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

Chapter 414: The Hero and the Scoundrel

If Liu Qi were asked to evaluate Cheng Min in one sentence, it would be that Cheng Pocai is very similar to Han Shizhong.

The same loyalty and bravery, the same greed, the same lust, and the same slickness.

In fact, there were many such people during the Jingkang Rebellion, including Liu Qi. After all, to survive and stand out in the harsh environment of the Song army, one must have some skills. Han Shizhong was just a culmination of all these, and he was extremely outstanding in some characteristics.

Many people were both heroes who fought against the Jin Dynasty and scoundrels, both loyal ministers and generals who saved the people from danger and executioners with blood debts on their shoulders. With these multiple identities mixed together, it was difficult to distinguish between right and wrong.

Although Cheng Min has various shortcomings, since he is similar to Han Shizhong, it is not surprising that he wants to stand up and save the country when it is in danger.

As for why Cheng Min appeared in Lu'an at this time, it was purely a butterfly effect.

Originally, in history, the main force of the Jin army was led by Wanyan Liang, who attacked the Lianghuai defense line. Therefore, Cheng Min had already led his troops to Zhenjiang Prefecture.

And now, the Jin Kingdom's heaviest punch hit Xiangfan, so at the beginning, the Song Dynasty court asked Cheng Min and Wu Gong to fight together in Xiangfan.

But no one expected that Xiangfan would be defeated, but Lianghuai was broken through, and Wanyan Liang led a large army to attack the small court of the Song Dynasty.

Now everyone in the Song Dynasty court was anxious. They treated Cheng Min like Yue Fei in one day, and issued twelve golden medals to summon Cheng Min's troops to come to the rescue.

The court was not unaware of the importance of Xiangfan, nor was it unaware of the pressure Wu Gongcheng Min was facing, but in the face of the danger of national destruction, even if it was poison wine, everyone in the court had to hold their noses and drink it.

If there are not enough troops blocking the Yangtze River, Zhao Gou will have to abandon his country and flee across the sea again!

But at that time, most of the Dongting Lake navy had already been sent to Caishiji for battle, and the remaining navy had to defend Xiangfan, so there was no boat to allow Cheng Min to go down the river.

As the saying goes, heroes are revealed in times of crisis.

As Han Shizhong's successor in the military, Cheng Min is naturally no ordinary person.

Even though he, like Han Shizhong, received an insane amount of empty pay, he did not just use it for enjoyment like the rest of the Song army. Instead, he trained nearly 20,000 elite soldiers capable of fighting.

After carefully analyzing the strategic situation, Cheng Min, following the advice of his general Chen Min, introduced his plan to Wang Che, the envoy of Hubei and Jingxi.

To put it simply, it was to launch a surprise attack, lead the army northward under the nose of Pushan Zhongyi's army, and attack Bianliang directly to seize the main logistics hub of the Jin Dynasty.

This plan is actually feasible in real history.

Not only did Chen Min propose it to Cheng Min early on, but Wuchang County Magistrate Xue Jixuan also proposed it to Wang Che.

Because it was Liu E who came to attack Jingxiang at that time. Although his ability was not very bad, it was for sure that he had insufficient troops under his command. The Song and Jin fought back and forth in several states near Xiangfan.

If Cheng Min made up his mind to move north, it would be possible for him to threaten Bianliang again and recapture the old capital.

But as the chief reserve force of Jingxiang at that time, Cheng Min was not willing to take such a risky move, so he rejected it at that time.

Later, because Wanyan Liang concentrated his main forces in the two Huai regions, the Song army in Huainan was defeated miserably. Cheng Min had no choice but to lead his army south to Jiankang to defend the Yangtze River.

But that’s not the case today.

Whether in strategic or tactical ability, Pushan's loyalty and righteousness are several times higher than Liu E's.

Or to put it more clearly, Pushan Zhongyi was one of the most powerful commanders of this era.

He now had sufficient troops at his disposal, and he had been suppressing the Song army almost since the beginning of the war. Almost all of the Song army's strongholds north of Xiangfan were eliminated. Wu Gong and Cheng Min could only retreat to Xiangfan and defend it despite being at a disadvantage in terms of military strength.

If they sent 10,000 to 20,000 troops from Xiangfan along the Fangchengxia Road to attack Bianliang, Pushan Zhongyi would be happy to defeat them and send several times more troops to kill all the elite Song troops directly in the wilderness.

Therefore, Wang Che thought this suggestion was nonsense and rejected it directly.

Cheng Min made this suggestion not out of madness, nor was he a scholar-official ignorant of military affairs. Instead, he wanted to pass another thrilling plan.

After Cheng Min and Wu Gong deduced the battle situation, they came up with a terrible result.

