Angry Banana
Chapter 947 The Final Battle (11)
The midday sun began to turn a ghastly white, and the battle near the south gate of Hanzhong intensified with each passing second.
From dawn till noon, Wanyan Xiyin commanded his troops in six large-scale assaults. The first two were relatively measured, a probing of the Huaxia Army's strength. Upon realizing the dire battlefield situation, the subsequent four attacks arrived like a storm and thunder. It felt as if tens of thousands of enemy soldiers had taken turns participating in the offensive.
Between each major and minor wave of attack, only a brief respite existed—the time it took for a Jurchen thousand-man team to retreat after being repelled, and for the next to surge forward.
The sounds of explosions and battle echoed from afar. Chen Hai struggled to his feet from a pool of blood, his body swaying. The attack on this sector had been repulsed, but fighting continued on other fronts.
Thick blood dripped from his hair. He wiped it away, the stench of blood filling his nostrils. Corpses lay piled up on the nearby ground, some Jurchen, others comrades. Company Commander Chen Kuquan lay there, his stomach cleaved open by an enemy blade, entrails spilling out, a sticky mess.
No matter how long one fought on the battlefield, they could never truly get used to this sticky, viscous feeling. Chen Hai rubbed his eyes, then wiped them again with a relatively clean sleeve after smearing blood on them. He crouched down and closed Chen Kuquan's eyes. He was the longest-serving comrade, one of the soldiers in Chen Hai's squad when he became squad leader. Now, none of those squad members remained before him.
Only then did the sounds and atmosphere around him regain clarity: the hurried footsteps, soldiers searching for the wounded. Someone ran over to report, "...Second Battalion Commander is dead." The Second Battalion Commander was Chang Feng, a large man with a pockmarked face.
"...If the Battalion Commander dies, the Company Commander takes over. If all the Company Commanders die, the Platoon Leader steps up."
Chen Hai stated this calmly, then climbed onto a small mound nearby. "Bandage the wounded quickly! Each battalion, count heads! The Jin dogs are coming soon! Look at your fallen comrades! They died for us, how are we going to repay them—"
His strength gave out, and by the last sentence, his normally quiet and indifferent voice had become uncharacteristically hoarse.
The battlefield was dyed red with corpses and blood. Most of the survivors were also coated in a sticky, viscous red. People could experience a lot, but it was difficult to adjust to the touch. Some would vomit from the pain, others would choose to hurl that immense suffering back at the aggressors.
Thus, people found a little more strength for the fight within them.
On the Jurchen side of the battlefield to the east, a thousand-man team, previously thrown into disarray during the fighting, had retreated. Wanyan Xiyin watched the situation before him. He had a clear picture of the overall situation: the Huaxia Army numbered no more than four thousand, and had endured five days of intense combat. Yet, wave after wave, they had repelled the attacks of his elite Jurchen troops.
The midday sun was blindingly white, mirroring the grueling nature of the defense, which he found increasingly distasteful. His warriors were fighting valiantly, but all he saw was the Huaxia army's unyielding line. Xiyin could only watch his superior forces charge into the enemy ranks, only to be driven back, thrown into chaos, or even suffer localized collapses. The enemy didn't even have that much of a defensive advantage.
Combat inside Hanzhong continued as well. Some Jin soldiers were driving Han civilians out from within the city, and the Huaxia Army was building barricades of debris in the streets, making it difficult for the crowd to advance. Small units of the Huaxia Army bypassed the crowd and charged into the city, causing considerable confusion – most of the soldiers inside the city were retreating after battlefield defeats, their morale low. Wanyan Xiyin was momentarily at a loss.
The old man frowned. Although he appeared calm, the veins on his forehead pulsed intermittently with anxiety. To the west, about twenty *li*, Zong Han was fighting a decisive battle. Upon confirming this news, Xiyin initially had several options. He could abandon this position and have most of his troops bypass Hanzhong and support Zong Han. Or he could board the fleet and travel upstream along the Han River—of course, this would be the most inefficient. The Han River was in flood, and beyond Hanzhong, the current became even more turbulent. Traveling that route would probably be slower than marching, and they might encounter attacks from the Huaxia Army upon landing.
