In March of the first year of Wu Zhenxing, the Battle of Wangyuan Bridge was the turning point, and the Southwest Campaign, which lasted for four months, entered the strategic counteroffensive period of the Huaxia Army.

The battle for the road was carried out at the same time as the "peace talks" for the exchange of prisoners. Although it was an exchange of hundreds of captives, it still took a lot of effort to screen the list. On the third day after the negotiations began, the various units of the Huaxia Army arranged for four troops to extend in the direction of Huangming County and Yushuixi to open up the road for pursuit.

The deployment of the Jurchen army was also rapid, and while the Huaxia army was advancing, the Jin army erected white flags and weapons, and put on a posture of all-out attack and mourning. In the first few days, this posture was extremely resolute, and at one point the Jurchen forces launched a strong offensive in several key local areas, and the offensive was fierce and fragmented, with dogs and teeth intertwined.

If you look at it from the back to the front, such a sophisticated feint attack once confused many people - of course, it can't be purely a feint, if the Jin people really don't want to die, and have to break into the Chengdu Plain desperately, then in the long run, the Jin people may not be able to go home, but at least in the short term, they can still create a lot of trouble for the Huaxia army - and because of this method, the Huaxia army was relatively cautious in the first few days of March, and because the attitude of the Jin army seems to be realistic, the rebellion against Li Rulai and other Han generals has actually been delayed.

Naturally, such a situation could not last long, and on the sixth day of the first month of March, as several special operations teams of the Huaxia Army had been advancing resolutely and steadily, the situation of the Jurchens on the front line could no longer be stretched. On this day, as the pull-out rate led the front-line army to launch a general attack, the main force of the Jin army began to retreat, and the moment the picture was poor, the battlefield in the mountains for dozens of miles instantly boiled.

From Shiling to Xiukou, the attacking troops encountered intensive artillery bombardment, half of the remaining rockets were approved for use, and tens of thousands of Han troops were blocked in front of the battlefield.

As a result of the battle at Wangyuan Bridge a few days ago, even though a large number of low-level soldiers in the Jin army still did not know what the meaning was, and the Han army was strictly blocked and isolated from the news, Li Rulai and others, as senior generals, were still clear about the ins and outs of the whole thing. If they were suspicious of the rumors that the Jurchens were going to withdraw at the beginning, on the sixth day of the first lunar month, the true intentions of the Jurchens began to become clear.

The large-scale offensive on the front line made a huge noise, and Wanyan Saba also looked at Li Rulai and others very strictly, but under the spy operation of the Huaxia Army, the necessary information was still handed to several key generals.

For this rebellion, the conditions given by the Huaxia Army were actually not tolerant. Once it is anyway, all departments of the Han army must immediately enter the battlefield, responsible for completing the counteroffensive, encirclement and annihilation of the advancing troops of the Jin army - in various details, this is a copy of Liangshan's name, which needs to be exchanged for life.

Responsible for plotting against Li Rulai, was once in the secretary's office with Ning Yi work of the Huaxia Army officer Xu Shaoyuan, he had successfully contacted Li Rulai twice, to the sixth day of the first month, due to the strict supervision of the Jurchens, originally intended to send an ultimatum to Li Rulai by letter, but the other party has great powers, and actually let Xu Shaoyuan and his guards exchange identities under the eyes of the Jurchens, and the two sides were able to meet directly.

After conveying the requirements of the Huaxia Army, Li Rulai sank his face and began to complain, such as "the combat strength of his brothers is not strong", "the golden dog is very strictly guarded, it is difficult to inform everyone to do it", "pulling out the speed is tantamount to sending to death" Yunyun, and later, there are also threats of "we don't surrender, tens of thousands of people are blocking the road, and you are also very troublesome", Xu Shaoyuan just shook his head indifferently.

"The command and the general staff have made a decision, before midnight tonight, if you don't do it, we will launch an attack and kill you. If you don't work hard and block the way, we will kill you all the same. This is Plan No. 2, and the plan has been prepared. Xu Shaoyuan said, "Mr. Ning, let me bring you a few words in addition." ”

“…… Say. ”

"Mr. Ning said that for a long time, you have been the generals of the Wu Dynasty, and you should have defended the country and the horse leather shroud, but you didn't do it. Of course, you have your own reasons, and you can say that for more than ten years, no one has fought a beautiful victory in front of the Jurchens. But this victory is available today. ”

"If you want to go, take out your life, pick up the dignity and personality that you have lost for more than ten years, and fulfill the obligations of a soldier. Of course, if it turns out that you can't pick it up and feel that you can cause trouble to others, it only means that you have no value in living...... Over the years, Huaxia Army has never been afraid of trouble. ”

The merciless words brought by Xu Shaoyuan made the other party's face somewhat unnatural, Li Rulai was silent for a long time, and someone sent Xu Shaoyuan out, but when Xu Shaoyuan left, he also added: "You also go back and ask Mr. Ning...... If he does this way, when the wall falls down in the future, he is not afraid of being pushed by everyone? ”

After dark that day, in the camp of the Han army, a large-scale uprising broke out, about a quarter of the army immediately made the action of attacking the Jin troops, and another quarter followed one after another, while more troops fell into great confusion.

