The soldiers and horses attacking Zhuozhou City were the 30,000 Great Zhou cavalry led by Han Gang and Ma Qingshan. After the two reached a consensus at the head of Bazhou City, they decided to die standing and make the Liao people pay the price. After three days of preparation, the two selected 30,000 elite soldiers and horses from the nearly 100,000 soldiers and horses in Bazhou City to prepare for the attack.

The process of selecting soldiers and horses was not smooth, although Han Gang and Ma Qingshan were the highest military generals in Bazhou City at the moment, they did not have the right to transfer troops. One is the general who was punished by Yang Jun, and the other is the general of the defeated Northern Expeditionary Army, for the current situation, neither of them has the right to mobilize troops and horses. Therefore, when the two began to select soldiers and horses, gather materials and manpower to prepare, they were soon questioned by the generals in the city.

Han Gang and Ma Qingshan finished a little trick in order to successfully assemble soldiers and horses. They claimed that the imperial court officials who had just come to Bazhou to deliver the decree had given the two of them a secret will, and that the two had chosen to assemble soldiers and horses precisely because they had obtained the will of the imperial court, and they were not arbitrarily advocating. As for what you want to do, I have no comment for the time being.

Although the officials and generals in the city were suspicious, they were not easy to question openly. Three days later, when everything was ready, Han Gang and Ma Qingshan summoned dozens of middle and senior generals in the army for a showdown. They truthfully informed their purpose, they were going to counterattack the Liao people and avenge Yang Shumi. Moreover, as soldiers of the Great Zhou, because of the rout of the Northern Expedition, the imperial court had to enter into a humiliating peace agreement with the Liao, and they felt really guilty in their hearts. Therefore, they want to counterattack the Liao people and forgive their sins with the heart of death, which is what the Great Zhou soldiers should do at this moment.

The generals were stunned, they never expected that Han Gang and Ma Qingshan would actually fight against the Liao, which was incredible. The imperial court and the Liao people have reached a peace agreement, and the armies in the border towns have received orders not to conflict with the Liao people, and Han Gang and Ma Qingshan are now doing this, which is a blatant act of disobeying the orders of the upper authorities and going against the will of the imperial court. What's more, Yang Shumi's 300,000 elite soldiers and horses failed to win, and these two people were dizzy, didn't they pull everyone to die together?

The generals questioned one after another, saying that this move must not be done. Han Gang and Ma Qingshan told the generals that the operation was purely voluntary, that they would never force everyone to participate, and that they could withdraw. More than a dozen generals immediately said that they were going to withdraw and that they would not participate in this illegal military operation. Even if Han Gang and Ma Qingshan's official positions are higher than them, they will never obey such military orders.

Han Gang smiled and expressed his understanding, and asked them to withdraw from the hall of the government where the proceedings were held. However, when a dozen generals stepped out of the hall door and walked to the open space under the steps, countless feathered arrows came from all directions, shooting the dozen generals into hedgehogs on the spot. Han Gang suppressed the dissidents in the army with thunderous means, and at this moment, he must use such means to solve the problem of command. Since he had the heart of death, Han Gang had no intention of leaving a way back for himself. The vast majority of these generals were generals of the Northern Expeditionary Army, who could not stay out of the situation after the crushing defeat of the Northern Expeditionary Army, and they redeemed their own actions, not retreated. They should have died in the Battle of Sitsu, not against the plan at this time.

There are also hesitant people among the remaining generals, but they are not as direct as these dozen or so. When they saw the dozen or so people being shot and killed in an instant under the autumn sun outside the lobby, they all understood one thing. General Han and General Ma are iron-hearted. They will not tolerate opposition to the operation. Everyone immediately expressed their obedience to the order and was willing to follow Han Gang and Ma Qingshan to launch a revenge operation against the Liao.

Han Gang and Ma Qingshan both understood that it was indeed a bit dishonorable to force everyone to act with them in this way, but they could only do this, otherwise no one would be willing to follow them to fight. Of course, the disadvantages of this are obvious, the whole army is integrated by strong pressure, and there is no cohesion. Perhaps a battle will fall apart. But the result is not important, the important thing is that the two of them fulfilled their wishes, died on the battlefield, killed the enemy, and never wanted to die in the conspiracy in vain.

For this battle, the two of them had no bottom in their hearts, but 30,000 soldiers and horses still set off in this hesitation and unknown. The primary target is, of course, the city of Zhuozhou, and the information obtained in advance is that the Liao people have withdrawn some soldiers and horses from Zhuozhou, but it is unknown how many soldiers and horses are still stationed in Zhuozhou.