There is a big premise here, Cheng Min must lead his troops south to defend Jiangnan.

Because this is a death order from the court, and it cannot be evaded by using national strategy.

No matter what excuse you have, you must join the war in Lianghuai and Jiangnan. If you disobey orders at this time, you will definitely be held accountable after the war.

Only Wu Gong's troops were left in Xiangfan to face the main force of the Jin army led by Pushan Zhongyi. It is really hard to say what the outcome would be.

If Xiangfan fell, Wu Gong could only go to Ezhou on the Yangtze River to continue holding on.

From ancient times to the present, if the Southern Dynasty had reached this point, its destruction would have been a matter of days.

In order to make up for the strategic disadvantage, the two Jingxiang generals discussed for a long time and decided on a risky plan.

The plan was actually not complicated. After Cheng Min left thousands of troops to assist Wu Gong in defending the city, he took 13,000 elite soldiers and horses, went through Huangzhou, went down Guangshan, passed through Lu'an City and headed straight for Luzhou, in order to cut off Wanyan Liang's retreat and force him to retreat.

By then, Cheng Min will return to Jingxiang with the power of a great victory, and perhaps he can still turn the situation around.

Of course, this plan also requires the consent of Wang Che, the commander of the Xiangfan war zone and another pro-war leader.

So Cheng Min played a little trick to get the best deal, and made Wang Che agree to the plan with difficulty after hesitating for a long time.

Of course, it must be pointed out here that regardless of the effect of Cheng Min's strategic actions, as long as he led his troops to Huainan and Jiangnan, Wanyan Liang's goal of gaining a strategic gap for Pushan Zhongyi would have been fully achieved.

Hesheli Liangbi was indeed a good prime minister of the Jin Dynasty. The strategic result at this time was almost the same as his calculations!

Of course, Huainan, Jingxiang and other provinces are integrated. Even if Cheng Min's soldiers take risky moves, the outcome of the war remains a mystery.

But what is certain is that Pushan and Gao Han, the two Meng'an, happened to be in trouble.

Two thousand men fought a decisive battle with thirteen thousand elite Song troops in the wild. Even if Wanyan Loushi were resurrected, he would not dare to guarantee victory, let alone these two dishes.

Although Li Zhongxian recognized who the visitor was, he also understood that the arrow had to be shot once it was on the string. The arrogance cultivated by years of victory would not disappear just because of a name.

So the entire Jin army shouted, each holding a bow and spear and charging head-on at the Song army.

The Song army's armored cavalry were like a silent torrent, silently following the large flag with characters on it running in the front.

Cheng Min, as the head of an army and the governor, actually led the Beiwei army to charge into battle personally, just like Han Shizhong in the past.

The two sides were only half a mile apart. Although Li Zhongxian had never seen Cheng Min, he knew that this was a chance to win. He took dozens of guards, adjusted the direction, and rushed straight towards Cheng's flag.

When they were only a few dozen steps away, Li Zhongxian stepped on the stirrups, raised his spear high, increased the speed of his horse, shouted loudly, and stabbed the leading cavalry of the Song army with all his strength.

The next second, Li Zhongxian was knocked away by a long-handled broadsword that arrived first.

The marching Meng'an, who still exuded a foul smell, drew an arc in the air and crashed into the cavalry behind him, and was trampled into a pulp by the cavalry who were unable to rein in their horses in time.

A cavalry clash was like two eggs colliding: one would be completely shattered while the other remained unscathed. Victory or defeat could be decided in an instant.

The Jin cavalry had hit a wall. The Beiwei army not only had better armor, but also better horses and surprisingly better riding skills. Not to mention the Beiwei army had a three-fold numerical advantage.

Cheng Min received a salary without any payment, and the Beiwei Army he raised with the money and food he saved was not so easy to deal with.
With just one charge, more than 200 of the nine Moukes of the Jin Dynasty fell off their horses, and the rest were like fish in a net, being divided, surrounded and locked in the iron cavalry formation.

Cheng Min no longer cared about the trapped Jin cavalry, and led more than 700 Beiwei soldiers to half a mile behind the Jin army to form a team.

"Hua Wang!" Cheng Min took off the red copper mask, revealing a black face full of wrinkles. He looked around with his small eyes and quickly issued a military order.

"I'm here!" A general behind Cheng Min responded and stepped forward.

"You stay here, gather the cavalry, and spread out to strangle the fleeing soldiers. Do you know how to do this?"

"Understood!" Cheng Min saw that more than 700 cavalrymen had finished forming a formation. Without saying a word, he slowly accelerated with the big flag behind him, and waved his sword to attack the Jin army's infantry.

Pushan Gaohan also did not achieve any results.

