Fenghou

"They didn't ride war horses, they walked along the river, and they should be preparing to go south on rafts."

"This is a good idea!"

Chen Qing nodded, and said again: "Immediately send an eagle letter to inform Yang Zaixing to seal off the water surface."

"The humble job has already sent an eagle letter."

"Let the brethren rest well tonight, the good show will start tomorrow."

……

The surface of the water that was more than ten kilometers long was densely covered with sheepskin rafts. These sheepskin rafts were medium-sized rafts that could seat five soldiers.

Each raft is made up of more than [-] sheepskins that have been fully inflated and tightly bound together. Usually, a wooden raft is placed on top to stabilize the sheepskin bag.

But it’s not necessary for the Jurchen army, they can’t drag a row of rafts to march, and they won’t tie them up temporarily. If that’s the case, why not just use rafts to cross the river, and why use skin rafts?

There are net ropes under the Jurchens' leather rafts, and a few pieces of cowhide are spread on the net ropes, and people sit directly on them.

Fifteen thousand soldiers were sitting in densely packed leather rafts, their spears were raised vertically, with the spear points pointing up.

The Jurchen soldiers didn't even have oars. In desperation, they could only use their spears as pennies to adjust their direction by propping on the bottom of the river. Fortunately, they were going down the river. Driving away, there is a kind of heroism of a strong man who never returns.

It's a pity that what they encountered was the Western Army that had been prepared for a long time. Yang Zaixing would not wait for them to raft out of the canyon. Thirty miles away from the canyon mouth, he deployed [-] archers and [-] firearms soldiers on the official road.

It was the second watch of the night, and Yelv Mawu wanted to use the cover of night to rush out of the canyon, but the moonlight was very good, and he could see dense black spots on the water surface of the canyon.

Commander Li Fuxing shouted: "Every army is ready!"

The archers raised their bows and arrows one after another, and the firearms soldiers also moved the powder kegs and kerosene skins to the edge of the cliff.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The sound of clappers suddenly sounded, and thousands of arrows were fired on the official road, shooting at the leather raft in the canyon. The Jurchen soldiers in the leather raft raised their shields to resist. The sac was shot through with big holes and started to deflate, even 'bang! ' burst with a bang.

The sheepskin raft lost its balance and overturned, throwing the soldiers into the water. These soldiers could only hold on to the sheepskin raft and drift in the water, but the heavy armor dragged them down, and the soldiers had to take off the armor desperately. Unable to stop the rain of arrows, the soldiers kept screaming and hit the arrows. Once the arrows were hit, the human strength would quickly disappear, and eventually they would sink into the water and drown.

At this moment, gunpowder barrels exploded above the soldiers' heads, and dense poisonous nails flew in all directions. They were the natural enemies of the sheepskin rafts.

But the Song Army’s real killer was kerosene. Bags of kerosene were poured into the river, and dozens of torches were thrown down. The surface of the water suddenly turned into a sea of ​​flames. Barrels and arrows rained down, turning the river valley more than ten miles long into hell...

Luoshui flows out of the canyon, and the terrain suddenly becomes open. This is still a river valley, but the valley is twenty or thirty miles wide. Another big river, Huachi, joins Luoshui here to form an alluvial plain. Central County is located here. This is the largest county in Fangzhou, surrounded by vast fertile fields and lush forests everywhere, with a population of more than [-] people.

Thirty thousand Song troops were deployed on both sides of the canyon exit, and tens of thousands of crossbow arrows were aimed at the river surface. All the sheepskin bags floating on the water surface would be shot by one arrow, but no one struggled to escape from the water surface. The river surface seemed to be dead. Silent, full of dead bodies.

An intercepting pontoon bridge had been laid on the river. Soldiers stood on the pontoon bridge to pick up the corpses of the Jurchen soldiers and carried them to the bank. After a while, the corpses and various items on the east bank were piled up like a mountain.

Yang Zaixing came to the shore on horseback, looking at the piles of corpses that had been scooped up from the water as trophies. The trophies were basically armor stripped from the Jurchens. Equipped with mountain pattern armor.

