In the five-thousand-year history of China, there have been nearly 100 regimes, large and small, but only nine of them can be called a unified dynasty, and among these nine regimes, the Song Dynasty (Northern Song) is the most controversial. Many people believe that the Song Dynasty is not worthy of being called a unified dynasty at all, and this view is not unreasonable. First of all, the land area of the Song Dynasty was smaller than that of the Qin Dynasty; secondly, the Liao Dynasty in the north existed at the same time as the Song Dynasty; and finally, most importantly, the Song Dynasty failed to fully recover the homeland of the Central Plains.
On the northern border between the Song Dynasty and the Liao Dynasty, there was a strategic place known as "Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures", which had originally been the homeland of the Central Plains, but was given to the Khitan (Liao State) by Shi Jingyao, the "Child Emperor" of the Later Jin Dynasty, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. After the establishment of the Song Dynasty, it had gone to great lengths to take back the "Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun". Readers who know something about the history of the Song Dynasty must be more aware of this historical plot. However, the Homeland of the Central Plains that the Song Dynasty was not able to recover was not only the "Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun", but also another place of equal strategic importance, that is, the "Five Prefectures of Dingnan" located in the northwest direction of the Song Dynasty.
As the name suggests, the "Five Prefectures of Dingnan" consisted of five prefectures: Xia Prefecture (present-day Beibaichengzi, Jingbian County, Shaanxi), Suizhou (present-day Suide, Shaanxi), Jingzhou (present-day Dongdangcha Town, Hengshan County, Shaanxi), Youzhou (present-day Inner Mongolia's Otoke Qianqi Dong'ao Lezhao Ancient City), and Yinzhou (present-day Yulin, Shaanxi). At the end of the Tang Dynasty, when the world was in chaos, Tuoba Sigong, the leader of the Xiang clan of the Tang Dynasty, led his troops to assist the imperial court in defeating the peasant rebel army, and Tuoba Sigong was given the surname of Li (李思恭) for his military exploits, and was given the title of Duke of Xia, responsible for administering the five prefectures of Xia, Sui, Jing, You, and Yin. The army led by Li Sigong was given the name "Dingnan Army", so the area under his jurisdiction was also known as the "Dingnan Five Prefectures".
After the fall of the Tang Dynasty, China entered the "Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms" period. Li Sigong's descendants hereditaryly served as envoys to the Dingnan Army, and successively attached themselves to the five generations of various regimes. That is to say, the Tuoba Li clan was still under the control of the "Five Dynasties" dynasty that occupied the Central Plains at this time, which was fundamentally different from the divided regime of the Ten Southern Kingdoms.
After the establishment of the Song Dynasty, it gradually annexed various separatist regimes in the south. Because it belonged to the Song Dynasty in name, the "Dingnan Army" was not included in the compilation, and the Tuoba Li family still served as the envoy of the Nanjun Jiedushi.
In the seventh year of the Taiping Revival (982), the Dingnan Army made Li Jifeng go on a pilgrimage to Kaifeng Province, and expressed to Emperor Taizong of Song that he was willing to give up his hereditary territory "Dingnan Five Prefectures". Previously, although the "Five States of Dingnan" nominally belonged to the Song Dynasty, it was actually an independent kingdom of the Tuoba Li clan. Now that Li Jipeng has taken the initiative to give up and let the Great Song Dynasty Bai pick up this bargain, this kind of good thing is in the hands of anyone who is overjoyed. However, later history proved that this bargain was actually not so easy to take advantage of.
The fundamental reason why Li Jipeng took the initiative to abandon the "Five States of Dingnan" was that since he hereditary envoys of the Dingnan Army, he found that people's hearts were scattered and the team was not good. Many of the elders of the Party Clan were dissatisfied with this hairy boy who was less than twenty years old. Under all kinds of pressure, Li Jipeng finally chose to give up his ancestral inheritance and hug the thighs of the Song Dynasty and seek a path of glory and wealth. However, although Li Jipeng was nominally a commander of the Dingnan Army, his authority was simply not enough to subdue the people. Soon, his brother Li Jiqian joined the Xiang nobles on the road of rebellion against the rule of the Song Dynasty.
Under the circumstances at that time, if the Song Dynasty was likened to an elephant, then Li Jiqian's team could only be counted as a mouse at best. However, although the elephant is very large, it is not so easy to trample a rat to death. Since then, the guerrillas led by the Song Dynasty and Li Jiqian have waged a protracted war. During this period, the army of the Song Dynasty repeatedly beat Li Jiqian to the point of abandoning his armor, but Li Jiqian relied on a strong mass base and quickly brought out a new team after the total army was destroyed. On the Song Side, because it was a large army, it took a lot of manpower and financial resources to launch a war every time, and the result was completely more than worth the loss. In addition, Li Jiqian also found the Liao Dynasty as a patron, so that the Song Dynasty felt that it was a rat thrower, suffering from gain and loss.
After more than ten years of protracted warfare, the Song Dynasty was still unable to completely eliminate Li Jiqian's troops. Among them, there are not only the reasons for the command errors of the Song Dynasty, but more importantly, the continuous military intervention of the Liao Dynasty has plunged the Song Dynasty into a two-front battle situation. In 997, Emperor Taizong of Song died with great regret, and crown prince Zhao Heng succeeded to the throne for Emperor Zhenzong of Song.
Soon after Emperor Zhenzong of Song ascended the throne, he announced the end of military operations against Li Jiqian, and Li Jiqian also sensibly announced that he was willing to return to the arms of the Great Song. As a result, Emperor Zhenzong of Song formally appointed Li Jiqian as the envoy of Xia Prefecture (夏州刺史) and The Dingnan Army Jiedushi (定難軍節度) with jurisdiction over the five prefectures of Xia, Sui, Jing, You, and Yin. On the surface, Li Jiqian's submission seems to indicate that the Song Dynasty achieved the final victory, but in fact the Song Dynasty was forced to recognize Li Jiqian's control over the "Five Prefectures of Dingnan", and since then this area has no relationship with the Song Dynasty. In 1038, Li Jiqian's grandson Li Yuanhao called the founding of the empire and named the country "Great Xia", which was the famous Western Xia regime in history.
So, is Song Zhenzong, who took the initiative to cede territory as soon as he came to power, a fool? Not really. Since the outbreak of the war between the Song Dynasty and Li Jiqian, the Song Dynasty has invested countless human, material, and financial resources here, but the result is nothing. Song Zhenzong knew very well that with the situation at that time, it was already an impossible task to completely eliminate Li Jiqian, and the "Five States of Determination" was an extra-pleasant for the Song Dynasty and fundamental for Li Jiqian. Therefore, Li Jiqian will inevitably continue this war of attrition to the end. Instead of devoting all the limited resources of the Song Dynasty to this "bottomless pit", it is better to recognize Li Jiqian's legitimate status in exchange for the relative tranquility of the northwestern border. Because the Song Dynasty was about to face an enemy a hundred times stronger than Li Jiqian at this time, that is, the Liao Dynasty in the north.
As the saying goes, "no diamonds, no porcelain work", it is a wise move to actively choose to give up when you know that you can't complete it. Therefore, as far as the matter is concerned, Song Zhenzong's choice in this matter is not to blame, after all, as an emperor, the whole country is a big chess game, if you always stare at the corners and corners of the entanglement, then the result is likely to suffer from it. "Those who do not seek the overall situation are not enough to seek a domain" is the truth.
Reference: History of the Song Dynasty