I am Emperor Shizu of Song

Chapter 167 If Kou can go, so can I!

While Zhao Zicheng was defeating Zhong Xiang and Yang Yao in Ezhou and advancing further towards Yuezhou...

In October, the outer Northeast is already covered in snow and bleak weather, and the weather is gradually getting colder.

Yue Fei led 5,000 cavalrymen, with plenty of warhorses, pulling 20 light cannons. Everyone was wearing thick cotton-padded coats and carrying a large amount of dried meat and other food supplies that did not take up much space and were relatively lightweight. They galloped through the vast forest and snowfields east of Anchuhu Ridge.

The task given to him by His Highness the Regent was extremely difficult, and the plan was very thorough, but when it came to actually implementing it, countless unexpected difficulties and obstacles still appeared in front of Yue Fei.

For example, as early as the end of September, after the fleet arrived at Vladivostok Bay, they went upstream from the mouth of the Suifen River. Yue Fei had a good plan; he tried to use the Suifen River (Xupin River) to travel as much as possible by water to reduce the pressure on land transportation throughout the journey.

The Xupin River was marked on the map Zhao Zicheng gave him, which also emphasized that the river flows into the sea in Vladivostok Bay. It was also mentioned that the upper reaches of the river could reach deep into the territory of Huligai Road east of Anchuhu Ridge, which belonged to the Jin people.

However, Zhao Zicheng's geographical knowledge from his previous life could not possibly be too detailed. The spies he sent to the Northeast in advance, as well as the local Goryeo descendants he interviewed, did not know anything about navigation or the depth of the waters.

Therefore, the hydrological conditions of the Suifen River are not marked on the map at all.

After Yue Fei's army entered the estuary in Vladivostok Bay, they sailed north along the uninhabited area for less than two hundred li before they had to switch to riding horses because the river was dangerous and the water was shallow in winter, making it impossible for sea vessels to pass.

As the weather grew colder, the Suifen River even began to freeze over, forcing Yue Fei to further reduce his forces and retreat south to prevent the fleet from being frozen solid in the inland waterway.

The number of men he had available had also decreased from five thousand to about four thousand six or seven hundred, with several hundred of them being sent back to provide support for the garrison ships.

The remaining men continued north, eating dried meat and braving wind and snow along the way, traveling nearly a hundred li a day for more than ten days. Along the way, they left behind several makeshift camps constructed from felled timber. When the army marched again, the camps were left in the no-man's-land and not dismantled, so that they could be reused if they passed through again during a future retreat.

Anyway, these camps are all set up along the Suifen River Valley, so it will be easy to find them when we return by the same route. And since there is no human habitation in this area, leaving the camps behind will not expose our whereabouts.

In this environment where birds had vanished from the mountains and human tracks were nowhere to be found, Yue Fei hurried along, groping his way forward for half a month.

Upon arriving at Anchuhu Ridge, some minor mishaps occurred. The planned route across the mountain valley was blocked by heavy winter snow, preventing Yue Fei from crossing Anchuhu Ridge from the area around Mudanjiang City in later generations to enter the Shangjing Plain (the plain surrounding Harbin).
However, this matter has both advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is that Yue Fei himself had to take a detour, while the advantage is that the Jin people's communication on the east and west sides of Anchuhu Ridge was also cut off. Even if the Jin people east of Anchuhu Ridge discovered the problem, they would not be able to warn the Shangjing Road to the west in time.

After some deliberation, Yue Fei had no choice but to deal with the situation head-on and decided to take a detour further north, turning into the Shangjing Plain from the more open area marked on the map. That place was roughly close to Jixi and Qitaihe in Heilongjiang Province in later years. After passing through Huling, the terrain in that area would become relatively flat, making it easy to march on horseback.

The morale of the troops was severely damaged. Despite being protected by thick, custom-made cotton-padded coats, some soldiers still lost fingers due to frostbite during the repeated marches in the bitter cold.

Of the 4,600 to 7,000 soldiers, more than 100 were frozen to the point of near death and completely unable to move, or even froze to death.

After a long and arduous march, Yue Fei's remaining combat-ready soldiers had dwindled to 4,500. Fortunately, their horses were all selected from the Northeast region, and none of them had frozen to death, allowing them to continue the march.

Seeing this grim situation and low morale, Yue Fei had no choice but to try every means to boost morale. He told everyone, "The more difficult the march, the lower the Jin people's defenses will be. We can endure hardship first and enjoy the rewards later. The more difficult the march, the easier the battle will be."

