The beacon fires burned, the war drums roared, and the explosions thundered like thunder, shaking the city. In Tianchang County, north of Yangzhou, with the flying rain of arrows, countless stone bullets are being thrown towards the city in the distance with a little firelight.

The towers above the city walls had collapsed in the explosion, the female walls had collapsed and the flags had fallen, and in front of them were the vanguard of the Jurchen attack, more than 50,000 troops had gathered under the city, and hundreds of catapults were raining down hollow stone projectiles stuffed with gunpowder on the city walls.

In Tianchang County, it is a 30,000 army led by Han Shizhong's subordinate general Xie Yuan - Tianchang County, located on the front line north of Yangzhou, located in the first position of the Jurchen on the way south, the city is small but easy to defend and difficult to attack, 30,000 troops are stationed, supplemented by more than 200 iron cannons, it is already quite a sufficient defensive battle, but with the arrival of the Jurchen vanguard led by Wanyan Zongbi, the first round of unfolding is also a fierce attack far beyond everyone's imagination.

More than ten years have passed since Ning Yi implemented the way of learning things, making the artillery shine in the process of the Jurchens' first southward journey. In the past ten years, the Huaxia Army has been the originator of the way of things, and under the promotion of Ning Yi, the technology has accumulated the thickest. The Wu Dynasty had Junwu, and the Jurchens had the Great Architecture Institute presided over by Wanyan Xiyin, and the research and manufacturing of the two sides were parallel, but in the entire scale, the technical strength of the Jurchen side was the largest.

In ten years, the Jurchens invaded the south three times and abducted millions of Han people in the Central Plains, among which the Jurchens regarded ordinary Han people as slaves and women as animals, and the most important ones were actually all kinds of craftsmen among the Han people. The Wu Dynasty accumulated for two hundred years, which was the most prosperous and developed in the Central Plains, and these craftsmen were taken captive to the north and divided by various forces.

On the other hand, in the Wu Dynasty, although the power of the way of Gewu has been partially proven, in the face of Ning Yi's act of killing the king, all kinds of scholars and Confucian scholars still avoided it, and only said that it was a small way that worked for a while. Public opinion is not encouraged, and Jun Wu cannot forcibly requisition craftsmen from all over the world to work in preparation for war, although the research vitality is higher than that of Jin Guo, but in terms of scale, the belongings that Jun Wu saved in Jiangning cannot compare to the power of Jurchen after all.

The rudimentary hollow bullet blasting technology was already available to the Huaxia Army a few years ago, and naturally it was also sold, which was used in artillery. However, Wanyan Xiyin was more radical, in the past few years, he craftsmen accurately controlled the burning speed of the lead, with hollow stone bullets with fixed leads, every ten rounds as a bundle, with a longer range of catapults for projectiles, strict calculation and control of the launch distance and steps, ignition before launch, and strive to explode after landing, this kind of siege stone projectiles, known as "Heavenly Maiden Scattered Flowers".

As soon as he arrived at Tianchang, Zong Bi used this cannonball on the battlefield.

After the first three rounds of test firing for calculations were completed, half of the hundreds of catapults began to throw the "Heavenly Maiden Scattered Flowers", and thousands of stone bullets flew down at the same time, because the way of controlling the lead was still too primitive, half of them had already turned off or exploded in the air, and only one or eight of them really fell on the city and then exploded, and the power of the small stone bullets was not too great, but it still caused many soldiers to defend the city to be injured and fall to the ground at the first time.

The stumps and legs were scattered, and the smell of blood and gunpowder smoke filled in an instant. Zong Bi stood in the battle array, watching the explosion at the head of the city in front of him really bloom, and the smoke and wails covered the entire city wall.

The corners of his fierce eyes also widened slightly.

Among the sons of Aguta, Wanyan Zongbi, who ranked fourth and also known as Wushu, was the most brave and radical, he was younger, and when he first started fighting, the Jurchens had almost destroyed the entire Liao State.

