Fenghou

Chapter 758 Despair
The [-] Jurchen army arrived at the starting point again. The army stopped five miles away from the entrance, and the golden 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. In order to reduce the burden, the troops who went south distributed half of the dry food to them, and there was more With thousands of war horses, they can last for more than ten to twenty 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 [-] Jurchen cavalry. If these [-] cavalry 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 realized something was wrong when it was more than a hundred steps away from the first blocking mud wall. The official road was covered with black mud and liquid, and 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 kerosene 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.

Five thousand people were killed, the number of Jurchen troops dropped from [-] to [-], and 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 successive fiascos caused him to suffer the heaviest blow since the Battle of the Liao Dynasty. For a while, Wanyan Nianhan's mood became very depressed.

The coach suffered a setback, and the morale of the more than [-] Jurchen troops was also low, and despair began to permeate the army.

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

Zhang Jun's [-] 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 spear, and the Song army defeated the left wing of the Jin soldiers. After chasing and killing more than [-] li, more than [-] Jurchen cavalrymen were killed, and they occupied the two cities of Yancheng in Xuzhou and Xiangcheng in Ruzhou. An 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.

(End of this chapter)