I am Emperor Shizu of Song

Chapter 147: Change the reign title to Jingkang, and quickly request Duke Xiu to negotiate with the Jurchens.

As the Jin army breached Yanjing and continued their southward advance, Zhao Ji, in a desperate attempt to find a solution, executed a number of civil and military officials who had performed poorly in battle or bore other responsibilities. He also dismissed Zhao Liangsi and punished Li Gang.

But all of this was obviously useless. The Jin army was advancing south at an accelerated pace. Throughout November, the Jin army broke through five or six prefectures and advanced more than five or six hundred miles.

"Your Majesty! Something terrible has happened! Yan Yun has fallen! Guo Yaoshi has surrendered to the Jin! The Jin army has already passed Bazhou!"

"The Jin army has already passed Xiongzhou!"

"The Jin army has already passed Cizhou, Xiangzhou/Chanzhou, Weizhou/Huazhou..."

When Emperor Huizong learned that the Jin army had passed Cizhou, bypassed Daming Prefecture, and was only three hundred li away from Bianjing, he finally couldn't help but stage a scene of a stroke and fainting, unable to move his limbs. He was carried back to his sickbed in the inner palace by palace servants and only slowly woke up after emergency treatment by the imperial physician.

The defeat was truly terrifying. In Cizhou, two thousand local Song soldiers encountered a scout team of a few dozen Jin cavalrymen and were completely routed, with nearly half of them killed, wounded, trampled, or scattered, while the Jin scout team suffered almost no losses.

According to this algorithm, even a Jin army patrol and scouting team could take down a local garrison in a prefecture of the Song Dynasty.

Completely terrified, Zhao Ji finally issued an edict, trembling, to pass the throne to the crown prince.

And this day was only the 20th day of the twelfth lunar month in the seventh year of Xuanhe.

Crown Prince Zhao Huan had no choice but to ascend the throne reluctantly. Three days later, when the Jin army was approaching Huazhou, the retired Emperor Zhao Ji, along with Cai Jing and others, hurriedly fled south to tour the Jiangnan region.

There is only one small butterfly effect here: in the original history, Zhao Ji's trip south was supposed to be received by Zhu Mian, because Zhu Mian had been operating in Jiangnan for many years and was extremely wealthy, with many luxurious gardens that were enough for the emperor to enjoy.

In this life, Zhu Mian had already been killed by Zhao Zicheng four years prior, and Zhao Ji had lost an arm in Jiangnan. But Zhao Ji had no better choice; he couldn't very well follow in the footsteps of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and "flee to Shu." He could only grit his teeth and continue his journey to Jiangnan.

But Zhao Ji was not content. Because Zhu Mian was gone, he needed more people to supply his small court in the southeast with money and grain. So he went even further and tried to use the edict of the retired emperor to order the prefectures in the southeast not to pay taxes and grain to the court in Bianjing, but to intercept them and transfer them to Jinling for the retired emperor's enjoyment.

Zhao Huan had just ascended the throne when he faced betrayal from his father, who had retreated to the rear, and the loss of financial autonomy. A significant portion of the tax revenue from the southeastern region was being intercepted. How could the capital city of Tokyo possibly be defended?
Fortunately, the inertia of history remained strong. Within the Bianjing court, the pro-war faction, the pro-peace faction, and the pro-escape faction engaged in fierce debates. For the first two or three days, the court failed to reach a conclusion. However, one day at the end of the twelfth lunar month, the situation finally took a turn for the better when Li Gang, who had been punished by Emperor Huizong, was restored to his honor by the new emperor Zhao Huan and regained the right to participate in important state policy discussions.

Li Gang was a staunch advocate of war. In court, he earnestly pleaded with the emperor to defend Bianliang to the death and never retreat lightly. He also presented "Five Strategies for Defending Against the Barbarians." Chancellor Wu Min also recommended his strategies, which allowed the mere fourth-rank official, the Vice Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, to participate in such a crucial decision.

While Li Gang advocated for war, a large-scale rally of Imperial College students in Bianjing (Kaifeng) also broke out in support. Led by Chen Dong, a large number of students denounced the "Five Traitors" for misleading the country, urging the new emperor to purge the ruler, the fleeing emperor, and the treacherous officials who had harmed the nation, and to resolutely resist. (Zhu Mian died prematurely, so only the Five Traitors remained.)
Perhaps the students' strong presence at the Imperial Academy played a significant role in pushing things along, and ultimately, after a brief hesitation of a day or two, the new Emperor Zhao Huan adopted Li Gang's suggestion and promoted him rapidly, elevating him from the fourth-rank position of Vice Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices to the second-rank position of Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, which was practically equivalent to a vice prime minister.

