Prince of Song Dynasty

Chapter 575
In the fourth year of Kaibao, on March [-], the Song army began to attack Jinling.

And what is Li Yu, who has restored the title of Emperor of the Southern Tang Dynasty, doing at this time?

Li Yu was panicked at first, and he had no idea. All kinds of responses were according to what Prime Minister Han Xizai and Guoshi Lou Yanming said. Entrusted to Han Xizai, Chen Qiao, Zhang Ji, Wang Dongyang and others, and handed over the command of guarding the city to Huangfu Jixun and Guoshi Lou Yanming, but he himself hid in the harem, not reciting scriptures and explaining changes with monks and Taoists every day , Eloquent talk, that is, feasting and having fun with concubines and beauties, reciting poems and painting.Quite a bit of resignation or self-defeating.

On this day, Li Yu thought of the empress of the Great Zhou Dynasty, and wrote a poem of mourning, expressing his nostalgia for the Empress of the Great Zhou Dynasty, with sadness and lingering lingering.This work is called "Xie Xinen":
Qin Lou did not see the girl playing the flute, so she had nothing to do with the scenery in the garden.

Fenying Jinrui is self-deprecating.

Dongfeng annoyed me, so I sent out a piece of incense.

Qiong Chuang's dream stays in the dying day, so why did he hate it back then!
Weeping poplars are reflected outside the blue rails.

Seeing each other for a while, Rumeng is lazy to think about it.

Han Xizai, Lou Yanming, Huangfu Jixun, Chen Qiao, and Zhang Bo were in charge of all government and military affairs, and all matters of defense were decided by Han Xizai and Lou Yanming, with the assistance of the other four.

Han Xizai and Lou Yanming reached a consensus. They believed that to deal with Qiang Song's attack, the best strategy at the moment is to close the base and stick to it to exhaust Song's division.The army of the Song Dynasty traveled thousands of miles, so they must be exhausted. They had done a certain amount of fortification and clearing the fields before. The Song army was short of food and grass. If they could stick to it for a long time, after a year or even a few years, the Song army would definitely retreat without fighting.

Therefore, they ordered the governor of Shengzhou to defend the city, and sent Huangfu Jixun, the commander of the guards, to lead [-] water troops, leaning against Jinling City and facing the Qinhuai River, to form a fortress to wait for the Song army.

The reason why the two reused Huangfu Jixun was firstly because he was Li Yu's confidant and beloved general, and secondly because he was the son of Jiangzhou Jiedushi and the old general Huangfuhui, a famous general of the Southern Tang Dynasty who had passed away. Speaking with eloquence, it seems that the tiger father has no dogs, which is quite a strategy.Among the two, although Han Xizai knew a little about military affairs, he was a civil servant after all. Although Lou Yanming had an extraordinary mind, he had never been in contact with military affairs before. After trying Huangfu Jixun, he felt that this person should be able to take on this role.

However, the two of them didn't expect that Huangfu Jixun was an embroidered pillow with a silver-like forged gun head, which looked fancy but not useful.Because he is favored by Li Yu, his family has a luxurious house, his car clothes are gorgeous, he has a wide collection of prostitutes, and he is very good at banquets.Now is the time to really meet the Song Army swordsmen and fight to the death, but this "silver-like terbium gun head" suddenly became soft.He didn't want to fight the Song Army at all, he just wanted to persuade Li Yu to surrender to Song Xiancheng so as to keep his wealth.He is still young, good days are yet to come, he is not willing to give his life for this crumbling and precarious little court.

Therefore, he secretly asked his subordinates to spread rumors in the army, saying that the Southern Song Dynasty's national strength was weak, and its soldiers could not compete with the Great Song Dynasty without fighting.

On the third day when the soldiers of Song Dynasty came to the city, there was a strong wind and hail from the sky. Huangfu Jixun said in private that this was a sign of the country's impending doom.After thinking about it carefully, he sent his nephew Huangfu Shaojie to the city to meet Li Yu, and urged Li Yu to make a plan to return to his fate.

It was on this day that one of his partial generals was loyal to the Southern Tang Dynasty and swore to defend Jinling to the death. He thought that taking advantage of the hailstorm would cause some trouble to the Song army outside the city, he secretly recruited a death squad, hoping to Take advantage of the night to attack and kill the Song army at night.

It's just that before Su Han made a move, Huangfu Jixun discovered his plot and sent someone to arrest him, beat him, and then put him in custody.

Three days ago, news came from Caishiji in the north that Lin Renzhao led people across the mountains and tried to rush out of the army camp. He went south to Qin Wang. Unexpectedly, Cao Wei and Yang Yanping, who deliberately pretended to be retreating, were suddenly defeated from the forest and retreated back to the army camp. .After the news came today, Huangfu Jixun said with joy, "I already knew that the Song army was formidable. Even Lin Renzhao couldn't beat the Song army. How can we win?"

The master general is like this, who is willing to serve his subordinates?A sense of pessimism, war weariness, and defeat that only hoped to surrender quickly spread in the army.It's not that Han Xizai and Lou Yanming were unaware of this phenomenon, but they had their own plans for their retreat, so they didn't take any measures.

The soldiers of the Song Dynasty forced the city down, and the siege of the city was imminent. It was the situation of "the mountain rain is about to come and the wind is full of the building" and "the black cloud is overwhelming the city and the city is about to be destroyed". Still kept in the dark, it looks like nothing happened.In fact, for the past few days, various battlefields outside the city have continuously submitted battle reports to the imperial court, all of which were intercepted by Han Xizai and Lou Yanming, so these unpleasant news did not disturb Li Yu too much to continue to enjoy himself.