The rate of armor-wearing infantrymen under Cheng Min's Song army was higher than that of the regular Jin army. Facing nearly 20,000 signed troops, they only sent out 3,000 men to form a horizontal formation to fight, and the remaining nearly 5,000 men all turned to fight the Jin army.

Although Lu Cheng defended himself repeatedly and was not defeated in one wave, he could not withstand the opening of the gate of Lu'an City behind the formation. Nearly a thousand Lu'an soldiers, led by Bi Jin, attacked the Qian army.

The camp of the Qian army could no longer hold on. Although at least 10,000 of them had not seen any blood so far, the morale of the army was broken, and the Qian army, whose fighting power and morale were not very strong, fled in all directions.

Seeing this, Lu Cheng sighed, took off his armor and threw it away, put on a set of tattered clothes, mixed in with the defeated army and fled in a panic.

Up to this point, Pushan Gao Han had not dealt a fatal blow to the opposing Song army.

There was no way around it. One side was 60% armored, the other 70%. The Song army at least had axes, crossbows, and other specialized armor-piercing weapons. The Jin army could only use ox-horn bows for close range shooting or use bone clubs for close combat to open the enemy's tin cans. Without the support of warhorses, ordinary spears and hand knives were a joke before the infantry.

Pushan Gaohan was about to command the six hundred or so archers at the rear to fire when screams arrived first. It turned out that the Song infantry, assembled by hundreds of archers with divine arms, had charged the Jin army, inflicting heavy casualties on the front rank of the Jin army within less than ten paces.

At least seventy or eighty soldiers fell down wailing. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Song army waved flags and beat drums. Soldiers holding axes stood out from the crowd and rushed into the Jin army along the gap, actually splitting the Jin army formation in half.

The rest of the Song army was not to be outdone, and they pressed forward with swords and shields in hand. Although they were unable to break through the defense, they collided with the Jin soldiers, their shields clashing with a loud bang, and the Jin soldiers, caught off guard, were pushed back repeatedly.

"Hold on, hold on!" Pushan Gaohan ordered loudly.

The order was drowned out by the rumbling sound of horse hooves. Pushan Gaohan looked back, but saw the big flag with the word "Cheng" only a hundred steps behind him.

"Turn around! Shoot!" Pushan Gaohan was terrified and ordered the archers around him to use heavy arrows to force back the Song army's armored cavalry. However, less than a hundred of his infantry archers reacted in time, and the sparse rain of arrows shot past without achieving any results.

The fall of more than ten armored cavalrymen could not stop the charge of the iron cavalry at all. In just a moment, Cheng Min personally led the Beiwei Army and smashed into the Jin army formation.

Pushan Gaohan led his personal cavalry to meet the enemy head-on, but was quickly overwhelmed by the Beiwei army.

The moment Meng'an's flag fell, the Jin army was defeated, and the Beiwei cavalry ran rampant, killing indiscriminately.

The Song army soldiers pressed forward and surrounded the Jin army. With no way to advance or retreat, the Jin army began to surrender in an organized manner.

At this point, the siege of Lu'an City ended with a great victory for the Song army.

This outcome was predictable. Ultimately, whether Jin or Song, we were all human beings, and there was no such thing as one being superior to the other. The only factors that separated us were equipment, morale, training, and food.

When all these factors are similar, how could the 2,000 Jin troops defeat the more than 10,000 Ezhou troops, which were formerly the Han family army?

"Chen Yuangong! Capture the Jin thief officers and pry out all the information they know!" Cheng Min sat upright on his horse, giving orders non-stop.

"Order!"

The general Chen Min, who was commanding the infantry, bowed and listened to the order.

"Zhao Xun! Gather the infantry and set up camp!"

"Order!"

"Du Yan! Bring the Lu'an City Manager over here, don't be rude!"

"Here!"

After a series of orders were issued, the Beiwei soldiers beside Cheng Min also received orders and ran in all directions. Only more than ten personal guards followed him to a small hill.

Cheng Min got off his horse and sat on a stool, observing the movements of the entire army while allowing everyone to see his figure.

Cheng Min looked back at the big flag with the word "Cheng" fluttering in the wind behind him, took off his helmet, pulled out a silk scarf from the gap in the breastplate, and wiped his face hard.

As the saying goes, a general will not complain of thirst until the army's well is drawn; a general will not complain of hunger until the army's food is cooked. After all, he was an old soldier, and at this time he just washed his face without even drinking a sip of water.

Not long after, several riders came from the west. It turned out to be Du Yan leading Bi Jin and others to report.

"General Cheng!" Bi Jin smiled and bowed when he saw Cheng Min, who was in a pretentious manner.

"Old Bi, I thought it was you who was causing trouble here!" Cheng Min smiled and stood up and shook Bi Jin's hands: "You are still playing this trick on me."

