choke element

Chapter 1009: Using Length (Part )

It’s not that Han Yanmo was ignorant, but the people of the Song Dynasty at that time generally did not take the Mongols seriously.

A few years ago, the Mongols had indeed swept across the Central Plains, earning a great reputation. But after a while, they turned around and headed west. The people of the Central Plains who had suffered so much from them still have lingering fears when they think about it, but the Song people did not fight the Mongols head-on after all.

In the past two years, many people have regretted that since the Jin Dynasty was so weak, they should have led their troops north to sweep away the barbarian atmosphere in the Central Plains, rather than being taken advantage of by a frontier warrior. Under this trend of thought, many people exaggerated the weakness of the Jin Dynasty. The greatest achievement of the Mongols was to defeat the Jin Dynasty, and the importance it received became lower and lower.

Moreover, Sichuan, unlike other places, has always had a tradition of dealing with foreign races. In the eyes of Sichuanese, the Liao, Jin, Xia and other countries in the north are indeed a bit scary, and Dali in the south is just so-so.

There were powerful foreign tribes close to the Song Dynasty and even within its borders, and there were more than a hundred of them. They were distributed in dozens of military states in Sichuan, with territories stretching over a thousand miles. They were called "the tough barbarians and evil ministers," and their number was nearly tens of millions.

The Song Dynasty mainly governed these foreign tribes through the system of vassalage, maintained good relations through salt trade, and recruited a large number of people from these tribes as local soldiers and volunteers to serve them. The powerful families in various places used more of these people as guards, because they had short hair and tattoos, and their appearance was ferocious and scary.

Han Yanmo used to be a thief, and when he encountered these guards while robbing people on the road, he would kill them one by one with his sword, and he was not afraid of them because they were foreign barbarians. So when he heard about the Mongols, his first reaction was not to be afraid.

Luo Yingkui was wise and said quickly, "Tuo Lei can escort so many officials. He has thousands of Mongolians under his command, all of whom are skilled in archery and horsemanship. How can they be compared with the local barbarians? Moreover... Hey, look, even the captain is so sensible, why should we be so stubborn? Brother, don't act like a bandit. Since you are eating the government's food, you should be humble! There will be many more things to welcome and see off in the future!"

Luo Yingkui has always had this attitude. In fact, the brothers did not become thieves willingly back then, because the officials were tyrannical and oppressive. Nowadays, even thieves can't get enough food, so they took advantage of the rebellion in Xingyuan Prefecture to get the emperor's food, and the status of serving in the army with a little martial arts... At least it's a legitimate way.

Han Yanmo knew that Luo Yingkui had served in the army when he was young and had fought against the Jurchens. Although he had no choice but to become a bandit later, he regretted it in his heart. So now he took this little soldier's identity very seriously, and had the idea that heroes could always win wealth and honor regardless of their background with martial arts and loyalty.

Han Yanmo didn't like this kind of attitude of being keen on fame and fortune, but he was too lazy to argue with his brother, so he said "Hey" and stopped talking. He just leaned against the battlement on the city wall, looked at the captain with a smile on his face, turned sideways to meet the passers-by, and led them respectfully through the gap in the trench.

The vehicle was very heavy, and the horizontal road below the city gate was very narrow. The Mongolians, who were wearing furry coats and had no skills in driving, were in a dilemma.

The captain repeatedly ordered the soldiers to come out to help.

This narrow entrance road is not only part of the defense system, but also a place where the garrison usually uses to manipulate merchants and travelers and demand benefits. The captain called out, and the soldiers thought that Tuolei would not be stingy, so they all went down. Only Han Yanmo remained up there.

The soldiers couldn't help laughing as they saw this group of Mongols dragging the vehicles into the city. It was a cold day and several of them were sweating profusely.

The vehicles in front had stopped along the road, occupying half of the north-south road of the small city, and the last vehicle was dawdling. The Mongolian driver had no idea how to adjust the direction of the two wheels of the vehicle, and the horse was not skilled either, so the vehicle almost hit the city gate.

Luo Yingkui leaned against the city gate and dodged a Mongolian sitting sideways on a carriage. The Mongolian smelled strong and made him dizzy. Although he asked his brother to be humble, he was not from a good family after all. He covered his nose and laughed, "It's strange. The people who are guarding the caravan can't drive a carriage? Don't you have a bad brain? The master in front, do you want me to help drive the carriage?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the felt on the vehicle was suddenly lifted. Many men who had been crowded in the vehicle suddenly jumped out, wielding sharp blades and slashing and killing people.

The Mongolian man sitting diagonally on the carriage swung his knife at Luo Yingkui and chopped him off. Luo Yingkui had no time to react and could only raise his hand to block the attack.

The knife fell, and his right arm was cut off at the elbow. Wang Lichan rushed to the side to protect himself, but the Mongolian thrust his knife into his neck. The force from top to bottom was so strong that the blade pierced through half of his neck and throat, and blood spurted out from below his collarbone.

Seeing his companions lying dead on the ground, Luo Yingkui screamed and ran towards the city. After just a dozen steps, he saw that the city was already in chaos. The carriages were loaded with ferocious warriors wearing armor and carrying swords. They killed everywhere like a tiger among a flock of sheep. The roads in the city, under the low walls and beside the wells were full of frantically fleeing soldiers and their families, and the fleeing people soon turned into corpses.

