Losing the sixteen states of Yanyun, why did Song Taizong decide to save money to buy it back?

Because Song Taizu couldn't beat the Khitan, he had to use the excuse of buying it back to appease people's hearts.

01. The importance of the sixteen states of Yanyun. The sixteen states of Yanyun have always been the heart disease of the Song Dynasty, and the emperors of the Song Dynasty all wanted to recover the sixteen states of Yanyun, but unfortunately they did not succeed. This Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures was Shi Jingjiao's condition that he wanted to establish political power at that time and let the Khitans help him, so that the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun became the territory of the Liao State.

Later, Zhao Kuangyin's yellow robe established the Song Dynasty, and Zhao Kuangyin's southern and northern wars recovered a lot of land, but he never recovered the sixteen states of Yanyun until he hiccuped. <>

The sixteen states of Yanyun can be said to be the gateway of the Great Song Dynasty, and the loss of the sixteen states of Yanyun is equivalent to the absence of a door, and the Liao Kingdom can come in if it wants to come in, and go out if it wants to go out. Coupled with the courage of the Liaoguo Iron Cavalry, the Great Song Dynasty had no way at all. The people on the border are the most miserable, and these Liao troops will invade, harass, rob people and grab food at every turn.

After Zhao Kuangyin hiccuped, his younger brother Zhao Guangyi succeeded to the throne, that is, Song Taizu. Zhao Guangyi's personal ability is actually very good, but this person is easy to swell. <>

02, Zhao Guangyi inflated the Liao State, so he had to say that he would buy back the sixteen states of Yanyun. When Zhao Guangyi accepted the Song Dynasty, there was not only the Liao State in the north, but also the Northern Han Dynasty. In 979 AD, Zhao Guangyi marched north, preparing to kill the Northern Han.

At that time, the Northern Han Dynasty was weak, and the army was defeated in two hits, and the Northern Han asked for help from the Liao State, saying that the lips were dead and the teeth were cold, etc., and the Liao State sent troops to support, but I did not expect that Zhao Guangyi would defeat the Liao army that supported it, and the Northern Han Dynasty was destroyed. At this time, Zhao Guangyi was inflated, and he decided to continue the northern expedition to conquer the Liao State. <>

In fact, the soldiers were very tired after a long war, and many people discouraged Zhao Guangyi from cultivating for a period of time, but Zhao Guangyi did not listen and insisted on continuing to fight。As a result, the Song army was beaten by the Liao army and turned on their backs and returned to Bianliang in disgrace. Zhao Guangyi fought the Liao State twice later, but both failed.

In the end, Zhao Guangyi could only say that he would save money to buy back the sixteen states of Yanyun, which was not very reliable when he heard it, at that time, Zhao Guangyi was to take care of his face and give himself a step down, the second was to appease Baixin's heart and give hope to the people, and the third was to paralyze the Khitan and have the opportunity to fight again in the future.

Because the land is the foundation of a country's foothold, as long as there is a land, the country can continue to develop, Song Taizong must choose land between money and land, so he wants to buy back the sixteen states of Yanyun.

Mainly because of the geographical environment of the sixteen states of Yanyun, this place is a natural barrier, easy to defend and difficult to attack, the terrain is dangerous, if it is lost, the Central Plains region will have no danger to defend, and the forces in the north will also be like entering a no-man's land, so Song Taizong wants to save money to buy it back.

Because he knew the importance of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun to the Great Song Dynasty, but he did not have the ability to recapture them by military means, he made this decision.

With the loss of the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun, a huge strategic vacuum appeared in the Central Plains.

In the early days of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangsheng failed to recover the sixteen states of Yanyun, mainly due to several reasons:

1.At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, the main focus was to unify the five dynasties and ten kingdoms, and there was no time to take care of recovering the sixteen states of Yanyun.

2.At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, the national strength was weakened, and it was difficult to defeat the Liao State.

3.Song Taizu died too early and did not have time to implement the plan.

The Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun were originally the territory of the Central Plains, but in the last years of the Tang Dynasty, the warlords divided the territory, and in order to get the support of the Liao State, Shi Jingjiao ceded the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun to the Liao State, so that if he wanted to take it back at that time, he needed to fight with the Liao State. After the establishment of power in the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin, Taizu of the Song Dynasty, attached great importance to the sixteen states of Yanyun, and he once set up a special department to redeem the sixteen states of Yanyun, but in the end he died too early, and his successor failed to implement his plan, and there was no way to recover the sixteen states of Yanyun. <>

1. At the beginning of the establishment of the Song Dynasty, he was busy unifying the five dynasties and ten kingdoms, and had no time to take care of the sixteen states of Yanyun. The Song Dynasty was Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin usurped the power of the Later Zhou, at that time belonged to the period of five dynasties and ten kingdoms, the first task of the Song Dynasty was to unify several other countries, and then recover the sixteen states of Yanyun, if the sixteen states of Yanyun were recovered first, it was likely to be attacked by the enemy, resulting in the collapse of the regime, so Song Taizu chose to go south to attack several other countries, and did not immediately recover the sixteen states of Yanyun. <>

Second, the national strength of the Song Dynasty was weak, and it was difficult to defeat the Liao State. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the division of feudal towns led to warlord scuffles, and Shi Jingjiao ceded the sixteen states of Yanyun to the Liao State for his own interests, and was protected by the Liao State. The Song Dynasty was weak in the early days of its establishment, and it was very difficult to fight against the Liao State, so the Song Dynasty did not want to recover the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun immediately, but wanted to redeem the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun with money.

3. Song Taizu died too early, and he did not have time to recover the sixteen states of Yanyun. Zhao Kuangyin, Taizu of the Song Dynasty, analyzed the situation at that time and believed that the Liao soldiers were strong and strong, and the Song Dynasty would not have good results if they were hard, so he set up a department and prepared to redeem the sixteen states of Yanyun with money, but he died suddenly before he could achieve it. After his death, Song Taizong did not inherit his ideas, but directly chose the Northern Expedition, but the two Northern Expeditions failed, resulting in the Song Dynasty's lack of troops, and in the later period, Song Taizong emphasized literature and light military force, resulting in the Song Dynasty's inability to recover the sixteen states of Yanyun.

Reclaimed.

The Song and Jin joined forces to destroy the Liao, and the Song army was defeated during the Northern Expedition, so it had to ask the Jin army to help in the war, and the Jin army kept its promise to hand over the Yanyun region to the Song Dynasty after capturing Yanyun.

Therefore, Song Huizong did recover the sixteen states of Yanyun.

It's just that the Jin State saw the weakness of the Song Dynasty and was bullied, and soon the whole country went south to destroy the Northern Song Dynasty. The soldiers and civilians of the sixteen states of Yanyun had no sense of belonging to the Song Dynasty at that time, and the Jin army surrendered to the Jin army one after another when it went south, so the Song Dynasty occupied Yanyun for a long time, and it did not play any defensive role.

In the fourth year of Xuanhe (1122), Song and Jin signed the "Maritime Alliance", agreeing to jointly destroy Liao, and Jin returned to Song Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures. So the Northern Song Dynasty preset Yanshanfu Road and Yunzhongfu Road. After Jin Taizu drove Emperor Tianzuo of Liao to the west of Yanshan, in February 1123, he returned Yanjing[1], Zhuozhou, Yizhou, Danzhou, Shunzhou, Jingzhou, and Jizhou to the south of Taihang Mountain (where the Later Ming Dynasty built the Great Wall)[2].

But after Ah Gu was killed, Jin changed the incident with Zhang Jue to the Song Dynasty. In December of the seventh year of Xuanhe (1125), the Jin soldiers occupied the Yanjing region again. In the second year, the Jin State marched southward, captured the second emperor of Huiqin, and occupied the Central Plains, which is known as the "Jingkang Change" in history, and the Northern Song Dynasty perished.