"The black clouds are crushing the city, and the light is opening up to the golden scales of the sun." - "Wild Goose Gate Too Guarded"
In ancient China, in order to compete for territory or overthrow a regime, it was indispensable to fight each other. If the enemy army is like a black cloud pressing down on the city, there are few generals on the defense who will not be frightened, which is the horror of the tactics of the sea of people.
In order to adapt to various war situations, the ancients created military books such as "Sun Tzu's Art of War", which made ancient wars unpredictable, and when it comes to dynastic overthrow wars, it is impossible to skip the Northern Song Dynasty and destroy the Southern Tang. The historical record of this war is very detailed, in general, it is a crushing war, how cruel is it?
The Northern Song Dynasty
The founding emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty was Zhao Kuangyin, who had a life of upheaval and displacement, but he was extremely good at drawing experience from the life under the fence and successively threw himself into the Later Han Dynasty and the Northern Zhou Dynasty. If you want to talk about family lineage, Zhao Kuangyin's ancestors still have some origins with Zhou Tianzi, and the generations have been shaded, and Zhao Kuangyin can also be regarded as having some lessons from the past.
At the beginning, Zhao Kuangyin threw himself under general Guo Wei of the Later Han Dynasty and became a small commander under his account, and then often led the army to fight all the way and was invincible, and the battles he fought were rarely defeated, so it was also rumored that Zhao Kuangyin was "the first in the world of martial arts", but those were all afterwords.
Guo Wei then grew bigger and bigger, and soon broke away from the control of the Later Han rulers, turning around and establishing the Northern Zhou, Zhao Kuangyin was loyal for many years, of course, he also gave the title of a great general, and then the famous Chen Qiao Mutiny, Zhao Kuangyin used the Northern Song Dynasty Zhou to establish another Han kingdom between the Western Xia, Liao, Southern Tang and other states.
I have to say that Zhao Kuangyin still has a certain strategic mind, he is well aware that the ethnic minorities in this period are difficult to defeat, so he set his sights on the south of China, after all, it is always necessary to integrate the forces of his own nation first, so as to unify the countries in the north and the west.
First of all, in terms of diplomacy, in order to avoid the embarrassment of being attacked by the enemy on his belly, Song Taizu must first find a way to eliminate the pressure in the rear, that is, Western Xia and Liao. At this time, Song Taizu could no longer dispatch too many troops to the rear. Therefore, he found another way, choosing to use a comfortable intermarriage method to seal the back road, so that he did not need to fight on two fronts, and more importantly, he had nowhere to move the rescue troops in the Southern Tang.
In terms of military, although the Northern Song Dynasty occupied a large advantage in terms of troop strength, there was also a large Yangtze River in front of the Song army, and it was difficult to complete a perfect impact without sailors, so Song Taizu ordered the training of sailors immediately, and frequently went to the river to inspect to ensure that the sailors could be trained before the expedition.
Everything was ready, only for Nan Tang to fall into the pit himself.
The decadent Southern Tang Dynasty
In the face of the menacing Northern Song army, how did the Southern Tang react? It is not so much the unremitting efforts of people to protect their beloved things, but rather the stress of the Southern Tang rulers when they encounter difficulties, which is a typical "temporary clinging to the Buddha's feet".
The morale of the Northern Song Dynasty was high, but what about the Southern Tang Dynasty?
As a defensive side, the Southern Tang must be extremely defensive, otherwise it is easy to fall and scatter with a little wind and grass, but unfortunately, the Southern Tang has announced its surrender before the Northern Song Dynasty announced the attack, and more accurately, the Southern Tang had already given up the most favorable defensive terrain - the Huai River before the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty.
During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, the Southern Tang Dynasty was originally a big country sitting on the two river basins of the Jianghuai River, as long as it held on to the Yangtze River basin of the Huai River Basin, the northern army could only attack hard and did not necessarily have good fruit to eat, but it happened that the Southern Tang took the initiative to abandon the Huai River Basin in order to protect the strength of the moment, and the lips were cold, and the Yangtze River without the Huai River as a guarantee was like a slightly wider river.
