Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1096 1091 [Buddhism is not a place of Nurgle]

Some of the Dali defenders at Longwei Pass were determined enough to fight to the death.

But the darkness was so chaotic that they couldn't even find their own officers.

Especially on the wall, after being bombarded, they extinguished the braziers and torches to prevent the Ming army from firing at the fire. When the battle really started, the wall was completely dark, which aggravated the atmosphere of fear and chaos.

Gao Zhushou was still shouting "Anyone who deserts the battlefield will die" when a large group of fleeing soldiers rushed towards him frantically. There was a horse path not far to his side that he could escape.

The guards surrounded Gao Zhushou and killed more than ten people with swords and spears. However, the darkness could not create a deterrent effect. The fleeing soldiers in the rear could not see what was happening in front of them. The chaotic sounds inside and outside the pass also covered up the guards' scolding and the screams of the dead.

Gradually, as more and more defeated soldiers fled, several of Gao Zhushou's personal soldiers were knocked down one after another.

In desperation, the personal soldiers had to protect Gao Zhushou and leave, constantly hacking and killing anyone who dared to approach, and moving to the horse trail entrance in the direction of the fleeing soldiers.

"Where are Gao Minghui and Liu Kun? Go and ask them to bring the troops to guard the place!" Gao Zhushou got off the horse road in a daze, still thinking about deploying troops.

The captain of the guards said anxiously: "Where can we find anyone to guard the place now? Soldiers are everywhere, and I'm afraid the troops of Generals Gao and Liu have also been defeated."

Gao Zhushou shouted again: "Navy, hurry up and send the navy over. There must not be many enemies sneaking across and attacking the embankment!"

The bodyguards didn't know what the navy was doing.

In fact, the navy also escaped.

The Erhai water navy has never been taken seriously and usually only bullies fishermen.

Gao Yuchengsheng and Gao Guanyinlong suddenly launched a coup, and the navy officers and soldiers surrendered to them directly. In order to strengthen the defense of Erhai Lake, Gao Yuchengsheng requisitioned merchant ships to be converted into warships, converted some land forces into navy, and appointed his second son as the general of the navy.

Now that the real fighting had begun, Gao Yuchengsheng's second son wanted to fight hard, but the temporarily trained navy rowed their boats and fled in all directions, while the original regular navy fled the battlefield as an organized unit.

Why escape as a whole?
Of course they would flee to the east coast of Erhai Lake to save their lives, and then surrender collectively after the battle was over.

They could surrender when Gao Yucheng started a coup, and they could also surrender if the Ming army won the war. The main idea was to not get involved in anything, and whoever controlled Dali City would be the master of the navy.

Teams of Ming army soldiers rushed towards the city gate on the pontoon bridge.

Outside the eight-mile-long Longwei Pass wall, the Ming army's torches were densely packed everywhere. The Dali soldiers who were still blocking the city wall were so frightened by the torches that they rushed to the front, and some of them were even pushed off the wall.

Gao Yuchengguang led the soldiers on the mountain to rescue, and they had to enter the city from Tiansheng Pass.

When Gao Yuchengguang returned in a panic and arrived outside Tiansheng Pass, the city gates there had been occupied by the Ming army.

Nearly 10,000 soldiers and horses on the two peaks of Dian Cang Mountain were all blocked in the valley outside Tiansheng Pass.

These are elite soldiers!

Because if you want to capture Longwei Pass, you usually have to capture the mountain outside Tiansheng Pass first. Therefore, there are not many elite troops stationed at Longwei Pass, and most of the real elite troops are assigned to guard the mountain.

Now it's all over. Nearly 10,000 elite Dali soldiers had not even fought before Longwei Pass was captured by the Ming army, trapping these elite soldiers in a desperate situation.

"Failed, defeated!"

These Dali elite soldiers fell into despair.

As bursts of gunfire rang out from the wall, the Dali soldiers further back in the valley also understood what was going on.

Some generals led their troops back to the mountain stronghold, including Gao Yuchengguang.

Some generals and soldiers simply fled. They ran westward along the valley and crossed the mountains to leave the battlefield.

