choke element

Chapter 784

"What kind of movement method?" Guo Ning asked.

"Half an hour ago, the Song Army suddenly dispatched to Kaifeng!"

Guo Ning pondered for a while, and Yelu Chucai asked, "How soon do you think they will arrive in Kaifeng? Do you have siege equipment in the army?"

"The camp of the Song Army is located in the area from Qinglongbei to Qifeng City in the north of Zhuxian Town. This morning they mobilized more than [-] people to stop five miles north of the camp, which is only [-] miles away from Kaifeng. All the mules and horses in the army were dispatched, and no siege equipment was seen, so the marching speed was extremely fast. In about half an hour, the Song army will reach the city of Kaifeng!"

"you sure?"

"We have more than ten sentry cavalry, and we have inspected it closely, and there is no doubt about it."

"...Okay, you've worked hard, check again and report again."

The sentry cavalry retreated, Guo Ning raised his eyebrows, and chuckled twice: "Song people make up their minds very quickly!"

"Shi Miyuan is a powerful minister of the Song Dynasty, and he cannot do without means of overturning clouds and rain. Xuan Zang spent time in Tianjin and Shandong to investigate our inside situation. Two of his servants led the Privy Council's speed room. In addition, most of the powerful merchants came from the Southern Dynasty, and they gave Xuan Zang a lot of information, which will help Zhao Fang make up his mind."

"And this determination mostly represents the risk of being at war with us."

"Exactly, since there is a possibility of confrontation or even fighting with our army, the troops from the east and west of Huainan cannot be used, because there are many soldiers and horses in those two places and Jia She and his son... Cough cough, Jia She and Li Yun In the future, the court of the Song Dynasty can't trust them, and only the soldiers from Jinghu can be used, so Zhao Fang's long-distance march came here."

"But they didn't dare to take us seriously. Their method was nothing more than an emergency collusion with a certain force in Kaifeng City, using our army to fight the enemy fiercely, first entering Kaifeng; then, relying on the Kaifeng City and The Kaifeng court will come back to affect the situation of this battle and even the surrounding situation, even if it is not good, it can also be used as a bargaining capital with us."

Speaking of this, Guo Ning turned sideways and said leisurely to Yelu Chucai: "Jinqing told me earlier that when Song Jinhai made an alliance and jointly attacked Liao Kingdom Yanjing, the Song people kept changing the conditions. Trying to deceive Da Jin in vain, and on the other hand, my family hesitated to fight hard, so that Yanjing fell into the hands of Da Jin, and then a great disturbance arose."

"The war between the Song and Jin Dynasties later came from the disaster planted by the coalition forces when they destroyed the Liao Dynasty. Perhaps because of the lessons learned from the past, they were much smarter this time."

"That's right, the Song people were not in a hurry to ask us for benefits from the beginning to the end of this coalition operation, but they made a sudden move at this time... That Shi Xianggong was obviously coerced by us to cooperate, and he was thousands of miles away. In addition, he can still earn a little chance on the battlefield, so as to turn against the enemy. This kind of scheming is really impressive, and the characters of the Southern Dynasty should not be underestimated."

"Yes."

"Kaifeng used to be the capital of the state of Song. Once the Song army entered Kaifeng, the situation in Kaifeng would be extremely complicated. The people of Song Dynasty were allies of Dajin in name, and [-] Song troops came to help Dajin destroy the rebels. We It is not easy to use weapons. Once time is delayed, there will be more and more variables, and more and more aspects involved, so that it is difficult to sort out... Therefore, we must immediately dispatch troops to compete with the Song army for Kaifeng, and immediately clean up Kaifeng It is appropriate for Li Erlang to do these two things, right?"

Yelu Chucai pursed his lips and was speechless for a moment.

Guo Ning smiled and asked again: "Some things will inevitably be criticized by the outside world, and not everyone dares to do it. If Li Erlang doesn't do it, I have to come forward in person. Do you think it is appropriate for me to drive to Kaifeng with two thousand cavalry?" ?”

Guo Ning's determination to kill people on a large scale has not changed since the beginning, and will not waver.Yelu Chucai sighed, knowing that it would be inappropriate to say more.

He bowed his hands to Guo Ning and saluted: "Delaying it is indeed not as efficient as cutting the mess quickly; Li Ting's doing it is indeed more decisive than the Duke himself."

"OK."

