Chapter 12: Defeat without a fight

Outside Jiangcheng County, Sun Yiren, who was in charge of leading the troops, was riding on a horse. He lifted his helmet and wiped the sweat off his face.

Just now, a spy in the army reported that not far ahead, a large group of cavalry were rushing towards Jiangcheng County. They were all well-equipped and strong.

At first he thought that reinforcements from Xuzhou had arrived, but the spies told him that the enemy was flying a black flag with the Chinese character "Celebrate". Sun Yiren's smile didn't even have time to disappear, he was so scared that he almost peed his pants, and he quickly ordered the soldiers in each barracks to line up and prepare to fight the enemy.

"Has the reinforcement not arrived yet?"

"Your Excellency, not yet..."

Sun Yiren had vaguely sensed that something was wrong. The Four Kings had originally ordered him to intercept the rebel Yang Yuanqing here, but now he only had less than 4,000 soldiers. How could he contend with Yang Yuanqing's cavalry?

Yang Yuanqi, this bastard, didn't he send reinforcements? He probably knew he was no match for Yang Yuanqing and arranged himself here to be the scapegoat!

Hearing that Yang Yuanqing killed people without blinking an eye, Song Yiren began to think of retreating if he was defeated in a battle with him.

On the other side, Zhao Xiao rode his horse and continued to move forward with the army. He could see the enemy’s barracks from afar.

As soon as Yang Yuanqing raised his hand, everyone tightened the reins and stopped.

"My Lord, you're not leaving?"

Yang Yuanqing smiled maliciously and said, "Set up camp here. I want to scare them."

They could see the enemy's barracks, so the officers and soldiers stationed outside Jiangcheng County could naturally see the Qing Army not far away.

Sun Yiren led a group of soldiers and watched as more and more barracks appeared on the opposite side. He felt increasingly depressed. The noise in the crowd gradually grew louder. Finally, someone couldn't help but collapse and shouted, "I don't want to die. I have an old mother and children at home... I don't want to die!"

The most feared thing in a battle is desertion. Sun Yiren shouted, "No noise allowed!"

But people could not hear it. Sheng Dynasty had not held a military exercise for decades. These military households had long since become like farmers. Some even started small businesses. They had no intention of fighting. Even the armor they wore was pieced together from here and there, and it didn't look real at all.

Sun Yiren was sweating profusely, and an idea came to his mind: Why not surrender... Yang Yuanqing is not an outsider anyway. He is the emperor's own son. What's the difference between him and the four princes?

Just surrender, you won’t have to die if you surrender! My wife at home fried some vegetarian meatballs and warmed up some wine for him to come back… The thought of surrendering grew like wild weeds.

"Someone come! Someone come quickly!" Sun Yiren gritted his teeth and made a decision. He called the guards to go to the barracks to write a letter of surrender.

"Send this over, we won't fight!" The strength of the two armies was too different, it was like using an egg to hit a stone, overestimating one's own capabilities.

The guards were also very happy. They picked up the letter of surrender, mounted their horses and ran towards the Qing army.

When they arrived at the enemy camp, the guard who was in charge of delivering the letter was really sweating. Fortunately, they surrendered. The enemy had strong soldiers and horses, and strict discipline, like a cold iron sword that could tear open the strongest defense.

The guard followed the person in front of him and walked to the outside of Yang Yuanqing's barracks. He handed over the letter of surrender in his hand. After waiting for a while, he still didn't receive a reply. Suddenly, two black bears jumped out from inside! In an instant, they knocked him to the ground and grabbed his stomach.

"Your Highness! When two armies are fighting, envoys should not be killed. You shouldn't kill him!" The speaker was a man in his thirties, wearing a blue-gray scholar's suit, a Confucian scarf on his head, and a few goatees. This man was Yang Yuanqing's military advisor Xu Bing.

Yang Yuanqing spread his hands and said, "I didn't kill him. The bear was just hungry."

