Offense (8)

In March of the third year of Xiangxing, Zou Xun, Zhang Tang and other generals were sent out of Fujian to take Meizhou, and Chen Hangyan took the first army to Hangzhou. Meizhou has few soldiers, and he went down with a drum.

In the Book of the Later Song Dynasty, historians have paid little attention to this battle based on the low intensity of the offensive and defensive battles in Meizhou and the fact that the enemy was too outnumbered. In their eyes, this was the first battle of the Broken Army out of Fujian, marking the beginning of the Broken Army's self-preservation at the beginning of its establishment and the beginning of a local counteroffensive. At the same time, this battle was the first battle in which Deputy Marshal Zou Wei became famous, and it was also the battle with the fewest casualties in the history of the Broken Army. No matter in terms of historical significance and military reference value, it cannot be summed up in just four words.

However, the rhetoric of the staff officers could not convince the historians that, from an outsider's point of view, the battle, which lasted less than half an hour from the beginning to the end, was indeed lackluster. There is neither a lobbyist with a lotus tongue who can say that the enemy will abandon his weapons and return, nor a resourceful Confucian who strategizes and decides a thousand miles, let alone a chivalrous and courageous military general who will capture the flag in a million-strong army. In the battle of Meizhou, the Broken Army only "bullied" the other party with equipment and numbers, forcing the other party to tie up halfway.

As a result of the "bullying", as soon as the first wave of shelling ended, the flag was erected at the head of Meizhou City. The main general Zhang Hongzheng was killed under artillery fire, and Lu Fangyuan, Zhang Hong and other Han army led the remnants of the city to open the city to surrender, ending this battle without suspense.

There is another version of Zhang Hongzheng's death. According to folk rumors, after the battle, someone found Zhang Hongzheng's body under the city wall of Fuzhou and carried it to Zou Xun for instructions on how to deal with it. Zou Xun saw a knife inserted from Zhang Hongzheng's back waist, but it didn't reach the handle. wanted to give credit to the generals, but no one was willing to accept the credit, so they had to report Zhang Hongzheng as killed in battle to cover up the truth of his assassination.

After Meizhou was conquered, the Western Expeditionary Army continued to advance westward under the command of Zou Wei. In the area of Bailu Mountain, Cui Bangyan's troops were completely annihilated out of the city to meet the attack, and then conquered Xunzhou. Under the persuasion of Lu Fangyuan, the defenders of Lianyunbao and Longchuan Fort took the initiative to lay down their weapons. The soldiers of the captives took two fortresses without bloodshed, and the soldiers pointed directly at Xinfeng Town, Guangzhou......

At the same time, Mrs. Xu and Zhang Yuan led the Xing Song army to conquer Zengcheng and defeated more than 10,000 Tanma Red Army. Seeing that the general trend had gone, Lü Shikui was afraid of being besieged by the Broken Army and the Xing Song Army, so he gave up Guangzhou after a little resistance and led his troops to retreat into the Yingde Mansion. The heroes of the rivers and lakes in the Liangguang area took advantage of the situation, killed the local officials of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, attacked the county seat with poor defense facilities, and opened up the way for the captive army. The Jianghuai soldiers who hid in the mountains after the defeat also regrouped, and under the guidance of Chen Zijing, the leader of the southern outpost of the Broken Army, they actively cooperated with the actions of the Broken Army.

On the east and west roads of Guangnan, the local heroes who are good at judging the situation are like sitting on pins and needles. Without the support of the main force of the Northern Yuan, every family did not know how to deal with the situation in front of them. Form a coalition to go east to support Lu Shikui? They don't dare, and they don't want to spend that blood. They laid down their arms and surrendered directly to the Broken Army, and they could not conclude that the Fujian Metropolitan Governor's Office would not hold everyone accountable for betraying the Jianghuai Army and the dynasty.

The battle situation accelerated to the side of the Breaker Army in the indecision of the heroes, and a large number of villages, towns, and counties had been recovered before the main force of the Breaker Army arrived. The state capitals were slowly isolated and became isolated islands. Some bandits and hooligans also took the opportunity to pull up a team and loot everywhere under the banner of the Great Song Dynasty or the Great Yuan, and some even simply set themselves up as kings, taking a mountain or half a village as the territory, and sat on the emperor's dream.

Da Chun, the marshal of the Ping Song Dynasty, was at a loss for the battle situation.

The size of the army that broke into Quang Nam was not large, and in terms of numbers, it was less than 20,000. But these 20,000 people have caused consequences that Da Chun did not expect and did not want to see. At this moment, he had no time to be angry at Lu Shikui's passive war-avoidance behavior, and he had no time to feel sorry for Zhang Hongzheng's heroic dedication. The danger in front of him was even greater, Chen Hangyan led 40,000 horses to attack Shanghang, and another recovered army under the leadership of Tao Laomo also fought the other side of the Jiulong River, attacking the river at all times.

