Water Margin: The opening scene involves assassinating Emperor Huizong of Song and forcibly taking L

Ren Dejing called over his brother Ren Degong, who was in charge of supplies: "We can't hold this place anymore. Surrendering will surely lead to a terrible death. We have to find a way to escape."

“My third and fourth brothers, and our whole family, are all in Xingqing Prefecture now,” Ren Degong reminded him.

Ren Dejing questioned, "Can you go back and save them?"

Historically, Ren Degong rose to the position of Prefect of Xingqing Prefecture in Western Xia due to the protection of his brothers, making him a powerful and corrupt official.

Ren Degong was equally cold-blooded and ruthless. After hesitating for a short while, he asked, "How do we escape?"

Ren Dejing said, "Take a few trusted men and some gold and silver, set fire to the city at night, and take advantage of the chaos to escape southwest. We'll flee to the Western Regions and seek refuge with Yelü Dashi!"

Ren Degong said, "The Ming army is attacking Liangzhou (Wuwei). How can we get through?"

“Let’s get through here first,” Ren Dejing said. “If we encounter the Ming army, we will pretend to be Han Chinese from Western Xia, deceive them first, and then find an opportunity to escape westward.”

Ren Degong nodded: "That's the only way."

The wealth that the Ren family embezzled over the years has long been used to bribe ministers.

But Ren Dejing commands a large army and can amass countless riches in no time.

Chapter 3815 Trusted Confidant

When they quelled the rebellion last year, they were already embezzling grain and salaries, secretly exchanging them for gold and silver.

In order to escape, he even sent people to set fire to several granaries and houses.

The city was in chaos. The two brothers, along with more than ten of their henchmen, took several chests of gold and silver and fled in the confusion.

Deng Chun was in his camp several miles away, preparing to fill in the moat the next day, when he discovered that Lingzhou City was ablaze that very night.

"The spies acted too quickly. I just arrived and wasn't ready yet."

Deng Chun never expected the enemy commander to escape; he thought it was a Ming spy in the city who had launched the attack ahead of schedule.

In fact, the spies planted by the Ming Dynasty's Military Intelligence Bureau in Lingzhou City were also staring blankly at the fire at this moment.

There was no time to worry about anything else; even half-cooked rice had to be eaten. Deng Chun ordered, "All units, assemble quickly and follow me to capture this fortified city!"

……

After the fire broke out in the city, many Tangut soldiers scattered and fled.

Like Deng Chun, they all believed that it was a spy who secretly set the fire.

Moreover, they were most likely in league with a tribal chief; otherwise, it would have been impossible for them to set fire to several places at the same time.

Who the hell could have predicted that the arsonist would be the commander-in-chief of Western Xia?

The main force of the Ming army was still several miles away, but several thousand elite cavalrymen had already rushed to the moat and then found that the south gate was open.

"General, could this be a trap?"

"Let three hundred riders go in first to scout the situation!"

Chen Ziyi had just stopped his horse outside the moat and ordered several cavalry squads to go in when he suddenly noticed torches being waved on the city tower.

Then another man rode out of the city on horseback, carrying a torch, and shouted across the moat, "I am from the Military Intelligence Bureau."

"I don't know who started the fire, but I have already persuaded two Tangut chieftains to guard the two city gates in the south."

"Ming soldiers, enter the city immediately! The city is in complete chaos."

"Except for these two city gates on the south wall, all the others are enemy troops who have not surrendered!"

Chen Ziyi was overjoyed and immediately mobilized his troops, ordering his cavalry to charge forward.

Some occupied the city gates, some the city towers, and some the watchtowers, ensuring that all the southern city walls were in the hands of the Ming army.

Lingzhou City is too important to afford the slightest mistake.

If Keyimen is the north gate of Xingqing Prefecture, then Lingzhou is the south gate of Xingqing Prefecture.

If we take this place, the Western Xia will lose an arm.

Chen Ziyi did not blindly expand his gains, but instead firmly occupied the south city wall and waited for the main force to arrive.

At the same time, he sent spies and the two chieftains who had already surrendered to the city to persuade more Tangut troops to surrender, claiming that saving any granary would be considered a meritorious deed.

He also dispatched 800 elite cavalrymen, divided into four teams, to charge along the streets, creating chaos and preventing anyone from gathering in groups, in order to prevent any Western Xia generals from assembling their troops.

Before long, another three thousand Ming cavalrymen entered the city, and Chen Ziyi commanded them to occupy the government office and warehouses.

In the darkness, flames soared into the sky, and everywhere were fleeing Western Xia soldiers and civilians.

They dared not flee towards the southern city wall where the Ming army was located, and instead rushed in three other directions.

The brothers Ren Dejing and Ren Degong took advantage of the chaos to flee westward, and were among the first to leave the city.

These two men, along with their henchmen, seized a boat at the ferry crossing.

They also led the horse onto the boat and sailed southwest.

The following day, they approached the northern exit of Qing Tong Xia.

Seeing a large number of ships approaching from afar, the two brothers were so frightened that they quickly abandoned their boat and went to the west bank of the Yellow River.

Chapter 3816 The Two Brothers

The southern exit of Qingtongxia is now called Xiakou, and there is also a fortified village called Xiakouzhai.

Xiakou Village had been occupied by the Ming army and used as a military grain transfer station.

This Ming army numbers 50,000 men, with the main force already heading north along the Tanglai Canal.

They are about to attack Shunzhou City, which is next to Lingzhou.

After galloping for more than ten miles on horseback, Ren Dejing stopped to rest. Still shaken, he said, "Fortunately, we escaped quickly. There were Ming troops in Shunzhou as well."

