Volume 6 Chapter 28: Dying (Part 1)
By the way, the Yanjing City at that time was the Nanjing system of the Liao Dynasty. The palace city or the imperial city was located in the southwest of the city. It not only occupied more than a quarter of the entire city, but the two palace walls on the southwest simply shared the gates with the walls of Yanjing City... It was a typical city with a large area, few people, and leaks everywhere.
This also directly led to the defense of the palace becoming a big problem.
The eldest prince transferred Hezhameng'an out before because the new army and the Yanyun clans were all in the north city, but he did not expect that they were easily taken advantage of by Talai, Yin Shuke, Taiyu and others.
Although Hesheli Taiyu and others took advantage of the situation and occupied the palace, they did not dare to stay in the palace due to their strength.
In this case, Shangshutai, located near the city center, became the best choice. Although it was small in area, its walls were built according to the regulations of palace walls, which made it easy to defend. A large hall in the center also made it easy to monitor and control.
In fact, this was an important reason why Wuzhu chose to eliminate Nianhan in the Shangshu Tai.
"What do you want?"
In the twilight, the dark walls of the Shangshu Terrace were dimly visible in the firelight. After watching Zheng Xiunian return to the Qin Mansion to report the news, Hong Ya suddenly noticed Qin Hui's still hesitant attitude, and immediately stepped forward to ask.
"I'm wondering whether I should go back to the eldest prince." Qin Hui lowered his voice in the dark night. "If necessary, persuade him to come to see the emperor in person."
Hong Ya frowned for a moment, because he instinctively sensed the other party's cunningness.
After all, even at this point, the situation is only a 50-50 chance of winning or losing. If he still insists on being a member of the eldest prince's party on the surface, then if tonight fails, Qin Huizhi may be able to get rid of suspicion by virtue of the chaos and some kind of tacit silence; and if tonight succeeds, he will still be recognized as a great contributor by everyone here.
I can only say that it is a good plan.
But at the same time, Hong Ya had to admit that with the king in his hands and the Secretariat right in front of him, the battle of Elubu and Jiaguwulibu to suppress the new army and private soldiers of the three major clans was irreversible. The most important thing at this time was to get the eldest prince to the Secretariat as soon as possible... He could be tricked, lured, locked up, or forced to use dirty tricks and shoot him with an arrow outside the gate of the Secretariat, but the eldest prince had to be brought here and controlled.
At this time, Qin Hui, who had not revealed any obvious flaws, returned to the eldest prince. It was certainly beneficial to the situation to encourage the eldest prince to come to the Secretariat from an internal perspective.
Therefore, Hong Ya just frowned but did not object, and did not even sneer.
Seeing that Hong Ya had no objection, Qin Hui made up his mind and took the initiative to talk to Wanyan Talai and Hesheli Taiyu to express his feelings. As expected, the two of them did not express any extra words and let him leave calmly.
In the darkness, Qin Hui secretly left with a few guards without attracting the attention of others. Soon, the king and his wife, Wanyan Hela and Queen Pei Man, arrived in front of the Shangshu Terrace, escorted by a group of soldiers and riding on the same horse.
Besides, the chaos in Yanjing City had already been big enough, and the Shangshutai had certainly heard it and reacted. When everyone arrived at the outer gate of the Shangshutai, the gate was closed, and there were also lighting braziers and armed soldiers behind the high wall.
However, all this quickly collapsed with a word from Wulinda Zanmo, who took the initiative to come to the door:
"I am Wulinda Zanmo, the Minister of Rites. The king and queen are here now. Marshal Talan, Commander Yinshuke, General Hesheli, and Hong Chengzhi are also here. Open the door quickly to welcome them!"
With just one shout, the soldiers behind the wall became panicked, and then in just a moment, the door of the Shangshu Terrace was opened.
Everyone rushed in, protecting the king and the queen. They saw that it was still dark inside the Shangshu Terrace. Talai hurriedly scolded the soldiers and clerks who stayed behind to light up the lights and make sure they were bright to prevent the king and the queen from falling... Of course, everyone knew that this would make it easier to monitor the main hall in the center.
