Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 96, Burning Dangshan

My cavalry is as whistling as the wind. Wherever it passes, all the flowers are withered!

Dangshan, although called a mountain, is actually mostly a plain.

The only mountain range in its territory is only a hundred meters high and cannot be called a high mountain.

However, this small place has produced many celebrities.

For example, Zhu Wen, the founding emperor of the Later Liang Dynasty, was from Dangshan, and Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty, also killed a white snake and started an uprising here.

But on this day, the imperial reinforcements had just passed through Dangshan and arrived at Fenghe.

The reinforcement general is called Pei Yuan, the deputy commander of the Green Camp Army of Kaifeng. Now, in accordance with the imperial court's order, he leads 50,000 troops to rescue Xuzhou. But in fact, the Green Camp soldiers are seriously unpaid, and their actual strength is only 30,000.

The government troops were few in number and poorly trained. Pei Yuan had long heard of the fierce reputation of the Huaiyin army. He knew that the army had successively conquered Huaizhou, Zhongwu, Gaoyou and other strong cities, and defeated the Duke of Shanguo head-on, with remarkable achievements. Therefore, he did not dare to be careless and marched with great caution.

It was precisely because of this that the reinforcements marched extremely slowly.

When Pei Yuan was on the march, he sent out a large number of scouts to patrol the surrounding area to guard against ambushes.

At that time, there were two roads, north and south:
The northern route is adjacent to the ancient Yellow River Trail, which is densely forested and difficult to pass.

The southern route is Guandi Town, which is an official road and suitable for marching.

Pei Yuan originally wanted to go to Guandi Town, but he heard reports from scouts that there were many people in Guandi Town, most of whom were young and strong, with no women or children, and weapons hidden, so it was very likely that it was an ambush place for the enemy.

Pei Yuan was shocked when he heard this and dared not march to Guandi Town, so he changed his route to the north. Little did he know that this was exactly what Wu Yuan was planning.

A few days ago, Wu Yuan was mobilizing troops in the camp and said:
"The enemy reinforcements are marching so slowly, their general must be a coward!"

He then ordered the officers in the army to lead a thousand soldiers and horses, and take a number of civilians with them, to pretend to set an ambush at Guandi Town and pretend to drive away the enemy.

And said:

"The government troops are timid. Seeing the ambush at Guandi Town, they will definitely change their route to the north. The northern road is lush with vegetation and difficult to pass. We can ambush an army here. Three thousand people are enough. We can prepare enough things to start a fire. Let the enemy's front troops pass. Their food and supplies will be behind. We can set them on fire. When the fire starts, we will take the opportunity to kill them. The government troops will not dare to fight. There is no need to chase them. We can just rob their supplies and food."

He also ordered another army to say:

"If the government troops flee, they will be blocked by the Shahe River in the north, so they will definitely go east. There is a pear forest several dozen miles long to the east. We can order our heavy cavalry to lie in ambush in the forest and wait for the enemy to arrive. We can rush out of the forest, defeat the enemy formation and drive them to the Shahe River. We will surround them at the Shahe River!"

When the generals and soldiers saw that Wu Yuan had deployed his troops in a clear and organized manner and had good command, they all agreed without any objection.

But when Pei Yuan was marching north, he saw many shrubs and weeds half a man's height. It was the middle of winter, the grass was dry and the leaves were yellow, and there was a howling north wind. If a fire started, it would surely be continuous.

Pei Yuan became more and more panicked as he walked, and felt a little uneasy, so he ordered his scouts to search again and again.

But there was only endless dry grass all around, and the ambushers were lying in the grass, so how could the scouts detect them?
In this way, the vanguard army advanced first and looked around. No ambush appeared, and Pei Yuan felt relieved.

So he sent the central army and the rear army to follow. Pei Yuan was in the central army, and the food and supplies followed in the rear army.

When they were halfway through the journey, they heard shouts from behind, and saw a field of fire, followed by the grass and trees on both sides. In an instant, there was fire everywhere.

