That evening, on New Year's Eve, it was hard to say whether it was the first or second year of Jianyan, the fifth or sixth year of Tianhui. In any case, as snowflakes fell, more than one person was getting drunk.

"Life is boring in the army. I want to cross the river and take a look!"

In the central tent of the Jin army, Wanyan Zongbi, the Jin army commander commonly known as the Fourth Prince Jin Wuzhu, suddenly threw the gold wine bowl in his hand onto the hard ground while having his legs propped up on the desk.

The originally heated tent immediately quieted down. The officers and staff in the tent looked at each other, frowning.

Speaking of crossing the river, Jin Wuzhu was clearly risking his life, because the Huai River section within Shouzhou was obviously controlled by the Song army... Thanks to the hasty scorched earth policy before, a large number of ships were concentrated on the south bank, and the docks on the north bank were generally burned. The Jin army did not have many ships at all, and could not organize a large-scale river crossing. After the hasty reconnaissance failure that day, the Song army had even begun to embolden themselves to patrol the river in ferries in recent days.

If one were to encounter a few Song army boats in the river in the middle of the night, then even if the Fourth Prince was skilled in horsemanship and high in martial arts, he could only sink and feed the ducks.

In comparison, someone's dignified river crossing, which felt like a farewell, only had a risk coming from the instability of Xiachai City… Because simply crossing the river and entering the city was risk-free. Xiachai City had an inner ferry to Linhuai. Although the dock was burned, the waterway could directly reach the city wall, making it impossible to run into the Jin people.

However, it was very obvious that the Jin people had a completely different way of thinking than the Song people.

"Is the Fourth Prince not planning to attack the city?" After a pause, a rough-looking Jurchen Meng'an (thousand-household head) took the lead in asking.

"Pu Luhu is on the right track." Jin Wuzhu raised his head and stroked his beard. "You have all seen the reconnaissance these days. This Xiachai City is a first-class key city, and we are not here to fight this kind of battle this time. We just want to capture Zhao Song's new official... We will avoid it if we can!"

"Fourth Prince, someone fled from the city from the west yesterday and was captured by us. He said that the city was afraid and unstable." Another person spoke, a fair-skinned and short man named Ali, who was also a genuine Jin army general, a ten-thousand-household head under the Meng'an (thousand-household head) Mouke (hundred-household head) system. "How can we not feel at ease besieging the city and attacking the city, forcing this Zhang Jun to surrender? If Xiachai surrenders, wouldn't the Zhao Song emperor abandon the north bank and run away himself?"

"You also said that if Xiachai surrenders, the Zhao Song emperor will run away. Wouldn't we be doing it in vain?" Seeing that it was Ali who spoke, Wuzhu sat up, facing him seriously with a hint of alcohol. "And if we attack the city first, Xiachai City has an inner ferry to Linhuai, although it is said to be burned, but it is always connected to Huainan. The Song emperor is stationed in the north mountain range of Bagong Mountain. The Jin Wu flag is hanging high. You can see it from the city... With the Song emperor there, perhaps the morale in the city can be supported!"

"No matter what the Fourth Prince says!" Ali also slammed his wine bowl to the ground. "I'll be frank, I would rather send Qiansha soldiers to attack the city first. If it doesn't work, I'll use cannons to bombard the city. I don't want to be drowned in the Huai River because the commander-in-chief is drunk and implicate my life!"

As soon as these words came out, the Han soldiers in the tent were all frightened, but Jin Wuzhu laughed loudly, and some of the other Jin officers also laughed, only Ali was still angry, and another ten-thousand-household head, Elubu, also looked a little unwell… It turned out that the Jin army had strict military discipline, and there was a famous military rule that if a superior officer died in battle, his direct subordinate officer must be beheaded and displayed to the public, regardless of the reason!

Therefore, in every battle, as long as a certain officer personally charged forward, his unit would fight to the death and never waver.

And this, of course, was the real reason for Ali's exasperation. He was not afraid of Jin Wuzhu going to the battlefield. What was going to the battlefield? In the era of Aguda, which Jin noble was not tempered in a sea of ​​corpses and blood? Even Ali's name had a source... Ali's name was changed from Ali Xi, and Ali Xi meant the name of the lowest-ranking deputy soldier when the Jurchens were still under the tribal system and carried out small-scale looting.

In other words, Ali rose step by step from a mere lowest-ranking Ali Xi. He was much stronger than Jin Wuzhu's record of personally beheading eight people at the age of ten.

In fact, many of the Jin army's generals who were not from the Wanyan clan, and even the generals of the Wanyan clan, had names with a strong military color. One could tell their approximate origin and background by hearing them.

