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

Chapter 412 Loyalty and treachery are like fire and water

Just when Liu Huai was holding a beheading meeting.

In Lu'an City, three hundred miles west of Dongguan, the Anfeng Army had been fighting fiercely for nine days.

The city of Lu'an was built along the Xishui River (today's Qin River), surrounded by rivers on the northwest and southeast sides. The city walls are high, making it easy to defend and difficult to attack, and it has the potential of a natural barrier.

Anfeng County is very hilly, especially near Lu'an. Less than fifty miles to the southwest is the Dabie Mountains, and most of the fields are terraced.

Logically speaking, this kind of place is neither loved by the grandmother nor the uncle, and it is not under the attack of Pushan Zhongyi, nor does it affect Wanyan Liang's affairs. Da Huaizhen can just leave it alone.

Anyway, the Song army's field combat capabilities were extremely poor, so why should we be afraid of them taking Luzhou? As long as the Wusheng army controlled the area around Luzhou, they would naturally be able to guard Wanyan Liang's retreat.

Once the big things are settled, wouldn't it be easy to wipe out a small Lu'an?

But the same thing goes, from the perspective of the middle-level officers of the Jin Dynasty, this was a war to annihilate the country!

You, Da Huaizhen, may be righteous and upright, but what about Xingjun Meng'an? What about Xingjun Mouke? What about Xiaobing Lazi?

Normally, at the general manager's command, the entire army would brave fire and water to win the position of general manager for you. Now that you have achieved success, what should we do?

The Jin and Song dynasties were the only two great nations in the world. After this war of annihilation, where else could he earn military merit? Fight the Mongols on the Mongolian Plateau? Eat sand in the Great White Kingdom of the Western Regions? Travel thousands of miles west to wipe out the remnants of the Khitan? Brave the malaria and plague to attack the Dali Kingdom?
Pull it down!

The cities that were left behind and not captured suddenly became big fat pieces of meat, and seven or eight Meng'ans were competing to do the job that was once disliked by everyone.

No matter how powerful Da Huaizhen is as the commander-in-chief of the army, it is impossible for him to suppress the unrest among all the officers!

What's more, many officers were Jurchen and Bohai descendants, and were related to them in some way. They were obedient and loyal on weekdays, so it was impossible for Da Huaizhen to make an example of them to scare the monkeys.

And the reasons given by Meng'an are very sufficient.

Pushan Zhongyi swept through Guangzhou, and as long as the Anfeng Army east of Guangzhou was captured, it could be connected with Luzhou, and the Jin Kingdom's East Route Army and Central Route Army could respond to each other.

After hearing this reason, Da Huaizheng became furious and smashed the table to pieces with a long sword during the military meeting.

What a response!

The main force of the Central Army was locked in a fierce battle with the main force of the Song Army in Xiangfan, southwest of Beijing. What could we expect from them? Would they collect the bodies of the Eastern Army?
Now that Da Huaizhen had made it clear, the marching soldiers no longer hid anything.

The implication was clear: if I couldn't achieve merit under your command, what motivation would I have to obey your orders? Even if I could subdue the other Meng'an officers at the military meeting as the general commander, they would definitely not be able to control the Mouke officers under my command, let alone the wolf-like and ferocious soldiers!
After being forced to calm down by this non-threat threat, Da Huaizhen finally understood that Meng An's words made sense. If Da Huaizhen wanted to lead troops again, he must not let his subordinates down to this extent.

Therefore, the result of the military meeting was that Da Huaizhen led the three Meng'ans to stay in Luzhou, while Guo Feng, who had no followers, went to Zhenchao County to protect the grain route.

The remaining six Meng'an led the surrendered troops to attack the surrounding difficult-to-conquer cities.

Two of them led 20,000 surrendered troops to besiege Lu'an City. After all, the boasts must be fulfilled, and if they say they will open up the connection between the Central Army and Anfeng Army, they will definitely take it down!
Then he hit his head and his face was covered in blood.

Originally, Lu'an City had few soldiers and generals, with only about two thousand Song troops, including those who were drawing empty salaries. When the Jin army invaded the south, Hui Sihai, the commander of the Anfeng Army, played a prudent role. Together with the county magistrate and other officials, he made a thousand-mile journey and quickly reached the south bank of the Yangtze River.

