There is a seven-story pagoda in the city, but what Guo Shao saw on the top floor of the Buddhist pagoda was killing.
From here, the whole of Zhuozhou is in full view, but if you look too far away, you can only see the city towers and houses, and you can't see clearly what is happening in the streets. Fortunately, the Liao cavalry entered the city from the south gate and only spread to the local area in the southeast of the city.
Thick smoke was everywhere, and some houses were on fire. The crowds were even more violent. The scene before my eyes was like a modern city rush hour, when a disaster such as an earthquake suddenly occurred, and the crowds were running in panic.
At this moment, a messenger ran up to the seventh floor in one breath, holding his chest and gasping for breath, and said: General Yang Biao's men have already sent reinforcements from the central route to the old canal, and sent me back to report the news.
After hearing this, Guo Shao just nodded slightly, then left the window, searched a large piece of paper on the ground, picked up the brush in the inkstone and drew a heavy horizontal line at a certain location.
The personal soldiers and messengers around him could not understand what Guo Shao had drawn at all. They only saw circles, crosses and lines of varying lengths on the paper.
There was nothing inside this kind of tower, it was narrow and tall. The windows were just holes, and there were no windows, so it was really drafty. Guo Shao raised his head and listened to the noise in the city for a while; then he buried his head in the paper, and then tore off a page from the book in his hand and put it in his pocket.
He made some trivial movements but didn't say a word. The soldiers beside him didn't dare to speak either. The atmosphere was very strange because Guo Shao was still muttering something, as if he was praying or cursing, and no one could understand what he was saying.
In fact, when a person acts in a trivial manner and completely ignores his appearance, he is very nervous inside.
After a while, he suddenly stood up, exhaled heavily, and put his hand on the purple silk waistband around his waist. There were some crooked flowers on it. It was unknown why the general of the imperial guards would wear such a waistband. Anyway, it was embroidered very ugly, almost as if it was embroidered by a woman who didn't know needlework.
Let's go. Guo Shao said, and he led his followers straight down the pagoda.
There were some soldiers leading horses below. When they saw Guo Shao coming out, they all clasped their fists and said, "General Guo,
Guo Shao took the reins, climbed onto the brown horse that Dong Zunxun had given him, and looked around and said, "Let's go to the front line to have a look." After that, he spurred his horse and left. The soldiers followed him, and soon more cavalry, about two or three hundred in total, followed him and headed southeast.
The route they took was quite coincidental, as they saw the streets were full of people from the tower; but they did not encounter any rebel soldiers along the way, let alone the common people, who were probably hiding in their homes in fear by now.
When we reached the west bank of the old canal, which was the drainage canal, we saw that a large group of Liao cavalry had been blocked on several sides, and the street was full of infantry in a square formation. Heavy infantry in full infantry armor holding long spears were in front, blocking the middle of the street in several rows and advancing one by one; archers were behind, shooting into the air. The infantry attacked very slowly, but it was very stable like a steel wall.
Cavalry would be at a disadvantage if they attacked this square formation head-on, or it would be impossible for them to win; and the Liao cavalry were crowded in the streets, so they couldn't even run, let alone the Zhou infantry. The Liao cavalry could only retreat while riding and shooting, but they obviously had nowhere to retreat, otherwise the men and horses wouldn't be so crowded.
The two armies fought fiercely for a long time. Suddenly, a man from the Liao army shouted in Chinese: "We surrender, we surrender. Please spare my life, warriors of the Great Zhou!"
Then there were shouts, and the arrows from the Liao cavalry gradually stopped, but they were still watching. Yang Biao's voice came from the Zhou army, saying: Stop.
Soon, a bearded Khitan man and a Han man wearing a futou came forward on horseback. The Han man dismounted and knelt on the ground, shouting: Honorable commander of the Great Zhou Army, Xiao Xige, the Liao cavalry general, admits defeat. As long as the Zhou army promises not to kill the Liao soldiers, he is willing to lead his army to surrender to the Zhou army commander in Zhuozhou.
Guo Shao was far behind, but he had excellent eyesight and could probably see the Liao general riding a horse next to the Han man. The Khitan man crossed his hands in front of his chest and bowed to him, probably in greeting. But the Khitan man had a very stiff beard, which made him look as ugly as a hedgehog.
At this time, Yang Biao accepted the surrender of the Liao army without saying a word and asked them to lay down their arms.
After a long struggle, the Liao cavalry threw their weapons in the middle of the street, and the horses drove out and leaned on both sides, leaving a gap in the middle. The Liao army's commander, Xiao Xige, led dozens of generals and was brought over.
Yang Biao took control of the situation, and then rode his horse to Guo Shao and asked: "Brother, how do we deal with them?"
Guo Shao suddenly remembered the survivors he had seen at Mrs. Chen's house in Tokyo and their tragic experiences. He was immediately furious and said: Tie up the generals and kill the rest. It would save the trouble of guarding the prisoners. Please tell the brothers to cut off their heads and bring them back to ask the government for a reward.
