The flames continued to burn, the drums roared, and the explosion sounded like thunder, shaking the city. In Tianchang County, north of Yangzhou, with the arrows flying, countless stone bullets are being thrown towards the distant city head with sparks.
The towers above the city wall had collapsed in the explosion, the parapet collapsed, and the flags fell. In front of them was the vanguard of the Jurchen attack. More than 50,000 troops gathered under the city, and hundreds of slings were stuffed with gunpowder. The hollow stone bullets were thrown towards the city wall like raindrops.
In Tianchang County, a 30,000-strong army led by Han Shizhong's subordinate General Xie Yuan is located in Tianchang County, on the front line north of Yangzhou. Supplemented by more than 200 iron cannons, it was already quite a sufficient defensive battle. However, with the arrival of the Jurchen striker led by Wanyan Zongbi, the first round of the attack was far more violent than everyone imagined.
It has been more than ten years since Ning Yi implemented the way of checking things and made the artillery shine in the process of Jurchen's first southward journey. In the past ten years, the Huaxia Army is the originator of the way of measuring things. With the advancement of Ning Yi, the technology has accumulated the most. The Wu Dynasty has Junwu, and the Jurchen has a large-scale production institute chaired by Wanyan Xiyin. Both research and manufacturing are parallel. However, on the whole scale, the technical force of the Jurchen side is the largest.
In the past ten years, the Jurchen invaded the south three times successively and kidnapped millions of Han people in the Central Plains. Among them, the Jurchen regarded ordinary Han people as slaves and women as livestock. The most important thing was actually all kinds of craftsmen among the Han people. The accumulation of the Wu Dynasty for two hundred years was originally the most prosperous and prosperous in the Central Plains. These craftsmen were taken captive to the north and divided up by various forces. Even if they lost their creative vitality, it was not a problem to do ordinary handicrafts.
On the other hand, in the Wu Dynasty, although the power of the way of examining things has been partially proved, in the face of Ning Yi's slaughter of the monarch, all kinds of scholars and scholars still shy away from it, only saying that it was a small way that worked for a while. If you work hard, you will at most turn a blind eye, and there will be no support from public opinion after all. Public opinion does not encourage it, and Jun Wu cannot forcefully requisition the craftsmen from all over the world to work in preparation for the war. Although the research vigor is higher than that of the Jin Kingdom, in terms of scale, the wealth that Jun Wu has saved in Jiangning is not comparable to the whole country of Jurchen. Power.
The rudimentary hollow bullet blasting technology was already available in the Huaxia Army a few years ago, and naturally it is also sold. This is used in artillery. However, Wanyan Xiyin was more radical. In the past few years, he has used the craftsmen to precisely control the burning speed of the lead wire, using hollow stone bullets with fixed lead wires, every ten rounds in a bundle, and projecting them with slings with a longer range. Strictly calculate and control the launch distance and steps, ignite before launching, and strive to explode after landing.
The first time he arrived at Tianchang, Zong Bi used the cannonball on the battlefield.
After the first three rounds of test firing for calculation were completed, half of the hundreds of catapults began to throw "Tiannu scattered flowers", and thousands of stone bullets flew down at the same time. Because the method of controlling the leads was still too primitive, half of the In the air, the flames have been extinguished or exploded, and only one-seventh or eighth of the ones that actually landed on the city head and exploded. The power of the small stone bullets is not too great, but it still caused many soldiers defending the city to attack the first time. Injured and fell to the ground.
The stumps and the broken legs were scattered, and the breath of blood and gunpowder smoke spread out in an instant. Zong Bi stood in the battle formation, watching the explosion at the front of the city really like a flower, smoke and mourning enveloped the entire city wall.
The corners of his fierce eyes widened slightly.
Among Aguda's sons, Wanyan Zongbi, who is ranked fourth, also known as Wushu, is the most brave and aggressive. He was young. When he first started fighting, the Jurchen had almost destroyed the entire Liao Kingdom. Wushu was more than brave and lacked in strategy. , In the eyes of some veterans who have lived in the military and horses in the world, they are just ordinary princes.
Wushu was unwilling to be an ordinary prince. After the second brother Zong looked away, the third brother Zongfu was too safe and gentle to maintain the prestige of the Aguda clan, and could not compete with Zonghan and Xiyin who controlled the "Western Court". Wu Shu, who has always regarded Zong Wang as a role model, stood up.
The Jurchen has been fighting martial arts for more than ten years, and Wushu is the most enthusiastic. He inherited the bravery of the Wanyan clan. He took the lead in every battle and went south for the third time, and has become the dominant person in the royal family. Throughout the search of the mountains and the sea, Wushu fought vertically and horizontally in the south of the Yangtze River, and there was hardly a single general, but Zhou Yong hid in the sea and did not dare to return. If he did not withdraw his troops and returned to the north, this time, he suffered a little setback in Huang Tiandang.
