Fenghou

"Come! Come! Come in and sit."

Yelu Qiyan waved his hand, "I don't have time to sit down today, I came here to inform you that the city will be closed and searched in the afternoon, and all Mughals and Han people will be arrested. I know there are no Mughals here, but you Yu Shouzhong is a Han Chinese, if you don’t want him to be arrested, you have to leave the city immediately or find a guarantee.”

"Ah! What guarantee do you need?"

"Find three shopkeepers in this city as guarantees. You are from Sogdia, you can count as one, and find two more shopkeepers. The three of you will take the shop deeds and go to the county government with Yu Shouzhong to give him guarantees. You have to pay ten guarantees. .”

"To be so troublesome?"

"It's not troublesome to guarantee now, but it will be troublesome if you are arrested and go to guarantee. Hurry up! The arrest will start in the afternoon, hey! Damn war."

Commodus hurriedly stepped forward to hold him back and asked, "I know that we are going to fight the Mughals, but what does it have to do with the Han people?"

Yelu Qiyan looked at both sides, lowered his voice and said: "I received an order from Marshal Du yesterday to suspend the northern attack on the Mughals."

"why?"

"It is said that the spies in Taiyuan discovered that the Song army was increasing its troops on a large scale. It is estimated that they are going to take advantage of the opportunity of our war with the Mughals to attack the north. I don't know the details. This is a military secret. You can pass it on."

"You know I never talk nonsense."

"Hurry up and vouch for it! Fortunately, you only have one Han here, and it's useless to vouch for a few more people."

"I see, I'll go right away!"

Yelu Qiyan took a bag of tea and left in a hurry. Kang Mode was a little disturbed, and hurried to the backyard, and found Yu Shouzhong who was sorting the goods in the warehouse.

"Yelu Qiyan found me just now, and the situation has changed. He said that he had received an order from Marshal Du to stop attacking the Mughals. Their spies discovered that the Song army was increasing its troops to Taiyuan."

Yu Shouzhong is about 27 or [-] years old. He is tall, strong and powerful, with exceptionally sharp eyes. He is a powerful character at first glance and will leave a deep impression on people. No wonder Yelu Qiyan got the news and quickly notified Commodore to vouch for it. If someone is arrested, a strong man like Yu Shouzhong will definitely bear the brunt.

Yu Shouzhong frowned and said, "If the news is true, we must notify Taiyuan immediately."

"Let's confirm the news later! I want to give you a guarantee first. Qiyan is here to tell me that the city will be shut down and arrested in the afternoon. If you don't want to be arrested, you can go to the county government to guarantee. The three shopkeepers can Guarantee one person, you hurry and follow me."

Yu Shouzhong knew that Yelu Qiyan was the highest official they could get in touch with. Although he was a Khitan, he was very righteous. His news was generally correct. What's more, once the martial law started, they couldn't even send the eagle letter. out.

"Okay! Let me make arrangements, and I will go to the county government with you."

He arranged for several of his subordinates to send the information immediately, and then followed Commod and two other Khitan shopkeepers to the county government.

……

Sure enough, Yelu Qiyan was right. The city gate was closed, and a large group of Jurchen soldiers appeared on the street. Teams began to search from house to house, arresting Mughal spies and Han spies. Of course, they couldn’t tell if they were spies, so they arrested first. Then screen and distinguish one by one.

Except for those who have a guarantee certificate from the county government and do not need to be arrested, all other Han and Mughals will be arrested.

The city was full of chaos and panic. People were constantly being pushed out of the house and arrested in groups. Many Han people tried their best to explain that they had lived in Datong Mansion for decades, and they were not spies from the Song Army. Tired of it, he slapped her face a few times, and then dared not say a word.

It is more difficult to distinguish the Mughal people in the grassland. There are thousands of nomadic merchants from the grassland living in the city. many.

The Jurchens couldn't tell the Mughals from the Krets, so they simply arrested them all, which immediately triggered a strong resistance. The grassland nomads were tougher, and they swung their knives and fought the Jurchen soldiers desperately, but how could they be the opponents of the Jurchen soldiers? After dozens of people were killed, other grassland people had no choice but to accept their fate and be taken away, including women, children and the elderly.

