choke element

Chapter 1027 Counterattack (Part )

Shi Miyuan was willing to lend the country to Mongolia. On the one hand, it was to disrupt the situation on the border so that he could find an excuse to exile his political enemies in the court, so that he could free up his hands and calmly manipulate the selection of the royal successor in Lin'an; on the other hand, he naturally wanted to cause some trouble and chaos for the new neighbor in the north, and use a war in the heart of the Central Plains to delay the rise of the Great Zhou Dynasty.

From his position, such an idea could be considered as shrewd and calculating. But it was precisely because of his position that he could not foresee what kind of shock this move would bring to the Song Dynasty. And because the whole plan involved confidential information, it was completely decided in the tent, without any leakage, which led to the failure of his subordinates to remind him.

Therefore, when the nearby Central Plains was hit by war, the people outside the Central Plains who were the first to receive the news and the first to be shocked and angry were actually concentrated in the east and west routes of Huainan in the Song Dynasty.

They were officials who pinned their fortunes on business, farmers who could live a stable life because of continued peace, craftsmen who worked in various workshops and mines that were constantly opened in close cooperation between the two families, and merchants who had increasingly close exchanges with the Central Plains.

In the past few years, the Great Zhou has been infiltrating the Lianghuai region of the Great Song Dynasty in various ways, and even in its own Central Plains and Shandong, it has almost completely condoned the exchanges of the Song people. However, there are very few Song officials who have taken measures to restrain this.

In this respect, the Lianghuai area is very different from the Jinghu area.

Zhao Fang, the commander-in-chief of Jinghu, was clear about both military and political affairs. The interaction between the people under his rule and the Great Zhou was always under control.

Jia She, the most powerful official in the Huai River region, had a private relationship with the Zhou court that was deeper than outsiders could imagine. Li Yun, a close minister of the Zhou emperor and a senior official in charge of industry and commerce, often went south to raise funds and would half-jokingly call Jia She "father"... Under such a close relationship, Huai River and Huai River were nominally the territory of the Song Dynasty, but in fact, more people relied on the Zhou Dynasty for their livelihood.

On the other hand, the various parts of the Central Plains of the Great Zhou Dynasty were closely tied to the Lianghuai area, relying on the transportation capacity of the major rivers.

Once the Central Plains is engulfed in war, it will be extremely terrifying for Lianghuai.

At the beginning of the Mongol invasion, countless factories and mines stopped working, and the Song people who worked there fled back one after another. When the war spread, those who fled back narrated with horror the terrible massacres and lootings of the Mongols. More and more people fled back with injuries, and more and more people were trapped in the battlefield and could not escape.

In Chuzhou alone, thousands of families were worried, and thousands of people were urging news in front of the government office every day, hoping that their families were safe. Somehow, the news that the Mongolian army was passing through Song territory spread, and the people of the entire city cursed and cursed.

This was the case in Chuzhou, and it was also the case in all prefectures and counties of a certain size, and cities and towns with a slightly developed economy in the Huai River and Huai River regions. As for places like Xuyi and Zhenjiang Prefecture, which had become increasingly prosperous in the past two years, the loss of life was more than just human lives. Because their industries were destroyed, there were no fewer than hundreds of wealthy merchants and civilians who wished they could kill themselves on the spot. It is roughly estimated that the money lost was worth millions of strings of cash.

The Song Dynasty was a society where scholars and literati were in power. Under normal circumstances, these ordinary people and merchants were not able to influence anything. Even if the best among them had some political influence, they had to speak through the officials they depended on.

But at this time, when a drastic event suddenly happened outside the border, the officials of the Song Dynasty did not dare to act rashly before obtaining clear instructions from the central government, and no one knew how to respond. Only Jia She, who was aware of the situation, suddenly fell ill and refused to see anyone at home. So, what should the people and merchants do?
A few people who were in a dilemma asked around and got rejected everywhere, and finally they found the Loyal Army stationed in Chuzhou.

When they entered the military camp, they found hundreds of elite cavalrymen ready for battle.

After asking, I found out that many of the garrisons in the Central Plains of the Great Zhou Dynasty were from the Red Coat Army, and the Loyalty Army was a remnant of the Red Coat Army. Its leader Yang Miaozhen maintained contact with many officers of the Zhou Army. The Mongolian army suddenly attacked this time, and the Zhou Army was caught off guard and suffered heavy losses. The number of veterans and soldiers who were uncles of Yang Miaozhen and were killed or injured, and the number of people who were confirmed to be named in the Loyalty Army alone, was more than 500.

How could Yang Miaozhen bear this?
She is Yang An'er's sister, a core figure in the Red Coat Army regime, and she once supported the Red Coat Army with her unrivaled pear blossom spear. Now she has retired to Chuzhou, not because she has given up her old subordinates, but because she feels that the Red Coat Army soldiers can have a better future under Guo Ning's command as a member of the Great Zhou Army!
For this reason, Yang Miaozhen was always content to maintain the old relationship. She managed the leading horse farm in Lianghuai and dominated the local mink fur trade, but she never interfered with other things. Previously, Guo Ning used Yin Chang's mistakes as an excuse to ruthlessly purge a large number of former Red Coat Army members, but Yang Miaozhen just turned a blind eye.

