Volume 1 Chapter 2: The Red Heart Team
"So, you are all from famine-stricken people in Liaodong?"
In the evening, in a field at the very edge of the Mingdao Palace complex, on a ridge where the crops had just been harvested, beside a campfire, Emperor Zhao casually put down the clay bowl, wiped his mouth without any grace, and continued to question.
"Your Highness..."
"Just call me everyone. We can just sit down and talk." One of the biggest advantages of a time traveler is that he or she can be humble.
"Report to everyone." The strong man who sat back on the stool with the bowl in his hand was obviously one of the few eloquent people in the camp, but at this moment he was at a loss, and even his speech seemed incoherent. "We were not originally hungry people, we were just ordinary people in Liaodong... Just like me, I used to be a horse trader... But when the Jurchen Emperor Wanyan Aguda fought against the Khitan Emperor, the Khitan Emperor collected too much money and grain, and Liaodong had no place to make a living, so we became hungry people. Later, the Khitans could not defeat the Jurchens, so they recruited us Han hungry people in Liaodong, because they said that we blamed the Jurchens for our loss of livelihood, so they called us the Resentment Army. Later, a Xi became emperor and changed it to the Ever-Victorious Army. The 800 cavalrymen who followed the emperor now are all veterans from the Yanzhou Camp of the Eight Camps of the Resentment Army..."
"Where is Yanzhou?" Zhao Jiu was curious and asked again.
"Reporting to everyone, in fact, the official name of our Yanzhou is not Yanzhou, but Yanyuanzhou. It is next to Liaoyang Prefecture in the former Dongjingdao of the Great Liao Dynasty, and is close to the sea in the south..." Someone else couldn't help but interrupt.
It turns out to be an old friend from Yingkou!
Emperor Zhao, who was sitting there in a striking round-necked red robe, suddenly realized something. He nodded repeatedly and couldn't help patting his thigh.
Besides, Emperor Zhao nodded repeatedly, but he couldn't help but be moved in his heart, and he began to daydream... Firstly, he had been to Yingkou that year, and he couldn't help but feel a little homesick; secondly, he knew that this was a "beggar army" with no ties to anyone! Moreover, they were rare skilled cavalrymen in the army!
So naturally I started to think about it.
On the other side, several old friends from Yingkou saw that the young Emperor Zhao seemed to be in deep thought, and they thought that he was just a prince before and didn't know about the affairs of the court, so they wondered why they came here again... But they didn't dare to stop easily, and could only explain their origins clearly.
It turned out that after this army was established, the commander of the camp was called Liu Yan, and the commander-in-chief of the Resentful Army, that is, the Ever-Victorious Army, was the famous Guo Yaoshi.
Guo Yaoshi is a legendary figure in this era... This is not to say that his martial arts are extraordinary or his military strategy is outstanding, but that as a remnant of the Khitan, he was fickle on the border between Song and Jin after the demise of the Liao Dynasty. He first surrendered to the Song Dynasty, but then surrendered to the Jin army after seeing the internal weakness of the Song Dynasty. He also directly advised the Jin Dynasty's Grand Marshal and Second Prince Wanyan Wulie not to attack Bianliang directly, which in fact contributed to the southward advance of the Jin army and the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty.
In other words, this person was one of the originators of the Jingkang Shame.
However, among the eight battalions of the Resentful Army, which were basically composed of Han people from Liaodong and later renamed the Ever-Victorious Army, the commander of the Yanzhou Battalion, Liu Yan, was a genuine Song person, and seemed to be a scholar from the south. But for some reason he ended up in the Liao Kingdom in his early years, and there was a hidden story... So, when Guo Yaoshi returned north, most of the Ever-Victorious Army returned north with him, but this man led the Yanzhou Battalion to stay in the Song Dynasty.
In response to this, Emperor Huizong at that time gave this army a special name, the Red Heart Team, to commend their loyalty!
Later, this unit tossed around, but always maintained a firm stance. During the Jingkang Incident, it was one of the few units that had been active on the front line of the anti-Jin war and was able to maintain its organization and combat effectiveness after the war.
The more Zhao Jiu listened, the more ideas he had, to the point that he even called it luck... You have to know that the reason he came here was 30% out of curiosity and 70% to avoid Yang Yizhong, but he didn't expect to gain so much!
As for where is the harvest?
It is precisely this army that comes from Liao!
You must know that throughout history, both in China and abroad, when the internal situation became more complicated and the status of monarchs and generals was the most unstable, they would often use foreign troops as their guards, because they had no strong ties with the internal affairs. As long as the monarchs and generals could guarantee their treatment, these foreign troops would be the most reliable troops.
For example, around this time, on the religious dividing line in the Western world, the guards of many small princes came from the opposing side... The Christian Guards were popular among the North African Moorish warlords; and the North African Guards were popular among the Spanish nobles. That was roughly the reason.
Of course, Zhao Jiu is not an expert in history.
