The morale of the Song army had been lost, and after a short time, the retreat, which had no formation to speak of, became a rout.

The heavy cavalry of the Jin army then pursued and covered the kill.

About a quarter of an hour later, the large force of the Jin army, which was advancing in formation, suddenly accelerated, and pursued the Song army, which had fled northward.

In the Song army camp, the camp gate was closed and never opened.

It was not until the Jin army pursued ten miles away from the camp to the north that the Song army suddenly opened the camp gate, and the whole army killed the Jin army camp.

On October 14, he returned to the Northern Expedition of the Marshal's Mansion.

"My lord, this is Cheng Min, Su Zhong, and Xue Wanglai's book." After reading them one by one, the staff officers of the Shuaifu handed over a few letters to the elderly Zhang Jun for a look.

Zhang Jun didn't say a word, took the letter and read it quickly, with a look on his face that didn't know whether he was shocked or angry.

"Which of the three of them do you think told the truth and who told the lie?" At the end, Zhang Jun suddenly asked the staff officer.

"I thought all three of them were telling the truth, and at the same time they were all telling lies." The staff officer replied without hesitation.

"Tell me." Zhang Jun glanced at the other party, not knowing what was going on in his heart.

The staff officer immediately said: "Cheng Min said that Su Zhong and Xue Wangbu did not listen to the command, feared the enemy and were afraid of the war, and withdrew their troops and fled north without authorization, causing the Northern Expeditionary Army to attack the Jin Army's camp for a long time, and suffered heavy losses, and even the camp was almost lost by the Jin Army's sneak attack. I thought there was a suspicion in this, when did Su Zhong and Xue Wangbu retreat north, and when did Cheng Min's army attack the enemy camp, he did not explain in the book, whether to attack first and then retreat, or to retreat first and then attack? If Su Zhong and Xue Wang withdrew their troops and fled north without authorization when they jointly attacked the enemy camp, Su and Xue would have to be punished. If Su and Xue led the army to attack, they were defeated by the Jin army and retreated north without authorization, causing Cheng Min to face the Jin army alone, at this time Cheng Min could still defend the camp, and it was not wise to rush into battle, and there was a suspicion of greed, and all three of them would be held accountable. If Su and Xue led the army to attack, and the Jin army was defeated, they could not ask for help, and they could not return to the camp and had to retreat north, then Cheng Min was guilty. ”

Hearing this, Zhang Jun was speechless.

The staff officer paused for a moment, and then continued: "Su Zhong and Xue Wang wrote that they were ordered to lead their troops to cross the river to attack the enemy camp, and they could not attack for a long time, suffered heavy losses, and the soldiers were tired, so they were ready to retreat to the camp and fight again after resting, but when the army retreated to the gate of the camp, Cheng Min refused to open the door, but instead ordered them to repel the tens of thousands of Jin troops who followed two miles away, so that they could open the door and let them enter the camp. The two of them had to lead the army to retreat north, first go to Chengang to rest, not wanting the Jin army to chase closely, pursued twenty miles, and successfully withdrew to Chengang with less than 20,000 Song soldiers. Su and Xue believed that the reason for their fiasco was all due to Cheng Min, first, they did not save them when they saw death, but closed the camp gate and cut off the retreat of the Song army, and second, when the enemy army followed from the camp gate, Cheng Min did not lead the army out of the camp to pursue the enemy, but after half an hour, led the army out of the camp to attack the enemy camp, and ignored the 40,000 troops of Su and Xue for merit. ”

"What the three of them said is true or false, if you don't go to the army to verify it, it will be difficult to distinguish the truth from the false. However, judging from the results, the lord handed over the command of the capture of Qixian to Cheng Min, and lost more than 25,000 soldiers in the first battle, and he should bear this responsibility. But now is the critical moment of the Northern Expedition, Cheng Min is a veteran general in the army, with deep qualifications, and it is not appropriate to be accountable, so as not to damage the morale of the Northern Expedition army. The Su and Xue armies also had to be appeased, after all, they suffered too heavy losses in this battle and were likely to lose their combat capability. ”

After the staff officer finished analyzing, he looked at Zhang Jun, not knowing how he decided.

"Su and Xue really want to appease, but now it is the Cheng Min Department that should be considered, he still has 40,000 soldiers in his hands, and it is up to him to capture Qi County. Immediately sent an order to Cheng Min, if there is no suitable opportunity, there is no need to rush to attack for the time being, wait for Wu Gong to lead the troops of Xiangyang, Dengzhou, Tangzhou, Caizhou and other places to the north, after taking Xuzhou, close to the direction of Bianjing, and then attack from east to west, and the outer prefectures and counties of Bianjing will definitely be able to fight down! Zhang Jun was silent for a long time, and finally decided to focus on the overall situation of the Northern Expedition.

"Yes, sir. But how did Su and Xue appease? The staff officer also knew that there was a discord between Cheng Min, Su Zhong, and Xue Wang, but Cheng Min's qualifications and status in the army were not comparable to the other two, and the Northern Expedition had to rely on him.

"You go in person, send them more food and grass supplies, and say good words to appease. If they understand the general situation, understand the overall situation, and restore the Central Plains, they can still be contaminated with one or two, if not, they will be transferred back to the rear to defend the city! ”

The merits of this matter, Zhang Jun no longer wants to pursue it, Su and Xue's troops have lost more than half of them, and they are useless, and Cheng Min still has 40,000 people, and he can also be called the main force of the Northern Expedition.

"Yes, sir." The staff officer receives the order.

Chen Gang, Song army camp.

