Across the Water Margin: Officials of Ximen

Now facing the two energetic young men, Zong Ze drank a few more glasses of wine, couldn't hide his thoughts, and wanted to have a chat with Ximen Qing and Ma Kuo.

Because Ma Zheng secretly went to the Kingdom of Jin to buy horses, and the matter of joining the Jin Dynasty is still a secret of the imperial court, so Zongze couldn't say it clearly. He held a wine glass, looked at Ximen Qing and asked: "Ximen Mr. Qing, have you heard that Zichong's father crossed the sea to buy horses in Liaodong? What do you think?"

"Ma Jin governed the northward journey, and I thought that buying horses was a fake, and the purpose was to test Jin Guofang. Now there has been no war between the Song Dynasty and the Liao Kingdom for a hundred years, but the northwest battlefield needs a lot of horses. The northwest buys horses from Tubo and other ethnic groups. Why do you need to travel far to Liaodong to buy horses? With the current horse administration in the Song Dynasty, I am afraid that the Liaodong horses will all die on the way before they are transported to the northwest. Therefore, I think that Ma Jinxia is not here to buy horses for missions." Ximen Qing replied to Zong Ze.

Ximen Qing also had reservations in his mouth, and did not directly say that Ma Zheng was an envoy to the Kingdom of Jin to join Jin to fight against Liao.However, this was enough for Zong Ze and Ma Kuo to regard Ximen Qing as a monstrous existence.

Ma Kuo traveled thousands of miles and returned to Dengzhou, only knowing that his father was ordered to cross the sea and go north to discuss the purchase of horses. He didn't know about the alliance between the Jin Dynasty and the Song Dynasty.Is Ximen brother's insight so strong?Ma Kuo stared at Ximen Qing with wide eyes.

Zong Ze knew that his disciple Ma Kuo could not know the true intention of his father's mission, let alone that he and Ximen Qing knew.Then, how did the official Ximen Qing know about this important secret matter of the imperial court?Could it be that he really saw the clues from the clues?

Zong Ze also looked at Ximen Qing in disbelief, and after a moment of silence, he suddenly asked: "The opinion of the officials of Ximen is very interesting! I would like to ask, if I, the Song Dynasty, sent troops to help the Liao Kingdom, would it be possible to stop the Jin Kingdom?" the rise of

Stop it!Zong Ze, you are still a civil servant and have never commanded an army. You really don't know how scumbag the Song Army is, and how miserable you will be beaten in a few years!In this era, only the high mountains and deep valleys in the Qinling Mountains and the hot climate in the south of the Yangtze River could stop the progress of the Jin army. Sending the Song army to the north where the climate is cold and suitable for horse activities is purely seeking abuse!

Ximen Qing, who had read Mao Xuan and read many war works, also had some contempt for this old Zongze's ability to command troops in combat.

Frankly speaking, although Zong Ze is well-known in later generations, his fame mainly comes from his integrity in resisting gold, not his record in commanding the army.That is to say, he, who was born as a civil servant, may be a little bit stronger than Li Gang, who has nothing to say, but he is also limited. He is still a commander who is not very good at fighting.

Chapter 4 Fifteen Stubborn Persistence

Regarding Zong Ze, Ximen Qing knew one thing when he was reading books and visiting forums in his previous life, which fully reflected the military command level of the famous anti-golden official Zong Ze.

Zong Ze is undoubtedly the most orthodox scholar-bureaucrat in this era, full of thoughts of loyalty to the emperor and patriotism.To be precise, Zong Ze loves the country of the Zhao family, and is loyal to the royal Zhao family.

Because of this kind of ideological confinement, when Zongze was the left-behind in Tokyo, he did something absurd in the eyes of later generations.

At that time, Wanyan Zonghan, the first hero of the founding of the Kingdom of Jin, Prime Minister of the State, You Bo Jilie and Marshal of the Capital, led his troops to occupy the Luoyang area of ​​Xijing in the Northern Song Dynasty. Mausoleum also fell at the same time.

In order to take back the emperor's tomb from the Jin soldiers, Zongze sent elite officers and troops under the command of the left-behind division in Tokyo to march west to Luoyang, regardless of whether the enemy was strong or we were weak.Among the generals sent by Zongze, there were Han Shizhong, Yue Fei, Hu Cheng and others. As a result, of course, they could not beat Wanyan Zonghan who was in full swing, and returned with lost troops.