Back to the present, the problem was that Ali, who came from Ali Xi, could accept failure and death on the battlefield, but could not accept being innocently implicated because his superior was drunk.

To put it bluntly, if Jin Wuzhu fell into the Huai River tonight, others would be fine, but he would have to pay for it with his life in vain; and if he was captured after falling into the water, it would be even more ridiculous, and the entire army might have to retreat as a result... In fact, this was the reason why Yue Fei was able to retreat completely after capturing the enemy general near the Taihang Mountains, and why Wang De was able to kill all the people on a boat on the bank of the Huai River.

"General Ali, rest assured." Jin Wuzhu also comforted a few words after laughing. "Today is New Year's Eve, and the opposite side is also celebrating with lanterns and feasts. How can they send ships to patrol the river at this time? Even if there are patrols, I will take a few Han people to deal with it... Besides, I won't go ashore, and I'm not just fooling around because I'm drunk. I really want to see the reality of the opposite camp in the river, and see if the Song emperor is really there? What is the morale on the other side? And see if the Huai River can be crossed directly by floating horses? Or whether a pontoon bridge can be built?"

At this point, seeing that Ali Xi was still about to speak, Jin Wuzhu sneered, got up and left the tent directly, apparently intending to take advantage of the night snow to cross the river and observe the enemy camp... Ali Xi and Elubu on the opposite side looked at each other, but they were helpless and could only drink and eat meat in silence.

Jin Wuzhu left the Jin army camp, did not greet anyone, and directly led three or five guards on horseback to the north bank of the Huai River. He found a few small boats of the Jin army, summoned a dozen Han soldiers from Hebei who knew how to row, and took a small boat by himself to cross the river in the snow.

The small boat traveled a little to the west, and when it reached the center of the river, under the illumination of the lights on both sides, it faintly saw the hazy figure of another Han army boat on the south bank, about a hundred steps away. However, this boat went to the northwest, apparently heading for Xiachai City. It did not pay attention to this small boat that deliberately spoke in Han language. The two sides just brushed past each other.

However, after this boat, Jin Wuzhu did not encounter any more Han army boats, and he wantonly crossed the river from east to west, holding a wine pot and carefully observing the military situation on both sides of the Huai River.

However, after this observation, Jin Wuzhu felt more and more difficult... Not to mention the solidity and completeness of Xiachai City, he had already known everything in the past few days. To the southeast of Xiachai City, facing each other across the river, was the foot of Bagong Mountain, which was also dangerous and the camp was solid!

Not only that, looking closely at this time, Bagong Mountain was just a part of a whole mountain range (Xieshi Mountain), or an independent extension. This mountain (Xieshi Mountain) blocked the Huai River from north to south, the terrain was dangerous, Xiachai stood in the north, and Shouchun was supported in the south, and the north and south Fei Rivers met under the mountain in the Huai River, and the terrain was really complex. Only speaking of Bagong Mountain, the reason why this mountain was famous all over the world was precisely because it was located in the middle of this complex terrain. If you want to cross the river from here, the two serious wide roads were under the cover of Bagong Mountain on the left and right, and the Song army had built fortresses here early!

Jin Wuzhu was the fourth son of Aguda, and he was only twenty-five or six years old this year. So on the one hand, as a middle and lower-ranking officer, he participated in almost all the major wars of the rise of the Jin Dynasty, and he had the Jurchen professional soldier's unique roughness, barbarism, cruelty and cunning; but on the other hand, the Jin Dynasty had been established for thirteen years. As a prince of the appropriate age, he had also come into contact with the most advanced culture of this era early on, received a considerable degree of cultural education, and broadened his horizons in the southern and northern wars...

And today, he came to the river in the snow. On the one hand, as the commander-in-chief, he had to find a way out of the current situation, so he had to perform the duties of a military commander and personally spy on the reality, just like his father, who was almost dying, still had to patrol the front line of Juyongguan; on the other hand, he also had complex thoughts deep in his heart, despising the vulgarity of those old Jurchen generals and the affectation of the Liao and Song surrenderers, so he wanted to escape for a while.

Heavy snow was flying. Jin Wuzhu entered the Huai River in a small boat, sighing at the mountains, the river, and the sky. At first, he was still seriously looking at the military deployments, but at the end, with half a pot of wine down, he vaguely forgot his true purpose this time, but stood in the river in a daze.

ps: Thank you very much to the human fireworks language boss and the Chaos Seven Day Alliance. I will let Xiao Jiu kowtow to make up for it. There are 27 cute girls in this new book period... In theory, I should be excited, but I don't know why, but I feel a little nervous.

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