Fenghou

Chapter 1155 Grass Valley
Alubu and his deputy Wanyan Digunai divided their troops into two groups. Alubu led [-] main forces to attack Guide Mansion, while Wanyan Digunai led [-] cavalry from Xiao County to Xuzhou. The army stationed in the Yellow River water army, so Digunai still has a task to destroy the Yellow River warships of the Western Army.

Alubu led an army of [-] troops across the ice of the Yellow River at night, and headed straight for Chuqiu County. Alubu gave an order, and the [-] cavalry turned into forty cavalry squadrons, and rushed in all directions holding torches. Their targets are scattered in various villages in the yellow flood zone.

Alubu led [-] cavalrymen to the foot of Chuqiu County. The [-] cavalrymen held torches and formed a sea of ​​fire. They threw torches one by one onto the top of the city.

Two hundred soldiers hugged the bumper and rushed towards the city gate. There was a low, muffled sound of "Boom," and the city gate shook violently.

"Come again!" the commander shouted, and Zhuangmu slammed into the city gate again.

The gate of the city was smashed open, and the two thousand cavalry who had been waiting for a long time rushed into the city.
The result was unexpected to Alubu, Chuqiu County turned out to be an empty city, with no one in every household, no one in the government office, the official warehouse was empty, and the grain cabinets in the common people's homes were also empty.

Arubu's face was as gloomy as water, obviously the other party was already prepared and knew they were coming.

Alubu also secretly complained to Marshal Du Wanyan Wushu, why didn't he send spies to investigate first, and he knew it well, without food and livestock, what would his soldiers eat?
Although they also brought a little dry food, the amount was too small and could only last for two or three days.

At this time, the soldiers came to report, "Report to the Marshal, the brothers have caught some old men."

"Bring it up!"

After a while, the Jurchen soldiers dragged the three elderly men up, and the three old men knelt on the ground, trembling with fear.

"General, spare your life! General, spare your life!"

A Lubu lowered his head and gritted his teeth: "You tell me honestly, I won't kill you, when did the county evacuate?"

"The evacuation started half a month ago, and the last group of people evacuated in five days, including a few county magistrates and archers. We really couldn't move, and didn't want to leave, so we stayed."

"Where did they retreat to?" Arubu asked again.

"Reporting to the general, some people evacuated to Kaifeng Mansion, and some people evacuated to Songcheng County."

Alubu nodded, and asked again: "What about the countryside?"

"The villages started to evacuate very early on."

Alubu yelled, pulled out his knife, and chopped off the head of an old man with one knife. The other two kowtowed in fright, and were all hacked to death by the furious Alubu.

"Search for me! Search thoroughly, and the grain buried in the ground must also be dug out."

Ten thousand soldiers began to search the city, and indeed they found some food buried in the ground that the common people could not take away.

Busy until the third watch, the exhausted soldiers finally fell asleep
At four o'clock, a cavalry team of a hundred men rushed into Dezhuang, and the thirteen households in Dezhuang were empty, taking away everything that could be taken away, only some broken furniture that could not be taken away.

The Jurchen soldiers rushed into Ruan De's house, ransacked the boxes, found nothing, but accidentally found more than a dozen jars of fruit wine in the cellar, a hundred soldiers were overjoyed, they found bowls of wine and drank heavily, the weather was cold, and they drank a few bowls of wine to keep warm It is the body that matters.

Everyone drank up all the dozen or so jars of wine, feeling drunk, and each went to find a place to sleep.

"poisonous!"

A Jurchen soldier suddenly yelled and fell headlong in the yard, clutching his stomach and rolling all over the ground, blood poured out from his seven orifices, and he didn't move for a while.

Hundreds of soldiers were poisoned and fell to the ground, including some drunken war horses. At dawn, all the hundreds of Jurchen soldiers who looted Dezhuang were poisoned and died.

