Chapter 458
What goes around comes around
...
A group of pirates realized the importance of the Strait of Malacca. For Zhao Yu, who regarded maritime trade as the economic lifeline of the Song Dynasty, how could he not realize that once a force controlled this area, it would be equivalent to controlling the throat of the Song Dynasty's maritime trade routes?
The fact that such a place was not in the hands of the Song Dynasty made Zhao Yu restless and unable to eat or sleep.
Therefore, Zhao Yu turned his attention to the Indochina Peninsula, which he had previously overlooked.
The first countries that Zhao Yu targeted were the Joseon Dynasty and Champa, especially the former.
Because the Ly Dynasty accepted investiture from the Song Dynasty, it was also known as the "Annam Kingdom," but internally they referred to themselves as the Ly Dynasty.
The founder of the Ly Dynasty was Ly Cong Uan, the former commander of the Left Imperial Guard of the Lê Dynasty. He seized the throne, changed the era name to Thuận Thiên the following year, and established his capital in Thang Long. He became known as Ly Thai To.
After the establishment of the Ly Dynasty, it adopted the central political system model of the Tang and Song dynasties.
During the more than one hundred years of reigns of four emperors—Emperor Taizu, Emperor Taizong, Emperor Shengzong, and Emperor Renzong—the Joseon Dynasty entered a period of political centralization, national unity, and national strength.
Ly Thai To's policies included building Thang Long City, enfeoffment of central military and political officials, reorganization of local political institutions, development of Buddhism, implementation of the imperial examination system, reform of the land and taxation systems, and adoption of an expansionist policy towards the outside world.
Based on the national policy established by King Ly Thai To, subsequent kings of the Ly Dynasty all implemented this policy. As a result, during the first half of the Ly Dynasty, it fought many wars with the Song Dynasty, Zhenla (Cambodia), and Champa, and occupied a large area of territory.
Moreover, it was shortly before Zhao Yu's time travel, or more precisely, during the reign of Zhao Yu's adoptive father, Emperor Shenzong of Song, in the Xining era.
At that time, Li Gande of the Joseon Dynasty had just ascended the throne at the age of seven, and was assisted by Grand Commandant Li Changjie and Vice Minister of War Li Daocheng.
On the Song side, the situation in Yongzhou was extremely tense, as the Li Dynasty had a young ruler and strong ministers, and in recent years the Li Dynasty had been plotting to invade Guangnan West Circuit of the Song Dynasty.
—The Joseon Dynasty's incursions into the Song Dynasty's borders began during the reign of King Taejo of Joseon. In the seventh year of the Dazhong Xiangfu era of the Song Dynasty, Zhang Kan, a "Liao" (a local deity) of the Joseon Dynasty, fled to Qinzhou of the Song Dynasty after being punished by the Joseon Dynasty. The Joseon Dynasty then used the pretext of pursuing the fugitive to raid Ruhong Village in Qinzhou. Emperor Zhenzong of Song ordered the transport commissioner of Guangnan West Circuit to pursue the Joseon Dynasty for accountability. In the sixth year of the Tiansheng era of the Song Dynasty, King Taejo of Joseon "ordered his sons and son-in-law Shen Chenggui and others to lead a group into the region to plunder the border people," and the Song court again ordered the transport commissioner of Guangnan West Circuit to pursue the Joseon Dynasty. Afterwards, the Joseon Dynasty's incursions only increased.
This made the Song Dynasty always regard the Joseon Dynasty as a major threat.
Now that the opportunity has presented itself, many ministers on the Song side feel that they should take this chance to get rid of their ambitious neighbor, the Joseon Dynasty.
Among them, Shen Qi was the most radical. He believed that they should take advantage of the Joseon Dynasty's weakness, seize its life, and reclaim it, incorporating it into the territory of the Song Dynasty.
Shen Qi was appreciated by Chancellor Wang Anshi for his strong advocacy of attacking the Joseon Dynasty, and was subsequently able to replace Xiao Zhu as the prefect of Guizhou.
After taking office, Shen Qi claimed to have received a secret order to prepare for the attack on the Joseon Dynasty and mobilized local people according to the Baojia system.
Following Shen Qi's appointment as the prefect of Guizhou, Liu Yi became even more radical and hardline. He cut off the Joseon Dynasty's correspondence to the Song Dynasty, also claiming to have a secret imperial decree, intensified the training of soldiers, and even banned local trade with the Joseon Dynasty.