A group of Jurchen soldiers rushed into Commode's shop. Commode was extremely shrewd and hid the expensive goods at noon. There are more than 100 sheepskins, worth more than two hundred pieces. If you really search the soldiers, you won't get any benefits at all, and they will definitely make trouble.

The headed Jurchen centurion looked at the store. He was not very interested in the goods in the store, so he asked sharply, "There is a Han in your store, where is it now?"

Commodus quickly took out the letter of guarantee issued by the county government in the morning, and said with a smile: "The Han people under me are locals from Datong, not Han people from the Song Dynasty. This is the guarantee certificate from the county government."

The reason why the county government was willing to issue a guarantee certificate was because many officials in Datong Prefecture were Han Chinese from the Liao Kingdom, and they wanted to ensure that they and their families would not be caught, so they left this hole.

The centurion looked at the certificate and said in a more relaxed tone, "Is he the only Han Chinese?"

Commodore, who can speak fluent Jurchen, explained: "Including me, there are six people in the small shop. Four of the five clerks are from Dangxiang Qiang, and one is Han. They are all clerks I hired locally. .”

The centurion winked at his subordinates, "Go and see!"

A group of Jurchen soldiers went into the backyard to search, saying they were looking for people, but in fact they were looking for valuables. After a while, a group of soldiers came out and shook their heads. This meant two things, indicating that no extra Han people were found, nor was there any valuables thing.

The centurion was really disappointed. His eyes fell on the thick sheepskin, and he pointed at the sheepskin and said, "For military use!"

A dozen Jurchen soldiers stepped forward carrying the sheepskins and left.

"It's really a group of robbers!"

Commode cursed in a low voice, and he was really relieved to think that Yu Shouzhong had not been arrested.

Chapter 896 Captured

The chief general of the Jin army in Datong Mansion was Wanyan Helisa. He was released by the Song Dynasty and returned to the Kingdom of Jin.

Wanyan Helisa rode on a steed horse to inspect the soldiers and arrest the Han and Mughals. This was Wanyanchang’s order. Wanyanchang sent two orders. The Wu people, the second is to arrest the Han and Mughal people in the city, there must be spies in there.

Wanyan Helisa asked his staff Song Ying worriedly: "Chen Qing's army is gathering in the south, and the Mughals are watching in the north. Sir, teach me how to deal with it?"

Song Ying is a Han from the Liao Kingdom, one of Wanyanchang's staff, and his thinking is quite clear, so Wanyanchang assigned him to Wanyan and Lisa as his staff. In the past few months, Wanyan and Lisa have treated Song Ying quite well. Rely on.

Song Ying pondered for a moment and said: "It's mid-September now, and the first snow will fall on the grassland in a little more than a month. At this time, the Mengwu will not go south to harass them. Besides, they have to deal with Nianhan's [-] troops. So don't consider the threat from the Mughal tribe for the time being, but the Song army is likely to attack Chitang Pass in the near future, and the commander-in-chief should better strengthen the defense in the south."

Specifically how to fight, Wanyan Drinking Lisa does not need other people's advice, but needs to get advice on the general direction.

Song Ying's reminder was very timely, and Wanyan Drinking Separation also immediately thought of the weather factor, yes!It's going to snow soon, how can the grassland people come out?

It is understandable that the Han people do not understand the situation of the grassland nomads, but Wanyanhelisa is very clear that their Jurchen fishing and hunting peoples, like the grassland nomads, are tribal and not professional troops. Around, it will take ten days and a half months to gather troops.

After the sacrificial offering, it is often thousands of miles away from the target to go south, and it takes more than a month to reach the target. If there is heavy snow during this period, the army will be trapped in the vast snow, unable to go north or south, and the entire army will definitely be wiped out in the end.

Therefore, seasons are extremely important for nomads to start wars. Nomads never start wars in autumn and winter. They usually enter the war season after the lambs are born in spring.

Wanyan and Lisa wanted to slap himself, and he had forgotten this most basic common sense.

