Promotion and fortune in Song Dynasty

Although the king's instruction was for him to act cheaply, Ji Qianming, who knew his cruel methods well, didn't feel at ease at all.

He is very clear: If there are no mistakes, then everyone will be happy; but if his decision is not right and it leads to disastrous consequences, the king will definitely not care about his old relationship for many years, but will let him drop his head on the spot of.

Of course, even if the lord of the country gave clear and clear instructions and he strictly followed them, if the result was unsatisfactory, he still had to take the blame.

The blame is on the kid surnamed Lu. As a civil servant, why did he run out for no reason?

Ji Qianming rubbed the center of his brows irritably, listed the secret reports he had received in the past few days in order, spread out the ground scriptures, and tried to see some patterns from the carefully integrated Lu Ci's marching trajectory.

Things backfired and he was soon disappointed.

Lu Ci first headed towards Suzhou for a day, but on the second day there was a sudden turning point, and he walked southwest for dozens of miles inexplicably, and demolished the dilapidated villages along the way; on the third day, he still headed southwest; On the fourth day, I walked northwest for half a day, and headed west for the remaining half day...

Ji Qianming drew the route of Lu Ci's march on the geomantic plane, and he was even more confused.

It was like wandering around endlessly, wandering around the border area of ​​the Great Song Dynasty, and even kindly rescued a Khitan caravan stopped by Xixia road bandits halfway.

As the commander of the presidential army along the way, Lu Ci did not hesitate to hide his whereabouts and lead the troops out of the city in secret. How could it be just to demolish some dilapidated villages that could be easily done by sending anyone?

Ji Qianming frowned, feeling more and more uneasy.

There must be other plans, but they played tricks in front of them, so that they can relax their vigilance, and then act suddenly, so that they will be caught off guard.

What Ji Qianming didn't know was that although he had accurately guessed Lu Ci's purpose, he completely misunderstood the real point.

He faced the ground and thought hard, and finally thought that Lu Ci was as cunning as a fox, and he must not be taken lightly, so he ordered three thousand out of the [-] soldiers guarding the city to keep an eye on Lu Ci. Immediately carry out encirclement and annihilation.

However, he did not report any expectations on whether he could achieve this point in besieging and annihilating Lu Ci.

Three thousand against two thousand seems to have a certain advantage in numbers, but the most elite trilogy of Xixia has been taken to the expedition by the king who has the will to fight quickly, and will be left to defend the city Although it can't be called old, weak, sick and disabled, it is also unflattering.

On the other hand, the two thousand soldiers led by Lu Ci were apparently unusable soldiers from the Wansheng "Damn" Battalion, but they were all strong and healthy, and they had been struggling in the barracks for so many years. can be used.

What's more, they traveled a long distance and had to wait nervously for the right time. On the other hand, Lu Ci's team that set off earlier, traveled leisurely all the way without any fatigue on the road, which can be called leisurely waiting for work.

Even if the Song army is really lost, with Lu Ci's cunning, he will definitely be able to escape under the escort of the soldiers to the death.

After thinking about it, Ji Qianming didn't think he would bring any trouble to Lu Ci by sending those 3000 people, so he simply made up his mind, solemnly selected a place, and immediately sent [-] more people. .

So on the seventh day after leaving the city, near Lu Ci's team, there were a few more 'little tails' adorning them not too far away, watching eagerly.

"It's been three years. Why is the Xixia army still playing tricks that our ancestors got tired of using hundreds of years ago?"

Gee tut.

Lu Ci patiently admired it for a while, and commented with pity: "This old-fashioned way of tying a broom to the horse's tail and throwing ashes to create momentum... It's not that the war is in chaos, the two soldiers are fighting fiercely, and there is no time to distinguish the details. When used in normal times, the number of horse manure and horseshoe prints alone has exposed them completely. As a confidant and favorite general, Ji Qianming even failed to get the essence of tactics from his lord ? Li Yuanhao is too self-absorbed."

Yang Wenguang: "..."

He looked helplessly at Gao Jixuan, who was struggling to hold back his laughter, and thought that Lu Jiedu looked refined, gentle and considerate, but if he wanted to hurt someone, he could be so mean that he would blow his anger out.

"Jiedu," Yang Wenguang came back to his senses, and said seriously, "The three Xixia Qingqi seem to be driving us to the west on purpose."

Lu Ci nodded: "I think so too."

Yang Wenguang said: "That festival is preparation..."

Lu Ci smiled: "In general, go in their direction, but on the way, you can feint a few times to the side, pretending not to know their intentions, trying to delay for some time, and you can't let their goals go too smoothly."

Yang Wenguang was taken aback: "Is Lu Jiedu going to follow his plan?"

Lu Ci smiled and said nothing.

