The Song Dynasty is an unbearable existence in the mouths of historians, but it is a great existence in the mouths of many netizens, no matter what the starting point of the two, we must admit that the Song Dynasty is the weakest military strength in Chinese history, and it is weak both inside and outside, and the Northern Song Dynasty only has a northwest army on the Song and Xia fronts that can withstand a war, and the Northwest Frontier Army must also undertake the dual tasks of fighting the border and counterinsurging.
The Nong Zhigao Rebellion is a famous rebellion in the history of the Northern Song Dynasty, and in fact, it is debatable whether Nong Zhigao belongs to the Northern Song Dynasty or not. Nong Zhigao, like many tribal chiefs who lived in the mountains or in the areas that could not be governed by the Central Plains at that time, were actually the kings of that region, but in order to resist external troubles or to avoid the blows of the Central Plains Dynasty, they mostly paid tribute to the Central Plains Dynasty and accepted their official positions.
The areas where this system was practiced in China's history were mainly the vast mountainous plateaus in the south, and over time this simple nominal management has gradually shifted to direct management. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the song's narrow territory was mostly directly administered areas, and only in the Lingnan region, these powerful local tycoons like Nong Zhigao still existed, but they must also rely on the central government to deal with their relations with the surrounding forces, and the main reason why Nong Zhigao relied on the Song Dynasty was to oppose the local government of Vietnam, Annam.
In fact, Nong Zhigao, who lived in Guangxi, did not want to rebel, after all, compared to the Song Dynasty's own strength, it was too weak, relying on a song dynasty edict to easily quell the struggle with Annan. Therefore, at the beginning, Nong Zhigao had great expectations for the Song Dynasty, but the Song Dynasty refused Nong Zhigao's request out of fear of war, and the Song Dynasty did not want to fight for a Nong Zhigao in the tropical hell of Vietnam, even if this risk was minimal, it was not something that the Song Dynasty could consider. At this point, Nong Zhigao must consider seizing the two expanded territories to make himself against Annam in the south and the Song Dynasty in the north.
Although Guangdong and Guangxi both carry a Cantonese character, they are two different worlds. Guangxi's 100,000 Mountains are the hometown of ethnic minorities and the base camp of Nong Zhigao, while Guangdong has long been the centralized land of the Central Plains Dynasty because of the developed trade with the outside world in the Guangzhou area and the flat and rich Pearl River Sanjiangzhou.
The two are located in the same Lingnan, one in the east and one in the west, with very different environments and very different demographic compositions. Guangdong is subject to the geopolitical repression of Guangxi, but it is far richer than Guangxi. Nong Zhigao knew that he must quickly take the Guangdong region after taking the whole territory of Guangxi and win a source of wealth for himself, only in this way could he win the possibility of dividing Lingnan.
In 1052 AD, Nong Zhigao, who was refused the official title by the Song Dynasty, rebelled against the Song Dynasty, and the Song Dynasty garrison in Nanning, Guangxi, was not an opponent of Nong Zhigao at all, and the 100,000 mountains were taken down by Nong Zhigao almost effortlessly, and he claimed to be the King of Great Nan and attacked the capital of Guangdong, Guangzhou, down the river. The Song army along the way was not an opponent of Nong Zhigao, and many cities along the river could not organize strong resistance at all. In May, Nong Zhigao besieged the city of Guangzhou, and the situation in Lingnan was critical.
Thousands of miles away in Kaifeng Province, the Song Dynasty began to suppress Nong Zhigao after learning of Nong Zhigao's rebellion, which adopted the nearby conscription and the use of the old counter-rebellion routine of the literati. The long distance made the Song Dynasty's action slow, and now the city of Guangzhou was on its own.
The city of Guangzhou began to make defensive preparations when Nong Zhigao first showed his antipathy, and although Nong Zhigao's army was brave, they were all barbarians with no siege experience, and the tall city of Guangzhou was simply not something they could break through. The siege of more than fifty days caused Nong Zhigao's army to be dragged to the Guangzhou area, which bought time for the Song army to assemble, and Nong Zhigao began to develop fear in the face of the Song army that kept arriving, and he knew that his rebellion road ended here, and the next thing was to escape.
