choke element

Chapter 1004: Abdomen (Part )

The identity of the man in Chinese clothes is very special. His name is Dong Juyi, and he was once a servant of the Southern Song Dynasty. He was a promising political star in the central government and later served as the governor of Sichuan.

How did this man become the Sichuan Governor? And why did he leave Sichuan and the border of the Southern Song Dynasty to come to Gongzhou controlled by the Xia Dynasty to communicate with Mongolia? There are quite a few ups and downs in this story, so we have to tell it from the beginning.

At that time, Wu Xi, the leader of the Wu family who had been in charge of Sichuan for generations, rebelled against the Song Dynasty, which directly led to the transfer of one-third of the territory of the Song Dynasty. It was all thanks to the military transport officer An Bing and others who killed Wu Xi's party and restored the old territory. For this great achievement, An Bing was awarded the title of Sichuan Xuanfu Envoy, and was successively promoted to the positions of Grand Secretary of the Zizheng Palace, Sichuan Administration Ambassador and Governor of Xingyuan Prefecture. He controlled the military and political affairs of Sichuan for the next ten years.

Three years ago, the new dynasty was founded in the Central Plains, and the northern regions were shaken. When the Kaifeng regime of the Jin Dynasty collapsed, the Jin army in Guanzhong was also in a panic. Without waiting for the court's instructions, An Bing sent his trusted aides An Fan, He Jiuling and others to lead a large army to the north, intending to take a share of the spoils of this chaos.

However, the Southern Song army had been away from battle for a long time. When Li Ting's troops from the Zhou army and the troops from the Xia Kingdom arrived, the Song army was forced to retreat.

When the troops retreated to Mianyang Prefecture, Wang Dacai, the commander-in-chief of Mianyang Prefecture, intercepted the army and killed He Jiuling and seven others on the spot. He then reported to the court, accusing An Bing of having ulterior motives by gathering troops without authorization.

An Bing was a man of talent, but he was very jealous and cruel. He rose to prominence by suppressing the Wu Xi Rebellion, but he was very suspicious of Yang Juyuan, Li Haoyi and other generals who also made contributions to suppressing the Wu Xi Rebellion, and he murdered them one after another. In addition, he had a strong regional preference for employing people, and he was always very resistant to non-Sichuan people taking charge of Shuzhong. As time went on, his desire for power became stronger and stronger, and he placed his confidants everywhere. In the eyes of the court, it was as if one Wu Xi was gone, and another one came.

On the other hand, the Shi Xiang faction, which controlled the Song State's central government in recent years, had expanded rapidly due to the huge profits brought by maritime trade. They also intended to extend their influence into Sichuan, using the many positions in Bashu that were paid by the state as a tool to reward politicians.

Therefore, with an excuse, the court immediately issued an edict, first appointing An Bing as the co-director of the Privy Council and the guest of the crown prince. Not long after An Bing left Sichuan, he was appointed as the scholar of Guanwen Hall, the governor of Tanzhou, and the pacification envoy of Hunan, firmly pinning him down in Tanzhou, where he was unfamiliar with the place.

After An Bing left, the Southern Song Dynasty sent Dong Juyi, a middle-aged man in gorgeous clothes who was now submissive in front of Tolui, to replace An Bing as the Sichuan Governor.

Dong Juyi was not a core figure of Shi's party. To some extent, his appointment as the governor of Sichuan to suppress the civil and military forces in Sichuan and eliminate the remnants of the Wu and An families was his token of loyalty to Shi.

Dong Juyi was once ordered to go on a diplomatic mission to the Kingdom of Jin. He had great foresight and courage, and was even more ruthless. In just one year as the governor of Sichuan, he made drastic changes, abolished the garrisons in many places, dismissed many generals, and beheaded dozens of rebellious people. Of course, he also amassed a large amount of gold and silver without hesitation.

Through a series of measures, many official positions in Sichuan and Shu were indeed vacant. However, the result of the crazy suppression of local forces was that the Sichuan governor lost the support of the people, leading to constant civil and military rebellions in various places.

The most serious incident was when Lizhou Road soldiers Zhang Fu and Mo Jian could no longer bear the oppression of their superiors and rose up in anger. The rebels killed the chief Yang Jiuding, who had extorted money from the government, cut open his stomach, and stuffed it with gold and silver.

At that time, Dong Juyi, although a local military and political leader, had no capable soldiers at his disposal and could only flee in a panic. He has not been able to suppress the mutiny to this day.

