Chapter 431 The Grand Finale (1)

Xiao Xuanwu, Zhang Jun, Gu Huai, and others remained in Dingzhou, Zhengding Prefecture, and Hejian Prefecture respectively to guard the rear, maintain the supply of food and fodder, and mainly deal with the imperial guards sent by the court.

Xiao Xuance and Yun Zhaoxue led their troops north.

Xiao Xuance was in charge of the eastern route attack on Shunzhou, which was meant to tie down the enemy's main force.

Yun Zhaoxue led an army of 100,000 to swiftly conquer the four prefectures of Wei, Wu, Xin, and Gui from the central route, completely pacifying the area behind the mountains.

He then led his army to attack Ruzhou, and then joined forces with Xiao Xuance's army attacking from the south from the northwest to besiege Shunzhou, where Wanyan Zongqin's army of more than 300,000 was located.

In less than seven days, Wanyan Zongqin was defeated and fled in two routes with his 200,000-strong army to Jizhou and Tanzhou.

Yun Zhaoxue and Xiao Xuance each led an army of 100,000 to besiege Tanzhou and Jizhou.

The two sides were evenly matched in strength, but the Great Zhou had the upper hand and possessed powerful weapons such as cannons and muskets.

Wanyan Zongqin had just fled to Tanzhou and hadn't even had a chance to sit down and catch his breath when he heard that Yun Zhaoxue had led a large army to attack.

Yun Zhaoxue ordered her men to garrison outside the city and set up camp for a short rest.

That night, news of the enemy camp was received from scouts inside Tanzhou City.

Choose to attack the city on the third day.

After the city gates were blasted open by cannons, the enemy cavalry charged out.

Yun Zhaoxue's strategy for commanding the troops of the Great Zhou was:

In the first round, they were bombarded with tiger-squat cannons, which blew them up.

In the second round, the musket team stepped forward and fired.

The third round was a cavalry charge.

After three rounds, the enemy cavalry suffered countless casualties, and the remnants retreated back into the city.

The commander-in-chief, Wanyan Zongqin, dared not show his face from beginning to end, for fear of being blown up by artillery fire.

Yun Zhaoxue led her army to attack the city and recaptured Tanzhou.

The Han Chinese people of Tanzhou knelt to welcome the army into the city. Some elderly men with gray hair collapsed to the ground, weeping uncontrollably, crying, "We've waited for it! We've waited for it! In my lifetime, I've finally seen the army of my Great Zhou enter the city! Waaah..."

Xiao Xuance's attack on Jizhou also went very smoothly, and he recovered Jizhou half a month later.

Wanyan Zongqin led an army of 100,000 to retreat to Gubeikou, which was the main road leading to the capital of Dajing.

If this place is lost, the Great Zhou will advance unimpeded and directly threaten the enemy's capital—Shangjing City.

Wanyan Zongqin had no intention of fleeing further north. He decided to set up his troops here and fight a desperate battle with his back to the river. He believed that if the pass was secured, he would perish; if the pass was lost, he would die.

Xiao Xuance and Yun Zhaoxue joined forces again to besiege Gubeikou.

Yun Zhaoxue knew that they were no longer facing a defeated army, but a cornered beast that had been driven to the brink of defeat, held an absolute advantage in terrain, and was ready to fight to the death.

This battle must be fought with even greater caution.

In Lin'an, Zhao Xuan dispatched 100,000 imperial guards to besiege Dingzhou, the rear base of the Zhenbei Army.

It's unclear how long Xiao Xuanwu's Dingzhou army can hold out.

In this battle, they must continue to fight swiftly and decisively, capturing the capital and welcoming back the retired emperor.

We must return to Dingzhou as soon as possible to stop the soldiers of the Great Zhou Imperial Guard and the Zhenbei Army from killing each other.

Yun Zhaoxue ordered the engineers to dig two tunnels from the flank forest to the city wall of the pass and plant explosives.

Xiao Xuance was in charge of the frontal assault on the city, drawing away the enemy's main force.

