In terms of war, it lags far behind Mao. Zhao Kuangyin was born in the military, and he has been through many battles, and he has rich battlefield experience. On the other hand, Zhao Guangyi has basically never experienced a major battle and lacks training in this field. However, he prided himself on being smart and willful. In order to control the generals, he personally drew up a battle plan before each battle, which seriously bound the hands and feet of the frontline generals.

In the autumn and August of 988 AD, there were three alarms on the northern border, followed by Zhuozhou, qi zhou and Xinle. Emperor Taizong said to the ministers with a sad face: "The Khitan refused to withdraw his troops and often harassed Heshuo. It seems that he is going to make a large-scale northern expedition. " However, in his mind, he was completely unsure about getting started, and he had completely lost the confidence and determination that he was full of ambition during the Northern Expedition. Some ministers in the DPRK and China began to put forward two different political views: peace and main battle. The peace faction asked Tang Taizong to compromise himself and make peace. Prime Minister Li Yun and others were careless and quoted the importance of making peace with the outside world in Han and Tang stories. However, for those claims that obviously demand humiliation and peace, Taizong is emotionally unacceptable. He said to Zhao Pu and others, "Restoring the old frontier is not someone else's idea, but our consistent ambition. The failure of cutting Liao was only caused by the military command mistakes of the generals. " You, Yan Zheng, Zhang Yue, the doctor of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, etc. wrote to the imperial military and political affairs successively, suggesting to strengthen the military power of military commanders in the border region, cultivate benevolence and virtuous politics, save officials, livestock and people, encourage soldiers, and cut northern Liaoning again to recover lost ground. Although Emperor Taizong appreciated these ideas, he did not intend to implement them.

Song Taizong formed the guiding ideology of outer space policy in his later years. So we should attack and defend Liao and prepare for reconciliation. However, the Liao Dynasty still worried about the Song Dynasty's repeated northern expeditions, which posed a threat to the Song Dynasty and helped Li continue to weaken the power of the Song Dynasty. In order to defend, Song Taizong asked Song Jun to dredge and develop the border river on the plain of Hebei border, starting from the northwest of Baozhou (now Baoding, Hebei) in the west and reaching Haikou in Tanggu in the east, and using canals and ponds to build dikes to store water, which is as deep as more than ten feet, as a barrier, winding for 900 miles from east to west. Twenty-eight villages and l25 military stores were set up along the pond, and more than 3,000 soldiers and 100 warships were deployed to patrol and guard against cavalry attacking everywhere. For the invasion of Liao army, "but soldiers are forbidden to send troops, and then they have to send troops, but they are only allowed to fight in the city, and they are not allowed to kill each other when they get cold feet." As a result, the soldiers' hands and feet were tied. The generals guarding the border had to muddle along. "At first, they were ordered to attack the enemy. When they met the enemy, they only expected them to close the base and block the gate." There are only a handful of generals who can really fight the Liao army. Since then, Song Jun's combat capability has become weaker and weaker.