As people were in panic, an unemployed general stood up and took charge of the Anfeng Army. He quickly opened the treasury, recruited young men, and coerced and bribed wealthy families to donate money and manpower to strengthen the city defenses and clear the fields.

This man was a Wuyi official of the Song Dynasty, and his name was Bi Jin.

Of course, he has two more famous identities.

General under Yue Fei.

Bi Zaiyu’s biological father.

Just when Bi Jin was feverishly preparing for a big fight with the Jin thieves, a group of defeated Song soldiers who withdrew from Guangzhou to Lu'an greatly alleviated Bi Jin's pressure of shortage of manpower.

The main commander of this group of Song army was Yu Feiying, the Guangzhou branch supervisor. After being defeated by Liu E's army of tens of thousands, he led nearly 4,000 soldiers to run more than 300 miles without disintegrating, which was enough to prove that his ability was extremely strong.

In the original historical line, Yu Feiying still overcame many difficulties and did not surrender to the Jin army. He led his troops and ran a full 700 miles from Guangzhou (now Huangchuan, Henan) all the way to Caishiji (Ma'anshan, Anhui).

These two old guys, one is a fish swimming in the cauldron, and the other is a dog that has lost its home, did not hesitate at this time when the country was destroyed and the family was ruined. They joined forces and had a total of 8,000 soldiers and horses, determined to fight the Jin thieves to the death.

On the third day after Yu Feiying arrived in Lu'an, the 30,000-strong Jin army surrounded him.

It is nonsense to say that Lu'an has more prestige than Cai Shi.

Among the 30,000 troops, only 2,000 were regular Jin troops, and the rest were all signed troops organized from the surrendered Song troops.

Lu Cheng, the former governor of Haozhou, was the main general of this group of surrendered troops. Under the swords and guns of the Jin army, the surrendered Song army did not dare to ask for any money for the march. They honestly surrounded Lu'an and fired cannons to smash the city.

The people in the city are not willing to be outdone. You build one cannon, and I will build three. Let's see who can destroy the other.

In order to boost morale, Bi Jin took his fourteen-year-old son Bi Zaiyou to stand on the wall and command the artillery formation. With just one round, the stone artillery position that the Qian army had painstakingly built for four or five days was smashed to pieces.

Lu Cheng was not discouraged, or rather, he did not dare to be discouraged under the pressure of the two Meng'an Jin troops. He sent 3,000 people to the upper reaches to block the flooding of the city. The rest of the army filled the moat and built earthen hills, preparing to take over Lu'an City bit by bit.

To be honest, if Lu Cheng and the Song army under his command could perform like this when the Jin army marched south, Wanyan Liang would be in a terrible state in Haozhou.

Yu Feiying was no ordinary man. On the sixth night of the Jin army's siege, he led 500 brave warriors to charge out, causing the southern camp of the Qian army to explode. If the Jin army had not been alert and repelled most of the fleeing Qian army, it is hard to say when the second round of offensive would have started.

After that, the Song army became dishonest. Relying on the wideness of the Jin River and the scarcity of the Jin navy, they crossed the river inland in small boats and harassed the Jin army at night, causing great trouble to the Jin army.

Last night, we almost made a big fool of ourselves.

After several investigations, Bi Jin learned about the camping locations of two Jin army commanders. Then, the father and son, along with four hundred brave warriors, sneaked out of the city and headed straight for the Jin army camp.

The battle-hardened Jin army had a strong camp and had been prepared for a night attack. But the key was that Bi Jin did not play by the rules. Each of the four hundred warriors carried a bag of firecrackers, quietly approached the camp, lit them, and threw them into the stable.

Although this would expose the position of the Song army, the sudden explosion in the dead of night caused the Jin army's horses to panic. More than a thousand horses broke their reins and ran wildly in the camp like headless flies, turning the camp into a mess.

Some Jin soldiers wanted to meet the enemy, while others wanted to lead the horses. In the chaos, the general's orders could not be conveyed at all.

What's even more terrifying is that horses are social animals. If one Meng'an's thousand war horses get into a rage, the war horses of another Meng'an will also lose control.