"Thank you for reminding me, sir. Let me ask you again, should I lead the army to the south? Or send [-] troops to the south?"

Song Ying shook his head and said: "The reason why Marshal Talandu ordered to abandon the Northern Expedition to the Grassland was because he was afraid that the Song Army would take advantage of the emptiness of Datong Mansion to make a sneak attack. This sneak attack army did not come from the south, but from the west. The governor must be careful of the Chen Qing faction. The cavalry came from the Hetao side, our [-] army is not many, if we divide our troops, it will be easy to be defeated by the Song army."

"I totally understand!"

Wanyan Helisa let out a long sigh, "Sir, don't tell me, I really didn't expect Song Jun to come from the west."

Song Ying said again: "There is one more thing I want to remind the governor. The people of the Mughal and Kele tribes are different from the Han people. The Han people will be obedient and patient, but they will not. They have a violent personality. Lock them up in the big camp. Inside, riots are likely to break out at night."

"Then according to Mr.'s opinion?"

"Let them go home to get a little food, and then drive them all out of the city. They can only return to the grassland. This saves a lot of trouble. The property they left behind can make a lot of money for the governor."

The last sentence was Song Ying's real intention, to take this opportunity to confiscate the wealth of the Mengwu merchants, and of course the big head went to the Jurchen generals, even if he couldn't eat meat himself, he would always have a few sips of soup.

Wanyan Drinking Lisa narrowed his eyes and laughed, this suggestion is really good.

Wanyan Helisa immediately ordered twenty catties of grain to be distributed to each person, and all the more than [-] merchants from the Mughal and Kelei tribes were expelled from Datong Mansion.

Of course he will not give them another chance to go home and collect the gold and silver.

……

East Road is basically covered by vast mountains, especially the two major mountain ranges running from north to south, the Taihang Mountains in the east and the Luliang Mountains in the west, but there are many small and medium-sized mountains distributed between these mountains, such as Zhongtiao Mountain and Taiyue Mountain in the south, Yunzhong Mountain and Xizhou Mountain in the central part, Wutai Mountain, Hengshan Mountain, Wuzhou Mountain and so on in the north.

Six basins are formed in these large and small mountain ranges, Yuncheng Basin, Linfen Basin, Shangdang Basin in the south, Taiyuan Basin in the middle, Xinzhou Basin and Datong Basin in the north, and millions of people live in these six basins Among them, East Road was formed.

The Taiyuan Basin and the Xinzhou Basin are blocked by Yunzhong Mountain and Xizhou Mountain, but there are two rivers flowing through the mountains, forming two valleys and becoming the main road running through the north and south. One is the Fenshui River Valley in the northwest, connecting Taiyuan Fu and Lanzhou, the other is the Lanshui River Valley, which just passes through the junction of Yunzhong Mountain and Xizhou Mountain, connecting Taiyuan Fu and Xinzhou.

Two well-known passes were built on these two river valleys. To the west is Loufan Pass, which is currently under the control of the Song Army. Back then, the Northern Song Army went to Lanzhou, Linzhou, and Fuzhou from here to fight against Xixia. cutting edge.

The pass to the east is Chitang Pass, which was built at the entrance of the Lanshui River Valley. It was at Chitang Pass that Chen Qing and Jin Guo exchanged hostages.

This morning, several teams of cavalry came out of Chitang Pass, each team consisted of about ten people, wearing leather armor, bronze helmets on their heads, bows and arrows on their backs, and spears in their hands. heading south...

This cavalry is the spies sent by the guarding army. They are all Han Chinese Congjun Army. On Wanyan Wushu's side, it has been renamed the Signing Army, but it has not been changed on Wanyanchang's side. It is still called the Congcong Army.

The chief general of Chitang Pass is Zhang Zhongfu, who is in charge of the capital, and at the same time he is in charge of Zhixinzhou affairs.

Zhang Zhongfu received an order from Wanyan and Lisa, ordering him to determine the position of the main force of the Song army within two days, and at the same time the defenders entered the first level of combat readiness.