All of this made the entire Joseon Dynasty uneasy, believing that the Song Dynasty would surely attack Joseon in the future.
Under these circumstances, Li Changjie advocated "preemptive strike" and decided to attack the Song Dynasty.
Therefore, before setting out on the campaign, the Joseon general Li Changjie prepared to fight against the Song Dynasty, intending to lead his army to annihilate the Song army.
In November of the seventh year of the Xining era of the Song Dynasty, Generals Li Changjie and Zong Dan of the Joseon Dynasty led an army of 200,000 men, advancing by both land and sea, and launched a large-scale attack on Guangxi, the heartland of the Song Dynasty.
To justify their actions, the Joseon army posted notices everywhere, extolling the incompetence and cruelty of the Song dynasty's rulers and ministers.
The Joseon Dynasty's army, with its strategic advantage and preemptive strikes, successively captured Qinzhou and Lianzhou.
In December of the eighth year of the Xining era of the Song Dynasty, 80,000 troops of the Joseon Dynasty besieged Yongzhou City. Su Jian, the prefect of Yongzhou, immediately assembled and commanded the soldiers, subordinates and civilians who were capable of fighting day and night.
Both Qinzhou and Lianzhou were captured as soon as the enemy troops arrived, which gave the Li Dynasty army blind confidence.
When they arrived in Yongzhou, the Joseon army finally ran into a brick wall.
—Prefect Su Jian of Yongzhou led the people to hold their ground.
At that time, Yongzhou only had 2,800 soldiers. After some efforts to recruit more soldiers, they managed to raise more than 4,000. The defenders of Yongzhou put up a fierce resistance.
After the Joseon army successively captured four military strongholds within Yongzhou, Su Jian, the Song dynasty's garrison commander of Yongzhou, gathered all 2,800 imperial guards and local militia within the prefecture and assigned them to guard key locations. He also recruited several hundred daredevils to meet the Joseon army on the Yong River, killing over two hundred enemy soldiers and more than ten war elephants, before taking up residence in the city.
The Song army used crossbows to shoot down enemy soldiers and elephants attacking the city, and used fire arrows to burn the Joseon army's specially made siege equipment, such as cloud ladders and siege tunnels made of cowhide.
In total, the Song army killed or wounded more than 15,000 enemy soldiers and lost countless war elephants.
Later, the Joseon army used earth siege tactics, filling bags with earth and piling them outside the city walls. When the bags reached tens of thousands and were several meters high, the Joseon army swarmed onto the city walls, and after a 42-day siege, they finally breached the walls of Ongju.
After the city fell, Su Jian and his son, along with their family and the prefect Tang Zizheng, engaged in street fighting with the Joseon army that had entered the city.
In the end, Tang Zizheng was killed in battle. Su Jian shouted, "I will not die at the hands of the enemy!" He then returned to the prefecture and set himself on fire. Su Jian, along with his second son Ziming and Zizheng, his grandsons Guangyuan and Zhiwen, and thirty-seven members of his family, died in this battle.
After the Joseon army entered Yongzhou, they killed more than 50,000 officials, soldiers, local people, and residents. They also demolished Yongzhou to fill in the Yong River.
In addition to the people from Qin and Lian prefectures who were killed earlier.
During this invasion of Song, the Joseon Dynasty killed or captured no fewer than 100,000 people, including some monks and Taoist priests.
After killing these monks and Taoist priests, the Joseon people seized their official documents. Their spies then disguised themselves as these monks and infiltrated strategically important areas to gather intelligence.
Faced with this situation, the Song Dynasty sent envoys to contact Champa, the enemy of the Joseon Dynasty, to send troops to jointly attack the Joseon Dynasty. At the same time, it sent Guo Kui as the chief envoy and Zhao Xie as the deputy, leading 300,000 soldiers and laborers into Guangnan West Road to prepare for this national war.
After capturing Yongzhou, the Li Dynasty army intended to advance on Guizhou, but upon hearing that so many Song troops had arrived, they became somewhat hesitant and began to return the people of the three prefectures captured by Li Changjie.
Guo Kui and Zhao Xie split up their troops to pursue and recapture Qinlian.
Subsequently, Song general Yan Da captured Guangyuan Prefecture and the garrison commander Liu Yingji surrendered.
