I am Emperor Shizu of Song

Chapter 100 Hangzhou City was lost, and Hangzhou City was taken back
Two flowers bloom, one branch each.

Tong Guan was encouraged by Zhao Zicheng's victory report and accelerated his march south.

Outside the city of Hangzhou, Fang La also knew that he had been forced into a desperate situation.

Fang La still had some brains. He knew that the Battle of Haining not only destroyed his 20,000 troops, but more importantly, it destroyed the reputation that "the Holy Lord himself had never lost a battle."

Previously, Fang La's army had fought fiercely with the government troops, and although there were some victories and defeats, Fang La took advantage of the suddenness of his rebellion and was able to capture cities and states with the help of internal and external forces. All the defeats of Fang La's army were caused by his detached forces, including but not limited to Shi Bao and Deng Yuanjue who had already died in battle.

The battle of Haining was the first major direct defeat suffered by Fang La after he directly commanded and assembled all his main forces.

At this moment, back in the siege camp outside Hangzhou, Fang La's mentality was similar to that of Li Zicheng who fled back to Beijing in a panic after losing to Wu Sangui in later generations.

When fleeing back to Beijing, Li Zicheng was clear in his mind that he could not stay here for long, so he just wanted to maximize his benefits and grab a lot before leaving.

Fang La's army expanded too quickly, but there was not enough food. If they retreated directly, they would surely die. They didn't even have enough food to survive the winter if they returned to the mountains to fight.

Therefore, Hangzhou City must be attacked. Even if it cannot be captured, the death of some old, weak, sick and disabled people will help Fang La's army reduce the pressure of food. It can be said that at this point, Fang La has been forced to completely turn evil, and he no longer cares about his face and personality.

The day after the Battle of Haining, Fang La launched an all-out attack and fought to the death, regardless of casualties.

Tens of thousands of Fang La soldiers launched a fierce charge towards the north and east of Hangzhou City.

There is West Lake to the west of the city and Wushan Mountain to the south, so it is impossible to attack.

There is a canal in the north of the city, which is wider than an ordinary moat and more difficult to attack, but Fang La could no longer take care of it. He had too many troops and if they were all stationed in the east of the city, they would not be able to deploy them at all. So he attacked the north of the city as well. Regardless of whether he could break in or not, at least he could share the manpower of the Hangzhou defenders.

Fang La's crazy attack really frightened the high-ranking officials of Liangzhe Road who stayed in the city.

The governor Chen Jian and the inspector Zhao Yue both went to the city to supervise the battle in person and encouraged the soldiers to hold on, but the situation became increasingly critical.

To the north of the city, Fang La's army continued to build rafts of logs made of thick trees on the canal, trying to form a trench bridge.

They also forced the old, weak, sick and disabled soldiers to carry soil and stones to fill the area near the trench bridge, strengthen the trench bridge and narrow the canal.

The governor Chen Jian was personally responsible for the defense of Wulin Gate and Qiantang Gate in the north of the city, and commanded the only remaining catapults in the city to smash the rebels' trench bridge. But even if it broke once, twice or three times, Fang La would still let more old, weak and sick people forcibly build a bridge and fill the river.

As the corpses piled up at the canal dock, the following Fang La soldiers even rushed up on the corpses of their dead comrades, using them to block arrows, and finally pushed the corpses into the canal.

The logs and rocks thrown by the defenders and the stones hurled by the catapults, mixed with the corpses of the old, weak and sick of the attackers, as well as the trees, rafts and earth and rocks they had carried before their death, actually broke a gap in the Grand Canal, allowing Fang La's army to rush directly to the city.

The Grand Canal was at least twenty zhang wide. To fill the gap, thousands of corpses were piled up, along with earth, rocks, and wood that were dozens of times the volume of the corpses.

The Hangzhou defenders were not a very elite regular army. They were completely frightened by this point in the battle. Many of the defending soldiers had a mental breakdown and were like crazy, stupid and paralyzed.

On the eastern battlefield, where the fighting was most intense, Fang La's frenzied attack brought the bloodshed to a climax. Thousands of the old, weak, and sick, threatened by his sword, rushed forward, carrying baskets of earth in an attempt to build a gentle slope at the foot of the city walls, making it easier for the attackers to scale the walls.

Without caring about human lives, it is entirely possible to pile up a hill of earth with thousands of casualties. There are two piles of corpses and earth in the east of the city, less than ten feet away from the top of the city. The soldiers of Fang La's army rushed up the slope like crazy, and the city could be breached at any time.

By this point in the battle, Chen Jian and Zhao Yue were both injured to some extent, some from falls and some from stray arrows from the attackers.

At nightfall that day, Chen Jian and Zhao Yue, who felt they could no longer hold on, discussed it and decided to adopt the alternative plan that Zhao Zicheng had proposed.