In those difficult times, it was Tolui who extended a hand of friendship to him.

Since the year before last, there were rumors all over Sichuan that the Mongolian army was afraid of the Great Zhou and turned westward to open up traffic from the Western Regions to the Kingdoms of Arabia. Then, merchants from the Uighur and other tribes went south through the territories of the Western Xia and Tibetan tribes and started trading in Sichuan, most of them with small groups of Mongolians as escorts.

Dong Juyi wanted to make money, so he would not let these merchants go. While squeezing the merchants, he suddenly discovered that the leader of one of the merchants was actually the fourth prince of the Mongols, Tolui.

In fact, many officials of the Song Dynasty were deeply afraid of the powerful enemy in the north and regarded it highly. This was true for the Khitans and the Jurchens. In theory, they should also be like this towards the newly rising Mongols. Dong Juyi would never believe that the fourth prince of the Mongols had fallen to the level of a caravan leader.

However, in recent years, there have been frequent exchanges between the north and the south. People from all over the Southern Dynasty often heard that the Great Zhou Dynasty sent its troops deep into the grasslands and tore flesh and blood in the heartland of the Mongols. Therefore, many people felt that the Mongols might be just an ordinary tribe that rose and fell on the grasslands, and were not on the same level as the Khitan and Jurchen.

As for the story of the fourth Mongolian prince Tolui being captured by the Great Zhou Emperor Guo Ning amidst the army, many opera troupes sang about it, and even women and children in Sichuan knew about it. Dong Juyi guessed that the fourth prince had fallen out of favor because of this, and had to find a way to survive.

Dong Juyi was not a useless official who was easily deceived. He immediately summoned Tolui and asked him about the situation in the north and the purpose of his visit. After asking, he learned that the fourth Mongolian prince was proficient in Chinese and had tried hard to read several Chinese books. Although he was not well-mannered, he was very different from ordinary Mongolians.

When talking about the tragic defeat of the Mongolian army by the Zhou army, Tolui smiled bitterly but did not shy away from it. He could even calmly talk about how his family was captured by Guo Ning and how his father, Genghis Khan of Mongolia, was defeated by Guo Ning.

Dong Juyi talked with Tolui several times and learned a lot of information about the north, so he no longer regarded Tolui as an ordinary barbarian. Because the north of Lizhou Road faced the military towns of Jingzhao and Fengxiang of the Great Zhou Dynasty, it was under certain military pressure, and he vaguely felt that he and Tolui shared a common hatred of the enemy.

Another advantage of Tolui was that he was good at giving bribes. As time went by, the two of them became somewhat friendly.

At the beginning of last year, soldiers in Lizhou Road rioted and gathered together in the thousands. Dong Juyi was running for his life and happened to meet Tuo Lei in Baocheng, who rushed to help after hearing the news.

Although Tolui had few subordinates, each of them was skilled in archery and horse riding, so they were more than capable of protecting Dong Juyi's safety.

On the way to seek refuge, Dong Juyi met another Han Chinese subordinate of Tolui.

The man's name was Guo Baoyu. He was an officer of the Jin Dynasty in his early years and was later forced to the grassland. He told Dong Juyi that after the Mongols were forced to leave the grassland, although they attacked the countries in the Western Regions, they actually gained very little and most of the tribes were in poverty. Many capable and good warriors had to work for others and were driven like cattle and horses.

Dong Juyi was overjoyed when he heard this. He immediately took out gold and silk and asked Tolui to come forward and recruit dozens of Mongols as his personal guards.

After trying them for a few days, he felt that although these people were still wild, they also had unique advantages. They were like domesticated fierce dogs, and they could be driven with ease. So he recruited more people. In order to prevent them from mixing with the local rebels in Sichuan, he also set up a separate military camp for the Mongols and let Guo Baoyu be the commander.

Guo Baoyu had been wandering in a foreign tribe for many years, and his face was already frosted. He had suffered a lot. He was able to escape from the situation thanks to Dong Juyi's promotion, and he was grateful and determined to be loyal. However, the number of Mongolian guards was limited after all, and they were definitely not strong enough to help Dong Juyi turn the tables.

During that period, the rebels in Lizhou Road successively conquered Langzhou, Guozhou, Suining Prefecture and Puzhou. The vanguard army reached Zizhou and Hanzhou and approached Chengdu, which shocked Sichuan. Dong Juyi was under tremendous pressure from both the government and the people.