"Even if we breach the Yellow River and flood the Ming army outside Lingzhou, the Ming army will come from Shunzhou, making it impossible for us to defend Lingzhou."

Ren Degong asked in astonishment, "Just how many soldiers did the Liangshan Emperor send?"

“The Ming army in Lingzhou and Shunzhou alone probably numbered more than 200,000.”

Ren Dejing guessed, "I estimate that Wang Cunli also had 200,000 Ming troops on his side. No wonder he was defeated so badly."

“Just a few days ago I received a letter requesting help, saying that 200,000 Ming troops had broken through Jisang City and were about to reach Liangzhou City.”

Wu Jie was in charge of the troops in Liangzhou, and the combined number of the field army and the garrison army was only 50,000.

However, the roads along the way were rugged and difficult to travel, and the supply route was particularly long. Therefore, a total of 80,000 laborers, 8,000 mule-drawn four-wheeled carts, more than 10,000 wheelbarrows, and 40,000 donkeys and inferior horses were arranged to carry the supplies.

According to the Western Xia people's calculations, they definitely had an army of over 100,000.

When they calculated their own troop strength, they would also include civilian laborers, whom they called "burden soldiers."

……

The Ren brothers, unable to cross the Qingtong Gorge by boat, could only ride horses around the mountains on the west side of the gorge.

The detour route is not long, only twenty miles, and the entire route is a semi-agricultural and semi-pastoral area.

Once we got around the canyon, the walk became much more comfortable.

It was all agricultural land on the west bank of the Yellow River, a smooth road, but there were Ming troops.

Every now and then, a Ming army grain transport team would appear, not only protected by a small detachment,

Weapons were also placed on the grain carts, so the laborers could be armed and fight at any time.

The two brothers could only hide by day and travel at night, spending their days hiding on the edge of the Tengger Desert.

They rode for five days to cover a mere two hundred li (approximately 100 kilometers), living in constant fear and hiding from the Ming army's supply convoys.

As they approached Yingli City (Zhongwei City), the brothers dared not take the main roads and could only travel along the desert hills.

Because that city must be in the hands of the Ming army.

After more than half a month of this ordeal, traveling along the edge of the desert.

The journey also involved crossing dozens of miles of desert, detouring to the northern part of Liangzhou—specifically, Nanhu Town in Minqin County.

Surrounded by desert hundreds of years later, it now has grasslands connecting to the Shiyang River.

As soon as they emerged from the desert, the two brothers saw several herders grazing their sheep.

Is there no scorched earth policy here?

The herdsmen were taken aback when they saw them and instinctively stepped back to keep their distance.

Ren Dejing rode forward slowly, raising his hands to indicate that he was unarmed, and asked in the Tangut language, "Aren't you fighting?"

"Han Chinese?" a herdsman asked.

Ren Dejing and his men were well-prepared; when they fled, they all changed into Han Chinese clothing, dressing like Han Chinese merchants.

"We are merchants from the Ming Dynasty, fleeing from the war. How is the fighting in Liangzhou going?"

The herdsman immediately smiled and said warmly, "Hello, Han people! Come and visit my home."

Ren Dejing was completely bewildered: "Aren't you Western Xia people?"

The herdsman smiled and said, "We are now Uyghurs of the Ming Dynasty."

Chapter 3817 They'd already lost.

"Is Liangzhou finished?" Ren Dejing asked.

The herdsman recounted with great interest:

"It's already over."

"The scoundrel general guarding Liangzhou refused to surrender, so the Ming army used many cannons to bombard him."

“The Liangzhou city wall hadn’t been repaired for decades, and a section of it collapsed on the sixth day of the bombing.”

"The Ming army rushed in, and before long, the Xia soldiers in the city fled."

"I didn't run away. I hid in a room and secretly peeked outside."

“The Ming soldiers didn’t kill people indiscriminately, and I was starving, so I went out when they searched the house.”

"Haha! General Wu said that those herdsmen and landowners refused to surrender, causing him to suffer more than 300 casualties in the siege, so he killed all the herdsmen and landowners."

"General Wu divided the fields among the farmers and the pastures among the herdsmen,"

"He was too lazy to break it down and waste time, so he told us to discuss and divide it ourselves."

"If things get complicated and we can't figure it out, we'll go to Liangzhou City in a while and say that a civil official will be coming."

Even after you've figured it out, you still have to go. The civil official will issue the land deed.

“My family was allocated a pasture, and everyone, regardless of gender, was given two sheep.”

"They say that when you register your household and get the land deed, the government will give you another sheep."

"The herdsmen all say that the Emperor of Liangshan is the reincarnation of Buddha, and General Wu is a Bodhisattva under Buddha's seat..."

The herdsmen continued to chatter on, telling everyone how big their grasslands were.

Ren Dejing, however, basically understood Wu Jie's intentions.

It's just that there's still a long march ahead and several cities to conquer.

Moreover, the Hexi Corridor has a long and narrow terrain, making it very easy for supply lines to be cut off. It is especially dangerous if a tribe surrenders and then rebels again.

Leading the tribe along would waste food supplies, because the supply route was too long.

They simply beheaded all the tribal chiefs, and even killed the herders and landowners.

All farmland and pasture were distributed to the farmers and herders, along with some captured livestock.

As a result, the tribes were leaderless and unable to organize any more rebellions.

Moreover, it can win the hearts of farmers and herdsmen!

Ren Dejing still had doubts: "Wasn't there a single chieftain, landowner, or herder who surrendered?"

"Not a single one escaped?"

The herdsman laughed and said, "Yes, there are. Those who surrender are also beheaded. General Wu blamed them for not surrendering sooner."