Yun Zhaoxue used the Hongyi cannons to bombard the mountain ridges, beacon towers, and walls on both sides of the city gate from the east, while simultaneously igniting the gunpowder buried under the city walls.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

"Boom! Boom!..."

After several loud explosions, a large section of the earthen and stone city wall collapsed.

The enemy's morale collapsed. They were made of flesh and blood; how could they withstand those divine weapons? They couldn't win, so they had to flee for their lives.

The remnants of the army, led by Wanyan Zongqin, fled into the valley through the north gate.

Two days earlier, Yun Zhaoxue had ordered Zhu Feng and Zhui Ying to lead a 500-strong musket team to secretly infiltrate the valley behind the city gate and ambush the enemy's inevitable retreat route to the north.

Wanyan Zongqin led his remaining 30,000 troops in a northward retreat, which happened to enter the valley where Zhu Feng and Zhui Ying's musket team was lying in ambush.

Once the enemy troops entered the encirclement, the two immediately ordered their muskets to fire, "Bang bang bang!!!"

After a burst of rapid musket fire, a large number of enemy soldiers fell, but their arrows could not reach the mountain, so they could not retaliate.

Their path was blocked by rocks in front, and pursuers were behind them; they had nowhere to retreat.

The soldiers of the Great Zhou captured Wanyan Zongqin and Tudan Yao alive in the valley.

Yun Zhaoxue and Xiao Xuance led an army of over 100,000 in pursuit, and a month later their troops arrived at the capital.

Emperor Wanyan Hong of the Great Jing Dynasty dispatched 50,000 troops to Heishui Town to intercept the Zhenbei Army, attempting to launch an attack while the Great Zhou army of more than 100,000 was rushing to the front lines overnight and running out of supplies.

What they didn't know was that Yun Zhaoxue's space stored hundreds of thousands of dan of grain, so even if the logistics didn't replenish immediately, they wouldn't lack grain.

With 150,000 against 50,000, the Great Zhou Dynasty achieved a complete victory.

The Great Jing suffered heavy losses and had no more troops to send out, so they had no choice but to open the city gates and surrender.

When Wanyan Hong destroyed the Northern Liao, unified the north, and took the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun, his army marched south and attacked the capital of the Great Zhou, capturing the emperor, the crown prince, thousands of members of the imperial family, and tens of thousands of civilians and taking them to Shangjing.

During festivals, they would drag out Emperor Zhao Hui and Crown Prince Zhao Heng to perform the sheep-leading ceremony, severely humiliating them and the Great Zhou Dynasty.

Look, your Great Zhou emperor is just a lamb to the slaughter for us.

The humiliation over the past few years has made him and everyone in Dajing feel that the people of Dazhou are lambs to the slaughter.

He once thought that he would be able to enter the Central Plains, unify the world, and make a name for himself in history.

Now, however, he was forced to surrender the city, which angered him so much that he coughed up blood, became bedridden, and died within two days, passing the throne to his third son, Wanyan Zongjun.

He gave his final order, commanding Wanyan Zongjun to cut off his own head and surrender the city, in order to ask the Great Zhou not to kill his clan.

In order to protect the Wanyan royal family, Wanyan Zongjun sent an envoy to negotiate peace with Yun Zhaoxue. They were willing to return the retired emperor, thousands of royal family members, and all the people who had been captured from the Great Zhou. They also pledged allegiance to the Great Zhou, and the Great Jing became a vassal state of the Great Zhou.

Each year, they shall pay tribute to the Great Zhou with one thousand horses, two thousand cattle, and five thousand sheep, and return all the treasures they previously plundered from the Great Zhou.

The main camp of the Great Zhou Dynasty.

Yun Zhaoxue summoned all the generals and soldiers to her tent for a meeting.

One of the soldiers asked, "Should we continue fighting this battle?"

Yun Zhaoxue and Xiao Xuance shouted in unison, "Attack!"