Guo Ning called Ni Yi, drew out the golden knife from his waist, and said in a deep voice: "Li Ting's soldiers and horses set out from Fengqiu, and they are not far away from Kaifeng at this moment. You take my golden knife and gallop away. Give it to Li Erlang...he understands what I mean!"

Ni Yi rode his horse away, and Yelu Chucai had an idea, and hurriedly said: "Duke, the change of the Song army is likely to be in collusion with the Kaifeng court, but this must be a top secret, and ordinary Jin army soldiers don't know. The Duke immediately dispatched his men and shouted everywhere, saying that the Song army and our army have joined forces to attack Kaifeng, and the Jin army has no way to retreat, and this battle must be lost!"

"The sooner we defeat the enemy in front of us, the less time we will have for the Song people. In addition, when the outcome is clear, there will be more Jurchens who can see the situation clearly and take the initiative to join us! This is a good idea!"

Guo Ning laughed out loud, knowing that Yelu Chucai had always been soft-hearted, but he didn't take it personally.

He immediately sent someone to act according to the plan.

As soon as a messenger left, he called another person: "Tell Zhang Lin, we can secure the surrounding area of ​​the car camp, let him set up the gun carriage, and continue firing! Don't hold back!"

In a short while, the roar of the mountains and tsunami suddenly broke out, from dozens to hundreds, and then thousands of people shouted at the same time: "The Song army is in the south, and the official army is in the north. Two roads are attacking Kaifeng! Golden dog!" We have no way out, we are about to lose!"

The huge roar was like thunder, rolling and spreading in all directions.

Monk Wanyan Chen, who was in the fierce battlefield, had abandoned his horse and was fighting on foot.

Someone swung a tomahawk and brushed past the armor on his chest. The blade of the ax and the iron leaves of the armor touched the flames, and there was a sound of metal friction that made people's teeth sharp.

This kind of sound is actually not loud, but it will affect your hearing if you listen too much.So when he found shouts everywhere, he tried his best to block the Dinghai soldiers in front of him, and then listened carefully, but he couldn't hear anything clearly.

Instead, an officer came up from behind, pulled his shoulders and shouted: "The bandit army is shouting, the Song army and the bandit army are attacking Kaifeng! We have no way out!"

"There are tens of thousands of soldiers in Kaifeng City, they guard the city by themselves, it's none of our business!"

Monk Wanyan Chen cursed impatiently, and suddenly threw the short spear in his hand, stabbing the Dinghai soldier who was wielding a sharp axe.The soldier paused, dropped his sharp axe, and tried to pull out the short spear on his chest. After pulling out twice, his whole body began to spin involuntarily, and then fell to his knees.

At this time, two cavalry teams suddenly charged and hacked at each other as they passed by.

A war horse was frightened by the sharp blade in front of him, and suddenly fell down, bringing the knight to the ground.The person who fell to the ground rolled over and over again, making the crackling sound unique to broken bones, but the horse was fine and struggled to get up again.

Monk Wanyan Chen ran over without hesitation and got on his horse.He watched for a while, found a direction where the enemies were a little sparse, and shouted: "Follow me!"

The battle has continued until now, and the entire battlefield has become chaotic.Monk Wanyan Chen originally wanted to break through the enemy's barriers and destroy those artillery vehicles, but since the fight, he seems to be getting farther and farther away from the artillery vehicles. Besides the messy killing companions, there are also teams of Ding Haijun who come and go The soldiers are like a high wall that cannot be broken.

He charged and killed several times between the gaps in Dinghai's formation.During the last charge, he probably looked in the wrong direction, retreated back to the edge of the battlefield inexplicably, and actually had time to rest for a while.

At this time, most of his arms, thighs, etc. were newly injured, dripping with blood, but fortunately, none of his vitals were injured, and the impact on his exertion movements was not too great.

His armor was severely damaged. After the two leather straps on his chest were cut off, most of the thick armor fell off. The weapon has been hacked many times, and it is obviously loose.

Seeing that he was not rushing to kill, many scattered soldiers of the Golden Army gathered around him, some looked at him with admiration, and some came up to bandage his wounds.

While bandaging, at the center of the naval queue, the humming sound of the cannon carriage firing sounded again. Several iron cannons arced in the air and fell somewhere, and then the flames and loud noises erupted.