"How many corpses were recovered in total?" Yang Zaixing asked.

"Reporting to the general, there are already more than [-] corpses, and the corpses are no longer visible on the water."

"I'm coming!"

Someone shouted from the bank, Yang Zaixing looked towards the surface of the water, and saw a boat sailing out, with the commander Sun Jian leading three soldiers of the Song army on board.

These are called marking boats, and they are launched upstream of the Jurchen army. If the marking boats appear, it means that the enemy's leather rafts have all been exhausted.

Sun Jian jumped off the boat, stepped forward and knelt down on one knee to report, "I want to report to Du Tong, there are no enemy rafts on the river, and many corpses have sunk to the bottom."

"Are there hidden enemy troops on the rock walls on both sides?"

Sun Jian hesitated for a moment and said, "The light is relatively dark, so I can't see the rock walls on both sides clearly."

Yang Zaixing nodded, and said to Sun Jian: "After daybreak, organize dozens of boats to go through it carefully. The fish that slipped through the net can be caught but not killed, and the corpses and soldiers in the river should be picked up as much as possible."

"Humble post obeys orders!"

Yang Zaixing immediately ordered: "After dawn, send an eagle letter to Qingquan County, telling the county king that the enemy troops in the south have been wiped out in Luoshui Canyon."

……

After dawn, the ships of the Song army searched the canyon, and they found a large number of Jurchen soldiers still alive on the edge of the stone walls on both sides. Overnight, every soldier was almost numb from the cold and lost his combat effectiveness. The soldiers of the Song Army pulled them onto the boat and tied them up behind their backs. They arrested a total of 340 people, many of whom were wounded by arrows. Army prisoners of war.

Yang Zaixing could only add an eagle letter, only a short sentence, wiped out the enemy army and captured more than [-] people.

Chapter 757 Despair

The 8000 Jurchen army arrived at the starting point again. The army stopped five miles away from the entrance, and the Jin soldiers set up hundreds of large tents on the official road.

Jin Bing came back all the way, digging a lot of vegetable roots and tree stumps, and also caught a lot of fish. In addition, they still had a lot of dry food for the soldiers who died in battle, and in order to reduce the burden, the troops who went south distributed half of the dry food for them, and there was more. With thousands of horses, they can last for more than ten to 20 days.

But for the siege war, more than ten days have passed in a flash, and the food is basically useless, it depends on whether they can break out of the siege.

Wanyan Nianhan was surrounded by dozens of generals and came down to the four miles. This is their first natural moat, a gap as wide as three feet, and there is no Song soldier on the other side of the gap, which shows that the gap is more than this. place.

A general said: "Marshal Du, the only way is for us to continue digging the wall and dig out another way through the depths."

Wanyan Nianhan remained silent, this method is not very good, although the wall can be cut here, but in the front, will Song Jun let them dig the wall calmly?Not even with shields.

At this time, a commander clasped his fists and said, "Marshal Du, there is a way for a humble job!"

Everyone looked at the commander-in-chief, can they think of a way under this situation?

"Tell me, what can I do?"

"If you tie them with spears, maybe you can make a bridge."

Wanyan Nianhan's eyes lit up, he didn't think of this good idea, thousands of spears tied firmly with leather belts can also form a spear bridge.

But he also knew that this method was still not enough to deal with the cliff and natural moat in the south, which was six feet and eight feet wide, and no amount of spears could bear it.

The Jurchen soldiers immediately made their move, and after more than an hour, a bridge with a length of four feet long and densely bundled with three thousand spears appeared in front of everyone. Once it was built on the broken road, it could be easily passed by riding a horse.

Wanyan Nianhan was also promoted to Chief Ten Thousand Commander Sha Luyi by Wanyan Nianhan because he came up with this method.

Without the obstruction of the broken road, Wanyan Nianhan will start to break through forcefully.

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Earth-shattering drums echoed in the valley. A Jurchen commander roared and urged his horse to gallop. Behind him, a thousand black armored cavalry also galloped on their horses. With their superb horse control skills, the thousand black armored cavalry Running fast on the mountain road, the sound of horseshoes was like thunder, and the momentum was astonishing.