Although in terms of numbers, Dachun's department still occupies an absolute advantage. But in this case, he couldn't distinguish a soldier to support Liangguang. If Liangguang is taken by the Broken Army, the control area of the thieves will extend from Fuzhou to Qinzhou, and the entire southeast coast, except for Liangzhejiang, will become the world of the Broken Army. The soldiers and horses of the Great Yuan were stationed in Tingzhou, and there was no deterrent significance.

"Shhh The mournful roar of the war horses came from outside the military tent and stopped abruptly. From the attached and helpless neighing, Da Chun judged that the life of another war horse was coming to an end. The humid weather in Fujian is not suitable for the survival of people and horses in the north, and in recent times, not only the number of war horses in the army has died of disease, but the number of wounded soldiers has also increased day by day. The shamans who accompanied the army thought that this situation was a warning from God, and those who had been captured by the Chinese doctors reported even more unfavorable news, that there was an unknown plague that might have reached the brink of an outbreak.

Could it be that Changshengtian changed his mind and no longer wanted the Great Song Dynasty to perish? Da Chun asked himself the same question repeatedly in his heart. Ever since Wen Tianxiang sent a small number of cavalry to carry out a tentative attack on the army, this question has haunted Da Chun like a nightmare, and no matter how much he finds a reason to comfort himself, he can't get rid of it.

Fujian is mountainous, and the cavalry cannot be deployed on a large scale. Therefore, the cavalry of the two sides fought several times, and the number of war horses dispatched was about 300 people. But with the same number of cavalry attacking, the Mongols, who grew up on horseback, slowly fell behind. This is not because the combat effectiveness of the Mongolian warriors has declined, but because the quality of the opponent's soldiers and horses has improved too quickly, which has exceeded the adaptability of the Mongolian warriors.

Approaching at high speed, diffuse, using the speed of the war horse to escape far away, not giving the opponent a chance to return the phone, and then go back and repeat the last attack. This galloping tactic was the mastery of the Mongol cavalry, and as a result, they irritated countless opponents and eventually collapsed on all fronts. And when fighting with the cavalry of the Broken Army, this move did not play as well as it should. Because the cavalry of the Broken Army used the same tactics. Moreover, their cavalry was each armed with a steel crossbow and chain mail.

Archery on horseback differed from that on land, and the hardness of the horn bow and the length of the bow were greatly reduced. The key to this tactic is to end a round of battle so fast that the opponent is unable to react, and then prepare for the next wave of attacks. The Mongol cavalry attacked quickly, the cavalry of the captive army was faster, their steel crossbows were pulled in advance, hung behind the saddle, and they were shot when they needed to be picked up, and they were shot away after shooting, and the whole process was much faster than the horn bow was full and shot out. Even more intolerable was the fact that their chain mail had expensive steel guards on their backs, which could not inflict substantial damage on them even if they were chased by bows and arrows from behind.

The things that frustrated Dachun didn't stop there, among the mounts of the cavalry of the Broken Army, there were actually a large number of Turkic horses, three hippos and Daning horses. All three horses are famous horses in the world, and they are much faster than ordinary Mongolian horses. The fact that the Broken Capture Army was able to equip these famous horses, which had been banned from being exported to the Great Song Dynasty since the Liao Dynasty, showed that the Naiyan Tribe, the Haidu Division, and even the Ilkhanate, Kipchak Khanate, and Chagatai Khanate in the north had established trade contacts with Fujian, and even colluded with one place. This is a miracle that has not been seen in hundreds of years, and once his judgment is correct, Dayuan will face a catastrophe.

Da Kechun also knew in his heart that the culprit for this result was not Haidu, nor Naiyan. The root of the problem lies with his master, Kublai Khan. It was he who killed his younger brother and seized the throne and forcibly disbanded the Great Kulutai, which violated the traditions of the Mongols. It can be said that it is this reckless behavior that has caused the reality of the fragmentation of the Mongolian people today. If Kublai Khan's defeat of the Song Dynasty is regarded as a great achievement, it is his great sin to dissolve the Great Kulutai and lose control of the Western khanates. At present, this sin is only manifested in the supreme communication between the Broken Prisoner Army and Naiyan, Haidu and others, and in the future, the consequences may be even more serious, and even the starting point of the decline of the entire Mongol nation. (For the division of the Mongol khanates caused by Kublai Khan's dissolution of the Great Kulutai, see "Studies in Mongolian History.") Many modern Mongol scholars believe that Kublai Khan's destruction of the Mongols far outweighed his contribution.)

Of course, these words cannot be spoken. For the sake of Kublai Khan's country, and for the safety of himself and his family, Dachun can only let these thoughts rot in his stomach. He sighed softly, looking extremely lonely in the military tent full of staff.

