choke element

Chapter 1044 The Future (Part )

On a morning in late winter, Guo Ning crossed the still restless Hezhong Prefecture.

Hezhong Prefecture is the ancient Puyang, which was once the capital of Emperor Shun. This place controls the most important ferry crossing of the Yellow River and is also the key to the east and west along with Tongguan. For thousands of years, the rise and fall of this city has been related to the Yellow River and wars. Emperor Gaozu of Qin and even Emperor Wu of Wei and Emperor Wen of Sui had led their troops through here, leaving behind countless stories of large armies and battles. At the end of the Sui Dynasty, Li Yuan crossed the river from Hedong and forced Jin Xiaomo, the chief of the court, to surrender here, so that he could enter Guanzhong in one fell swoop.

Just as the flow of the Yellow River is unpredictable, wars between people and between political regimes begin from a tiny matter, yet can shake the world and affect the life and death of hundreds of millions of people.

If you look through the local chronicles of Hezhong Prefecture, you will find that the history of this city is always full of twists and turns, which is disturbing, just like what happened in the city in the past few days.

Fortunately, all chaos will eventually settle down. Wanyan Congtan has his own paranoia, but he is not a person who willfully harms the people.
If Wanyan Congtan's plan succeeded, the Mongolian army would be able to sweep across Hebei, and the main force of the Great Zhou army returning from the north would inevitably be intercepted by the Mongolians. As a result, most of the Central Plains turned into a sea of ​​blood and corpses, and he was the main driving force.

As a veteran of the battlefield, he could not have not thought about such a prospect and must have been mentally prepared for it. However, he made many arrangements, but none of them included the usual practice of rebels since ancient times, such as burning, killing, looting and creating chaos.

Call him hypocritical or stubborn, but he is a man after all.

So Guo Ning handed over all the relevant matters to Wanyan Chen Heshang, letting the Jurchens resolve their differences themselves. He then continued westward without any worries, and rode across the Pujin Bridge at noon.

Pujin Bridge was first built during the Kaiyuan Period of the Tang Dynasty. Prior to this, the Pujin Bridge, as a major transportation route, was only a temporary bamboo cable floating bridge, which was not very durable. In particular, the bamboo cables connecting the boats would be damaged every year, causing transportation obstructions on both sides of the strait. During the Tang Dynasty, Chang'an was the capital, Taiyuan was the northern capital, and Luoyang was the eastern capital. The exchanges between these three political and economic centers were inseparable from the Pujin Ferry, and even more so from the rich output of Hezhong and Hedong behind the Pujin Ferry.

Therefore, the imperial court used a quarter of the iron produced in the country at that time to cast eight iron bulls, which were placed on both sides of the Pujin Ferry. The iron bulls tied the iron ropes, the iron ropes connected the boats, and the boats fixed the floating bridge, which became a wonder of the world at that time.

When the Mongolian army invaded for the first time, a small army led by the Mongolian princes Jochi and Chagatai attacked the river and burned the floating bridge. In fact, at that time, Guanzhong had been declining for hundreds of years, and the status of Pujindu as a transportation hub had been greatly weakened. The floating bridge was dispensable and dilapidated. Therefore, after the floating bridge was destroyed, no one proposed to repair it.

It was not until Wanyan Congtan came to Hezhong Prefecture that he tried to restore the bridge to its original appearance. But so far, it is still at the stage of blueprint survey and preliminary preparation, and has not reached the stage of recasting the iron rope. The ferry here only uses tow ropes to connect dozens of boats, which can only be used for the time being.

Guo Ning was able to cross the river on horseback thanks to the great power of nature that froze the Yellow River, forming a solid whole with the wide river channel and the floating bridge. Soldiers who had crossed the river earlier found straw to spread on the ice to prevent their horses' hooves from slipping. Many soldiers simply crossed the river on ice, without having to stumble on the floating bridge.

When Guo Ning crossed the river, hundreds of cavalrymen in the front team had already formed a huge security circle on the opposite bank.

On the other side of Hezhong Prefecture is Tongzhou. In the early Song Dynasty, this place was under the jurisdiction of Dingguo Jiedushi of Fengyi County. After the establishment of the Jin Dynasty, it remained unchanged and has always been an important place in the north of Jingzhao Prefecture.

The Shayuan where the Eastern and Western Wei dynasties fought a decisive battle was located in Tongzhou. After the establishment of the Jin Dynasty, Shayuan Town became one of the important horse farms in the Qunmushu, and the round-muscled cocoon-eared sheep that were tributed to the court were famous.

When the Jin Dynasty suddenly rose, the famous general Wanyan Loushi arrived in Hezhong. The Song army blocked the west bank of the river to stop him. Wanyan Loushi crossed the river from Hancheng on ice. Hancheng is also in the north of Tongzhou. After crossing the river, Wanyan Loushi captured Tongzhou, Tongguan, and Chang'an that month, destroying the Song army's deployment in Sichuan and Shaanxi. Taking this as a lesson, the Jin Dynasty court often appointed the military governor of Dingguo Army in Tongzhou as the co-governor of Jingzhao Prefecture, forming a state in which the military deployment of the Tongjun Division and the two military governors of Jingzhao Prefecture Road was integrated.