Wanyan Saba, who was in charge of the Han army's troops, led the pro-guards to clash with the rebellious Li Rulai's subordinates, and then fought out of the siege arranged by Li Rulai.

In the reckless mountains, fierce competition unfolded. During this period, most of the members of the 1st and 2nd Divisions shouldered the task of blocking Shiling and Xiukou head-on, and the 4th and 5th Divisions, which were the most effective in field battles, combined with thousands of people led by Ning Yi, successively devoted themselves to blocking, attacking, and annihilating the retreating mountain roads of the Jin Army.

On the sixth day of the first month of March, about 7,000 people launched an attack on the six nodes on the retreating mountain road at the first time, and by the eighth day of the first month, this scale expanded to 13,000, and the number of troops attacking the front reached 20,000 one after another, and the front line of the attack directly extended to the rainwater stream, which had complex terrain.

From Wangyuan Bridge to Sword Pavilion, the distance was less than 100 miles, and the speed of the forced march only took a day to reach, but nearly 100,000 Jin troops were stopped on the winding mountain road.

In fact, in response to the retreat, it was clear that the surrender was unfortunate, and the Jin army and generals also made a tragic and stubborn resistance. At this time, although the Huaxia Army took out cross-era firearms, in the rugged mountain roads, the power of firearms was finally reduced to a minimum. The pursuing Huaxia troops walked along a path that was more rugged than the road, and they could not carry many weapons and supplies, and their advantage was only to capture a certain point to stop a large army, but in the part of the battle, the numerical superiority of the Jin army returned, and there was no need to even fear the firearms of the Huaxia army too much.

Because of this understanding, in this retreat, Wanyan Zonghan's approach was not to flee in a hurry, but to divide and mobilize the various units in the Jin army in a structured manner, and he made the task clear to each commander, once he encountered the resistance of the Huaxia army, he would stop and gather local superior forces and swallow this part of the Huaxia army.

From the perspective of the art of war, I have to admit that such a response is very correct, and it just reflects the old and difficult of Yan Zonghan's lifelong battle. But what he didn't think about, or even if he did, what he couldn't do was that from the moment the army retreated, the invincible military spirit in the Jurchen army, which had been polished by Wanyan Aguta, Wanyan Zonghan and other generations for thirty years, finally began to disintegrate.

The difficulties of the previous invasion of the southwest can be said to have encountered an evenly matched enemy - after all, the Jin army has also fought difficult battles before, and the strength of the enemy even makes them feel their blood boiling - but at this moment, the large army with the number of people turned to retreat, which invisibly explained many problems.

Some of the generals of the "people of insight" are still maintaining and boosting morale, in the local mountain battlefield, the fighting is still violent and fierce, the Jurchen troops hysterically rushed to the Huaxia army blocking the way, the generals took the lead, to open a way for the retreating army, to cooperate with the superior forces to cooperate with this spreading mountain road to swallow the Huaxia army piece by piece.

But the situation is changing subtly, even if the cold weapons are rushing to kill each other, the Jin people have been defeated again and again in the battles they were originally good at, the fierce Jurchen warriors who are not afraid of death have been cut down in a pool of blood, and some soldiers who have begun to value their lives have chosen to break up and flee.

Such changes were immediately fed back to the former enemy headquarters of the Huaxia Army: although the response of the Jurchens was still extremely old-fashioned, and some of the generals even appeared to be more active in their strategizing than before, and the combat was still violent, but in large-scale operations and cooperation, they often began to be reckless or collapsed too quickly, and they were gradually losing their composure and resilience in cooperating with each other.

“…… When the Jurchens, accustomed to brutal warfare, began to pay attention to numerical superiority, it showed that their downhill path had begun to become obvious. ”

On the tenth day of the first month of March, Ning Yi's orders and tone spread throughout the army, and soon after they reached the Jin army: "The next thing we have to do is to remove their dignity bit by bit on a hundred miles of mountain roads, so that everyone in them can recognize clearly, the so-called invincible Manchu is already an outdated old joke!" ”

The quality of the Jurchens as the pinnacle army of this era is disintegrating, but it is still a nightmare for ordinary armies. On March 11, the troops of Bali and Saba, who were blocking the front line, began to retreat and break through after paying huge losses, and the Han troops who were originally blocking the rear and constantly making trouble became the lambs before the trapped beasts.

Although Li Rulai and others, who did not dare to retreat under the pressure of both sides, resisted stubbornly, after a day of fighting, Ba Lisu and Saba still led the team to kill Li Rulai's camp, anyway, all units of the Han army suffered heavy casualties.