On the contrary, most of his historical knowledge came from nine years of compulsory education and some basic popular science books, plus some high-end online novels such as "Qin Li" and "Han Que", and low-end games such as Total War, so he didn't know these weird things.
Only the principles in the world are the same, and Zhao Jiu happens to have his own personal situation and needs.
With this thought in mind, Zhao Jiu began to think about how to win over this army so that he could sleep well.
Unexpectedly, just when Emperor Zhao was gradually making some plans in his mind, those old friends from Yingkou started talking to each other, and gradually they spoke more and more fluently and in more and more detail, with more and more information. Among them, they even mentioned the name of a person that Zhao Jiu was particularly concerned about, and made him think of another person!
"That day in Tokyo, we followed Liu Yingtou under the command of Liu Taiwei. However, we didn't expect that Liu Taiwei's long legs had not changed after so many years. He ran away as soon as the battle started, from Gaoliang River to Tokyo! We were just a Yingtou, and we had no choice but to be surrounded by his tens of thousands of Guanxi soldiers and run away. Before we even got a foothold, we heard that Liu Taiwei ran too fast, and we ran into the Jin people head-on at Guier Temple and were killed directly. Then tens of thousands of Western soldiers were defeated in a daze..."
"Many of the bandits took the opportunity to run away, but we didn't. We only had 1,000 of the 3,000 men left, so we asked Liu Yingtou where to go. Liu Yingtou said that we couldn't go to Tokyo, but we had received the kindness of the Song Dynasty and had to repay it. It just so happened that you were the Grand Marshal of the Army in Hebei, so we went to look for you."
"As soon as we crossed the river, we met the deputy marshal of the clan. He received the order from the government and was going to rescue the two saints. So we followed the deputy marshal to rescue the two saints..."
"That Vice Marshal Zong is a real hero. He is so old and a Jinshi. But he is just like our Liu Yingtou, not a bit jealous. Following him is the most convenient time for us in the past few years. Unfortunately, he just can't fight... The tens of thousands of elite soldiers you gathered with great difficulty were wiped out as soon as they came. We had no choice but to protect Vice Marshal Zong and escape. But at that time, there were no soldiers in Hebei at all. The emperor also went around Shandong to Nanjing (Shangqiu). We counted and found that there were only 800 people. We could only follow Vice Marshal Zong across the river to Nanjing, and then we caught up with the emperor..."
"My dear elders...you have worked so hard!" The sky had completely darkened, and Emperor Zhao, who had just come to his senses, sighed.
“Don’t dare to call me brother in front of the government!” Several old friends from Yingkou who were sitting nearby stood up in shock.
"Why can't I call him that?" Zhao Jiu laughed and talked about the gossip he had heard from Concubine Pan these days. "You have been in Liaodong for a long time but still don't understand the customs of the Central Plains. From the royal family to the street errand boys, people in Shandong and the Central Plains just call him brother casually... I am in Tokyo, and although I am a prince, everyone in the palace calls me Ninth Brother, and you and I can also call the pear seller on the street Brother."
The cavalrymen finally calmed down.
"Come on," Zhao Jiu suddenly changed the subject, and looked expectant. "You have been with Vice Marshal Zong in Hebei for a long time. Have you ever recognized a person named Yue Fei?"
However, several Red Heart Team soldiers looked at each other, but no one knew.
"Excuse me, Your Majesty, who is this Yue Fei that you can't forget him?" The man who had been talking so eloquently before asked boldly.
"Yue Fei is not some Xiazha..." Zhao Jiu was obviously a little discouraged. "Yue Fei is that Yue Fei, he seems to be from Hebei, his name is Pengju, he fought with Zong Ze, the deputy marshal you mentioned..."
Several Red Heart Team soldiers looked at each other again and shook their heads.
Zhao Jiu was completely helpless.
However, seeing that Emperor Zhao was in a low mood and might turn around at any time, coupled with the fact that many people had been chatting all night and were not careful, one of them suddenly took the initiative to ask:
"Sir, I heard someone say that the reason we stopped suddenly this time was not because there were bandits ahead, but because you, Sir, didn't want to go south anymore. Is that true?"
"Oh..." Zhao Jiu was in a trance for a moment, and almost blurted out. "Well, I do have this idea, but if I stay here, I really don't know how to resist the Jin soldiers who come suddenly. Maybe I have to go to Yangzhou."
The surrounding soldiers' expressions changed slightly when they heard this, but they didn't say much.
At this time, Zhao Jiu also realized that he seemed to have said something wrong, and wanted to change the subject, but before he opened his mouth, a familiar voice suddenly sounded in the shadows of the night behind him:
"Sir, I have been ordered to deliver Madam Pan's ice cream."
Zhao Jiu stood up in shock and turned around, only to find that Yang Yizhong had been standing behind him since some time, holding a bowl of milk cake or other snack in his hands, looking respectful.