Luo Yingkui felt the pain in his broken arm was unbearable, and his vision went dark. He did not dare to go in the direction where the Mongols gathered, and staggered to run towards the slope behind the city gate. But he fell down after just a few steps. It turned out that the Mongols who were following him swung their swords and cut his leg tendons with just one blow.

As he rolled to the ground, he heard roars from above. It turned out that his brother Han Yanmo jumped down, and the sword light fell like a streak, colliding with the Mongolian scimitar.

As expected of a powerful bandit from the mountains, Han Yanmo’s martial arts were quite good. The Mongols blocked his attacks several times and retreated repeatedly.

Han Yanmo advanced step by step, and when he reached Luo Yingkui, he waved his sword to intimidate him, half-knelt down and used his left hand to pull Luo Yingkui, trying to pull Luo Yingkui back.

But how could Luo Yingkui stand up? He struggled a few times, but his body didn't move very far, and the wounds on his hands and feet gushed out bright red blood, which had soaked the rammed earth under him.

At this time, if only one person can escape, it is better than all of them dying. Luo Yingkui summoned up his last bit of strength and shouted hoarsely, "Go!"

Han Yanmo lowered his head and smiled, then he exerted force suddenly and his whole body froze.

He slowly sat down beside Luo Yingkui, and then lay on his back.

Luo Yingkui then discovered that Han Yanmo's left chest was trembling with an arrow shaft, and he was already dead. The whistling sounds that cut through the air came one after another, and that was the Mongols slowly shooting arrows at all moving targets.

In a trance, Luo Yingkui heard someone walking towards him and stomping his feet.

The man trembled and said, "How can you kill people like this! This is the pass of my Song Dynasty. These are the soldiers and civilians of my Song Dynasty!"

"But this is also the only way our army must take."

Tolui, who had been accompanied by the captain into the depths of the city, came back and stood not far in front of Luo Yingkui.

"You Song people are good at talking and getting things done, I like you very much. But there is one thing, none of you are straightforward. I have killed all the soldiers outside Xingyuan Prefecture as agreed. Then shouldn't you open the passes along the way and let our army move eastward as soon as possible? It's a simple matter, why hesitate? Why shirk responsibility? If you insist on delaying, I have no choice but to do it myself... Why make a fuss?"

The person who spoke earlier was silent for a while.

"So many people were killed just to pass Raofeng Pass. How many more people will you kill as you go east? Are you doing this to make yourself an enemy of the Song Dynasty?"

"I don't care how many people I kill. I don't care about being the enemy of the Song Dynasty."

Tuolei laughed twice and said, "In addition, not all the warriors who followed me this time are Mongolian warriors. There are also Qiang people and Tibetans from Maozhou. Have you ever thought about where these people came from? In fact, there are people in Song who hope that we Mongols and the Great Zhou will fight hard, so that we can suppress our northern neighbors a little. Do you want me to tell you the name of that person? With the power of our army and the support of that person, what do you think I can do?"

After a long time, the man who had spoken earlier said, "I cannot show up myself no matter what! However, I will send you a hundred people who are familiar with the road and can arrange for food and supplies along the way. Please pass through as soon as possible and don't cause any more trouble!"

"Haha, haha, that's fine too."

Tuo Lei had been traveling in and out of the Song territory for a long time, and he was becoming more and more familiar with the roundabout ways of speaking of Song officials. When he heard that Dong Juyi regarded his raid on Raofeng Pass as "causing trouble", he knew that Dong Juyi had completely surrendered, and whatever he asked him to do next would go smoothly.

Wouldn't it be better to do this earlier? It was originally a simple matter, but they had to be so hesitant and everyone had to hide behind. Sure enough, the old habits of the Song people could not be changed. To deal with them, you have to use knives and human lives to talk to them.

Having said that, Tolui did not despise the Song people because of this.

After the defeat in Shandong and the loss of military power, Tolui quickly took control of the administrative power in the Western Regions, making up for the dilemma of not knowing what to do after the massacre by the Mongolian army. His power was almost enough to sideline Genghis Khan. That was because there were many talented Han people among his subordinates, and even other Khitans and Jurchens read Han books and were no different from Han people.

I heard from them that the Han people and the Song people are actually one family, just like all the people of all the tribes on the Mongolian grasslands are Mongolians.

Therefore, when Tolui was deprived of power again and had to come to Song to start a new business, he did not hesitate to recruit many subordinates from Song, and even became almost half Song himself. This enabled him to seize the opportunity in a short time and introduce the Mongols into the territory of Song. He also spent a huge amount of resources to privately establish contact with a powerful figure in Song, so as to find out his immediate concerns and long-term concerns, and secretly reach a tacit understanding.

Because of such experiences, Tolui sometimes even felt that if he wanted to accomplish great things, he should rely more on many foreign races, including the Song people, and only use the Mongols as a killing knife.

This is what is meant by making use of people's strengths.

There was a sound of hurried footsteps in the city, and a Mongolian centurion came hurriedly and reported to Tolui: "Fourth Prince, everyone in the city has been killed, and the granary and arsenal have also been found."

"Urge the troops behind to speed up, have the captain bring people to get weapons and armor, and feed all the food to the horses. I want to see all the troops arrive here before dark, and continue to set off tomorrow morning."

Tolui gave the order briskly, then raised his foot and kicked away a one-armed dead man with round eyes in front of him.

(End of this chapter)