Destroy Jin and conquer Song, and carry the Northern Expedition through to the end

Chapter 365: The Feasted Owl's Howl and the Pile of Corpses

There were about a thousand Jin troops stationed in Wujiang County, most of whom were contracted soldiers and civilian laborers, and the regular army consisted of no more than a hundred men.

Wujiang County is not very big and is close to the mouth of the Wujiang River. Logically, these thousands of miscellaneous troops can protect it well. When combined with the Jin navy stationed at various docks on the west bank of the river, it can be said to be impregnable and foolproof.

But who would have thought that after the Dongting Lake navy came charging in with such momentum, the Wanyan Zheng family turned around and ran away?

After watching the battle on the river suddenly start and end, the Jin army in Wujiang was completely panicked. But in just a moment, Meng Buddha personally led his men to break through the city gate. More than a thousand naval soldiers swarmed in and began to strangle the Jin army.

By the time Liu Huai came ashore, the Jin army had been completely wiped out, and the Song army had begun to gather its troops, search for surviving civilians, and clean up the battlefield.

It wasn't that Liu Huai was unwilling to join the battle, but Li Dao was horrified when he discovered that the Jingnan Army commander had personally gone to seize the boat. He feared that the enemy might accidentally fall into the water and drown, and then the Shandong generals would be determined to fight him. So Li Dao sent a military envoy to repeatedly instruct Li Qi, the pilot of the waterwheel, to protect several people and not to advance into battle again.

In this way, Liu Huai almost did not have to put in any more effort, and he led his war horse and took a small boat to Wujiang County.

Guan Chongyan and a dozen other knights from Lianghuai bowed to Liu Huai, then dispersed in twos and threes, broke away from the main force, and went in all directions.

Liu Huai watched these people leave, feeling a little reluctant.

These were all his personal guards, seasoned by his side. Some were even veterans of Wei Sheng's Northern Expedition, considered the elite of the elite even within the Flying Tigers. Being sent into enemy territory to gather intelligence and liaise with the rebels was a literal death trap; it was uncertain how many would still be alive when they met again.

However, this had to be done because although the Jin army was invincible on the front battlefield, its number was too small compared to the entire Huaibei region.

Especially in order to boost morale and clear the retreat, the Jin army also did a series of cruel things such as massacre and looting, which would certainly not win the hearts of the people in the occupied areas.

There were rebel armies everywhere in the Jin Dynasty, not to mention the occupied areas of Lianghuai. There must have been rebels and civilians who insisted on fighting or were waiting for an opportunity to act, but they were hidden behind the Jin army and could not convey any information.

In addition, of the seven Wanhu troops that the Jin army invaded Lianghuai, the locations of six have been determined, but only one of them is unknown at this time, and no one knows where he is stationed.

If the exact locations of these seven Wanhu can be determined, Liu Huai will be able to formulate some strategic plans and give the Jin army some surprises.

It was not Liu Huai's character to be trapped in the Yangtze River. The Jingnan Army, or the Loyal Army, had always been built on the idea of taking the strategic initiative. Even if it was a defense, it had to be a place where the enemy had to attack.

What should we do if Wanyan Liang thinks that taking over Lianghuai is enough and does not want to find a way to cross the Yangtze River?
Is Liu Huai going to have to fight with Wanyan Liang in Cai Shi for the rest of his life?

Therefore, even if Guan Chongyan and others were all sacrificed, they must be sent out to find out the situation in Lianghuai.

After watching his elite soldiers leave, Liu Huai said to Chen Wenben, "Go into the city and see if this place can be defended."

However, Liu Huai smelled the familiar stench of a corpse.

The entire county town was unusually desolate, with traces of fire and blood everywhere. After walking around a group of dark houses, Liu Huai finally saw the source of the stench of corpses.

A pile of corpses.

The buildings in those days were all made of wood. Once a fire broke out, a large area would be burned. Fortunately, the humidity was quite high in the past two days, so only half of the town was burned. However, there were many half-burnt corpses on this pile of corpses.

The old man's body, most of which had been burned to charcoal, was hunched over with his arms clasped together as if he was protecting something. A tiger-head hat hung on the collar of his double-breasted shirt.

Beneath the old man lay a headless corpse, a massive gash at the shoulder extending all the way to the chest, nearly splitting the man in two. The corpse's hands were curved like hooks, silently pointing toward the heavens.

On one side of the headless body was the naked corpse of a young woman. Although her skin had begun to fester, it was obvious that she was in her prime. Her fatal injury was a huge wound on her abdomen, with her intestines spilling all over the floor. Her face was hideous, and one could tell how painful her death was.

The female corpse's eyeballs had been pecked out by crows, and the two bloody holes looked straight at the soldiers walking on the street.

Old and young, male and female, those in brocade robes, those in shorts, and those naked, filled the entire open space, forming a huge pile of corpses.

