In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Liao army often went south to invade the Song soil. The Song Dynasty sent troops to Liao twice, but both failed. At this time, some people within the ruling group had serious fear, and contradictions within the imperial family also loomed from time to time. This was followed by the defeat of the Western Xia War by the peasant Zhao Yi led by Wang Xiaobo and Li Shun, forcing Emperor Taizong of Song to reconsider his domestic and foreign policy adjustments.
In 991, Emperor Taizong of Song told his ministers: If the country has no external troubles, it must have internal troubles. External worries are just border defense matters, they can be prevented, only internal troubles are very terrible, as an emperor, you should focus your energy on this aspect, and you should be cautious at all times. Since then, a policy of "guarding the inside and outside" has been established. Under the guidance of this idea, a passive defense was taken against Liao. Therefore, on the Hebei Plain, some of the original waterways were repaired and connected, so that from the northwest of Baozhou (Zhengding, Hebei) in the west to the Nigu Haikou (near Tianjin) in the east, 900 miles east and west, embankments were built to store water as a barrier, so as to prevent the Liao army cavalry from going south, and the invasion of the Liao army was not allowed to take the initiative to send troops, but had no choice but to send troops, only to set up formations in the city, and not to kill each other in battle, which as a result restrained the hands and feet of the army.
Emperor Taizong of Song no longer regarded fighting against Liao as a top priority, and made internal prevention the focus of his policy.
Portrait of Emperor Taizong of Song
Emperor Taizong of Song, as one of the masterminds of the Chen Qiao Mutiny, himself came to power in the shadow of the axe and was extremely sensitive to internal coups. Because someone was ready to propose Zhao Dezhao when he could not find Emperor Taizong after the defeat of Youzhou, Zhao Dezhao was forced by him to kill himself. Some people falsely accused his brother Zhao Tingmei the King of Qin of wanting to usurp the throne, and Tingmei was also exiled by him and died in exile. Even after he made his third son Zhao Yuankan crown prince, some people in the capital praised the crown prince as a "young son of heaven", and Emperor Taizong was very unhappy when he heard it, and thanks to Kou Zhun interceding, the status of the crown prince was preserved. If this is true for his own son, he is even more at ease with other ministers and generals, and he needs to strengthen his precautions. In addition to being shocked by Wang Xiaobo, Li Shun, and Zhao Yi, the focus of internal prevention naturally shifted to preventing peasant resistance. The Song court also stationed hundreds of thousands of armored soldiers around the capital according to the principle of "internal and external control", mainly to prevent the "internal troubles" of possible peasant uprisings.
The Song Dynasty's policy of "guarding the inside and outside" made Liao further see the cowardice of the Song. Taking advantage of the weakening of the Song Dynasty's power on the border, the Liao Dynasty repeatedly launched attacks and invaded the Song border. From the winter of 986 to the death of Emperor Taizong of Song in 997, the Liao Dynasty launched three large-scale offensives against the Song.
The first time was in 986, when the Liao ruler led his army south, annihilating tens of thousands of Song troops, and returned loaded with gold and other trophies. The second time was in the winter of 998, when Liao troops captured Mancheng, Xinle, and Qi Prefecture in Dingzhou. In October 999, the Liao army invaded Hebei in a big way, defeated the Song army Kangbao, and captured a large number of Song troops. The invasion of the Liao army caused disasters to the people of Hebei and Shandong and went into exile. The people of Hebei could not bear it, and every time the masses rose up to resist, and Yang Yanzhao, Yang Si and others in the official army also fought bravely and well, leading the army to resist the enemy. Therefore, the Liao army had to withdraw quickly after each attack.
In 1004, the Liao state mobilized another 200,000 troops to march south, deep into the Song Dynasty, and besieged Dingzhou (Dingxian County, Hebei). The urgent documents of the northern prefecture and county, several times a night, reached Kaifeng, and Song Yan was shocked. Song Zhenzong usually boasted that if the Khitan army attacked, he must personally lead troops to resist, but at this time, he was a little timid and undecided. When Wang Qin, the governor, asked him to take refuge in Jinling, Chen Yaucer, a privy councillor, asked him to go to Sichuan to hide from the wind, while Prime Minister Kou Guan tried his best to put aside the people's opinion, insisting that Zhenzong immediately personally recruit in order to boost morale, calm people's minds, and repel the attack of the Liao army. After a fierce quarrel in the Song court, Zhen Song agreed to pro-conquest.
At this time, while attacking, the Liao army released the air of peace talks to test the Song. The Liao side used the Song general Wang Jizhong to send a letter to the Song general Shi Pu of Mozhou (Renqiu, Hebei), stating that the peace talks must be proposed by the Song side and that he was willing to do his best to assist. Shi Pu forwarded the letter to Zhenzong, who personally wrote a handwritten letter agreeing with Wang Jizhong. At the same time, the Liao army continued south, attacking cities and land along the way, passing outside the city of Daming in November and approaching the important town of Zhaozhou (Puyang, Henan) on the north bank of the Yellow River.
