Text/Kan Xiang
01
In the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, due to the main energy and troop strength of the Song court, they were all invested in the northwest front line fighting against the Western Xia.
Therefore, at that time, the Song court's management of ethnic minorities in the southwest region was relatively loose.
Therefore, a leader of an ethnic minority named Nong Zhigao took the opportunity to establish his own political power in the southwest region of that time (about the area of present-day Guangxi).
At first, Nong Zhigao was still afraid of the Song Court, and he not only paid tribute to the Song Court, but also hoped that the Song Court would send troops to support him in attacking the Jiaotong State (about the area of present-day Vietnam).
But unfortunately, Song Ting did not pay any attention to Nong Zhigao, and Nong Zhigao, who was ignored, began to attack Song Ting in a hurry.
At that time, the capital of the southwestern region of the Song Dynasty was because there was no war in nearly a hundred years.
Therefore, the state capitals are not only few and few, but also lack combat experience.
Therefore, Nong Zhigao successfully fought all the way from Guangxi to the city of Guangzhou, which made Nong Zhigao feel bad, and it seems that the Song Dynasty army is no more than that!
Guangzhou was the military stronghold of the Song court in the southern region at that time.
Therefore, although Nong Zhigao was proud of the city of Guangzhou for a while, he could never attack the city of Guangzhou.
Just as Nong Zhigao was dying with the Song army under the city of Guangzhou, Song Ting dropped Di Qing, a fierce general during the battle against Western Xia, to the southwest front.
Di Qing was born in an ordinary peasant family, he had no family background, and was a fierce man who gradually rose from a low-level soldier to a general by relying on military merit.
Di Qing's fame was on the northwestern front of the Song Dynasty, when the Western Xia repeatedly invaded the borders of the Song Dynasty.
Whenever this happened, Di Qing would wear his hair loosely, and then wear a bronze mask on his face to repeatedly charge and kill among the Western Xia cavalry.
According to historical records, when Di Qing was on the northwest front, he led and participated in a total of twenty-five battles, and he recovered more than 2,000 Western Xia tribal tents and captured more than 5,000 prisoners, as for the killing and injury on the battlefield.
Di Qing was not only a puppet who could only kill people, but after he was promoted to the general of the Song Army, he also studied hard and became familiar with ancient and modern military books.
The Song court transferred such a general who was both literate and martial to the southwest front, on the one hand, to attach importance to the rebellion of Nong Zhigao, and on the other hand, to play the prestige of the Great Song Dynasty in the southwest region.
02
Nong Zhigao spent nearly two months dying under the city of Guangzhou, and finally he saw that he could not capture the city of Guangzhou, so he turned to all parts of Guangxi.
Nong Zhigao was extremely cruel, and he led his army to not only behead the officials of the Song court, but also slaughtered civilians, which for a time caused anger and resentment in the southwestern region of the Song court.
After Di Qing led his army to the southwest front at that time, the Song army saw the corpses of Song dynasty soldiers and civilians that Nong Zhigao had slaughtered in the southwest region, and were eaten and bitten by birds and beasts at will.
Because the scene was so bloody, the soldiers couldn't help but be a little afraid for a while.
To this end, Di Qing had to specially arrange a wonderful play to stabilize the hearts of the army.
Di Qing heard that there was a very spiritual temple in the local area, so he led his soldiers to ask for a trigram, but his way of asking for a trigram was very special.
Di Qing threw a hundred copper coins to the ground and made a wish to the gods, if all a hundred copper coins were literally facing upwards, then this battle would be won.
But if you don't, the battle will be lost, and the result after throwing down the copper coins is also very magical, a hundred copper coins are all literally facing up, without exception.
After the soldiers saw such a miracle, they also thought that they were protected by the gods, so for a while, the army's morale was greatly encouraged, and everyone wanted to go to battle to kill the enemy.
(In fact, these 100 copper coins are literal on both sides, which were made in advance by Di Qing in order to stabilize the hearts of the army)
When Di Qing led his troops to the front, Nong Zhigao was engaged in rebellion in the pennsylvania area on the southwestern border.
The difficulty that the Song army was now blocking against Nong Zhigao was Kunlun Pass, which had already been occupied by Nong Zhigao.
At that time, some Generals of the Song Army attacked Kunlun Pass without authorization in order to compete for the head, but they failed and returned, so they were dealt with by Di Qing's military law.
According to common sense, in the face of such a difficult threshold, Di Qing should be seriously prepared and carefully planned.
But the truth is the opposite, the date at that time is just close to the first day.