In the midst of this chaos, Bi Jin threw out his mouthpiece, shouted "Kill the bandits!", and charged at the front with his fourteen-year-old son. The warriors he had recruited at great expense were not about to fall behind a child. They shouted and fought fiercely, and the momentum of the four hundred men was like a mighty army.

The two Jin army regulars were killed in a hurry and were forced to retreat.

There was no possibility of reinforcements. Lu Cheng sent the so-called elite troops from the East Camp, but they automatically collapsed before they had even gone halfway.

If the two marching Meng'an hadn't set an example by raising the Meng'an flag to stop the decline, it's hard to say whether the siege of Lu'an would have ended with a raid. Bi Jin knew when to stop, carrying several captured flags and swaggering back to Lu'an City, leaving no trace of the Song army's corpses.

The Jin army was out of breath and trembling with fear, but they were helpless. The most important thing at this time was to control the horses. If the horses fled in all directions, they would have no place to find them in the dark. The Jin army would have wasted half of their martial arts.

Today, November 30th, the Jin army counted the number of people and found that more than 100 people were killed or wounded. Many of them were not hacked to death by the Song army, but were trampled to death in panic.

It was an extremely frustrating death.

Near noon, Pushan Gao Han and Li Zhongxian, two marching officers, looked at the city wall of Lu'an and were so angry that they sucked their teeth.

The moat had been filled, and the fighting on the city wall was in full swing. Countless soldiers were driven to attack the city from the southeast side of the wall. They were not fully armored and did not even have leather bags on their heads, but under the command of the supervising team, they pushed battering rams or carried wooden ladders, rushing towards the city wall crying.

Then they were swept down by a rain of rolling logs, thunder stones and arrows.

The Song army on the city wall will not show mercy just because the other party was a comrade before. The accomplices were still human beings when they were alive, and no Taoist master would show mercy to them.

The siege had lasted for a whole morning. The soldiers rushed in like a tide and retreated like a tide. Although the supervising team killed countless people, they were unable to stop the decline.

Pushan Gaohan and Li Zhongxian were getting more and more angry. Before they came here, they had never thought that this broken place would be so difficult to conquer.

These Song soldiers are too tough!
The two were very confused about Song's train of thought. You didn't put this tricky idea on the border, but put it in the rear. Are you crazy?

"Report!" A Jin soldier came galloping over with a small flag on his back. Upon seeing Pushan Gaohan, he reined in his horse and shouted, "Chancellor Lu sent me to report that my men are tired and would like to rest for half a day."

"Bullshit!" Before Pushan Gaohan could say anything, Li Zhongxian burst into a rage, "Twenty thousand soldiers were attacking the city like ants, and you told me they could take over in just half a day?"

"Go back and tell Old Lu that I don't care how many casualties he suffered or how exhausted he is. But if he wants to gain a foothold in the Jin army, he must have merit!" After all, Pushan Gaohan was the commander-in-chief and the main target of Lu Cheng's flattery. His words at this time were both a reminder and a warning: "We've been wasting time in this broken place of Lu'an for a long time. We must capture the city in the next two days!"

"Let Old Lu grit his teeth and hold on. Don't let the Song dogs rest for even a minute! In another hour, after the Song army's strength is exhausted, I will personally lead the soldiers to climb the city and join the battle!" Li Zhongxian added.

"What if Lu Cheng can't hold on?"

"Then issue a formal military order. Send the Wusheng Army to march Meng An Pushan Gao Han and order the general manager Lu Cheng to attack fiercely and not stop for a moment!" Pushan Gao Han said solemnly.

"Understood!" The messenger bowed and rode away.

Li Zhongxian cleared his throat and was about to say something when another gallop of horses came. The two Meng'an turned their heads and saw a messenger with long chicken feathers on his back coming through the camp.

The marching troops along the way all gave way. This was a messenger carrying the general's military orders. Theoretically, if anyone blocked his way, the messenger would draw his sword and chop off his head, and the person would have no choice but to accept it.

The messenger, looking tired, handed over the sealed lacquer bamboo tube with both hands. Pushan Gaohan and Li Zhongxian personally checked that the seal was intact and then pried it open with force. They found that the white cloth inside was densely written with military orders conveyed in secret language.

"What did the steward say?" Li Zhongxian had a low level of education and could not understand, so he anxiously asked Pushan Gao Han.