This is already the seventh day, and there will be another three days. Zhu said that no one can stop him.

Of course, just in case, it is still possible to delay as long as possible, just as long as possible.

And the cunning spy in the Wansheng Battalion couldn't let it go forever.

Although Yang Wenguang thought from the bottom of his heart that this move was too dangerous, his bounden duty as a sergeant was to obey the instructions of his superiors.

So after weighing, it was determined that it was impossible to persuade, so he stopped thinking about questioning things, but conveyed and carried out the instructions meticulously.

In the following three days, Lu Ci was harassed by three small tails in turn, but he still did not rush. He set up camp in the dilapidated village at night and sent soldiers to guard outside in turn. The harassing of sending dozens of cavalry out to beat gongs and drums made Xixia Qingqi, who could only rest temporarily on the grass covered with night dew, unbearable and tense all the time.

They would also like to tell Lu Ci's army not to rest, but no matter how simple a village is, it is still a village. Depending on the advantage of the terrain, they can't take advantage of it at all. Even if they succeed, they will hurt themselves and the enemy. Eight hundred useless tricks.

The worst thing was that Lu Ci had guessed that they were exhausted and couldn't get a rest, and the marching began to be fast and slow - as soon as they slowed down, Song Jun would suddenly speed up and throw them away; when they were out of breath, When the dead rushed to catch up, Song Jun camped and rested leisurely again, cooking rice and soup.

Smelling the smell of hot meat, the Xixia soldiers couldn't help but swallowed greedily, and wanted to cook on the spot, but they were struggling to light the fire. After picking the skin and bones of the prey, Song Jun put down the food aggressively. With half of their rice bowls filled, they suddenly rushed over, causing them to retreat dozens of feet in shock, ready to fight.

As a result, the Song army only snatched their prey, counted it as an extra meal, and retreated like a tide.

After a few days of tossing around like this, the sergeants led by Lu Ci were still in good spirits and full of energy. On the other hand, Xixia Qingqi, who had been galloping all the way and was being tricked all the time, was very sluggish and could only be sustained by mental strength.

What made them feel a little relieved was that even though the dog official surnamed Lu had done them a lot of harm, he had also fallen into their trap and was about to step into the Haoshui River area.

"This is Haoshuichuan."

Lu Ci sighed, "It's really like the land scripture drawn by the merchant, with dense vegetation and swamps everywhere."

Behind them were the Xixia soldiers who were suddenly slapped with chicken blood, no longer concealed their purpose, and tried their best to drive them in. Lu Ci deliberately led the soldiers around a few times, like panicked headless flies. Drilled in.

Lu Ci has been in Qinzhou for so many years, and has always attached great importance to the acquisition of information. After obtaining the approval of the officials in Shangshu, most of the envoy money that was not used to save face every year was invested in the investigation of these secret informers. cultivated.

So much so that at this moment he knew very well the defensive strength of Lingzhou City at this moment - only [-] veterans.

Ji Qianming, who was in charge of guarding the rear, was suspicious and cautious. He was an out-and-out conservative. It was absolutely impossible for him to dispatch all [-] soldiers and chase after him.

According to Lu Ci's guess, no matter how much Ji Qian Mingrao valued him, he would take half of it at most.

Of course, if it is mentioned to send troops to attack Lingzhou City, it will be a completely different situation: one side is waiting for work, and the other is exhausted; Thousands of people, and even sending thousands of people would have to fight with hundreds of officials for a long time; one side has a convenient location, and the city wall resists; the other side needs to travel far with heavy siege equipment, and it is easy to be destroyed...

It is naturally impossible for Lu Ci to make an idea of ​​Lingzhou City at this time.

Yang Wenguang has entered a state of high vigilance since the moment he stepped into the dense forest.

The forest here is extremely luxuriant, and the Song army walked through it, and it was impossible to judge the direction from the outside.

Even if the Xixia military set up an ambush here before, and there are many paths, how can they tell which one they will take, and where they are now?

There must be a trap in front of him, but where exactly is the trap placed?

He looked at Lu Ci uneasily, Lu Ci caught his gaze keenly, turned his head slightly, and said softly to him: "Zhong Rong, come here with your ears."

Yang Wenguang approached without hesitation, and after listening to Lu Ci whispering a few words in his ear, his eyes widened slightly, but he still nodded vigorously.

In the eyes of the anxious spy who was trying to get in touch with the Western Xia ambush, he saw that Lu Ci led them into the dense forest, but after only a few tens of meters... they actually set up camp on the spot.

In order to prevent noise and fireworks, Lu Ci did not allow anyone to hunt and light a fire. He only took out the dry food he had prepared in advance, and enjoyed a good lunch with the drinking water he brought with him.

Detailed work: "..."

He didn't know where this weird leisure came from, but he had to pretend to be dazed and follow suit.