Soon, as everyone quickly poured into the main hall, the entire Shangshu Terrace quickly became brighter, to the point where it felt as if it was brightly lit, and it continued to get brighter...even gradually becoming too bright.
A few dozen steps away from the central hall of the Shangshu Terrace, Talai and Hesheli, who were walking on both sides of the king and queen, seemed to be the first to notice something, and then began to slow down and try to observe.
But it was too late.
The evening wind was howling, the fire was dazzling, and the five doors of the central hall of the Shangshu Terrace were suddenly opened. Hundreds of soldiers swarmed out from the four side doors, and in the middle of the tide of soldiers, several figures suddenly appeared in front of everyone.
That’s not all, more soldiers also poured out from the outer side halls and wing rooms.
At this moment, unlike the others beside him who hurriedly stopped and even instinctively held their swords to be alert, the King Wanyan Hela was not surprised but happy, and actually went straight to meet him:
"Fourth uncle! Mr. Xi Yin!"
These two names made Hong Ya's heart sink to the bottom in the rear, and also made most of the palace guards and Hesheli officers who accompanied him completely panicked.
Wanyan Xiyin, with a gloomy face, stepped forward to support Hela, while Wanyan Wushu, who was standing behind the door of the hall, just nodded slightly to Hela, and then limped out of the hall with the support of the Tai Shi Nu. When he came to the front of the hall, he just glanced at Hesheli Taiyu, Wanyan Talan, Wanyan Yinshu and a few others, and of course Hong Ya, and he felt completely cold.
After a hard day's work, you end up falling into someone else's trap!
Of course, there were also those who remained calm. For example, Ulindazanmo, who had been at the front of the team, did not hesitate and directly supported the somewhat bewildered little queen, lowered his head and walked forward, and went inside the door to look for the king and Xi Yin.
"Uncle Talan, General Yin Shuke, and General Taiyu."
For some reason, even though the ambush was successful, Wushu standing on the steps of the Shangshu Terrace did not have the aura to attract people. Instead, he had the same bitterness as he did during the day. "Let me make it clear first... I know your difficulties, and I am not going to hold anyone responsible for breaking into the palace today... But if you feel unwilling and want to try again, we are only a dozen steps away, why don't you come over and kill me with a knife? I am not wearing armor today."
Talan opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Just like Yin Shuke on the other side, he just looked at Heshelie Taiyu.
Hesheli Taiyu held the sword in his hand and remained silent for a long time before he spoke with difficulty: "Fourth Prince...if you wanted to stop the rebellion, why didn't you wait in the palace from the beginning?"
"Because I really didn't intend to stop you at first, and I didn't know you would make such a big fuss." Wushu shook his head. "It was Xianggong Xiyin who came to persuade me for a long time, and then accidentally found out something that I couldn't let go of, so I had to ask General Yelu Mawu to come forward, and add a few private soldiers to help... Even Shangshu Wulinda was stopped outside the palace by Xianggong Xiyin."
Hesheli Taiyu turned his head and glanced at the many people on the steps. He also glanced at his own soldiers who were still pouring in without knowing the situation, and Yelu Mawu who was standing by the outer gate. Then he finally became depressed... After all, he did not have the courage to openly attack the King of Wei, the Lord, the Queen, the Prime Minister of the Capital Province Wanyan Xiyin, and the Minister of Rites Ulinda Zanmo in such a bright and open occasion when both sides were equal in power.
In other words, from the moment Wuzhu appeared here, everyone knew that they had failed.
"King Wei!"
Tai Yu turned around. "You have to swear in front of me to pardon everyone in the Shangshutai and stop the eldest prince from taking revenge later, then I will trust you..."
"I cannot take this oath."