He also put Li Gang in charge of the defense of Bianjing and coordinated the deployment of troops from several surrounding prefectures to support the emperor.

No sooner had this decision been made than the wheels of history turned to the first day of the Lunar New Year the following year.

Perhaps because Zhao Huan ascended the throne half a month earlier than in the original historical record, he was not in a hurry to change the era name in the last ten days of the twelfth lunar month. Instead, he waited until the first day of the first lunar month of the following year to change the era name to "Jingkang", which became the first year of Jingkang.

After changing the era name to Jingkang, Zhao Huan immediately did two things. First, he issued an edict ordering troops from all over the country to come to the aid of the emperor and protect the capital. Second, he began to purge some of the ringleaders among the "Five Traitors".

Because Tong Guan had effectively lost power and had been sidelined in the last two years of Emperor Huizong's reign, and Liang Shicheng and Cai Jing had also followed Emperor Huizong south, Zhao Huan temporarily accepted the list of "five traitors" proclaimed by the students, but did not take action against these three "veteran traitors" for the time being. He simply assigned them personalities and allowed the officials to slowly investigate their crimes.

Of the "Five Traitors," two remained in Bianjing and had not completely lost power. These two easy targets should be dealt with to appease public anger and divert people's sorrow over the deteriorating situation.

Thus, Wang Fu, the former prime minister, and Li Yan, another powerful eunuch in charge of the western city, became the first group of treacherous officials executed by Zhao Huan.

Both men were swiftly tried and convicted in the first month of the first year of the Jingkang era, and were beheaded before the Jin army reached the city. The execution of these two traitors slightly boosted the morale of the soldiers and civilians in Bianjing.

Many ordinary people who did not understand military and political affairs naively believed that "the previous corruption must have been caused by treacherous ministers. Now that the treacherous ministers have been killed, the holy emperor will surely be able to cheer up and lead everyone to defend the capital."

……

Not long after the new emperor Zhao Huan killed the two traitors and ordered Li Gang to deploy troops to defend Bianjing, the Jin army finally reached the north bank of the Yellow River and then crossed the river to attack Bianjing.

The Jin army's invasion of the south consisted of two forces. Wanyan Zonghan's western army was still stalled at the gates of Taiyuan and unable to capture the city. Therefore, only Wanyan Zongwang's eastern army had reached the gates of Bianjing.

Wanyan Zongwang claimed to have 60,000 troops, but in reality, he only had 5,000 elite Jurchen cavalry, plus 3,000 surrendered cavalry under Guo Yaoshi, mostly former Liao cavalry. Adding a small number of surrendered Han Chinese soldiers and auxiliary scout cavalry, the total number of Jin cavalry was barely close to 10,000.

In addition, there were more than 10,000 Jurchen infantrymen, and including other ethnic groups, the total number of infantrymen was about 30,000. Therefore, the so-called army of 60,000 actually had a maximum combat strength of 40,000, and the other 20,000 were either logistics support troops or a motley crew temporarily recruited.

Cavalry cannot be used directly for sieges, so the Jin army relied on 30,000 infantrymen to try to break through Bianjing with a strong attack, which was naturally quite difficult.

Li Gang was given full authority to oversee the defense of the city. He personally supervised the battle and made orderly arrangements. After more than ten days of fierce fighting, he slightly thwarted the Jin army's offensive.

By the end of January, Zhong Shidao of the Western Army finally led reinforcements to the vicinity of Bianjing. The Song army's morale soared with the arrival of reinforcements. They had hoped to trap the Jin army in a quagmire by besieging and cutting off their supplies. The Jin army had come from afar and had virtually no logistics, relying on looting along the way.

If the Song army were besieged under the walls of Bianjing, as long as they could keep up with their supplies and the Jin army had nowhere to plunder, they would definitely not be able to hold out for long.

When Li Gang came to power, he presented Zhao Huan with "Five Strategies for Defending Against the Jin Army". Two of the most crucial strategies were "cutting off the Jin army's supply lines and then surrounding them with heavy troops without attacking". Relying on the large number of people in the Song Dynasty and their ability to defend step by step, they set up camps to surround the Jin army but did not engage them in open battle.

