Zhong Xiang and Yang Yao Uprising: The First Challenge in the Early Southern Song Dynasty

In the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Jin army invaded the south constantly, and the iron hoof passed by, which was a dilapidated scene. The rulers of the Southern Song Dynasty did not sympathize with the sufferings of the people, and exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes emerged one after another. People are hungry and cold, and are in a difficult situation. This situation is particularly prominent in Jinghu area. "From Jiangxi to Hunan, there is no problem of counties and townships. It is extremely gray, it is broken. Investigate its reason, because the Jin people have not arrived, and the defeat is the first; Since the Jin people went, the teachers who attacked them one by one followed. Soldiers and thieves robbed together and searched almost all parts of the city and village. The thief has retired, the injury has not healed, the official is not quiet, it is even more violent, and the soldiers are violent, just asking for things. The sound of screaming is everywhere, and people's hearts are scattered. " (Record of the Years of Jian Yan, Volume 41) The peasant uprisings of Zhongxiang and Yangmao in Dongting Lake area broke out under this background.

Zhong Xiang, a native of Wuling, Dingzhou (now Changde, Hunan), took "treating the rich and helping the poor" as the platform, and carried out the propaganda and organization activities of the uprising under the guise of missionary medical practice.

At the beginning of the second year of Jingkang (1 127), when the Northern Song Dynasty was about to perish, Zhong Xiang sent his son Zhong Ang to join 300 militiamen in Wang Qin and was sent back to his hometown. These people suffered exploitation and oppression, witnessed the decay of the Southern Song regime, and prepared to revolt under the leadership of Zhong Xiang. In the fourth year of Jian Yan (1 130), nomads attacked Tanzhou (now Changsha, Hunan Province), and the Northern Song Dynasty was defeated, led by Kong Yanzhou, and fled to Lizhou (now east of Lixian County, Hunan Province). Dingzhou was in a panic, and Zhong Xiang led the uprising. People in Ding, Li, Jingnan (now western Hubei) and other places responded in succession, and their strength developed rapidly, claiming 400,000 people, occupying 7 states around Wuling 19 county.

Zhong Xiang was captured in a battle shortly after the uprising and died heroically. Yang Yao became the leader of the rebel army. Yang Yao, a native of Longyang (now Hanshou, Hunan), was originally named Yang Tai. Because he is the youngest general in the uprising army, people affectionately call him Yang Yao (locally called the youngest). According to the characteristics of Dongting Lake area, Yang Yao adopted the struggle policy of "plowing fields and fighting water". Lu Geng, that is, farming on the land when not fighting, provided material guarantee for the insurgents; The water war is to attack the enemy on Dongting Lake when the enemy comes to attack. In order to carry out this struggle policy, Yang Yao established a powerful water army, with more than 0/000 warships, such as ships, boats and sea rafts. With this water army, the insurgents smashed the enemy's repeated "encirclement and suppression".

In the spring of the second year of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty (1 132), Fu's family in Dingli Town also knew that Cheng Changyu was in Dingzhou, and sent Du Zhan to attack the Xiacheng Dazhai of the Hekou Rebels by land, so that the enemy led 8 cars, 2 boats and 20 sea bream boats to cooperate from the water. Xia Cheng is going to ambush the army in the village and open the city gate to lure the enemy. Du Zhan and Qin suspected that there was an ambush, so they dared not rashly enter, but Xia Cheng did not attack. After a few days of stalemate between the two armies, Song Jun was exhausted and Cheng Changyu had to order the withdrawal. At this time, the B River just fell, and the estuary beach was shallow, so the enemy's large vehicles and boats could not be maneuvered and were besieged by rebel small warships. As a result, they were captured by the rebels together with Gao Xuan, a famous craftsman who made these two ships. At the same time, the rebel infantry attacked from the village and defeated Song Jun. Since then, with the help of Gao Xuan, the rebels have built a large number of vehicles and ships, which quickly strengthened the strength of the water army.

The rulers of the Southern Song Dynasty were not satisfied with their own failure. In June of the following year, they sent imperial troops to control 30,000 troops in Wang Youling and 1 10,000 troops in Cui Zeng and Wu Quan, and once again "encirclement and suppression" Yang Yao Rebel. In August, Wang Ying came to Dongting Lake with a great army. Waiting for an attack. 1 1 month, the weather is getting colder and colder, and Jiang Hushui is very shallow. Wang Ying thought it was a favorable opportunity to attack, so he divided his forces and launched an attack. One route, led by Cheng Changyu, captured Yang's camp in turn in an attempt to drive the rebels downstream; On the other hand, Cui Zeng and Wu Quan led the water army through Yueyang Mountain (now Yueyang Hunan), Xiangjiang River mouth, Dongting Lake mouth and Paikou until they stood by. Cheng and Wang led the troops down the river, pursued them and annihilated them in one fell swoop.