Di Qing asked the army's logistics department to prepare a rich variety of wines and delicacies, and then held a banquet for three consecutive days.
On the first and second day, Di Qing, like all the soldiers, was drunk.
However, on the third day, Di Qingjiu drank half of it, but he left for a while because he was overwhelmed by the wine.
Then in the early morning of the fourth day, the soldiers suddenly found that General Di Qing was missing.
And just when everyone was panicking about all kinds of speculations, news suddenly came from the front line of Kunlun Pass.
It is said that General Di Qing led hundreds of his own soldiers to capture Kunlun Pass the night before.
It turned out that the situation was this, the defenders on Kunlun Pass saw the Shangyuan Festival when the Song army held a banquet for two consecutive days.
Therefore, it was believed that the Song army would definitely continue to hold the banquet on the third day in order to celebrate the festival (this was a folk tradition at that time).
Therefore, the defenders at Kunlun Pass let their guard down, and they began to drink and have fun.
And Di Qing took advantage of the fact that they relaxed their vigilance and led his soldiers to take Kunlun Pass in one fell swoop at night.
03
The day after the Song army took Kunlun Pass, its main force, led by Di Qing, began to engage Nong Zhigao's rebels.
At that time, the southwestern song court was not only a fierce people, but also their way of fighting was also very special.
In the case of the rebels led by Nong Zhigao, they were mainly infantry phalanxes and used to use long guns to form three sharp formations.
The so-called three sharp arrays are soldiers holding shields in their left hands and guns in their right hands, and then lining up in a triangular formation.
And each triangle array cooperated with each other according to different battle conditions, in short, it was a very novel way of playing for the Song army at that time.
Di Qing understood that dealing with these spearmen in the southwest was different from dealing with the Western Xia cavalry in the northwest.
So he sent a cavalry of five hundred men, led by the fierce general Sun Jie, to rush to the enemy position to test the false reality.
It turned out that the Song cavalry, no matter how left and right they killed in the formation of the three sharp arrays, could not break through the spearmen holding shields in the formation.
After a long time, the five hundred Song cavalry were cut off due to the retreat, and unfortunately they were damaged in the three sharp formations.
In the first round of the confrontation, the Song army was defeated, but Di Qing also saw the flaws in these three sharp arrays.
It turned out that the strength of these three sharp arrays was in the front and the two wings of the array, and these two places were extremely difficult to conquer because of the combined use of spears and shields.
However, the disadvantage of the three-sharp array is that on the last side of the formation, because there is not enough protection, it is extremely easy to be breached.
After understanding this trick, Di Qing took advantage of the mobility of the Northern Song cavalry.
Soon it went around the rear of the three sharp arrays, and then a burst of back and forth interspersed combat.
The southwest native army commanded by Nong Zhigao, where had seen so many warhorses galloping back and forth to fight.
After a period of dazzling, they were defeated by the Song army.
Seeing that Nong Zhigao's defeat had been decided, Di Qing ordered the Song army to pursue him in full swing, but Nong Zhigao's life was good, and the Song army cavalry did not catch him, and he ran to Dali after a flight.
Later, after some diplomatic representations by the Song court, the king of Dali not only killed Nong Zhigao, but also gave his head to the Song court.
At this point, Nong Zhigao's rebellion was completely over, and song Ting used force to stabilize the stability of the southwest border.
The outstanding performance of the Song army in this war also made Song Ting's prestige in the southwestern neighbors at that time, and no one dared to underestimate it for a while.
04
Then again, Di Qing had performed so well in the process of quelling the rebellion in the southwest, so what kind of treatment did he receive after the pacification of the southwest?
This result was very surprising, although Di Qing was briefly promoted after this.
However, due to the exclusion of civil officials in the Northern Song Dynasty, he was demoted to Chen Prefecture as an official.
Because Di Qing was the emperor's man, the emperor wanted him to offend whomever he wanted, and Wen Chen's attack on Di Qing was to cut off the emperor's arm.
And Di Qing saw that the emperor was instigated, and it was the safest way to scare himself to death, and he was only forty-nine years old when he died.
This can't help but remind people that Yue Fei, who was wrongfully killed by the Southern Song Court a hundred years after Di Qing, had too many similarities.
If you want to use an old saying to summarize the fate of Di Qing and Yue Fei, then I think that maxima is often there and Bole is not often there, and it is most appropriate.
Because for a talented person, the best Bó Lè is born in a good era, and the worst Bó Lè is born in an era of disregard for talent.