Chapter 877: The North-South Strategic Debate 2.0

With the sudden shift in the northern situation, the Han–Liao conflict, even to the point of exchanging blows, shattered the already fragile peace between Han and Liao in an instant. Looking back, seven years of stability were like a bubble, and the so-called peace negotiations were nothing but a joke.

Because the Liao army suddenly raided Yanmen Pass, the court in the Eastern Capital was abuzz with discussion—civil and military alike felt indignant, a sense of being violated.

At this time, the sovereign and ministers of the Great Han were immersed in the fervor of advancing on Jiangbiao and unifying the south. The fighting at Yanmen was like a ladle of cold water poured over their heads—not much water, but cold enough, cold to the bone, and enough to drag Liu Chengyou's attention back to the north once more. And this time, it would not be so easy to look away.

In truth, this sudden provocation from Liao was somewhat unexpected and puzzling—unexpected at how quickly they had turned hostile, puzzling that they had sent only ten thousand cavalry and infantry.

Fortunately, the Great Han's intelligence work regarding Liao had achieved no small results over the years. After some effort, the Military Intelligence Bureau reported up. Though the details were not exhaustive, one thing was clear: the Liao envoy Xiao Husi, returning north, had reported something to the Liao sovereign, and on the second day after his audience, the Liao army marched south.

With the acumen of the Great Han's sovereign and ministers, they naturally locked their gaze on Xiao Husi at once and made their judgment. Liu Chengyou immediately ordered Commissioner of the Wude Office Li Chongju to investigate. From the officials who had been in contact with Xiao Husi, they learned of his conduct while traveling south—clearly he had been secretly probing the Great Han's strengths and weaknesses.

The same matter, seen through different eyes, yields different conclusions. As Liao's Northern Commissioner of Military Affairs, Xiao Husi was certainly a man of discernment. From what he observed along his journey, he sensed the threat of the Great Han, and the Liao emperor concurred—hence the subsequent actions.

Upon learning of this, Liu Chengyou was angered and immediately ordered that the officials and officers who had received Xiao Husi be stripped of their posts and dismissed. At the same time, within the Wude Office, the agents who had been monitoring Xiao Husi were also dealt with. They were the ones in closest contact with him, yet they had detected not the slightest sign of his machinations, even with the cover of "sightseeing and enjoying the scenery."

Well, those implicated officials might feel wronged, after all, previously, to maintain the cordial relations between Han and Liao, the Emperor had issued an edict to receive the Liao envoy with good hospitality and courtesy. Though they bore the fault of negligence and showed poor judgment, in the end they were still victims of Liu Chengyou's displaced anger.

At the same time, he recalled that during Xiao Husi's time in the Eastern Capital, he had several direct exchanges with him, all pleasant conversations. Who would have thought that beneath that kind, humble countenance lay such scheming and hostility—and crucially, he himself had not detected it.

At bottom, his attention had been on southern affairs. As for Liao in the north, though he had always maintained vigilance and constantly reminded himself, how could he truly keep that vigilance at the forefront of his mind at all times? Moreover, in recent years, the Khitan had indeed been "well-behaved."

With Liu Chengyou's own reflections, supplemented by the analyses of his chief ministers, the situation was soon largely clarified. And though the move of ten thousand troops raiding Dai felt somewhat anomalous, for the time being it could only be explained as "probing."

Yang Ye's victory released much of the pent-up frustration in Liu Chengyou's heart. At his bold sortie, fighting against superior numbers and emerging victorious, Liu Chengyou was greatly pleased and remarked: "Yang Chonggui has indeed made his name here!"

1,879 heads were taken, of which 728 were Khitan; the rest of the casualties were not counted in that number. His own losses were under a thousand. Adding the prisoners and the captured supplies, it was a truly resounding, thorough victory. The Great Han court, and even the scholars and commoners of the Eastern Capital, were greatly invigorated and heaped praise upon it. At the Emperor's behest, the Pacification Commission also sprang into action.