Li Gang's strategy was sound, but it was indeed quite challenging, especially since it didn't take into account the immense logistical pressure on the Song Dynasty. Because Bianjing had become a war zone, the last section of the Grand Canal could no longer directly reach the outskirts of Bianjing, as it had been cut off by the Jin Dynasty. Money, grain, and supplies from the south all needed to be transported by land before they could be supplied to various places.

Bianjing still had a population of over a million, so many soldiers, and the newly arrived Western Army under Zhong Shidao also required a large amount of supplies. Even if the Song Dynasty could afford to wait, it would definitely suffer heavy losses, a case of "inflicting 800 casualties on the enemy while losing 3000 of its own." But regardless, to be fair, the Song Dynasty had so much more people and wealth than the Jin Dynasty, so even if it suffered 800 casualties on the enemy while losing 3000 of its own, the exchange ratio was still acceptable. During the first defense of Bianjing, the city's resources were not yet exhausted. If they had truly united and tightened their belts to endure the most difficult times, it was indeed possible to wear down the Jin army.

Unfortunately, after Zhong Shidao arrived, the Song emperor's old habit of "checks and balances" resurfaced. He became suspicious and fearful that Li Gang, who had just won several small city defense battles, was too powerful and influential. So, under the secret instigation of other important officials, he created a new "Hedong Hebei Circuit Pacification Commission" and put Zhong Shidao in charge of it to divide Li Gang's military power.

Then Li Gang was only in charge of military power within Bianjing City, while Zhong Shidao was responsible for the troops outside Bianjing City who came to the aid of the emperor.

The lack of unified command over the army is not inherently fatal. Zhong Shidao, being a renowned general, has more experience in frontline military command than Li Gang. He also noticed some minor errors in Li Gang's previous deployments and made timely adjustments, which reduced the logistical losses during the prolonged stalemate.

However, because Zhong Shidao's prestige was not enough to coordinate the overall situation, each of the Song army had its own ulterior motives. For example, Yao Pingzhong of the Yao family army was used to the Song Dynasty's tradition of "using civil officials to control military forces" and wanted to find high-ranking civil officials in the court to serve him or even directly petition the emperor, hoping to be given the opportunity to go it alone, attack the Jin army alone, and raid the camp to make meritorious contributions.

Unfortunately, the Song Dynasty's intelligence and secrecy were terrible, and any plans were leaked before they could even be implemented. Although the subsequent course of the battle deviated slightly from the original history and was likely influenced by the butterfly effect, the final result was generally that "the city could barely be defended, but the counterattacks were all disastrous, resulting in heavy losses."

Yao Pingzhong's counterattack force was not completely wiped out, but at least more than half of it was lost. Several camps were destroyed, more than 10,000 soldiers died, and countless others were wounded.

After two attempts to turn the tide and suffering heavy losses, Zhao Huan finally came to his senses and dared not blindly trust Yao's army again. Li Gang, implicated in Yao Pingzhong's failed counterattack, was also demoted again.

The theory of surrender is not viable, nor is the theory of a quick victory; the only option is a protracted war.
They fortified strongholds with the Jin army and fought a protracted war, relying on encirclement without attack to wear down the Jin troops.

Throughout February, the Song and Jin armies were locked in a stalemate around Bianjing, and Zhao Huan fantasized every day that the Jin army would be unable to hold on and would retreat on its own, but things did not go as he wished.

So, the peace faction, which had just quieted down for a month or two, began to urge Zhao Huan to send envoys to the Jin people to seek peace, in exchange for giving the Jin people some face and getting them to back down.

Because Li Gang was implicated and demoted by Yao Pingzhong, Zhao Huan lacked a sufficiently influential pro-war faction around him to refuse peace talks. Intimidated, Zhao Huan bypassed Li Gang and secretly sent someone to make contact.

As a result, the Jin people, who were already feeling uneasy, suddenly became emboldened again when they saw Zhao Huanxian send someone to negotiate and show signs of weakness. Wanyan Zongwang very domineeringly drove away the Song envoys, saying that the Song emperor was not sincere and should at least send a prince as a hostage to participate in the negotiations and ensure the smooth implementation of the negotiation results.

The reason why the Jin people wanted hostages was somewhat twisted: the Jin people felt that the Song people had already broken the agreement regarding the Yan-Yun issue and the "neither side shall accept the other's surrendered generals" issue. Therefore, if they wanted to negotiate again this time, without providing hostages to guarantee the implementation of the treaty, the Jin Dynasty would not bother to talk to the Song people, since they believed that the Song people had no credibility.

