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In 95 1 year, the later Zhou Dynasty was established in Guo Wei, and the later Han Dynasty perished. Our time is in Hedong, and Yin is in Taiyuan. As the younger brother of Emperor Gaozu Liu Zhiyuan, he bears a grudge against Guo Wei for killing his son, so naturally he will not compromise with Hou Zhou. So he established himself as emperor in Taiyuan, and still took "Han" as the country name, which was called Northern Han in history.

Although Liu Chong became a statue of the Ninth Five-Year Plan, he did not have the demeanor of a country. After Liu Chong ascended the throne, he sighed to the minister: "I became emperor only because no one inherited the inheritance of Gaozu." Therefore, the Northern Han Dynasty did not set up ancestral temples like other dynasties, and the sacrifices were only given by family members, and the salaries of officials were not high, which was really shabby.

However, there is nothing that can be done. After all, when the Northern Han Dynasty was founded, it was only a land of twelve states, which was less than half the area of Shanxi Province. The land is poor and there was a war with the Zhou Dynasty. Military spending is a problem, so there is no spare money to pay attention to those imaginary ostentation and extravagance. However, it is incredible that such a small country has become the last separatist regime to be eliminated in the Five Dynasties and Ten Countries, and has successively defeated Zhou Shizong and Song Taizu at the gates of Taiyuan.

So what did the Northern Han Dynasty rely on to resist the hardcore attacks of Zhou Shizong and Song Taizu? Let's talk about the process of Zhou Shizong and Song Taizu's personal expedition to Taiyuan.

After the Battle of Gaoping, Liu Chong, the ruler of the Northern Han Dynasty, fled back to Taiyuan in a panic, while Zhou Shizong decided to take advantage of the high morale to conquer Taiyuan and end the Northern Han regime. Liu Chong knew that Zhou Shizong would not leave it at that, so when he returned to Taiyuan, he quickly repaired the city, packed up the military forces and sent messengers to the Liao Dynasty for help.

In March, 954, Zhou Shizong appointed Fu Yanqing as the deployment of Hedong camp and knew the affairs of Taiyuan government, appointed Guo Chong as the lieutenant, Xiang Xun as the army supervisor, Li Zhongjin as the commander of "ma bu" or horse stance just look, and Shi Yanchao as the pioneer, leading the infantry and riding 20,000 from Luzhou. And imperial edicts Wang Yanchao, Han Tong from Yin pass into customs, and Fu Yanqing stationed, appointed Liu Ci as USES deployment, and ensure that our Bai Chongzan as lieutenant.

Soon, Zhou Jun arrived in Taiyuan at the gates, and then Wang Yanchao led an army to attack Fenzhou. Fenzhou's defense made Dong Xiyan surrender without saying anything. At the same time, Zhou Shizong also sent Laizhou Shoushi Kangyan Marsh to attack Liaozhou, and Mizhou Shoushi Tian Qiong attacked Qin Zhou, failing to conquer the second city.

The siege failed, and the latter Zhou sent people here to surrender. The secretariat of Liaozhou was persuaded by lobbyists and offered to surrender the whole city. Soon after, Zhou Shizong led an army into the territory of the Northern Han Dynasty and surrounded Taiyuan City, the capital of the Northern Han Dynasty. After all, the strategic depth of the Northern Han Dynasty is really too small, and it is not surprising to give the enemy a sense of existence in the capital.

On the other hand, General Liao, who led the army to aid the Northern Han Dynasty, clashed with Zheng, the commander of the Northern Han Dynasty. As a result, after Zheng surrendered, he could only escape to the Liao Dynasty. Mu Zong of Liao Dynasty saw that Zhou Yang had lost the face of Da Liao, so he imprisoned him, appointed others as the commander in chief, and led the troops to save the Northern Han Dynasty.

The Khitan cavalry went south again, and Zhou Shizong let Fu Yanqing lead the army to stop the attack. After winning, he entered Xinzhou City, and the Liao army retreated to Xinkou. At this time, most counties in the Northern Han Dynasty were forced to raise the white flag to surrender by the momentum of the army in the Zhou Dynasty, and Taiyuan became an isolated city. Liu Chong can only count on michel platini in the Liao Dynasty.

Thanks to the Liao army, he defeated the army of Hou Zhou in the north of Xinzhou and killed Shi Yanchao, a valiant soldier of Hou Zhou. Fu Yanqing retired from Xinzhou first and then from Taiyuan at the gates. Fu Yanqing's retreat means that the battle plan to stop the Liao army from going south in the next week will fail, and Taiyuan will no longer be an isolated city.