"Go out and chase them!"

Fan Ruwei soon discovered the chaos in the valley. He took the initiative to open the gate of Tiansheng Pass and led his troops to charge into the valley in pursuit.

The Dali elite, who still had some organization, heard the shouts of the Ming army getting closer and closer, and they didn't know how many pursuers were coming in the darkness, so they were frightened and fled desperately.

In the narrow valley, Dali's elite troops fled in a hurry, and soon trampled corpses everywhere.

Gao Yucheng was organizing the retreat to the mountain stronghold, and at first it was relatively orderly. But as the retreat began, the crowd surged like a huge wave, directly dispersing his headquarters on the spot.

At first, he had personal soldiers protecting him, but gradually even those soldiers were dispersed.

Gao Yuchengguang only felt someone pushing him, and then the person behind him was also pushed forward. He gritted his teeth to keep his body steady, but he couldn't resist the force at all, and in a hurry he rolled and crawled to the side.

As soon as he jumped out, he was knocked down by the fleeing soldiers on the side, and then his calf was stepped on hard.

"what!"

Gao Yuchengguang continued to crawl while screaming, tripping a fleeing soldier, and then two more fleeing soldiers fell in succession, one of whom fell down and crushed his calf.

This guy was still crawling towards the hillside in fear, and the fleeing soldiers kept jumping over his body.

Suddenly, another defeated soldier accidentally stepped on his back, and he slipped and fell, and collided with the defeated soldiers rushing from behind.

This time Gao Yuchengguang could not crawl anymore. His body was pinned down by the fallen soldiers, and his exposed legs were trampled on continuously, breaking both of them.

He could only hold his head to protect the back of his skull. Suddenly, a fleeing soldier fell and pressed his head down.

"what!"

Gao Yuchengguang screamed again as a defeated soldier stepped on his broken leg and he fainted from the pain on the spot.

The guy was not dead, but his two legs and one arm were broken. In the morning, the Ming army cleaned up the battlefield.

An auxiliary soldier shouted in surprise: "There is a senior officer here, wearing iron armor! Wearing iron armor!"

……

Gao Zhushou was much smarter. He hid in a safe place at the foot of the wall and ordered his personal soldiers to take off their armor with him.

Then, they fled with the defeated soldiers, moving closer to the shore of Erhai Lake. They dismantled the wooden planks of the embankment fortifications, hugged the planks and jumped into the water, trying to cross the Erhai Lake and escape back to their hometown.

To the north of Longwei Pass, countless defeated soldiers fled to Dali City.

But there were also many smart people who had already determined the escape route in advance. They rushed to the valleys in the eastern foot of Cangshan Mountain, fled into the mountains, and some even fled to the temples in the mountains.

In the dark night, the gate of Longwei Pass was opened, and teams of Ming cavalry rushed in, holding torches and killing the fleeing soldiers along the way, heading straight for Dali City.

As the Ming cavalry pursued, the only few Dali troops that escaped in an organized manner finally collapsed completely amid the rumbling sound of horse hooves.

Dali City, Prime Minister's Mansion.

Gao Yucheng was awakened from his sleep: "Why is there so much noise outside?"

"Prime Minister, Longwei Pass is lost, and the defeated soldiers have fled out of the city on horseback!" said the waiter in horror.

"How many days have we been guarding it?" Gao Yuchengsheng was shocked.

His initial plan was to seize Dali City and control the king, and as prime minister, he would summon the princes to come to the king's defense. He thought he could directly recruit the troops of Gao Liangcheng and Gao Zhenshou.

Because this was how it was done in the past, they used the king to control the princes, controlled the army under the pretext of fighting foreign enemies, and then sent the local troops back home after the war was over.

No one expected that Gao Liangcheng would lead his troops to surrender to the enemy!
Therefore, Gao Yuchengsheng started to think about peace talks again, and kept increasing the amount of territory he ceded in the hope that the Ming army would let him go.

It was not until the Ming army reached Erhai Lake that Gao Yuchengsheng changed his plan again.