On March 21st, I don’t know if I finally had enough fun in the harem. I felt that staying in the deep palace all day was a bit boring, or Li Yu’s self-deceiving worries finally broke out. Today, he led his left and right courtiers out of the palace to inspect the city wall .

Li Yu didn't want to look at it. After looking at it, he was so shocked that his soul flew away, and his face was earthy: "This...this...how could this be? How could the Song Army be so fast, and within a month, they had overwhelmed the army and besieged Jinling. Why is there no one to hear about it?" No one dared to make a sound among the attendants around.

Li Yu returned to Miyagi angrily. He knew that he lived in seclusion in the palace and had become deaf and blind. He had been deceived by Han Xizai and Lou Yanming; He even sent his nephew to the Song army camp to discuss the matter of surrender, and immediately gritted his teeth with hatred, and immediately ordered Huangfu Jixun to be arrested, and together with his nephew Huangfu Shaojie, beheaded on the spot for public display.Lou Yanming and Han Xizai remained indifferent to this matter, not knowing what they were doing secretly.

There were still many soldiers in the Tang army who advocated fighting to the end. They hated Huangfu Jixun, the commander in chief, for being so cowardly and neglectful of the enemy. , in an instant.

On March 26, after the Song army wiped out all the scattered Tang troops in the counties around Jinling one by one, they finally launched an attack on the Qinhuai River.When Pan Mei saw that the Tang army had lined up land and water camps on the north bank of the Qinhuai River, and there were many soldiers and horses, she hurriedly ordered Li Hanqiong, one of the two navy divisions of the Song army, to enter the Qinhuai River from the Yangtze River and lead a fleet of ships down the river from the upper reaches to attack.

Pan Mei has been in battle for a long time and has rich combat experience.He knew very well that since the general offensive had begun, the speed of the soldiers was very important, and there was no chance of delaying it, so he immediately jumped on his horse and shouted loudly: "I, Pan Mei, led a hundred thousand warriors, and I am invincible and invincible. Brothers who are not afraid of death, come straight over with me." After that, he jumped into the rolling Qinhuai River, and the thousands of troops under his command saw that the deputy commander was so desperate, all of them were brave, and they were all brave. People scrambled to be the first, jumped into the water one after another, and swam to the north bank with all their strength.

The cavalry was in front, followed by the infantry, braving the arrows shot by the Tang army in disorder, they quickly swam to the north bank, and immediately fought hand-to-hand with the Tang army, fighting hand-to-hand, and quickly defeated a Tang army on the north bank.At this time, the warship led by Li Hanqiong also arrived quickly, took advantage of the wind and set fire to the Nantang water village, and on the Qinhuai River, smoke billowed and fire snakes danced wildly.The Song army took advantage of the chaos and rushed to kill. The Tang army had no intention of fighting. Seeing that the Song army was coming so fiercely, they each ran for their lives in a hurry.In less than two hours, more than 2 Tang soldiers were captured.On the north bank of the Qinhuai River, corpses were strewn all over the ground, and the remains of corpses in the river were floating on the water, one after another, going eastward, and the clear water all over the river bed turned light red.

The Tang army, who escaped by chance to save their lives, hurriedly retreated to Jinling, huddled in the city, and never dared to come out again.

The Song army did not give the Tang army a chance to breathe, and took advantage of the victory to capture the Waiguan City in Jinling.Pan Mei ordered to set up camp on three sides of the outskirts of the city, thus completing the siege of Jinling. So far, the monarchs and ministers of the Southern Tang Dynasty have become turtles in urns and fish in nets.

But Pan Mei was not in a hurry to launch an attack on Jinling. On the one hand, he kept in mind Song Emperor Zhao Kuangyin's exhortation, and wanted to launch a powerful offensive after the formation of a situation of overwhelming soldiers, forcing Li Yu to surrender and surrender the city obediently. , Try to prevent the people in the city from being poisoned by the flames of war.On the other hand, they secretly exchanged news with Zhao Guangyi, who was fighting Zhao Pu in Kaifeng, waiting for the best time to win Jinling.

Just as Pan Mei formed a siege of Jinling City, good news came from the eastern battlefield.

Zhao Zan led [-] cavalry and [-] Wuyue soldiers, and after conquering [-] cities including Changzhou and Jiangyin, they quickly entered Runzhou.

Runzhou, the Runzhou of later generations, is the eastern gateway of Jinling City, and its gains and losses are crucial to the safety of Jinling City.However, Liu Cheng, the defense general sent by the Southern Tang court to Runzhou, was a coward who was greedy for life and afraid of death. The city surrendered.

In this way, Zhao Zan occupied Runzhou without bloodshed, cutting off the eastern transportation channel of Jinling City.

Zhao Zan left 1 people to guard Runzhou, and most of them moved west quickly to join the main force led by Pan Mei, further strengthening the siege of Jinling City.

Seeing that the Song army surrounded Jinling like an iron barrel, and the strength of the troops continued to increase, Li Yu sighed all day long, as if mourning his concubine.

At this time, Wang Dongyang, Zhang Bo, and Chen Qiao suggested to Li Yu that they send people to rush out of the encirclement, and quickly summon Zhu Lingzhi, the envoy of Zhennan Jiedu, to lead his troops to serve the king.As far as the current situation is concerned, there is only this army available in the Southern Tang Dynasty. This is the last hope of the Southern Tang court.Li Yu immediately agreed, and Lou Yanming took the initiative to send a first-class protector under his command to sneak out of the city at night with the edict, and went to Nandu to order Zhu Lingzhi to fire up the army and come to the capital to serve as king.

(End of this chapter)