The cowardly Zhao Huan, upon hearing this, surprisingly found it quite reasonable and thought that a prince should indeed be sent, which led to a chaotic scene.

Of course, none of Zhao Huan's brothers wanted to go to their deaths. Even though Zhao Huan tried his best to send people, such as sending Zhao Gou, Zhao Gou was also sent back. It is said in history that this was because Zhao Gou did not look like a prince after entering the Jin camp, so the Jin people thought that Zhao Huan had brought a fake to make up the numbers.

However, as things progressed to this point, an important butterfly effect finally began to take effect.

When the issue of hostages and negotiating envoys was first discussed, a senior official reminded Zhao Huan: "Your Majesty, why don't you consider recalling Zhao Zicheng, the Vice Minister of the Court of State Ceremonies, who is currently in mourning? Zhao Zicheng's mourning period is about to end. Moreover, the former Minister of the Court of State Ceremonies, Zhao Liangsi, was dismissed for a crime, leaving the position vacant. Zhao Zicheng has made great contributions to the country, and with his mourning period over, he can be appointed to take over the position of Minister of the Court of State Ceremonies."

If the Jurchens insist on having a prince as an envoy or hostage, their rank may be promoted as appropriate…

Upon hearing this suggestion, Zhao Huan's first reaction was that the promotion in rank might be too rapid. Zhao Zicheng was a Duke when he was in mourning, but now, upon his return, he went directly to the rank of Prince without even a transition period; it seemed a bit too outrageous.

Zhao Zicheng is a distant relative from the royal family, six generations removed. What qualifications does he have to be a prince? Is being a prince based on merit? That only applies to bloodline!
However, as things became more urgent, and with more trusted advisors analyzing other situations with him, Zhao Huan's thinking gradually shifted.

"Zhao Zicheng once made great contributions in assisting in the suppression of Fang La's rebellion, and his popularity in Jiangnan is probably beyond Your Majesty's imagination. Moreover, Zhao Zicheng has received great favors from the Emperor Emeritus. Now that the Emperor Emeritus is on a southern tour to Zhenjiang, if the Emperor Emeritus issues another edict appointing him as a key minister of Liangzhe Circuit and ordering him to intercept the wealth of the southeast to supply the Emperor Emeritus after Zhao Zicheng's mourning period ends, how will Your Majesty deal with this?"

"Only by transferring Zhao Zicheng to the capital region, rewarding him with a high rank, and ordering him to negotiate with the Jin people can these multiple troubles be resolved! Your Majesty, please consider this!"

These words finally made Zhao Huan realize the truth.

Indeed! Zhao Zicheng's mourning period is about to end, and the key is that if I don't give him an important position, my father will definitely snatch him away and give him an important position first!

Zhao Huan could easily imagine the extent of the prestige Zhao Zicheng had accumulated in Jiangnan through his campaigns against Fang La, his request to abolish the Yingfeng Bureau, and his execution of Zhu Mian.

Only by bringing such a person to the capital can we prevent him from becoming an accomplice in our father's efforts to divide the northern and southern courts!

In this situation, what is a prince?
Even someone like Li Gang, who was only the Vice Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, was able to rise to the position of Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel in one fell swoop! How many ranks did he skip in between?
Promotions made on the front lines during times of national crisis have always been unconventional and unorthodox.

Zhao Zicheng was promoted to a higher rank, even to the rank of Prince, which Zhao Huan accepted!
"Draft an imperial edict! Order Zhao Zicheng to come to Bianjing immediately without stopping. I have important matters to entrust to him!"

Zhao Huan didn't want to add any extra wording about "canceling the mourning period" in the imperial edict, because Zhao Zicheng's mourning period was already almost over, and it might even be over halfway to Bianjing, so there was no need to do anything extra.

Moreover, by not mentioning "reinstatement after a period of mourning," Zhao Zicheng could relax his guard a bit and not think too highly of the task he was about to be entrusted with.

Once he arrives in Bianjing, everything will be much easier to handle; Zhao Huan will then have complete control.

The imperial decree was issued quickly and delivered to Xiuzhou at the fastest speed possible.

After receiving the imperial edict, Zhao Zicheng did not ask any questions and carried out the order directly, which showed his great loyalty.

He simply had good horses prepared, changing horses at post stations along the way, and only took Yue Fei and a few others with him, traveling day and night to Bianjing.

Although he couldn't travel 600 li a day on the return trip, he still covered 200 to 300 li. The round trip took only eleven or twelve days, and Zhao Zicheng rushed to the capital.

(End of this chapter)