Ximenqing's brother-in-law, "Flying Tiger" Hu Cheng was the most depressed. As the commander of an army, his subordinates were all infantry, but Zong Ze sent him out to fight against the most powerful cavalry of the Kingdom of Jin.Fortunately, he was lucky, and his partner was Yue Fei, the commander of the cavalry.

Hu Cheng is also a person who knows how to fight. He discussed with Yue Fei and made it clear that his infantry could not fight the Jin army's cavalry in the open.Therefore, he was in charge of occupying a small city, defending the city and leaving it to Yue Fei. Yue Fei led the cavalry to attack.

Yue Fei agreed to Hu Cheng's battle plan, and the two of them defended and attacked again. Although they didn't make any great achievements, they allowed Yue Fei to win some small battles without any worries.Afterwards, the two took turns to cover when the battle situation was unfavorable, and successfully withdrew to Bianliang, Tokyo.

Han Shizhong was not as lucky as Yue Fei and Hu Cheng.At that time, the commanders like Yue Fei and Hu Cheng were still young juniors, so they only fought guerrillas and flanked them.However, Han Shizhong, who was born in the Western Army, was already the main force of the main force of the Tokyo Remaining Division, so the glorious mission of retaking the tomb of the first emperor naturally fell on this Po Han Wu.Han Shizhong also bravely killed the enemy, fulfilling his mission, and once killed the area around Gongxian County, Luoyang.

How do you know, this is just a pocket array laid by the Jin army for the Song army in order to retreat.The main force of the Song Army led by Han Shizhong and other generals fell into the siege of the Jin Army, almost completely annihilated, and most of the other generals died in battle.Only Han Shizhong, relying on his good martial arts, forcibly killed a bloody road, and fled back to Bianliang, Tokyo in embarrassment.

It is said that there were many golden soldiers chasing Po Han Wu in that battle, and Han Shizhong in heavy armor was shot like a hedgehog.After escaping from birth, there was a liter of arrows taken from his back.If it weren't for Han Shizhong being a rare fierce man in the world, he would have died in the chaos long ago.

Han Shizhong regarded this battle as a great shame, looked at those arrows, and vowed to take revenge.It's a pity that the combat power gap between the Song Army and the Jin Army was too great at that time, and Han Shizhong could not recover the blood debt from Wanyan Zonghan in his life.

The reason for this stupid battle was that Zongze wanted to fight for some tombs that had no strategic value.Zong Ze fully demonstrated his loyalty to the emperor and patriotism, but he almost killed Han Shizhong, who later made the most military exploits among the four ZTE generals in the Southern Song Dynasty.

People like Li Gang and Zong Ze have integrity and strong bones, but that's all.If the army is really handed over to them to command, how many powerful and brave generals are not enough for them to defeat!

What is the true meaning of war?It does not lie in the gains and losses of a city or a place, but in preserving one's own vitality as much as possible and constantly consuming the enemy's vitality until the final victory is mine. "If you save people and lose land, all people and land will survive; if you lose land and lose people, all people and land will be lost." The words of the great man resounded in Ximen Qing's heart. How well he said it!

Of course, for the sake of his own future, Ximenqing wanted to hide his personal interests, and he would not instill the great man's strategic thinking into the old Zongze in front of him at this time.In order to save Zongze from sending unnecessary heads in the future, Ximen Qing felt that it was necessary to crush Zongze's illusions and let him know the gap between the Song army and the Jin army.

At this time, the Song and Jin Dynasties had not yet bordered, nor had wars started, and there was no direct comparison of combat effectiveness.Ximenqing can only use the outcome of wars among several countries to briefly express his ideas:

The army of Jin State is stronger than that of Liao State, which has been fully demonstrated by the battle in Liaodong.Liao's army is stronger than Xixia's army. Xixia has always followed Liao's lead and sheltered under Liao's wings, so there is no doubt about it.The army of the Song Dynasty, the most elite Western Army is not the opponent of the Xixia Army, and can only entangle with the Xixia Army by virtue of its numbers and national strength.Except for the Western Army, the other Forbidden Army is even more vulnerable.

It can be seen from this that the gap between the Song Army and the Jin Army is too obvious. Zong Ze's hypothesis of sending troops to help the Liao Kingdom fight against the Jin Dynasty is basically sending him to the door to recruit, which cannot save the Liao Kingdom's decline.

Ximen Qing spoke clearly and logically, and Ma Kuo nodded frequently, agreeing with Ximen Qing's analysis in his heart.

