"Even if I had never been told in advance of the fate awaiting the Southern Song in Jiangnan," Zhao Kuangyin said, shaking his head, "I could still have predicted it."
"This Duanping campaign into Luoyang was doomed from the start."
Inside the palace hall at Bianliang, the founding emperor of Song had reached almost exactly the same conclusion.
Beside him, Zhao Guangyi took half a cautious step backward, then let out a careful, cold chuckle.
"Emperor Lizong is still descended from our bloodline, elder brother. Isn't that a bit harsh?"
Zhao Kuangyin turned and saw the monk edging away. He clicked his tongue in exasperation and crooked a finger.
"Why are you standing so far away? I'm not going to hit you."
Zhao Guangyi finally relaxed and stepped back into place.
The next instant, the back of his bald head was smacked.
The sudden blow sent a surge of indignation rushing into his chest. He glared at the Song emperor, only to see Zhao Kuangyin standing there completely at ease.
"This," Zhao Kuangyin said leisurely, "is to teach you that on the battlefield, deception is never too much. War thrives on trickery."
That was pure sophistry.
Monk Kongjiong clenched his fists in anger… then began turning his prayer beads two notches faster instead.
"What? Still unconvinced?"
Zhao Guangyi lowered his gaze again. A moment later, his brother's voice drifted down from above.
"Do you think the Mongols would just sit by and let Lizong cling to the south in peace?"
No answer was needed. Zhao Kuangyin shook his head.
"They would never allow it."
"When Khwarazm had only just begun to show signs of rising, the Mongols found an excuse and wiped the state out."
"To destroy that dynasty, they even chased their enemies all the way toward India, refusing to let go."
He paused, recalling a phrase from later generations, and could not help admiring how unrestrained later speech could be.
"As the people of the future put it… Temujin was the sort who could bite a dog and come out unharmed."
"A kindness over a meal might never be repaid, but the slightest grudge would be avenged without fail."
Zhao Pu finally pulled himself out of his earlier thoughts about the succession of powerful ministers dominating the court and nodded in agreement.
"Take Western Xia, for instance. They had no blood feud with the Mongols. They sent daughters, tribute, and even troops to serve them."
"But judging from how the Mongols divided up the spoils they seized, it was obvious that the intention to destroy Xia had long been there."
In his view, Western Xia's temporary ceasefire with the Mongols was less a peace agreement and more a calculated strategy by the Mongols to bleed them dry.
Even if Xia obediently handed over everything and served them without resistance, they would still end up collapsing from exhaustion.
"So rather than saying Song and the Mongols cooperated to destroy Jin," Zhao Pu continued, "it would be more accurate to say the Southern Song was forced into destroying Jin."
He sighed.
"After so many rounds of warfare, who knows how many common people in Henan and Hebei are still alive. And with the Yellow River shifting course and flooding for thousands of li, the land must be nearly empty."
"If that is the case, the grain needed for a northern expedition would be beyond calculation."
"If… back at the Battle of Caizhou, instead of giving the Mongols three hundred thousand shi of grain, perhaps…"
He trailed off and shook his head, clearly pessimistic about the coming campaign.
Zhao Guangyi's prayer beads spun even faster in his hand. He privately thought it was no wonder so many officials in the Southern Song court admired Zhao Pu as the model of "best at advocating peace."
Naturally, he did not say this aloud. Instead, he turned his thoughts toward what would happen next.
With things already this bad, what great generals could Song possibly still produce? Could anyone really stand against the Mongols, who crushed states like rotten wood?
[Lightscreen]
[The "Duanping Entry into Luoyang" is the most straightforward name for this Southern Song northern expedition.
In 1234, the Jin dynasty was gone. The powerful minister Shi Miyuan was gone as well.
For Emperor Lizong, the mood at the time could only be described like a toad leaping into a well, a wild donkey entering open plains, a fish roasting in a huge fire, a bird stewing in a giant pot. In short, everything felt wonderfully comfortable.
That year, the era name was changed to Duanping. And the greatest achievement of that northern expedition was written right into it: entering Luoyang.
