The famous book tour starting from the Red House

Chapter 546
Facing the accusations from the Song Dynasty court, Mu Xu was not willing to show weakness. Zhao Kai was the first to stand up and refute the rumors and fight back against Mu Xu's house arrest of Zhao Ji.

Mu Xu's approach was even simpler. He deliberately found a sunny day and invited Zhao Ji to go hunting outside the city, and refuted Zhao Huan's statement with practical actions.

Moreover, taking advantage of the sparring between the two sides, Mu Xu has already begun to secretly dispatch troops and generals to make the final deployment for the large-scale attack on Song Dynasty.

After discussing with his ministers, Mu Xu formulated a plan similar to the one when the Jin people went south for the first time in history, that is to attack the Song Dynasty at the same time from the east and the west.

Needless to say, the Eastern Route Army was naturally led by Mu Xu himself. He led an [-]-strong army, starting from Yanjing and Zhuozhou, and taking advantage of the terrain of Yimaping in Hebei to directly attack Tokyo, the capital of the Song Dynasty.

The West Route Army is commanded by Zhu Wu, who guards Feihu. He will lead the original [-] horses in Feihukou and the [-] militia recruited to go south from Yanmen Pass to attack Taiyuan Mansion, an important place in Hedong.

In order to prevent Jin Guo from jumping out of bad things during the Song Dynasty, Mu Xu also deployed heavy troops to defend the Xiongguan Fortress from east to west on the Yanshan line of the Great Wall, and arranged for each pass.

In terms of personnel arrangements, due to the compromise reached with the Western Army and the deterrence of Western Xia by the Zhejia of Fuzhou, Mu Xu made some changes after reducing the defensive pressure in the west.

He transferred Lehe back from Yunzhou to serve as military counselor, and appointed Xu Guanzhong as Yanyun's left-behind, Wen Huanzhang as deputy left-behind, and Shi Bao as the governor of Youzhou.

The first two manage government affairs and are responsible for the deployment of materials for the army going south.As for the military, Mu Xu handed over full authority to Shi Bao this time, and he was in charge of dealing with the threat from the Kingdom of Jin.

It can be said that now Mu Xu's party is considered to be a good one, everything is ready, and only the east wind is owed.

When Mu Xu was making the final preparations intensively, Da Song was not unaware.

Although Mu Xu followed Wang Yin's suggestion and detained Wu Min and his party, such a large-scale mobilization of soldiers and horses naturally cannot be done quietly.

The prefecture of the Song Dynasty, which was next to Mu Xu's rule, found out the military information, and the official documents reminding and calling for help flew to Kaifeng like snowflakes, which made Zhao Huanjun and his ministers very headache.

It's just that there are some things that can't be effectively dealt with if they get wind of them in advance. This is the case of the Song court.

After hearing the news that Mu Xu might send troops to the south, Zhao Huan successively convened the Great Court and discussed with the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty. In the end, he only decided on the measure of selecting the imperial army from Tokyo to go north for reinforcements.

The reason why the Song court was so bewildered and slow when faced with the invasion of foreign enemies can be summed up in an old saying, freezing three feet is not a day's cold.

As we all know, among the dynasties of all dynasties, the Song Dynasty is notorious for its seriousness of three redundancy and two accumulations.

From Zhao Kuangyin's founding of the Great Song Dynasty to Song Shenzong's succession to the throne, for nearly a hundred years, under the seemingly prosperous society, in fact, the phenomenon of redundant officials, redundant soldiers, and redundant waste has become increasingly serious, and the resulting The poverty and weakness of the middle and lower class people.

The rulers in the late Song Dynasty did not fail to find ways to remedy this. The famous Wang Anshi Reform came into being against this background.

Behind Wang Anshi's back, it was Song Shenzong Zhao Xu who ascended the throne at the age of nineteen.

Song Shenzong, who had just ascended to the Great Treasure, was full of ambition at that time. Facing the Song Dynasty, which had been in crisis for more than a hundred years, he wanted to save this hard-won country with enthusiasm.

As the king of a country, he can't do everything by himself, so before the implementation of the reform, two people came into Song Shenzong's sight, Wang Anshi and Sima Guang.

Sima Guang advocated throttling, Wang Anshi preferred the source, and the two had completely opposite reform ideas. Shenzong finally chose Wang Anshi, and Sima Guang became the opposition.

Generally speaking, the purpose of the reform is to enrich the country and strengthen the army.The measures to enrich the country include the Young Crop Law and the Exemption Law, etc., and the strengthening of the army includes the Baojia Law and the General Warfare Law.

In the early stage of the reform, these policies did have a certain positive effect on the Song Dynasty, making the treasury full, foreign wars victorious, and the country expanding its territory.

However, in the agricultural society of the Song Dynasty, the national economy was relatively stable. Once the country became rich, it meant that the landlord class and the people were poor.

Therefore, from the moment the reform was implemented, it was strongly opposed by the conservatives. Under the instigation of these people, there was great criticism among the people.

In order to appease public grievances, Song Shenzong demoted Wang Anshi and other reform officials to take the blame, put aside the reform faction, and continued to carry out the reform personally at the helm.However, due to the defeat of foreign wars in the later period, after the country lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers, Song Shenzong was greatly frustrated and eventually died young.

In the cognition of later generations, this reform was a complete failure, because it is recorded in the textbooks: In [-] AD, Wang Anshi dismissed his chancellor, Song Shenzong still insisted on the reform, but struggled until the thirty-eighth After his death at the age of eight, Song Zhezong Zhao Xu succeeded to the throne at the age of eight. Empress Dowager Gao accepted Sima Guang as her chancellor and abolished the new law, known as Yuanyou Genghua in history.