Xu Bing thought: If you don't let the bear out, will it dare to attack people? But he didn't dare to say anything too harsh, for fear that Yang Yuanqing would go crazy and drag him to feed the bear.

"Your Majesty, since the other party has surrendered, why don't we just recruit them and head to Xuzhou?"

"Recruit them?" Yang Yuanqing twisted his neck. "They are a bunch of rotten fish and shrimp. It's a waste of food to recruit them. My sword has just been unsheathed, so I can use them to sharpen it!"

Then he shouted, "Pass the order down, mobilize the troops and go to battle immediately. I will kill them all without leaving a single piece of armor!"

Sun Yiren didn't know that Yang Yuanqing had killed the guard who delivered the letter, and was still waiting anxiously for the truce letter.

In the end, after waiting for so long, what they got was a huge army of countless soldiers and horses...

"Yang Yuanqing, fuck your grandpa!" Sun Yiren was so scared that he pissed his pants and climbed onto the horse.

"Retreat, retreat!" Retreating to the city might help them hold out for a while, but a head-on confrontation was like a mayfly trying to shake a tree, there was no way they could win at all.

After the order to retreat was given, everyone ran towards the city. But two legs couldn't outrun four legs, and they were defeated in a single encounter. Those soldiers didn't even have the courage to wield swords to fight.

Zhao Xiao held the hilt of the knife at his waist with a frown on his face. This couldn't be considered a war at all. It was a one-sided massacre. Yang Yuanqing had never thought of trying to persuade them to surrender.

Sun Yiren was terrified. He was just a small captain who had been stationed in Jiangcheng County for more than ten years. This was the first time in his life that he ran into a terrible enemy in a war.

Of the four thousand soldiers, only less than four hundred followed him back to the city. He shouted, "Close the city gate!" He pinned his hopes on this thin wooden door.

*

There were two more people, one big and one small, in the Song family clinic at this time. The woman's name was Xiaomei, and the child in her arms had not been named yet, so she just called her Niuniu.

Xiaomei was still in shock: "What's wrong with these people outside?"

Song Quan said: "It seems that there is a fight outside the city."

"Oh, what should I do? I haven't made lunch yet." My mother-in-law would definitely scold her again when she comes back. Xiaomei held the child with an anxious look on her face.

"It's already this late, and you're still thinking about cooking?" Song Quan looked at her in disbelief.

Song Yuzhu pulled him and said, "Brother Quan, let's reinforce the doors and windows first. If the attack really reaches the city, we can hide for a while."

"Hey!" Song Quan hurried to the backyard to find wood boards and nails.

Xiaomei was holding her child anxiously, with a confused look on her face. She was a young woman who would still be in school in modern times, working from sunrise to sunset every day, and had no idea what the consequences of war were.

Song Yuzhu lay down through the crack in the door and looked out. There was no one on the street, only a few shoes left on the ground, probably dropped accidentally when running too fast just now.

After a while, there was a sudden rumbling sound outside, which woke up the child in Xiaomei's arms.

Xiaomei asked in confusion: "Did it thunder?"

Song Yuzhu said in a hoarse voice: "It's not thunder, it's the sound of horse hooves." It seems that the thunder has reached the vicinity of the county town.

Song Quan and Song Yumin also heard the sound. They ran to the front hall holding the wooden board and asked, "Master, what happened?"

"The soldiers are coming soon, let's nail the windows!"

At this time, Song Yumin came in handy. He was very strong and hammered with a hammer. In just a few strokes, he could nail a board.

After sealing the windows, the room instantly became dark. Song Yuzhu asked Xiaomei to take the children to the compartment in the backyard to rest first, while he and Song Quan took turns observing the situation outside.

*

At the city gate, soldiers were approaching and black flags with the word "Celebration" fluttering in the wind.

Sun Yiren stood on the city wall with a look of despair on his face. He had just ordered his subordinates to send his wife and children out of the city through a small road. Now he had nothing to worry about.