Nong Zhigao's army began to flee to guangxi's own hometown, along the way Nong Zhigao's army avoided the Song army camp and did not fight with it, and single-mindedly marched towards Guangxi, and soon the Song army and Nong Zhigao's army encountered the Baitian area, and the field battles between the two sides exposed the huge problem of the Song army - the weak combat effectiveness. The commander of the Song army could only rely on the courage of the pioneers to lead the troops to fight, and as a result, they were killed in the battle, and this blocking force was completely annihilated by Nong Zhigao.
When Song Renzong learned of the battle, he immediately thought of the Northwest Frontier Army, the most powerful fighting force of the Song Army. He immediately ordered the northwest frontier army to march to Lingnan, and the elite Song army began a march of ten thousand miles relying on the roads in the territory of the Great Song. Song Renzong understood that it was not enough to have good soldiers, but also to have a strong commander, who could undoubtedly only be Di Qing, the general of the Northwest Frontier Army, the most powerful general of the Northern Song Dynasty. At that time, the army of the Northern Song Dynasty was repeatedly defeated by the Western Xia, but the Dangxiang people were afraid of Di Qing like a tiger, and when Di Qing fought with the Western Xia, he often wore a shawl and a copper mask to break through the enemy army, and the Western Xia army was invincible, and no one dared to stop it. It was precisely because of his outstanding military achievements that Di Qing had already paid homage to the Privy Councillor at this time, which was a miracle for the soldiers who came from the army.
However, the idea of not giving Di Qing a deputy made the Manchu Dynasty Wenwu embarrassed, and finally under the care of the old governor Pang, Di Qing was able to lightly pack and unify the generals to quell the rebellion.
At the same time as the military strategy was the economic and political strategy of the Song Dynasty, the Great Song sent commissioners to repair the cities destroyed by Nong Zhigao, all those who were destroyed by the war could be exempted from taxes, and the Song Dynasty also imposed an economic blockade on Nong Zhigao's hometown, stabilizing the chaotic situation in the Liangguang area and preventing the two Guangzhous from falling into war again.
After Di Qing arrived on the battlefield, he began to rectify the discipline of the army, and after several times, the discipline of the Song army was standardized, and the combat effectiveness was strengthened. After that, the Song army began military operations against Nong Zhigao. Nong Zhigao's rebels occupied Nanning for two years and had a strong control over Kunlun Pass, an extremely critical fortress in Nanning, especially the towering Kunlun Pass, which was the biggest problem for the Song army to advance.
Faced with this situation, Di Qing first ordered the large army not to make an offensive posture to paralyze Nong Zhigao, and then the army marched in a day to reach Kunlun Pass. Di Qing led the vanguard troops across the Kunlun Pass that night, and Nong Zhigao's greatest life-saving battle was easily taken by Di Qing, and Nong Zhigao had to lead his troops to a decisive battle with the Song army.
Nong Zhigao divided the army into three arrays against the Song army, and the Song army was also divided into three parts to fight against the enemy army. At the beginning of the battle, the general of the Song army on the right road was killed on the battlefield, and the general of the Song army on the left road did not wait for Di Qing to lead the army to seize the commanding heights and attacked the Nong ZhiGao army, under his impact, the nong zhi gao army was divided into two parts, Di Qing immediately ordered the party cavalry who was good at mountain warfare to attack, the cavalry surrounded the enemy, and then began to attack the enemy army non-stop. Where had Nong Zhigao's army seen such a terrible cavalry unit, and the army was defeated under the impact, so Di Qing recaptured Nanning and solved the Nong Zhigao rebellion that threatened the land of Lingnan.
The author of this article: Tunken West Road, the public account "This is the war" to join the author, without the author himself and the WeChat public account "this is the war" permission, may not be reproduced, violators will be investigated for legal responsibility.
About the author of the public account: Wang Zhengxing, a former officer of a field unit of the People's Liberation Army, has served in infantry detachments, headquarters, logistics departments and other units, is committed to the study of war history and tactics, and has a unique understanding of military tactics and non-war operations. His book "This is War" was recommended in two issues in May and June 2014 by Phoenix TV's "Eight Minutes of Open Volume" column. His public account name is also "This is war", welcome to pay attention.