As the saying goes, take precautions. Before Zhou Jun's defeat in Xinzhou, there was a continuous rainstorm near Taiyuan, which caused the river to skyrocket and epidemic diseases in the army. After that, Zhou Jun's morale was greatly damaged, and many generals thought that he should withdraw. After the defeat in the battle of Xinzhou, I felt that the weather was not good for Zhou, so I had to order the withdrawal.

Due to the hasty withdrawal of troops, hundreds of thousands of military grain and grass can only be burned at the gates of Taiyuan, and many other materials are discarded. Moreover, after Zhou Jun withdrew from the south, have it both ways and Northern Han originally belonged to the Zhou Dynasty, and immediately returned to Northern Han. Zhou Shizong's first expedition to Taiyuan was unsuccessful.

15 years later, the Central Plains has changed dynasties, the Northern Song Dynasty replaced the Later Zhou Dynasty, and the Emperor of Heaven changed from Zhou Shizong to Song Taizu. But the Northern Han Dynasty was still strong, but the king also changed a wave. Compared with the situation when Zhou Shizong attacked the Northern Han Dynasty, Song Taizu has captured Jinghu and Sichuan-Shu areas, and its national strength is even stronger.

According to the original plan of "hakodate decision" with Zhao Pu, Song Taizu should conquer Nanhan first at this time, but civil strife happened in Northern Han. Song Taizu, who knew how to be flexible, didn't want to miss the opportunity, so he decided to "kill it while it was sick."

In August, 968, Song Taizu appointed Li Jixun, Cao Bin and others to lead the troops. The soldiers were divided into two ways and went north to Taiyuan. In September, Li Jixun led an army to defeat the Northern Han army who came to block the water near the cave. Song Jun immediately occupied the bridge, crossed Fenshui and advanced to Taiyuan City. Liu Jiyuan of North Hanwang sent imperial troops out of the city to stop the enemy and was defeated again.

When Liu Jiyuan saw that Song Jun was at the gates of Taiyuan, he sent messengers to the Liao Dynasty for help. After all, only the Liao army can compete with Song Jun. After receiving the help of the Northern Han Dynasty, Liao Muzong sent Yelutar, the king of the Southern Courtyard, to lead the army to the south for rescue. 1 1 month, Li Jixun and others, who had been attacking Taiyuan for a long time, learned that the Liao army was going south, and they were worried about being caught between Scylla and Charybdis, so they withdrew their troops and returned home. The Northern Han Army took the opportunity to jointly plunder Jinzhou and Jiangzhou with the Liao Army.

For the failure of the Northern Expedition, Song Taizu was very unwilling. After all, Nanping, Wuping and Houshu were all pacified by high momentum, and Northern Han was no exception. So in February 969, I personally signed a personal expedition and decided to pacify the Northern Han Dynasty.

In order to prevent the Liao army from besieging Wei to save Zhao, it did not directly go north to Hedong, but bypassed Hebei and entered Hedong. When Song Taizu crossed Hebei, he appointed Han Chongyun as the northern capital to guard against the Liao army's breakthrough from Zhou Zhen and Dingzhou in Hebei. At the same time, Song Taizu also asked the troops entering the Northern Han Dynasty to deploy troops in Shilingguan area to stop Liao reinforcements.

When Song Taizu entered Luzhou from Hebei, the weather went wrong again, and it rained for a long time, forcing Song Taizu's main force to stay in Luzhou for 18 days, which greatly delayed the fighter plane. In addition, during the period of 18 days, Song Taizu also captured a Northern Han spy and personally interrogated him. The spy said that the people in Taiyuan city had been suffering for a long time and were waiting for Dasong to save them.

According to the later results, the spy should have lied on purpose to survive. But Song Taizu believed it, and immediately led the army to make a radical advance, and arrived in Taiyuan at the gates on March 2 1 day. Two days later, after inspecting the terrain around Taiyuan, Song Taizu ordered to dig a trench outside Taiyuan and erect a fence with priceless length to surround Taiyuan.

With the siege of Taiyuan, many officials in the Northern Han Dynasty became swingers again, demanding Song Jun to surrender, which was similar to the previous meeting when Zhou Shizong personally marched into Taiyuan.

In view of the indestructible Taiyuan City, Song Taizu listened to the advice of his subordinates and decided to adopt the plan of flooding. However, it takes some preparation time to flood cities with water. Before that, Song Jun also needed to prevent the Northern Han Army from breaking through and the Liao Army from going south to rescue. Of course, the northern Han army's next counterattack was a failure.