"They'll probably collapse tomorrow, and definitely the day after tomorrow. We'd better move the innocent civilians and the wounded soldiers who fought bravely to the inner city as soon as possible. However, the inner city is small and can't accommodate so many people. The wealthy families who want to take refuge there must, as Zhao Tongpan suggested, donate their wealth and share the rewards with the soldiers who will stay in the outer city to block the rear!"

After the two reached an agreement, they immediately began to implement the plan.

When some wealthy families heard that the governor had allowed them to hide in the inner city, they cooperated and donated their property.

But where there are people, there are left, center and right. There are rich people who know how to protect themselves and understand the times, and there are those who are taking chances.

Some wealthy families would rather sacrifice their lives than their wealth, or they felt that Chen Jian and Zhao Yue's words were a threat, and believed that Fang La might not slaughter people indiscriminately after breaking into the city. Perhaps they could even "welcome the new dynasty" and express obedience in exchange for preferential treatment.

This is not surprising. Given the speed of information dissemination and communication media conditions in the Song Dynasty, many people could not see the situation clearly.

Not to mention the Song Dynasty, even in modern times, such as in the movie where Louis Koo plays the perverted young master of a warlord family, the rich families would still voluntarily surrender themselves to the murderer who "does not eat beef" in an attempt to save their lives.

Therefore, some wealthy Hangzhou families, unable to persuade Fang La with good advice, would rather not believe Chen Jian and Zhao Yue, believing that the corrupt officials were trying to scare them, than give up their wealth. Some even tried to send servants to escape the city walls and contact Fang La, in exchange for Fang La not liquidating them or robbing their property after entering the city.

Because the siege had been so brutal and bloody, and Chen Jian and Zhao Yue were short-handed, they were unable to completely block all communication within and outside the city. Consequently, a few wealthy families who wanted to collude with Fang La secretly launched small boats through the West Lake, west of the city, which was not under attack, and contacted Fang La.

When Fang La saw that his attack was so urgent, he finally made the people in the city uneasy. Some wealthy families were willing to surrender, saying that they helped to surrender and only asked that they would not be liquidated after entering the city, and it would be best if they could be allowed to deal with their original business competitors.

Fang La was of course overjoyed at this request and agreed to it without any bargaining.

As for his heart, of course he knew that as long as the city was broken, everything would be easy to deal with, and it didn't matter if the promises he had made in private before turned out to be nonsense.

After a complicated game of chess, the outer city of Hangzhou was finally captured by Fang La's army two days later.

Some civilians who donated their property to protect themselves and hid in the inner city, as well as the wounded soldiers who had fought bravely and were slightly injured, and quite a few of the remaining elite troops of the government, all withdrew into the inner city in advance and continued to organize defense.

After entering the city, Fang La stormed the treasury, discovering a surprising amount of gold, silver, and copper coins. He was immediately delighted. Furthermore, there was also a considerable amount of wealth scattered among the people. As Zhao Zicheng had predicted, Fang La's army engaged in a frenzy of looting, each seeking personal gain. After days of fierce, bloody fighting, with at least 20,000 casualties during the siege, the city was finally conquered. How could Fang La's soldiers care about anything else? Naturally, they wanted to let loose as quickly as possible, unleash all their previous frustrations, and exact revenge.

Fang La's army wanted to set fire to the city directly, but they were temporarily persuaded by Fang La and his main advisers - it was not because Fang La became merciful. Originally, in history, after Fang La broke into the city, he set fire to the entire city of Hangzhou for six consecutive days, and the prosperous place was reduced to rubble.

But in this life, because Chen Jian and Zhao Yue listened to Zhao Zicheng's advice, they left more property in the outer city for Fang La's army to rob. Fang La's army found that there might be money hidden by the people anywhere that they didn't have time to take away, so they were reluctant to burn the city indiscriminately.

What if a large amount of silk, satin, and tea were burned? That would be such a shame! The amount of silk available in Hangzhou is not ordinary.

It is a pleasure to see "the bones of nobles trampled on the streets", but it is not worth it to see "the inner treasury burned to ashes".

It's still possible to loot for a few days and then burn it after the looting is complete.

As for the wealthy families who had been promised by Fang La that "after entering the city, they would be treated as successful ministers", they immediately experienced what it meant to change one's attitude faster than turning the pages of a book.

These wealthy families who surrendered to the enemy did not even have the chance to see Fang La in person before they were directly overwhelmed by Fang La's chaotic army.

Before being killed, many wealthy families cried and shouted, "I was born into the emperor's family and I have made contributions to the new dynasty." However, no one listened to them and their entire families were killed and all their property was looted.

Fang La already knew that he could not stay in Hangzhou for long. He broke in to steal enough money and food to survive the winter and the next spring famine, and then quickly escape back to the mountains.

Since you don't want to stay for long, what's the point of keeping promises and seeking good reputation with these people?
Will the shop owner in a tourist attraction who does one-time business keep his word with his customers like the owner of the convenience store downstairs in the community?

Never pursue false reputation and suffer real disaster.

Almost all the wealthy families in Hangzhou who believed in Fang La were killed by Fang La's army overnight.

……

After Fang La used looting to release the fatigue accumulated from days of fierce attacks, he soon faced a new choice: should he call it a day, or try again to break through the inner city of Hangzhou in one go?
Fang La actually knew that after entering the outer city, his morale and cohesion had obviously declined.

But he was not playing a game after all, and he could not use cheats to display everyone's loyalty and morale, so he relied on his experience to estimate and ultimately temporarily overestimated his own morale.

There were also rumors circulating that the government troops were at the end of their strength and that the inner city was untenable and would collapse at any moment. There was more treasure and food in the inner city to plunder, and if it were broken into, the gains would be even more substantial.

Tempted by these factors, Fang La finally decided to give it a try.

He would never be willing to give up unless he tried this once. And even if he did, his generals would use this cowardice as an excuse to make trouble for him in the future. Even if he fled back to the Muzhou mountainous area, no one would obey him.

How can you not eat up all the fat meat you have got?
So after just over a day of looting, Fang La urged his soldiers to reorganize and launch a powerful attack on the inner city.

The soldiers of Fang La's army were all reluctant. Who would still want to fight when they were already filled with treasure? For a time, there was almost a small-scale mutiny.

Under Fang La's urging, the demoralized soldiers were forced into a tough fight, but Chen Jian and Zhao Yue in the inner city refused to retreat, showing a determination no less than when they defended the outer city.

Even more terrible was that Zhao Yue personally shouted from the top of the inner city wall to boost morale: "Soldiers! You have all seen Fang La's atrocities in the outer city! If Fang La breaks into the inner city, he will not leave a single person alive!

"Before, some wealthy families in the outer city took advantage of Fang La's promise and chose to surrender to the enemy. Now they have all been killed! Not a single one is left alive! All their property has been robbed! After Fang La has looted them, he will set the entire city on fire! Only by fighting to the death can we survive!"

Seeing the fires that appeared from time to time in the outer city, the burned houses, the endless screams and the continuous killing and looting, the soldiers and civilians in the inner city finally saw through Fang La and no longer had any hope.

With everyone working together, Fang La couldn't break in at all.

At this moment, he finally realized that the situation had changed. Ever since he had taken the outer city, the inner city could no longer be captured.

What’s even worse is that Fang La’s younger brother Fang Fei brought even more serious bad news on the first night after his brother’s initial attack on the inner city failed.

"Brother! Over in Haining, Zhao Zicheng has broken through the detachment we left behind to blockade the city and is heading towards Hangzhou! It must be the government scouts who saw the fire in Hangzhou and came to rescue!"

Fang La was completely calmed down by this bad news.

"What? Zhao Zicheng is here again? He dares to take the initiative to attack me in a field battle?"

Fang Fei: "The news is correct. The key now is how to respond. Should we leave the city and engage in a field battle? Or should we defend the city and hold the outer city of Hangzhou?"

Fang La gritted his teeth and said, "How can we defend the outer city? The inner city hasn't been breached yet, and Chen Jian and Zhao Yue are still holding on there. What's the point of only having an outer city?

If we are blocked in the city by Zhao Zicheng, even though he doesn't have enough troops to break through, he can just hold us back until the rest of Tong Guan's rear army arrives, and then none of us will be able to escape!"

Fang Fei: "Then... break out as soon as you've looted enough?"

Fang La waved his hand. "No, if we run away directly, the troops will be scattered. Now everyone is carrying property, and once they start running, we will be unable to stop them. Our army should meet Zhao Zicheng and let him know that in a fair and square battle, his several thousand men are still no match for us. Only then can our army withdraw safely."

Otherwise, if Zhao Zicheng were to chase us with a small number of cavalry, how could we escape back to the Fuchun Mountains? You idiot, haven't you even heard the story of Cao Cao's retreat from Zhang Xiu? Cao Cao even knew to leave elite troops behind when withdrawing his troops!

When Fang Fei heard this, he felt that his elder brother's wisdom was indeed beyond his reach. His elder brother even knew how to imitate Cao Cao's military strategies. It seemed that there was still hope of stopping Zhao Zicheng.

So Fang La's army could only scout and learn about the progress of Zhao Zicheng's army and where it had reached. At the same time, they quickly gathered their troops and hurriedly left Hangzhou City, preparing to fight a wave of enemies in the field before fleeing.

(End of this chapter)