Yun Zhaoxue expressed her thoughts: "Those who are not of our kind are bound to have different hearts. They invaded our Great Zhou, murdered our people, raped and plundered, and committed all sorts of atrocities, leaving no way for our people to survive."

Four years ago, the enemy army of Dajing invaded the capital of our Great Zhou, abducted the retired emperor and thousands of members of the imperial family, as well as all the people of the city. They did not give the Great Zhou royal family any way out, but took them to the north to be slaves and made to perform the sheep-leading ceremony. This is a disgrace to our Great Zhou, our Han people, and the Chinese nation.

Now that we've finally reached their capital, we should storm into Shangjing, capture the Wanyan royal family alive, and drive the people of Dajing back to their homeland!

Their stronghold is located in the Changbai Mountains and Heilongjiang River basin.

In her previous life, she was not a historian, but she knew about the heavy suffering that the Five Barbarian Invasions, the Qing army's entry into China, the Eight-Nation Alliance, and the Japanese invasion of China brought to the Chinese nation.

She will not exterminate the common people of Dajing, but those royals and soldiers with treacherous ambitions must die to prevent them from making a comeback.

Xiao Xuance was also unwilling to accept the surrender of the Great Jing: "This is also my intention."

"But the retired emperor and the former crown prince are still in their hands. What if they resort to desperate measures..."

Yun Zhaoxue said, "What if we accept their surrender, welcome back the Empress Dowager, and then send troops to attack again?"

"Is this even possible? If so, the historical records will not be very favorable in their evaluation of the princess's achievements." Most of the soldiers present were literate, and their ingrained virtues of benevolence, wisdom, propriety, righteousness, and trustworthiness made it difficult for them to grasp the situation for a while.

Yun Zhaoxue waved her hand, “As long as we can eliminate future troubles, a few bad comments are nothing. Besides, history is always written by the victors. Da Jing has repeatedly broken peace agreements and invaded the south. If Da Zhou falls and they take over the Central Plains, who will remember their treacherous acts? The same goes for us. If we conquer Shangjing, we will write the history.”

Foreign tribes have always looked down on the Han people and never gave up their desire to seize the Han people's land. If a foreign tribe were to lead the Han people, they would carry out massacres to prevent the Han people from rising up and regard the Han people as inferior.

The Great Zhou Dynasty may perish, but the Han people's empire must not perish.

Xiao Xuance cupped his hands and said, "Your Majesty and I share the same idea. If someone must be held responsible in the history books, then let it be my name."

The soldiers felt aggrieved when they recalled the decades of oppression the Great Zhou had suffered at the hands of the Great Jing cavalry. This time, they were determined to fight them hard, break them, and beat them until they could never stand up again.

Yun Zhaoxue sent a message that she was willing to negotiate with them, but only if the retired emperor, the royal family, and the people were released first.

Wanyan Zongjun was no fool. Suspecting a trap, he demanded that the Zhou army retreat fifty li before he would release the people.

Upon hearing this, Yun Zhaoxue and the soldiers of Da Zhou were told to retreat? Fifty li?

They finally made it to the capital, but they haven't even had a cup of tea yet.

If they refuse to release the people, then they'll fight their way in themselves.

Fuck his father.

Siege the city! Fire!

"Fire!" The command flag fell, and the cannon roared.

The dark bullet whistled as it hurtled towards the city gates of the capital of the Great Jing Dynasty, "Boom—!"

Wood and stone shattered, sparks flew.

Enemy soldiers, men and flags alike, fell from the wall, screams mingling with the crashing of bricks and stones, "Aaaaaah!!!"

"Bang bang bang!!!" The artillery fire continued, and thick smoke and dust engulfed the city gate.

Three hours later, the soldiers of the Great Zhou Dynasty stormed into the Great Jing Imperial Palace.

Those who rebelled against the Great Jing royal family were killed! In the end, more than 500 people were captured alive.

Finally, they found the disheveled Emperor Emeritus Zhao Hui and the former Crown Prince Zhao Heng in the sheepfold.