Lin'an Never Night

Chapter 804: Surrender? What's the big deal?
"Prime Minister?"

Li Renxiao was somewhat puzzled by Ren Dejing's laughter.

Ren Dejing came back to his senses: "The Song army's firearms are indeed sharp, but they are still not invincible in the world."

Ren Dejing said calmly: "The more powerful the artillery is, the heavier it is. The crossbow is also invincible. Your Majesty should know how to deal with the crossbow, right?"

"Besides, that thing is not only restricted by the terrain and movement, but also by the weather, such as the rainy season."

"As for the horses being frightened, we can just simulate the sound of artillery explosions and let the horses hear it more."

"Also, once the Song army has artillery, we will abandon our Xixia's most advanced tactics of densely packed formations and charging into the enemy lines..."

Every time Ren Dejing said something, Tuoba Heiyi's eyes brightened.

Although he was hostile to this powerful prime minister who had seized power from the Li family, he had to admit that his views were very insightful.

Li Renxiao felt a little relieved when he heard that the artillery also had shortcomings that could be dealt with.

However... this kind of training cannot be achieved overnight. How should we deal with the current situation?

"I have remembered what the Prime Minister said. But now that our army has been badly defeated, the Song army will surely have some plans. How should Xixia respond?"

"Submit and negotiate peace." Ren Dejing said lazily, as calmly as if he was saying, look, it's snowing outside again.

Li Renxiao's eyes suddenly widened and he stammered, "Negotiation...peace talks?"

"how?"

Ren Dejing lazily "lay" down in the armchair and crossed his legs: "What's the problem?"

Li Renxiao said hesitantly: "Although Daxia has suffered a heavy blow, it is not without the strength to fight. So we should surrender to Song Dynasty and negotiate peace with it?"

Ren Dejing flicked his nails impatiently and said, "What difference does it make whether you submit to Jin or Song? It's just a matter of who you become a younger brother to."

Ren Dejing curled his lips and sneered disdainfully: "The Jin Kingdom today is no longer the same as it was back then. What's wrong with us changing the leader?"

If these words were said outside, they would be shocking.

If someone else had said that, Li Renxiao would have just ordered someone to chop him to pieces.

But the person who said this was Ren Dejing, and Li Renxiao couldn't even fart.

This former Tongpan of Xi'an Prefecture in the Song Dynasty (now Xi'an Prefecture, northwest of Haiyuan County, Ningxia) now possesses power over the emperor in Western Xia.

Historically, Ren Dejing once demanded that the territory be divided equally with Li Renxiao, and half of the Xia Kingdom be given to him to establish the Chu Kingdom.

Even with this kind of behavior, Li Renxiao could not refuse and agreed to it.

However, as the suzerain state of Western Xia, this needs to be confirmed by the Jin Kingdom.

But the Jin emperor refused.

This little brother is already weak as a lackey, and now he wants to split the family. What is he trying to do?

The Jin Kingdom disagreed, so Ren Dejing decided to defect to the Song Kingdom and establish his own country with the support of the Song Kingdom.

As a result, the news was discovered by the Jin Kingdom, which sent troops to assist Li Renxiao in dealing with Ren Dejing. The Song Kingdom was not very helpful either and did not provide any substantial help to Ren Dejing. As a result, the Ren family was completely destroyed in Western Xia.

After hearing what Ren Dejing said, Li Renxiao's face looked very ugly, but he couldn't refute it immediately.

Even if the Song Dynasty has not yet used military force against Western Xia, if Ren Dejingyi insists on peace, Li Renxiao will most likely have to accept it in the end.

Unless the Jin Kingdom is willing to send troops.

But does the current Jin Dynasty still have the ability to forcefully interfere in the internal affairs of Western Xia?
What's more, the Jin Kingdom is now unable to interfere and the Song Kingdom has just won a great victory.

Ren Dejing glanced at Li Renxiao and said, "Your Majesty, I know you are unwilling to accept this. Do you think that Daxia still has the strength to fight?"

Ren Dejing said: "But, it is precisely because our Great Xia still has the strength to fight that we can gain more benefits by negotiating peace now. If we suffer another major defeat..."