He delivered all the impassioned speeches he could, and the soldiers, being loyal, courageous, and cooperative, held out for a while longer.

But the physiological limits of human beings cannot be changed by words of encouragement. Seeing that the situation was not right, Yue Fei decisively adjusted the plan. While taking a detour, he ordered his troops to launch a surprise attack and massacre a Jin camp in the Huligai area, roughly in the area of ​​Mudanjiang in later generations.

Yue Fei dared to change the plan in this way because he considered that "the valleys over the mountain from Anchuhu Ridge are all blocked. Even if we delay for two more days on the east side of Anchuhu Ridge and kill some Jurchens, none of them will be alive to cross the mountain and send a message."

Moreover, he did a truly clean job; no one escaped alive. Even if some Jurchens had survived, in such a hasty escape, they wouldn't have been able to carry enough supplies and would have starved or frozen to death on the snowy mountains.

After capturing a Jurchen stronghold in Huligai Road, Yue Fei finally received a full supply of fresh provisions. He had his soldiers warm themselves by the fire to recover and rest for a day or two. They then roasted and feasted on all the fresh game meat that the Jurchens had kept for winter and drank it all. They also searched out and drank all the wine left by the Jurchens.

After the soldiers recovered their strength, Yue Fei led them to continue their roundabout raid.

After such arduous and difficult journeys, they finally managed to bypass Anchuhu Ridge from the north.

Although the operation took a few days longer than planned, the Jurchens were completely unaware of the colder weather. In the Northeast during this era, in the snowy forests between the Lesser Khingan Mountains and the Anchuhu Mountains, who would have thought that a Song Dynasty cavalry force would appear in this place?

Moreover, even if we take a step back and assume that it wasn't for the cotton-padded coats specially supplied by Zhao Zicheng, Yue Fei's troops would have all frozen to death even if they reached this position.

Everything has exceeded the imagination of humankind in this era.

……

When Yue Fei finally entered the plains of the Jin people's Shangjing Road, it was already the second day of the eleventh month of that year.

With only 300 li to go before reaching the capital, Yue Fei was already mentally prepared to fight a bloody battle against the Jin army on the plains and break through with surprise attacks.

But it was also a blessing from heaven for China. Because Yue Fei arrived late, even though he entered the plains, there was no one in the wild because the Jurchens hibernated in their villages during the winter. For the first two days, Yue Fei used the "leapfrog tactic" to bypass the villages and avoid the simple official roads, and he was still not discovered.

He even had the chance to approach an undefended Jurchen stronghold under cover of night, then surround it in the darkness before rushing in to kill and set fires.

The startled Jurchens were in an uproar. Some grabbed weapons and fought back, while others tried to escape to report the danger. However, because Yue Fei had first surrounded the stronghold tightly before taking action, the Jurchens who rushed out were all surrounded and killed, with none managing to break through.

Before Yue Fei made his final charge into Wuguo City, he was given another day to sleep, rest, eat, and drink to recover.

It wasn't until the last stretch of road, from Shangzhi County in what would later become Harbin to Acheng District in Harbin, about 160 li (approximately 80 kilometers), that Yue Fei could no longer take detours or sneak attacks, as it was already too close to the core area of ​​the Jurchens, that he finally rested up and launched a direct assault.

He set off before dawn, and after two watch-hours, he had traveled about forty li. Finally, when he was still one hundred and twenty li away from the capital, he was discovered by a hunting party of the Jurchens.

After their initial shock, the Jurchens hurriedly investigated and scattered. Yue Fei tried his best to kill some, but some still managed to escape back and report the bad news to the Jurchen high command in the capital.

……

"What? The Song army has appeared less than a hundred miles east of Wuguo City? That's impossible!"

When Emperor Taizong of Jin, Wanyan Wugumai, heard the news, he jumped up from his tiger-skin throne in astonishment.

The golden statues and elders in the hall were all utterly shocked.

At present, there are not many troops in Shangjing City. The entire Shangjing Road can only gather 5,000 Jurchen cavalry. Of course, if the old, weak, herdsmen and hunters are included, and they are made to take up arms for self-defense, more can be gathered.

In the event of an emergency, it is impossible to notify them within a day and then have them rush to the capital to provide reinforcements.

Wanyan Wuqimai only had two or three thousand men at his disposal.

