Red Mansion: Fuyao River and Mountain

Chapter 303: The Heaven-Destroying Skill

Just as the last elite of the three Jurchen guards, filled with ecstasy at having escaped, were marching towards the Yalu River.

They never expected that what greeted them was a familiar lore-defying situation.

The horrific massacre at Yafu Pass, like a punishment from heaven, was once again staged at Qingyuanji.

This time the Jurchens did not have six thousand men, but only one thousand exhausted remnants.

The terrain of Qingyuanji is narrow and long, not as wide and flat as the area under the city of Wufu Pass. More than a thousand Jurchen soldiers will pour into Qingyuanji, making it seem a bit crowded and dense.

Hundreds of throwers carefully trained by Jia Cong brought the power of porcelain mines to the limit under such terrain conditions.

With the help of the waving torches in the hands of the Jurchens and the moonlight that appeared and disappeared in the sky, they were always able to throw the porcelain bombs into the areas where the crowd was most concentrated.

The entire Jurchen brigade was caught in intensive and brutal explosions, with many lives lost every moment.

Some cavalrymen in the rear of the Jurchens wanted to break out of Qingyuanji, but the entrance of Qingyuanji had been blocked by hundreds of firearms soldiers.

The five or six cavalrymen in the front were covered in blood by the dense musket bullets. The cavalrymen behind them could only retreat subconsciously. When they had some distance between them, they were greeted by thrown porcelain mines.

Since Jia Cong was appointed as the firearms officer of Liaodong Town, the firearms battalion has been systematically trained again and has undergone dozens of rigorous actual combat exercises.

These firearms soldiers have become so proficient in the coordinated use of various firearms that they remain calm and composed and cooperate well with each other in the face of powerful enemies.

Divided into groups of fifty, they used muskets and porcelain bombs alternately and advanced step by step towards the fleeing Jurchen soldiers, like a group of brutal killing machines.

This was a fight in which both sides could not fight equally. Under the intensive firearms attack of one side, the other side had no power to fight back and could only make useless dodges.

At the other end of Qingyuanji leading to the Yalu River, the same situation was happening. Dense gunfire and porcelain mines intercepted the Jurchens who were trying to rush to the Yalu River.

The entire Qingyuanji was like a pocket stabbed at both ends. The number of more than a thousand elite Jurchens was decreasing at a terrifying speed visible to the naked eye.

When both ends of Qingyuanji were blocked by firearms soldiers, countless Jurchen soldiers fled to the dense forests on both sides of Qingyuanji.

When they ran to the edge of the woods, they fired bullets like a rainstorm from the dense black sunflower forest, killing all the Jurchens who tried to escape into the woods.

The terrain of Qingyuanji is long and narrow, enough for Jia Cong to use thousands of firearms soldiers to deploy several layers of overlapping and impenetrable firepower network.

It would be almost impossible for the Jurchens who entered Qingyuanji to escape.

……

Just as the explosion was heard in Qingyuan, torches suddenly lit up on the west bank of the Yalu River. Countless cavalrymen of the Great Zhou galloped back and forth on the shore, raising a cloud of dust.

The Korean soldiers on the other side of the river heard a deafening roar coming from the west bank, mixed with flickering strong light, and everyone was filled with fear.

The Goryeo general who received the military order and was responsible for the response looked towards the other side and saw torches like stars, people shouting, horses neighing, and smoke and dust rolling. There must be a lot of soldiers gathering on the other side.

Soon he saw several huge bonfires burning on the opposite bank. In the bright light of the fire, the shadows of countless Great Zhou cavalrymen flashed by.

The military flags in the hands of these cavalrymen rolled like clouds, looking majestic and awe-inspiring, and a spirit of bravery seemed to rise into the sky.

Under the illumination of the bonfire, one of the flags was particularly eye-catching, with the name Jia, General Wuding of Liaodong Town of the Great Zhou Dynasty, written on it.

When the leading Goryeo general saw this scene, his face turned very ugly. It was obvious that the Great Zhou army had noticed Goryeo's intention.

Heavy troops were deployed on the west bank in advance to prevent the remnants of the Jurchens from escaping into Goryeo, and Prince Imwon's military orders could no longer be carried out.

He then ordered all Goryeo troops on the east bank to be on high alert and all boats were strictly prohibited from going down the river.

If his rash actions led to a war between Da Zhou and Goryeo, he, as an ordinary general, would not be able to bear the responsibility.

As for the remaining Jurchen troops, let them fend for themselves.

This was a decoy formation set up by Jia Cong to prevent interference from the Goryeo army on the east coast. In fact, there were only 500 cavalrymen active on the west coast.

However, the light and shadow of the bonfire in the dark night and the fluttering military flags were enough to create the illusion of a large army.

……

Standing on a high ground in the dense forest, Jia Cong saw with his own eyes that a porcelain mine was thrown accurately near Dong Shan, blowing the Jurchen Left Guard leader into pieces.

It is estimated that there were hundreds of explosions in Qingyuan. The firearms soldiers who went on the expedition carried thousands of porcelain mines, but only half of them have been used up so far.

There was not even a large-scale hand-to-hand combat between the Zhou army and the Jurchen army.

The firearms soldiers at both ends of Qingyuanji continued to advance towards the middle, and the firearms soldiers in the woods on both sides of Qingyuanji also lined up and walked out of the woods, operating three-stage shooting in an orderly manner while marching.

Thousands of elite Jurchens had been subjected to highly saturated attacks from firearms, like a dense wheat field being repeatedly cut by the sharpest sickles, and most of them had been killed.

But the attacks from muskets and porcelain mines did not stop.

Standing on a high ground in the dense forest, Jia Cong looked at the loud noises and raging flames below the mountain. It was a completely one-sided massacre.

