The Battle of the Gaoliang River was a battle that had a very far-reaching impact on the Song Dynasty. After pacifying the Northern Han Dynasty, Emperor Taizong of Song led an army of 300,000 Song Dynasties to the east without rest or preparation, trying to recover the "Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun" occupied by the Liao State in one fell swoop. However, the result was that Song Taizong made many serious mistakes on the battlefield, resulting in the Song army being completely defeated by the Liao army with overwhelming superiority in troops. The "Battle of Gaoliang River" greatly damaged the morale of the Song army, and many Song dynasty people even had the idea that the Liao army was invincible. After this battle, the offensive and defensive positions of the Song and Liao countries were completely reversed, and the Song Dynasty was forced to change from a strategic offensive to a strategic defense.
The Battle of the Gaoliang River had more impact on the Song Dynasty than just in military and diplomatic terms. In fact, great changes also occurred within the upper echelons of the Song Dynasty after this battle, the most obvious of which was the top three heirs of Song Taizong, they were: Zhao Tingmei, Zhao Dezhao, and Zhao Defang.
In 976, Zhao Kuangyin, the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty, died mysteriously in the palace. As is customary, it is natural for a father to die and a son to succeed. Since Zhao Kuangyin was dead, the throne should be inherited by one of his two surviving sons, Zhao Dezhao or Zhao Defang. However, at this time, a puzzling thing happened, Zhao Kuangyin's third brother Zhao Guangyi suddenly announced that he was the emperor of the emperor's will.
This matter caused an uproar at the time, although everyone was afraid of Zhao Guangyi's power and did not dare to openly express his position, but privately felt that the throne was too strange to pass on. Zhao Guangyi himself also found it difficult to convince the public, so he threw out the "Alliance of the Golden Dagger", which basically meant that Empress Du (Zhao Kuangyin, Zhao Guangyi, and Zhao Tingmei's biological mother) asked Zhao Kuangyin to promise to pass the throne to his third brother Zhao Guangyi after a hundred years, and Zhao Guangyi would pass the throne to his fourth brother Zhao Tingmei after a hundred years, and after Zhao Tingmei's death, the throne would be passed back to Zhao Kuangyin's son Zhao Dezhao, and then Zhao Defang. Therefore, according to the agreement of the "Alliance of The Golden Lords", Zhao Tingmei, Zhao Dezhao, and Zhao Defang became the top three heirs of Emperor Taizong of Song and Zhao Guangyi, and Song Taizong's own sons could only rank after these three.
A few years before Song Taizong ascended to the emperor's throne, the relationship between the brothers and nephews of the Zhao family was harmonious, and the mysterious death of Emperor Taizu and the mysterious mystery of the succession were gradually forgotten. However, the Battle of the Gaoliang River, which took place in 979 AD, had a great impact on the political situation of the Song Dynasty.
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the "Battle of Gaoliang River" ended in a crushing defeat for the Song army, and Song Taizong himself was shot twice in the buttocks while escaping, and once lost contact with the army. At that time, most people thought that Emperor Taizong should have been martyred, so they proposed to appoint Zhao Dezhao as emperor. However, Song Taizong was soon found, and the matter of supporting Zhao Dezhao was naturally invalidated, but this matter left a large shadow in Song Taizong's heart.
Song Taizong threw out the "alliance of the Golden Plateau" in order to stabilize his rule, and did not really want to regard Zhao Tingmei, Zhao Dezhao, and Zhao Defang as his heirs. Song Taizong was only 37 years old when he ascended the throne, and he thought that he had time to slowly change the ranking of the heirs to the throne, so he was not eager to blackmail his brothers and nephews, so as not to make the world think that he was "too ugly to eat". However, after the "Battle of the Gaoliang River", his outlook on life changed dramatically. First of all, after the Song Dynasty experienced an unprecedented defeat, his personal prestige dropped sharply; secondly, after being hit by two arrows, he also felt the impermanence of life. Therefore, he believed that changes must be made as soon as possible on the issue of the heir to the imperial throne, otherwise it was very likely that something like the previous minister's proposal to support Zhao Dezhao as emperor would happen. As a result, the relationship between the Zhao brothers and nephews soon took a one hundred and eighty-degree turn.
The first unlucky one was Zhao Dezhao, the king of Wugong County, who was shouted by the ministers to be proclaimed emperor after the "Battle of Gaoliang River". Soon after Emperor Taizong of Song returned to the dynasty, Zhao Dezhao still came to him to discuss things as usual, and the topic was to reward the performance of the Song generals in the Battle of the Northern Han Dynasty, but Song Taizong angrily rebuked in public: "Wait for Ru to do it for yourself, and it is not too late to reward him." (When you become emperor yourself, it is not too late to reward you).) Zhao Dezhao returned to his home and killed himself after being reprimanded. Judging from the records of the history books alone, some people may feel that Zhao Dezhao has a "glass heart" and is scolded like this to go home and commit suicide. But considering Zhao Dezhao's identity and the situation he was facing at that time, if it were not for the helpless situation, how could he easily choose to commit suicide?
The second unlucky one was Zhao Kuangyin's last son, Zhao Defang. Regarding Zhao Defang's death, there are only three words recorded in the history books: Bed disease. The condition is unknown, the process is unknown, and the only thing that can be clear is that Zhao Defang was only 22 years old at the time of his death (982 AD).
The third unlucky one was Zhao Tingmei, the King of Wei. In the same year of Zhao Defang's death, Zhao Tingmei was involved in an inexplicable usurpation plot and was ordered by Emperor Taizong of Song to be sent to Xijing (present-day Luoyang) as a retainer. Soon after, Emperor Taizong of Song stripped Zhao Tingmei of all his official positions on the grounds that he did not regret it, and ordered his family to move to Fangzhou. In 984, Zhao Tingmei died in anger in Fangzhou at the age of 38.
At this point, Emperor Taizong of Song finally achieved his goal of firmly holding the imperial throne of the Great Song Dynasty in the hands of his descendants. However, what he could not imagine in any way was that more than a hundred years later, the Jin army captured kaifeng, the northern Capital Division, and the descendants of Emperor Taizong of Song became prisoners of the Jin army, leaving only one Kang king Zhao Zhuo (Song Gaozong) to flee to the south to establish the Southern Song Dynasty. Zhao Had no heirs, so he passed the throne to his adopted son Zhao Xuan (宋孝宗). Zhao Yun is the sixth grandson of Zhao Defang, after more than a hundred years of tossing, the throne of the Great Song Dynasty has returned to the Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin, which really verified a sentence: Heavenly Dao is good reincarnation, who has the heavens spared!
References: History of the Song Dynasty, General Guide to the Continuation of Zizhi