The Northern Song Dynasty should be regarded as one of the most special existences in Chinese history, as a unified regime that ended the warlord division at the end of the Tang Dynasty, the Northern Song government not only reshaped the literati government, but also pushed Confucian culture to a climax.
This made the Northern Song Dynasty one of the most active dynasties in Chinese ideology and culture, and the production technology and national economy of the people also reached the peak of the feudal era.
However, in contrast, the weaker military capabilities of the Northern Song Dynasty, not only large areas of northern land were invaded by the Liao State during the Northern Song Dynasty, but also the Western Xia in the northwest caused a lot of trouble to the Northern Song regime.
It stands to reason that it was not difficult to defeat Western Xia with the national strength of the Northern Song Dynasty, but in the early days of the founding of Western Xia, the Song army fought with it with fewer victories and more defeats.
▲The image of the Western Xia army
However, in these battles, the Song army is not completely without bright spots.
During the reign of Emperor Yuanfeng of the Song Dynasty, the Song army once forced back the attack of tens of thousands of Western Xia troops in front of the security army Shunning Village, and it was a prostitute in the city who contributed to this battle.
1. The siege of Shunning Village
After the establishment of the state of Western Xia, although it achieved good results in many battles against the Northern Song Dynasty, it was still at an absolute disadvantage compared with the powerful Northern Song Dynasty.
Therefore, the lord of Western Xia also needed to be a vassal to the Northern Song emperor at that time.
In order to show "friendship", the Northern Song Dynasty also opened a field on the border between the two countries for merchants to trade, and would give the Western Xia Kingdom a lot of money, so as to maintain peaceful relations between the two countries.
After Song Shenzong ascended the throne, this aspiring monarch wanted to change the military weakness of the Northern Song Dynasty for some time before.
Therefore, he promoted Wang Anshi and others to implement a change of law, aiming to enrich the country and strengthen the army.
At that time, the relationship between the Northern Song Dynasty and the Liao State and the Western Xia countries was quite good, so Song Shenzong did not have the opportunity to test the combat effectiveness of the Northern Song army after the reform.
▲Portrait of Song Shenzong Zhao Yan
During the Yuan Feng period, power in the Western Xia Kingdom was in the hands of Empress Dowager Liang, and her son Li Bingchang, dissatisfied, accepted the subordinate's proposal to unite with the Northern Song Dynasty to overthrow his mother.
However, Empress Dowager Liang had many eyes and ears in the dynasty, and received news in advance, and then imprisoned Li Bingchang, following the example of Empress Wu Zetian, and completely holding the power of the state into her own hands.
Since the Northern Song Dynasty and Western Xia were still "monarchs and vassals" at that time, the power of the Western Xia monarch was nominally granted by the Northern Song Emperor.
Therefore, Empress Dowager Liang's behavior was undoubtedly a disregard for the Northern Song regime, which allowed Song Shenzong to find a reason to send troops to Western Xia.
Immediately, a number of cadre generals were sent to lead a large army to attack Western Xia in five ways, nominally to force Empress Dowager Liang to release Li Bingchang, but in fact to take advantage of the opportunity to recover Lingzhou and other places.
▲ Empress Dowager Liang and Li Bingchang stills
Although Empress Dowager Liang was a female streamer, she did not mess up in the face of the Northern Song army.
After consulting with the ministers, they decided to use the method of luring the enemy deep into the Western Xia kingdom to allow the Northern Song army to penetrate deep into the Western Xia border.
This directly led to the fact that the supply lines of the Northern Song troops were stretched very long, and there was a shortage of material supplies for front-line soldiers.
Coupled with the sudden drop in temperature in the winter of Western Xia, the combat effectiveness of the Northern Song army was seriously damaged, and the generals of the Northern Song army at that time also had their own ghosts and lacked cooperation.
In the end, he was defeated by the Xixia people and had to retreat to the territory of the Northern Song Dynasty.
After that, the Western Xia side took the initiative to fight at the right time, won many battles after that, and captured the border town of Yongle City.
