Chapter 160

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Before launching a war to annihilate a nation, what is most important?

Preparing the army?

No. A million elite soldiers, without a soul to guide them, are merely a rabble.

Preparing grain and military supplies?

No either. Even mountains of gold and silver cannot sustain prolonged warfare without wise allocation.

Studying the enemy's intelligence?

Still not. Even with clear enemy intelligence, if the people's hearts are not united, strategy cannot be turned into victory.

The most important thing is unifying internal thought. This is the bedrock of stone, capable of supporting a tower ten thousand zhang tall.

In ancient times, Duke Xiao of Qin, through Shang Yang's reforms, unified Qin's ideology, built the state on farming and warfare, and ultimately forced the six states to submit; Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang, established three simple laws, allowed the people to rest, unified thought, and thereby defeated Xiang Yu to establish the four-hundred-year Han dynasty. Unifying thought is not merely verbal agreement—it is the consolidation of wills. Soldiers must know why they fight; the people must understand the meaning of victory. Only then will ruler and ruled share the same desire, and nothing will be impregnable.

Now, the Zhao Song dynasty is about to begin reclaiming Xixia, and Zhao Yu was at a loss for how to unify thought—when Xixia delivered him the perfect pretext.

What more needs to be said?

Zhao Yu immediately seized the opportunity of Xixia's assassination attempt, which had killed and wounded hundreds in Dongjing Bianliang, to purge ministers who adamantly opposed the war—especially those advocating the return of conquered lands for peace—and foremost among them were the conservative faction led historically by Sima Guang, and those ministers still supporting their heretical doctrines.

In this process, Cai Bian again proposed digging up Sima Guang, Lü Princess, and others from their graves to whip their corpses.

This still received support from Zhang Dun.

Zhang Dun and Cai Bian's hatred of Sima Guang is understandable—after all, Sima Guang had once persecuted Zhang Dun and Wang Anshi.

But Lü Princess had always been a moderate figure striving to reconcile the New and Old Parties, and had shown Zhang Dun considerable kindness; yet Zhang Dun now planned to dig up and whip him too. Perhaps the more plausible explanation lies with Cai Bian and his band of Yuanfeng-era cruel officials seeking revenge.

Notably, among the Old Party, a new narrative has emerged: Zhang Dun originally had good relations with Wen Yanbo, Lü Dafang, and Su Shi; he only exiled them under Cai Bian's coercion, and even the false accusations against Gao Taotao and the deposition of Meng Xiang were influenced by Cai Bian.

Chen Guan, a flagship figure of the Old Party, has now changed his tune, saying that although Zhang Dun is hot-tempered, he is far less treacherous and cunning than Cai Bian, and that most political persecutions by the New Party were planned by Cai Bian.

In truth, this is because the Old Party members realized Zhao Yu had firmly decided to rely on Zhang Dun—they could not defeat him, nor topple him—so they shifted their target to Cai Bian, who was eager to purge Old Party figures.

But Cai Bian is no easy target; even if the Old Party avoided him, he was still seeking chances to crush these old die-hards; now that they dared provoke him, he naturally wanted to escalate matters.

Whipping the corpses of Sima Guang, Lü Princess, and other spiritual leaders of the Old Party was Cai Bian's retaliation.

Fortunately, the decision-making power does not lie with Cai Bian, nor even with Zhang Dun who supports him, but with Zhao Yu, who has fully seized control of the Zhao Song dynasty.

When this matter reached Zhao Yu, he immediately struck Lü Princess and other innocent names from the list, and rejected the desecration of Sima Guang's grave on grounds of "excessive cruelty." He permitted Cai Bian only to further persecute Sima Guang and his family, to demonstrate his own disdain for Sima Guang.

Simultaneously, Zhao Yu posthumously honored ministers and generals from the reigns of Emperor Shenzong, Zhao Xu, and his own reign who had made outstanding contributions to expanding the borders—such as Wang Anshi, Wang Shao, Li Xian, Zhang Jie, Lu Huiqing, Wang Hou, and Zhe Keshi.

In this broader political context, Fan Chunli, who had neglected palace security to save money, was dismissed and permanently barred from office.

Immediately after, Li Yan and Yang Jian were both demoted seven ranks, placed under probation; all negligent personnel in the Imperial City Surveillance and Eastern Factory were demoted, and depending on circumstances, either allowed to redeem themselves through merit or expelled entirely from these two departments.