He wanted to suppress the rebellion as quickly as possible. However, many of the soldiers who participated in the rebellion had been soldiers for generations and had complicated connections in the local area. As an annoying outsider, how could he defeat them? To put it another way, he couldn't even gather an army that he could safely send out to suppress the rebellion!

In order to get out of the predicament, Dong Juyi racked his brains, and finally, with the joint efforts of Tolui and Guo Baoyu, they worked out a plan.

This plan roughly followed the method of organizing Hehuangfan soldiers to defend the border villages when the Song Dynasty was strong. Tuolei gathered the scattered Mongols in the plateau area on the border between the Xia Dynasty and Tubo and brought them to the Song Dynasty. The first task of the Mongols was to pass through Gongzhou controlled by the Xixia people, turn to Baihuanbao of Tianshui Army in Song territory, and then break into Xingyuan Prefecture where the rebels gathered through Baimaguan and Qifangguan, and kill them all in one go.

Halfway through the plan, a troublesome thing happened. It turned out that Shi Xiang was very dissatisfied with the chaos in Sichuan. He was an impatient old man and directly dismissed Dong Juyi from his post and sent his true confidant, Nie Zishu, who was listed as one of the "Four Woods and Three Evils", to succeed him as the Sichuan Governor.

For a moment, Tolui was disappointed, and Dong Juyi was even more furious, and almost broke off relations with the official who delivered the imperial edict.

Unexpectedly, there is always a way out. When Nie Zishu was in Lin'an, he seemed like a modest gentleman. When he arrived in Sichuan, he was even more ruthless than Dong Juyi in his desire to make money from the land. And he was just as helpless as Dong Juyi in the face of the increasingly fierce military and civil uprisings.

So Tuolei spent half a year patiently trying to get close to Nie Zishu. One day, he took Dong Juyi, who was reluctant to leave Sichuan, with him and launched the plan again.

Nie Zishu's position in the Shi Party was much higher than Dong Juyi's, and he had wealth and honor within his reach. Although he also wanted to suppress the rebellion, he was unwilling to take risks, and would not easily joke about his future. So no matter how Tolui recommended himself, Nie Zishu only made one request: since this plan was proposed by Dong Juyi, it should be completed by Dong Juyi.

If it succeeded, it would have been thanks to Nie Zishu's far-sightedness and good command; if it failed, it was just a sudden whim of the outgoing official. No matter how much Dong Juyi deserved to die, he had nothing to do with the Song government.

Since ancient times, officials have been like this, full of tricks. But Dong Juyi agreed on the spot.

His promising career was ruined in Sichuan, so how could he not try his best to get back on track? Moreover, it was those rebellious soldiers who overestimated their own capabilities that caused him to lose his position, and he was really angry and had to kill them all to relieve his hatred.

In this way, the two successive Sichuan governors in just three years reached an agreement with the four Mongolian princes. The whole plan was not exposed on the surface, but was being pushed forward in secret.

Today is the day when this plan is officially launched.

But as soon as the plan was implemented, it turned out to be very different from what Dong Juyi had expected.

When Tolui turned and walked towards the palace tent, Dong Juyi kept his head down and his eyes submissive, but could not help looking up and glancing at the Mongolian army's ranks again.

The moment he raised his head, the cold rays of thousands of swords and guns and countless ferocious faces appeared in his pupils, getting closer and closer, getting bigger and bigger, almost overwhelming, making him dizzy and his legs weak.

It was obvious that Dong Juyi had been deceived by the Mongols. Not only him, but also Nie Zishu was deceived; his subordinates who had been secretly sent to Xixia to hold secret meetings with the various Mongolian commanders were also deceived.

Those who had contact with Dong Juyi never told him that the Mongolian army was so huge in scale and had such terrible power!

It was obvious that this army was not only barbaric, but also an elite force that had fought many battles! The arrogant aura that they had cultivated through repeated massacres of cities and destroyed nations had almost become real, making people hold their breath subconsciously. Compared to the loose Song army in various parts of Sichuan, the Mongolian army was more than a hundred times or a thousand times stronger!
In fact, I should have figured this out earlier. I am too stupid! Dong Juyi said to himself.

As an official of the Song Dynasty, he knew best how terrifying the power of the Jurchens was. But when the Jurchens were at their peak, they did their best to build a defense system in the north, with hundreds of thousands of troops ready to fight at any time. As a result, the northern wolves still easily moved south, killing soldiers and civilians wherever they went, leaving only one person alive. They killed the Great Jin Dynasty to pieces, which gave some frontier soldier a chance to reap the benefits.

