There is a very interesting phenomenon in the "Water Margin", the leaders Song Jiang and Lu Junyi both went to Liangshan twice: Song Jiang's first trip to Liangshan was to send Jiangzhou to Liangshan, and Lu Junyi's first trip to Liangshan was to go to Taishan on the way to Shangxiang, and both of them went down Liangshan because of their loyalty to the imperial court. The second time they went to Liangshan, they were officially sentenced to death and rescued by force. In addition, Yang Zhi also had the experience of going to Liangshan twice, is this a sign that Yang Zhi is the leader of Liangshan after Song Jiang and Lu Junyi? Yang Zhi in "Water Margin" is one of the characters that the author focuses on describing, and stories such as "Yang Zhi Selling Knives", "Escorting the Birth Anniversary", and "Outsmarting Erlongshan" are popular among the population. So, is there really Yang Zhiqi in history, and is he really Song Jiang's successor?
■ In history, Yang Zhi did have his own people
Historically, Yang Zhi was really the last leader of liangshan's army, and he led the remnants of Liangshan's army to resist the Jin state and sacrificed himself in the first line of resistance to Jin.
The story of Song Jiang and thirty-six other people "rampaging through Heshuo" has been recorded in many ancient books, and only a few of these people, such as Song Jiang, Yang Zhi, and Shi Bin (the prototype of Shi Jin), are real figures in history, and other characters can hardly be found in the "History of Song". The historical Yang Zhi and Yang Zhi in the "Water Margin" have many similar experiences, he was not only a thief during the Northern Song Dynasty Xuanhe, but also accompanied song Jiang by the imperial court, and more importantly, he also fought in the War against the Jin Dynasty and was praised by the imperial court.
After the Liangshan army was recruited, whether Song Jiang went to fight the Fang la rebel army was debated in the historical circles, and most historians believed that Song Jiang was more likely to go out to fang la.
According to books such as the Compilation of the Northern League of the Three Dynasties, after Song Jiang was recruited, he accompanied Tong Guan to conquest Fang La, and Song Jiang's identity at that time was a general, and the generals who fought with him included Liu Yanqing, Liu Guangshi and others. However, after the triumph of The Conquest of Fangla, Song Jiang did not grant wu de the title of doctor and pacify the envoy of Chu Prefecture as written in the "Water Margin", but disappeared from the historical records, and it is estimated that the imperial court had some scruples about it.
The imperial court could not tolerate Song Jiang leading the Liangshan army, which did not mean that the Liangshan army was gone, but only a "leader".
The 200,000-strong army under the command of Tong Guan was originally allied with the Jin State and prepared to attack the Liao State, but due to Fang La's rebellion, it was urgently used in the southeast battlefield. After the Jin State destroyed the Liao State, instead of fulfilling the Song-Jin contract, it attacked the Song State, and Tong Guan led the original team of people who conquered Fang La to the front line of anti-Jin. The Compilation of the Northern League of the Three Dynasties records: "In May of the fourth year of Xuanhe, Tong Guan went to Hejian Province, and divided the Guangxin Army of Xiongzhou into east-west roads. From this record, it can be seen that the generals led by Tong Guan were mostly the same as the generals who attacked Fang La a year earlier, but song Jiang was replaced by Yang Zhi. Yang Zhi was already the new commander of the Liangshan army after Zhao'an.
■ Yang Zhi repeatedly made military achievements and became the leader of the remnants of Liangshan
There are reasons why Yang Zhi became the new leader of Liangshan, first, in the "Water Margin" can be seen Yang Zhi's ability to unify the army, and the actual commander on Erlong Mountain is Yang Zhi; the second reason is that Yang Zhi is a descendant of Yang Linggong, and Yang Linggong is a famous general who resisted the Liao, making it easier for the descendants of meritorious heroes to serve as generals of the remnants of Liangshan's army; the third reason is that the imperial court is not at ease with the rebellious Song Jiang.
Yang Zhi followed Tong Guan to recover Yanjing, and Tong Guan was made the King of Guangyang County. In the first year of Jing Kang, the imperial court ordered the deputy envoy OfheDonglu in Hebei Province to lead the troops to relieve the siege of Taiyuan, and Yang Zhi went to the battle with the seed division. Due to the paralysis of the light enemy in the breeding division, he was suddenly attacked by the Jin people. Coupled with the failure to honor the rewards in time for the meritorious soldiers, this group of militiamen who would make the crossbows dissipate in anger, so that the soldiers in the breeding division were defeated and killed.
Yang Zhi's identity at that time was "Wu JieLang", he first recovered Yuci and other counties with the breeding division, and in the case of the defeat of the soldiers in the breeding division, he also retreated with the army. But his retreat was not greedy for life and afraid of death, but a flexible decision made after judging the situation on the battlefield. Later, under the condition of "the generals scattered", he "collected the remnants of the army alone and kept the ground at peace", and "repeatedly made meritorious contributions to kill and repel the enemy horses". His achievements were reported by Liu Yun, Wang Yan and others, as well as praised by Li Gang, and Emperor Qinzong gladly ordered a reward for the promotion of officials to the next level.
Subsequently, the situation in the Northern Song Dynasty took a sharp turn, and the Jin army invaded the south in two ways, east and west. The Western Route Army attacked Taiyuan and crossed the river with victory; the Eastern Route Army captured Zhending. The two route armies besieged Kaifeng, and on November 25, the city of Kaifeng was destroyed. In March of the second year of Jing Kang (1127), Emperor Hui and Emperor Qin were exiled to the north, and the Northern Song Dynasty perished in a series of routs. The generals who fought alongside Yang Zhi all lost the battle, and even Li Gang was dismissed, and It became inevitable that Yang Zhi's deeds would be obscured. For Yang Zhi's ending, it is not mentioned in the list of generals in the history books, if a general of Yang Zhi's level surrenders to the Jin Kingdom, there should be a record, and the generals who retreated south do not have Yang Zhi's name, and Yang Zhi's way out is only one, that is, to sacrifice his body to the battlefield, and the Liangshan army he led will not surrender. The remnants of the good men of Liangshan defended their "loyalty" with their last drop of blood and defended the dignity of the nation.