Yang Yao was aware of Song Jun's attempt and had already moved his family and farm tools in the camp, which made Song Jun fan the air again and again. In addition, some troops are moving upstream to contain the enemy. At the same time, the water army was sent down the river from Yougang (about 70 miles northeast of Hanshou, Hunan) to lure the enemy to annihilate the water army in the Southern Song Dynasty. The insurgents drifted down disguised as eight cars, eight boats and eight boats (resting, no swords and guns, all soldiers shading themselves in the cabin). Seeing this, the Southern Song Navy thought that the rebels had been wiped out in the upper reaches, leaving only empty boats drifting down and coming to the rebels without warning. At this time, the rebels' ships were suddenly full of swords and guns, and colorful flags were flying. In the rumble of drums, they suddenly attacked the Song ship, and other ambush rebel warships also came from all directions to participate in the war. Song Shuijun was caught off guard and rushed into battle. After a whole day of fierce fighting, Song Shuijun 10000 people were completely annihilated, and hundreds of warships were all destroyed. This is the famous "Wu Yang war of words" in the history of war.

Knowing that Cui Zeng and Wu Quan's water army had been annihilated, Wang and Cheng urged the troops to retreat, and the enemy's water army took cover from behind. That night, the enemy water army was stopped by the rebel water army on the way back. Unable to resist, Qin's enemies fired a gray cannon. With the help of other warships, they were able to escape, but their ship was seriously damaged.

After the Yang-Yao Rebel Army crushed the besieged city in the Southern Song Dynasty, its strength was stronger and its morale was higher. The rulers of the Jin Dynasty saw this situation and wanted to attack the Southern Song Dynasty with Yang Yao rebels. In the winter of the fourth year of Shaoxing (1 134), the puppet regime supported by the Jin Dynasty in the Central Plains was pseudo-Qi, and it was ordered to send people to the rebel army to lobby, and in parallel, it promised to be a senior official with heavy bribes, which was severely rejected. Soon, the pseudo-Qi sent people with official documents and articles to see the village head again and again, and (Jin Tuo's sequel, volume 25, Yang Yao's deeds) made Yang Yao establish the country and seal the king. The rebels got 35 people drunk and threw them into the lake.

The development and expansion of the Yang-Yao Rebel Army caused serious anxiety among the rulers of the Southern Song Dynasty. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the court considered Jin, pseudo-Qi and Yang Yao as three evils, and Yang Yao "hurt his stomach, so he could not build a country without first." In order to put out the peasant uprising, in February of the fifth year of Shaoxing (1 135), Zhao Gou publicly ordered that Yue Fei, who fought against the gold in the front line of Huaixi, be transferred to Hunan, and sent Prime Minister Zhang Jun to bid against the rebels of Yang Yao. In May, Yue Fei arrived in Dongting Lake. He took three-pronged measures: military attack, economic blockade and political temptation. In view of the characteristics of Yang Mo's water war, treacherous court official Yang Qin opened the floodgates to lower the water level in Dongting Lake, making it difficult for the rebels to manipulate large vehicles and boats. There are a lot of weeds and branches on the lake, which entangle the wheels of vehicles and ships and make them unable to turn. Many rafts were put down in the tributaries of the lake, which hindered the transfer of rebel warships. After everything was ready, Song Jun launched a general attack on the insurgents on the evening of June 1 1. Yue Fei chose a group of soldiers to scold the array, but Yang Yao didn't know it was a plan and personally commanded the water army to attack. Shortly after the vehicle and boat started, the wheels were entangled in weeds and could not turn. Evacuate to the port branch and be blocked by the raft. I can't get in if I want to. If you want to retreat, you must fight to the death. At the beginning of the battle, the insurgents fought bravely, causing heavy casualties to Song Jun. Later, Song Jun took a raft instead, wrapped the arrows in cowhide, and hit the rebel ships with huge trees, sinking them one by one. Seeing that the tide was ebbing, Yang Yao threw himself into the lake before he died. Later, he was captured by Song Jun and died generously.

The peasant uprising in Dongting Lake area lasted for six years and smashed seven attacks by the enemy. However, due to the disparity between the enemy and the enemy, Song Jun's brutal repression and traitors' betrayal, it finally failed. However, the actions of the rebels dealt a heavy blow to the Southern Song Dynasty. In the construction and operation of the water army, Yang Yao's army has also accumulated a lot of valuable experience. For example, in the construction of warships, speed and maneuverability are always placed in a prominent position, and both ships and sea rafts have the ability to attack quickly; When building vehicles and boats, we should also pay attention to the combination of large, medium and small to adapt to various hydrogeological conditions. In operational command, the insurgents are good at mobilizing and confusing the enemy, giving full play to the advantages of the water army and surprise the enemy. As mentioned above, when the insurgents fought against Wang Zhi's army, they avoided the attack of Song Jun's main force, and only carried out guerrilla warfare with some troops to contain and harass the enemy, making it exhausted. At the same time, we concentrated our forces to lure the enemy to annihilate the imperial water army in the lower reaches, and then deployed our forces to attack Song Jun in the upper reaches, thus winning the victory against "encirclement and suppression".