"Yang Yuanqing! You didn't keep your promise! I have already sent someone to deliver the surrender letter, why are you still trying to kill us all!"

Yang Yuanqing sat on the chariot and scratched his ears and asked, "Is there? Maybe I didn't see it."

Sun Yiren choked up. He saw his guards enter their camp with his own eyes, and he actually said he didn't see it?!

"You are killing innocent people indiscriminately and are bloodthirsty. The people of the world will not support you!"

Yang Yuanqing sneered: "If you don't support it, just kill him."

"You... you will not die well! You will go to hell sooner or later. I'm waiting for you!" The other party was unmoved by soft words and hard words. Now that he surrendered, he would die anyway. It would be better to take a few people with him to be buried with him! After saying this, he ordered the soldiers on the city wall to shoot arrows!

These archers were quite capable. After a wave of arrows, many soldiers were killed or injured under the city wall.

Yang Yuanqing was too lazy to play such a boring little game, so he drew out his sword and shouted, "Attack the city! I want to capture that man on the tower alive! I want to slice his flesh with my own hands and feed it to my bear!"

How could four hundred people defend against twenty thousand soldiers? In less than an incense stick of time, the city gate was shattered into pieces, and the army marched straight in and killed all the soldiers.

Seeing that he could not escape death, Sun Yiren simply committed suicide on the city wall to avoid suffering.

Seeing that Jiangcheng County had been captured, Xu Bing hurried forward and said, "Your Majesty, we agreed in advance that we cannot kill civilians."

Yang Yuanqing said impatiently: "I know, I know!"

Xu Bing: "You will be the emperor in the future, and all the people in the world will be your subjects. If you massacre Jiangcheng County, it will be even more difficult to conquer other places in the future!"

Yang Yuanqing also knew the severity of the situation, and ordered: "Kill those who pick up weapons, don't kill innocent people!"

"yes!"

Zhao Xiao breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, he still had some conscience, otherwise these soldiers would have been bloodthirsty and the people in the city would have suffered!

"Swoosh~" Just when everyone let down their guard, an arrow suddenly shot out from the corner of the street and hit Yang Yuanqing.

"Ouch!" Yang Yuanqing yelled in pain, and the blue veins on his neck were tense.

"You bastard, I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" The soldiers dragged a man out of the alley and saw hatred on his face as he cursed Yang Yuanqing.

It turned out that this man was also a defeated soldier. He went to the battlefield with his father, but when they were fleeing, his father died on the way.

Zhao Xiao thought to himself, this is not good! This person might bring trouble to the people of the whole city!

As expected, Yang Yuanqing was furious and shouted, "Kill! Kill all of them! I'll kill them all!"

The soldiers were stunned for a moment and turned to look at Yang Yuanqing.

Xu Bing knelt down and said, "No! This city is full of unarmed civilians, including the elderly and children. If you massacre the city, the world will be ruined!"

Zhao Xiao took the opportunity to squeeze to the front and shouted: "Your Highness, your injury is more important! How can the lives of these lowly people be compared with yours!"

"You!" Xu Bing's eyes widened in anger.

Zhao Xiao changed the subject and said, "When you take the throne in the future, make the people of this city pay taxes for an extra ten years! Wouldn't it be more satisfying to let them suffer for a lifetime than to kill them?"

Xu Bing finally understood what was going on and quickly agreed, "That's right, Your Majesty, your health is the most important thing!"

Yang Yuanqing panted and said, "Why the hell are you still standing there? Hurry up and get someone to pull out the arrow for me!"

The military doctor rushed forward to check. The arrow was in a tricky position. Although it didn't penetrate deep, it just passed through the armpit and got stuck in the gap between the ribs. The military doctor tried several times but couldn't pull it out. Yang Yuanqing screamed in pain and slapped him in the face. The military doctor's eyes were full of stars and his face was ashen. He was ready to be fed to the bear.

Zhao Xiao suddenly thought of Song Yuzhu. That young doctor should have a way to pull out the arrow!

(End of this chapter)