These calculations were meaningless because if his force could not defeat the four thousand Huaxia soldiers in Hanzhong, many things would become meaningless.
Zong Han was no child. He didn't need to be rescued as soon as he heard his side was under attack – especially when thirty thousand of his men were under attack by a little over ten thousand, and many stragglers could be rounded up on the battlefield. His contingent, the one furthest from the enemy, didn't need to rush over. Zong Han wouldn't make excessive tactical errors, fall for a trap, or suffer a major defeat...
The most correct course of action was to crush this Huaxia force with a fierce offensive, and then support the battlefield. It would be best to crush the enemy in an hour. If not an hour, then half a day, but half a day had passed. Their resilience finally caused him some anxiety.
If the entire Huaxia Seventh Army possessed such fighting strength, what would the battle at Tuanshan look like?
"Tula." He waved his command flag. "It's your turn. The Huaxia Army is at the end of its rope... Break through them—"
The *Meng'an* named Tula received the order. Under the midday sun, the war drums beat even more fiercely.
Zong Han was no child, he would not make tactical mistakes.
And he, himself, had to win here to confirm that the entire battlefield could be won.
He looked at the sunlight.
Could they defeat them in another hour?
"Kill!"
With another wave of soldiers charging forward, the old man raised his sword and shouted.
Then came the shouts of a thousand Jurchens, like thunder, sweeping across the battlefield. The continuous addition of fresh troops brought renewed morale to the Jurchen soldiers still fighting.
Chen Hai raised his long blade, facing the oncoming enemy. A messenger was dispatched.
"Tell Brigade Commander Lin that my regiment has no reserves left."
He didn't request reinforcements because he could guess the answer. Lin Dongshan would probably say, "I don't have any either, you hold on for me." But he still had to relay this message to Lin Dongshan because if his side was wiped out, Lin Dongshan would have to figure things out.
Soon after, the messenger returned with Lin Dongshan's reply, as the position became engulfed in a sea of battle.
...
The ghastly white sunlight surveyed the land. On the road leading from Hanzhong's west gate to Tuanshan, skirmishes of various sizes were also unfolding.
The Huaxia Army hadn't dispatched many soldiers to this area, but since morning, two companies of soldiers had been circling near Hanzhong's west gate. They either ambushed Jurchen scouts carrying messages or picked off retreating Jurchen soldiers fleeing towards Hanzhong. They even launched two feigned attacks on the city gate, making a great show of it, causing the defending soldiers to close the gates tightly and be too afraid to come out.
After *Si* hour (9-11 AM), Wanyan Yuchi led over three thousand men out of the west gate, intending to head to Tuanshan, and was immediately attacked by these two teams. They used the mountainous terrain as cover, launching attacks on the Jurchen forces traveling on the main road. They even wheeled out two iron cannons, seized from somewhere, to bombard Wanyan Yuchi's ranks, forcing Wanyan Yuchi to dispatch cavalry to drive them away. The two companies quickly hid in the forest, putting on a show of fierce resistance to delay time.
Of Wanyan Yuchi's three thousand men, nearly a thousand were cavalry. Of course, there would have been no problem to wipe out the two companies of Huaxia soldiers, but he knew their purpose. He had no choice but to have the cavalry fire rockets, setting the forest ablaze, so the infantry could pass quickly.
Six *li* west of Hanzhong, the small settlement of Qingyang Station had been occupied by a battalion of Huaxia Army soldiers. Around noon, these two hundred men discovered the approaching Wanyan Yuchi and began building defenses to launch an attack. Wanyan Yuchi formed an offensive and fought with them for half an hour, but the defense was extremely strong, and he finally decided to leave via a side road, go to Tuanshan first, and avoid being held up by these two hundred or so men, so he could reach the battlefield.
Not long after passing Qingyang Station, someone was approaching from the side of the road. Three Huaxia Army soldiers hid in the roadside grass, and when the Jurchen troops passed, they jumped out and threw three hand grenades, then ran away. They crossed the small ditch next to them, then plunged into the nearby small river and left victoriously – this was obviously a well-planned strategy based on the terrain. Nearby cavalry quickly pursued, but failed to hit them before they fell into the water.
He had been following Wanyan Xiyin and had not participated in the great battle in the southwest. He only formally began to engage with the Huaxia Seventh Army upon arriving in Hanzhong. He had previously learned information about this Huaxia Army through retreating soldiers on the battlefield, but at this moment, facing these troops who seemed willing to attack him no matter how many there were, Wanyan Yuchi finally felt extremely frustrated.
Those skilled in scouting in the wilderness might have weaknesses in frontal combat. With this thought in mind, he looked towards Tuanshan in the west...
...
At this moment, southeast of Tuanshan, among the hills and lowlands leading to Hanzhong, the fighting was seething into a furious tide within a storm.
It was just past noon. The most stubborn counterattack, led by Wanyan Zong Han, had begun.
Beneath the sky, within a radius of several *li*, were large numbers of routed soldiers. Corpses were left unattended on the battlefield. Smoke and dust still rose from the shelled positions. In the core area, intense fighting was underway. Wanyan Zong Han had mobilized the core elite of his eight thousand men, throwing them in wave after wave towards the Qin Shaoqian troops on the northeast hills.
After half a day of fighting, half of the outer army had collapsed. The remaining several thousand organized troops were just numbers after the defeat and flight. Only the inner eight thousand maintained their fighting spirit. The mid- and high-ranking generals leading these soldiers were either promoted from Zong Han's personal guards of many years, or relatives by marriage. With Zong Han's call, these men knew that the moment for their sacrifice had arrived.
Between noon and early afternoon, the first thousand-man team, led by the Jurchen *Meng'an* Chala, launched a fierce assault on the battlefield to the northeast. This was an old general who had been following Zong Han since Aguda's uprising. He was fifty-five years old this year, tall, but because his right little finger was somewhat deformed, his early military achievements were not outstanding – that was also because the Jin Kingdom had a galaxy of generals in its early days. He had followed Zong Han for many years, his eldest daughter married to Xie Bao as a concubine. Although he was old, he was energetic and exceptionally brave. It was said that he kept countless concubines in his home, and Chala sang and danced every night, showing no signs of fatigue.
After determining Qin Shaoqian's location and setting the target, he was the first to request a charge. Zong Han looked at him and nodded.
The old Jurchen general waved his battle-axe, then led his thousand or so men towards the Huaxia Army on the hills ahead.
A company of the Huaxia Army met them head-on, two hundred men from the first battalion of the second regiment of the third brigade of the first division. With the first battalion's blocking, the second battalion immediately attacked from the flank, and Chala divided his troops to respond. Arrows flew between the hills and the chaos, followed by explosions. Even after the two sides met in close combat, the throwing of hand grenades and fire mines did not stop. In the blink of an eye, the formations of both sides were torn apart into chaos. A large number of Huaxia Army soldiers charged towards the Jurchen general waving the battle-axe.
Once the formation was disrupted, even elite Jurchens showed signs of a few soldiers instinctively fleeing to the side after losing control. Zong Han called over Wanyan Saba's cavalry: "Execute military law! Kill the deserters!"
As the cavalry charged out, Zong Han ordered *Meng'an* Wanyan Zhentu to press on with another thousand-man team. This was a cousin of Sheyema and Xie Bao, thirty-two years old, inheriting the title of Earl of the County, brave in battle. Upon receiving the order, he pressed forward.