Next, the Song army advanced by both land and water, and began to enter Joseon territory on a large scale.
When the Song army reached Jue Li Pass, the Joseon army formed an elephant formation to block them. The Song army fired fiercely with crossbows and used long swords to cut the elephants' trunks. The elephants were startled and ran backward, which in turn affected the Joseon army, causing them to retreat in disarray.
The Song army took advantage of their victory and captured Jilang County and Menzhou.
In early December of the ninth year of the Xining era of the Song Dynasty, Guo Kui led a large army to Fuliang River, where the Song and Li armies engaged in a decisive battle.
More than 400 Joseon warships blocked the waterway in Jiangnan, preventing the Song army from crossing. Guo Kui and Zhao Xie then dispatched troops to cut down trees to make catapults for attack. Following Yan Da's advice, they secretly sent troops to ambush in the mountains, gradually reducing their forces and feigning weakness to lure the enemy.
Li Changjie fell for the trap, leading tens of thousands of troops across the river to attack. The Song army ambushed them, launching a combined assault with infantry and cavalry. Taking advantage of the Li army's broken sails and destroyed masts, the Song selected elite troops to launch a fierce attack on large rafts, inflicting a major defeat on the Li army, killing thousands. Crown Prince Hongjin and Prince Zhaowen of the Li Dynasty were killed in battle, and the Left General Nguyen Can was captured. Seeing that they could not defeat the Song Dynasty, the Li Dynasty sent a letter to sue for peace.
On the Song side, the army suffered from an epidemic due to venturing into the malaria-ridden land in the scorching heat. More than half of the soldiers died, and their food supplies ran out. Despite being separated by only a river, they could no longer launch an attack.
The Song and Li dynasties made peace.
After the war, Li Qiande submitted a memorial to the throne, stating: "By imperial decree, I have sent people to deliver local products, requesting the return of Guangyuan, Jilang, and other prefectures and counties." The Li Dynasty then returned the people and people it had plundered.
The Song Dynasty then granted Shunzhou to the Joseon Dynasty and relocated more than 20,000 Song people back to the Song territory.
Since then, there have been no major disputes on the border between the two countries. With peace on the border, cultural exchanges between the two countries have also begun.
As Zhao Yu ascended the throne, the Song Dynasty swept away all the dynasties in the north and became unprecedentedly powerful. Li Qiande began to offer tribute to Zhao Yu, and even offered one of his "daughters" to Zhao Yu, fearing that Zhao Yu would avenge his father.
Logically, Zhao Yu should not have caused any more trouble for the Joseon Dynasty.
The problem is that Zhao Yu knew better than anyone that the Joseon Dynasty, with its inherently aggressive bloodline, had not learned its lesson, but was simply afraid—afraid that Zhao Yu would send troops to destroy the Joseon Dynasty.
Crucially, in recent years, with the Song Dynasty's vigorous development of maritime trade, these countries in the Indochina Peninsula have all become incredibly wealthy thanks to their advantageous geographical locations.
Take the Khmer Empire in the Indochina Peninsula as an example.
Thanks to the profits from maritime trade, the Khmer Empire has become unprecedentedly wealthy and powerful. It is said that the country has 200,000 war elephants and is preparing to build the famous Angkor Wat.
Angkor Wat, with its grand scale, is a wonder rarely seen throughout history.
According to Zhao Yu, the entire cave complex covers an area of over 20 square kilometers. The main hall, built of massive stones, rises from the ground to a height of over 60 zhang (approximately 33 meters). Five spires are arranged in a staggered pattern, resembling jade shoots piercing the sky from a distance. The hall is surrounded by a moat that is 100 zhang (approximately 50 meters) wide and several li (approximately 5 kilometers) long. The stone bridges over the moat are carved with gods and mythical beasts, all lifelike. The murals inside the caves stretch for over ten li (approximately 5 kilometers), with each stroke recording the epic history of the dynasty and religious legends.
To build this cave, the Khmer emperor exhausted the wealth accumulated over half a lifetime—the cost of quarrying giant stones from the deep mountains and transporting them to the cave site alone amounted to a million taels of gold; the number of craftsmen and laborers recruited exceeded three million, and the provision of food, clothing, and tools for more than thirty years cost tens of millions of taels of silver; as for the gold and jade Buddha statues and inlaid glass gems enshrined in the temple, they are priceless.
It's such a waste to spend so much money building a bunch of dilapidated buildings.