This is not a good thing for Li Rulai and the various departments of the Han army, and even many years later, he once sighed: "The people who survived can finally explain to the Huaxia army." ”

After the news of his brother Yinshuke's death came, he pulled out the white scarf on his forehead, and the battle was extremely fierce. But judging from his method of troop transfer, this Jurchen veteran still maintained great sobriety and sanity, he encouraged the army with a mournful posture, and stubbornly resisted the pursuit of the first and second divisions of the Fifth Army of China after cooperating with Yan Saba.

The situation in the mountains ahead gradually became more difficult in the fierce battle.

For the Jurchens, the battle of the scouts continued in the complex mountains, and on sunny days, you can occasionally see spreading wildfires, smoke rising, and if the mountain roads are slippery on rainy days, it is even more difficult to walk. From time to time, the road was cut by the Chinese army, or a mine was laid, or a key point was occupied by the Chinese army, and the attack on the front was carried out, and the follow-up army was surrounded on the road all over the mountains and valleys.

Yu Yu still led the scouts and elite Jurchen soldiers to run through the mountains to block the pursuit of the Huaxia soldiers, and also caused trouble to the pursuing Huaxia army troops for a certain period of time. On 14 March, the scout troops led by Yu Yu encountered the 1st Regiment of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Division of the Huaxia Army, which was the elite regiment of the Huaxia Army and later became known as the "Heroic Regiment of Shengli Gorge" - in the "Fire Swallowing" operation in which Yushuixi defeated the headquarters of Yulili last year, this regiment under the leadership of the regiment commander Shen Changye blocked the enemy's retreating main force in Shengli Gorge, suffered more than half of the casualties, and did not retreat an inch.

The regiment commander at that time, Shen Changye, died on the battlefield in the mountains a month after the battle at Shengli Gorge, and now the regiment commander who has taken his place is the original second battalion commander Qiu Yunsheng.

Yu Yu is a veteran general who followed the rise of Aguta, and is the oldest and hottest hunter, walking through mountains and mountains like walking on flat ground, holding a bow and shooting arrows to accurately hit the enemy even in the dark night. Qiu Yunsheng was born in a peasant family, his family died in the Central Plains, he was then recruited by Tian Hu's troops, attacked Xiaocanghe and joined the Huaxia Army in a daze, after encountering Yu Yu, he let his troops rely on the terrain to fight head-on, and he relied on the advantage of early reconnaissance, with a company, around the most dangerous and slippery mountain roads, to outflank Yu Yu's rear.

After the battle, the remnants of the corpses were picked up in the pile of dead.

The good news spread throughout the battlefield, and for the Jin army's troops, of course, it could only be regarded as bad news.

This won't be the only bad news in March.

On March 16, Da Lai died in a battle in which he took the lead.

During the entire Southwest Campaign for more than four months, the manic Jurchen general was thinking about reporting to Qu Zhengyan for his hatred in the northwest back then, and the Huaxia Army had also made several targeted plans because of this. But until the end, nothing like this happened, and the two sides did not engage in a direct confrontation on the battlefield from beginning to end.

On March 16, Da Cheng led his soldiers to attack a small high ground called Yuling on the road back to the division, trying to surround and drive out the Huaxia army nailed to this hill to intimidate the mountainside road. The Huaxia army was based on a favorable position, and the battle lasted for most of the day, and tens of thousands of troops in the rear were blocked and stopped.

In the attack that was about to advance to the top of the mountain, a soldier of the Huaxia Army who was seriously wounded and fell in a pool of blood broke out, when there were still eight Jurchen warriors around Da Lai to defend him, but on that extremely fierce front, no one could react, the two sides exchanged a knife, Da Lai's long knife penetrated the chest of the Huaxia soldier who fell down, and the knife of the Huaxia soldier was cut off according to the face door. The helmet was split through the gap, and half of the head was split on the spot.

The fighting did not stop, and that night, the Huaxia army occupying the hill left under the bombardment of the artillery that the Jurchens had managed to drag over, and the road a mile ahead was then occupied by the Huaxia soldiers, who dug the road and laid mines.

100,000 people crowded on the sprawling mountain road, like a giant snake that was too large to drill through too thin a road, and every attack of the Huaxia army was like a nail in the snake. Due to the terrain, the scale of each battle was not large, but each battle brought the great snake to a halt almost entirely.

Both sides are experiencing huge losses, but as time progresses, what haunts the Jurchen troops is the anxiety that grows day by day, and at this moment, everyone from the generals to the soldiers has realized that the original hunters have completely become prey. The large and bloated Jin troops began to rush to escape, and the small Huaxia army troops had already pounced on them like maggots on the tarsal bones, trying to tear the prey into a skeleton one bite at a time.

(End of chapter)