After listening to it calmly, Zong Ze agreed with Ximen Qing's words to some extent, and had a higher opinion of Ximen Qing in his heart.However, Zong Ze is a relatively stubborn person. Although he agrees that Ximen Qing's words are reasonable, he still insists on his position of opposing the strategy of uniting the Jin Dynasty and defeating the Liao Dynasty.

As a general judge in Dengzhou, assisting the prefect to manage the affairs of a state, Zongze naturally had to have contacts with the envoys and businessmen from Korea.From the Koreans, Zongze has repeatedly obtained descriptions about the Jurchens, all of which are that the Jurchens are uncivilized barbarians living in the mountains and cannot be intersected.Zongze couldn't help being influenced by these Koreans, so he already had a feeling of disgust for the Jurchens, and he never believed that they would abide by the covenant with the imperial court.

Zong Ze secretly made up his mind to write a letter to the imperial court to state his views, and resolutely opposed the alliance with the Jurchens of the Kingdom of Jin, even if it offended the officials and the court officials, he would not hesitate to do so.

It's a pity that Zong Ze is a little partial on this matter.At this time, the Koreans and the Jurchens lived together and bordered each other in the northern half of the Korean peninsula. There was a territorial dispute, and there was a strong sense of loss after the Jurchen became stronger. The Koreans in this state did not speak ill of the Jurchens in the Song Dynasty. That's really weird.

Since the Balhae Kingdom was destroyed by the Khitan, the Jurchens of the Balhae Kingdom have lived in the form of tribes between the white mountains and the black waters, bordering the Koryo Kingdom at the south-central tip of the Korean Peninsula.The Koreans consider themselves a civilized and developed country, and they have long been condescending towards the tribal Jurchens.

The Jurchens rose up under the leadership of Wanyan Aguda. At the beginning of the establishment of the Jin Kingdom, the King of Koryo shamelessly claimed that the Jurchens originated from Korea in his letter of credence to the Jin Kingdom, but Wanyan Aguda categorically denied it.

Now the Kingdom of Jin is getting stronger and stronger, and it has come from behind in the exchanges with the Kingdom of Koryo and has become the dominator.How can the subversion and contrast of status not make the Koreans feel sour and wantonly smear the Jurchens?

Chapter 4 Sixteen

The Koreans regarded the Jurchens as barbarians and themselves as civilized people, but in fact, they were nothing more than fifty steps laughing at one hundred steps.In the current Koryo country, the Korean people bathe in the open rivers, and still retain the original custom of mixed bathing for men and women. It is really a symbol of "civilization"!

Fortunately, the officials of Ximenqing still don't know that Koryo has such a strange custom, otherwise he might not let Ximenping be responsible for establishing trade relations with Korea and Japan, but took the risk himself.

In the northern part of the Korean peninsula, the Koreans and the Jurchens are still living in a mixed state, and there is little difference in the level of civilization.To be honest, the civilization of the Koreans is nothing more than a few more people who can write Chinese characters than the Jurchens.This is just because they had more contacts with the Central Plains and were influenced by the culture of the Han people.

Although they have not broken away from primitive barbarism, the Goryeo people still take advantage of the conditions that they have a closer relationship with the people of the Song Dynasty to spread rumors about their northern neighbors in the Song Dynasty.And this Dengzhou is naturally the most popular place in the Song Dynasty to vilify the Jurchen rumors.

It was in such a place that Dengzhou Tongpan Zongze formed his perception of the Jurchen. Coupled with the Confucian culture's tradition of respecting China and derogating barbarians and Di, Zongze unconsciously developed a feeling for the newly born Kingdom of Jin and the Jurchen. A kind of defensive hostility.

Talking about the situation in the north, the three people sitting in Zongze's house now have their own thoughts.What Ma Kuo thought about was the safety of his father's mission to the Kingdom of Jin and whether he would be able to make achievements in the affairs of Jin and Liao in the future.Zong Ze was planning in his heart that for the sake of the country's safety, he would write a letter to speak out and remonstrate, and he would not hesitate to offend Long Yan.Ximen Qing, on the other hand, was thinking about how to face the raging Jin people in the next few years.And whether you can use the Jinliao battle in the past few years to make some articles out of it.

The three people who had their own concerns quickly put the Jinliao matter behind them, and talked about some anecdotes and anecdotes in the Song Dynasty, sweeping away the oppressive and serious atmosphere of the dinner just now.