A thousand black armored cavalry rushed towards the entrance of Luoshui Road two miles away, followed by 3000 Jurchen cavalry. If these [-] people can break through the Song army's heavy obstruction, then the entire army will have hope of breaking through the blockade.

A tall observation deck has just been built in the city, which is seven or eight feet high. Standing on the high platform, it is enough to see the situation on the Luoshui Road.

Standing on the high platform, Chen Qing watched the Song army's interception battle from a distance. He did not intervene in specific operations, but Liu Cui was responsible for implementing various combat strategies.

Chen Qing is the coach, he planned and deployed the overall situation, and the specific operations were completed by his subordinates.

On the official road, the black-armored cavalry charged like lightning, and they were the first to enter the range of the crossbowmen above their heads. Arrows rained down on their heads, and the soldiers raised their shields to meet them. Cavalrymen were still being shot by the powerful crossbow arrows, and the horses neighed He fell headfirst off the cliff, leaving behind long screams from the soldiers.

Obviously, this little attack could not scare the Jurchen cavalry, but the Jurchen cavalry accelerated their speed. At this time, the bed crossbows on the front and side fired, and there was a burst of fire like a storm. Even the shield could not stop the power of the bed crossbow. The cavalry turned on their backs and were shot and killed hundreds of people.

Immediately afterwards, hundreds of fire mines rolled down from the top of the head, fell into the cavalry group behind, and exploded violently in the cavalry group. , The war horse fell on the official road and convulsed, and many soldiers were shot with poisonous nails, their faces were blooming, and they fell to the ground after walking a few steps.

However, nearly half of the casualties were only a slight setback to the Jurchen cavalry's offensive power. When the smoke cleared and the rapid shooting of crossbow arrows stopped, the [-] Jurchen cavalry regrouped and continued to charge. Behind them, Wan Yanjian Khan invested another two thousand cavalry.

They used their superb riding skills to dodge left and right on the horses, and they were getting closer and closer to the entrance of Luoshui Road.

Liu Cui shouted: "Launch the fire oil offensive!"

The black-armored cavalry found something was wrong when they were more than 100 steps away from the first blocking mud wall. The official road was full of black mud and liquid. The hundreds of black-armored cavalry in the front were suddenly scared out of their wits. At this time, it was impossible to turn around, so they had to fight their horses desperately, trying to rush out of the fire oil area before the enemy ignited the fire.

At this moment, dozens of torches were thrown from the top of the head, and more than a dozen torches landed [-] steps in front of the Jurchen commander, "Boom! With a sound, the flames on the ground burned rapidly, and the flames rushed towards the face. The horse hissed in shock, and led the commander to fall into the abyss of tens of feet.

Huge kerosene tanks were thrown down from overhead and shattered on the ground. The black kerosene was immediately ignited, the flames flowed around, and the black smoke billowed, making the cavalry and horses unable to see the road clearly and had to stop running.

But it stopped only in an instant, more and more fire oil tanks were thrown down, and the two-mile-long official road turned into a sea of ​​flames. The manes and tails of the horses were ignited by the flames, and hundreds of horses could not bear the flames. Neighing, he jumped off the cliff desperately.

At this time, the way of retreat was also cut off. The Song army dropped hundreds of bundles of wheat straw and dead branches and piled them on the mountain road for burning. Dozens of Jurchen soldiers rushed up from behind, trying to push the burning straw down the cliff, but they were also crowded shot with arrows.

The god arm crossbow and bed crossbow showed their power again, Liu Cui gave an order, and thousands of crossbow arrows shot at the official road from the side like a storm. There was no more movement.

The first round of impact was over in just over half an hour. The five thousand Jurchen cavalry were wiped out, and no one survived. Green smoke billowed up, and the official roads were full of charred corpses. Instead of covering his mouth and nose with a wet towel, he pushed the corpse down the cliff with a long shovel.

5000 people were killed, and the number of Jurchen troops dropped from 8000 to 3000. The casualties finally exceeded half. The tragic battle made Wanyan Nianhan realize that it would be difficult for them to break through the encirclement of the Song army. The fiasco caused him to suffer the heaviest blow since the Battle of Liao Dynasty. For a while, Wanyan Nianhan's mood became very depressed.

