Chapter 304: Autumn Rain

Gao Shouyi, the Western Xia envoy, had never imagined in his life that he would receive such a brief and alarming note from within the Great Song imperial palace.

The content of the note was so absurd, so utterly devoid of etiquette and protocol, yet it bore the personal seal of the Zhao Song Son of Heaven, and he had only received it after entering the Zhao Song imperial palace, personally standing before that famous nameless stone pavilion, soaked by the autumn rain for the time it takes an incense stick to burn... At that time, a plump-faced, elegantly postured scholar of the Zhao Song Jade Hall had personally handed the note to him, along with a finely bound copy of the *Records of the Grand Historian*; there was simply no way it could be a forgery.

To be honest, after returning to the Western Xia embassy on the bank of the Bian River west of the city, clutching that thousand-jin-heavy note and that copy of the *Records of the Grand Historian*, Gao Shouyi did not sleep a wink all night. At one point, he considered whether he should just start a pot of mutton soup in his own bedchamber, burn the book as fuel, then stuff the note into the pot to stew until it fell apart, and eat it all together with the meat.

But in the end, he did not dare.

The threat from the Zhao Song official on the note was so blunt. He could not imagine covering this up, only to have it one day appear in the Great Song court gazette, known to all under heaven. How would he explain himself then?

When it came down to it, no matter how battered and chaotic the Great Song had been after the Jingkang Incident, after the Battle of Yaoshan, this vast nation had still stood back up. It was still the greatest power under heaven today. And so, the Great Song official was still the most powerful person under heaven today... truly the most powerful person in all the world. To the north, there were still three brothers ruling together; to the south, there was only this one man whose word was law.

And when such a man stirred up trouble, no matter how absurd, he, as an envoy from a small foreign state, had to treat it as a matter of utmost importance and handle it with the greatest caution.

And so, after a sleepless night, early the next morning, this Western Xia envoy finally summoned his scribe. First, he carefully wrote a memorial, roughly recounting the sequence of events, to serve as a buffer for his own sovereign. Then, he had people seal this insult-laden note, along with that copy of the *Records of the Grand Historian*, into a secure box. Together with the scribe's memorial, it was dispatched by swift horse, charging out through the autumn rain of Jianyan fifth year's Dongjing.

He was faithfully following the Zhao Song official's wishes.

Of course, even so, it was almost imaginable that by the time the news reached Western Xia, it would probably already be the end of autumn.

Therefore, rather than waiting for a reaction from that Western Xia sovereign, who had weathered who knows how many Song and Liao emperors, it was better to focus for now on the postponed Imperial University examinations and palace examination at the end of autumn, and on the package of financial reform plans set to be rolled out in winter. Even from a military and statecraft perspective, the movements of the Jin seemed more worthy of attention.

Wasn't this because the peace talks had failed, and now it was after autumn? According to past custom, the Jin should be coming.

Sure enough.

One could only say "sure enough." Just as the Western Xia envoy's trusted messenger was whipping his horse, racing over a thousand li just to deliver a note, a conflict broke out between Song and Jin at a predictable time and a predictable place... Fuzhou, defended by Wu Lin, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Rear Army, was suddenly raided by the Jin army from Yan'an Prefecture to the north. Wanyan Huonu, Commander-in-Chief of the Jin Yan'an Marching Army, personally led his troops south, and his personal banner appeared on the front lines.

Of course, since it was a predictable attack, the well-prepared Wu Lin naturally did not suffer. At Diaoyin Mountain Pass, relying on the Diaoyin Mountain camp that had been built up since the time of Qu Duan, he successfully blocked Wanyan Huonu's offensive. After two days of sudden, fierce fighting, the two sides quickly shifted into a tactical stalemate.

However, the interesting thing was that next, during the Song-Jin standoff at Diaoyin Mountain, the highly alert Danzhou region (east of Fuzhou) did not see the expected engagement. Instead, the Bao'an Army and Qingzhou area, northwest of Fuzhou, were raided by Jin forces.

The Jin flanking force was clearly advancing up the North Luo River, capturing fortresses and stockades along the way.

Caught off guard, the Jin army seized several stockades in quick succession in northern Qingzhou and the core area of the Bao'an Army. Even Kaolao Stockade (in the area of modern Zhidan County), the main city of the Bao'an Army, had its communications cut off. Guo Hao, the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Rear Army stationed there, along with his three thousand elite field troops, was suddenly lost to all contact.