He felt that he could hold out by relying on Longwei Pass and Longshou Pass. As long as he could hold out for a month or two, the Ming army's food and grass would be consumed more and more, and their casualties would increase. It would be more valuable to surrender to the Ming army at that time.

Can it last for one or two months?

Gao Yuchengsheng thought it was more than enough, as such a strong pass could not be conquered easily.

He even had a faint hope that the Ming army might run out of food and supplies and be unable to break through the pass.

"Gather the troops to defend the city. We must hold it until dawn!"

The night was too chaotic, and Gao Yuchengsheng planned to surrender at daybreak, at least he could get the credit for "surrendering the city."

As soon as he rushed out of the Prime Minister's Mansion on horseback, Gao Yuchengsheng heard shouting, and the voices were rushing towards him.

Someone led an army in rebellion!
There were more than one or two "rebels". Dong Mingshou was the first to react. He led the secret agents in his family to raise an army and quickly ran to seize the south gate of Dali.

The Zhang family led their troops to occupy the palace to prevent Gao Yuchengsheng from taking advantage of the chaos to abduct the king.

The Yang and Gao families had a deep hatred for each other. They did not have many private soldiers in the city, only two or three hundred people in total. They simply rushed directly towards the Prime Minister's Mansion.

Gao Yucheng was so frightened that his whole body turned cold. He did not care about his son who was still on the battlefield, nor did he care about his wives and concubines in the prime minister's mansion. He immediately rode his horse and fled for his life.

He first went around to the north gate and found many civilians fleeing there, fearing that they would be robbed and killed by the rebels if they stayed in the city. The soldiers guarding the north gate were also gone, with a few returning to the city to look for their families, and those who were not at home in the city simply scattered.

Gao Yuchengsheng rode his horse and hacked at the civilians who blocked his way. He finally got out of the city and crossed the moat, but suddenly he was afraid to continue fleeing north.

Further north is Longshou Pass, where the defending commander is Gao Guanyinlong, and Lin Chong's army is blocking the outside of the pass.

Once Gao Guanyinlong knew that Longwei Pass had been lost, he would definitely capture Gao Yuchengsheng and present both the prime minister and Longshou Pass to Lin Chong.

So Gao Yuchengsheng turned west.

When he passed by Chongsheng Temple, he wanted to hide inside the temple, but he felt that Chongsheng Temple was too close to Dali City, so he rode his horse around it and galloped all the way to the valley.

There was a Zhonghe Temple deep in the mountains. Gao Yuchengsheng knew the abbot there and had donated treasures to the temple before.

Gao Yuchengsheng rode his horse madly, and when the mountain road was too far to ride, he pulled his warhorse into the woods and killed it. Then he took off his silk robe, untied his hair that was casually tied up when sleeping, and hiked up the mountain with his hair down and only wearing underwear.

Climb from night to day, from morning to noon.

Gao Yuchengsheng was tired and hungry, his legs were shaking as he walked, and finally he saw the gate of Zhonghe Temple.

He grabbed some dirt and smeared it on his face, knocked on the temple door and said to the monk in charge of reception: "I am a merchant in Dali City, and I have a good relationship with your abbot. Now Dali City has been plundered by rebels, and I would like to hide in your temple for a few days."

The monk in charge of reception saw that he was well-spoken and eloquent, so he quickly took him in to see the abbot.

The abbot carefully identified him and finally recognized him as the latest prime minister of Dali Kingdom. He was shocked to hear that Dali City had been breached, so he stepped back and shouted: "Quickly catch this thief, tie him up and send him to Dali City!"

Gao Yuchengsheng roared, "You thief monk, I donate so much money every time I worship Buddha!"

The abbot said righteously: "You are the thief. You have harmed countless people for your own selfishness. The lives of those fallen soldiers should all be counted on you. Even if you die, you will go to the eighteenth level of hell!"

"I'll fight you!"

Gao Yucheng rushed forward in anger, but was pinned down by the monks who surrounded him. He was tied up tightly and taken down the mountain to Dali City.

(End of this chapter)