When Li Renxiao heard this, he couldn't help but lower his head.

After a long pause, he said, "Prime Minister, if we negotiate peace, what conditions do we need to agree to with the Song State?"

When Tuoba Heiyi heard this, he knew that the emperor had surrendered.

He felt a little unwilling, but then he thought that after the battle of Lingdu Mountain, Daxia's strategic advantage no longer existed.

If Ren Dejing insisted on peace, he now held greater power than the emperor, so what could he do if the emperor disagreed?

The only thing they could do was to fill in the military forces loyal to the royal family little by little and feed them to the Song army.

By then, Ren Dejing became even more unscrupulous.

Thinking of this, Tuoba Heiyi couldn't help but lower his head sadly.

"What can the Song people want?"

Ren Dejing raised his eyebrows: "It's nothing more than that they don't want us to hinder them when they recover their ancestral land. Just agree to him. If necessary, we, Daxia, will send troops together with Dasong."

Ren Dejing said it lightly, and Li Renxiao looked embarrassed when he heard it.

The Jin Kingdom is still the suzerain of Xixia. They are just saying it so brazenly. Hey! The eunuchs and palace maids around them haven't been driven out yet.

"What do you think, Your Majesty?"

Ren Dejing glanced at Li Renxiao again, and Li Renxiao said awkwardly, "Just follow what the Prime Minister said."

"it is good!"

Ren Dejing stood up and said, "Tuoba Heiyi, right? Go and contact that Yang Yuan and tell him that I want to talk to him in person."

"Your Majesty, I retire!"

Ren Dejing bowed curtly to Li Renxiao and walked out with big strides.

When he walked out of the palace gate, Ren Dejing stamped his feet in the doorway to shake off the snow on his feet, and said with some disgust: "This damn weather is really enough for me to stay here. Hangzhou..."

He looked ahead and murmured, "The weather now is probably like spring in the north."

The guard came over and put a black cloak with a gold-painted cloud and crane pattern on him.

Ren Dejing tightened his coat and walked forward.

……

Yang Yuan blocked the main road at the foot of Lingdu Mountain and stationed troops on Lingdu Mountain and Roulang Mountain again.

In this way, the two main roads coming from the direction of Xingqing Prefecture were blocked.

It also completely cut off the connection between the Hetao Plain and the Hexi Corridor.

If Ren Dejing now wanted to issue orders to the Xixia people in the Hexi Corridor, he could only cross the desert which is more than 300 miles long.

Zhao Yi wanted to attack Liangzhou, and Yang Yuan and Liu Qi agreed.

Yang Yuan asked Gao Shuyao to instigate Tubo to send troops to attack Guasha.

It would be better if a fight breaks out here as well, so that the Western Xia army in the Hexi Corridor cannot take care of both ends.

Otherwise, the war situation on his little lover's side might be getting tense.

As for Yang Yuan's and Liu Qi's troops, they are now organizing their armies in full swing.

Liu Qi's troops had suffered heavy losses before, losing as much as one-third of their forces, so they had to disrupt the original structure and reorganize the army.

Yang Yuan also had to merge with the troops transferred from Huizhou, and use the captured war horses to quickly expand his cavalry team.

At the same time, he was also waiting for orders from the court.

As soon as the Battle of Lingdu Mountain ended, he sent the battle report to Lin'an.

Now it seems like a dedicated express line has been established from the Western Xia battlefield to Lin'an.

There are constant travel back and forth every day.

All the post stations along the way were reinforced, and many postmen were transferred from other places to cope with such intensive military mail delivery.

Sporadic fighting is still taking place.

However, both the expeditions against the previously dispersed Xixia soldiers and the Xixia nomadic tribes stationed nearby for the winter ended quickly.

After all, there is no large-scale Western Xia army here.

Yang Yuan was preparing for war and had not yet received any order from the court when the envoy from Western Xia arrived.

Yang Yuan and Liu Qi were sitting in the warm tent, drinking kumis and gnawing on mutton when a soldier came in to report that an envoy from Western Xia wanted to see Marshal Yang.