The coach suffered setbacks, and the morale of the more than 2 Jurchen troops was also low, and despair began to permeate the army.

……

At the same time when Chen Qing completely trapped Wanyan Nianhan's army on the Luoshui Road with the trick of trapping beasts, major incidents also occurred on the Jianghuai battlefield. Li Qiong led 10,000 troops and [-]+ family members to surrender to the puppet Qi State. This caused a huge loophole in the Song Army's defense of the Huaihe River.

Zhang Jun's 20 troops couldn't withstand the [-] puppet Qi troops attacking from the front and the side, so he urgently ordered Wu's troops to return to help him.

At this time, the Wu rank army and Yue Fei's army were fighting fiercely with Wanyan Wushu's [-] Jurchen cavalry on the left wing in Fangcheng County, Tangzhou.

Yue Fei smashed the kidnapped horse of the Jurchen cavalry with a hook and a spear. The Song army defeated the left wing of the Jin soldiers, chased them for more than 100 miles, beheaded more than [-] Jurchen cavalry, and occupied the two cities of Yancheng in Xuzhou and Xiangcheng in Ruzhou. In the important town, the Wanyan Wushu army was forced to retreat northward.

But at this moment, a shocking news came. Zhang Jun's army in the middle of the battle with the puppet Qi army was defeated. The Song army was beheaded by tens of thousands of people and was retreating to the Yangtze River in panic.

Yue Fei and Wu Jie, who originally wanted to take advantage of the victory, had to abandon Yancheng and Xiangcheng and return to rescue Zhang Jun's army. Yue Fei's [-] troops encountered Li Cheng's [-] troops in Dingcheng County, Guangzhou. The two armies fought fiercely all day and night. , Li Chengjun was defeated, and the [-] troops were killed and fled in defeat.

Yue Fei's army did not pursue, but continued to go south to rescue, and the [-] army led by Wu Jie also defeated the [-] army of the puppet Qi army's deputy general Liu Yi in Huoqiu County.

Liu Lin, the commander of the Puppet Qi Army, saw that the two rescue Song troops were coming fiercely, so he had to give up the siege of Zhang Jun's army, and the army quickly retreated northward.

Although the Song army kept the front line of the Huaihe River, the puppet Qi army took hundreds of thousands of shi of grain and nearly one million yuan of money because of the breach of Shouchun County and Hefei County, which hoarded money, food and materials, and a large number of wheat fields were burned. , Seeing that the soon-ripe wheat was destroyed, a large number of people were displaced, and hungry people were everywhere.

The Song Dynasty's finances could no longer afford the huge financial pressure on the Jianghuai River, nor could it provide enough military rations and salaries to the Song Army. The court had to make a decision to abandon Huaixi, and the army retreated to the south of the Yangtze River, leaving only Han Shizhong to guard it. Yangzhou and other five states in Huainan.

And Yue Fei's army on the western front also withdrew to the south of Funiu Mountain, keeping Tangzhou and Dengzhou.

Li Qiong's surrender and the disastrous defeat of the Central Route Army had a huge impact. The emperor Zhao Gou was furious and decreed that Zhang Jun should be dismissed from the post of Prime Minister.

Immediately afterwards, Huaixi Xuanfu envoy Zhang Jun wrote a letter impeaching Wu Jie for leaving his post without authorization, which led to the disastrous defeat of the Central Route Army. The imperial court dismissed him from his military post.

Chapter 758 Blackmail

At night, Qin Hui's big sedan chair finally appeared in front of the mansion. The imperial court had a lot of affairs these days, and Qin Hui had to be busy until evening to go home.

There were dozens of steps away from the gate of the mansion, Qin Hui found a figure standing in front of his mansion gate through the sedan chair curtain, he ordered his followers: "Go and see, who is standing in front of my mansion gate?"

The entourage ran over, and after a while, someone from the future came forward and said, "This is the emissary of Zhang Xuanfu!"

