and catching shadows" can only be used by the brave, otherwise, everything can only be "catching the wind and catching shadows". What is even more interesting is that the folk artists of the Song and Yuan Dynasties made up the story of "Yang Jiajun" into an opera and put it on the stage. In the Ming Dynasty, it was compiled into "Yang Jia Will Yanyi" and "Yang Family General Biography", which were widely disseminated in the form of novel commentaries in the social and folk circles, and then produced characters such as She Taijun and Mu Guiying, who did not really exist. This is also a kind of "catching the wind and catching the shadow", while She Taijun, Mu Guiying and others defended the country for the Great Song, I can't help but ask: What about the men of the Song Dynasty? Irony, the wonderful irony of "catching the wind and catching the shadow"!
The Song Dynasty has no "man" since Yang Ye? After the death of her husband, Xiao Yanyan of the Liao State found another "man"—Han Derang—and later, he became the "regent" of the Liao State and supported the development of the Liao State. (Text/Lu Sheng)