Several marching officers also gathered around, staring at their superiors eagerly.

Pushan Gaohan frowned and said after a long moment, "Song troops are crossing the river at Yuxikou. Although we don't know where they're going, the food route is too important. His Majesty has personally ordered the general to wipe out this group of Song troops. Therefore, the general ordered us to return within two days at the latest."

"A bunch of Song troops? Is that really that serious?" Li Zhongxian breathed a sigh of relief, but at the same time, he felt indignant. "A hundred thousand Song troops crossed the river? Couldn't the general manager just send any Meng An? Wouldn't Guo Feng be perfect?"

"We're all comrades in the army, so stop harassing Guo Feng endlessly." Pushan Gao Han scolded Li Zhongxian, then rolled his eyes and said, "You don't know our general manager, but to put it nicely, it's called prudent military tactics, and to put it bluntly, it's called excessive caution. I think the general manager is worried about the Song army that crossed the river and occupied Dongguan. If that happens, a large force will be needed to wipe them out, and he's calling us back because he doesn't have enough troops on hand."

"We're only halfway through the attack! Going back like a coward will only make us laugh at you!" Li Zhongxian's horse spun restlessly twice. "I'm going to lead my men up to the city right now!"

"No!" Pushan Gaohan glared, "If you say one hour, it must take one hour!"

"Can……"

"Hear me out! Originally I wanted to conduct a test attack today and then join forces tomorrow. Now it seems it's too late."

"Li Erlang, after Song Gou is worn out, I will give you the chance to ascend first. If you succeed, you'll be the first to achieve success. If you fail, I'll bring others up." Pushan Gaohan said sternly, "Of course, if you feel I'm taking advantage of you, we can switch orders!"

"Haha, Brother Pushan gave us the meat, how can we not appreciate it!" Li Zhongxian immediately bowed and laughed: "Don't worry, even if we eat flies, the fattest piece will not be left out for you brothers!"

"This is fucking disgusting!" Pushan Gao Han cursed with a smile, "Hurry up and get ready!"

"Order!"

In the military tent, after receiving the order, Lu Cheng spread his hands and said to his generals and staff, "What should we do?"

Everyone in the tent lowered their heads, not daring to look Lu Cheng in the eye.

Seeing this, Lu Cheng was extremely anxious. "That day, I wanted to fight the Jin people to the death, but you refused and urged me to surrender, saying there was wealth and glory to be had. Now, in this predicament, you are going to keep silent?"

Damn it.

Lu Cheng's subordinates were secretly dissatisfied.

You, the prefect, surrendered to the enemy and now you are pushing the blame onto your subordinates. Do you have any shame?

Even if your subordinates don't obey, can't you fight the enemy alone? The Haozhou branch commander committed suicide by sword. Can't you learn from him?
But this is not the time to talk about this. If the soldiers really disobey military orders, the Jin army will show no mercy.

"General, now that things have come to this, we have no choice but to fight." A general said bitterly.

As soon as these words came out, everyone looked at them sideways. What? You still want to lead this group of surrendered Song soldiers to fight the Jin army to the death? I've never seen you have such courage before!
However, everyone soon realized what he meant by "fight to the death".

"Those old farmers who were forcibly conscripted can't do anything and can no longer be used. I will donate all the gold, silver and treasures I have and recruit brave warriors from the army to take turns attacking the city." The general suddenly hit his knee, not knowing whether it was the pain in his legs or the pain in his heart, but his eyes were filled with tears.

"It only takes one hour! If we can hold on for another hour, the Great Jin Heavenly Soldiers will be on the battlefield! And we can accomplish our mission!"

Lu Cheng paced back and forth, thought for a moment, gritted his teeth and said, "Come here, go to my tent and take out all the money! His father, today will not be a day!"

The rest of the group also understood the seriousness of the situation. If they disobeyed orders, the soldiers would certainly not kill everyone, but no one in the tent would survive. Therefore, everyone chipped in with their own money, rewarding brave men from the army and continuing the fight on the wall.

Bi Jin, who was on the top of the city wall, immediately felt tremendous pressure.

　If I don’t finish typing this afternoon, there will only be one chapter.

　　ps: This writer's assistant is really acting crazy every other day.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)