Will Yue Fei’s Northern Expedition succeed? Zhihu

Yue Fei’s Northern Expedition is destined to be impossible to succeed

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Yue Fei, a famous general in the Northern Song Dynasty who fought against the Jin Dynasty, and later rose to the rank of marshal. Yue Fei opposed the Song Dynasty's passive defense strategy of "only ordering oneself to defend oneself to wait for the enemy, and not daring to attack from afar for victory" and advocated active attack. However, just as Yue Fei was leading the resistance The Jin soldiers blocked the enemy head-on, fought step by step, and won every step. When they went straight to Huanglong, they were recalled by the emperor with 12 gold medals, forcing Yue Fei to cease the war and return to Beijing, where he died tragically in Fengbo Pavilion. Many people now feel that if the emperor keeps re-employing Yue Fei, he will surely be able to regain the lost territory and rewrite history, allowing the Song Dynasty to revive. However, is this really the case?

First of all, regaining lost territory and attacking Huanglong are two completely different concepts: regaining lost territory refers to the restoration of the territory during the long-term confrontation between the Northern Song Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty, and the Yanyun Sixteen States and others were obviously not included in the lost territory at that time. And where is Huanglong? Huanglong Mansion is located in Nong'an County, Changchun City, Jilin Province today. It was an important military town and political and economic center in the Liao and Jin dynasties. Going directly to Huanglong means that the cause of unification can be completed! In 1234, Mongolia and the Southern Song Dynasty joined forces to destroy the Jin Dynasty. Why did they join forces? At least it shows that the Jin Dynasty still had a certain strength before its demise. Why didn't the Mongols unite with the Southern Song Dynasty to destroy Xixia?

At the same time, Yue Fei was far from becoming the spiritual leader of the entire Southern Song Dynasty army, and his personal appeal was limited. Even if he does not die, even if he is given full military power, look at the other three ZTE generals, which one can he command? Is it Zhang Jun, Han Shizhong, or Liu Guangshi? They are more senior than Yue Fei, so not only can they not cooperate, they will probably cause trouble. Moreover, their soldiers all have the nature of a "private army". It is impossible to lead such soldiers as easily as to command the "Yue family army", and to fight fiercely for Marshal Yue. Therefore, even if Yue Fei was not executed, it was unlikely that he would regain his lost territory and go straight to Huanglong.

The most important thing is that although Wanyan Wushu was defeated by the Southern Song army, the Jin State still held the trump card of Qin Zong. If the Jin State took Qin Zong as a hostage, Yue Fei would never be able to defeat him. Fighting against the late emperor, what's more, if the Jin State established Qinzong as a pseudo-emperor and established a pseudo-regime in the Central Plains, then Qinzong would be the orthodox royal family of the Song Dynasty, and Zhao Gou actually had no qualifications to succeed. Who should he be loyal to? Once this issue was raised, the Southern Song Dynasty would become internally chaotic without fighting. Furthermore, what Yue Fei faced was not only pressure and persecution from the Lord He Pai Qin Hui and others, but also pressure from the people. The people of the Southern Song Dynasty had not been very interested in recovering the lost land. The people in the south were afraid of recovering the northern land. They believed that the north had been completely plundered by the Jin Kingdom, and the Song Dynasty had to increase taxes to rebuild the northern economy. They were unwilling to use their own money to fund the wasteland. Therefore, although the Han people in the north desperately hoped that the Southern Song Dynasty would regain their lost land, the south was never very enthusiastic about it. Without the support of the people, this was destined to fail.

Finally, looking at the laws of history, whether it was the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Southern Dynasties, or the Southern Ming Dynasty, which court in the southeast could successfully eliminate the northern minority regime in the Northern Expedition? Not one! The Southern Song Dynasty is no exception! Therefore, it was impossible for Yue Fei to achieve a complete victory in the Northern Expedition, and the limit was to restore the largest territory of the Northern Song Dynasty.

Yue Fei's death is really regrettable, but the current situation is such that no one person can change it. You must know that the situation at that time was that neither the Southern Song Dynasty nor the Jin Dynasty could destroy the other. Half a pound was equal to eight ounces, and the emperor did not want to welcome back the two saints, so he could only negotiate for peace. However, since Yue Fei opposed the peace negotiation and united the army, there could only be two endings: one was to be executed by the emperor, and the other was to rebel against the emperor. Therefore, Yue Fei's death was not because Qin Hui could kill him with a few false accusations, but because the emperor could not tolerate him. Qin Hui only gave the emperor an excuse to kill Yue Fei, and the outcome was already doomed.