The so-called first-level combat readiness is to launch a war at any time, and no one can enter or leave the pass, except for the spies sent.

Not long after several scout cavalry rushed out of Chitang Pass, one of the scouts was spotted by the scouts of the Song Army.

This Song army scout was like waiting for a rabbit. They had been waiting for the enemy's spies outside the customs. They had been waiting for five days, and they finally arrived.

The Song army scouted about fifty cavalry, led by a deputy commander of the scout battalion. The deputy commander was Li Sanghuai, a native of Chengji County, 26 and seven years old. For the deputy commander.

Fifty scouts rode on two horses and followed the enemy scouts all the way. After entering a forest, Li Sanghuai knew the terrain very well. He immediately divided his troops into two groups, ordering one captain to lead [-] scout cavalry to continue to follow, and he led [-] cavalry scouts to follow. A cavalry walked around to the front to intercept the enemy spies.

The ten Xie Congjun spies were not familiar with the road conditions. They walked along the official road, ran for more than ten miles, and came out of the woods.

"Du Tou, someone is following us!"

They were all spies, and they were all sharp. Suddenly, they noticed the figure of a cavalry not far behind them.

The spies were taken aback, and took down their bows and arrows one after another. At this moment, a dense burst of arrows shot from behind them. They were powerful and all aimed at their horses.

The horses of the ten spies were shot in the legs by arrows and fell to the ground. At least five soldiers fell from their horses.

"Kill!"

With a loud cry, Li Sanghuai led [-] cavalry scouts to kill them, and [-] cavalrymen also rushed out from the opposite forest, surrounding ten scouts.

The three spies tried to break out of the siege, but there was no chance. The Song army scouts rushed up, stabbed them with random spears, and killed the three spies on the horse.

"We surrender! Surrender!"

The remaining seven spies shouted in fright and raised their hands.

Li Sanghuai ordered sharply: "Throw away all weapons and get off the horse!"

The last two cavalrymen dismounted, and everyone was terrified. They immediately threw away all their weapons and took off their armor.

Without armor and weapons, they are like porcupines with all their spikes pulled out, and they can only be slaughtered by the Song army.

Li Sanghuai ordered his men to tie up the seven spies from the Xie Congjun Army, ride them on horseback, and lead them to run towards the south barracks.

Chapter 897

The camp of the main force of the Song and Jin Dynasties was located in the area of ​​Baijingzhai about [-] miles south of Chitangguan. There were a total of [-] troops, led by Niu Gao, the governor of the capital, with Liu Qiong and Tang Qian as deputy generals.

Niu Gao led troops very steadily, but he was not pedantic. He could use tricks at critical moments. It was his stability with tricks that won Chen Qing's attention. Of course, this Northern Expedition could not be done by relying solely on generals. There must also be a military division to follow.

The military adviser was Zhang Xiao, who served as the superintendent of Shangshu Xingtai on Hedong Road, and also served as the salt and iron transport envoy on Hedong Road.

Zhang Xiaochun is the director of Shangshuxing on Hedong Road. The supervisor is a kind of supervisory official position. Every link in Hedong Road needs to be in normal operation, especially many prefectures and counties surrendered from the Kingdom of Jin. Are they qualified? It is impossible for the people's evil deeds to rely on their voluntary acknowledgment, so the capital prison is needed to investigate, mainly relying on various reports to collect clues.

Zhang Xiao took up this supervisory position. After a year of supervision, it was basically over. More than [-]% of the officials passed the customs, and those who failed were directly dismissed by Zhang Xiao, investigated for crimes, and spit out the stolen goods.

At this time, Niu Gao was about to lead the army in the Northern Expedition, so Zhang Xiao was appointed by Chen Qing as a military adviser to assist Niu Gao in the Northern Expedition.

In the afternoon, Zhang Xiao received the notification from Niu Gao and hurried to the big tent of the Chinese army.

"Niu Dutong, is there any important news?" Zhang Xiao asked with a smile.

Niu Gao sighed and said, "Just received the Eagle letter from the Taiyuan intelligence station, Jin Bing changed his plan and stopped the northern expedition to the Mongolian tribe. He probably knew that we were going to attack north."

