An Achilles heel of the Khitan army limited the Liao Dynasty's outward expansion

Among the foreign dynasties that rose in northern China, if the value of force is simply compared, the Liao Dynasty created by the Khitans must be ranked relatively low, and there are many examples that can explain the problem, for example, Yelü Abaoji had many battles with the Shatuo people who occupied Shanxi at the beginning of the establishment of the dynasty, and almost never took advantage, Liao Taizong once occupied Kaifeng, and after being threatened by the army led by Liu Zhiyuan of shatuo, he had to retreat.

However, the jin and Yuan dynasties, which also rose in the north, were significantly higher in terms of force, with the former successfully advancing its territory south of the Yellow River and achieving a metamorphosis from a border regime to the Central Plains Dynasty, while the latter went further and became the first foreign dynasty in history to unify all of China.

So why was the Liao Dynasty's force value so low? The author believes that the fundamental reason for the low force value of the Liao Dynasty is that the Khitan army has a fatal weakness - the ability to attack the stronghold is weak!

As we all know, the backbone of the Central Plains Dynasty, the Han people, and the vast majority of the Han people are settled agricultural population, in the face of nomadic invasion, due to the difference in the mobility of the army, the former is the initiative to attack, so the Central Plains Dynasty basically adopts a defensive counterattack strategy. Usually in the border area to build fortresses and outposts, with a small number of troops, to form a first line of defense, used to warn and delay the enemy attack, later positions are the second line of defense, are key fortified cities, the fortress is high and deep and the heavy troops are dense, is the place of decisive battle.

The nomadic cavalry is the mainstay, and with the concentration of superior forces, the border defense line can mostly be easily broken, but when the defenders who have received the alarm and won the time to complete the two key tasks of gathering troops and stockpiling supplies are holding on to the city to consume the enemy army, the real test of the nomadic army begins - how to break through the fortified city?

Let's take a look at the Khitan army's performance in the face of Jiancheng from the various conquests at the beginning of the Liao Dynasty.

In 917, Yelü Abaoji personally led the Khitan elite to invade Hebei, broke into the border and successfully arrived at the city of Youzhou, after the attack was fruitless, it was changed to a long siege, the result was that for more than 200 days it failed to break through the city, and finally, the Later Tang general Li Siyuan led the army to help, and the defenders attacked inside and outside, defeating it.

In 944, Emperor Taizong of Liao sent troops to attack Houjin in the south, which lasted for three years without achieving a decisive breakthrough, and most of the strategic shanxi area was firmly in the hands of the Shatuo people, and finally relied on the surrender of the Later Jin commander Du Chongwei to break the deadlock and enter the capital Kaifeng without encountering any resistance.

In 992, the Liao Dynasty sent an army of 800,000 people across the border and encroached on a large area of Goryeo territory, but when it arrived at the Cheongcheon River defense line, which had been predetermined by the Goryeo army, which had preset a strong fortress, it could no longer break through, and the war fell into a state of stalemate, and finally had to end with peace talks.

After the rise of later Zhou, he took the initiative to attack the Khitan and captured Mozhou and Yingzhou, the southernmost part of the "Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures", and sent troops to hold on, which was equivalent to the Liao Dynasty, which was equivalent to a fish in the throat, so it continuously sent troops to invade, hoping to retake it, however, until the signing of the "Alliance of Yuanyuan" with the Northern Song Dynasty, it never succeeded.

In fact, although the Khitan army had a higher chance of victory in the confrontation with the Song army, it was almost always in the field battle, and in the battle, the number of defeats accounted for the majority, and the reason why the Liao Emperor was willing to negotiate peace with the Song Dynasty at Liaoyuan on the yellow river was because the Khitan army directly bypassed those fortified cities, such as Dingzhou and Yingzhou, although deep into the territory of the Song Dynasty, but trapped in the narrow strip surrounded by the Song army from east to west, facing the danger of being cut off from retreat.

As a nomadic army, the absolute main force of its army was naturally cavalry good at field warfare, but when faced with a strong fortified city, it had to rely on a large number of infantry and siege equipment such as punching carts, ladders, building carts, catapults, etc., the former requiring a large number of Han people, the latter requiring skilled craftsmen, both of which could only be selected from the Han people in the southern Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures of the Liao Dynasty and the former Bohai State in the east.

However, the Liao Dynasty faced two dilemmas: 1. The absolute number of Han people was insufficient to recruit a sufficient number of infantry and craftsmen. Yanyun Sixteen Prefecture was originally sparsely populated, and it was a place where many ethnic groups lived, and the Han people were not many, plus they were on the front line of the war between the two countries, they were repeatedly ravaged, and those who escaped to death were left, and there were very few left; 2, the Han people's taxes were too heavy, they were dissatisfied, and there was no initiative and enthusiasm. Although the Khitan people are the main ethnic group of the Liao Dynasty, the living habits and customs of the nomadic people determine that it is impossible to collect much tax, and the government's income can only rely on squeezing the settled agricultural population, that is, the Han people in Nanjing Province, plus the Liao Dynasty's endless conquest of foreign countries, the weight of the tax can be imagined, and the Han people in the territory are naturally separated from Germany.

Without the active participation of a large number of Han Democrats, the Khitan army could not improve its ability to attack strong points, and the expansion of a dynasty would certainly not be successful by relying only on cavalry field battles.

In fact, 90% of the entire territory of the Liao Dynasty was laid down during the Yelü Abaoji era, and except for the Bohai State, it was basically a grassland desert, and the "Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures" obtained by its descendants were sent by Shi Jingyao, not by their own ability. It can even be said that the history of the Liao Dynasty's external expansion is actually a history of encountering walls everywhere and repeatedly being frustrated, so that when confronting the Northern Song Dynasty, even Mozhou and Yingzhou, the southernmost point of the "Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures", could not be taken back, and they became from sixteen states to fourteen states, and its ability to attack the stronghold was weak, which can be seen!