After hearing this, the generals gave an order: Kill
Before the people on both sides could react, they heard a series of dense string sounds, and many arrows flew through the air. Yang Biao shouted: "Take back the head of a Khitan soldier and you'll get ten pieces of silk for each one." Suddenly, the Zhou army camp shouted loudly, and the soldiers rushed forward one after another.
The streets and alleys immediately turned into hell on earth.
The Liao cavalry had lost their horses and their weapons were still out of reach in the middle of the street. The crowd was in chaos, and only a few people were able to pick up their weapons again. Guo Shao looked up and saw a Zhou soldier holding down a Khitan man, while another helper next to him was sawing desperately at the Khitan man's neck with a waist knife. The screams were very loud, and the Khitan man was not dead, but was struggling in fear, with blood everywhere.
More Zhou army soldiers were stabbed to death and then beheaded. The crazy crowd stabbed people with spears. The air was filled with blood mist and the ground was covered with blood.
It was so crazy and absurd. Many people had bloody human heads hanging on their belts. Some Zhou soldiers even threw away their long weapons so that they could carry more heads in sacks.
Xiao Xige, with a hard beard, stared blankly at the scene in front of him, yelling and struggling in anger, but he was tied up and guarded and there was nothing he could do.
Guo Shao asked: What is the Liao general saying
Yang Biao said innocently: It seems that the human brain is delicious when poured with boiling oil, so why cut it off
The Zhou army generals around burst into laughter after hearing this. Another general started to make a noise: I think he is asking, can we get a share of the profits after offering so many heads
Guo Shao didn't smile, his face was a little pale. He gave the order in anger just now, but soon the blood in front of him made him realize that this massacre was caused by his words. Whether it was right or wrong, Guo Shao had never massacred so many people. Even in the war with Shu, there were occasionally tens of thousands of people, but not many were actually killed.
The bloody scene continued, and Guo Shao felt dizzy and couldn't tell what he was feeling.
As the saying goes, one general's success is based on the sacrifice of thousands of soldiers. In this day, there were probably 10,000 corpses in Zhuozhou City.
At this moment, he suddenly remembered that the Han translator who had surrendered just now could understand Chinese, so he looked for the Han man in the crowd and said: You don't need to translate for the Khitans if we are all right.
When the Han man saw the Zhou general looking at him, he immediately knelt on the ground with a pale face and said: "General, please spare my life. I was forced to do this."
Guo Shaodao: Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. Your head is worthless.
Thank you for not killing me. The man kowtowed repeatedly and said, "I am from Youzhou. Youzhou has been occupied for 20 years and we have to live in humiliation. I have no choice but to serve the Liao people."
Guo Shao thought of Xiao Siwen, but no one knew him and it was difficult to communicate with the Khitan people. He said kindly: "Get up, you are just a translator. By the way, where is Xiao Siwen, the King of the Southern Court of the Khitan?"
The man hurriedly got up, stepped forward and bowed, saying: The King of Nanyuan did not enter the city, and the one who surrendered just now was Xiao Xige, who was a general under Xiao Siwen.
Seeing the disappointment on Guo Shao's face, the Han people hurriedly said: "That Xige has killed countless Han people. This morning he also massacred a village outside Zhuozhou. It is better for the general to catch him than to catch Xiao Siwen. Xige is very cruel. I have heard some of his stories. He once captured a group of southern merchants, tortured their concubines half to death, and sent them back to extort money."
Guo Shao immediately became interested in Xige when he heard this, and pointed at the man with the stiff beard and said: That's him!
The Chinese translator nodded like a chicken pecking at rice, so Guo Shao ordered someone to drag Xige out. He glanced at the blood-stained streets ahead and thought: Thousands of people have been killed, so there won't be any more than a few dozen.
He immediately ordered the dozens of surrendered Liao generals to be beheaded, and only Xige was captured alive.
The troops fought their way forward, and Guo Shao followed behind. When they reached the canal, he looked down and saw countless Khitans had already jumped into the canal. But the canal was very narrow, and the Zhou army on both sides could poke it with their long spears. There were people on both sides, and they were stabbing at the bottom with their spears. The Khitans were filthy and screaming, and they hid in the canal. Those who didn't hide were hit by the spears and fell into the dirty water. The splashes of the muddy dirty water were already blood red.
When Guo Shao looked back, he saw headless bodies scattered everywhere on the street. The scene was extremely cruel.
The fighting continued until dusk. The Liao army troops that had entered the city basically did not leave, and all four gates were blocked. Perhaps there were still a few people hiding in some places in the city, but they would be found sooner or later. The Liao soldiers who were left alone could also be killed by the civilians.
Guo Shao was not going to continue cleaning up the battlefield. The whole city was fighting all day. The number of battlefields was too scattered. He was still unclear about how many Liao troops he had captured. The Khitans and Xi soldiers should have a total of several thousand or tens of thousands. Anyway, the gains were very rich; greater than the results of a decisive battle of hundreds of thousands of Zhou troops. This was definitely the first major victory since the Northern Expedition. If the credit of Huainan was reasonable, then Guo Shao must have been the first to win the Northern Expedition.
In addition to the number of enemy soldiers killed, a large number of war horses were also captured, at least several thousand, but Guo Shao still didn't know the exact number.
He has already figured out how to leave Zhuozhou.