When the news reached Fangzhou, south of Fuzhou, Wu Jie, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Rear Army stationed there, was momentarily shaken and dazed. For a time, he did not dare to send troops on his own authority to rescue Guo Hao. He only sent repeated requests for instructions to the three high officials behind him in Chang'an: Yuwen Xuzhong, Han Shizhong, and Hu Yin.

Relatively speaking, as the Guanzhong headquarters, which had repeatedly received authorization and guarantees from the Zhao official, Chang'an's response was very direct and swift. Yuwen Xuzhong, in his capacity as Grand Councilor, issued a signed order demanding that Wu Jie immediately dispatch troops personally via Fuzhou towards Qingzhou to rescue Guo Hao. At the same time, Hu Yin, the Fiscal Commissioner of the Five Guanzhong Circuits, personally went north to Fangzhou to take over the area and oversee logistics there. Meanwhile, Han Shizhong, the Prince of Yan'an, immediately mobilized some troops and personally went to Tongzhou to provide support.

Here, one must add that Wu Jie's hesitation and daze were not due to incompetence. Rather, his thinking was constrained by his identity as a military man, which was why Wanyan Huonu had momentarily stunned him.

You see, from a grand strategic perspective, the Jin army had no reason to attack the Bao'an Army. Even if they captured it, turning south would still require navigating complex terrain and the numerous fortresses and stockades that had sprung up during the nearly century-long war between Great Song and Western Xia... And a poor, remote place like the Bao'an Army could not even provide any logistical relief to Wanyan Huonu's main force of over twenty thousand Jin troops.

Of course, the entire northern Shaanxi was a poor, remote area. Wanyan Huonu's logistics had always been transported by the Jin from their own Western Capital (Datong) region.

But regardless, from a military perspective, Wanyan Huonu attacking the Bao'an Army was just attacking the Bao'an Army. There was really no strategic value to it.

Relatively speaking, Danzhou, which bordered the Yellow River, was east of Fuzhou and southeast of Yan'an Prefecture, should have been the place of real concern. If the Jin army had any intention of moving south, whether to occupy and expand territory west of the river, or to follow the river downstream and strike directly at Guanzhong like Loushi had done before, this would have been the place to start.

In fact, during last year's Battle of Yaoshan, while Loushi led his main force south along the North Luo River, it was Wanyan Huonu, then entrenched in Yan'an Prefecture, who led a flanking force along the Yellow River to attack Danzhou.

And it was a great success.

Therefore, from Wu Jie's perspective as the frontline commander, he truly could not understand why Huonu did not attack Danzhou, but instead went for the Bao'an Army.

Yet, Huonu simply did not attack Danzhou. He attacked the strategically worthless Bao'an Army.

As for Chang'an's swift response, it was not because Yuwen Xuzhong, Hu Yin, or the others were completely ignorant of military affairs and giving blind orders, nor was it that they had suddenly become renowned military experts. Rather, as civil officials, combining the news of the Jin civil strife and the death of Nianhan, along with the situation of Wanyan Huonu stationing an inappropriately large force in Yan'an Prefecture, they had long since guessed Huonu's delicate state of mind and circumstances.

This Jin army's southward move after autumn was, from a timing perspective, business as usual. But it was very likely an unauthorized deployment by Wanyan Huonu.

If that were the case, Huonu attacking the Bao'an Army would, conversely, become perfectly reasonable... Because without the cooperation of a large main force from the Hedong Jin army, Huonu could not truly move south, nor could he form any strategic objective. Instead, it was more realistic for him to provoke a border incident while conveniently swallowing the Bao'an Army to enrich himself.

The subsequent events confirmed this conjecture... From the end of the eighth month to the beginning of the ninth month, as Huonu launched his offensive, the Song army's Guanzhong headquarters scrambled to respond. Li Yanxian in Shanzhou also continuously relayed messages, all repeating one fact: the Hedong Jin army had indeed not made any large-scale coordinated moves.

After Wu Jie personally led ten thousand elite troops of the Imperial Rear Army into Qingzhou and began to contest the fortified villages with the Jin army to the north, Huonu's difficulties and lack of strength in waging war became fully apparent. It could be said that, by this point, the fact that this man had deployed troops without authorization was completely confirmed.