Zhang Xiao expected the Jinbing to cancel the Northern Expedition, "I said two days ago that it is mid-September, and if there is no sufficient logistical support, it is very likely that they will be trapped in the grassland by the snowstorm, and all of them will freeze and starve to death. So I told the general, to consider the worst direction of the plan, we have to face the [-] army of Jinbing."

Niu Gao nodded, "The current weather is indeed unfavorable. His Royal Highness King Yong gave us an order to seize the Xinzhou Basin before the snow falls. We will have logistical support. We will go north to capture Datong Mansion after the spring of next year. What I am worried about now is, Will [-] Jin soldiers go south to Xinzhou?"

Zhang Xiaowei smiled and said: "Datong Mansion is much more important than Xinzhou. Since Jin Bing gave up going north to the grassland, it is to protect Datong Mansion, so Jin Bing will definitely not go south, otherwise what if we send surprise soldiers to attack Datong Mansion from the west The other party can definitely imagine this point. The biggest possibility is that the 2 Khitan troops from Daizhou will go south to Xinzhou, and the two alliance armies will defend us together, so we are facing [-] people. Now we must take down Chidan as soon as possible. Tangguan."

"I know, I have already sent scouts to inquire about the news, and there should be an answer in the past two days."

As soon as Niu Gao finished speaking, a soldier reported outside the tent, "Report to Dutong, the first scout team is back, and there is something to gain!"

Niu Gao was overjoyed, and hurriedly said: "Let Li Sanghuai come to see me!"

After a while, Li Sanghuai walked into the large tent of the Chinese army, knelt down on one knee and saluted, "See Dutong for humble posts!"

"How's the harvest?"

"A spy team from the enemy army was arrested. There were ten people in total. Three of them were killed by us, and the other seven were taken back to the camp. Most of them have been interrogated on the way. General Tang is currently checking the confessions."

At this time, Tang Qian and Liu Qiong walked into the big tent, Tang Qian held a statement in his hand, and said with a smile: "It has been checked, basically there is no problem, and it is about the same as we expected."

Niu Gao immediately asked the soldiers to carry up a model, which was made of mud and stones, completely imitating Chitang Pass.

The soldiers carefully placed the model weighing hundreds of kilograms on the table. To be precise, Chitangguan is a valley, with Yunzhong Mountain on the left and Xizhou Mountain on the right. The valley in the middle with a width of half a mile is the distance between the two mountains. , in fact, this valley was not alluvial by Lanshui, but formed naturally. The entire valley is about ten miles long, and it is also the smallest part of the two mountains. A city gate was built in the front and back.

Tang Qian pointed to the valley and explained the information to everyone, "The enemy's 3000 troops are all Han Chinese Congregation Army, of which 7000 are stationed in the valley, and [-] are stationed in the north. Single-layer leather armor, but the spies have double-layer leather armor. The weapons and other equipment are the same as those of the previous Confederate Army, but there are a thousand barrels of fire oil in the valley, and twenty medium-sized trebuchets, which are their sharpest guards. weapons, if we forcibly attack key points, they will definitely use kerosene to burn.”

"How's the morale of the army?" Zhang Xiao asked.

"The morale has not been very good. This army was recruited a few years ago. They are all the children of the former Western Army. They have the lowest status and the lowest salary in the Allied Army. They only have a monthly salary of [-] Wen, and they have been owed almost Half a year, the food is also the worst, the soldiers are very resentful, morale is low, because they can eat enough, so there is no phenomenon of desertion, although everyone is dissatisfied, but at least they can eat, the taxes are too heavy when they go home, and the people are hungry and cold , was exploited.

But if there is no war, they will continue to serve as soldiers, but now that the war is coming, the morale of the army has begun to be unstable. Several spies have confessed that the soldiers are very war-weary and don't want to work for the golden soldiers, including them, that's why they surrendered so much Quick, there is no resistance. "

"General Li, are the ten of them really defenseless?" Niu Gao asked Li Sanghuai who was standing by the tent with a smile.