This surprised Yang Yuan a little.

The battle of Lingdu Mountain did indeed cause Xixia to bleed heavily, but it is not necessarily true to say that Xixia lost the ability to fight.

The special terrain and harsh weather of Western Xia were always used well by the Western Xia people in wars.

As for the advantages of firearms, Yang Yuan had taken advantage of them before to bully others who had never seen it before.

If Tuoba Hou had not adopted a group charge combat method with dense formations and wildly assembled the six major military divisions to attack the heart of the 100,000-strong Song army, but was blocked by firearms and the shock of the explosion caused the horses to be frightened in groups, Tuoba Hou might not have been defeated so easily.

But now Xixia has actually sent an envoy...

The only possibility of sending an envoy at this time is to seek peace.

Considering that the Jin Dynasty, the suzerain of Xixia, was now facing internal and external troubles, it failed to send a single soldier during the conquest of Xixia, and instead opened the gate of Shaanxi by itself...

Yang Yuan roughly understood the intentions of the Western Xia Kingdom.

Are you planning to change your allegiance?

While thinking about it, Yang Yuan grabbed the knife, cut another piece of fat mutton that had no smell at all, dipped it in the seasoning, and stuffed it into his mouth.

Yang Yuan put down the knife, grabbed a towel and wiped his hands while chewing the mutton. He ordered, "Bring him here!"

In just a few minutes, a Xixia general was brought into the tent.

When he saw the person coming, Yang Yuan's eyes narrowed and his face turned cold.

"It's you?"

Tuoba Heiyi said with a smile: "It's me!"

Liu Qi looked at Yang Yuan with interest, then at Tuoba Heiyi.

His intuition told him that there was a story between these two men.

Liu Qi was drinking milk tea and eating dried vegetables with relish.

After soaking the dried vegetables, stew them with mutton, which tastes equally delicious.

He is old and can't eat as much meat as Yang Yuan.

Seeing Yang Yuan's cold expression, Tuoba Heiyi smiled slightly: "I am not a traitor, but... a spy of Daxia, each serving his own master."

Yang Yuan took a deep breath and said, "Song and Xia were no longer bordering each other before. I didn't know that you Xia people were so far-sighted."

Tuoba Heiyi's smile froze for a moment, then he smiled again: "Actually, I was sent by Daxia to the Kingdom of Jin as an undercover agent."

He looked at Yang Yuan and sighed, "Unexpectedly, after I successfully gained the trust of the Jin Kingdom's 'Blood Pagoda', I was sent to the Song Kingdom by them."

As General Liu Qi listened, the corners of his lips twitched slightly.

Yang Yuan's eyes wandered for a moment, and he said slowly: "You told me about this matter, aren't you afraid that the Jin people will know about it and be dissatisfied with you Xia people?"

Tuoba Heiyi's expression straightened up, and he said, "This is exactly why I came here today. His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Baigao Kingdom is willing to use the Great Song Dynasty as the suzerain and send me as a special envoy. The Prime Minister will negotiate with you in person!"

As expected, he came for peace talks.

Yang Yuan put down the towel he was using to wipe his hands and said, "I am only the commander of an army now, and I have no right to represent the Song Dynasty and negotiate with you Xia people."

Tuoba Heiyi raised his eyebrows: "But our prime minister only wants to negotiate with you. You can send a quick message to Lin'an and get the official authorization. I know that the Song Dynasty's gold medal is delivered quickly."

Yang Yuan asked, "Isn't this a delaying tactic of yours?"

Tuoba Heiyi smiled bitterly: "Why delay the war? Wait until spring comes? It seems... that would be more beneficial to your Song army, right?"

Yang Yuan pondered for a moment and looked at Liu Qi.

Liu Qi pondered for a moment, took a sip of the milk tea, and said to Yang Yuan: "I think it would be a good idea for General Yang to talk to them."

After hearing this, Tuoba Heiyi walked over to sit behind a table and shouted to the outside of the tent, "Bring me a plate of meat first, I'm hungry!"

(End of this chapter)