Wushu is unwilling to be an ordinary prince, after the second brother Zongwang went, the third brother Zongfu was too safe and gentle, not enough to maintain the prestige of the Aguta clan, unable to compete with Zong Han and Xi Yin, who controlled the "Western Imperial Court", and Wushu Ben, who had always regarded Zongwang as a role model, stood up without giving up.

The Jurchen has been fighting martial arts for more than ten years, and Wushu is the most enthusiastic, he inherited the courage of the Wanyan clan, taking the lead in every battle, and going south for the third time, and has become the dominant person in the royal family. The whole search mountains and seas, Wushu fought in the south of the Yangtze River, almost no general, but Zhou Yong hid in the sea and did not dare to return, at that time the Jurchens were also offensive to the south of the land, Wushu had to collect troops to return to the north, this time, in Huang Tiandang suffered a little setback, the most sleepy for more than 40 days, this time to kill.

Who can lead the army in a hundred battles? The Jurchens have been in battle for a long time, even if Ah Guta, Wu Qimai, Zong Han Zongwang and others occasionally have small setbacks, and no one takes Huang Tiandang as the same thing. It's just that the people of the Wu Dynasty are excited about this, and for several years, they have always preached that Huang Tiandang is a big victory, and the Jurchens are not undefeatable. After such a situation for a long time, when it spread to the north, people who knew the inside story couldn't cry or laugh, and for Zong Bi, it was a little depressed.

Great victory over your mother! After being surrounded for more than 40 days and not a few people died, he finally counterattacked with fire, chased and killed Han Shizhong for more than 70 miles, and the southerners were shameless and dared to say that they had a big victory!

Zong Bi certainly thought so in his heart, but he couldn't stop the boasting of the Wu Dynasty. So when he went south for the fourth time, he was holding back a breath of fire in his heart, and the battle finally broke out. Just because this Xie Yuan is also a vanguard general under Han Shizhong, with the arrival of the Jurchen army, he is still desperately preaching the so-called "record" that Huang Tiandang defeated his side at the beginning, and the fire of Wushu could not be suppressed at that time.

In his heart, whether it is this Xie Yuan or Han Shizhong on the other side, they are just local chickens and dogs, and this time when he goes south, it is necessary to break this group of people as quickly as possible, so as to deter the nearly one million Wu Dynasty troops in the Jiangnan region, and the chance of victory is determined.

The cannonballs bombarded the city wall three times, and more than 4,000 rounds of stone shells had been consumed in the attack on this small city, with the bombardment of half of the solid boulders, as if the whole city and the earth were trembling, and Zongbi on the war horse waved the command flag and announced the order to attack.

In the smoke of gunpowder, the Jurchen banners began to spread towards the city wall.

The Jurchen invaded the army for the fourth time, which was the war that determined the fortunes of the Jin State, and the tide makers who rose in this era rushed to the land of the Wu Dynasty with the courage that was still in full swing, and after a while, the sound of artillery shelling sounded at the head of the city, and Xie Yuan led the team to rush to the city and began to fight back.

The day after the start of the Tianchang War, under the unusually strong offensive of the Jurchens, Xie Yuan led the army to abandon the city and retreat south, and the Wushu ordered the cavalry to pursue, Han Shizhong led the army from Yangzhou to kill and receive Xie Yuan into the city, and a tragic battle broke out on the way. On June 27, Sun Peizhi, the former puppet general of Qi, led 100,000 men to besiege Gaoyou, north of the Yangtze River, and fierce battles spread across the vast land.

On June 27, on the same day that Sun Peizhi besieged Gaoyou, the attack of more than 100,000 troops began in Liangshanshui, which was more than 1,000 miles to the north, thus opening the prelude to the long and difficult defense of Liangshan.