As the north wind blew, the fire became more intense. The officers, soldiers and horses were all terrified and trampled on each other, killing countless people.

The Huaiyin army took advantage of the situation and charged. Pei Yuan was in the center of the army. There were fires on all sides, shouts of killing were heard from all directions, and thick smoke was billowing. It was impossible to see how many ambushes there were, only that it seemed endless.

At that time, he no longer had the courage to fight and ordered his men to flee quickly.

The ambushing troops remembered the military advisor's order and did not pursue closely. They pretended to chase for two miles and then stopped. They then surrounded the baggage of the rear army and intercepted countless food and fodder.

On the other side, Pei Yuan tried to escape, but he knew there was a big river blocking his way to the north. He was afraid that the enemy had set an ambush in Hejian, so he fled to the east.

The troops fled in a hurry, throwing away their armor and helmets, exhausted, but finally escaped. At this time, the number of government troops had been greatly reduced. Excluding those who were burned to death, smoked to death, trampled, surrendered, and lost, there were only about 20,000 soldiers left.

Pei Yuan felt as if he had survived a calamity and wanted to imitate the ancients and laugh towards the sky, but unfortunately, the continuous running made his mouth dry and he could hardly speak.

The food and supplies were abandoned behind, the army had no food or water, and the soldiers were very hungry and thirsty.

One of his generals said, "Look, General, there is a pear forest ahead. We can go there and pick some pears to fill our stomachs."

Pei Yuan was overjoyed when he heard this, and urged the soldiers to hurry.

In fact, there were no pears left in the pear orchard. In order to fill their stomachs, the people had picked all the pears when they were still sour and bitter.

Although Pei Yuan's family was not a family of dukes or nobles, they were descendants of famous generals and naturally did not know the sufferings of the common people.

The government troops soon arrived at the pear forest. When they were about to enter the forest, they saw the sleeping beasts in the forest opened their eyes.

Thousands of horses galloped together, and the ground rumbled.

A black torrent rushed out from the pear orchard. The heavy neighing of war horses and the knocking of armor were as terrifying as the music of death.

Spears flashed coldly in the sunlight, cutting through the air and rushing towards us with extreme power and speed.

Pei Yuan's expression instantly turned into extreme horror!
Heavy cavalry!
It's heavy cavalry!

Pei Yuan's good family education made him realize what this meant instantly.

He has also read military books.

In front of the heavy cavalry, his broken army, which had thrown away their weapons and armor, was as ridiculous as children. They had no chance of winning at all!

Pei Yuan reined in his horse, turned around and left without any hesitation.

After all, he was still a general with some conscience. After he ran a few steps, he did not forget to remind his men.
"Get out!"

With a dull thud, a frightened soldier of the government army was knocked away by the heavy cavalry and flew into the crowd like a broken sack.

The massacre truly began.

The heavy cavalry were like armored beasts, weaving in and out of the government troops.

The will of the government troops collapsed in an instant.

Fortunately, their main general collapsed earlier, so it was not considered a shame.

The war horses and sharp spears easily cut the government troops apart, and the lives of the soldiers were ruthlessly harvested like straw.

Of course, the overall number of kills by the heavy cavalry is definitely limited, after all, the number of people is there.

However, for the heavy cavalry, their mission was only to defeat this group of government troops and then drive them to the bank of the Sha River. As for killing the enemy, that was secondary.

On the other side, Wu Yuan had already led his men to ambush around Shahe. Ma Laohei wanted to come in person, but was rejected by Wu Yuan because Ma Laohei still needed to command the rest of the soldiers to surround Xuzhou and command the siege.

Wu Yuan lived in the army by carriage.

This is not because Wu Yuan is trying to show off, but because he is over seventy years old and it is really inconvenient for him to ride a horse.

Horses are easily frightened, and if they run wildly after being frightened, Wu Yuan will not be able to hold the reins with his strength. If he is thrown off, Fang Yong will suffer a great loss.

From afar, one could see dust and smoke billowing, and a large number of defeated soldiers running towards the Shahe River in panic.

(End of this chapter)