The shouts and fighting were chaotic and annoying. Some of the Jurchen troops could still be called orderly, but the Huaxia Army troops that came from all directions seemed chaotic and headache-inducing at first glance. They had mostly experienced one or two battles, and in terms of numbers and physical strength, they were inferior to his side, but the problem was that even with a numerical advantage, as soon as the men thrown into the field were disrupted, they could not be regrouped, while the Huaxia Army could still charge forward.
Wanyan Zhentu's second thousand-man team was blocked by the chaotic soldiers of his own side and had not yet arrived to support. Chala's thousand or so men had already been crushed in the Huaxia Army's jagged offensive. The guards gathered towards Chala, trying to protect the general and retreat to join Wanyan Zhentu. Two hand grenades were thrown over, submerging the crowd in smoke and dust. Several Huaxia Army soldiers charged into the crowd.
The fighting was chaotic. Through the scope, Zong Han could still see Chala bravely swinging his battle-axe. A Huaxia Army soldier pounced on him, and they both crashed to the ground. Chala rolled over, got up, and drew his blade. The Huaxia Army soldier also pounced, and Chala's guard killed to get close, forcing the Huaxia Army soldier back a step, while two other Huaxia Army soldiers had already killed. Everyone fought together, and in the blink of an eye, Chala was covered in blood. Someone threw another fire mine, and the rising smoke obscured the fighting.
The third array charged out from the flanks, and Zong Han's main formation pressed forward in full force.
At this point in the battle, so-called military tactics, strategies, and conspiracies were difficult to show their effect, or rather, these things were just the basic skills of command. Both sides could only pick up their chess pieces and put them into the chessboard with all their strength, and once in the game, all that remained was to fight hard.
Troops were widening the road to advance. At the third quarter of *Wei* hour (2:45 PM), Zong Han put all his troops into the battle. The two huge vortexes had merged into one, fiercely devouring each other.
Before this, although Han Qixian and others had advised Zong Han not to risk himself, he had rejected them all.
...
Arrows flew through the sky not far away at every moment, explosions sounded occasionally, the neighing of war horses, the shouts of people, the echoes of explosions, as if the entire world had fallen into fighting.
The general wearing an eye patch stood on a small earth slope, looking around with his one eye. The Jurchen's mighty impact unfolded in front of him.
The Jurchen soldiers collapsed in the fierce fighting like parts evaporated from this huge vortex, scattered and fleeing to the periphery, while small teams of the Huaxia Army were passing through villages and forests, trying to turn into long lines, cutting through the Jurchen's core team.
The offensive in the south was particularly strong, to the extent that the middle of the Jurchen army had been twisted. The entire brigade led by Qi Xinhan had been broken up, but he had gathered a regiment in the south, trying to cut the Jurchen's main formation, which still had thousands of men, into two pieces.
As for Qin Shaoqian's side, the sounds of fighting had almost extended to the front. There were more than four thousand people, including Zong Han, who were pressing towards this hill with all their strength. Blocking them in front was a regiment led by Xu Xiaohu. About six or seven battalions, or even broken-up company-level units, were simultaneously launching attacks on Wanyan Zong Han's location from different directions. This offensive delayed the Jurchen's advance. It could be said that this behemoth was being cut open, the bone and flesh being removed.
Qin Shaoqian's location was less than a hundred meters from the front line of fighting. Occasionally, there were even Jurchen sharpshooters who forced their way in and shot arrows at them. There were only about a hundred soldiers from a security company by his side. There were probably several companies and battalions still active on the nearby hillsides, and Wanyan Saba was leading cavalry to break through and circled behind Qin Shaoqian. He was blocking Qin Shaoqian's retreat and might launch an attack on this hillside at any time.
Fortunately, this hillside was full of strange rocks, making it difficult for cavalry to deal with.