When the two sides strangled, there was no longer the previous dense queue, and it was obviously a problem to set the accuracy of the naval artillery vehicles.But there were still more than a dozen Jin soldiers who were inevitably affected by the power of the iron cannon. The worst few were instantly changed beyond recognition, covered with large and small terrible wounds, and then fell to the ground in bloody convulsions.

The surrounding soldiers of the Golden Army, no matter how brave and skilled they were, subconsciously and abruptly dispersed.

With the battle at this level, it doesn't matter how many people die, what matters is who can maintain the morale of the army and the orderly command of the army.

Roughly speaking, the formation of the Ding Navy has not wavered from the beginning to the end, and the mobilization is also clear. On the contrary, it is our own... Relying on the brave general to fight in person, the courage brought to everyone will fade sooner or later. Over there, the troops that can still be commanded are probably less than half of what they were at the time of departure.

Through the smoke and dust, Monk Wanyan Chen could vaguely see that behind Wanyan Congtan's general flag, there were thousands of soldiers of the Jin Army rushing towards Kaifeng desperately.

Perhaps they thought that Kaifeng would be safer?Or, will the imperial court reward you if you enter the city before the Song army arrives?
This kind of thinking is of course dizziness. Monk Wanyan Chen knows that people will be like this when their emotions break down; those soldiers can't hold on anymore, so they subconsciously run to places that bring a sense of security.

Monk Wanyan Chen was not angry with their performance.

It is not the fault of these soldiers that the Kingdom of Jin has fallen to this level. They are all elites who went south to fight against the Kingdom of Song, and they have already fought as hard as they can.

Now that the Ding Navy has once again bombarded with artillery vehicles, this has further accelerated the collapse of morale on the side, and more and more people will flee.

But in Wanyan Congtan's main formation, the drums urging the attack were still ringing, and it didn't stop from the beginning to the end.

Monk Wanyan Chen had a premonition. He felt that letting everyone die here was the purpose of Wanyan Congtan, and it was also the intention of some people in Kaifeng City.

At this moment, the key to the war is no longer in Lincai Pass, but in Kaifeng.

Once the Song army moves, Kaifeng City will respond, and once Kaifeng responds, the Li Ting Department of the Ding Navy in the north of the city will follow up sooner or later.Something must happen around the city of Kaifeng and between these two armies.During this process, the only role of Monk Wanyan Chen and all his companions is to keep sticking to the main force of the Ding Navy, waiting for something to happen.

what would that be?

When he was in Zhongdu, Monk Wanyan Chen would probably suspect that those high-ranking officials and nobles planned to force the soldiers to die so that they could surrender safely.But he knew very well that there were really a group of capable ministers in the Kaifeng court, and they were really doing their best to maintain the continuation of the Dajin Kingdom.

While Monk Wanyan Chen was guessing, Tian Zhuo and Hou Zhi were in the tall Baozhen Pavilion, seeing tens of thousands of Song troops approaching from the south of Kaifeng City, and Ding Haijun galloping from the north of the city. Li Ting's department.The number of Li Ting's troops is smaller than that of the Song Army, but a rough estimate is that there are seven or eight thousand troops, of which half are infantry and half are cavalry, and almost all of them are armored.

"Pity!"

Hou Zhi slapped the city bricks with a slap, the tiny bricks splashed, his palm was cut in many places, blood flowed, and he didn't realize it, his face was as black as the bottom of a pot.

Tian Zhuo looked awe-inspiring and sighed.

"After all, it's not that accurate." He said: "Who would have thought that Wan Yan Congtan and others fought so hard that they really entangled the main force of Ding Haijun, so that Guo Ning couldn't care about Kaifeng?"

"It may not be Wanyan Congtan's credit! It may not be that Guo Ning can't mobilize the strength of the headquarters!"

Hou Zhi gritted his teeth and said, "Li Ting, who came here at this moment, is famous for his bloodthirsty! Guo Ning asked him to come with extremely vicious intentions! Most likely, he had been ordered to slaughter in Kaifeng after entering the city!"

"So... the result is not bad! This time the bandits attacked in two directions. Guo Ning was on the east side, and Li Ting was on the north side. This shows his status. He still killed Marshal Wanyan Heda. , brought 8000 people here now... worth it!"

Tian Zhuo muttered something, and was about to go downstairs.

Hou Zhi took a few steps forward and stopped him: "Let me go. This match was all arranged by me, so don't fight for it."

Tian Zhuo struggled violently, but couldn't get away.He raised his head and stared at Hou Zhi, with anger and shame in his eyes.