What weighed even heavier on Li Yan and Yang Jian was that Zhao Yu did not let them investigate themselves—he sent four commoners, dressed in brocade robes specially granted by Zhao Yu, to investigate the Imperial City Surveillance and Eastern Factory.

Correct.

These four commoners were precisely Li Gang, Yuwen Huangzhong, Zhao Ding, and Li Guang, who had accidentally earned merit in this affair.

Most importantly, Zhao Yu publicly declared that someone had betrayed the state and sought personal glory by colluding with Xixia to assassinate him and harm his subjects; he ordered the Imperial City Surveillance and Eastern Factory to simultaneously infiltrate Xixia with spies and purge ministers and merchants in Zhao Song who were sympathetic to Xixia.

The Imperial City Surveillance and Eastern Factory, desperate to redeem themselves, struck with brutal efficiency, dismantling over a dozen smuggling caravans transporting all manner of goods to Xixia and their behind-the-scenes networks; countless individuals—even officials—were arrested, their families confiscated, men exiled to Hainan Island or Sha Sect Island, women conscripted into brothels.

Moreover, Zhao Yu adopted Zhang Chun's suggestion, and after consulting with Zhang Dun and Ceng Bu, decided to establish a Propaganda Department, currently led by Cai Bian under Zhang Dun's supervision.

Previously, the Zhao Song dynasty's official gazette had been centrally managed by court departments.

In its management process, the Menxia Hou Sheng compiled and edited the gazette; the Jishizhong handled review and issuance, serving as the critical link in the gazette's editorial and publication cycle; the Du Jinzouyuan was the institution responsible for actual gazette distribution, with Jinzouguan tasked with gathering and transmitting information; additionally, the Privy Council reviewed and controlled gazette content, especially sensitive matters such as floods, droughts, military intelligence, court secrets, and unapproved memorials.

Overall, the Zhao Song dynasty's gazette had clear departments and officials responsible for every stage—collection, editing, compilation, review, and distribution—forming a relatively complete management and operational mechanism.

Zhao Yu's decision to establish a separate Propaganda Department was to consolidate all officials related to the gazette, enhance its functions, and create a department equivalent to a modern Propaganda Department, dedicated solely to unifying thought.

Zhao Yu also, following Zhang Chun's suggestion, ordered the Propaganda Department to issue decadal reports and hire a group of public reciters to travel to crowded areas and proclaim court policies, war progress, and heroic deeds.

Zhao Yu specifically instructed Zhang Dun and Cai Bian, per Zhang Chun's advice, that the decadal reports must not only record battlefield victories but also document the people's hardships and the court's care, as well as depict a vision of a better future.

Zhao Yu further told Zhang Dun and Cai Bian that the decadal reports' content must be diverse: praising heroic generals' valor, celebrating ordinary soldiers' resilience and defense of the homeland; exposing Xixia's cruel atrocities, and firmly conveying the Song army's conviction in the justice and inevitable victory of their war.

The case of Sima Guang and others who advocated returning land yet failed to secure peace must be extensively documented; those convicted of colluding with Xixia must be publicly denounced, their families permanently disgraced.

Zhao Yu also decreed that the reciters must wear uniform attire, carry the decadal reports, and move through markets and villages, conveying the court's voice in simple, plain language—never reading mechanically. He encouraged folk artistic creation—poetry, opera, painting—to artistically process and widely disseminate the war's great significance and heroes' deeds; outstanding performances could even be staged for the troops.

Finally, Zhao Yu ordered the establishment of "Temples of Loyalty and Valor" across the realm to enshrine heroes who died for the nation in war, and martyrs who made outstanding contributions to national unification and ethnic rejuvenation.

In short, on the eve of this war to annihilate a nation, Zhao Yu would unify internal thought through a series of deliberate measures, igniting the people's patriotic fervor and the soldiers' fighting spirit.

Not long ago, censor Feng Ji merely suggested that Zhao Yu show compassion for the people's hardships and allow them one more year of rest before reclaiming Xixia.

Yet upon dismissal, a large crowd of students and commoners surged forward, accusing Feng Ji, "enumerating his crimes"; some even shouted loudly: "Feng Ji is a Xixia spy—how can he serve as an official of Great Song?"