Of course, it must also be said that the one caught off guard by Huonu's actions could not possibly have been only the Song people.

"Huonu!"

In mid-September, when news of Huonu's unauthorized deployment reached the Yanjing Department of State Affairs, a powerful figure on the scene immediately flushed with anger and even threw the memorial directly to the ground.

However, this person was none other than the Third Prince, Eriduo, who had always been good-natured and was now a devout believer in Buddhism—the current Prince of Jin and Chancellor of the Department of State Affairs.

This contrast inevitably drew the sidelong glances of the Jin civil and military officials deliberating in the Department of State Affairs... Some were genuinely shocked, while others, after a moment's thought, immediately realized that Eriduo being most sensitive to Huonu was only natural.

Here, one must insert a digression to discuss the distribution of supreme power in the Jin state at this time.

It is said that since the death of the founding Emperor Aguda, due to political traditions, military deployments, blood relations, succession disputes, and founding merits, the Jin state had for a considerable period formed a situation of three major political factions standing in a tripod, namely the faction of the former sovereign Wuqimai, the faction of Aguda's sons, and the faction of Nianhan, representing the interests of distant imperial clansmen.

However, the Battle of Yaoshan changed everything. As internal conflicts intensified, the former sovereign Wuqimai suddenly suffered a stroke. Nianhan then took the opportunity to imprison Wuqimai's sons. Coupled with his earlier, seemingly coincidental seizure of Talan's military power at Great Ming Prefecture, he suddenly and unexpectedly suppressed the Wuqimai faction across the board, effectively controlling the court.

But as the saying goes, no flower blooms for a hundred days. Although Nianhan, having become the de facto powerful minister controlling the court, deliberately tried to co-opt and divide Aguda's sons, he still overlooked the unity of political interests among the close branches of the Wanyan clan and overestimated his own ability, as a member of a distant branch, to control the court. This led to Aguda's sons suddenly staging the coup at the Department of State Affairs, killing him and seizing power.

After the Department of State Affairs coup, Nianhan's faction was completely wiped out at the central level. Nianhan and his son were physically eliminated. His powerful subordinates, such as Wanyan Xiyin and Wanyan Yinshuke, were bought off, controlled, or absorbed. The Wuqimai faction was also not reinstated due to fundamental disputes with Aguda's sons over the throne. Wuqimai remained under house arrest, and his sons were effectively exiled. However, Talan and his brother Wuye, along with Pujianu and others, were retained in court after the new emperor ascended the throne.

In other words, at the center of the Jin state at this time, leaving aside the young and inexperienced child emperor, it was Aguda's three eldest sons who actually held power. After eliminating the core leaders of the other two major factions, they absorbed some core members of those factions to achieve political balance. At the same time, to carry out basic political reforms, the Jin central government also extensively recruited Han officials from the Liao territories and newly surrendered Han officials from the south as political supplements.

To be fair, this outcome was a remarkable political harmony for the Jin state, which had just emerged from a tribal alliance and was inevitably transitioning to a Chinese-style administrative system.

In particular, Aguda's fourth son, Wanyan Wushu, who had actually masterminded the Department of State Affairs coup, could be said to have made enormous political sacrifices for the greater good, giving up a large amount of political gain that was originally within easy reach, in order to establish a relatively stable political structure.

However, the founding principles of the Jin state were set in stone. No matter how the political structure was arranged, some core issues were not open for discussion.

For example, among the three brothers who actually held power: the Eldest Prince, the Prince of Liao and Grand Councillor of Military and State Affairs, Wanyan Woben, had been active in Aguda's central army since childhood. Later, he served as a Boginlie, participating in court affairs. He never held field command, but he had immense prestige among the central nobility... Before and after the coup, due to Jurchen customs, he also had a nominal right to foster the new emperor. Therefore, his core interests lay within the tribal alliance-style Jurchen central nobility circle.

The Third Prince, Eriduo, and the Fourth Prince, Wanyan Wushu, were simpler and more direct. One was the Chancellor of the Department of State Affairs, the other the Chancellor of the Privy Council. They had effectively taken over control of the Jin Western Route Army and Eastern Route Army, respectively.

In the Great Jin, military power was the foundation.