However, in this atmosphere, someone still stepped forward to spoil the mood, saying that Yang Ye had acted rashly in sortieing, risking the loss of the pass, using his subordinates' lives to achieve his own merit, and that slaughtering Liao soldiers might provoke a full-scale war between the two states...

For such remarks, Liu Chengyou did not even need to speak—Commissioner of Military Affairs Guo Rong publicly gave that censor who had spoken a thorough dressing-down. Afterwards, the Left Chief Censor Cui Zhouding, yielding to public sentiment, took the initiative to demote that subordinate to a local post.

To this, Liu Chengyou could only sigh that in this world, fools were ultimately more numerous than the wise, and those who did not know the times and thought too highly of themselves were everywhere.

For the meritorious officers and men of the great victory at Yanmen, Liu Chengyou was naturally unstinting in his rewards. Yang Ye's noble rank was not elevated—he remained Marquis of Guo—but the title "Founding" was added, and his grain stipend was increased. His wife, Lady Feng, was granted a fifth-rank commendation, and his eldest son, Yang Yanzhao, was given a meritorious post, allowing Yang Ye to successfully honor his wife and benefit his son.

As for the officers below him, such as Kang Yanze and others, they too received generous rewards, with compensation for the wounded and fallen, and bounties for the meritorious—using the most direct means to demonstrate the Emperor's attitude toward those who had rendered service in this battle.

Once the gracious edict was issued, waves stirred again in the Eastern Capital court. Military officials and imperial army officers in the capital submitted memorials one after another, requesting that the Emperor dispatch troops for a northern expedition. The petitions for battle nearly piled up across the imperial desk in Chongzheng Hall.

Among the Han generals, some were driven by ambition for achievement, others inspired by Yang Ye's victory. Though the war of unification was important and equally meritorious, since ancient times it was foreign wars and territorial expansion that truly stirred the blood and passion of ambitious men—especially when the Khitan had been the ones to stir up trouble this time. Toward the powerful enemy in the north, there was also a shared desire for vengeance and vindication, after all, they had been allowed to run rampant on the northern frontier for decades.

Some were simply joining in the excitement. Among the senior commanders of the imperial army, many also stepped forward to declare their stance—Han Tong, Sun Li, Li Chongjin, Li Jixun, and others.

Even Wang Yin, the former Deputy Commander of the Imperial Guard Command who had been idle for years, took the initiative to submit a memorial to Liu Chengyou, hoping to join the northern expedition. Back then, when He Fujin died of illness and the court was selecting a northern commander-in-chief, the appointment had already been issued. Unfortunately, Wang Yin had grown arrogant and unrestrained in his behavior, was impeached by others, and incurred Liu Chengyou's wrath. He was stripped of everything at once—losing not only the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front but also his military position as Deputy Commander of the Imperial Guard.

Over the years, whether the court was taking Jinghu or destroying Shu, Wang Yin had proactively requested to join the campaigns, but Liu Chengyou had refused him each time. First, the Great Han did not lack generals—why would it need an old general past sixty? Second, his improper conduct from back then had left too poor an impression on Liu Chengyou.

This time was Wang Yin's last proactive request. If he still could not be given the opportunity, he would harbor no further hopes and simply spend his remaining years in melancholy.

Among the remaining commanders, Murong Yanzhao, Xiang Xun, and Zhao Kuangyin all refrained from easily declaring their positions. These were three politically mature commanders who understood clearly that no matter how enthusiastically the others agitated, it still came down to the Emperor's attitude. And the decision for a northern expedition was a matter of paramount importance for the court, requiring careful discussion and comprehensive calculation by the court's senior officials—not something to be decided lightly.

These were all commanders in the capital. As for local generals, especially the border troops in Hebei, though their memorials had not yet arrived, Liu Chengyou could already anticipate their eagerness to try and their earnest desire to serve the state.

