this novel is healthy

Chapter 1928 Grandpa Yue 3
But unfortunately, this rubbish author doesn't seem to intend to satisfy the readers' tiny, insignificant dreams.

Although Zong Ze had almost recovered all the areas south of the Yellow River and reorganized the million-strong volunteer army into an elite force of 20 in total, he also prepared enough food and fodder for a year in Kaifeng City. According to Zong Ze's next plan, he would cross the Yellow River, march north to the Central Plains, and recover all the territory of the Song Dynasty.

However, Zong Ze submitted 24 memorials to Zhao Gou, each of which was extremely earnest, but he never got Zhao Gou's support.

This made Zong Ze, who was nearly 70 years old at the time, unable to bear it any longer. He suffered a carbuncle on his back and died on the first day of July. This most strategically talented civil official and general in the late Northern Song Dynasty still shouted before his death: "Cross the river! Cross the river! Cross the river!"

The mournful cries caused the three armies to cry bitterly, but they could not move Zhao Gou in Jiankang City.

After Zong Ze died of illness, Du Chong succeeded him as governor of Tokyo. Du Chong was "cruel and murderous, but lacked strategy", and ignored Zong Ze's plan during his lifetime, which led to the failure of the Northern Expedition.

Moreover, Du Chong did not trust the million-strong righteous army organized by Zong Ze, but this was also normal. After all, these so-called righteous armies were either local landlords’ armed forces and militias, or most of them were former bandits and heroes. The character of these people was naturally very bad. They made all kinds of troubles in Kaifeng City and disobeyed military orders. It was Zong Ze who forcibly brought them together and was able to control them.

However, Du Chong obviously did not have this ability, but he thought he had such ability, so he was so bold as to want to control all these military leaders, reorganize their armies, and completely turn the 200,000 volunteers into his own Du Family Army.

The result was naturally predictable. The entire Kaifeng people started killing each other without waiting for the Jin soldiers to attack. The 200,000 volunteers began an internal strife and killed each other, and eventually wiped out the elite troops that Zong Ze had accumulated with great difficulty in the north of the Yangtze River and south of the Yellow River.

Yue Fei, who was full of enthusiasm and wanted to march north, had no time to fight the Jin people, but had to fight with these rebels who were his comrades yesterday. Ironically, after this battle, Yue Fei, who had made great contributions to suppressing the rebellion, was named the governor of Yingzhou and the doctor of Wude!
That’s right, the Wude doctor who once belonged to Song Jiang has now fallen on Yue Fei’s head. So when many readers see this, they don’t know whether to sigh or sarcastically mutter, “Is Yue Fei the spiritual successor of Song Jiang?”

Although Yue Fei successfully defeated the rebels, he only defeated them, not annihilated them. Most of the rebels actually fled to the Yellow River, and then they found themselves traitors to the Song Dynasty, and the grievances they suffered in Kaifeng would not allow them to continue to serve the Song Dynasty. So most of these righteous men who were full of blood to fight against the Jin Dynasty in the previous second chose to surrender to the Jin Dynasty and became its vassal army. It was really sad and ridiculous to the extreme.

So one can imagine how the readers who had a little fantasy before vomited blood, had their fantasies shattered, and convulsed all over after seeing such a plot.

The only thing worth celebrating is that they contributed a lot of the world power of the twenty-fifth heaven to Liu Xu.

After this battle, Du Chong realized that he could not stay in Kaifeng any longer and wanted to withdraw his troops back to Jiankang. Even though Yue Fei advised Du Chong that Kaifeng was the best stronghold of the Song Dynasty in the Central Plains, if he abandoned Kaifeng today, he would need an army of hundreds of thousands to take it back in the future.

Yue Fei even took the initiative to ask for the order, hoping to lead a troop to defend Kaifeng and wait for the future Northern Expedition of the Song Dynasty. However, Du Chong refused, so Yue Fei could only follow Du Chong back to Jiankang. Kaifeng fell in February of the following year.

However, from a strategic point of view, there was nothing wrong with Du Chong's behavior.

After the internal strife among the 20 righteous soldiers, facing the fierce Jin army, Kaifeng could no longer be defended. Even if Yue Fei stayed in Kaifeng, he would have died there. After all, at that time, Yue Fei only had tens of thousands of righteous soldiers, and his Yue Family Army, which could truly dominate the world, had not been truly established. So no matter how arrogant and cowardly Du Chong was, he brought Yue Fei back to Jiankang, which saved the entire Southern Song Dynasty.

Because in the second year after Du Chong withdrew to Jiankang, the Jin soldiers began to march south in a large number, intending to completely destroy the Song Dynasty.

The first to bear the brunt of this battle was naturally the Yangtze River defense line near Jiankang, and Du Chong was still responsible for defending Jiankang.

It is absolutely correct to say that Du Chong was both arrogant and cowardly. He was so arrogant that not long after Zong Ze's death, he actually wanted to do something that Zong Ze had not been able to do. He seized the military power of all the rebel forces, causing the 200,000 troops in Kaifeng to kill each other.

The cowardice was that after he retreated to Jiankang, he completely became a coward, and put most of the troops in Jiankang City instead of guarding the banks of the Yangtze River. What's more terrible is that Du Chong didn't even have the courage to command the military, and he just stayed in his bedroom every day as a silent otaku. Yue Fei's repeated tears and advice were useless. It was not until the Jin Kingdom began to attack that he reluctantly ordered the army to go out of the city for defense.

As a result, except for Yue Fei, the rest of the troops either died in battle or surrendered. Du Chong himself did not even leave Jiankang and fled directly to Zhenzhou, a hundred miles away. Only Yue Fei stayed on Zhongshan Mountain in the northeast of Jiankang.

That’s right, it is the Zhongshan Mountain in Nanjing in later generations, where the founding father was buried.

Later, the useless Du Chong could not even defend Jianzhen Prefecture, and Zhao Gou obviously would not let go of all the military power that he had lost. Du Chong had not made any contributions and was just a defeated general who was constantly defeated in battles. So Du Chong chose to surrender to the Jin Kingdom. Seeing that their lord had surrendered, the remaining soldiers of Du Chong surrendered one after another without any obstacles.

These people wanted to drag Yue Fei to surrender together. Yue Fei promised to surrender with them, but when these people were off guard, he took advantage of them and fought with these generals with only a few of his personal soldiers.

As a result, Yue Fei defeated dozens of genuine generals in just three months and completely subdued these defeated troops. This army also became the real foundation of Yue Fei's Yue Family Army in the future.

At this time, the Jin army had no time to care about Yue Fei, because all their targets were on Zhao Gou. As long as they captured Zhao Gou, the Song Dynasty would be completely destroyed.

Therefore, the main perspective of the plot then completely shifted to Zhao Gou. Readers watched Wanyan Zongbing lead the main force of the Jin army to pursue Zhao Gou, while Zhao Gou fled from Yuezhou to Mingzhou, and then took a boat from Mingzhou to escape to the sea for refuge.

Just like 150 years later, Lu Xiufu took the young emperor Zhao Bing of the Song Dynasty to seek refuge in a sunken ship floating on the sea. Lu Xiufu probably thought that he could also replicate the miracle of Zhao Gou 150 years ago, waiting for the day when the land would be recovered.

But 150 years ago, there was a fool named Yue Fei on the land. 150 years later, on the land, the only fool is called Yue Fei!
(End of this chapter)