At the same time, the teams that went to loot villages all returned to Chuqiu County one after another, bringing no good news. All the villages were empty, food and livestock were taken away, and the four thousand people almost got nothing.

"Bang!" Alubu slammed the table hard, and said with anger on his face, "How did you die?"

"They were all bleeding from their seven orifices, and their faces turned black. They should have died of poisoning."

Another fearful soldier said: "We found a few jars of unfinished wine and brought them back for drug testing."

At this time, the military doctor came over and said, "Marshal Qi, what they brought back was poisoned wine. It must have been poisoned with a lot of arsenic. The poison was very strong. Several wild dogs drank it and died on the spot."

A Lubu was really helpless, so he had to order: "The whole army pack up their things, burn down the county town and set off!"

They found a hundred stones of food last night, which was only enough for the soldiers to have a breakfast. They had nothing but pigs, sheep, women, and property that they expected. Go in the direction of Songcheng County.

Alubu hoped to capture Songcheng County, plundered it severely, then drove away the population and livestock, and returned to Licheng County with a large amount of property.

In fact, not long after the [-] Jurchen cavalry set off from Licheng, the intelligence scouts of the Western Army in Licheng County sent pigeon letters to Songcheng County.

Hu Yanlei, the guard of Songcheng County, immediately ordered to fortify the walls and clear the fields, and all the people outside the city would enter the city, and all food and supplies would not be left behind, and they would all be brought into the city.

Songcheng County, also known as Yingtianfu in Nanjing in the Northern Song Dynasty, is the third largest city on Henan Road, second only to Bianliang in Tokyo and Luoyang in Xijing, with a population of nearly one million when it was the largest. , easy to defend but difficult to attack.

If it was during the Northern Song Dynasty, even an army of [-] might not be able to conquer Songcheng County. Unfortunately, two huge disasters also brought disaster to Songcheng County.

The first time was a military disaster. The Jin soldiers broke through Bianliang and took away the second emperor. The officials and people of Songcheng County fled.

The second time was in the second year of Jianyan, when the Jin soldiers attacked Yingtianfu. In order to stop the Jin soldiers, Du Chong, the commander of the Song Army, ordered to dig the embankment of the Yellow River. In the city, the people of the whole county fled to the top of the city.

At that time, tens of thousands of people in Songcheng County were killed by the flood, and then epidemics and famine broke out, and the population of Songcheng County dropped sharply again. There were less than [-] people left in the big city that used to be nearly one million.

The city walls were also badly damaged by floods, and although they were repaired later, their defensive function has declined considerably, let's just say!In the northeastern part of the city wall, a large hole can be directly punched through the city wall with a large battering ram.

However, during this period, more than [-] people from various counties retreated to Songcheng County, which increased the population of Songcheng County to [-] people again, and almost all the abandoned houses were filled with people again.

There are [-] defenders in the city, led by Commander Hu Yanlei. Hu Yanlei is nearly forty years old. He has been with Chen Qing for ten years. Hu Yanlei, who was conferred the title of Marquis of Wuyang County, has also made numerous military exploits. This time, under the order of Yang Zaixing, the governor of the capital, he led [-] troops to sit in Songcheng County.

"Look, general!"

On the top of the city, the soldiers pointed to the northeast and shouted.

Hu Yanlei looked into the distance, and saw black smoke billowing in the northeast direction. There was only one place over there, that was Chuqiu County, which was seventy miles away from Songcheng County, and black smoke could be seen seventy miles away, indicating that Songcheng County The whole county was burned.

At this moment, a gunpowder arrow soared into the sky ten miles away and exploded in the air. Immediately afterwards, a series of nine gunpowder arrows flew into the sky and exploded in the air.

It shows that the main force of the enemy army has been killed ten miles away, and it has come too fast.

Hu Yanlei immediately ordered: "Order the whole army to go to the city!"

"Dang! Dang! Dang!"

The alarm bell rang, and the soldiers of the Western Army under the city rushed to the top of the city.

(End of this chapter)