However, this control was not something the three brothers could simply sit down and decree, "Abolish the Marshal's Office, the Eldest Brother takes overall command, the Western Route Army is yours, the Eastern Route Army is mine," and have it be so.

The military was a tangled web, touching upon the most basic and core political interests... Wushu had to face the troublesome knot of veteran generals in the Eastern Route Army at Great Ming Prefecture, and the real problem of the rapid degeneration and corruption of the Hebei Jin army. Since Eriduo had taken over the Western Route Army, he also had to face the two most troublesome military strongmen there: Wanyan Balisu in Taiyuan and Wanyan Huonu in Yan'an.

Balisu was manageable. In particular, Wushu and his two brothers, without any instruction, had, after the coup, directly sidelined the traitorous and disgraced Yinshuke, but gave the militarily powerful Balisu the substantive posts of Taiyuan Garrison Commander and Commander-in-Chief of the Western Route Army's Frontline Marching Army... This made Balisu unhesitatingly abandon his own elder brother and become the most powerful military strongman in the state, second only to the three brothers.

At the same time, however, Huonu was a huge problem, because Huonu's issues involved too much.

First and foremost, of course, was the immense military and personnel legacy that Huonu's biological father, Wanyan Loushi, had left for his son within the Western Route Army.

Although Loushi had died in battle and been beheaded for public display, to the point where his corpse was still lying at Yaoshan, every Jin soldier who had been on the battlefield knew what had really happened. No Jin soldier would deny Loushi's military achievements, his seniority, or his personal strength and greatness.

To deny Loushi was to deny all the heroic deeds and glorious military accomplishments of the Jin state since its founding!

Even regarding the Battle of Yaoshan, which had reversed the overall Song-Jin situation, no one denied the correctness and timeliness of the campaign itself. Now, when Jin nobles spoke of that battle, they only regretted not having listened to Loushi's advice earlier and not having given him more troops. In fact, even when Nianhan was still alive, before Wuqimai was angered into a stroke, the Jin internal narrative had already been unified: Loushi died and Yaoshan was lost because Wanyan Loushi's old wounds had reopened on the battlefield, causing him to lose his command and combat capabilities.

As the saying goes, when there are no heroes, a base fellow gains fame. That was how the Zhao Song official, along with Han Shizhong, Qu Duan, Wu Jie, and the others, had gotten lucky.

Even the Song people, after experiencing such a heart-stopping battle, had no intention of maliciously belittling Loushi. This could be seen from the fact that as soon as the battle ended, the Zhao Song Emperor promoted Liu Ziyu, who had opposed the military campaign.

Secondly, there was the widespread distrust of the central command within the Western Route Army after Nianhan's death.

There's nothing much to say about this... Nianhan was the founder of the Western Route Army. If he died suddenly and the Western Route Army had no reaction, that would be the strangest thing. Just think about it. The reason Huonü could maintain such a large main force of the Jin Army in Yan'an Prefecture without moving must also have had something to do with Nianhan. Even if Bailsu could seize the opportunity to rise up, wasn't he also taking advantage of this?

Thirdly, it involved the fundamental national policy of the Jin State.

When Jin Wushu launched the coup, on one hand he sought political benefits for his faction, but on the other hand, he had long since detected the rapid decline and corruption of the Jin Army, and perceived the reality of the rapidly reversing power balance between Song and Jin. He intended to use this to seize power and carry out internal reforms.

Moreover, this reason received active approval from the Third Prince Eliduo, Wanyan Talan, and many Han officials... Although the fundamental reasons for these people's approval differed, overall they supported Jin Wushu's basic political demands.

Doing this meant abandoning the national policy of military offense and plunder, and stopping expansion. In other words, the coup itself had the political color of switching from offense to defense, abandoning war and seeking peace.

But, and this is a big but, the Zhao Song Emperor to the south simply didn't act like a Zhao Song Emperor. He almost shamelessly rejected the peace negotiations and even successfully launched a sneak attack on Jingdong... Of course, the Jingdong battle caught both the northern and southern high commands by surprise. Matters on the battlefield are not something anyone far away in the court can control... But regardless, this also gave the pro-war faction within the Jin State an excuse.

You talk about peace negotiations... Did the peace negotiations happen? Did the Song people give you any face? What about the great defeat at Jingdong?