There were quite a few Jurchen civilians in the city, but most of them were very old. The young people had all gone south to make their way in the world, burning, killing, looting, and fighting the Song people. The old men couldn't withstand the hardships and stayed in their hometown.

In particular, Zhao Zicheng had recently launched a large-scale attack on Ezhou and defeated Zhong Xiang's more than 100,000 troops. The scale of that battle was so great that the Jin state was afraid that Zhao Zicheng would cut off Zhao Gou's territory in one fell swoop. Therefore, the Jin people had drawn all the main forces they could to the Huguang battlefield.

Hubei and Hunan are thousands of miles away from Northeast China. With such a large-scale mobilization, it is no exaggeration to say that the old base in Northeast China is extremely vulnerable.

I have never heard of a Han Chinese regime ever using such a method: you fight your way, I fight my way, and you take a detour of thousands of miles to steal my home!
Although Huo Qubing once sealed the wolf's lair and Li Jing once launched a night raid on Yinshan, those were all based on the fact that the core territories of the Han and Tang dynasties were completely controlled by the Han and Tang courts, and then the northern expeditions were sent to add to the glory!
How could anyone act like Zhao Zicheng, whose heartland was still in the hands of the Jurchens, and then recklessly come to exchange it for another territory! Shouldn't he have first thought about how to recover Huguang, Xiangyang, and then Bianjing?

Why don't you follow the routine?

What a lunatic!

The Jin Dynasty's high-ranking officials who remained in the capital were utterly shocked for a whole year.

Wanyan Wuqimai was completely bewildered for a long time before he finally made up his mind.

"Immediately summon troops from all cities along the capital to come to the aid of the emperor! But urgent reports come from the messengers... Never mind, do not notify the troops in the south for now. Distant water cannot quench immediate thirst, and the Song's sneak attack cannot possibly take the capital. According to the scouts, there are only a few thousand men. I and my ministers will defend the capital to the death and annihilate this Song force!"

After regaining his composure, Wanyan Wuqimai didn't consider shameful options like breaking out or fleeing. He felt that even at this point, holding Shangjing City would be easy; the Song cavalry had come from afar, could they really attack the city?

Besides, even without cities, in open field battles alone, the Song people were no match for the Jin warriors!

Although the last few thousand people on Shangjing Road were not many and were quite old, they were once a formidable army that had fought for many years. Many of them had participated in the war to destroy Liao, but they were left behind to guard their homeland because of their old age or injuries.

At Wanyan Wuqimai's command, the Jurchens immediately began to besiege the city. Simple rammed earth and chevaux-de-frise defenses were filled in by countless soldiers, who waited for the enemy to attack.

As for engaging in combat or other fancy maneuvers, Wanyan Wuqimai did not act rashly. Although he still looked down on the Song people's field combat capabilities, this enemy force had arrived too suddenly. The fact that they could appear here on such a rapid march meant they must have extraordinary abilities, and they might even be the most elite force in the entire Song army.

Yue Fei thus easily marched forward and approached the capital city of Shangjing.

……

As Yue Fei approached, in several cellars within the capital city used to imprison prisoners, groups of miserable Song prisoners stared blankly and vacantly at everything unfolding before them.

"What on earth happened?" Zhao Huan, who was walking with a cane, looked at the Jin soldiers rushing back and forth in the commotion outside with a blank expression.

In another cellar, Zhao Ji was so ill that he could only lie there and could not get up. Although in history Zhao Ji lived for seven or eight years after arriving in the Northeast, his health was very poor when he first arrived there because of the change in environment.

More importantly, after arriving in the capital last month, they suffered all kinds of humiliation and were just subjected to a sheep-leading ceremony and other captive presentation rituals, which brought them to the brink of mental collapse.

To ensure they wouldn't cause trouble during the ceremony and would cooperate obediently, the Jurchens deliberately locked them in a dark room for three days beforehand, without food. They used hunger to completely break down the arrogance of the emperor and his son, who might otherwise have been unwilling to lead the sheep.

After starving for three days, Zhao Huan lost all his backbone and did whatever he was told, even leading sheep.

After the ceremony, the Jurchens finally restored his food supply, but it consisted of nothing more than some yellowed, stale rice and a few slightly sour pickled vegetable leaves, similar to Northeastern sauerkraut. After eating like this for several days, Zhao Huan wept westward day and night, his mind completely broken down.

Seeing him wandering around aimlessly, the Jurchen guards watching over him immediately whipped him with their gun barrels, forcing him to return to the cellar and hide obediently.

But before long, news still managed to get in uncontrollably. Emperor Huizong and his son Emperor Huan also vaguely heard about it.

"It seems that a Song army has attacked! But we don't know who is leading the troops!"

The spirits of Emperor Huizong and his son Emperor Huan were greatly lifted, and other surviving members of the imperial clan who had heard the news were also deeply shocked.

Seeing the Jin army being mobilized in such a chaotic manner, it all seemed possible that it was true.

"Who exactly came to save me? Weren't all the members of my Song imperial family captured? Are the remaining ministers fighting their own battles? Or has the Central Plains descended into chaos, with warlords fighting against the Jin dynasty on their own?"

Zhao Huan was unaware that his ninth brother, Zhao Gou, had once tried to escape but failed, and was eventually controlled by the Jurchens as a puppet and released back.

Therefore, after much deliberation, Zhao Huan could only think of Zhao Zicheng as the only person with the surname Zhao who could still control the situation.

"Could he be one of Prince Xiu's men? Before the fall of Bianjing, Prince Xiu went to Jingdong Road alone to quell the rebellion, but we don't know how it went. If he can sweep away the rebels like Liu Yu and others as easily as Guo Ziyi single-handedly repelled the Uyghurs, he could easily take control of Jingdong Road. He also has quite a strong foothold in Liangzhe Road. Could it be that he is still dealing with the Jurchens while relying on several routes along the eastern coast?"

……

Zhao Ji, Zhao Huan, and other members of the Zhao family who had sensed the impending storm eagerly awaited news. Yue Fei, after a day's march, finally approached the capital city.

In the afternoon, when they were only twenty or thirty li away from Shangjing, Yue Fei stopped to rest for more than an hour to recover his strength, eat, and drink.

He knew that a surprise attack to seize the city was impossible. Since that was impossible, he would conserve his strength and adjust his condition before fighting again. An hour or two would allow for some mobilization within the city, but it would definitely not be enough for reinforcements from other cities to arrive.

It was past mid-Shenshi (3-5 PM) when Yue Fei remounted his horse and led his spirited soldiers on a final march, arriving at the city of Shangjing after nightfall.

The Jin soldiers were on high alert on the city walls, and they couldn't understand why the Song soldiers would approach after dark. Did the Song soldiers have such confidence that they would dare to set up camp outside the city and launch a steady siege of Shangjing?
If that's the case, the Jurchens don't care; in fact, they'd be happy for it. A day or two later, reinforcements from other parts of the Shangjing region will arrive, and then only death awaits Yue Fei!
However, just as the Jurchens were puzzled, Yue Fei did not set up camp, but instead took action directly.

Under the cover of night, he ordered his troops to deploy the dozen or so cavalry cannons that had been painstakingly brought from afar to a location very close to the walls of the capital, and then to concentrate fire on the city towers and gates.

Because they were unaware of the true strength of the Song people, and because the Jin people were the ones defending the city and did not act rashly, no one came out of the city to stop Yue Fei when he did all this.

After all, no Jurchen people in this world had ever seen a cannon, so no one would think of guarding against something that didn't exist.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!" Light bronze cannons launched large iron balls weighing five jin (approximately 2.5 catties) each, which slammed straight into the city tower, gate, and earthen wall of the east gate of Shangjing City.

The simultaneous firing of nearly twenty shells left everyone, both human and animal, who had never heard of such a sound before, utterly terrified.

Even the rats and foxes living in their burrows on the snowfield were shaken out and scurried around everywhere.

Several shells were fired, flying over the city walls and into the city, either missing completely or hitting houses, creating large holes in the earthen walls and thatched roofs.

Most of the shells still landed within the gate and wall area. The thick wooden door was hit by two iron balls, which pierced a large hole and broke three or five thick wooden planks. The remaining shells that hit the city tower and earthen wall also knocked down large areas of rammed earth or scattered bricks and tiles.

"What's that noise? Could it be the thunderous bombs fired by the Song soldiers defending the city?"

The Jurchen soldiers on the city wall were inexplicably panicked and had no idea how to respond.

Yue Fei calmly cleaned and reloaded the hull, a process that took several minutes, but the Jin people were still dumbfounded and had no idea how to react.

When Yue Fei calmly fired the second volley of cannonballs, the Jin people realized that this weapon was not disposable and could be reused. It wasn't until the third volley that the Jin people were completely convinced they could no longer allow this weapon to be used effectively and had to launch a field counterattack!
By this point, Yue Fei had already blown several large holes in the city gate, making it completely crumbling. Several sections of the city tower had also collapsed, and several breaches had appeared in the remaining rammed earth walls and barricades.

"Quickly open the north and south gates... no, only the south gate, and let the eleventh brother take two Meng'an out of the city to intercept and kill the Song people's mine squads!" In the end, Emperor Taizong of Jin, Wanyan Wuqimai, personally issued an edict, ordering his eleventh brother, Wanyan Zhamu, to lead cavalry out of the city via a detour to launch a counterattack.

Wanyan Zhamu was also a general of the Jin Dynasty. After all, he was the half-brother of Emperor Taizu and Emperor Taizong, so his status and position were considerable. He had twice marched south to attack the Song Dynasty, and his troops had even clashed with Zhao Zicheng's forces. Historically, Wanyan Zhamu was in charge of the campaign against the Jingdong Road. If it weren't for Zhao Zicheng, he could have fought all the way to Weizhou on the Shandong Peninsula.

However, he was getting old and in poor health, so after Bianjing was captured and the Song emperor was arrested, Wanyan Zhamu went back to her hometown in the north with the escort team. She could help her brother guard the family and also take care of her health and old age.

Historically, this person only had two years left to live, but no matter how bad his health was, now that the Song people had come to his doorstep, he would definitely have to force himself to continue despite his illness.

By the time Wanyan Zhamu circled around from the south of the city to the east and approached Yue Fei's army formation, Yue Fei had already breached the defenses of the east gate of Shangjing City, and was almost ready to charge in.

Yue Fei, with a solemn expression, ordered all his cavalrymen to mount their horses and prepare for a charge.

Yue Fei brought 5,000 cavalry this time, but there were losses and retreats along the way, so now only 4,500 cavalry can be put into battle.

However, due to the long distance traveled, only a very small number of people carried steel armor.

The Song army's latest cavalry armor featured a one-piece, water-forged plate design for the chest area, similar to later models. The remaining sections retained the design of the Qing Tang wart armor to ensure both flexibility and defense.

At the same time, because the cold forging effect of water-powered forging hammers is far superior to that of human handcraftsmanship, the quality of Yue Family Army's steel armor is obviously far superior to the original Qing Tang wart armor of the same era.

At this moment, about a thousand of Yue Fei's soldiers were wearing steel armor, while the rest wore light armor with goose feathers and crocodile skin, with cotton-padded jackets underneath, and they charged head-on with the Jin army.

On the Jurchen side, there were a thousand Ironclad Cavalry and a thousand cavalrymen, a mix of ranged and melee combat, light and heavy armor.

Although the soldiers were not in good physical condition or were old enough to retire, their combat experience and morale were definitely not lacking; they were all seasoned veterans who had seen life and death many times.

Even in the darkness of night, by the light of a torch, Yue Fei could see that many of the Jurchen cavalrymen charging towards him had gray hair and beards.

From soldiers to generals, they were all veterans who had survived countless battles. They had plenty of experience, but their physical strength could only be tested in combat.

"You old thief, prepare to die! Fire!" Yue Fei, relying on his age of only twenty-five and the fact that he was surrounded by young, strong, and vigorous warriors, shouted the order. As the enemy cavalry was about to charge close, he ordered all of the dozen or so cavalry cannons to be reloaded with shotgun shells for the first and last round of firing in the battle.

Unlike muskets, cannons in this era could not be reloaded on the battlefield. Therefore, they relied on the pre-loaded, single volley of grapeshot, which they had detected before the enemy cavalry approached, to deliver the decisive blow.

To ensure the cannons could perform optimally, Yue Fei ordered the light cavalry to spread out slightly to the flanks, leaving only the heavy cavalry in the center, hidden behind the cannon array. He even refrained from having the heavy cavalry accelerate early, instead standing quietly dozens of paces behind the cannons, waiting for a cold start.

"Boom boom boom!" With the rain of gravel from the shrapnel, the dense formation of the Iron Pagoda led by Wanyan Zhamu was instantly blasted into several bloody paths. The heavy artillery bombardment within fifty paces completely stunned Wanyan Zhamu.

His flag formation, in particular, was the focus of the Song artillery. Although he was heavily guarded, his banner was blown off, and at least three to five of his personal guards were scattered and fell.

The bloody remains of the corpse, along with splattered blood and brain matter, were everywhere.

(End of this chapter)