In the third month of that year, with Jin destroyed and relations between Song and the Mongols still unsettled, Emperor Lizong ordered Meng Gong to escort Zhu Yangzu and Lin Tuo north into Henan to pay respects at the Northern Song imperial mausoleums and carry out basic repairs.
Meng Gong had already gained fame earlier when the Jin emperor launched his desperate southern offensive. Meng relieved the siege of Zaoyang and repeatedly defeated the Jin general Wu Xian, wiping out his army.
His lineage was also distinguished. His grandfather Meng Lin and great-grandfather Meng An had both served under Yue Fei. He could fairly be called a tiger born from a general's house.
During the final Battle of Caizhou that destroyed Jin, the Southern Song forces were commanded by Meng Gong. That battle, however, was relatively safe. Escorting two ministers north to the mausoleums was far more dangerous, almost like a lone rider traveling a thousand li.
In short, from Lizong's perspective, the ancestral temple had received offerings, the imperial tombs had been honored, and if he did not take advantage of Henan's emptiness to recover lost territory, he would practically be a fool.
At a deeper level, however, the Duanping expedition carried political meaning.
Everyone knew that Emperor Lizong had ascended the throne only because Shi Miyuan's conflict with the original crown prince had become irreconcilable. When Emperor Ningzong died, Shi Miyuan forged an edict and installed Lizong instead.
After Lizong's accession, some still refused to accept him. A military revolt even broke out attempting to enthrone the original crown prince. Though it was suppressed, the incident became widely known.
Thus, for Lizong at the time, there were enemies in the north, powerful relatives at court, and increasingly fierce factional struggles. Under such pressure, he had to first secure the legitimacy of his rule.
Meng Gong's thousand-li escort to the imperial mausoleums was only the first step.
Recovering the old capital through a northern expedition was, for Lizong, the necessary second step.
So although the timing of the expedition was not ideal, from the perspective of that moment it was unavoidable.
After all, even if Song did not march north, would the Mongols really allow them to keep control of Jiangnan and the Huai River region, one of the most prosperous areas in the world at the time?
Thus the Duanping campaign was never a question of whether it should be fought, but of how it could possibly be won.
Here, Southern Song repeated exactly the same mistake as Northern Song: the decision-makers did not understand warfare.
Whether it was the scholar-officials of Emperor Huizong's time or the generals and Emperor Lizong himself, they treated a war of national survival almost like a game.
The Northern Song's laughable campaign against Liao to seize Yanjing needs no retelling. If the Southern Song truly intended to fight, they should have been united and determined to win.
Instead, sixty thousand elite troops from the Huai theater marched north in full force, while Shi Songzhi, supreme commander of the Xiangyang theater, and Zhao Yan'na, commander of the Sichuan theater, were still urgently submitting memorials in opposition, arguing that provoking the Mongols was foolish.
In the end, Shi Songzhi simply threw up his hands and resigned, returning home.
The army set out in haste. Internal opinions were divided. Preparations before the campaign were grossly insufficient.
What the expeditionary force encountered was a Central Plains left barren after the Mongol-Jin war, along with the Yellow River, deliberately breached again by the Mongols to obstruct Song's advance.
At first, the army had to stretch five days of rations into seven. After the vanguard was ambushed and wiped out by Mongol forces, those same supplies had to last thirty days.
In the end, half of the sixty-thousand-man army fled back starving.
A grand northern expedition collapsed into a joke.
For the Mongols, however, this was exactly what they wanted.
The following autumn, Ögedei used the Duanping expedition as his pretext and launched a massive southward invasion from three routes: the Huai region, Jing-Xiang, and Sichuan.
The Sichuan force, reportedly five hundred thousand strong, was led by his second son Köden. At Yangping Pass, they encountered a Song general who personally led the elite Beiwei troops in a charge to the front lines, galloping left and right while firing arrows, then sent his picked soldiers to attack from both flanks.
The Mongol army suffered a crushing defeat. The Song forces even recaptured Xianren Pass, forcing this invasion route to end abruptly.
Only after the battle did Köden learn the man's name:
Cao Youwen, Commander-in-Chief of Lizhou.]