One of them was Yue Fei's personal guard, and the other was Han Shizhong's confidant. They had known each other for a long time.

However, after the Shaoxing Peace Agreement, Bi Jin was more aggressive, while Cheng Min was more silent. So naturally, their careers differed.

Thinking about it now, the two of them haven't seen each other for nearly twenty years.

The two men who were in their prime and full of vigor and vitality back then are now old and frail with gray hair and beards. How can they not sigh?
"Come, Deqing, meet your Uncle Cheng." Bi Jin brought his son Bi Zaiyou to Cheng Min.

Cheng Min accepted the greeting without hesitation, then patted Bi Zaiyu's head and said, "Good boy, you are truly a natural born general. You are better than those rebellious sons in my family."

After saying that, Cheng Min turned around and took out a short knife wrapped in an alligator leather sheath from his horse: "I don't have anything good on hand, so I will give you this knife. Our Song army will have successors."

"Why don't you thank Uncle Cheng quickly?" After Bi Jin signaled his son to accept the dagger, he finally got to the point in the chat.

"Why? We traveled hundreds of miles to fight the Jin bandits and lifted the siege of Lu'an, but we can't even enter the city." Cheng Min sneered, "If this gets out, how will the world view me?"

"General Cheng, let's be frank. Starting with General Han's mighty Left Army, everyone has seen how disciplined your army is." Bi Jin was naturally not afraid of Cheng Min. He faced him proudly and said, "We're fighting to the death just to protect the people of Lu'an. If you enter the city, hmph, it would be worse than being ravaged by the Jin thieves."

"Of course our military discipline cannot compare to your mighty rear army. But which army in the world is not like this? To be honest, your Marshal Yue is the outlier." Cheng Min spread his hands.

Seeing that Bi Jin just shook his head, Cheng Min made his threat more explicit.

"You're celebrating in the city? We're just sitting there starving? How does that make sense? Even if I'm willing, aren't you afraid our brothers will mutiny and attack the city?"

"Master!" Bi Jin didn't even bother calling him Taiwei. "The Jin bandits' camp is still here. If there's still something missing, we'll fill it up in Lu'an City. We won't let you sleep outdoors. We'll have plenty of food, wine, charcoal, and pots. Just tell me how much money you need, so I can hurry back to the city to get it."

"Old Bi is straightforward!" After all, this was his own land, and with Bi Jin's loyalty, Cheng Min felt embarrassed to take any action. He could only ask for a high price and pay it back. He immediately held up five fingers, flipped them back and forth, and said with a smile, "One hundred thousand strings of cash, and this matter is settled."

"Your heart must have been washed in ink!" Bi Jin immediately jumped up and said, "Where the hell am I going to find you 100,000 strings of cash?"

"Silk, gold, silver, land deeds are all fine. We're not picky..."

"No need to talk, the maximum is 60,000 strings of cash."

"You old man, go back and prepare your army for war. I don't believe that a small city like Lu'an won't be easily captured by our army."

"Fuck you!" Bi Jin cursed loudly, but he had no way to deal with this scoundrel.

"Lao Bi, the situation is more powerful than anyone. Instead of scolding me, why not go back to the city and persuade the wealthy people there?" Cheng Min pinched his nose and said with a nonchalant look: "Why not make the situation more serious? We are not afraid of a bad reputation."

"Alright, alright, you're so cruel." Bi Jin gritted his teeth and said, "70,000 strings of cash at most. You won't be able to steal more even if you raid the city!"

"Deal!" Cheng Min and Bi Jin high-fived each other and were about to say a few polite words when they saw Chen Min coming over with a knife.

"Yuan Gong, is there any good news?" The military situation was urgent, Cheng Min ignored Bi Jin and turned to ask Chen Min.

"These Jin bandits belong to Da Huaizhen's Wusheng Army. They maintain the rear of the Jin bandit army in Huaixi. There are six thousand regular Jin bandits near Luzhou, and another two thousand are besieging Anfeng in the north." Chen Min succinctly relayed the information obtained through torture: "The royal army crossed the river and captured Dongguan and Chao County, threatening the Jin bandits' food supply. Da Huaizhen just sent a military order, ordering the troops stationed outside to gather in Luzhou to suppress these rebels."

"There's actually such a brave man among the Jiangnan King's army? Could it be that Li Xianzhong personally crossed the river?" Cheng Min's green bean eyes rolled around several times, and he turned to Bi Jin and said, "Old Bi, it seems you can't rest either. Lead the troops and go with us!"

"That's what I wish for, but I dare not ask you." Bi Jin bowed politely.

Killing gold thieves is an old job.

　Two chapters combined today
　　
　
(End of this chapter)