Who can lead the army to win a hundred battles? Jurchen has been in battle for a long time, even if A Gu Da, Wu Qimai, Zong Han Zongwang and others have occasional setbacks, no one takes Huang Tiandang seriously. It's just that the people of the Wu Dynasty were very excited about this. For several years, Huang Tiandang was often promoted as a great victory, and the Jurchen was not invincible. This kind of situation has been going on for a long time, and it has spread to the north, and people who know the inside story will not know whether to laugh or cry. For Zong Bi, it is a bit depressing.
Great victory over your mother! Great victory! After being besieged for more than 40 days and few people died, in the end, he fought back with a fire attack and chased down Han Shizhong for more than 70 miles.
Although Zong Bi thought so in his heart, he couldn't stop the boasting of the people of the Wu Dynasty. So on the fourth time he went south, there was a simmering anger in his heart, and the battle of Tianchang finally broke out. Just because Xie Yuan was also a vanguard general under Han Shizhong's command, with the arrival of the Jurchen army, he was still trying his best to publicize the so-called "record" that Huang Tiandang had defeated his side, and Wushu's anger could not be suppressed at that time.
In his heart, both Xie Yuan and Han Shizhong on the opposite side are nothing more than chickens. This time, going south, it is necessary to defeat this group of people as quickly as possible to deter the nearly one million troops of the Wu Dynasty in the Jiangnan area. , the bottom is sure to win.
The shells bombed the city wall for three rounds, and more than 4,000 stone bullets had been consumed in the attack on this small city. With the bombardment of half of the solid boulders, it seemed that the entire city and the earth were shaking. The flag was raised and the order to attack was announced.
In the smoke of gunpowder, the Jurchen flags began to spread to the city wall.
The Jurchen slashed Wu for the fourth time. This was the war that decided the national fortune of the Jin Kingdom. The tide-goers who rose in this era rushed to the land of the Wu Dynasty with their bravery that was still in their prime. With a sound, Xie Yuan led the team to the head of the city and began to fight back.
The day after the Battle of Tianchang began, under the unusually strong offensive of Jurchen, Xie Yuan led the army to abandon the city and retreat south. Wushu ordered the cavalry to pursue. Fierce fight. On June 27, the former puppet general of Qi, Sun Peizhi, led 100,000 people to start a siege of Gaoyou, north of the Yangtze River, and the fierce battle spread across the vast land.
On the 27th of June, Sun Peizhi besieged Gaoyou on the same day. From here, Liangshanshuibo, which is more than a thousand miles north, began an attack of more than 100,000 troops. This marked the beginning of the long and difficult defense of Liangshan.
More than 1,300 miles west of Yangzhou, the Jurchen general Ali Gu, who originally guarded Bianliang, led 20,000 elites to Nanyang, ready to cooperate with more than 100,000 Han troops originally from Nanyang, Dengzhou, and Xinye to advance to Xiangyang. This was an order issued by Wanyan Xiyin to cooperate with the East Route Army's attack, and the main force of the West Route Army led by Zong Han had already crossed the Yellow River and approached Bianliang. The direction is not far away.
On the day that Ali Gu’s army arrived in Nanyang, Yue Fei led the Beiwei Army to take the initiative to fight out of Xiangyang and attack Dengzhou. That night, the defenders of Dengzhou were in a hurry to the north, and Ali Gu led the army to Dengzhou to relieve the siege. The 20,000 Jurchen elites, including the nine thousand heavy cavalry, came into contact with Yue Fei's Beiwei Army, who was on the defensive twenty miles north of Dengzhou.
The chilling autumn is coming. Jiangnan, Central Plains... On the rolling land that stretches for thousands of miles, the war is raging.
At the same time, the North is not peaceful.
The place where the Western court of the Jin Kingdom is located, Yunzhongfu, the turn of summer and autumn, the hottest weather will come to an end.
A tragedy that not many people noticed is brewing in the dark.
In the Gaoyue Tea House, Zou Wenhu, a Han Chinese from Liaodong in Chinese clothes, walked up the stairs and met the person he was dating in the private room at the end of the second floor.
The one who met him was a woman who was dressed plainly, but her eyes were rebellious, and there was a tear-like scar on the left corner of her eye. The woman's surname is Xiao, Xiao of the "Empress Dowager Xiao" of the Liao Kingdom. "Red Lady" Xiao Shuqing is one of the famous bandits in Yunzhong.
After the collapse of the Liao Kingdom, the Jin Kingdom suppressed and enslaved the Khitan people for a period of time, and massacres were also carried out several times. However, the Khitan people were brave, and the Jin people could not rely on massacres to govern such a large area, and soon began to use Huairou methods. After all, the golden man also had a more suitable object for slavery at this time. More than ten years after the fall of the Liao Kingdom, some Khitan people have entered the upper levels of the Jin Dynasty, and the Khitan people at the bottom have accepted the fact that they are ruled by the Jurchen. But even if it is the vast majority, after the disaster of the country, there are always a small number of Khitan members who still stand in the position of resistance, either do not intend to escape, or are unable to escape.