The most direct impact of giving up the Huai River Basin was the reduction of the territory of the Southern Tang, and the embarrassing thing was that once the Southern Tang chose to give up, then there would be no possibility of taking back the northern territory, and if they insisted on expanding their territory, they could only develop to the east and south, and at this time, Wu Yueguo was like a tumor growing on the neck of the Southern Tang.
In addition, the national style of the Southern Tang Dynasty has long been not as inclusive as before, but has irreversibly turned to the prevailing state of literary style, which is not false, and is not Li Yu, the lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty, the best representative of this phenomenon? How could a country that abandoned its car to protect its commander and did not want to forge ahead in a quiet corner could withstand the attack of the Northern Song Dynasty army?
Maybe there is, that is, to refer to the experience of the Battle of Guandu of the Three Kingdoms, the Battle of Chibi, etc. to win more with less. Create a battle of miracles that win tactically.
The Yangtze River is empty, the art of war is false, and strength is the last word
As mentioned earlier, the Southern Tang had already lost half of the tactics at the beginning of the war, losing without preemptive strikes. If the Southern Tang people had taken a long-term strategic vision, they should have united the Khitan and Western Xia countries a long time ago, and at this time, the Southern Tang still had a certain degree of legitimacy, but they lost the opportunity in vain.
The second mistake is still a long-standing mistake, that is, abandoning the HuaiHe Theater. Unless the Nantang people have absolute wisdom, the act of sending Huai He is suicide? Who can point out any topographical advantages of the Southern Tang other than the Yangtze River? There is almost none, not to mention that the Yangtze River is as difficult to cross as the Yellow River? No, as long as the other side has mature sailors.
In terms of reasons for the war, the Southern Tang Dynasty also did not effectively defend the Northern Song Dynasty. Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin, after claiming to be the only one in the world, ordered Li Yu to come to the hajj to see him, who knew that Li Yu did not come to the court on time, and was caught by the Song army. Song Taizu cleverly used the courtesy of the monarch to distinguish between the primary and secondary, and also found a reason to start a war.
In the Northern Song Dynasty's war against the Southern Tang, the Battle of Quarry Rock and the Battle of Qinhuai River were well-known, the former was Cao Bin leading sailors all the way south to rush to kill, but the Southern Tang Missed the opportunity to attack because of his carelessness, resulting in Cao Bin entering no man's land, defeating more than 20,000 Southern Tang troops in the Battle of Quarry Rock.
In the Battle of the Qinhuai River, cao bin and Pan Mei led various armies to rush away from the whole line, and destroyed the Southern Tang army in an instant with the momentum of overwhelming the sea.
If the American director Quentin had the privilege of witnessing the whole process of this war, he would have been ashamed of his violent aesthetic. In the end, wisdom cannot withstand strength.
brief summary
The Southern Tang dynasty survived for decades, and at least enjoyed a long period of peace, but "born in sorrow, died in comfort", the demise of the Southern Tang and the cowardice of the ruling class and the military inaction are inseparable, after all, Li Yu's generation is at most good at talking about literature on paper.
Although there have been many wars in history in which less wins more and the weak win the strong, but those are heroic events in the heroic era, what should happen will always happen, the fate of the Southern Tang is just like an ant, and the Northern Song Dynasty has long regarded itself as a hot pot, and it is bound to burn the Southern Tang with a high temperature of 10,000 degrees, and the Southern Tang only relies on the Yangtze River to save the fierce fire?
When is the spring flower and autumn moon, and the moment of destruction is finally over. Taking 10,000 steps back, it is not that the rulers of the Southern Tang Dynasty are not contentious, but that the opponents they are facing are too powerful, and at that time, Li Tang's reputation has already plummeted, and it is wishful thinking to want to win a place among the warlords under the banner of "KuangFu Han Room" like Liu Bei.
When the chronology of history acquiesced to Li Tang and then to The Zhao and Song Dynasties, it means that the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms no longer have the appeal to unify the whole country, and Zhao Kuangyin is like a dark horse, which has raised a banner in the Han army, and it is like a gushing flood that washes away other Han tribes.
From the many battles in history, it is not difficult to see that the Yangtze River is much different from the Yellow River, not enough to be called a natural graben, but just a slightly wider river. Therefore, the northern song dynasty destroyed the southern Tang dynasty was a naked massacre.
References: "Yanmen Taishou xing", "Zizhi Tongjian"
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