If that's the case, how can the Mongols be easy to deal with? They are at least much more terrifying than the Jurchens, and are a huge force that can compete with the Great Zhou!

Such a force, sending out such a powerful army, crushed the mighty Great Baigao Kingdom with hundreds of thousands of troops like crushing a child. Would they really cooperate with the border guards of the Song Dynasty for the small benefits they promised? Would they really do a small good deed as they promised?

Previously, we had agreed to open a few passes and release a few fierce dogs to clean up the mess. But the Mongols we saw before us were not just a few fierce dogs, but tens of thousands of tigers and wolves!
This is bad luck. Something terrible is going to happen! It’s over!

Dong Juyi's head was covered in cold sweat, which flowed like a waterfall on the dust and grass debris on his face. His hair and beard were also soaked, and the lining of his robe was already soaked. The more he sweated, the colder he felt.

He didn't dare to think further, but he had to think further... Even the Mongolian Khan was dispatched, and they were not going to suppress the rebellion at all. This... This might be to wipe out the Song Dynasty!
But Dong Juyi had no way to object.

The whole thing was already on the verge of happening. In the past month, more than a thousand Mongolian elites had sneaked into Lizhou Road of the Song Dynasty under the cover of Song officials, pretending to be merchants. They were already distributed in many key places under various banners. This military operation initiated by Dong Juyi could not be stopped at all!
Faced with Tolui's smiling entrustment, Dong Juyi did not even dare to hesitate for a moment. He could only suppress the great fear in his heart and said yes repeatedly.

Forget it, at worst I can just give up my dignity and become another Liu Yu!
But the moment he lowered his head, he thought of Liu Yu's end, and he suddenly felt dizzy and a fishy-sweet taste in his throat.

"Don't panic! Don't panic!"

After the truth was revealed, Tolui's attitude inevitably became a little more arrogant, but he still seemed to have good intentions. He grabbed Dong Juyi's shoulders and shook him, laughing and saying, "The Mongols can really help you! And the Mongols never frame their friends!"

"what?"

"Look over here, who do you see?" asked Tolui.

Dong Juyi turned around and heard Tuo Lei's words: "This is Li Zunxu, the king of the Great Xia Kingdom. He originally had no chance of succeeding to the throne, and we sent elite soldiers to help him depose the previous king, Li Anquan; now we are also here to help him kill all those who might rebel in the Xia Kingdom. All Li Zunxu has to do is be our friend."

He even offered his own daughter.

This thought flashed through Dong Juyi's mind, but he didn't dare to say it out loud. He just murmured, "But I..."

He struggled a bit, but Tolui held his shoulders even tighter.

The arms of the fourth Mongolian prince were like iron clamps, pressing Dong Juyi's bones so hard that they creaked. "Ambassador Nie and you are also friends of the Mongols. We will never make things difficult for our friends. So after we kill all the rebels, we will never stay in your country!"

"Really?" Dong Juyi's heels suddenly felt stronger and his back straightened again.

Tuolei continued, "However, the army cannot go out empty-handed. So I have to trouble Ambassador Nie and you to continue to negotiate for us and find a way out."

"What way?"

Tuolei laughed and said, "How could you forget? It's the road we talked about before, along the Han River to the east... Do you remember?"

Dong Juyi's eyes widened.

He suddenly remembered that Tolui had half-jokingly told him and Nie Zishu earlier that with the Mongols' ability to carry out long-distance raids, it would only take a month for them to reach the heart of the Central Plains from Guanzhong via Lizhou Road, along the Han River, over the mountains and across the ridges.

At that time, Dong Juyi and Nie Zishu both laughed out loud, thinking that it was no wonder that the Mongols were beaten to pieces by the Zhou army. These barbarians had no brains at all, thinking that humans could run just like horses and could run for days and nights without rest.

Now he understands.

The joke that Tolui made was serious.

The Mongolian army could really do it.

The Mongolian army had always regarded the Zhou Kingdom in the north as their mortal enemy. This time, they planned to travel thousands of miles, take the Lizhou Road of the Song Dynasty, and thus bypass all the defenses of the Zhou Kingdom from the northeast to the northwest; they planned to directly rush into the softest hinterland of the Zhou Kingdom and tear apart the internal organs of this giant!
By the way, I read the novel "City Mouse" these days, and the journey of the motherland is really good.