Xiao Shuqing is a descendant of the original Empress Dowager Xiao of the Liao Kingdom. When he was young, he was killed by the Jin people. Later, he was humiliated and enslaved. After that, he was rescued by the remaining resistance forces of the Khitan. Compared with the Han people who are inconvenient to do things in the north, even if the Liao Kingdom is dead, there are always many survivors who miss the benefits of that time. Therefore, Xiao Shuqing and others are active near Yunzhong, and they have not been wiped out for a long time. It was also suspected that they were still being sheltered by some Khitan officials in high positions at the time.
Seeing Zou Wenhu coming over, the always ruthless female bandit looked indifferent: "How is it? Your son-in-law, have you made up your mind?"
"My master, I'm a little moved." Zou Wenhu moved a chair and sat down. "But it's too much involved at this time. Have you ever thought about the consequences? Have you ever thought that it is very likely that the entire court above will be shaken?"
A look of disdain flashed in Xiao Shuqing's eyes: "Hmph, coward, your son is, so are you."
"Hey, Concubine Xiao, don't say that, just talk about what you say, it's not authentic to ruin someone's reputation. Over the years, no one with the surname Zou has been said to be timid, but don't provoke me like that, I'm not a fool. "The Xiao family was the mother of the world, and after Xiao Shuqing became famous, gradually, they were also called Concubine Xiao, and in the face of the other party's disdain, Zou Wenhu buttoned his nose, but he didn't care.
"I know you're not timid, but you're poor."
"Look at what Concubine Xiao said." Zou Wenhu looked at each other, passed a moment, and smiled, "...It's really on point."
Xiao Shuqing glanced at him, "I told you about this long ago, the Qi family went to the Jurchen place, and they made such a big deal, what kind of scholarly family's century-old family, those Jurchens, who has any face? It doesn't matter if he plays, it's not a big deal to see him unlucky, not to mention the Qi family's savings in the Wu Dynasty for a hundred years, this time the whole family goes north, who doesn't get jealous? I didn't leave anything, and he couldn't fight again. This time, people with backbone went to the south, and in the future, they will get a group of people who will be rewarded for their merits. Your son, and you, Zou Wenhu, stand aside in the future..."
As she spoke, she played with her fingers: "This time, it's good for everyone. And to be honest, it's very dangerous for me to move the family. Those who play with my life are very dangerous. Pointing at you to ship the goods, I will definitely not let you have an accident. Even if it happens, you can't afford it? After the battle in the south, there will be no more battles! Disgraced?"
Hearing her talk, Zou Wenhu had a smile on his face, but he gradually became fierce, Xiao Shuqing licked his tongue: "Okay, I won't say more nonsense, this matter is very big, and the Qi family is also very big, I I can't eat it, and we can't eat it together. There are a lot of nods, you know the rules, if you can nod on your behalf, if you can give you something, I will give it to you, so that you can feel at ease. To protect you. Of course, if you shake your head, that's it... don't say it."
Speaking of the last sentence, a real fierce light flashed in Xiao Shuqing's eyes, Zou Wenhu tilted his head to look at his fingers, and thought for a moment: "It's such a big thing, are you sure that all the participants are clean?"
"Clean? Let's see what you say." Xiao Shuqing smiled, "Anyway, you nod your head, and I will give you a few names to ensure that you have a good face. In addition, I have also said that when something happens to the Qi family, everyone will only be happy to see it. Cheng, as for after the accident, even if it happens, your son can't afford it? When the Qi family arrives, a group of hungry wolves in the Yunzhong Mansion will only pounce on them, and it is only our group who want to catch them and kill them. Desperados... Zou Wenhu, people say that the older the rivers and lakes are, the less timid you are, but I really regret inviting you over like this."
The opposite side was quiet for a moment, and then laughed: "Okay, okay... Actually, Concubine Xiao, you can guess, since I can come to see you today, before I came out, my son has already nodded, I'll deal with it..." He spread his hands, "I I can't be careful, you are right, even if something happens, what is my son afraid of, but can my son still protect me?"
"Okay, the little girl understands the embarrassment of Duke Zou." At this time, Xiao Shuqing finally laughed, "You and I are both desperadoes, take care of them in the future, Duke Zou knows how to do things, and it has nothing to do with Yunzhongfu. In fact, there are many things in the middle, and I have to ask Duke Zou to take care of it."
Zou Wenhu also laughed.
"I did my best... I blame the Qi family for being too flamboyant, offending a bunch of rich young masters, offending a poor ghost like me, offending a rebel like Concubine Xiao, and offending the lifeless black man. Bandit class, who will die if he doesn’t die? Anyway, if he is going to die, his belongings must belong to others, and now it belongs to you and me, so it can be considered a good deed, hahahaha…”
In the room, both of them laughed, and after a while, another sentence came out.
"By the way, as for the one who started, it was the black flag that didn't kill you, right. The emperor in the south dared to kill him and help him take the blame. I think he would definitely not mind. Concubine Xiao said, isn't it, haha? Ha ha… "
Autumn has come…