But Yang Miaozhen would not watch her old friends and relatives die one after another, and she could not tolerate them dying at the hands of the Mongols!
She had never been to the battlefield in the past few years, and her main experience was dealing with the Song Dynasty court and maintaining the existence of the Loyal Army. The Song people had always been wary of northerners fleeing south, not to mention a complete army. Even with Jia She's constant care, the wind and frost in the officialdom was still more dangerous than the swords and shadows on the battlefield.

Fortunately, the wind and frost could not cover the plum blossom fragrance, and Yang Miaozhen's decisive character had not changed, and her courage was no less than before. Having made the decision, she immediately gathered the elite cavalry of her headquarters.

This decision also made many people in Chuzhou City overjoyed. Everyone heard about how ferocious the Mongols were day after day, but they had never seen it with their own eyes. However, everyone knew how fierce the former Red Coat Army was. No matter what this army would do, at least they could ask them to save the lives of their relatives!

At that moment, everyone not only raised supplies for Yang Miaozhen's troops, but also mobilized various connections to remove obstacles along the way for Yang Miaozhen and his party.

For the officials of the Song Dynasty, if they were asked to directly intervene in the chaos in the north, they would be afraid of wolves in front and tigers behind, and would not dare to do so even if they died. But it was different when Yang Miaozhen came forward.

If things don't go well, it will consume the Loyalty Army, a semi-independent army outside the court system. If things go well, they can take the opportunity to make good friends with the people under their rule. Why not? Even if the Great Zhou later pursues the Song army's entry, whether the Loyalty Army is considered a Song army is still debatable.

At that moment, Yang Miaozhen led his troops to leave Chuzhou and cross the Huai River at Sizhou.

Normally, when the Central Plains was at war, Sizhou, as an important border town, should have been blocked long ago. However, Yang Miaozhen and her subordinates had close ties with the Zhou army, and they had all fought against the Mongols before, so they trusted each other. So she rushed along the way without any obstacles, and continued to pick up the stragglers she met along the way and included those who were willing to fight into her team.

When they arrived at Guide Prefecture, the number of cavalry under Yang Miaozhen's command had exceeded two thousand.

Fortunately, the Loyal Army had a large number of horses, and they had collected a lot of armor and staffs from Lianghuai, so the newly joined subordinates still had horses to ride, and most of them were tall and mighty northern horses.

At this time, outside the old city of Suiyang, two Mongolian captains were worried about the camp of the ancient city of Suiyang.

Before Tolui led his troops into the Central Plains, he had specifically ordered that no cities should be attacked to avoid unnecessary losses of troops. However, as the area under his control continued to expand, if some important military nodes were not captured, even if the Mongolian cavalry had strong mobility, they would inevitably be passive.

Therefore, including these two thousand households, Mongolian troops from all over the country have been trying to gather manpower from among the Han people in recent days, intending to use them to fill ditches, block arrows, and use them as consumables during attack.

Of course, the fighting spirit of this kind of improvised army was very weak. The only reason they could charge forward was that the steel swords used by the Mongolian army behind them to deter others looked sharper than those of their former colleagues in front. In the early years when the Mongols first invaded the Central Plains, ten Mongolian cavalrymen could drive thousands of vassal troops to fight, but now it is no longer possible. The Han Dynasty was replaced, and the morale was very high. Two thousand-man teams were staring at the surrendered army, and they were afraid that they would not be dedicated.

In fact, the two thousand-man teams themselves were not fully staffed.

They were the Wutu troops who followed Mu Huali back then. After hundreds of battles, they were constantly expanded and split. In a thousand-man team, no more than 600 people could be used to march to the Central Plains. The day before yesterday and yesterday, because the prisoner camp in Pangang rioted one after another, they sent hundreds of people to support them.

In order to intimidate the vassal troops that were attacking the fort, the two centurions lined up the remaining subordinates along the outer perimeter of the camp to ensure that the front looked terrifying. To this end, they even called back the light cavalry that was originally scattered far away to make up the numbers.

Who could have expected that at this moment a group of elite cavalry would rush out from behind them?

The Mongols were indeed very good at tactics. When they found the enemy approaching, without waiting for the captain to give the order, the last two hundred cavalrymen immediately turned around to intercept them. According to the experience of nomadic peoples in dealing with cavalrymen from the Central Plains, as soon as they came into contact with the enemy, they turned their horses and scattered, firing arrows intensively. Many of them carried bulu and hand axes with them, and also mixed in the rain of arrows and threw them.

This wave of arrows immediately knocked the opposing cavalry off their horses.

A Mongolian centurion took the opportunity to shout and led his men to slowly move forward, intending to launch another wave of arrows within fifty steps. On his left and right, Mongolian cavalrymen rode their horses while drawing their short bows and constantly adjusting their positions, ready to fire at any time as long as the centurion gave the order.

However, in the blink of an eye, in the swirling smoke and dust on the opposite side, a dozen riders suddenly accelerated. They seemed to fly over their fallen companions like flying in the clouds, and like a sharp arrow shot out of a bow, they crashed into the Mongolian army in the blink of an eye!