This discontent brewing within the military also indirectly allowed Huonü to gain a certain amount of political leverage. And this time, in the document thrown to the ground by Eliduo, Huonü was precisely using the great defeat at Jingdong as a pretext to regain morale for the Great Jin from northern Shaanxi, just to be a nuisance.

Finally, there was the personal grudge between Huonü and Bailsu in their struggle for command of the Western Route Army after Loushi's death.

From Eliduo's perspective, it was certainly unproblematic for him to prioritize winning over Bailsu, who had more troops, a more legitimate official position, controlled Taiyuan, and also had partial influence over Xijing (Datong) and Hezhong Prefecture.

But conversely, it was only to be expected that this would offend Huonü.

Only, things turned over and over again, with layers of principles checking each other... Still, as the saying goes, even so, Huonü's disregard for the overall situation in launching a campaign so lightly still dealt a heavy blow to the political authority of the entire Jin central command, and a severe blow to the personal political authority of Eliduo, his nominal leader.

If everyone were to imitate Huonü and ignore the central command's wishes, launching private military campaigns, wouldn't that lead to great chaos?

It was also raining autumn rain in Yanjing, and now it had entered the last month of autumn. As the rain drizzled down, the hearts of the people in the Imperial Secretariat inevitably felt a chill.

"Although Huonü is detestable, for now we can only acquiesce."

Unexpectedly, the person who picked up the document Eliduo had thrown to the ground and spoke these words was the pale-faced, equally displeased Fourth Prince Jin Wushu. "Not only that, we must also order Bailsu to quickly send reinforcements to coordinate."

"What the Fourth Prince says is very true." Wanyan Xiyin, the Vice Grand Councilor of the Central Secretariat, also expressed his attitude frankly, ahead of several Han officials. "When all is said and done, can we just abandon the tens of thousands of troops in Yan'an Prefecture?"

"Indeed, it should be so." The First Prince, Wanyan Woben, sitting in the seat of honor, thought for a moment and then shook his head helplessly. "Peace negotiations are impossible now; we cannot show weakness to the Song people."

"I naturally understand this reasoning." Eliduo gave a cold laugh, his anger apparently hard to dissipate. "But if we let Huonü repeatedly use his troops to assert himself in Hexi, what kind of situation is that?! We certainly cannot let go of those troops, and we have never intended to. Have we ever skimped on logistics, pay, or rewards for Hexi? But Huonü must also come up with an explanation, otherwise the future troubles will be even greater..."

Everyone present, from the three princes to several central imperial clan ministers, to internal reformers like Wanyan Xiyin, and even surrendered officials like Qin Gui, Han Fang, and Hong Ya, who had just been appointed Chief Secretary of the Central Secretariat, almost all nodded in unison.

Huonü had indeed crossed the line. If he were not dealt with, where would the authority of the central command be?

What if the Great Ming Prefecture side followed suit? And wouldn't Bailsu use this as a reason to demand more political compensation from the central command?

However, as just mentioned, Huonü's matter was not that simple... To truly resolve the issue of Huonü, one of the Third Prince or the Fourth Prince would probably have to personally go to Yan'an. If that happened, as long as Huonü didn't make up his mind to rebel, the matter could be mostly settled.

But the problem was, who could guarantee Huonü wouldn't rebel? The three princes in power also had to maintain a balance among themselves. Why should one of the Third Prince or the Fourth Prince abandon such great authority to take risks at the front?

"I'll go in Third Brother's place!"

Holding the document in his hand, Wanyan Wushu thought for a moment, then finally let out a long sigh. "Elder Brother and Third Brother will continue to manage the overall situation. The reform of the Meng'an system in Hebei will be put on hold for now. I will go to Yan'an myself to see Huonü, and also handle the western front campaign. We must ensure that northern Shaanxi does not become a festering sore for the Great Jin."

The other two princes looked at each other on the spot, relieved. But below the two princes, many Jurchen nobles were somewhat stunned. As for a few Han officials, they were momentarily lost in thought and emotion.

PS: Thanks to Brother Yun's Fans for the third sponsorship, thanks to Elder Dengren for the third sponsorship... I admit my mistake. This month should have been over 130,000 words, but in the end, I was short by over 10,000 words. This month's goal has completely failed.

However, I still wish everyone a happy Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday.