Volume 1 Chapter 63: Part 28 (Part 1)
On the 28th day of the first lunar month, the weather was already very warm. Even in the areas north and south of the Yellow River, which were in the midst of war, people began to venture out to cultivate the fields.
What else? In the current situation of war between the North and the South, not only the poor families, but also the wealthy families with some money at home can't bear it.
If rice from the south cannot be imported in the future, won’t the whole family starve to death?
However, for the 5,000 Jin troops in Jeju City, Jeju Prefecture, the sudden dense appearance of Han people in the fields outside the city undoubtedly became a new kind of fun for them when they were extremely bored here... It may be because the Jin Dynasty, which leapt from a tribal alliance to an imperial era, had a great slave society color. Of course, it may also be because the army was away and their natural and unrestrained bestiality was there... In short, in the past ten days or so, the Jin army’s favorite thing to do was to shoot and kill Han people in the fields around Jeju City for fun.
This is just like around the New Year, when the local Han people would go to Liangshan Lake to catch wild ducks in order to fill their stomachs.
However, unlike ducks which can swim into the depths of the water when frightened, the common people cannot abandon their fields... The timing was right. Today, Aunt Wang next door died on the ridge of the field. The whole village was frightened and no one was able to cultivate the land. The next day, they had to try again carefully, and it was their own father's turn to die in the field. The day after that, they wiped away their tears and went again, but their wife was kidnapped again. At this time, they could only go to Liangshanpo with a few friends to ask Chief Zhang for a meal. As a result, the villagers who stayed behind had to try to farm the fields carefully.
The Jin people's fun continued.
However, in the past two days, for the Jin people in Jeju City, this kind of fun has suddenly become extremely dangerous... The reason is simple and direct. Starting from the 26th of the first lunar month, many small groups of Song cavalry units with unknown numbers have appeared around Jeju City. They are so powerful that groups of three or five Jin soldiers are easily solved in one encounter. If one or two of the seven or eight people can escape, they must be the top equestrians in the army.
As of yesterday afternoon, a Jin army of fifty men, half a Mouke, went out of the city for patrol. In broad daylight, they were surrounded by two or three hundred Song cavalrymen... The Jin soldiers wanted to fight at first, but unexpectedly, the martial arts of the grassroots officers in this Song army were far beyond imagination, and the role of a few exceptionally brave officers in small-scale combat was unquestionable.
In the end, only eighteen people returned out of the fifty, and all of them had their noses and ears cut off.
As a result, according to the Jin Dynasty military law, 22 people were beheaded that night... Because the head of the Mouke, that is, the centurion of the hundred-man team, was hung on the neck of a warhorse that knew how to find its way and sent back to the city. Therefore, according to the Jin Dynasty military law, several centurions who did not go out "hunting" were also beheaded in public.
But compared with all these, the most devastating thing is that the leader of this army of 5,000 people, Wanyan Seri, a young nobleman from the Wanyan tribe, who was the first to command a thousand households , actually issued a public order that except for a small team of scouts, no one was allowed to easily go out three miles outside Jeju City to provoke trouble, and anyone who violated the order would be beheaded!
Moreover, the military law of the Jin Dynasty was extremely strict, and Wanyan Seri was only slightly younger, and he liked to read books written by southerners. However, this did not stop him from joining the army at a young age, and his experience during the conquests of the Liao and Song dynasties was enough to convince the people.
So even though the Jin army was in turmoil, no one dared to question it easily.
However, that was all… You must know that at this moment, it was less than a year since the Jin Dynasty destroyed the Northern Song Dynasty. On the surface, the fundamental purpose of this second southern expedition was to completely digest and annex Hebei, and there was no suspicion of frustration in essence:
Li Yanxian's recovery of Shanzhou was only the strength of one state and a local battlefield. Moreover, the more than 100,000 remnants of the Western Army were the main force of the Song Army. The Jin Kingdom's Western Army inevitably felt that it had not exerted its full strength.
The Tokyo garrison was blocked in Huazhou, and it could only be considered a stalemate. Moreover, the Third Prince Erliduo led the Yanjing Central Army to sweep Hebei, and never intended to cross the river to confront the Tokyo garrison head-on.