Ma Qingshan made a plan to sneak in in the middle of the night and launch a sneak attack from the three city walls in the south, east and west. Reconnaissance in advance showed that the defense of Zhuozhou City had not yet been repaired, and a large number of Liao people were busy repairing the defense system of the city wall during the day, which was enough to prove that the defense means of the other city's city were insufficient. So there is a possibility that the sneak attack will be successful. But this plan only has the possibility of success, for Han Gang, Zhuozhou City is a place of humiliation for his failure in the first battle of the Northern Expedition, and he even has a trace of psychological shadow in his heart. Ma Qingshan's plan was more similar to the sneak attack he failed at the beginning, Han Gang even had an ominous premonition, feeling that he was still going to repeat the mistakes of the past, and this time he was afraid that he would die here.

However, when the siege battle began, what Han Gang and Ma Qingshan never expected was that things went incredibly smoothly. When a large number of soldiers and horses touched the city, the Liao army at the head of the other city did not react in the slightest. When the crossbow shot the small number of mobile vigil reconnaissance posts cruising at the head of the city, there was no awareness or commotion at the head of the city. The Great Zhou soldiers and horses, who only carried the simplest siege ladder, were afraid that they were the most shabby siege soldiers and horses in history. But they were not aware of it until they had used the ladders to storm the city walls in large numbers, and the sleeping defenders in the tents below the city were discovered. There were no defenses or garrisons on the city, except for those mobile sentry posts on duty at night.

When the Liao army found out that the Great Zhou soldiers and horses had already attacked the city, it was too late. The tide of soldiers and horses poured into the city, and the three city gates in the south, east and west were captured, and the city gates were opened. More Great Zhou soldiers and horses frantically poured in, filling the streets and alleys like a tidal wave.

The Liao army soldiers and horses defending the city were infantry transferred from Zhongjing Province. They were originally part of the infantry cavalry of the Northern Privy Council's Privy Counsellor Jerecai. A few months ago, when the Jurchen army of Wanyan Aguda broke through the dangerous mountains and broke into Zhongjing Road, slaughtering all the way to Xingzhong Mansion, Yelucai made the fastest response, he ordered more than 150,000 cavalry to take the lead in pursuit, and the remaining 50,000 infantry could only follow on foot. Until Yelucai was ambushed by Wanyan Aguda's cavalry in the wilderness on the south bank of the Daling River in Xingzhong Province, and almost all the troops were annihilated, the infantry did not rush to the battlefield of Xingzhong Province.

And it is precisely because they are slow to move that they have also escaped the catastrophe of the flood because of the blessing of misfortune. But then they had to make a detour to the north bank of the Daling River, and finally joined Yeluchun's soldiers and horses and rushed to Dading Mansion. After arriving at Dading Mansion, 30,000 of them had to march six or seven hundred miles to Xijin Mansion, because after the end of the Battle of Xijin Mansion, the imperial court gathered all the soldiers and horses in Dading Mansion, and these 30,000 people had to fill the gap in the battle and death of the defenders of Xijin Mansion.

In other words, in just two months, these infantry marched from Haibei Prefecture, the easternmost part of Zhongjing Province, to the west, and finally arrived at Xijin Province, which was 1,300 miles away. This is not the end, after arriving in Xijin Mansion, 20,000 of them had to go to Zhuozhou. When he arrived in Zhuozhou, he thought that he could finally settle down, however, Han Zongze, the defender of Zhuozhou, who relied on his father's power to get the position of defending the city, actually issued an order for 20,000 people to build the city of Zhuozhou.

After many days of hard marching, and now the heavy work of building the city walls, the 20,000 infantry were already tired to death. They were half tired during the day, and they slept with dead pigs one by one at night, and they couldn't wake them up even if they were blown up by thunder. That Han Zongze also thought he was smart and sympathetic to the feelings of the soldiers, so he specially built a shed under the city wall for them to sleep at night, so that they could sleep more sweetly. In order to restore their physical strength and keep them from being too unhappy, Han Zongze even ordered the lifting of the ban on alcohol abstinence in the army and allowed them to drink alcohol at night. Those unlucky coolies of the Liao army who drank alcohol and were tired still had the slightest vigilance. The knife is on the neck, and the blood is cut before they wake up.

In fact, Han Zongze was not wrong to do this, it can only be said that this attack by Han Gang and Ma Qingshan was completely unexpected. How could the Liao people have thought that if a peace agreement was signed on the front foot, there would be Great Zhou soldiers and horses attacking the city on the back foot?

All these factors led to the Great Zhou soldiers and horses quickly taking control of the situation without much effort. Han Gang and Ma Qingshan also realized that there were not many soldiers and horses in Zhuozhou City, and their combat effectiveness was not strong, and they were pleasantly surprised to find that this siege battle would be so smooth and devastating. It was an accident for both the enemy and the enemy.