Angry Banana
Chapter 699: Blood Soaked Central Plains (Part Two)
March 15th, Yinshuke led his army to fight in Liaozhou. Huang Kaiqi, the original garrison general of Liaozhou, led a team of brave warriors to launch a surprise attack at night. However, the night attack was detected by Yinshuke, and the army was defeated. Huang Kaiqi led his personal guards to launch an assault on Yinshuke, enduring dozens of wounds while fighting valiantly, and eventually died in battle.
March 26th, the armies of Zongfu and Zongbi captured Hejian Prefecture, and Shenzhou, Jingzhou, Cangzhou, and other places surrendered.
From the 15th to the 27th, Luozhou, Jizhou, Wozhou, Cizhou, and other places successively surrendered.
March 30th, Liu Dingwen, an old general of Cangzhou, led more than ten thousand volunteer soldiers to raid Hejian. After a fierce battle with Zongbi's vanguard army for half a day, the army was defeated, and Liu Dingwen died from an arrow wound. More than three thousand volunteer soldiers were captured and killed outside Hejian, their heads piled up to form a Jingguan (a mound of heads), and the stench of the corpses was said to have lingered for a hundred days.
April 1st, Wang Yan of the Eight Character Army fought against Zonghan's troops in Qinzhou, but was defeated and retreated.
April 6th, Zonghan attacked Pingyang, but failed. He then moved eastward. On the 10th, Xiyin led his army to attack Pingyang again, taking advantage of the city's weakened defenses.
April 8th, Zongfu captured Zizhou and advanced on Jinan.
April 10th, General Eliduo of the Central Route Army attacked Xiangzhou, failing to capture it after five days. Subsequently, Zonghan's army arrived, and on the 21st, Xiangzhou fell. Due to the fierce resistance of the city's residents, the Jurchens massacred all the people in the city.
April 25th, Liu Yu, the governor of Jinan, used a rope to lower himself from the city wall and surrendered to Zongfu. Subsequently, he tricked open the city gates for the Jurchen army. After the army entered the city, all the generals, officials, and their families and clansmen, totaling more than eight thousand people, who were determined to resist, were massacred in the following month.
April 27th, Ou Hongxi, a great scholar who went to the Eastern Route Army camp to persuade Zongfu and Zongbi, delivered a passionate speech in front of the tents of the two Jurchen princes, scolding them vehemently. Subsequently, Zongbi, in a fit of rage, beheaded him with a sword and threw his body out of the military camp. The news of the great scholar's rebuke of Zongbi was later widely praised among scholars.
April 29th, the Great Brightness Sect gathered 170,000 people in the suburbs south of Junzhou to encircle and annihilate Yinshuke's vanguard army. The 170,000 people were routed, and tens of thousands of them were chased by Jurchen cavalry to the banks of the Yellow River. At that time, the crowd huddled together, with a few being slaughtered to death, and most being trampled and squeezed into the river, resulting in countless drownings.
Early May, the Eastern Route Army led by Zongfu and Zongbi forced the surrender of Dongjing and other places.
May 15th, Zongfu's Central Route Army crossed the Yellow River.
Mid-May, General Ma Kuo led nearly 200,000 people from Wuma Mountain to engage in skirmishes with Zongfu and others for nearly a month.
May 23rd, Zhou Yong fled south to Yangzhou.
June, Ma Kuo captured Qingping, a small city that had fallen into the hands of Zonghan and others, which was a key point on the route of the Central and Eastern Route Armies.
Early June, Zonghan's attack on Qingping was unsuccessful. On June 10th, Zongfu's army attacked Qingping again, and Qingping fell. 200,000 people were routed, with tens of thousands being pursued and killed along the way. Ma Kuo led a small number of remaining troops to retreat south.
June 22nd, Zonghan's Central Route Army fought against the defenders of Bianliang again, without success.
Late June, Zongfu's army approached Yingtian...
July 8th...
July 13th...
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The wind of late summer carries all kinds of smells, especially the unbearable stench. The weather is so hot that the dead quickly emit a putrid odor. In addition to the stench of corpses, there are also the unpleasant odors of people who haven't bathed for a long time, and the smell of urine and feces...
Lin Zongwu sat on the stone platform preaching, with countless followers dressed in tattered clothes, their eyes pitiful yet fanatical, sitting below. Men and women, all pitiful people.