Schematic diagram of the Battle of Lanzhou
Song Zhenzong set out from Kaifeng, waited all the way, marched slowly, and under Kou Zhun's repeated urging, he arrived at the southern city of Zhaozhou in November. At that time, Zhaozhou was a north-south city across the Yellow River, and boats were arranged on the river to form a pontoon bridge, which was a passage between north and south. Shinzong did not want to cross the river when he arrived in Nancheng. At this time, the lords and factions within the ruling clique of the Song Dynasty proposed to move the capital to Jinling. Song Zhenzong had not decided to resist in the first place, and when he saw a strong enemy under his nose, he hesitated again. Kou Zhun learned of this situation and said to Song Zhenzong excitedly: "Qunchen is so cowardly and ignorant, there is no difference from an old woman in the countryside. Today, the enemy troops are approaching, and the people on all sides are panicking. His Majesty can only advance one foot, not retreat an inch. The army on the north bank of the river waited day and night for the arrival of the car, and morale increased hundredfold. If you return a few steps, then the military and civilians will inevitably disintegrate. The enemy forces took advantage of the situation to attack. At that time, it was too late to even want to get to Jinling. "Gao Qiong, the commander of the Forbidden Army, is also a bloody and temperamental person, and he came to Zhenzong and persuaded Zhenzong with Kou Zhun. Gao Qiong said: "Please Your Majesty hurry up and go to Zhaozhou, we are willing to fight to the death to serve the country, and the enemy army is not difficult to break."
After Gao Qiong finished speaking, without waiting for Song Zhenzong to express his attitude, he commanded the guards to push out Song Zhenzong's chariot and drove to continue to leave. When the car arrived at the pontoon bridge on the Yellow River that connected the southern and northern cities of Zhaozhou, Song Zhenzong asked him to stop the car and take a look. Seeing this, Gao Qiong immediately made a decision, and hurriedly hit the coachman's back with wooden wood, asking the coachman to quickly push Song Zhenzong's car onto the pontoon. Song Zhenzong had no choice but to order an army to march, cross the Yellow River, and enter the city of Zhaozhou.
Song Zhenzong's crossing of the river, although he was urged by Kou Zhun and pushed by Gao Qiongqiang. But when he arrived in the northern city of Zhaozhou, he gave the Song army the feeling that the emperor persisted in resisting the war. The Song army in Song City was greatly encouraged by this, and the cheers of "Long live" resounded for tens of miles.
On 24 November, when several thousand Liao soldiers came to attack the city, Kou Zhun ordered the city to go out, and the Song army rushed to kill and destroy more than half of the enemy. Xiao Taoyan, a general in the vanguard of the Liao army, was shot in the forehead by the Song army's crossbow while supervising the battle, and died that night. The morale of the Liao army was greatly demoralized by the loss of generals.
Portrait of Kou Zhun
Under these circumstances, the Liao rulers knew that it was no longer possible to defeat the Song army in Zhaozhou. And the Liao soldiers went south this time and ventured deep alone, and most of the prefectures and counties along the way were still held by the Song army, and the retreat of the Liao soldiers was in danger of being cut off by the Song army at any time. The longer he held on with the Song army in Zhaozhou, the greater the danger to the Liao army, so the Liao ruler decided to make peace with the Song Dynasty as soon as possible in order to quickly get out of the dangerous situation.
Song Zhenzong was not determined to resist Liao, and had long wanted to make peace with Liao. Kou Zhun resolutely opposed the peace and advocated the recovery of the 16 prefectures of Yanyun by victory. Some lords and factions spread rumors that Kou Zhun wanted to use the army to seize power. In this case, Kou Zhun had no way to insist on his opinion, so he had to agree to the peace.
The Song court sent Cao Yong to discuss peace, and when Cao Yong sent an envoy, he asked Zhenzong for the amount of silver silk allowed, and Zhenzong replied: "As long as you can negotiate peace and end the war, you will have no choice, even if it is a million." Kou Zhun said to Cao Yong: "Although there is an edict, you go to Liao, and the silver taels promised to him shall not exceed 300,000!" "Otherwise, you will be threatened with killing your head.
In this way, both Song and Liao could not wait to reach a peace agreement with each other out of their own considerations. The envoys of the two sides went back and forth to talk, and after bargaining, the two sides finally reached a peace agreement in December. The main contents are: 1. Song and Liao maintained the old frontier, which is about a brotherly country; , the lord of Liao called Song Zhenzong a brother, and Song Zhenzong called the lord of Liao a brother, and called Empress Dowager Xiao an uncle. Second, the Song gave Liao Guoyin 100,000 taels and 200,000 horses of silk every year, which was called "years coins". 3. The two sides guard the border along the border prefectures and counties, and the people on both sides shall not invade each other, and those who flee across the border shall be sent to each other, and the cities along the border shall remain intact, and no additional castles or river channels shall be dug. In addition, when the Liao side withdrew, the Song army was not allowed to pursue along the way.
This truce agreement reached between the Song and Liao dynasties at the city of Zhaozhou on the Yellow River is historically known as the "Alliance of Lanyuan".
The Alliance of the Buchi
After the conclusion of the peace treaty, it was misreported in the court that it was 3 million. Song Zhenzong was taken aback and said, "Too much! Then he said, "Forget it, that's okay." When the exact number was known, the compromise-bent Song Zhenzong was so happy that he thought it was a "victory" in the negotiations of the Song Dynasty, and wrote a poem to celebrate.
The "Alliance of the Yuan" not only allowed the Liao soldiers to safely escape from the dangerous situation, but also obtained things that they could not have obtained on the battlefield. For Song, the "Alliance of the Yuan" was a humiliating and compromising peace treaty. It is a by-product of the Song Dynasty's policy of "guarding the inside and the outside". The cowardly surrender of Song Zhenzong and some ministers was exposed in the process of establishing this peace agreement and was ridiculed by later generations. Kou Zhun and others, who persisted in the War of Resistance, became heroes praised by people throughout the ages.
The conclusion of the "Lanyuan Alliance" ended decades of war between the Song and Liao, and made the subsequent Song-Liao border in a state of relative peace and stability for a long time, not only the development of production in large areas of the border between the two sides, but also the two sides carried out economic exchanges and commercial activities through the "field". The Song and Liao dynasties entered a period of long-term peace and stability.