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

Chapter 417: Reminiscence of the Battlefield of Zhegao
"Look, my Lord Commander-in-Chief, this is Turtle Mountain."

Lan Junhao, the commander of the Chaohu navy, was in high spirits at this time. He brought several generals of the Jingnan Army to a small hill west of Chao County to introduce the terrain of the mountains and rivers.

Liu Huai stopped his horse and looked around.

The terrain near Chao County is roughly in the shape of a winnowing basket. The remaining branches of the Dabie Mountains here are like folds of clothes. The mountains extend from southwest to northeast, and are covered with hills.

Ruxu Mountain is in the southeast, Baochan Mountain is in the northeast, Guishan Mountain is in the northwest, and Chaohu Lake is in the southwest, surrounding Chao County into a flat area of 30 miles from east to west and 20 miles from north to south.

Although there are hills and rivers, the terrain is relatively flat and can be used as a venue for a decisive battle.

Chao County is surrounded by mountains and rivers, but it is not a key pass, and there are still three openings around it.

One of them is the Turtle Mountain at your feet. It gets its name from the fact that it looks like a giant turtle diving into Chaohu Lake to drink water. The mountain range of Turtle Mountain also extends from southwest to northeast, but the terrain in the middle is lower, and the official road passes through the middle.

Although this is not a steep mountain, if we set up camps of different sizes on both sides of the mountain, we can also block the official road in the middle.

The other is the Baochan Mountain line. Although the mountains there still run from northwest to southeast, and it seems that you can go directly from Hanshan County to Chao County, the situation is not that simple.

When Guan Chongyan came to investigate, he discovered that there were too many hills and dirt mounds along this route, and the official road was not very spacious.

A few thousand soldiers and horses carrying a small amount of baggage can still move, but if there are tens of thousands of soldiers and horses, it will be really difficult to move.

The other one is the East Gate, which is guarded by Yang Chun’s army.

Thinking of this, Liu Huaifu became a little angry again.

After Yang Chun came to see him once, even though Liu Huai gave this guy enough face, Yang Chun still wanted to lead the army alone, implying that he did not want to be inferior to Liu Huai.

Of course, Yang Chun admitted that he was helpless. He was originally deeply moved after hearing the words Liang Zichu brought back, and thought of just bowing his head and being humble. However, when he actually met Liu Huai, he was directly frightened by the other party's age.

Facing a twenty-year-old young man, not to mention the loss of face, even if he could overcome the psychological barriers, Yang Chun would not entrust his life and death to Liu Huai.

Therefore, after hesitating for a moment, Yang Chun still wanted to lead the army and fight alone.

Liu Huai was both angry and helpless about this.

This is a very realistic problem.

Is Yang Chun a hero?

Of course it is.

Is it worthy of respect?
Of course it's worth it.

In addition, Yang Chun was compassionate to his soldiers, brave in battle, generous and honest in his official duties. He can be regarded as a good general and a good official.

But at this critical moment, Yang Chun still did not agree with Liu Huai, which made things very difficult.

Are we going to kill Yang Chun just because of such a trivial matter?

But on the other hand, is it really true that dividing the two armies in Chao County would make it difficult to carry out military orders?

Politics still requires compromise. In the end, Liu Huai had no choice but to let Yang Chun lead his 3,000 remaining soldiers to Dongguan to reorganize and guard against Wanyan Liang's army. He gathered all the troops of the Jingnan Army in Chao County, preparing to fight against the Wusheng Army.

There is no other way.

"General, the Shiliang River is ahead, and the town a little further away is Zhegao Town." Lan Junhao continued, "If we set up camp here, we can stop all the Jin thieves from invading Luzhou."

Liu Huai said nothing, but raised his whip and pointed at the town in the distance: "Is that Zhegao Town? Is that the Zhegao Town?"

As someone who was born and raised near Chaohu Lake, Lan Junhao nodded: "It's that Zhegao."

The two sides were not playing witticism, but the Battle of Zhegao that took place here twenty years ago and the subsequent political turmoil were so well-known that there was no need to explain it in detail.

After Yue Fei was ordered to retreat by twelve golden medals, the Jin Dynasty ruler Wanyan Wushu, in order to gain political advantage, forcibly sent troops to Lianghuai to exploit the weak points despite the loss of all his elite troops. However, to Wanyan Wushu's surprise, after Yue Fei had killed all the elite troops, the Jin Dynasty's fighting power was really weakened.