"Why should the marshal sigh, at this moment, the Immortal Heaven may not have given Da Yuan a chance to win!" Guangnan East Road Xuanfu made Jiao Youzhi persuade in a low voice.

"What did Lord Fei Jiao think of?" Da Chun frowned, and the tone of the question was a little rushed.

Jiao Youzhi, the Xuanfu envoy of Guangnan East Road, was once the Lin'an Mansion of the late Song Dynasty and was reused. After returning to the Great Yuan, this person presented Kublai Khan with calligraphy and paintings, antiques and divination books stored in the Song Dynasty court, and was appreciated and promoted to the post of Xuanhui of the two Zhejiang. Soon, due to excessive corruption of Mintian, he was exposed by Boyan and lost his position. However, he was soon activated with several articles praising Kublai Khan as the Great Khan of Heaven and the Great Yuan Dynasty and the Song Dynasty as the return of fortune, and rose all the way to the position of Xuanfu envoy on the Guangnan East Road. When Zhang Hongfan served as the marshal of the Ping Song Dynasty, he was unwilling to let this person out and embarrass the Han people, so he kept him in the army under the pretext of leaving him. After Da Chun took over, the war situation in Guangnan was unstable, and Jiao Youzhi did not dare to go to the post, and he always relied on Da Chun's side to regard himself as a staff member.

Several Mongolian and Han aides looked sideways, and they didn't think that his suggestion was merit for this kind of person with poor character and nothing but sycophancy.

Jiao You Zhi Shi Ran took a few steps forward, looked around a few times confidently, and asked slowly: "Does the marshal want to win on the battlefield in a hurry?" Or do you want to win outside the battlefield as well? ”

"What do you say?" Da Chun was so sour that he finally suppressed the urge to beat the person in front of him, and asked, "It's good to win on the battlefield, if there is a good plan to win outside the battlefield, you might as well talk about it and let everyone discuss!" ”

Jiao You rolled his eyelids and looked around, feeling reluctant. He originally wanted Da Chunping to retreat from the crowd and privately offer his own well-thought-out strategy. In this way, firstly, he showed his scheming superman, and secondly, he could show his status in the heart of the marshal of the capital.

Seeing that Da Chun's words in advance blocked the possibility of a separate audience, half of the great performance opportunity was wasted. Jiao Youzhi muttered a few words in his heart, raised his head, and said loudly: "The marshal wants to win a battle, and Jiao has nothing to do." But if you want to destroy Wen Tianxiang's soldiers without a fight, there is a great opportunity now! ”

"What chance?" Da Chun asked in surprise when he saw that Jiao Youzhi was speaking confidently.

"Plague! Jinjiang River, Ganxi! Jiao Youzhi's words gradually turned cold, and everyone in the big tent trembled.

The Jinjiang River originates in the Dawuyi Mountains, bypasses Tingzhou, Shanghang, and Chaozhou, and is the main water source for the people of western Fujian and eastern Guangdong. The dry stream is a small stream not far from Tingzhou City, which is not marked on the map. After Dachun stayed in Martin Chau, he figured out the direction of this creek. The source of the stream is in the hilly belt of five miles south of Tingzhou, and it flows into the Jiulong River along the mountain. The so-called Jiulong River is the Taishi River, which runs Ninghua, Qingliu, Yong'an, Shaxian and Jianpu together, and is an important tributary of the Min River.

At present, the plague in the army is beginning to rise, if it is not deliberately controlled, but let it spread, and even send people to throw the people and animals who died of the plague into the Jinjiang River and Ganxi, with the direction of the water, most of Fujian and Guangnan East Road, that is, the area controlled by the army at present, a large-scale plague will break out. Without the invasion of a large army, Wen Tianxiang's strength will also be weakened to the lowest point.

"Marshal, this move will hurt the peace of the heavens, and it must not be!" A general of the newly annexed army, whose ancestral home is Quang Nam East Road, jumped in opposition.

"Why not, could it be that General Li wants to show mercy to the enemy's subordinates, or has a heart for Da Song Hu?" Jiao Youzhi rolled his eyes and asked the generals who opposed him.

The general of the new annexed army is called Li Zhen, and he has always had some popularity in the army. Some low-level Mongolian generals couldn't see Jiao Youzhi's arrogance, and they went up to stand up for Li Zhen. Throwing corpses at enemy troops, causing plague, was often done by the Mongol army during sieges. But at present, most of the southern region belongs to the Great Yuan, and it is a bit cruel to adopt this method again. After all, after the plague, the area will not be able to slow down its vitality in three or five years, and everyone will not be able to scavenge it for good.