"I have already notified Ni Hua down the mountain to stare at Wanyan Saba. He has a battalion of soldiers he can use, but the number is insufficient. I asked him to recruit locally..." Chief of Staff Chi Wenguang came over and looked at the battlefield with Qin Shaoqian. "...When do you think Zong Han can kill here? Wanna bet?"
Qin Shaoqian put down the binoculars: "...He will never kill to here."
The Huaxia Army's offensive was like a blade, cutting off bone and flesh, penetrating the Jurchen army's body...
...
Zong Han hadn't experienced the feeling of charging into battle for a long time.
He had been in a high position for a long time. Since the middle of the destruction of Liao, what he needed to consider were basically matters of military tactics. Large-scale marches, siege warfare, launching a grand offensive on the battlefield, and then defeating the opponent.
In the past few decades, there were not many in the world who were evenly matched with the Jurchens, and few could stab a knife in his face. In the past, if such a situation really occurred, he would generally choose to transfer or even break through first.
The situation at hand was different.
The Huaxia Army fought bravely, but they were not many in number after all. The soldiers he led, although they hadn't fought well recently, they still had the strength to fight.
Once transferred, the Jurchens would lose all their opportunities, and only by leading by example, fighting bravely, perhaps the heavens could give the Jurchens a blessing this afternoon.
The commander's flag moved forward in the midst of roaring shouts. A group of Jurchen soldiers were fighting bravely, cannons were pushed to the front, and black dust covered the sky. Zong Han was guarded by his personal soldiers and walked forward with his sword. Sometimes, arrows and crossbow bolts would even fly over. The guards tried to surround him, but were violently shouted away by Zong Han.
At some point, the Huaxia Army's offensive had begun to affect the artillery position. Zong Han separated two hundred people to support, killing the Huaxia Army company's offensive, but soon after, small teams of the Huaxia Army continued to kill in from the flanks. This was an inevitable situation after the flanks had been disrupted. If it was a small team of Jurchens, it was difficult to muster the courage to directly kill from the periphery, but the Huaxia Army team was keen on this. Some of them were already dozens of *zhang* away when they appeared, and were only killed after encountering Zong Han's thousand-man team.
The army formation participating in the offensive at the forefront had been crushed. Chala was the first to be killed by the Huaxia Army, and Wanyan Zhentu had an arm and a leg cut off by the Huaxia Army soldiers after a hard battle. He was seriously wounded and was rescued by his guard, on the verge of death. The small teams of the Huaxia Army killed from the chaotic army formation in front, behind, left, and right, and involved the team around Zong Han in the fighting.
"Follow me to charge—"
Zong Han held his sword forward, and his flag did encourage many Jurchen soldiers, causing them to gather back towards him after the rout.
A Huaxia Army team killed from the flank, the crossbow bolts shot past the crowd, nailing a "ding" sound on the armor of a guard on Zong Han's side. Someone threw a hand grenade, and there was a rolling smoke after the explosion. The guards in the front welcomed him and fought. Several guards rode over and tried to block the possible attack for Zong Han, but Zong Han waved his whip and told them to leave a little: "Don't mess around! If they throw fire mines, you will all have an accident—"
The shadows in the smoke in the front were staggered, and soldiers fell. Blood sprinkled in the sky with the sword light and fell outside the smoke. Zong Han heard someone shouting: "Nianhan is here—" (粘罕 is another name of Zong Han)
"Kill him—"
"Kill Nianhan!!!"
In the rolling smoke, the leader was a burly Huaxia Army warrior who turned his gaze to Zong Han and rushed in the fighting. Zong Han waved his sword: "Kill him! Reward a hundred gold!" A knight rushed up, but on one side of the battlefield, another small group of Huaxia Army team appeared in sight, seemingly responding to the call to "kill Nianhan", rushing to block the knight, both sides fought together.
The Huaxia Army warrior, who was as strong as an ox, helped the wounded companion in the chaos not far away, held the knife and came to this side. Someone shot an arrow, and he held a shield to block it. His body was covered in blood. Zong Han looked at his side and looked at the hillside not far away. There was a mighty fighting everywhere. He held his sword: "Listen to my orders!"