What was even more inconceivable was that Lu Ci patiently waited for them to eat and drink enough, but he didn't let them walk around. Instead, he suddenly changed his focus and asked someone to tear down the camp that had been set up and move on.

He failed to find an opportunity to deliver the news, so he followed helplessly.

In this densely forested area, the forward speed of Lu Ci and his party dropped to the extreme, as slow as a toddler.

Yang Wenguang guessed that this was probably for the purpose of ensuring that the soldiers had enough energy to gradually adapt to the rhythm of the forest, but he felt that it was not that simple.

When walking out of Liupan Mountain very slowly and approaching Yangmulong City, in the middle of the dirt road, countless sealed silver boxes suddenly appeared, as if they were randomly discarded here.

The soldiers whispered: "Could it be that the caravan lost its way and lost its goods?"

Someone asked curiously, "What's in there?"

After many days of boring marching, there was a rare and rare event, which caused everyone to discuss in a low voice, so they failed to notice that one of them's eyes suddenly lit up after the initial daze.

Lu Ci squinted his eyes, immediately stopped walking, summoned Yang Wenguang and Gao Jixuan, and gave a few quick instructions.

Yang Gao and the others nodded, and ordered everyone to sit down tens of steps away from the boxes. Immediately, they respectively selected the ten most credible people, and carefully picked up the boxes.

Although the secret work could be mixed in the Wansheng camp and failed to arouse the suspicion of the surrounding people, it was impossible to become an existence that Yang Gao and the two trusted extremely.

Therefore, he was not selected, and he could only look at those silver boxes with burning eyes, and shouted desperately in his heart-open, open!

However, these [-] or so soldiers who had been carefully selected had completely failed his expectations. They only held those exquisite silver boxes in their hands and took them to some unknown place, and they came back after a long while.

Ugh!

Seeing the missed opportunity, he was extremely regretful, but before he could worry about anything, Yang Wenguang suddenly split them into four long teams and set foot on several narrow paths.

Just as he was absent-mindedly walking on the road, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a ray of silver light in the grass out of the corner of his eye, and his spirit was shocked.

That's the silver box!

With such a pause in his footsteps, he naturally blocked the people behind him.

Without waiting for the people behind to express their doubts, he squatted down pretending to have abdominal pain, and let the people behind him go first with a bitter face.

"Are you all right?"

This trip was in a hurry, and I didn't bring a doctor. At most, I prepared some anti-methane herbs.

Seeing that he was sweating profusely, the other sergeants had no doubts and asked a few questions with concern. After seeing that his face was indeed all right, they continued to move forward.

The detailed work made it clear that this trick can only be concealed for a while, and those kind-hearted colleagues must report it to let one of Gao Yang know.

Can't delay any longer!

As soon as he gritted his teeth, he didn't care whether the action was too eager, he just quickly moved to the position where the silver box was, grabbed the box decisively, and was about to open it without thinking.

--"Oh it's you."

He had just touched the corner of the silver box with his fingers, and before he could make any further movements, a familiar voice that made his heart shudder rang out above his head.

That's Yang Wenguang—it's over!

He raised his head in panic, and before he could apologize to the tall and stern figure in the backlight, he felt a sharp pain in his neck, and then he lost consciousness permanently.

The author has something to say: Notes:

1. The content of this chapter is adapted from the Battle of Haoshuichuan in the history book.

That was when Weizhou was trapped, Han Qi sent Ren Fu to go out to lead 8000 people to support Weizhou, and repeatedly told him that because the Xixia army exceeded 8000, they only had [-] people. Be extremely cautious.

At the beginning, Ren Fu behaved well and did not dare to advance easily, but after several victories, he got a little carried away and began to advance lightly.

Even if the lieutenant general Wu Ying tried to dissuade him, he never listened to him, and he chased him all the way to the Haoshuichuan area before stopping.Unexpectedly, this was a huge trap set by Li Yuanhao—he showed weakness all the way just to lure Song Jun to come here.

The Haoshuichuan forest is densely leafy, and the Song army walked through it. It stands to reason that the Xixia army could not see them.However, Li Yuanhao put down many small silver mud-sealed boxes in the middle of the road from Liupan Mountain to Yangmulong City. After Ren Fu found out, he opened them all curiously. As a result, hundreds of white pigeons soared into the sky, and their whereabouts were completely exposed. .

After the pigeons flew up, the Xixia army, which received the signal and position, immediately attacked across the board, and a hundred thousand troops rushed in, resulting in a great defeat. The corpses of the Song army were scattered all over the field, and the casualties were heavy. Four thousand Song soldiers including Wang Gui, who rushed to help, died in battle. (The fifth volume of "Song Dynasty is really very material", p278-280, written by Zhang Xiaomian, China Workers Publishing House)