Wanyan Wushu used a series of strategic deceptions and tactical means to fight a decisive battle with the Song army around Zhegao, where the terrain was flat and conducive to the performance of cavalry. However, the Jin army was defeated by relying solely on Liu Qi, Wang De, Yang Yi and others fighting alone.

This time, not only Wanyan Wushu was dumbfounded, but even Zhao Gou and Qin Hui were extremely surprised.

Because this represented the first time that the Song Dynasty's second-line army defeated the main force of the Jin army in a head-on decisive battle.

In theory, the Song Dynasty's great victory should have been a good thing, but the political environment in the early Southern Song Dynasty had a huge characteristic, which was that it was extremely easy to turn a good thing into a bad thing.

The insects of the Southern Song Dynasty began their performance.

The first person to cause trouble was Zhang Jun, commander-in-chief of the Huaixi War Zone.

Seeing that his men had already achieved great success, he was overjoyed. Not only did he tell Yue Fei, who had come to support him, that there was no food in the Huai River region and that he was not allowed to advance, but he also drove Liu Qi back. He only took Yang Yizhong and the rest of his old subordinates with him to continue advancing, hoping to show off his troops on the Huai River and take all the credit for himself.

Then something big happened.

As the pillar of the Jin Dynasty after the decline of the founding generation, Wanyan Wushu showed his indomitable character at this time. Under such unfavorable circumstances, he still ambushed troops in Haozhou and defeated Zhang Jun and Yang Yi in one fell swoop.

The Song army suffered heavy casualties, and even Wang De was barely able to escape!
At this point, Zhang Jun no longer claimed that there was no food in Huaixi, and hurriedly asked Yue Fei and Han Shizhong for help. However, by the time Yue Fei arrived, it was already too late.

Yue Fei was furious at this and complained to Zhang Xian, "I think you only need 10,000 men to crush an army like Zhang Jun's."

However, the same thing can inspire different people in different ways.

Yue Fei was enraged by the suffering of the people in Lianghuai and the hopelessness of recovering the Central Plains. However, the insane Zhao Gou and Qin Hui saw that the Jin army was truly defeated and that the safety of the small court in Jiangnan could be guaranteed with only the secondary troops.

Anyway, there is no need to recover lost territory, so there is no need for Yue Fei.

This was the beginning of all the conspiracies against Yue Fei.

Now Liu Huai stood on the edge of the battlefield of the Battle of Zhegao, and also stood in Yue Fei's position. Even though he was not as powerful as Yue Fei at this time, as a more determined Northern Expeditioner, if the political struggle failed, his fate might be even worse than Yue Fei's.

wrong.

Thinking of this, Liu Huaifu shook his head and laughed again. He was really too sentimental about the past and really thought of himself as a loyal minister and general of the Song Dynasty.

Zhao Gou and Qin Hui were able to frame Yue Fei because Yue Fei was truly loyal to the Song Dynasty until death.

Just like when you say you want to smash the table, there will naturally be people who want to have a good meal who will come out to smooth things over.

But once you say that you will guarantee the meal at all costs, there will naturally be many people who want to kick you off the table and not allow you to eat.

Liu Huai asked himself, if he were in Yue Fei's place, his methods would be a hundred times more outrageous.

Didn’t Wu Jie threaten to kill the transport envoy?

I used the lack of food as an excuse to kill a transport envoy on the spot, placed his head in front of the officials in the court, and asked them whether it was the transport envoy who was wrong or I was wrong.

I can even tell you clearly that there is only a 10% chance that I will rise up in rebellion. Do you dare to bet with me?

I fought in the battlefield as a military governor, a brave general who crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. Do you officials in the court dare to gamble your lives with me?

I will not split up the Hengjiang Army formed by the recovered troops of Zhong Xiang and Yang Yao. I will directly place these tens of thousands of navy troops who once rebelled in Wuchang. The small court in the south of the Yangtze River dares not say anything nonsense. The Hengjiang Army will go downstream and show off its troops in Jiankang.

As for small tricks like dividing the land, establishing military farms in the recovered territories, gathering refugees, and having subordinates ask the soldiers three times a day whose clothes they wear, whose salary they receive, and whose food they eat, there is no need to mention them.

I have only one thing to say: If I can't be Liu Yu, can't I be Hou Jing?

What loyal minister? Doesn’t that mean Zhao Kuangyin is not a loyal minister to Chai Rong?
Looking at the Zhegao battlefield from afar, Liu Huai's thoughts became increasingly distracted, but a grim smile appeared on his face.

(End of this chapter)