He roared: "Kill them—"
The formation was pushed forward. The soldiers in the back row lit the fire and threw it over there. The Huaxia Army soldiers in that area were only a dozen or so, scattered around, panicking to escape. Someone rolled in the mud ditch, someone hid behind the stone, and some were blown up on the spot. In the rolling thick smoke, the soldiers in the front row rushed up. Zong Han saw the Huaxia Army warrior rushing out of the smoke behind the stone, splitting one of his guards with a knife in the chest, and blood spurted out. The body of the guard flew two or three *zhang* away. The warrior was subsequently pushed back by the attacks of two Jurchen soldiers. However, as a Huaxia Army wounded came to help, the warrior's knife immediately split the neck of a Jurchen warrior.
"Good—"
Zong Han galloped over!
His heart was surging with heat, galloped like thunder, and rushed to the Huaxia Army warrior in the blink of an eye, a sword struck down!
The Huaxia Army warrior's body fluttered, with the body with a long knife, to Zong Han's war horse leg a knife!
Blood splashed, the Huaxia Army warrior was taken by the war horse, his body rolled on the ground. Zong Han rushed out with his horse. Because the distance of travel was not long, the speed of the war horse was still not the fastest. Although the front leg was split by a knife, it was only stumbled to the ground, Zong Han directly turned from the war horse, he threw away the sword in his hand, the surrounding guards were shouting: "Marshal!" Zong Han lifted his cloak and threw it away, picked up a big knife from the ground, and rushed forward.
When he was at the peak of his power, he was good at knives, but these years he basically only issued orders, so he changed to a majestic sword, but in the current situation, it was not good enough.
The Jurchen generals who could make a name in the early Jin Dynasty were all warriors on the battlefield. Even in his old age, Wanyan Loushi was still keen on staging the scene of three or five elites breaking into the city in armor. Although Wanyan Xiyin mostly held literary affairs, when it came to martial arts competitions, such as Wanyan Zongbi, who had a fierce name in history, one or two would be beaten by him. Zong Han was also the same. He had been planning for decades, but his martial arts training had never stopped. At this time, he picked up the long knife, and he was still the most outstanding warrior and hunter in the Jurchen tribe.
He was tall, and he had accumulated more than ordinary people's prestige and momentum for years. At this time, holding the knife in his hand, the biting murderous aura was enough to deter people. The burly Huaxia Army warrior stood up from the ground, and his face and forehead were rubbed with blood. The Jurchen guards rushed around, and in front of him was Wanyan Zong Han rushing with the knife. A frenzied look flashed through his eyes, two rows of teeth were exposed, and it looked like a frantic laugh with blood foam -
His legs exerted strength, and he welcomed Zong Han. This world-famous Jurchen, who had killed countless people, slashed a knife like a butcher cutting to the prey. The Huaxia Army warrior, who was half a head shorter than him, slashed a knife from the bottom up and tried his best to meet it! The knife light soared into the sky.
With a "bang" sound, two steel knives collided in the air with all their strength. Zong Han's full knife was slammed open at this time. He stepped back half a step, and the Huaxia Army warrior stepped in half a step. The knife was in the air, his eyes were frenzied, and he spat out blood foam in his open mouth, shouting in front of Zong Han.
"Kill—"
Killing people should be happy.
More than ten years had passed. Niu Chengshu, the company commander of the first company of the second battalion of the second regiment of the second brigade of the Huaxia Seventh Army, brought the knife to Wanyan Zong Han again. On one side was a seemingly insignificant Huaxia Army soldier, and on the other side was a Jurchen hero who had brought decades of shadows to this world. The blades split together, and sparks flew in the air. In the blink of an eye, Wanyan Zong Han kept backing away and fell into the crowd.
The Jurchen soldiers next to him drowned over -
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