Taking this opportunity, Ximenqing clearly stated to Zongze that he had taken a fancy to Mao Taigong Manor and the surrounding land, and was going to invest manpower and financial resources to redevelop that haunted land, and also contribute to the prosperity of Dengzhou.Because Taigong Mao's family was wiped out by Sun Li and other robbers, it became a land without an owner, so Zongze, the general judge and Wang Zhifu, should be more careful about this matter.

In fact, Ximenqing already knew from Ma Kuo that Zong Ze, who was diligent in government and caring for the people, served as the general judge of Dengzhou, and shouldered the burden of civil affairs, and managed Dengzhou in an orderly manner for Wang Zhifu.Just as the prefect of Cai Jiu in Jiangzhou obeyed Huang Wenbing's words, the prefect of Dengzhou, Wang Shizhong, also respected and loved Zongze, and listened to Zongze's opinions on everything.

Sun Li and others rioted in Dengzhou, massacred hundreds of people, and left a large amount of land in Mao Taigong's manor and surrounding lands.

As long as the Mao Taigong Manor is still deserted and the legend of the haunted is still spreading among the villagers, the people will never forget that it was under the rule of Wang Zhifu and Zong Tongpan that such a large military officer's rebellion and massacre took place tragedy of the people.As long as the common people are still discussing this matter, the guilt in their hearts will not be appeased.The damage caused by the Sun Li incident to the prestige of the imperial court has never been eliminated in Dengzhou, and it may even spread farther and more bizarrely as time goes on.

Because of this concern, whether it is the magistrate Wang Shizhong or Tongpan Zongze, they all hope that someone can develop the fertile land around Mao Taigong's manor as soon as possible and reorganize Mao Taigong's manor.Only in this way can the common people gradually forget the tragedies that happened here in the past and restore the prestige of the Dengzhou government.

It's a pity that the local people in Dengzhou were frightened by the tragedy and the haunted legends, and their hearts were full of taboos. How could they dare to think about Mao Taigong's manor?Now Ximen Qing, a big family from out of town, doesn't believe in evil, and wants to take over Mao Taigong's manor to relieve the Dengzhou government's worries. Is there any reason why Zong Ze and the magistrate Wang Shizhong disagree?

Zong Ze and Ximen Qing hit it off on this matter. He immediately expressed his support for Ximen Qing to come to Dengzhou to reclaim the farm, and said that the prefect Wang would be happy to see the success.However, Zong Ze also reminded Ximen Qing that although he is a newborn calf and is not afraid of tigers, he does not know that the manor is haunted by the villagers.

Ximen Qing laughed and said to Zongze: "Don't worry about the judge. I also learned Taoism in Taishan, and I am not afraid of those demons and heretics. And I have already made up my mind, so that the people of Dengzhou will no longer be afraid of Mr. Mao. The manor is haunted by ghosts."

"Hahaha~Since the official Ximen said so, the old man will have no worries." Zong Ze followed Ximen Qing with a smile.

"Teacher, you are too worried this time! The whole manor of Taigong Mao was killed by robbers led by Sun Li. Brother Ximen captured and killed Sun Li and others, but he wanted to avenge Taigong Mao's family and the villagers in the village." I'm so angry. I'm afraid that those souls will not be able to repay their kindness, so how could they come to harm Brother Ximen?" Ma Kuo also joked.

Although it is said that "zi does not talk about strange powers and gods", Ma Kuo is more a warrior than a literati. Zong Ze also practiced martial arts and traveled all over the world. In addition, Shandong is an area with a large influence of Taoism, so the two and Ximen Qing talked about ghosts in a serious manner, without any taboos like other Confucian scholars.

With Zongze's permission, Ximenqing knew that he could pick up a large piece of land in Dengzhou for free, and he has since then flexed his muscles.Just now, Ma Kuo's words also reminded Ximen Qing that he could use his prestige in capturing and killing Sun Li's gang of robbers to better recruit his men among the common people in Dengzhou.Those villagers whose relatives were killed by Sun Li and others will definitely become his first supporters and regroup to his new manor.

While Ximen Qing was drinking with Zong Ze and Ma Kuo, and he was full of ambitions, suddenly someone from Ma Kuo's house came to look for Ma Kuo and brought him unexpected news: Ma Kuo's father was a soldier in Dengzhou. Zheng returned safely from the distant Kingdom of Jin, and has already entered the city!

Upon hearing the news of his father's return, Ma Kuo immediately stood up, bid farewell to his teacher Zong Ze, and wanted to go back home to reunite with his father.