Chapter 149 Questions and Answers

The Baihe River, which flows southward from the east side of Nanyang City and then turns southeast at the foot of Yu Mountain, is most likely the Yu River from the Three Kingdoms period, or at least is related by blood.

Over the thousands of years, this river and the city of Nanyang have witnessed too many ups and downs and wars.

Therefore, on this day, when an unremarkable military activity once again unfolded around the river, it was too lazy to react and just greeted everything in silence.

When it was still dark, the Song army began to cross the river in the area of ​​three large floating bridges in the south.

It is said that Nanyang is surrounded by the Baihe River on both sides, and Nanyang is a world-famous city with a large population, developed handicrafts and agriculture. It is also the main passage from Jingxiang area to the Central Plains. Therefore, there are usually dense crowds of people coming and going here, and it can be said to be a hub for business and travel. Nanyang also has the tradition of seasonal and even permanent floating bridges to the south and east.

This was also an important reliance of Zhao Jiu for leaving the city tonight. He knew that crossing the river would not be a problem before the ice melted. Whether it was the Jin army, Zhang Yu's troops, or Zhang Jing who came to support, there was no reason to dismantle the pontoon bridge during the ice period. Instead, they would only lay the pontoon bridge as soon as possible during the melting period with the help of the ice.

Back to the present, the Song army began to cross the river in an orderly manner, and Yang Yi Zhong led more than half of the imperial guards to appear in the queue, which made most of the main forces of the Song army except Wang De and Zhang Jing believe that Emperor Zhao was with them.

Even some of the imperial guards who had followed Emperor Zhao out of the city at night were convinced that the emperor was in the army, but they did not see him because of the chaos in the march and the unclear weather.

This is what is called deceiving yourself before deceiving the enemy.

And sure enough, just after the Song army had safely crossed half of the city in the south, about 20 miles east of Nanyang City, in the dark shadows behind Yushan and in front of the old Yushan camp, Emperor Zhao and hundreds of Red Heart cavalrymen who were waiting there heard a rumbling sound that was not loud at first but had a wide vibration, like a deliberately suppressed thunder.

Needless to say, Emperor Zhao and most of the military elites in the city had guessed and bet right - the 10,000 cavalrymen of the Jin army who retreated to the north yesterday were not there to support Talan, but to encircle him! They were even ready to fight at any time, otherwise they would not have come so quickly!

Thousands of cavalry were galloping, but in order to avoid alerting the enemy, they obviously chose to encircle them from a farther distance. As the muffled thunder of horse hooves came from far away, the sound of horses neighing could be heard faintly in the whistling cold wind, which showed the great power of the cavalry.

Moreover, even though they knew that the two sides were separated by a river and were unknown miles away, and that the sun rose very late in the winter morning, and the remaining darkness was enough to conceal the figures of most people, everyone instinctively chose to hold their breath, cease fighting, and quietly wait for the large number of Jin troops to surge from the east.

It was hard to say how nervous others were or what they were thinking about, but Zhao Jiu, wearing armor and carrying a bow and arrow, stood with his back to a rock and his hands behind his back, just like the way he stood under the city during the artillery battle... except that his mood was completely different.

Moreover, at this time, I don’t know whether he was careless or desperate, but Zhao Jiu actually continued to think about the problem that he had not finished thinking about before amid the sound of horse hooves. He kept thinking, and kept thinking, why did it come to this situation?

The current actions of the Jin army did not exceed the imagination and expectations of the military elites of the Song Dynasty at all; although the Jin army's siege force was strong, it was completely defeated by the higher-level city defense skills of the Song Dynasty; even from a global perspective, the overall strategic planning of the Jin army could not be said to be very good, and the Song army's response was very unsuccessful.

However, the situation eventually came to the current state step by step - an emperor placed himself beside tens of thousands of enemy cavalry, desperately trying to find a glimmer of survival!

Is this reasonable?

Is this the same thing as the time when Ruyang left the city?

That time, he met Zhai Chong in a condescending manner, with some kind of perfect attitude. The ministers even despised him for losing face. But this time, he had to survive tens of thousands of Jin cavalry in the fields outside the city, and use the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers as bait.

Others may not know how much he is capable of, but doesn't Zhao Jiu know it himself? He is neither Li Shimin nor Zhao Kuangyin. If the eight hundred cavalrymen are found hiding here by the Jin people, they will be dead.

However, what else can he do at this moment?

Aren't we in a desperate situation now? If we just sit there and do nothing, won't the tens of thousands of people between Han Shizhong and Wuhe be finished? Even the Tokyo garrison will collapse completely, and two-thirds of the country's military power will disappear out of thin air!

He was basically forced into this situation!

Lin Chong is in a temple on a snowy mountain, and he is by a white river in the dark night, but they are both chilled by murderous aura when thinking, and chilled to the bone by the sad wind when talking.

I don’t know whether there is a person named Lin Chong among the thirty-six bandits of Song Jiang, and whether he is really from the imperial guards?

When I think of this, I have nothing else to think about.

After half an hour, the thunder continued, but it had moved from the northeast to the southeast, and it was almost dawn. It was conceivable that after dawn, the Jin army would have a fierce battle with the Song army that had already crossed the river as planned... But at this moment, Emperor Zhao suddenly stood up, walked forward to lead his warhorse, turned around and headed towards the Baihe floating bridge, ignoring the fact that the Jin army had not yet left.

The people around suddenly fell into panic. Some instinctively led their horses and followed, some hurried to stop them, and some tried to advise them but did not dare to speak out loud.

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