After breaking the city, the Western Xia army carried out a brutal slaughter of the city, and all the more than 10,000 defenders in the city were killed, which caused a great blow to the border defense in the northwest direction of the Northern Song Dynasty.
At that time, the security army of the Northern Song Dynasty, Shunning Village, was located in a prominent part of the Northern Song defense line, and naturally became the next key attack target of Western Xia.
The 100,000 Western Xia army reached the Shunning walled city with lightning speed, and a small number of Northern Song defenders in the city suddenly felt a great disaster.
Second, prostitutes retreat from the enemy
Several Northern Song generals responsible for defending the city gathered together to discuss countermeasures, but it was difficult for the clever women to cook without rice, and they really couldn't think of any good way.
A feeling of despair began to pervade among the soldiers of the Song army.
Soon the people in the city also knew the current situation, and a prostitute surnamed Li took the initiative to find the general of the Northern Song Dynasty and said that she had a way to drink back 100,000 Western Xia soldiers.
Several generals looked at each other behind them, although they all felt that this matter was impossible, but under the circumstances at that time, they could only treat the dead horse as a living horse doctor.
So he agreed to let Li climb the city tower to help the defenders retreat from the enemy.
▲ Northern Song Dynasty Army
On that day, Li climbed the Shunning walled city wall under the protection of Northern Song soldiers, and the soldiers of Western Xia did not know what the woman's identity was, so they did not attack at first.
I saw Li roll up her sleeves and start cursing, she was not scolding these Western Xia soldiers who invaded the Northern Song Dynasty, but the leader behind them, Empress Dowager Liang.
Li counted Empress Dowager Liang's many evil deeds, the most important of which was that she became empress after she fornicated with the former monarch of Western Xia and killed her former husband and father-in-law.
Li's words when stating these things were very direct, which made many Western Xia soldiers blush, while the Northern Song soldiers laughed forward and backward, which made the Northern Song army more like the dominant side.
The generals of the Western Xia Army were the first to return to their senses, and they immediately ordered the archers to shoot Li Shi and not let her continue to "mislead the people" here.
However, the Northern Song soldiers had already seen the power of the Li family at this time, and they surrounded the Li family tightly with their shields, and the bows and arrows of the Western Xia army were not effective at all.
Instead, the Li clan on the city wall scolded even harder, which made the Western Xia soldiers even more embarrassed.
▲ Song Dynasty ancient city wall
The generals of the Western Xia Army saw that there was no good way to stop Li, and they were worried that continuing to let the soldiers listen to it would make a big mistake and be punished by the Empress Dowager.
They had to order the soldiers to cover their ears and not eavesdrop.
But this practice of covering their ears and stealing bells was ineffective, and soldiers with their hands over their ears lost the ability to fight.
The generals of the Western Xia Army had to make up the reason why Northern Song reinforcements had arrived, ordered the troops to retreat, and Shunning Zhai also solved the immediate crisis.
The reason why Li was able to tell Empress Dowager Liang's private affairs so vividly was directly related to the geographical environment of Shunning Village.
Earlier, we mentioned that there were trading fields distributed along the borders of the Northern Song Dynasty and Western Xia, and Shunning Zhai was one of them.
Therefore, there are Western Xia merchants doing business here all year round, and because of Li's special occupation, she also has certain exchanges with these people, and has received a lot of "lace news" from the Western Xia Kingdom from them.
▲ Song Dynasty period field distribution map
At that time, those who could obtain trade qualifications were generally after the nobles of Western Xia, so they also heard a little about the secrets of the palace.
This is also the key reason why Lee was able to grasp these news.
Moreover, judging from the reaction of the Western Xia army, the people of Western Xia should also know about Empress Dowager Liang's ugly affairs.
Otherwise, they should have excitedly opposed Li's remarks at the first time, instead of standing in place without saying a word, allowing the enemy to slander the Empress Dowager of their country, and finally left in ashes.
3. History of Empress Dowager Liang
Speaking of which, we have to talk about the development process of this Empress Dowager Liang, starting with Li Yuanhao, the founding monarch of Western Xia.