"How many people are there?" Liu Huai still had little experience, so he asked Chen Wenben who was standing beside him.

Chen Wenben was about to answer when he heard a commotion ahead. It seemed that some Jin soldiers hiding in the dark had been found and were putting up a desperate resistance.

Liu Huai tilted his head, and the remaining Flying Tiger Army knights rode forward. Soon, the noise disappeared, and Chen Wenben returned carrying a Jin Army officer with a broken leg and threw him in front of Liu Huai's horse.

Liu Huai frowned and asked, "Who are you trying to scare by building a Jingguan?"

The Jin soldier with the broken leg was clearly demoralized and frightened. Upon hearing this, he said directly, "Taiwei... no... I'm not trying to scare anyone. It's just that General Wanyan has asked us to clean up the county and at least prevent an epidemic. So... so we're gathering the bodies to burn."

Liu Huai said coldly: "Did you kill all these people?"

Tears welled up in the eyes of the Jin soldier with a broken leg: "No... no, when we arrived, Wujiang County had already been tossed around several times. We... we really don't know who it is..."

This is true, because the first person to draw the butcher knife in Wujiang County was Ali Gua, who had already been chopped into pieces.

But it is also wrong to put all the blame on Ali.

After all, Aligua was only a forward, and his team was only a thousand men. When he broke through Wujiang County, the massacre was rather sloppy, and his main targets were the wealthy and powerful.

In the days that followed, when order collapsed, the death toll from looting, hunger, and disease far exceeded the number of people killed by Ali.

But this is not the worst time.

The Jin army is coming.

Unlike Ali who simply robbed money, food and women, Wanyan Alin needed to create a stable surrounding for Wanyan Liang, but there were Han people full of hatred on all sides. How could this be stable?

Even if it was a conscription army, it would not be able to absorb so many Han people.

Are the remaining Han Chinese forced to stay where they are? How many people should be left to intimidate and suppress the rebels?
If we leave too little, won’t we be afraid of being overthrown by the Song people? If we leave too much, how can we make progress?

Faced with such a dilemma, Wanyan Alin had only one word.

kill.

Only the dead Han people are the least threatening.

Wujiang County was once again subjected to the slaughter, and this time, except for a few who saw an opportunity and escaped to the east bank of the river, the rest of the people were subjected to systematic massacre and enslavement.

"Tai...Taiwei, we've just started cleaning up. We've only found over 500 bodies, and we haven't had time to burn them yet... I really don't know who did this..."

The legless Jin soldier seemed terrified, spilling his thoughts like a stream of beans pouring out of a bamboo tube. Liu Huai rode forward, his steed's hooves restlessly stirring, occasionally kicking up pieces of gravel that crashed into the legless Jin soldier's face, infuriating him even more. "How many people are left alive in the entire Wujiang County?"

"I don't know..." Feeling the horse's hoof about to rise in front of him, the broken-legged Jin soldier hurriedly said: "General... General, I really don't know. The county town has been slaughtered twice, and all the benefits have been taken away. If it weren't for the fact that it was still a port, we Meng'an wouldn't have sent anyone to garrison here."

"Some of the elderly, weak, sick and disabled have huddled in corners, but we are too lazy to bother with them and don't want to waste our time and energy on them."

Liu Huai's face was as hard as iron, and he looked coldly at the Jin soldier with a broken leg.

"I remember now, I remember now..." The Jin soldier with the broken leg exerted his strength with both hands and crawled back a few steps. Suddenly, an idea came to his mind and he said, "Behind the county government office, there are more than 200 Han women. The Taiwei..."

Liu Huai pulled out the spear from the victory hook and stabbed it to death.

Wang Huai, who was listening to Liu Huai's question, immediately took his personal guards and walked towards the county government office. He also ordered the soldiers to disperse into groups of ten to chase and kill the Jin army, and search for any survivors who might exist.

Wang Huai had no bad intentions. Generals like him in Yue Family Army who were not promoted during Tian Shizhong's time were all very upright people. The military law of freezing to death rather than demolishing houses and starving to death rather than looting was engraved in their bones.

He was worried that those young brats would not be able to control themselves and do something dirty, which would be irreversible and Wang Huai would have no choice but to use their heads as punishment.

He didn't die in the battle with the Jin army, but died in his crotch. Isn't that unfair?
Liu Huai was not in a hurry, but slowly moved forward while helping to sweep away the defeated Jin army.

Wujiang County is a typical commercial county, serving as both a ferry port and a cargo distribution center. This type of county generally lacks strong defense capabilities, but its advantage lies in convenient transportation.

Therefore, after Liu Huai took a quick look at the city defenses, he felt that this place was undefensible.

Commercial counties like Wujiang County are generally very rich unless the local officials are very capable.

