Volume 1 Chapter 24: Thirty Thousand
"Officials! "
Zhang Jun was stunned for a moment, but then he quickly got off his horse and pointed to the sky in the snow. "Good instructor, you know that Han Shizhong told me about this when he passed Shouzhou. I also have the same opinion. If the Jin soldiers dare to come against the weather and terrain, with more than 30,000 troops, I dare not say to defend; if it is less than 30,000, and it is only a leader like Jin Wushu who has just taken charge of a large army, Han Shizhong and I, together with Liu Guangshi and Liu Zhengyan, will join forces and defend the city together. We will never let the Jin soldiers cross the Huai River! If we fail, I will die in front of your majesty's horse!"
"That's good." Zhao Jiu nodded condescendingly. "As I said before, I will stop at Shouchun on the other side of the Huai River! I will lure the enemy for you! If it works, I will have a banquet with you, General Zhang, in the future; if it fails, I will not force you to do anything. You can die or surrender as you wish. I only ask General Zhang not to come to see me again, so that I can maintain my heroic spirit in the snow today!"
Zhang Jun was naturally speechless.
By the way, apart from those surrenderists who put themselves in their shoes, Zhao Jiu’s thoughts could not be hidden from those who really cared…Everyone said that they could not fight, so he naturally asked if they could defend?
Everyone said that the Central Plains could not even be defended, so he naturally asked if he could defend the border of the Central Plains by relying on the Huai River and taking advantage of the geographical location?
And when even the Huai River was unable to defend against the main force of the Jin army, he naturally had to ask again, how many were considered the main force of the Jin army?
In the end, Han Shizhong, who was forced into a corner by the government, finally drew a red line. That is, if all the troops in the imperial camp could be gathered and deployed properly along the Huai River relying on the strong cities and rivers, the Jin army of less than 30,000 could still be held.
So, Zhao Jiu proposed this rough plan according to this condition... He himself would act as bait to see if he could attract Jin Wushu's detachment, in order to achieve at least a seemingly successful defense on the Huai River to boost the morale of the people.
As for where Emperor Zhao got his confidence from?
In the eyes of some ministers, this was of course a kind of blind confidence that Emperor Zhao had developed after he single-handedly suppressed the rebellion that day. But to be fair, this was not confidence. The confidence brought by the suppression of the rebellion and the meeting with Han Shizhong was . The real reason that prompted Emperor Zhao to make such a fuss at all costs was the desperate struggle of a time traveler, an act of trying to prove the meaning of his existence.
In Zhao Jiu's view, if he fails, he will die. If he succeeds in this wave of completely independent efforts, he will completely regard himself as Emperor Zhao, and will continue his life according to the routine of the Qin Emperor and Han Emperor Wu; if he fails, he will just treat it as a dream!
To put it in a positive way, this kind of thing is called being inspired by the times, being reckless and willing to sacrifice; to put it in a plainer way, it is called a normal person's active self-stress protection when faced with a drastic change; to put it in a negative way, it is a fool's self-abandonment.
But no matter what, back to the present, this kind of thing still seems ridiculous in the face of the absolute strength of the Jin army, so even Han Shizhong, who is fearless, took the initiative to make three rules with Zhao Jiu:
First, when the Jin army arrived, Emperor Zhao had to immediately move to the south bank of the Huai River to Shouchun, a safer place, to "command" the war;
Second, if the Jin army exceeds 30,000, or if the weather suddenly changes and the Huai River freezes over, Emperor Zhao must evacuate unconditionally.
Third, Emperor Zhao must deal with the civil officials in the central government personally.
It was based on these reasons that Zhao Jiu had been going around in circles, making a big fuss for fear that the north would not notice it, while at the same time trying to remove as many central civil officials who could cause obstruction to him as possible by using the relocation issue.
Li Gang, the most troublesome and the biggest threat, took advantage of the fact that the other party was sick, and regardless of whether it was true or not, quickly let this guy take Concubine Pan and her son away first; then the main body of the civil officials were divided from Yingkou, and this was not the end yet... After Zhang Jun, the Grand Marshal, was captured one day, Zhao Jiu followed him to Caicheng under the capital of Shouzhou, but dispersed several old ministers who were originally used to appease the people.
Among them, Zhang Que, who was actually in charge of the Ministry of Revenue, was banished to Huaidong to sell salt permits and certificates of ordination to raise funds; and the new Shangshu Youcheng Xu Jingheng was sent to Shouchun to be responsible for the personnel placement of those officials who had fled south before.
These were all legitimate and necessary tasks, and the two had no doubts. As a result, although Zhao Jiu still had the prime ministers of the East and West Palaces and the commander of the Imperial Camp by his side, there was only a good-natured man, Lu Haowen, in charge, while Wang Boyan, Wang Yuan and others were just yes-men.
By the fifteenth day of the twelfth lunar month, two important pieces of news came at the same time, and Zhao Jiu finally felt that everything was ready except for the east wind.
One piece of good news that is certain is that, under tremendous political pressure, Liu Zhengyan adopted the strategy of confusing the enemy with a new enemy proposed by Liu Yan and Liu Pingfu... The strategy was extremely simple, and it was basically learning from Dong Zhuo's old trick. Eight hundred cavalrymen of the Red Heart Team galloped into the military camp in broad daylight and sneaked out at night... After seven or eight days in a row, the Huaixi thief Ding Jin finally couldn't bear the pressure and surrendered.
At present, Liu Zhengyan is trying to surrender the bandits, and he will be able to join the imperial court in Shouzhou before the New Year.
The bad news is that, no one knows how long ago, Jin Wushu defeated a group of rebels at the pass of Yimeng Mountain, who were unclear whether they were anti-Jin righteous forces or rebels who wanted to take advantage and seize territory... But this army had tens of thousands of people and was located on a major road to the south. It can be said that after this battle, Jin Wushu was only one Liu Guangshi away from Zhao Jiu.
Therefore, it will soon become clear whether the fourth prince of the Jin Dynasty will come to find Zhao Jiu.
"Wu Shu, what nonsense are you talking about?"
In a huge mansion in Yidu City, Qingzhou, in front of a room full of Jin army generals and their subordinates, Wanyan Talan, deputy commander of the Jin Eastern Army, who was dressed in a brocade silk coat and looked more like a short and strong local tycoon than a commander of a hundred thousand troops, slammed his wine glass and shouted coldly again. "This time we went south, the intention of the great ruler was clearly stated, that is, to take the eastern route of Jingdong, clear the periphery to stabilize Hebei. Now that the war is going well, you should quickly return to Hebei and capture Daming Prefecture..."
"Why should I attack Damingfu?"
Before Talai finished speaking, a young Jurchen noble sitting in the first seat on the left in the hall snorted coldly, as if she did not give any face to her nominal boss at all. This person was none other than Wanyan Wushu, the vanguard of the Eastern Army of the Jin Dynasty, the biological son of Aguda, commonly known as the Fourth Prince.
Wanyan Wushu was only twenty-five or twenty-six this year, only four or five years older than Zhao Jiu, but like most of the Jurchen generals present, he had been on the battlefield for a long time and had a growing beard, so he looked to be thirty-five or thirty-six. But no matter whether he was thirty-five or twenty-six, a vanguard or a junior, no one dared to interrupt him when he was arguing with Wanyan Talan... because the title of Wanyan Aguda's biological son was more important than any seniority or official position.