It turned out that it was Zhang Jun who came. For so many years, Zhang Jun has been burning Qin Hui's incense, not to mention his filial piety during the festivals. The key is that Qin Hui's influence in the army depends on Zhang Jun.

Zhang Jun stepped forward and begged, "Master, you have to help me this time no matter what!"

Qin Hui nodded, "Let's talk in the mansion!"

The housekeeper invited Zhang Jun to sit in the guest room for a while, and after a short while, Qin Hui came back with a change of clothes, and Zhang Jun got up quickly to salute.

Qin Hui smiled and waved his hands, "Sit down!"

Zhang Jun sat down and said anxiously: "I just heard that Yushitai is going to impeach the humble officials, please Qin Xianggong to help a bunch of humble officials this time no matter what!"

In this defeat, the commander-in-chief Zhang Jun was dismissed, and even Wu Jie, who had made great military exploits, was dismissed from his post; but Zhang Jun, who directly led to the defeat, was fine, which is a bit unreasonable.

Qin Hui took a sip of tea, and said slowly: "The impeachment of Xuanfu envoy is actually the intention of the officials."

"Ah! Is it the meaning of the official?"

Qin Hui waved his hand, "Don't worry, listen to me."

"Mr. Qin, please tell me!"

"Before I advised you not to hold Wu Jie accountable. If you didn't listen, you insisted on shifting the responsibility to Wu Jie in the report. Wu Jie was just a sub-general. The sub-general was dismissed, but the main general was fine. Many courtiers were dissatisfied. Lu Qingshan took the lead and contacted Li Gang, Zhe Yanzhi, and nearly a hundred officials to collectively petition, demanding the dismissal of Zhang Xuan Fushi, and the officials were also under pressure, which was not his intention."

"It means that I will be dismissed from office!"

"It must be expressed, but if it is handled well, the board will be raised high and lowered gently. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Humble job understands the meaning of Xianggong, but what should humble job do?"

Qin Hui lowered his voice and said: "The key is that you must be able to shift the responsibility to Zhang Jun, you must have sufficient reasons and evidence, and then Zhao Xianggong and I will be able to stand up when defending you."

"What reasons and proofs do I need?"

"There are actually two key points. Why did you lose? Second, why the money and food were lost, and third, the supervisor Lu Zhi was killed. These three points also made the officials furious."

Since Zhang Jun came to Qin Hui, he must have been prepared. He hurriedly said: "Actually, the defeat was buried from the very beginning. Wu Jie was controlled by Yue Fei before, and at the same time, he was under the jurisdiction of the humble position. It is reasonable to cancel the restraint by Yue Fei before he can accept the humble position." Jurisdiction, Zhang Xianggong missed this step for some reason, which made Wu Jie’s position unclear. He ran to fight with Yue Fei as before, resulting in Li Qiong’s betrayal. Jie dereliction of duty, in fact, Zhang Xianggong's position was unclear at the beginning, and I felt that he did it deliberately because of his personal grievances with Yue Fei."

"This detail is good, you can bring it up, what else?"

"There is also the loss of Qianliang, which must be his responsibility. Qianliang was originally placed in Jiangxia, but he transferred the money and grain general warehouse to Hefei. Although it is a humble job and he did not keep Hefei, but... But the arrangement itself is wrong. Hefei is the middle road The logistics of the army is not the general logistics. If you put all the money and food in Hefei, how will the money and food of the West Route Army be arranged? This is unreasonable.”

Qin Hui nodded, "It's unreasonable in the first place, so this should be considered a reason! Lu Zhi was killed by Li Qiong, can you free yourself?"

Li Qiong was the right wing of the Central Route Army. He led dozens of generals and more than 3 troops to surrender to the puppet Qi. Unfortunately, when the supervisor Lu Zhi stopped him, he was killed by Li Qiong.

In fact, Li Qiong's rebellion was really Zhang Jun's responsibility. He embezzled and embezzled military pay, leaving Li Qiong's soldiers and their families with no way out, so they followed Li Qiong to surrender collectively. Otherwise, it would be Li Qiong's personal surrender at most. There was such a shame and shame that 10,000+ people surrendered to the puppet state of Qi together.