And the march of the Fourth Prince Wanyan Wushu to the south further proved the strength of the Jin army... He easily completed the assigned mission, and with 20,000 troops he pursued the enemy from the south and north, easily locking onto the Emperor of the Song Dynasty.
So at this moment, almost all the Jin soldiers felt that an army of 5,000 was enough to dominate the Central Plains. Then, how could the Jeju defenders, who had never been frustrated and were in high spirits, tolerate such provocation?
It’s just the word military law!
"General, there are Song troops provoking us from the north of the city !"
On the morning of the 28th day of the first lunar month, Meng'an, who was stationed in the northern city of Jeju City and Databuye, who was born in Bohai, was wiping the body of his warhorse with his bare chest in the courtyard where he was stationed, when he suddenly heard an absurd message.
In fact, this Meng An was stunned for three or five breaths before he suddenly rode out of the door without saying a word, and then he got on his horse with his bare chest in front of the gate and headed north of the city. When Da Tabuye climbed up the city and looked down, he felt even more absurd.
Because there were only seven riders under the city at this time!
Two riders were in front, one on the left and one on the right, each holding a vertical flag, on which each had improvised ink and paper dipped in paste. The right flag read: Breaking the Jeju Castle;
The left side is called: Capture Wan Yanli alive.
And there was another rider behind him, but he was holding a serious flag, which read: Yue, the commander of the Tokyo garrison of the Great Song Dynasty. Further behind him were three raiding knights, no need to say more.
In addition to this, there was a general in the center, standing in front of the raised flag, wearing a complete helmet and armor, holding a bow and a spear, sitting upright on a big horse, standing still!
Databuye was an experienced soldier after all. After understanding the meaning of the handwriting, although he laughed out of anger, he was not in a hurry to leave the city. Instead, he asked someone to help him put on his armor while gazing into the distance... He instinctively set his eyes on the huge lake just over ten miles to the north. The banks there were a mixture of green and yellow and overgrown with reeds, but he soon shook his head. Finally, he fixed his eyes on a forest between the lake and Jeju City, but shook his head again.
There weren't many places to hide people on the plain, and the forest wasn't big, so at most a thousand people could hide there. Considering the previous report and discussion by the Jin cavalry, the total strength of the Song army might not be even 700 or 800 cavalry, which was even more ridiculous. If that was true, then it could only be said that the other side had taken advantage of the past two days and was so confused that they thought the Song army could still gain the upper hand in a battle with a thousand cavalry.
But a serious problem is that the forest is five or six miles away from here. Even if Databuye wanted to destroy the Song army, he might not dare to do it.
With this thought in mind, the Bohai Meng'an, after putting on his armor, could only gather his troops in the north of the city, and at the same time send people to the city to report and request Wanyan Saili to revoke the previous military order and allow him to march his troops far away from the city to wipe out the beast.
However, after waiting for a long time, Databuye only received the word "not allowed".
Given the situation, Databude could no longer let go of the seven people under the city!
"You all know what happened, now let's see it clearly again!"
Although he was born in Bohai, Jin Meng'an, who was famous for being the first to reach the city and cross the river, sat on the top of the city wall in anger. He called dozens of officers from the Jurchen, Xi, Bohai, Goryeo, Han, Khitan and other messes under his command, and pointed at the ordinary Song officer below. "Logically speaking, according to our rules of beheading, you officers should not be allowed to go down. But this man must be a commander of the Song Dynasty, and his position is not small; from his actions in the past two days, he is also capable; and he came here today, it can be seen that he is even more courageous... Such a person can't be said to be an insult to you, right? Today, I say that whoever can challenge this man under the city, I will recommend him at the cost of my military merits in this southward march! What do you think, since he has come to challenge, who dares to go down and challenge this bird?"
Upon hearing this, the officers were somewhat delighted, because they knew that Databuye was not bragging.
What's the meaning?