Wushu sighed. "Because I said before, if I hadn't accidentally learned something that I'm even more worried about today, I wouldn't have come here... Today, everyone here can be pardoned, but there is one person, if you verify that thing, I will kill him without a doubt!"
At this point, Wuzhu looked at a figure standing further down the steps: "Hong Chengzhi... come forward!"
Hong Ya stood there, knowing that today was going to be a difficult day. But for some reason, he was not afraid. Instead, he mustered up inexplicable courage and sneered on the spot: "King Wei, you Jurchens are causing chaos among yourselves, but you want a rootless Han like me to be a scapegoat?! Do you think everyone in Yanjing is blind? After today, the new troops on the periphery will directly turn against you, and you will have no choice but to flee in a hurry. On the way, everyone will inevitably suspect each other and engage in large-scale fighting! And aren't the roots of all these things today all in Huolu and all in you?!"
"Hong Chengzhi, I just want to ask you one question."
Wushu had no intention of refutation. He calmly waited for the other party to finish scolding him before speaking seriously. "Tonight, when Xi Yin and I were discussing you Han people who fled south, we mentioned you... I won't mention the time of Zhending. Tai Shi Nu suddenly remembered something. He said that on that day in Huolu, he was ordered to bring Yu Yunwen to ask for peace. As a result, as soon as he arrived in front of the battle, Yu Yunwen shouted that Yue Fei was coming from the rear... What's going on? How did Yu Yunwen know that Yue Fei had arrived at that time?"
Hong Ya remained silent.
In fact, he could have continued to make some verbal arguments, for example, saying that Yu Yunwen was just imitating the old wisdom of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and said that Wuzhu pardoned the actual rebellion but wanted to kill him because of his words. At worst, he could continue to shout and curse, insisting that Wuzhu was mainly responsible for the defeat... But he may have realized that Wuzhu would never forgive any incident related to Huolu and would never let him go tonight, so he did not do so and just remained silent.
Not only that, in the silence, a strange thought gradually arose in Hong Ya's heart, a strange thought that gradually gave him the courage to face all this.
On the other side, seeing Hong Ya silent, Wushu finally said with a sigh: "I know that Hong Chengzhi will definitely not accept it. I know that you must want to say that it was me, Wushu, who led 16 Wanhu to lose the battle in Huolu, which led to many other incidents. But one thing is one thing. No matter what, you leaked the military information and prevented tens of thousands of scattered soldiers from returning to the north. It's all..."
"good!"
Under the firelight, in front of the main gate of the Shangshutai in Yanjing, among the countless soldiers, Hong Ya's face suddenly turned red and he shouted at each other, but in the face of life and death, he still dared not move. "It was because I saved Yu Yunwen's life and informed him of the battle situation in Hejian that you were unable to return north!"
Wuzhu was startled.
"You are a bunch of barbarians! You are ignorant and immoral! You only know how to kill and plunder! You are so vulgar and ridiculous!" Hong Ya stood where he was, and continued to raise his hand to point at Wuzhu in front of him, then turned to Yin Shuke, Hesheli Taiyu, and even Wanyan Talan. "If it weren't for the sword and the sword, do you really think that I, a dignified Jinshi in the palace, would be willing to flatter you who are full of fishy smell? I have wanted to kill you all a long time ago!"
"This guy actually admitted it." Yin Shuke smiled awkwardly and said something that was obviously a beat late, and no one paid attention to him.
"Kill him!" When Talan heard the last sentence, he actually looked a little sad.
"In the past, you could still talk about the winners and losers, relying on the power of your weapons to brag, and you seemed to have a story for every bad habit and disgusting thing. You even seemed to be able to say that the fishy smell on your body was due to hard work... Who made you so strong? You can say anything! But what about now? What do you have now?! Without the knife on your waist and this mask, what do you have left?! The rat tail behind your head?!"
As he spoke, Hong Ya actually took a small step forward, and it was this step that actually caused a panic response from the people around him. Many armed soldiers actually took half a step back and looked nervously at this scholar who was so weak that he could not even tie a chicken.