Several Mongols who had some friendship with Jiao Youzhi saw that he was being besieged and stood up one after another, expressing their support for the proposal to use the plague to attack the enemy. For a time, the supporters and opponents were divided into two factions and made a fuss in front of Dachun.

This is a great plan, but it may not work. At present, the areas controlled by the enemy and the enemy are connected, and once the plague breaks out, I am afraid that no one will be able to control its direction. At that time, the spread will be too wide, and it will be difficult to talk over there! Yuan Jizu, the general of the Tanma Red Army, saw that everyone was really making trouble, so he stepped forward and began to make peace with the mud.

"Listen to me, if I can't do anything to let the plague only hurt others, not myself, I won't make this proposal" Jiao Youzhi tore his throat in the crowd and shouted loudly.

The sound of the argument stopped all of a sudden, the generals have lived so much, and it is the first time that they have heard that the plague can still be controlled, and they looked at Jiao Youzhi in surprise, waiting for his next words.

Jiao You pushed away the people around him and bowed in front of Dachun. "Dashuai, there is an old saying, called spring plague is not summer. At the end of spring, as long as the weather is hot and the heat rushes, the plague will naturally dissipate. As long as we withdraw the army to Jiangxi in advance. Then block the northward escape routes of the people in Fujian, Guangnan and other places, and the plague will not be able to spread northward. When the midsummer comes, the plague has dispersed, and the broken army is almost dead, and the marshal will be able to kill the troops again, and he will definitely be able to complete the victory without a fight! And there is no need for this plan, when His Majesty has pacified Liaodong and then replenished the army, I am afraid that the two roads in Guangnan and even the two Zhejiang will fall into the hands of the broken army! When the time comes, if we want to serve the country, I guess there will be no chance! ”

"Is that true?" Nerha, Solihan, Li Liang and other generals asked in unison. Since the defeat of Yong'an, they have not been able to muster the courage to fight the captives in their hearts. However, after a long confrontation with the Broken Army, Jiao Youzhi analyzed it well, and after Kublai Khan resolved the crisis in the north, he would inevitably turn his attention to the south. At that time, I am afraid that everyone will have to share in the sin of losing two wides.

"Of course, there are people in the Jiao clan who have practiced medicine for generations, how can they not understand this truth!" Jiao You said bluntly, his family is a big family in Zhejiang and Zhejiang, and it is impossible for anyone to engage in medical skills, which is the last skill in the eyes of scholars. But at this moment, he is eager to make meritorious contributions, even if he says that he is the descendant of the King of Medicine, he will no longer talk about it with the thickness of his face.

"Think twice!" Li Zhen saw that Da Chun had been moved by Jiao Youzhi's words, and cautiously reminded.

"Soldiers, treacherous. There is no need to use the strategy, how can you be merciful for a while, and neglect the great cause of a thousand years! Jiao Youzhi shouted, and his body suddenly stopped. The shriveled bones supported the empty robes of the Confucian scholars, and they looked as terrifying as zombies that had just crawled out of their graves.

Several opponents of the ploy were completely suppressed and could not say a word more. The great cause is the most important, and as for the unjust souls that fell in order to establish the great cause, they are all stubble, and no one will ever remember them. When the Mongols first entered the Central Plains, they slaughtered every city they broke and never sealed their swords. For Da Chun and others, who are accustomed to killing, what are millions of people? It's just a string of numbers to show off in his own credit book.

Li Zhen lowered his head and felt that he was trembling all over. In the midst of the biting cold and pain, he heard Dachun call with the military medical officer to inquire about the control of the plague in the army. Then, I heard someone cheering, someone sighing, and a herald ran in quickly, took the order and ran out.

On the way back to the sleeping tent, Li Zhen saw a group of soldiers covering their mouths and noses with white cloths, walking in front of him with shovels, and walking towards the graves of the sick and dead soldiers in the mountains. Fearing that the souls of the dead would be alarmed and damned, the soldiers of all tribes hung all the talismans they could find. Some people have Buddha statues around their necks, some people have Taoist yellow paper pasted on their bodies, and some people really can't find amulets, so they tie a cross with chopsticks, and follow the example of a Nestorian believer, and carry the cross on their backs.

"May my Buddha be merciful and forgive the sins of my disciples!" Li Zhen muttered a prayer in the direction of the setting sun. In the hills to the west, the sunset was as red as fire, and the smoke was billowing as if countless gods were wafting between the flames.

At that moment, there was a fire in the sky, and the gods could not care about the sorrow of the world.

Alcoholic's note: When the Northern Yuan Dynasty destroyed the Song Dynasty, it did cause several plagues. In the history of the Song Dynasty repaired by the Yuan people, such records can be seen in many places. When Wen Tianxiang was reorganizing his old ministry in Chaozhou, he was hit by a plague, and most of his soldiers died of illness, including one of his sons.

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