Others walked straight up to Feng Ji, accusing him of neglecting to reclaim ancestral lands, calling him disloyal and unfilial; some even picked up broken tiles and hurled them at him.

Feng Ji, sensing danger, turned and fled, escaping back to the palace—only then did he avoid being beaten to death by the enraged mob.

The next day, feeling wronged, Feng Ji requested retirement and asked to return to his hometown.

During his official career, Feng Ji held many high offices, lived frugally and uprightly, opposed powerful ministers' arbitrary reforms, and was erudite, annotating numerous classics and commentaries. His memorials, such as "On Frugality and Loving the People" and "Exposing the Treachery of Cai Jing and Cai Bian," sharply criticized contemporary ills with righteous and solemn language—objectively speaking, they were truly insightful.

Moreover, Feng Ji was nearly seventy, a three-generation veteran of the Zhao Song dynasty, deserving of merit and hard service; Zhao Yu could not let him leave office branded a traitor.

So Zhao Yu comforted Feng Ji, telling him that reclaiming Xixia would permanently resolve Zhao Song's greatest border threat—it was now an arrow drawn, must be released.

After this incident, how could the Old Party not understand? Now, opposing the war would truly brand one a traitor, bringing disgrace upon one's ancestors and descendants alike.

What more needs to be said? Even Su Shi personally composed poetry to praise the reclaiming of Xixia:

Always mindful of border beacon fires, ever thinking of desert winds wild. In dreams I lead troops on swift steeds, outside the tent I hear flutes, spirit soaring high, heart grieved for the state's fall.

May I emulate Ban Chao casting aside his brush, like Huo Qubing capturing kings. I long for the emperor's decree, to storm the barbarian camp and reclaim our old lands, glory etched in history's scroll.

Seeing this, Zhao Yu assigned Su Shi and Cai Bian jointly to oversee propaganda, lest the extreme-prone Cai Bian push things too far.

In fact, the people of the Zhao Song dynasty have already become extreme.

According to current public sentiment—especially after the Xixia assassination attempt on Zhao Yu—the people, particularly the radical elements, demand that Zhao Song launch the war to reclaim Xixia immediately.

Even many radical ministers in court have repeatedly petitioned to punish Xixia.

It was Zhao Yu who had been holding back these people and these affairs all along, giving Zhang Jie ample time and support; only because of this did the Zhao Song dynasty not rashly go to war.

But then again, by now anyone could see that the Zhao Song dynasty's war to recover Western Xia was already inevitable—the only question was when the fighting would begin.

Not only the people of the Zhao Song dynasty and the people of Western Xia had realized this point; even the people of the Liao kingdom had already come to realize that a national war between Song and Xia was about to break out.

In response, setting aside how Western Xia had been constantly seeking an alliance with the Liao kingdom to jointly resist the Zhao Song dynasty, and speaking only of how Liao's ruler Yelu Yanxi had repeatedly dispatched envoys to the Zhao Song dynasty of late—nominally to urge peace, but in reality using the threat of military action to compel the Zhao Song dynasty to return Western Xia's territory and forbidding the Zhao Song dynasty from "invading" Western Xia—the meaning between the lines was always: if the Zhao Song dynasty dared to make a move, the Liao kingdom would certainly ally with Western Xia to attack the Zhao Song dynasty.

Zhao Yu and Zhang Dun's reply to the Liao kingdom could be summed up in a single word—"Scram!!!"

Zhao Yu and Zhang Dun being so unyielding left Han Zhongyan, Su Zhe and others deeply worried; they had not expected that Zhao Yu, once so smooth and diplomatic on all sides, would now display such a stiff-backed side.

Han Zhongyan and the others hurriedly remonstrated with Zhao Yu, saying that with war against Western Xia imminent, they could not further antagonize the Liao kingdom and leave the Zhao Song dynasty caught between two enemies.

But Zhao Yu paid no heed whatsoever to Han Zhongyan and the others' words.

Only because Zhao Yu knew Yelu Yanxi's caliber all too well, knowing he was nothing but an Ah Dou who could never be propped up, and was not worth fearing at all.

The key was, Zhao Yu was well aware that if the Zhao Song dynasty did not wage war on Western Xia, it would still be fine—given Yelu Yanxi's feckless character, he would not be expected to cause too much trouble; but once the Zhao Song dynasty went to war against Western Xia, the Liao kingdom would inevitably have to send troops and fight the Zhao Song dynasty.