You must know that the foundation of the Jin Dynasty system, in the final analysis, is the Meng'an and Mouke system, which is a combination of military and political. In other words, Meng'an and Mouke are not only military captains and centurions, but also political and economic aristocrats. These two classes are the core ruling class of the Jin Dynasty and the two classes with the most serious appointments.
Therefore, when a Meng'an makes a political promise to a group of people whose highest status is only Mouke, then this promise will basically not be empty words.
After the explanation was completed, perhaps because they felt that the man below was not good-looking, after a dispute, someone finally took the initiative and could not wait to go down the city. Then, he put on armor, held a sharp weapon, carried a bow, and reined in his horse in the city gate, and went straight out of the city.
Da Tabuye sat on the top of the city wall. Seeing his own man riding out on horseback, with his horse raising a cloud of dust, he was excited and turned around to order the soldiers to beat drums to cheer... However, as soon as the drums sounded, this Bohai Meng'an turned around and was suddenly stunned. Even the soldier who was beating the drums stopped instantly.
It turned out that the person who went to fight disappeared in an instant!
"What's going on?" Da Ta Buye was puzzled for a moment. "You didn't put on your armor properly. Are you coming back to change clothes?"
"Dead!" A nearby Mouke paused for a long time before coming to his senses and answering. "Just when the general turned around, Xielu was just drawing his bow and drawing an arrow, ready to win with his bow and arrow, but he was shot in the face by the opponent from a distance of more than a hundred steps, but he happened not to fall off his horse... The horse knew the way and directly carried his body back to the city."
Da Tabuye was confused for a moment, and then he became completely angry and said, "Who is going to help me kill this man? Do you want me to fight in person?"
Maybe it was because the shot was too fast just now. Of course, there were some people who did not believe it and went down the city gate. However, as soon as the drum sounded again, this person was shot to death at the city gate again.
The Jin generals looked at each other in bewilderment. How could they not know that the Song commander at the foot of the city, although plain in appearance, possessed extraordinary skills, and that he came to knock on the city with something to rely on? But as the saying goes, a man lives by his breath. In an army whose morale is at its peak, who can endure?
Therefore, after a moment, another person came out to fight, but he changed into a heavy armor, put on a neck guard, and wore a cowhide mask, as if he was going to compete with the opponent in spearmanship.
This time, the drum beat loudly, but only once, and the man was stabbed to death outside the city by a Song general, and his head was also cut off and laid on the ground.
Now, no one dared to go into battle on their own just for Databuye’s promise... The official position was one thing, but life was one’s own. Seeing that the man under the city was a first-class hero, who would be willing to throw away his life in vain?
Of course, although Databuye was extremely angry, he was not a stupid person. Now that he had seen the opponent's ability, he no longer asked his subordinates to fight in a duel. Instead, he simply called a Mouke and asked him to lead thirty Jurchen cavalrymen in light armor to fight... The so-called light armor meant that they must capture and kill the general and not let him escape; thirty cavalrymen were the maximum number of people who could rush out due to the size of the city gate.
It was already noon and the drums started beating again, this time with an extraordinarily exciting effect. Seven Song cavalrymen outside the city dropped their flags and engaged in a fierce chase with thirty Jurchen light-armored cavalrymen in the open space north of the city.
However, the direction of the battle still stunned Da Tabuye and others on the city... As mentioned before, the main tactic of the Jurchen cavalry is the archery on horseback, but their archery is strong in power and armor-piercing, but far inferior to the range of the Song army's arrows. The seven Song army knights under the city are not only good at horsemanship and archery, but the leading general is a rare archer. Not only is his range extremely long, but his power and accuracy are far beyond imagination. He can easily dodge and turn around to shoot arrows even when galloping.
The seven riders were seen leading the thirty Jurchen riders back and forth. Every time the Song general turned around, he would easily shoot down a Jurchen rider. This went on and on. In just an incense stick of time, only twenty of the thirty Jurchen riders were left. Their morale was extremely low, as if most of the people they lost were officers!
Databuye was so angry that his eyes were bloodshot. On the one hand, he ordered the troops to retreat, and on the other hand, he called a Jurchen Mouke and asked him to meet Wanyan Seri in person to allow him to send troops out of the city!