Under the leadership of Empress Dowager Gao, Sima Guang and others devoted themselves to restoring the old system of the ancestors. It lasted nine years. During this period, almost all reformers were recruited and demoted.Cai Que, Zhang Dun and others were demoted to Lingnan, which opened the precedent of demoting officials to Lingnan in the Northern Song Dynasty and the precedent of party struggle.

But it is not written in the book that after the death of Empress Dowager Gao, the sixteen-year-old Song Zhezong took charge of the government in the ninth year of Yuanyou, and re-appointed Zhang Dun as the servant of the left servant of Shangshu, and restored the new law of Song Shenzong, known as "Shaoshu" in history. , which means inheritance, Zeng Buyong was a Hanlin scholar, and Zhang Shangying Jinyong was right Zhengyan.

During Zhang Dun's administration, he retaliated against the ministers of Yuanyou wantonly, and deprived Sima Guang and Lu Gong of the posthumous posthumous titles written by Sima Guang and Lu Gong on the charge of "defaming the former emperor and changing the law". Most of the old party members were exiled and demoted In the wild areas such as Lingnan, he tried to pursue and abolish Empress Dowager Gao, which was stopped by Zhezong.

In the Song Huizong period, in order to reconcile the dispute between the two parties, Zhao Ji expelled Zhang Dun for his crimes and replaced him with Han Zhongyan and Zeng Bu as prime ministers in an attempt to make amends.

Of course, in the matter of belittling Zhang Dun, Huizong Zhao Ji was more likely to retaliate, because when Song Zhezong passed away and had no children, when choosing the successor of the Song Dynasty, the queen mother preferred Zhao Ji, who was still the king of Duan at the time, But Zhang Dun strongly opposed it. His opinion was, "King Duan is frivolous, and he doesn't look like a king."

Therefore, after Zhao Ji ascended the throne, he had every motive to take revenge on Zhang Dun.

But even so, one thing is indisputable, that is, Huizong Zhao Ji was also a reformist, and he tried to restore the New Deal of his father and brother when he was in power.Cai Jing, the famous traitor, is a member of the new party.

It's just a pity that at this time, the contradiction between the old and new parties is irreconcilable.What's more, Cai Jing was too selfish, and colluded with the eunuch Tong Guan and others to set up the "Yuanyou Party Monument" and designate Sima Guang and others as traitors.

This made Zhao Ji's reign not only failed to suppress the dispute between the two parties, but made the struggle between the two factions more intense, and accelerated the subjugation of the Northern Song Dynasty.

But there is a fact that no one mentioned in later generations, that is, during Zhezong and Huizong's time, they gradually restored Wang Anshi's reform measures such as the exemption method, Baojia method, and Qingmiao method.

That is to say, during the [-] years from Song Shenzong's reform to Jingkang's change, and the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi's reform was carried out most of the time in the Northern Song Dynasty.

So, how can it be said that Wang Anshi's reform was a failure?

Later generations did not mention the view that "Wang Anshi's reform led to the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty" because the content of the reform was in line with the trend of the times, and it was more advanced. For example, the Baojia system implemented in the Republic of China was a reference to Wang Anshi's Baojia law.

As the saying goes, one step ahead is the pioneer, and ten steps ahead is the first to die.

It was because Wang Anshi was too ahead of his time that he ended up that way, and indirectly accelerated the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty.

For example, in real history, the mainstream views of the ancients on its reforms were all negative. During the nearly [-] years of the Southern Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, Wang Anshi's reforms were probably synonymous with disasters for the country and the people.

Based on the above, it is no wonder that there is still a view in history that if it were not for the invasion of the Jin Kingdom, even if the Northern Song Dynasty would not perish, it would never have the century-old history of the Southern Song Dynasty.

To some extent, the invasion of foreign enemies promoted the relaxation of internal contradictions in the Song Dynasty, making external contradictions the mainstream and delaying the existence of the Song Dynasty.

Of course, no matter whether this view is right or wrong, it cannot change Mu Xu's determination to go south.

At the end of the first year of Jingkang, the smell of gunpowder between Mu Xu and Da Song became more and more intense, but anyone with a discerning eye could see that the battle between the two sides was imminent and it was inevitable.

Different from Mu Xu's resoluteness, Zhao Huan still had illusions in his heart at this time. Before the New Year's Eve of this year, he ignored the fact that Wu Min and his party were detained, and sent a group of envoys to go on a mission, in an attempt to use high-ranking officials and generous salaries. And cede territory to pay compensation to induce Mu Xu to give up the war.

At the beginning, Mu Xu had a sneer at the Song Dynasty mission's visit, and didn't take it seriously, but what happened later made him furious.

It turned out that after the ancestor worship that day, during the break, Zhao Fujin suddenly went uncharacteristically, not only mentioned recent events, but also spoke for Zhao Huan in a roundabout way.

When Mu Xu heard these words, he immediately became vigilant, because he clearly knew that his wife is a quiet person, she rarely leaves the house on weekdays, and she doesn't like to interfere with outside affairs, but she is so abnormal today, it must be Someone said something in front of her.

If you want to get in touch with your wife easily and provoke her to persuade you, then this person must either be a member of the family, or a visiting official's family member.

Thinking of this, Mu Xu's brain immediately turned.

He understood in his heart that it would be fine if the former did what he did, it was nothing more than a spy placed by Da Song in the house, as long as he was found out.

But if it is the latter, it means that some officials under him may have different intentions, otherwise, it is impossible to explain why any female family member would be so disrespectful to do such a thankless thing.

(End of this chapter)