After a defeat, the morale of the generals declined to the extreme.

Su Zhong and Xue Wang's two armies merged in one place, convened a group of generals to discuss what to do with the whole army.

"I won't say much nonsense, there are three paths in front of us, and I brought everyone together today to hear everyone's opinions. One is on standby, the second is to return to Guide Mansion, and the third is to go north to Xingren Mansion, what everyone thinks, let's talk about it. After the new defeat, Su Zhong calmed down a lot.

The generals were silent, a big defeat, the soldiers were lost, and no one could slow down.

Su Zhong raised his eyes and glanced at the generals, then raised his voice and asked, "Fighting is about death, don't you know?" If you lose, you will fight back in the future, you don't have a word, what do you mean? ”

After a moment of silence, a general suddenly spoke: "My lord, we are too injured in this battle, which soldier has no idea in his heart?" was supposed to win the battle, but was pitted like this by Na Cheng Min, if you don't ask the soldiers for an explanation, this battle can't go on! ”

"Yes, the morale of the soldiers is completely lost now, let alone fighting, they are not even in the mood to eat, there is still more than half of the prepared meal, and if it goes on like this, the soldiers will flee immediately. We have to find Zhang Dashuai and let him give us an explanation! ”

"What I said is, I must give an explanation!"

Several generals responded with their voices.

"What do you want to say? If you lose, you will lose, think about yourself, does this fiasco have nothing to do with you? Su Zhong immediately retorted and stopped the commotion.

"If you hadn't just run against the enemy with your buttocks, why would you have lost nearly 10,000 people after retreating twenty miles? I won't talk about what has already happened. If you want to say the law, you have to win a few battles and prove yourself, and then you will have a statement, otherwise you won't eat this bowl of rice in the army! "When it comes to this fiasco, Su Zhongqi doesn't fight anywhere.

But he quickly calmed down, and there is no point in arguing about right and wrong now, and what happens after that is the top priority.

"Three paths, let's talk about them, how do you choose?" Su Zhong didn't want to continue dwelling on irreparable defeat.

"No matter what you think, I don't want to return to Defu, I have no status in Defu, and I don't want to fight with them." Immediately, the general spoke again.

"I don't want to return to Defu, I don't want to listen to their command, look at their appearance, the equipment is good, but it doesn't look like a war. They beat theirs, and we beat ours. Immediately after that, other generals spoke.

"Yes, we can't return to Defu, they don't live up to their name, they may not fight at all, and with them, we will lose again. I suggested going north to Xingren Mansion and going to Lord Yang, now I only believe Lord Yang! What about you? A general turned his head and looked around and said loudly.

"I agree, let's go find Lord Yang! Lord Yang led his army north to take dozens of counties around Xingren Province, defeated 50,000 enemy troops in Jeju, and assisted the Song army in Xuzhou to recover four or five counties including Jeju. On the contrary, Zhang Jun's commander's northern expedition was first defeated in Jeju and returned, losing 30,000 soldiers, and had to retreat to Xuyi, if it wasn't for Lord Yang leading the army north, seizing Heunginfu, and defeating Jeju's 50,000 gold army, how could Zhang Jun have the opportunity to lead the army north again? But it's good for him, as soon as he takes charge of the army, he commands indiscriminately, maybe he is because we are Lord Yang's subordinates, so he let Cheng Min mess around, let us lose our troops and lose our generals, I will never fight with him! Immediately, the official should be reconciled, full of annoyance.

"Don't say anything superfluous, just choose the three paths!" Su Zhong reminded him.

"Then there's nothing to say, go north to Xingren Mansion and go to Lord Yang!"

"Looking for Lord Yang!"

"Yes, let's go find Lord Yang!"

..........

A group of generals originally belonged to the Suzhou army, originally to take the Guide Mansion, and Xingren Mansion to join forces together, conspire with Bianjing, did not want the imperial court to let Zhang Jun go north again, and took full authority to lead the Northern Expedition, and the Suzhou army that successively won Xingren Mansion and Guide Mansion was nominally under the jurisdiction of the Northern Expedition Commander's Office, as soon as Zhang Jun arrived at Guide Mansion, they had to be obedient, hand over the city defense, and the commander went out of the city.

With Zhang Jun coming to Guide Mansion, Su Zhong and Xue Wang, who took Guide Mansion, became outsiders, and even important military meetings were only attended, and they had no right to speak, let alone put forward any suggestions.

For some reason, Yang Congyi, who was in Xingren Mansion, did not get any orders from Zhang Jun, neither let him go into battle nor let him hold on, in short, there was no order. Correspondingly, after Zhang Jun came to Guide Mansion, the grain, grass, materials and military resources and ordnance of Guide Mansion in the north did not go north to Xingren Mansion.

Su Zhong and Xue Wang didn't know what Zhang Jun and the imperial court meant to Yang Congyi, although they had a lot of military exploits in the past two years, and their official positions were promoted quickly, but compared to their military qualifications, they couldn't compare with the generals brought by Zhang Jun, so they were naturally cautious and didn't dare to be disobedient.

But now, due to Zhang Jun and Zhang Jun's subordinates, the Chenzhou and Bozhou armies have suffered heavy losses, this kind of thing is unbearable, if they continue to walk with them, sooner or later the whole army will be killed by them.

After this incident, Su Zhong, Xue Wang, and the generals all understood that Zhang Jun and the so-called veterans and famous generals were completely jealous, which allowed them to have today's fiasco.

"Okay, the whole army will immediately go north to Xingren Mansion and go to meet Lord Yang!" Su Zhong's case was decided.