People occasionally let out cheers.
Lin Zongwu finished his sermon and turned to go down. He returned to the house in the back, his eyes slightly fluctuating. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his gaze returned to calmness.
Occasionally, he would still think of the events on the Junzhou battlefield. People rushed towards the Jurchen army, fanatical and fearless, but soon after, the army collapsed. The Jurchens were killing from every direction, corpses piled up like mountains, and blood flowed like rivers. These followers also turned around and ran like headless flies, and he could no longer command them.
He didn't care about the dead. Lin Zongwu, in his life, had personally killed so many people that they would pile up like a mountain. What he cared about more was the failure, and the only thing that made him feel better was that it wasn't his failure alone.
The whole country was being defeated. Whether it was the imperial army, the volunteer army, or the bandits who charged at the Jurchens, everyone was losing, everyone was dying throughout the summer. The Jurchens killed their way down several routes, leaving behind piles of corpses, numbering in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. People died, families were destroyed, the old and children were starved to death, and houses were burned to ashes. And those who had not been defeated had mostly announced their surrender to the Jurchens, those cowards.
The world was collapsing, and those followers were the most obvious manifestation of it. In the past, people in this crowd mostly wore decent clothes, and there were many wealthy households. Now, fewer and fewer people dared to come wearing such clothes. The Jurchen's ravages led to an increase in refugees, and famine and disease were said to have already appeared north of the Yellow River. Even though he was now in the uncaptured area south of the Yellow River, people were becoming more and more fearful and desperate. In Junzhou, he lost more than one hundred thousand people, and after returning, many people quickly gathered again.
The usually steady and composed Leader Lin was now somewhat unsure whether this was a good thing or not. Warlords all yearned for troubled times because only troubled times could accumulate popular support. However, looking at the appearance of those followers, Lin Zongwu felt that it might not be a good thing.
The enemy was truly... too powerful.
He thought for a moment in this silence, then exhaled a breath: Very well.
I will eventually find a way to save this world!
After a moment, someone walked towards him. Lin Zongwu closed his eyes. The person was outside the door, reporting the message in a low voice: Yingtian City had fallen.
Hearing this news, he opened his eyes. After a moment, the person outside the door heard the leader sigh as if uttering a prophecy.
"Demons dance wildly, the world... is about to perish..."
The world was crumbling. In the ancient capital of Yingtian, flames and blood filled the city. The slaughter and plunder that had once occurred in Bianliang City reappeared in this ancient city that had briefly become the capital. The leaves of the trees were burned with crackling sounds, plaques were falling, people were screaming in horror, crying, and begging for mercy. Women were running, men were stabbed to death on spear tips, and children were thrown to the ground...
There was resistance. From north to south, along the way, resistance, large and small, constantly appeared, and then constantly collapsed in collisions. Folk heroes organized themselves and formed teams specifically to hunt down lone Jin soldiers. People whose families were destroyed or were in danger of being destroyed hated the Jin people so much that they wanted to eat their flesh and sleep on their skin. However, this was the most intense confrontation between two countries.
After Yingtian, the two armies marched south again, and countless Jiangnan troops that surged up were defeated.
Yangzhou, this graceful ancient city, was also filled with an atmosphere of panic and helplessness. The court moved here with Zhou Yong, but the Jurchens' footsteps did not stop. At this time, Zhou Yong had continuously lowered his posture and sent several letters of surrender to the Jurchen army—he had already seen that this time, the Jurchens were determined to capture him to the north. He might even have regretted becoming emperor—but to no avail.
The former Wu Dynasty court gathered all the elites of the world, those spirited, country-directing adults, and those adults who were active outside the court. This time, no one could turn the tide.
"I have prepared some people, and a few teams..." Looking at the palace in the distance, Junwu said to his sister standing on the palace wall, "If the Jurchens attack, they can protect us as we leave."
"Where to go?"
Zhou Pei's eyes were empty as she casually asked a question. Junwu was stunned: "How about going to the northwest?"
Zhou Pei closed her eyes, unwilling to see him when he was talking nonsense. Junwu smiled: "Just kidding."
"We go south, further south, even further south. He has hundreds of thousands of people, how long can he chase us? In any case, preserve ourselves to seek a glimmer of hope. That's what Master is doing in the northwest," he paused. "Our Wu Dynasty this time... I'm afraid..."