Li Yuanhao originally had his wife Ye Li and had a son named Ning Lingge.
However, he later heard rumors that he had killed the relatives of the Nori clan, and after learning that they had no intention of rebelling, he regretted it, and ordered to find their families and treat them well.
Unexpectedly, Li Yuanhao therefore met Ye Li Yubeg's wife Muzo (Ye Li's brother), and fell in love with her at first sight, regardless of the opposition of others, and Muzo later gave birth to a son named Li Shuzuo.
Later, the Yeli clan fell out of favor and was deposed, and Ning Lingge was worried that he would also be persecuted by his father, so he took the initiative to stab his father Li Yuanhao to death.
▲Statue of Li Yuanhao
However, at this time, Wuzang's elder brother Wuzang Zhao Pang had already taken power, and he immediately led people to arrest Ning Lingge and establish Li Shuzuo, the son of the Wuzang clan, as the new monarch.
After Li Shuzuo became an adult, in order to control him, Wuzang Zhao Pang promised her his daughter, so that Wu Zang Zhao Pang changed from a national uncle to a national abbot, and his power was greater.
During the time when Wuzang was in charge of Pang Huang, Empress Dowager Wuzang cheated on Li Shougui, an official of Western Xia, and was later killed by Li Shougui.
After learning of this, Wuzang quickly disposed of Li Shougui, and the death of Empress Dowager Wuzang further concentrated the power of the Western Xia Kingdom in the hands of Wuzang Zheng Pang.
At this time, Wuzang Liepan, who had an extremely inflated desire for power, wanted to take the initiative to start a war with the Northern Song Dynasty, hoping to control all of Hexi, which plunged the political situation in Western Xia into turmoil.
Li Shuzuo was already a teenager at this time, and he dared not speak out about Wuzang Zheng Pang's practice, and later Wuzang Zhao Pang killed his nursing mother in order to further control the little emperor.
This made the relationship between the two very strained.
Wuzang also saw Li Shuzuo's hatred for him, so he planned to get rid of Li Shuzuo and become emperor himself, but he did not expect that his plan was stabbed out in advance.
▲ There are no hidden stills
This whistleblower was his daughter-in-law Liang Shi, who had already been secretly mixed with Li Shuzuo at that time, so after she learned from her husband about Wu Zhi Pang's plan, she told Li Shuzuo all about it.
Li Shuzuo knew that he had to do it before Wuzang Zhao Pang, so he found the imperial courtiers and designed to lead Wu Zang Zhao Pang into an ambush circle and kill him.
Afterwards, Li Shuzuo executed the son of Wuzang Zheng Pang and sent his own empress Wuzang into the cold palace, after which he made the great meritorious Liang clan his empress, which is the Empress Dowager Liang mentioned in the text.
Since Li Shuzuo died of illness at the age of twenty-one, the young Liang became the de facto ruler of the Western Xia Kingdom.
From this, we can see that Empress Dowager Liang had a decisive influence in the political arena of Western Xia at that time, and the story of her and Li Shuzuo must be familiar to the people of Western Xia.
In the previous article, although there are some exaggerated elements in the prostitute Li's insults against Empress Dowager Liang, this is also adapted from the deeds of Empress Dowager Liang and Empress Dowager Wuzang.
This made the Western Xia soldiers still difficult to refute, so they could only flee in embarrassment.
▲ Empress Dowager Liang stills
From this, we can see the impact of the good image of the ruler on the morale of the generals in ancient wars, and the story of the Northern Song army relying on the lace news that prostitutes usually heard, and the story of retreating the 100,000-strong army of Western Xia has become an anecdote in the history of world wars.
However, the generals of the Northern Song Dynasty relied on this method to win, and there were still some victories, which also became another talking point for later generations to ridicule the Song army.
Concentrate:
The relevant content of this article about the Battle of Shunning Zhai is referenced from "On the Politics of the Descendants of Western Xia", published in "Ethnic Studies" No. 01, 1990 and Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Pen Talks"