Such an important town should actually be firmly in the hands of the Great Zhou court. But in fact, this place has been out of control for a long time.

When Genghis Khan led his troops to invade the Central Plains for the second time, he sent General Sanmuhebatu to lead 10,000 cavalrymen to cross the Xia Kingdom and attack Guanshan. Sanmuhebatu raided Jingzhao Prefecture, bloodbathed Chang'an, and only withdrew his troops after breaking through Tongguan.

Jingzhao Prefecture suffered a heavy blow and should have been carefully managed to recover its vitality, but then it encountered the Sui Wang occupying Kaifeng and confronting the Dinghai Army controlled by Guo Ning. In order to gather enough strength, Sui Wang constantly drew troops and manpower and material resources from the military states of Guanshan, and at the same time made promises to the increasingly active foreign ethnic groups in Guanshan. When the Kaifeng regime finally collapsed, the situation in Guanshan was already in a mess, with hundreds of officials abandoning and fleeing, involving more than 20 military states. Not to mention that the Xia Kingdom was ready to make a move, wanting to cut a knife from the declining Jin Kingdom to make up for its losses repeatedly ravaged by the Mongolian army.

After destroying the Kaifeng regime, Guo Ning immediately appointed Li Ting as the governor of Xijing and led his troops into Guanshan. However, Li Ting's main focus was on monitoring and confronting the neighboring countries to the west and south.

Li Ting was always a scoundrel and held grudges. Therefore, he had a bad relationship with the surrendered Jurchen generals. When Wanyan Congtan was under his command, he was excluded and had to ask for a transfer. Because Wanyan Congtan was in charge of Hezhong Prefecture, Li Ting often deliberately allowed the chaos in Tongzhou so that he would have a reason to reduce his exchanges with Hezhong.

Li Ting also paid great attention to eliminating the power of foreign races in the controlled area, and for this purpose he killed people at will to establish his authority. Such a person who only cares about killing people is unlikely to win partners or allies in the Guanlong area where the ethnic groups are complex. Even some foreign races that originally intended to get close to the Great Zhou turned to be vaguely hostile to the court because of Li Ting's bullying.

For example, Wang Shixian's distant relatives in Gongchang Prefecture, although they were descendants of the ancient Wang people, were deeply influenced by Chinese culture and were very eager to serve the Great Zhou. As a result, Li Ting was very cold to them and accused them several times of relying on Wang Shixian's power to despise the Xijing garrison.

This is too much. Many scattered Wanggu people were dissatisfied with Li Ting. When the Great Zhou replaced the Jin Dynasty, they fell into Gongchang and other places in Western Xia and never returned to the hands of the Great Zhou.

There were censors in the court of Zhongdu who criticized him for this. However, Li Ting and Guo Ning had a deep friendship, which could not be shaken by the court's opinions. Guo Ning rose rapidly, and his subordinates lacked veterans with enough qualifications and ability to go to the town. Even though Li Ting had this and that, he had no better choice.

Until this time. The main force of the Mongolian army launched operations based in Xia State, and the breakthrough point they chose was in the defense zone that Li Ting was responsible for. However, Li Ting was like a deaf and dumb person from beginning to end, and neither issued a timely warning nor responded militarily in time. No matter how you look at it, this is a serious dereliction of duty.

The military situation was urgent, Guo Ning was away on duty, and probably no one in the court had thought of this yet. When the officials realized what was happening, Li Ting would probably be charged with seventeen or eighteen crimes and be humiliated.

But with Li Ting's personality, he wouldn't care about these things. He has always been a man who doesn't obey anyone and is not afraid of anyone. Even when facing Guo Ning, he often shows the face of the bandit leader in Tangluo, Hebei. In his eyes, the censors in the court are probably no better than buzzing flies.

When Guo Ning rode his horse up the high slope on the west bank, all the soldiers nearby saluted. Only Li Ting rushed forward to greet him carelessly, complaining repeatedly: "Why do I feel that you put me here in Guanlong as if you were deliberately selling your weakness to the Tartars? What do you think of me, Zhongdu Li Erlang!"

There is no certainty in military and national affairs. If you had put in a little more effort and changed your vicious nature, you wouldn't have become a flaw.

Guo Ning was about to say something like this, but then he thought of the poverty of Guanlong, which was not as good as Hebei and Zhongyuan. There had been little income in the past few years, and it was all thanks to the hard work of Li Ting and others to support the situation. Li Ting had only been in Guanlong for two years, and he had become darker and thinner, with more wrinkles on his face. Only when he spoke in a loud voice did he still look like the bad boy in Zhongdu back then.

"The Tartars used all kinds of tricks, but in the end they just came to kill us. You, who exposed the flaws, also deserve credit! We have worked hard on this trip. If we completely destroy or cripple the Mongolian army, it will be of great help to our future development!"