Hou Zhi laughed instead, patted Tian Zhuo on the shoulder, rolled up his robe sleeves, and thumped down the stairs.

Baozhen Pavilion is in the southeast corner of Kaifeng City Palace, not far from the Drum Tower to the east of Longde Hall.

Hou Zhi went down from the attic, walked directly through the Jiafu Building in the east veranda of Daqing Hall, and exited Zuo Shengping Gate, Chengtian Gate, and Danfeng Gate.Here I met servants riding horses waiting, got on the horses and went south, passed through Fengyi Gate, and headed for Nanxun Gate.

In the previous months, he had been responsible for the construction of Kaifeng New City.Fengyi Gate is the south gate of the inner city wall he newly built, and Nanxun Gate is the south gate of the outer city wall. There is a distance of three miles between the two gates.

Although Kaifeng City under the rule of the Great Jin Dynasty had a household registration of more than one million, it could not be compared with Bianliang, the capital of the Song Dynasty at its peak, so the outer city had a lot of open space, and the population was rather withered.

In the past year, a large number of Jurchens went south to Kaifeng, occupying many palaces and temples as their temporary residences.As a result, when Hou Zhi built the city wall, he demolished all these palaces and temples, and planned to use these building materials to build the towers on the outer city wall.

Because Ding Haijun came over suddenly, this huge project did not continue. Countless materials such as wood, bamboo, reed mats, ropes, paints, etc. were piled up on both sides of the road at this moment, just like a mess of hills and ruins connected to each other. place.

This situation was very ugly, and the face of Dajin Kingdom was completely gone.After a while, people from the Song Dynasty came in and laughed at them.

Hou Zhi walked along these supplies, stopping occasionally to have a look before continuing forward.Beside and behind him, from time to time, subordinates with solemn faces appeared, whispered a few words to him, saluted deeply, and stepped back hurriedly.

After more than two quarters, he stood inside the Nanxun Gate.

The city gate is quite tall, but the city wall left by the Song people is extremely dilapidated.Across the city gate, he could hear people shouting his horses from outside the city. It was the Song army arriving as promised and about to take over Kaifeng.

"Open the door."

Hou Zhi gave orders in a deep voice, and immediately knelt down in the middle of the road.After the officials in charge of opening the gate creaked and opened the city gate, they all ran back and knelt down behind him.

As the city gate opened, the noisy voices of Song Jun poured in.Because of the different accent, Hou Zhi couldn't understand.He could only vaguely discern that someone was happily talking about looting in the city; some officers shouted, saying that they must wait for Grandpa Zhao to issue an order;

Then, there was the sound of heavy footsteps.

But Hou Zhi didn't look at those who looked at him, he just bent down and shouted with enough breath: "Youcheng, Minister of the Lower Kingdom, and Hou Zhi, the leader of the third minister, welcome the heavenly soldiers of the Upper Kingdom!"

When he yelled, the originally noisy voices suddenly fell silent. In the doorway directly in front of him, many people gasped and sighed in satisfaction, as if a wind had blown by suddenly.

At this time, more than two miles away from Nanxun Gate, Li Ting rode his horse and rode in the lead, with thousands of people behind him forming a long queue and rushing around the city.

In the long queue, everyone was running or urging their horses, and they rushed all the way, and the smoke and dust billowed.Officers on horseback shouted back and forth along the edge of the road, cheering up morale and adjusting the formation.

This team is Li Ting's headquarters.After defeating Wanyan Heda, they continued to go south, broke through multiple defense lines of the Kaifeng court in the north like a torrent, and finally successfully crossed the south and choked the throat of the Kaifeng court.

At this time, the soldiers all knew that their Jie Shuai had received the order of Zhou Guogong to rob Kaifeng with the Song people.This is no ordinary honor!The soldiers were all excited, they just felt that the fatigue of the long march was gone.

"Get out of the way! Get out of the way! Don't get in the way of Grandpa Li!"

Seeing that the Nanxun Gate was wide open ahead, and many Song soldiers were approaching from the southern road, about to block the city gate, Li Ting swung his whip and lashed the horse's buttocks hard.

The war horse was in pain, and after a few barks, it accelerated with all its hooves.

The cavalry behind Li Ting also urged their horses one after another, and some people held their knives in their hands and waved them in the air to threaten them.

(End of this chapter)