Although he felt discomfort in his chest and abdomen, he remained silent and did not give the order to stop the attack.

The sound of gunfire and explosions seemed to never stop, as if they were going to cleanse the world of all filth and sin... The surrounding firearms soldiers kept shrinking the encirclement, and from a distance they looked like the dead whose lives were coming to an end, their shrinking pupils carrying a suffocating sense of oppression.

On the periphery before the encirclement, hundreds of torches were lit, making the scene inside the encirclement as bright as day. There were only a few Jurchens surviving in the encirclement, less than a hundred.

At this time, the muskets and porcelain mines stopped firing and throwing. It was not because Jia Cong issued an order to stop the attack, but because the encirclement had shrunk too small.

If they continued to fire muskets and throw porcelain bombs, they would accidentally injure their own people. Many firearms soldiers had opened the folding steel blades at the front of the Rumi guns and were approaching the surviving Jurchens step by step.

Only then did Jia Cong signal to Ai Li beside him. Ai Li, who had already turned pale, suddenly showed a relieved expression, quickly took out a firework, lit it and launched it into the air.

Cold and brilliant fireworks bloomed in the sky, which was the ceasefire signal agreed upon before the battle.

The firearms soldiers' advance towards the surviving Jurchens finally stopped under the illumination of fireworks in the sky, but the steel blades on their muskets still flashed with a cold light.

……

On the high ground in the dense forest, Ai Li couldn't help but ask Jia Cong: "Is this really necessary?"

Jia Cong looked at the devastated Qingyuanji at the foot of the mountain, and suddenly remembered the more than 400 elderly people who were massacred by the Jurchens in Pantuo City, and the hundreds of captured Han people who were rescued by the army along the way.

There were also countless disasters caused by the fierce fighting of the Jurchens...

He said with a serious face: "It has to be this way. Only by crippling them, scaring them, and eliminating all the ambitious and cruel people, Liaodong will have decades or even hundreds of years of stability.

Our soldiers won’t have to shed blood and risk their lives for this. Countless innocent border residents won’t be slaughtered like pigs and dogs! "

Ai Li looked at Jia Cong for a long time, until Jia Cong turned back to look at her. His calm and cold eyes gradually softened, and Ai Li said affirmatively: "I believe you!"

……

After counting the results of the battle, after a fierce battle in the middle of the night, of the last elite of more than a thousand Jurchens, only 132 survived, and more than half of them were injured.

Dong Shan, who was known as the number one hero of the Jurchens, was strong and brave, but he had no chance to fight hand-to-hand with the Zhou army. He was blown to pieces by a porcelain mine and died a very miserable death.

Several of Dong Shan's blood relatives and nephews who fled to Goryeo with him also died in the chaos. From then on, the Jurchen Left Guard cut off the inheritance of its noble bloodline.

After identification by the Jurchen captives, it was found that there were a total of 72 surviving key generals of the Three Jurchen Guards, 53 of whom were killed on the spot by muskets and porcelain mines, and the rest were basically seriously injured.

Li Manzhu, the leader of the Jurchen Guard, was the only one of the three guard leaders to survive, but his right hand was cut off by a porcelain bomb.

Jia Cong urgently ordered the medical officer to bandage him and make sure to save his life. Li Manzhu was old and it was hard to say whether he could survive such a serious injury.

But Jia Cong needed him to survive, not because he was merciful, but because such a great victory required a prisoner of importance.

Li Manzhu's son Li Manqiu was also killed on the spot. His two grandsons died under the trampling of the Jurchen horses. Only a five-year-old granddaughter survived. The Jurchen guard's bloodline was thus cut off.

All the surviving Jurchens would face a destined fate, either being executed or being exiled to the frontier as slaves for life.

Everything in this world is fair. When the Jurchen army fought across thousands of miles, disregarding life and death, it was destined that one day they would be treated the same way.

……

After cleaning up the battlefield, Jia Cong rejected the suggestion of the old cavalry soldier accompanying him to build a Jingguan.

He had no interest in using countless lives as capital to show off his bravery, and using heads piled up like towers to show off his bravery. He had no interest in such blasphemous practices as these.

The saddest bottom line in fighting on the battlefield is to stop killing with killing, but not to take pride in killing.

He even hoped that this would be his last time on the battlefield. This kind of slaughter of thousands of soldiers would not bring him bloody excitement and glory, but only heavy and indescribable inner oppression.

Jia Cong ordered his soldiers to dig a huge pit at the foot of Qingyuan Mountain and bury the bodies of thousands of Jurchen soldiers. No graves were left, but only a huge bluestone stele with no words on it was erected.

In the countless years to come, this wordless stone tablet will be both a suppression and a deterrent!

In this battle, only 37 people of Jia Cong's right-wing army were killed, and these casualties were caused in the rare close combat between the two armies. The huge casualty ratio was a miracle.

Under Jia Cong's explanation, all the fallen soldiers were cremated on the spot, and after a simple and solemn memorial service, their ashes were carried back to their hometown.

……

In the battle of Qingyuanji, Jia Cong perfectly accomplished the feat of destroying the Jurchen warlords and wiping out their bloodline.

From then on, the Jurchen threat that had plagued Liaodong for hundreds of years would be eliminated.

Liaodong will usher in at least a hundred years of stability, and the power of the Great Zhou will cover Liaodong without any hindrance.

The territory of the Great Zhou will take a big step towards the vast land outside the Great Wall.

The clerk accompanying the army urgently drafted a battle report, which was reviewed by Jia Cong and then sent back to Liaodong Town by express cavalry before the army returned.

After verifying the battle results, Liaodong Town will report it to the capital at an urgent speed of 800 miles.

Such a great achievement will surely shake the world...

(End of this chapter)