More than 1,300 miles west of Yangzhou, Ali Scrape, the Jurchen general who originally guarded Bianliang, led 20,000 elites to Nanyang, preparing to cooperate with the more than 100,000 Han troops of Nanyang, Dengzhou, and Xinye to enter Xiangyang. This was an order issued by Wanyan Xiyin to cooperate with the attack of the Eastern Route Army, and the main force of the Western Route Army led by Zong Han had also crossed the Yellow River at this time and approached Bianliang, and the 60,000 forwards led by Xiyin were not far from the direction of Nanyang.

On the day when Ali Scrape's army arrived in Nanyang, Yue Fei led the Beiwei army to take the initiative to kill Xiangyang and attack Dengzhou, and the Dengzhou defenders reported to the north that night, Ali Scrape led the army to Dengzhou to relieve the siege, and on June 29, 20,000 Jurchen elites, including 9,000 heavy cavalry, came into contact with Yue Fei's Beiwei army, which was waiting to deliberately encircle and send reinforcements, 20 miles north of Dengzhou.

The autumn of slaughter is coming, Jiangnan and the Central Plains...... Stretching across thousands of miles of undulating land, the flames of war are burning.

At the same time, the Northland is not at peace.

Where the Western Imperial Court of the Jin Kingdom is located, Yunzhong Mansion, at the turn of summer and autumn, the hottest weather will come to an end.

A tragedy is brewing in the shadows that not many people are aware of.

In the Gaoyue Teahouse, Zou Wenhu, a Han man from Liaodong who was dressed in a fancy costume, walked up the stairs and met with the person he met in the private room at the end of the second floor.

He was met by a woman, plainly dressed, with a stumbling gaze and a tear-like scar on the left corner of her eye. The woman's surname is Xiao, Xiao of the "Empress Dowager Xiao" of the Liao State. "Red Lady" Xiao Shuqing is one of the famous bandits in the clouds.

After the fall of the Liao State, the Jin State suppressed and enslaved the Khitans for a period of time, and massacres were carried out several times. However, the Khitans were brave, and it was impossible for the Jin people to govern such a large area by slaughter, and soon began to use Huairou methods. After all, at this time, the Jin people also had a more suitable object for enslavement. More than ten years after the fall of the Liao State, some Khitans had entered the upper echelons of the Jin Dynasty, and the Khitan people at the bottom had also accepted the fact that they were ruled by the Jurchens. But even for the vast majority of such facts, after the disaster of the country, there are always a small number of Khitan members who still stand on the position of resistance, or do not plan to get out, or cannot get out.

Xiao Shuqing is a descendant of the original Empress Dowager Xiao of the Liao State, who killed her husband by the Jin people when she was young, and later was humiliated and enslaved, and then was rescued by the remnants of the Khitan resistance. Compared with the Han people who were inconvenient to act in the north, even if the Liao State was dead, there were always many remnants of that year who missed the benefits of that time, and it was for this reason that Xiao Shuqing and others were active near Yunzhong and were not exterminated for a long time, and some people suspected that they were still sheltered by some Khitan officials who were in high positions at this time.

Seeing Zou Wenhu coming, the female bandit, who had always been ruthless, looked indifferent: "How is it?" That boy in your family, have you thought about it? ”

"My master, I am a little excited." Zou Wenhu moved a chair and sat down, "But at this time, the involvement is too great, have you ever thought about the consequences, have you ever thought that it is likely that the entire court above will shake?" ”

A look of disdain flashed in Xiao Shuqing's eyes: "Hmph, coward, your son-in-law is, and so are you." ”

"Hey, Concubine Xiao, don't say that, just talk about things, it's not authentic to abuse people's reputation, over the years, the surname Zou has never been said to be timid, but don't provoke me like this, I'm not a fool." The Xiao family was the mother of the world, and after Xiao Shuqing became famous, gradually, she was also called Concubine Xiao, and in the face of the other party's disdain, Zou Wenhu buttoned his nose, but he didn't care.

"I know you're not timid, but you're poor."