"Kill him!"
Hesheli Taiyu swallowed his saliva and seemed to be a little impatient.
However, there was silence for a while between Wanyan Wushu and the hall behind him.
Upon hearing the order, a personal guard beside Hesheli Taiyu glanced nervously at the silent Fourth Prince Wushu, then hurriedly took out a knife.
"Come on, kill me! Let the world know that I, Hong, am not a traitor to the Song Dynasty, but a spy who is lurking in secret with all my heart!"
At this time, Hong Ya, who looked like a madman, had already ignored everything.
" Wanyan Wushu, I'm going to die today, but you can still give me a reputation! I'm still alive even though I'm dead! But you Jurchen dogs! Even if you escape to Huining Prefecture, what can you do? You have to return the gold and pearls you robbed in the previous generation, and continue to suffer poverty and hardship! In order to keep the books you read, the next generation will have to kneel down to the southern government and be dogs, cows, and sons!"
" Shut up!" The person who spoke was Wulindazanmo who was rushed out from the door.
"You will all be dead in the battle of Huolu!"
"Kill him!" Wulindazanmo urged.
"Without Yanjing, the Jin Dynasty will perish!" Hong Ya's face was ferocious, but he was not afraid at all, and even took another step forward. "Come and kill me!"
"Kill him quickly!" Wulindazanmo finally roared beside Wuzhu.
Following the last sentence, the guard who had been shrinking in panic in front of Hong Ya finally stabbed at the urging from behind. It was just one stab, and without any miracle, Hong Ya felt unbearable pain. He fell down holding his stomach and struggled, then wailed wildly, unable to utter another word.
Like most people in this world, he is still afraid of pain and death.
The guard rushed forward and stabbed Hong Ya repeatedly, soon stabbing him in the fatal spot. Hong Ya soon lost the strength to struggle, and no more extra sounds were made. He just lay on the steps in front of the Shangshu platform, helplessly waiting for his life to fade away.
At this time, Hong Ya had lost his basic senses and reaction abilities. He had only one feeling, which was that it was too cold. His whole body was icy cold. Then, there was only one thought that lingered in his mind until the last bit of his life, when it dissipated... That was, he had mustered up the courage to scold the Jurchens in public and accepted such credit. He did not dare to alarm the officials, but could he move his 'superior', the Prince of Jingsai, so that he could be named a martyr and enter the Yuetai Palace?
"That is the end of the matter."
After an unknown amount of time, Wushu finally spoke, and his face was still bitter. "Next, I have already discussed with Xi Yin Xianggong, and we will ask the king to issue an order later... The incident of entering the palace without permission today will not be investigated, and only the main culprits of the Han, Zuo, and Liu families will be executed... After dawn, wait for my eldest brother to come, and we will call out the Yanyun clan in the city, and both sides will divide the weapons, gold and silver in the treasury equally... to avoid any more trouble."
At this point, Wuzhu was a little helpless, but he still had to say: "There is nothing we can do about it. The chaos tonight is doomed to be unseen. If the news gets out, I'm afraid the new troops outside will immediately turn against us and surrender... We have to leave as soon as possible... Go out of the Gubeikou Pass! If we can't part ways amicably with the remaining Yanyun clans at this time, the whole country will be destroyed."
Talai withdrew his gaze from Hong Ya's body and shook his head repeatedly: "That being said, if we can't negotiate peace, we will be pursued and attacked in the end... Today we have made peace with the Yanyun clan and escaped from Yanjing. Tomorrow we will reach Zhongjing Road. How can we make peace with the Mongols to reach Liao? When we reach Liao, how can we make peace with the Koreans? When we reach Huanglongfu, do we have to make peace with the Bohai people and the Khitans... And by that time, I don't know what new conditions Emperor Zhao will come up with. I'm afraid the king will die."
"I know how serious this matter is." Wushu waited for the other party to finish speaking before responding in a deep voice. "I will have my own explanation when the time comes. At least I can make that official draw a clear line... and stop playing cat and mouse."
