Fighting requires soldiers to fight with one knife and one shot on the battlefield. Therefore, if we want to see whether the Southern Song Dynasty can unify China without Yue Fei's death, we must first talk about the military strength of the Southern Song Dynasty. In the Southern Song Dynasty, there were no more troops available except Yue Jiajun. Han Jiajun in Han Shizhong was the strongest military force except Yue Jiajun in the Southern Song Dynasty, but he was only good at water warfare and ambush. The last battle before being relieved of military power failed at the gates of Haozhou, which showed the weakness of Han Jiajun's ability to attack the enemy. The rest of the Eight-character Army led by Liu Kun, though famous all over the world, fought a battle in Shunchang. Later, when Yan Hongliang invaded the south, Liu Kun, who had high hopes, retreated to the south of the Yangtze River, and his reputation plummeted.
Therefore, if Yue Fei dies and the Southern Song Dynasty continues the Northern Expedition, Yue Jiajun will definitely be the main force to defend his position, and probably the only offensive force. Then, with Yue Jiajun's strength, can he complete the Northern Expedition independently? At its peak, Yue Jiajun had100000 officers and men. However, excluding non-combatants such as the Huotoujun (similar to future logistics personnel), the combat strength is only 88,300. Judging from the fact that Hong Yanzong Bipai120,000 troops launched the battle of Gao Zhe shortly after Yue Fei's withdrawal, 8 Jin Army undoubtedly has an absolute advantage over Yue Jiajun in number.
Because of the lack of troops, Yue Fei was already very anxious. After recovering Huaizhou (now Qinyang, Henan Province), he ordered the ministries to stop moving forward, and tried to move closer to Yancheng, where he was stationed, and Yingchang, where Wang Gui was stationed, to shorten the front. However, Wan Yanzong Bi, who is also a celebrity, also found Yue Jiajun's predicament. Before Yue Jiajun was blocked, he launched a counterattack and concentrated his main force to storm Yancheng and Yingchang successively. Due to the absolute disadvantage in strength, Yue Jiajun was once very passive in the two world wars. Thanks to Yue Yun, Dong Xian and Hu Qing. It turned Song Jun from defeat to victory.
In fact, Yue Fei knows very well that it is impossible for him to complete the Great Northern Expedition by Yue Jiajun alone. Zeng Zeng wrote in a table: "Take Beijing and Luoyang directly, according to Heyang, Fu Shan and Tongguan, to call the five-way rebel army ... JD.COM counties, and hope that your majesty will pay them to Han Shizhong and Zhang Jun ("Begging for the Teacher "). That is to say, Yue Jiajun's northern expedition requires not only the rebellion of the five-way rebel army, but also the support of Han Shizhong and Zhang Jun. In the "Cutting" submitted by Yue Fei, he directly expressed his hope that his mother, wife and children would be taken as hostages, so as to recruit and expand the Yuegujun to 200,000, and asked to send spies to encourage the oppressed nationalities in the rear of Xu Jinguo to rise up and resist, thus forming a "Great Liao can stand". Therefore, as a top strategist, Yue Fei did not understand how difficult the Northern Expedition was. There is only one Yue Jiajun, and it is impossible to "take the Huanglong House" in any case.
Looking up Chicken Ribs (an important book in the historical notes of the Song Dynasty, whose information value has always been recognized by people), we can know that Yue Jiajun's 100,000 people need "50,000 to 60,000 yuan and 70,000 meters of stone" every month. Most importantly, we just calculated the money for raising soldiers. If the Northern Expedition is launched, the money spent on grain and grass, military uniforms, weapons, armor, vehicles, war horses and warships will be countless. When Song Xiaozong launched the Longxing Northern Expedition, it only cost 8.33 million yuan to raise and transport rations! If all the treasury deposits are used for war, what impact will it have on the economy and people's livelihood
No matter how many times Jin Jun went south, Song Jun made several northern expeditions, the border between the two countries was generally stable during the Shaoxing peace talks, until Mongolia rose strongly. We know that the all-round war between countries is a competition of comprehensive national strength, rather than relying on the super-level play of a general or an army. Qin destroyed the Six Kingdoms, Han destroyed the Western Chu, and the Sui and Tang Dynasties were in troubled times, all of which were achieved after a considerable period of accumulation and the absolute superiority of comprehensive strength. Otherwise, even with a genius like Zhu Gekongming, the unification of China can only be a beautiful dream.
In a word, no matter which dynasty or generation of rulers, they will certainly yearn for the realization of great unity. But in order to achieve it, there are too many conditions to be met. Above, we only discussed the difficulty of Yue Jiajun's Northern Expedition from several levels, but did not touch on several most fatal issues-whether the emperor would intervene in the war remotely, whether the civil service group would be restrained by it, whether domestic public opinion supported the long-term war, and so on. It can be seen that the so-called "Yue Fei will not die, and China will be unified in the Southern Song Dynasty", I'm afraid it can only be some people's wishful thinking!