If this money ends up in Zhao Yu's hands...
Not only the Khmer Empire, but all the small countries in the Indochina Peninsula were incredibly wealthy thanks to maritime trade.
Putting aside the fact that the wealth of these small countries in the Indochina Peninsula made Zhao Yu extremely envious.
The fact that these small countries in the Indochina Peninsula were so wealthy was a major hidden danger for the Song Dynasty.
It should be noted that over the years, these small countries in the Indochina Peninsula have frequently ventured into the territory of the Song Dynasty to plunder people.
This includes Champa, which previously fought alongside the Song Dynasty against the Joseon Dynasty, and frequently raided Qiongzhou in the Song Dynasty to enslave people.
This is all money to burn.
If they didn't have money, why would they need so many slaves?
Of course, more importantly, Zhao Yu wanted to bring the Strait of Malacca under the control of the Song Dynasty, so that the Song Dynasty would not be held hostage by anyone.
Most importantly, the Song Dynasty now has the strength to do so.
The reason why the Song Dynasty didn't take advantage of the situation to conquer the Joseon Dynasty when it was right up to their doorstep was because the army was suffering from a plague and had run out of food. Moreover, it was difficult to govern the Joseon Dynasty after it was conquered. But now it's different. After the Industrial Revolution, the Song Dynasty has swept through all the countries and powers in the north. The Song Dynasty has enough strength to build railways all over the Indochina Peninsula and completely incorporate the Indochina Peninsula into the Song Dynasty's territory.
In short, Zhao Yu now very much wants to incorporate the Indochina Peninsula into the territory of the Song Dynasty.
Zhao Yu even came up with an excuse: the Joseon Dynasty was raising pirates to plunder the Song Dynasty, not only looting merchant ships but also abducting Song people to become slaves in the Joseon Dynasty, which was absolutely unforgivable.
Zhao Yu wasn't entirely wrong about the Joseon Dynasty, because many pirates were indeed Joseon people.
Furthermore, the abduction of Song Dynasty people was not only done by the pirates of the Joseon Dynasty, but also by the Joseon Dynasty government itself, which had abducted countless people from the Song Dynasty.
How can you say that Zhao Yu wronged Joseon?
However, on the other hand, the pirates included not only people from the Joseon Dynasty, but also people from Champa, Khmer, other small countries in the Indochina Peninsula, and even people from the Song Dynasty.
To be honest, the majority of these pirates were actually from the Song Dynasty. This is because the Song Dynasty had a large population, which is now nearly 300 million and continues to grow rapidly. With such a large population base, it is natural that there are many people who are desperate and do not want to take the right path.
Ok.
None of these matters.
Back then, the Joseon people thought they were invincible, so when they invaded the Song Dynasty, didn't they just make up some dubious reasons and start the attack?
What goes around comes around.
If they are allowed to do it on the first day of the lunar month, then I am allowed to do it from the second to the thirtieth day.
No.
Can't say that.
Japan has already paid protection money to the Song Dynasty, and Zhao Yu has even fought against Japan. What about the Joseon Dynasty, an enemy that once invaded the Song Dynasty?
To be frank, Zhao Yu doesn't really care about these things anymore. He's going to unify the world sooner or later anyway, so why would he need so many excuses?
I'll just find you anyone; that's already giving you face.
Faced with the fact that Zhao Yu had only been behaving himself for a little over a year before wanting to start war again, many ministers of the Song Dynasty advised Zhao Yu to give the people of the Song Dynasty a few years to recuperate.
But Zhao Yu wouldn't listen, saying that this time they were fighting the Joseon Dynasty, not the impoverished Tibetan Empire, so the Song Dynasty would definitely not lose money.
Then, Zhao Yu issued an edict appointing Li Gang as the Pacification Commissioner of the Joseon Dynasty and Zhao Li as the Commander-in-Chief, leading an army of 200,000 men to attack the Joseon Dynasty by both land and sea.
It is worth mentioning that the army that attacked the Joseon Dynasty this time, in addition to Zhao Yu's personal guard, the Shenji Vanguard Army and the Jiangnan Imperial Guard, consisted entirely of soldiers originally from Goryeo, Japan, the steppes, the Western Regions, and Tibet, who were transferred from the north.
Seeing Zhao Yu's troop deployment, the voices of opposition in the court lessened somewhat...
...(End of chapter)