"Look at what you said, Concubine Xiao." Zou Wenhu looked at each other, passed for a moment, and said with a smile, "...... It's really on point. ”

"Less poor mouth." Xiao Shuqing glanced at him, "I told you about this matter a long time ago, the Qi family went to the place of the Jurchens, and made such a big noise, what kind of scholarly family is the hundred-year-old family, those Jurchens, who has face?" It doesn't matter if you play with him, it's not a big deal to see him unlucky, not to mention the Qi family's savings in the Wu Dynasty for a hundred years, this time the whole family goes north, who doesn't blush? Your son-in-law, speaking of the queen of the country, it's a pity, the old man of the country didn't leave anything, and he couldn't fight, this time the backbone of the people went to the south, and in the future, they will be rewarded for meritorious deeds, and they will have to get up a group of people, your son-in-law, and you Zou Wenhu, stand aside in the future......"

She said as she played with her fingers: "This incident is good for everyone. And to be honest, move the Qi family, those who play with their lives under my command are very dangerous, your son's brand of the country, don't say that we point to you to ship, we will definitely not let you have an accident, even if it happens, you can't afford it? There was no battle after the battle in the south! Your son-in-law, and you, have a bunch of children in the family, watching them live in disgrace in the future? ”

Listening to what she said, Zou Wenhu had a smile on his face, but he gradually became fierce, Xiao Shuqing licked his tongue: "Okay, I won't say much nonsense, this matter is very big, and the Qi family is also very big, I can't eat it, and we can't eat it together." There are a lot of nods, you know the rules, if you can nod on behalf of your son, what can be penetrated to you, I will give it to you, to ensure that you feel at ease, and if you can't see through, it is to protect you. Of course, if you shake your head, that's the end of the matter...... Don't speak out. ”

Speaking of the last sentence, Xiao Shuqing's eyes flashed with a real fierce light, Zou Wenhu tilted his head to look at his fingers, and pondered for a moment: "The matter is so big, are you sure that everyone who participates is clean?" ”

"Clean? It depends on what you say. Xiao Shuqing smiled, "Anyway, if you nod, I'll give you a few names, and I promise that you will have a head and a face." In addition, I also said that if something happens to the Qi family, everyone will only be happy to see it happen, as for the accident, even if the incident happens, your son-in-law can't afford it? At that time, the Qi family has already arrived, and a group of hungry wolves in Yunzhong Mansion will only pounce on it, and it is only our gang of outlaws who want to be caught and killed...... Zou Wenhu, people say that the older the rivers and lakes, the less courageous they are, you are like this, I really regret inviting you over. ”

There was silence on the other side for a moment, and then he laughed: "Okay, okay...... In fact, Concubine Xiao, you can guess, since I can come to see you today, before I come out, my son-in-law has already nodded, and I will deal ......with it," he spread his hands, "I can't accidentally click it, you are right, even if the matter happens, what is my son-in-law afraid of, but can my son-in-law still protect me?" ”

"Okay, Zou Gong's embarrassment, the little girl understands." At this time, Xiao Shuqing finally laughed, "You and I are both outlaws, take care of them in the future, Zou Gong knows how to do it, and it has a relationship anywhere in Yunzhong Mansion, in fact, there are many things in the middle, and you have to ask Zou Gong to refer to it on your behalf." ”

Zou Wenhu also laughed.

"Do your best...... Blame this Qi family for being too flamboyant, offending a bunch of rich boys, offending poor ghosts like me, offending anti-thieves like Concubine Xiao, and offending the deadly Black Flag bandits, who will die if he doesn't die? Anyway, he is going to die, and the belongings must belong to someone else, and now it belongs to you and me, and it is considered a good deed, hahahaha......"

In the room, both of them laughed, and after a while, another sentence came out.

"By the way, as for the one who started, it was the black flag that didn't want to die, right? The emperor in the south dares to kill, help carry the pot, I think he must not mind, Concubine Xiao said, isn't it, hahahaha......"

Autumn is coming......