Junwu stopped there, not continuing. Zhou Pei closed her eyes, letting the evening breeze blow through her hair. For a long time, this was the first time she had not refuted Junwu when he said the word "Master". Before this, she had learned in detail about the experiences of those noble women who were captured and taken to the north in the Jingping Humiliation.
They were raped, abused, and when they arrived in the north, they were demoted to slaves and prostitutes, never to be freed in their lifetime. Next, if she were to face the fate of being captured, the only way out would probably be suicide.
I don't speak first when spring comes, which insect dares to make a sound?
This time, be prepared, the Jurchens who have been slaughtering their way here will overwhelm the entire world!
Northwest, in this place where not many people cast their gaze, the situation was not much better than in the Central Plains, which had already become hell.
In May, while the Jurchen Central and Eastern Route Armies attracted the world's attention with their overwhelming force, Wanyan Loushi led more than ten thousand elite Jin soldiers across the Yellow River. Soon, he defeated Fan Zhixu's 160,000 troops at Chaoyi, then defeated Tonghua, and then defeated tens of thousands of heavy troops at Tongguan.
In June, he besieged Jingzhao Prefecture, ambushing reinforcements at Chang'an Slope and other places, defeating and annihilating tens of thousands of troops supporting Jingzhao. Then, he calmly occupied Jingzhao Prefecture, captured Jingzhi envoy Fu Liang alive, and subsequently subdued Fengxiang and Longzhou, truly pushing the pressure towards the Northwest.
In July, in Yanzhou and other places, preparations for war were actively underway. Not long ago, Zhong Lie had refused the Jurchen envoy's persuasion to surrender. The Zhong family had been stationed in the Northwest for generations. Now, although their ancestral graves had been dug up, surrendering to the Jin was still not an option for Zhong Lie, who was upright in character.
Since recovering Yanzhou and other places, he had not been given much time to develop. Not long ago, he had written to Little Cang River, hoping to join forces with the Huaxia Army, which claimed not to surrender to foreign powers, to resist the enemy, but they had frankly refused.
The Huaxia Army was a force that had rebelled against the emperor. Although they had the same enemy, their positions were still different. Everyone had no experience of cooperation, and who knew if you would suddenly turn against us—before seeing the situation clearly, it was better not to join forces.
Their refusal had its reasons, and Zhong Lie could do nothing about it. On July 23rd, in Yanzhou City, he was waiting for news from the south.
Not long ago, he had sent 30,000 troops to support Fengxiang.
The war that may have already broken out in Fengxiang was perhaps the largest-scale attack launched by the forces in the western part of the Wu Dynasty against this Jurchen Western Route Army of just over ten thousand. This was the result of discussions among all parties after hearing the news not long ago that Fengxiang, which had fallen into the hands of the Jurchens, was about to betray them. Among them, the Wuwei Army sent 150,000 troops, the Jinning Army 100,000, the Western Army 30,000, and several volunteer armies would also send troops, agreeing on a date to launch a simultaneous attack on Fengxiang.
In the afternoon, the news came.
The moment he received the news and finished reading it, Zhong Lie felt dizzy in his seat. He put down the message, knowing it was superfluous but still struggling to ask, "Is the news accurate?"
The knight, covered in dust and wounds, gave him the answer.
On July 21st, Wanyan Loushi ambushed reinforcements under Fengxiang City, defeating 100,000 Jinning Army troops, then turned around and captured Fengxiang City. On July 22nd, more than 10,000 elite Jurchen troops divided into several routes. In the early morning, they defeated 30,000 Western Army troops at Wugong, at noon, they defeated 30,000 volunteer troops nearby, and at night, Wanyan Loushi personally led several thousand direct troops to defeat 150,000 Wuwei Army troops at Weinan.
——Wugong and Weinan are nearly two hundred miles apart.
Zhong Lie went out.
At this time, various preparations for war should still be underway in Yanzhou City, but from the city lord's mansion, you couldn't see the work being done outside. It was a clear autumn day outside the courtyard, but he only felt a little difficulty breathing. Darkness was pressing down.
"Is this world... going to end..."
Little Cang River, in the house where sunlight slanted in and dust flew in the air, a group of officers fell silent after receiving the news.
"...Your mother." Someone sighed softly, "...What's the use of having so many people?"
In August, Wanyan Loushi's main force pushed towards Yanzhou...