Talan kept shaking his head, obviously not believing it.
Wanyan Yinshuke and Hesheli Taiyu also had vague looks for a moment, and no one knew what they were thinking.
Without the third force that was trying to take advantage of the situation, the nighttime riot ended quickly. Just as everyone thought, the three families of Han, Zuo and Liu seemed to have a lot of new military power, but those people were far inferior to the rest of the people led by Elubu and others in terms of combat experience and quality of their generals.
The armory was quickly recaptured. Although the king was very dissatisfied with the deaths of Han Fang and Zuo Yuan, he did not dare to go against the consensus of his adoptive father and fourth uncle, as well as almost everyone else, including Wanyan Xiyin, another prestigious deputy prime minister of the capital.
The next morning, he issued a series of decrees. The first of these was naturally to pardon all of yesterday's rioters. Then, with Wanyan Xiyin as the leader, he took charge of the nation's evacuation from Yanjing. At the same time, he opened the treasury and required all officials in Yanjing who held official positions but were unwilling to follow the nation out of the border to come and collect property and weapons according to their ranks... As for the remaining food, at Wanyan Xiyin's suggestion, he simply distributed it to the people in the city in the name of compensation for last night's riots.
Of course, such an arrangement is unlikely to satisfy everyone.
In fact, it was quite the opposite. The so-called amicable separation was actually a result of various dissatisfactions that were forcibly suppressed by the army... Almost no one agreed with this result.
The young king could never forget the death of his mentor. He didn't even dare to ask afterwards whether it was Hesheli's group or his adoptive father's good son who did it.
The eldest prince was extremely angry about Hesheli's actions, but facing the alliance of the fourth prince, Xi Yin and the king, even he could only suppress his anger.
Hesheli and others were obviously dissatisfied with the failure of yesterday, and they were also worried about being held accountable later.
As for the so-called nationality and the great families in Yan, when the moment really came, they were not so agile… There were countless people in the nationality who were unwilling to leave Yanjing. Some of them had even lived in the south along the banks of the Yellow River for more than ten years. How could they be willing to suddenly return to a place with white mountains and black waters?
Not to mention, the Jurchen nobles left in such a hurry that they could not take all the gold, pearls, and military equipment with them. They could only share them with the wealthy families in Yan area, exchanging their wealth and military equipment for vehicles and livestock. This method of division and this hasty transaction were bound to make both parties dissatisfied.
But then again, under the support of the political alliance of Wuzhu, the King, and Xiyin, with the Crown Prince on the left, Hesheli, Talan and others on the right, and several generals at the bottom, the Jurchens barely maintained a behavioral entity, which allowed them to force the evacuation operation with a quick and decisive attitude.
Besides, there is no choice but to withdraw.
The news of the turmoil in Yanjing City was spread to Zhuozhou by someone with ulterior motives that afternoon... There was no way around it. At this point, even closing the four gates would become 'evidence' of the turmoil in Yanjing, not to mention the commotion the night before?
After getting the news, the already shaken Fanyang New Army camp began to collapse. With a large number of soldiers fleeing, the New Army tried their best to put together a situation in the evening. They gathered seven or eight generals, wrote a letter of surrender, and collectively surrendered to Han Shizhong in the Xincheng area in the south, and requested Marshal Han to come and take over the troops.
At night, the surrender letter from the Fanyang camp in front might not have been delivered to the new city yet. After learning the news from the front camp, the Liangxiang garrison commander, General Cheng Mu, who came from a wealthy family in Yan, resolutely rebelled at the age of nearly 70 and hung the prepared Zhao Song flag on the top of the Liangxiang city.
Then he took the initiative to inform Yanjing of his "change of flag".
In the late night, news from Liangxiang reached Yanjing… Although the Yanjing high-level officials had anticipated the collapse of the front line, they were still very worried. However, it was already the late night, so they did not directly cause chaos in the whole city.