Behind the commanders' pleas for battle lay a debate concerning the Great Han's grand strategy—the north-south dispute, a topic that had run through the strategic direction of the Great Han since its founding.

In the early years, there was essentially no major controversy. At that time, the state's strength was insufficient, the strategic environment was far from favorable—enemies on all sides and no shortage of vulnerabilities. Under such circumstances, choosing to attack the south was the most reasonable option, with the least risk and the greatest returns.

Even so, in the fourth year of Qianyou, when the southern campaign was imminent, the Liao army gathered its forces and marched south, and the Huoshendian Rebellion broke out—at that time, many had proposed a northern expedition. Why? Because with the northern frontier in such a devastated state, from the sovereign and ministers down to the soldiers and commoners, the Great Han lacked a sense of security.

After expanding into Huainan and recovering Qinfeng in the west, national strength gradually grew rich and military power gradually strengthened, and again people suggested a northern expedition to Liu Chengyou. At that time, though Liao had recovered for a few years, its politics were unstable, with constant rebellions among the imperial clan and nobles, presenting an opportunity.

However, after some deliberation, Liu Chengyou still refused, persisting in the strategy of attacking south and defending north. As long as the north could maintain basic peace and provide sufficient space, then he would continue along the established strategy.

Thereafter came the taking of Jinghu, the pacification of the Meng Shu, and so on to the present. If the northern border situation remained unchanged, then the next step—pacifying Jiangnan in one stroke—would remain an unshakable strategy.

But this time was different. Liao had taken the initiative to change things, unleashing war and shattering the fragile balance between Han and Liao. Once the balance was broken, Liu Chengyou had no choice but to seriously turn his attention north—not because his resolve wavered, but because the threat from the north could no longer be ignored.

Within the court, the north-south strategic debate was reignited, and this time it was not confined to a few key civil and military officials. On the seventh day of the fifth month, Liu Chengyou simply issued an edict ordering all civil and military officials of the fifth rank and above in the capital to each submit their strategies and discuss the question of going south or north.

This edict also reflected Liu Chengyou's inner conflict. Amid the wave of ministers voicing their opinions, Liu Chengyou expressed a sentiment to his close attendants: "It's already the eleventh year of Qianyou, and I'm still racking my brains over the north-south strategy!"

Amid the tide of discussion, Liu Chengyou could not help but ponder—in the original history, when the Northern Song pacified the south, all the way until Wuyue surrendered its territory, Liao had never reacted so strongly. Why?

After much thought, though he had not fully penetrated the reasons, he ultimately gained some insight.

If in official history, the end of the Five Dynasties chaos began its true foundation with the establishment of the Later Zhou, stepping onto the fast track of unification—then the present Great Han, compared to that, was merely three years ahead in various aspects. But those three years of internal cultivation, as they developed, would produce a gap far greater than a mere three years.

Missing the harm of the Three Rebel Alliance, missing the chaos of dynastic succession, and without the Northern Han as a hindrance, the Huainan campaign was settled in half a year... These allowed the dynasty's vitality to be greatly preserved, and the speed of recovery and development was incomparable. Add to that Liu Chengyou's painstaking efforts at governance, and the Great Han's national strength and military power far exceeded that of the "same period," naturally bringing pressure to Liao's sovereign and ministers that was likewise incomparable.

And in official history, by the time the Northern Song developed to the level of the present Great Han, Liao had also been stably accumulating for nearly twenty years, and without the heavy losses of the Battle of Luancheng, it was naturally more settled. Moreover, entering the late period of Yelu Jing's reign, Liao's political environment was indeed somewhat chaotic, with intense internal contradictions, and it lacked the strength to deal with Song affairs.

But now, the pressure the Great Han brought to Liao was too great. If Liao's sovereign and ministers had any sense of crisis, they absolutely could not remain indifferent while the Great Han pacified the south.