This was unavoidable.

Moreover, the more the Zhao Song dynasty showed weakness, the more the Liao kingdom would press forward step by step.

Since that was the case, Zhao Yu might as well do the opposite.

Thus, when the Zhao Song dynasty sent envoys to reply to the Liao kingdom, on Zhang Dun's suggestion, Zhao Yu chose the most hardline hawkish minister Lin Lu to go.

Before his departure, Cai Jing, who could not bear to see the world at peace, secretly found Lin Lu and hinted that Lin Lu should by all means provoke the Liao kingdom, and that even if the two countries went to war there was nothing to fear.

After the Imperial City Bureau learned of this news and reported it to Zhao Yu, Zhao Yu summoned Zhang Dun to discuss it, and felt that although this move was indeed risky, it might just be able to intimidate the Liao kingdom.

Thus, Zhao Yu and Zhang Dun tacitly approved Lin Lu going to the Liao kingdom to stir up trouble, and at the same time had the Imperial City Bureau and the Eastern Depot send people to closely monitor the Liao kingdom's reaction.

With the support of Zhao Yu and his ministers, after Lin Lu arrived in the Liao kingdom, the moment he met Yelu Yanxi, he let fly a torrent of rebuke: "In years past, when the Western Xia people did not come to court, your northern court also took Tanglong Town—will you return it now?"

Tanglong Town had formerly been under the Zhe clan of Fuzhou, and after the Chenqiao Mutiny it passed along with the Zhe clan into the Zhao Song dynasty. But Tanglong Town's situation was dire, and it once tried to play the Western Xia and the Liao kingdom against each other. Later, the leader of Tanglong Town, Lai Shoushun, defected to the western frontier, and Tanglong Town was annexed by Western Xia. After that, war broke out between Liao and Xia; in the first year of Huangyou under Emperor Renzong of Song, the Liao army took advantage of Tanglong Town being utterly broken and its tribal camps emptied by flight to occupy it. Afterwards, the Liao people in the Tanglong Town region adopted measures such as relocating Yan residents and establishing autumn-defense garrisons to restore and develop the economy, while at the same time, in a location convenient for defense in Hedong, they newly established a prefecture city called "Ningbian Prefecture," and changed Tanglong Town to Tang Long Town; to this day the Liao kingdom still occupies Tang Long Town.

Lin Lu used this method to tell Yelu Yanxi: how can it be that only your Liao kingdom is allowed to seize Western Xia's territory, while my Zhao Song dynasty is not allowed to seize Western Xia's territory?

Yelu Yanxi and his ministers had not expected that Lin Lu would not even mention that Western Xia had originally been part of the Zhao Song dynasty and was still, to this day, a vassal state of the Zhao Song dynasty—making the Zhao Song dynasty's recovery of Western Xia entirely justified and well-grounded—but would instead directly pull out the bandit logic that the Hu Ren believed in and go head-to-head with Yelu Yanxi.

This directly sent Yelu Yanxi's blood pressure soaring from the questioning.

After Lin Lu returned to the envoy residence, Yelu Yanxi sent people again to deliver a state letter, demanding that Lin Lu kneel to receive it.

But Lin Lu considered this contrary to protocol and was unwilling to comply.

Officials on both sides thus fell into dispute, and the debate grew more and more heated.

In a fit of great rage, Lin Lu actually pointed at the Liao envoy's nose and cursed loudly: "Barbarian dog!!!"

At this, Yelu Yanxi finally lost his composure and blurted out: "The great Liao is a brotherly state; its ministers are my ministers—now that you insult my attendants, it is the same as insulting me!"

After this, the Liao kingdom placed Lin Lu and his party under house arrest at the envoy residence, and stopped providing food and water, intending to trap Lin Lu and his party to death.

Fortunately, there were still ministers around Yelu Yanxi who had not lost their reason; they strongly urged against this, and only after three days did Yelu Yanxi abandon the idea.

But even so, Yelu Yanxi still kept Lin Lu and the Zhao Song dynasty's envoy delegation imprisoned.

After the news was transmitted back to the Zhao Song dynasty, Zhao Yu and his ministers immediately used this as a pretext to take the first step in massing grain and supplies toward Hebei—and did so in a very conspicuous manner, putting on a full show of preparing to attack the Liao kingdom……

……

(End of this chapter)