"Whatever you say, brother." Zhang Xian's mind was still a little confused, and of course he had nothing to say.
"Zhang Zizheng self-immolated. I don't know if his son Zhang Xian has returned to Nanyang. Zhang Xian happens to be similar to your name... I'm not asking you to be adopted or anything like that. I just said that the word Xian is better than Xian, because Xian means law. When you were investigating Yao Wang, you enforced the law like a mountain, so I wanted to change your name to Zhang Xian." Yue Fei said slowly. "I hope you can remember what happened in the past few days. If you do everything according to the law, you will become a great man!"
Zhang Xian... that is, Zhang Xian. He was supposed to be the one who made the decisions in everything. Besides, he just changed his name to a homonymous one. He hoped to use this to encourage himself? He immediately knelt down on his horse to accept it.
Yue Fei also quickly dismounted, helped Zhang Xian up, and asked the medical officer to come forward and bandage the wound again.
Just like that, a few days later, on the third day of September, Yue Fei, the Jeju pacification envoy who had received a small number of reinforcements, left Wang Gui, Hu Cheng and others to guard Jeju, and hurriedly led a carefully selected group of 12,000 people, including Fu Xuan, Zhang Xian, Tang Huai, Li Kui, Li Zhang, Xu Qing and other generals, and countless envoys of all sizes, and hurriedly crossed the Jishui River from the north of Liangshan Lake, trying to pass through Puzhou to support Tokyo.
As soon as Yue Fei's army arrived in Puzhou, they encountered a local hero, Li Bao, who led 3,000 sailors ashore and tried to capture Puzhou occupied by the Jin people. The two sides joined forces and easily captured the empty Puzhou. Yue Fei then learned that another Wanhu Elubu had crossed the river from Puyang in the west and went south through here. He also learned from Li Bao that Wanyan Nianhan, the Marshal of the Jin army, was currently stationed in Damingfu behind Puyang, and that countless armies were constantly joining there. Li Bao came here because he could not gain a foothold upstream.
Puyang is a famous city in the world with a strong city wall. Due to the special geographical conditions of the Yellow River at that time (the lower reaches are divided into four or five paths), it is connected to Daming Prefecture. If the Jin people occupied these two places, they could firmly control the main roads of the Yellow River. In this case, the gains and losses of Puzhou, which is next to the Yellow River, are actually meaningless.
Therefore, Yue Fei urged Li Bao to abandon Puzhou with him and take advantage of the situation to go west to support Huazhou and Dongjing where the enemy situation was unclear. Li Bao was a local hero of Jingdong who made a living on the Yellow River. He hated the Jin people very much, and seeing that Yue Fei had a strong army, he also followed him willingly.
Yue Fei led his army westwards, but he didn't know much about the battle situation west of Puyang. He really risked his life. But Emperor Zhao, who was far away in Nanyang, finally got a general idea of the situation from the intelligence gathered from various sources after the initial confusion.
"So, the Jin army split into five groups and crossed the river to launch a surprise attack together?"
In the Yushan camp, Zhao Jiu looked at the rough map for a long time, then tentatively felt around on the map and asked Liu Ziyu.
"In the two eastern routes, Ali sneaked across Jinan, and Olu reinforced his crossing to Puzhou. They all succeeded and raided Nanjing (Shangqiu). Zhang Zizheng died for his country. Not only did the two routes to Jingdong fall again, but they were actually cut off by Yingtianfu (Shangqiu); in the two middle routes, Yelu Mawu raided from Huazhou and Wanyan Balisu raided from Sishui Pass west of Zhengzhou, trying to encircle Dongjing, but were blocked respectively; in the westernmost route, Wanyan Saba tried to raid Li Yanxian, but was discovered by the Hedong Red Turban Army first, and instead joined forces with the big and small Zhai to lure the enemy deep into Jiezhou, set an ambush successfully, and directly defeated the enemy?"
"That should be it." Liu Ziyu was silent for a moment, then spoke frankly. "In fact, the situation was roughly as expected by the Privy Council. The position of Zhang Zizheng in Jingdong was the weakest, while the position of Dongjing Zong was the strongest... Only Zhang Zizheng was attacked and died in a hurry, which was a big loss; while Li Jinglüe was able to force the enemy to retreat, which was a pleasant surprise. The key now is where are Wanyan Nianhan, Wanyan Loushi, Wanyan Wushu, and Wanyan Talan? Will they cross the river? When and where will they cross the river? We must investigate it carefully!"
"Yes, this is the most important matter! Besides this, the two chancellors must quickly discuss the military merits of Li Yanxian, including the big and small Zhai, as well as the three Shaos (Shaoyun, Shaoxing, and Shaolong) under Li Yanxian. At this time, they must be given extra rewards. Then send a note to Lu Xianggong in the city, asking him to discuss matters such as posthumous honors for Zhang Zizheng, and to give preferential treatment to his family members who stayed in Nanyang. Actually..." Zhao Jiu responded seriously, but at the end, he couldn't help but pause, and then continued to sigh. "In fact, I should have told Zhang Zizheng not to care about the palace. I really forgot about this."
"Yes!" Liu Ziyu responded solemnly, and then returned to his serious tone. "Your Majesty, please don't dwell on the Nanjing incident. Zhang Zizheng is a minister and he is loyal to his country. He did it voluntarily. We should encourage him, not feel sad about it."
"I think so too." Lu Yihao stepped forward, and it was rare for him to agree with Liu Ziyu. "Zhang Zizheng is a model minister. His behavior is to tell the world that there are also governors who died for their country in the Song Dynasty! Just like Li Xueshi's (Li Ruopu) brother (Li Ruoshui) and Liu Canjun's father (Liu Qian) in the Jingkang period, they are all such heroes. When the emperor is about to fight, if these people know about this, they may think it is not worth it!"
Hearing this, Li Ruopu and Liu Ziyu bowed solemnly again.
"I know." Zhao Jiu looked down at the map, guessing the position of the main force of the Jin army, while waving his hands repeatedly. "I am not so ignorant of the importance of the matter. I just paused because I have not met Zhang Zizheng many times, and I couldn't remember his appearance for a while, so I couldn't help feeling sad."
Everyone in the barracks, including Lu Yihao, almost paused at the same time, just like Emperor Zhao just now, because they couldn't remember much.
ps: One more thing, Li Zhang, as a famous general in the Beiwei Army, was originally from the Hucheng tribe...
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