The county government office of Wujiang County was built in a very grand style, covering an area of nearly ten acres. It was filled with tall gates and layers of buildings, and the blue bricks and red tiles looked as good as new.

There is a couplet on the left and right of the gate: Your salary is the blood and sweat of the people; it is easy to abuse the people, but it is hard to deceive God!
Perhaps because it was the Jin army’s garrison, the Jin army did not destroy the buildings there on a large scale, which was in sharp contrast to the surrounding areas that were devastated by war.

Wang Huaizheng ordered the soldiers to shout and search for survivors everywhere. At the same time, he found cloth and scarves, wrapped the abused women tightly, led them out from the back of the county government office, and personally escorted them onto the ship by a lieutenant of the personal guard.

There were some women who were also filled with fear when they saw the Song army, but the vast majority of them hugged the Dongting Lake navy officers and soldiers and cried loudly, with blood coming out of their eyes.

For a moment, the cries of more than 200 women merged into one, reaching the sky.

Even someone as hard-hearted as Liu Huai would secretly turn his gaze elsewhere and not dare to look at these women again.

You can easily guess what the women have been going through these days.

This is the norm in war. Once the strongest group of people in a country can no longer hold on, the weaker people in that country will become spoils of war, and women of marriageable age are the best part of the spoils.

They represent desire, offspring, and the deepest humiliation to the enemy.

Although the protagonists of this humiliation were the Song people, weren't the Song people also Han people? How could Liu Huai contain his anger?
"I won't leave! Let me go! I won't leave!" A young soldier strode out of the county government office, holding a woman in colorful clothes under his arm. The woman struggled and yelled.

"what happened?"

"Put that woman down!"

Liu Huai and Wang Huai shouted at the same time, and Wang Huai even stepped forward with his sword, ready to enforce military discipline.

The young soldier was slightly stunned, and quickly put the woman in colorful clothes down. He bowed and saluted. Before he could say anything, he saw the woman in colorful clothes taking a staggering step, walking around in a circle, and talking to herself in a low voice.

"I won't leave... My home is right here... Grandpa will come to pick me up... Liu Lang will be here soon and kill all you bad guys..." The woman in colorful clothes waved her hands, moving her colorful sleeves like a gorgeous butterfly.

After she finished speaking, the woman in colorful clothes finally couldn't stand anymore and collapsed to the ground, with a silly smile on her pretty face.

She has gone crazy.

"This woman has gone crazy. She wants to stay here..." The young Song army sergeant pointed and succinctly explained the difficulty: "I can only squeeze her out."

Whether it was military orders or personal feelings, the young soldier could not bear the consequences of pushing the young woman into hell again.

Wang Huai looked at the woman in colorful clothes, opened his mouth, but still said nothing. He could only wave his hand and let the young soldier carry the woman in colorful clothes away.

Wang Huai sighed deeply. Even though he had seen worse things, he still couldn't get used to it.

"General Liu..." Wang Huai was about to say something when he heard a long horn sound from the river.

Wang Huai pointed to a personal guard beside him. With the help of several others, the personal guard climbed onto the roof of the county government office and raised a large flag and waved it.

When the sailors standing on the masts of the ships on the river saw this scene, they stopped blowing their horns and waved the flags in their hands vigorously.

"General Li! Black flag! Coming from the south!" the guards on the roof shouted.

"The black flag means we are invincible. The Jin thieves are coming from the south!" Wang Huai explained, but his hands were not idle. He directed the soldiers to prepare to escort the people to retreat from the north gate.

Wang Huai believed Li Dao. Since he said that he was invincible, then he really was invincible.

"One beat, five rounds!" The guards on the roof continued to inform Wang Huai of the military intelligence transmitted from the river.

"A thousand Jin bandits are coming, and we're only five miles away. Damn it, they're coming so fast." Wang Huai spat out a mouthful of thick phlegm and said angrily, "Wave the flag, and send the boat to the open space in the north of the town to pick us up!"

"Blow the horn, gather the troops, and let them go directly through the north gate!" Fortunately, it was the navy, and the centurions had to learn all kinds of complicated flag signals and horn sounds, otherwise they would not be able to gather the scattered troops in a short time.

"Captain Li, let's get the boat to the dock!" a young soldier suggested.

"What's wrong with your brain? Have you forgotten what we're here for?" Wang Huai said impatiently, "Do you want the boat to be burned down by the Jin thieves? Go to the beach north of the city and get on the small boat. Do you understand? If you understand, then do it!"

"General Liu." Wang Huai turned to face Liu Huai and was about to say something when he was interrupted by the other party.

Liu Huai waved his hand and said, "We are officers, soldiers, and anti-Jin heroes who have a deep hatred for the Jin bandits. It is impossible for us to retreat first. No matter what, we will fight to the death with the Jin bandits!"

Wang Huai was helpless, and this was not the time to get involved in sentimental matters, so he could only nod.

(End of this chapter)