But that was all. At dawn, news in the city spread rapidly and uncontrollably. The local big families began to mobilize again. The new soldiers in armor regained their courage and occupied and controlled some government offices without hesitation. The streets and alleys outside the main roads were also patrolled by local new soldiers.
Then, there were tests and conflicts, and this time, the Jurchen soldiers, who had no intention of fighting, were in a state of disarray.
Soon, even the most important arsenal was taken away by the local big families in Yanjing, and no one tried to take it back.
It's ridiculous that countless people racked their brains and made hard plans the night before, as if they were fighting for something insignificant, but just one day later, it was easily crushed by a flag that was hung up on its own.
But to be honest, the Jurchens really couldn't hold on any longer, and soon an imperial decree was issued to various places... The king would leave in the afternoon, and all nations and ethnic groups would go with him. Officials from Han areas were required to accompany him as much as possible, and those who didn't want to go didn't have to go.
Zheng Xiunian chose to stay. He didn't dare to try the excitement of the previous night again. However, Qin Hui, who also escaped the previous night, packed his luggage hastily and went out with his wife Wang, as if he was preparing to go out of the border.
"Why is Mr. Qin leaving too?"
Unexpectedly, as soon as they walked out of the alley, Qin Hui and his wife were met with an obstructor in his prime.
Qin Hui took a look at this person. Although he could not remember his specific origin, he felt vaguely that he looked familiar. He seemed to be a Han Chinese who was captured during the Jingkang period. He paused on his horse for a moment, and then sighed quietly: "If I stay, I will definitely die!"
"Since you are guilty of being a Jin minister, how about changing your name and surname to be an ordinary person?" The middle-aged Han man was immediately anxious. "Minister Qin, in the current situation, if you don't want to be a Song person, do you want to be a Jurchen?"
Qin Hui wanted to say more, but Wang in the carriage behind him urged him: "Go, go, go! Do you want to lag behind others in escaping? Do you really want to be a poor person, eating chestnuts all day long?"
At this time, Qin Huizhi finally remembered what kind of interactions he had with the Han people who blocked his way, but he just lowered his head and urged his attendants forward without saying a word... Behind him, there were seventeen or eighteen vehicles alone, loaded with rewards and bribes from the Jurchen nobles over the years.
As he left, the Han man who was chased away by the attendants shouted anxiously: "Mr. Qin, if you really go beyond the Great Wall, you will be dead!"
Qin Hui just pretended not to hear it.
Since it was an escape, there was doomed to be no order... Qin Hui went to the street, and wanted to find the Fourth Prince's carriage and guards, but he couldn't find them at all. He then went to look for Xi Yin's family, but couldn't find them either. He had no choice but to wait at the north gate road, ready to follow the king's carriage back north.
This time, Qin Hui actually waited for Wanyan Xiyin and the families of Wanyan Xiyin and the Fourth Prince, but he did not see the Fourth Prince himself.
"Where is the Fourth Prince?"
Having luckily survived the night before, Qin Hui was quite cautious, but he still couldn't help but have doubts... If the Fourth Prince - Xiyin - was gone, how could the King balance the core of the Jurchen Alliance? He was afraid that he would be in trouble on the way... So he took the initiative to ask Wanyan Xiyin.
"I'll tell Prime Minister Qin when we get to Gubeikou." Wanyan Xiyin answered calmly with a gloomy face.
Qin Huizhi just felt his scalp tingling, but he was helpless.
After a long and arduous journey, people kept escaping. By the evening, when they had passed Gubeikou, everyone was reluctantly taking a rest. However, Qin Hui was still thinking about Wanyan Wushu's whereabouts. After settling his family down, he hurried to ask Xi Yin.
"After hearing the news of the change of flag in Liangxiang last night, the Fourth Prince immediately tied himself up and headed south to seek peace with Emperor Zhao!" Xi Yin replied directly without any emotion. "I gathered all his family members for him."
When Qin Huizhi heard this, he felt like he was struck by lightning.