In April, General He Jiyun of the Song Dynasty defeated the Liao army in Shilingguan and successfully stopped the Liao army from going south. In May, Song Jun defeated the Liao army in the north of Dingzhou. Taiyuan defenders learned that foreign aid was cut off and their morale declined slightly, but they still chose to hold on to the city. Liu Jiyuan is not going to surrender, but decided to fight to the death.

Soon after, Song Taizu flooded Taiyuan City, and the inside and outside of Taiyuan City suddenly became Zeguo. Then, Song Taizu ordered the water army to storm Taiyuan. However, the Northern Han Army fought back desperately, which made Song Jun unable to attack repeatedly and lost several generals.

After four months of hard work, Song Jun outside the city has become a spent force, and the hot and humid weather has also made the Song Jun epidemic outside the city popular, and people are distracted. Song Taizu is in a dilemma. If he sends his troops back to Korea, it will definitely damage the emperor's prestige and be very humiliating. He can continue to storm, which is of no help except sacrificing the lives of soldiers in vain.

It happened that news came at this time that the Liao Dynasty sent more troops south again, and the development of the situation became more and more unfavorable to Song Jun. Li Guangzan, the doctor of Taichang, lost no time to write things out. After looking for many objective reasons, he suggested that the emperor retreat. After consulting with Prime Minister Zhao Pu, Song Taizu decided to withdraw his troops to avoid being caught between Scylla and Charybdis.

After Song Jun retreated, Liu Jiyuan, a master of the Northern Han Dynasty, immediately sent someone to clear the accumulated water inside and outside the city. Due to the long soaking time, Taiyuan city wall fell behind under the accumulated water and collapsed many times in succession. Seeing this, Han Zhikun, an emissary of the Khitan, sighed and said, "Song Jun has flooded the city, and only knows one, but I don't know the other. If he had soaked it first and then dried it, Taiyuan City would have fallen into the hands of the Song Dynasty. " If Song Taizu hears these words, he will vomit blood with anger.

When Song Jun retreated in a hurry, he left a lot of weapons, food and cloth along the way. After getting these materials, Beihan was a little embarrassed. Although Song Taizu's personal expedition to the Northern Han Dynasty ended in failure, the Northern Han Dynasty was weakened by this war, because the war was carried out in the Northern Han Dynasty, and when Song Jun retreated, more than 10,000 families outside Taiyuan were threatened by retreating from the South (population is also a war resource).

Judging from the process of Zhou Shizong and Song Taizu's two personal expeditions to the Northern Han Dynasty, the military strength of the Northern Han Dynasty was really not good, and it was basically a crushing defeat. In the face of the enemy's fierce offensive, they could only retreat to the city. Therefore, whether the Northern Han Dynasty can resist the attacks of the Later Zhou Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty has little to do with its own military strength.

From the process of Zhou Shizong and Song Taizu's defeat, the Northern Han Dynasty survived because it had three "magic weapons".

First, timing. When Zhou Shizong and Song Taizu were on their personal adventures, they both encountered the most annoying rainy days. Zhou Shizong fell ill directly because of rainy days, and Song Taizu delayed the March date because of rainy days, so he missed the fighter plane. Although it didn't rain, the hot and humid weather made diseases prevalent in Song Jun.

Second, geographical location. After Zhou Shizong and Song Taizu entered the territory of the Northern Han Dynasty, many cities surrendered without fighting. Even if they did not fight, they would be conquered by Song Jun. It happened that Taiyuan City could not be captured for a long time. It can be seen that Taiyuan City is very powerful and belongs to the surrender series. No wonder Taiyuan was burnt down after Song Taizong attacked and destroyed the Northern Han Dynasty. After all, such a city is easy to defend but difficult to attack. If it is occupied by thieves, it will not take much effort to calm it down.

Third, foreign aid. Look carefully, the Liao army will always appear in time, which can be described as responsive. When Liu Chong was founded, he was the nephew of the Liao Dynasty. Shi Jingtang, the last emperor of Jin Dynasty, was willing to be a junior in Liao Dynasty. Now that my nephew is in trouble, how can Da Liao, as an uncle, not come forward to help him? What's more, the Northern Han Dynasty was a pawn for the Liao Dynasty to contain the Central Plains regime.

To sum up, although the Northern Han Dynasty was small, it became the last country in the Five Dynasties and Ten Countries to have these advantages.

References:

History of the Five Dynasties.

The Battle of Gaoping: A War Concerning the Fates of Zhou Shizong and Song Taizu.