Chapter 403 Liuxia
Several days had passed since Emperor Zhao's pretentious expression of emotion when he stationed his horse on the Fen River. As the weather began to warm up significantly, the ice on the Fen River became thinner and thinner and could no longer be relied upon. The laborers began to build temporary floating bridges on a large scale, or simply built some semi-permanent floating bridges.
At the same time, within a few days, the size of the camp under Taiyuan city increased instead of decreased.
Ten thousand troops were sent out, but thousands of troops gathered in the rear to clear a certain city. More importantly, with the fall of Taiyuan City, the strong military station-style logistics line built along the Fen River was finally built in the north of Queshu Valley, that is, in the Taiyuan Basin. More civilians and logistics materials began to be transported from the river south of Queshu Valley and the Linfen Basin along the Fen River.
Moreover, with the news that Yue Fei's troops killed Wang Bolun and broke through Yuancheng, and the main force of the Jin army gathered together and marched northward, it can be imagined that the Henan and Hezhong areas that had been under martial law during the previous winter would be reopened, and more supplies would continue to be delivered along this supply line after the short Yellow River ice flood.
In the short term, Taiyuan will still be a huge military camp, command post and logistics base, as well as the headquarters before the next battle.
However, just as Zhao Jiu and many generals had already realized, under the stimulation of the huge victory and the almost crazy excitement at the front and rear, some discordant battle reports began to be gathered from various places.
A few days ago, there were only news such as the thwarted attack on Jingxing and the failure of surrender in some places of Taiyuan Prefecture and Longde Prefecture. These news were sandwiched between congratulatory messages from all sides and the more extensive military reports on the victory of the stronghold sweep. They were not worth worrying about at all.
However, on the eighth day of the first lunar month, the day when the center of Fenshui River thawed for the first time, someone finally made the first big news after the New Year.
Wenshui County is the closest Jin army stronghold to Taiyuan. I don’t know if they are worried about the increasing number of reinforcements and want to compete for credit, or if they simply underestimate the enemy, or if they think this place is too close to Taiyuan and want to show it to Emperor Zhao. The most likely reason is that they saw that the other strongholds were progressing smoothly, but this place is obviously one of the counties closest to Taiyuan, but it has been difficult to take down. It’s a bit difficult to bear...
In short, Chen Yanzhang, the commander of the left army of the imperial camp who was in charge of commanding various troops to besiege the city, gave up the step of firing artillery to attack the city when the siege position was about to be completed. Instead, he listened to the intelligence of the Han army in the city and led his team to climb the city wall and launch a surprise attack at night. As a result, a commander was shot to death in the city wall by arrows of the Jin army after falling into an outdated strategy of false surrender.
Moreover, since the war began, many senior generals at the commander-in-chief level of the Song army have disappeared.
For example, Guo Zhen, who was beheaded in public in the rear army of the Imperial Camp; Lu Heshang and Zhao Cheng, who were dismissed and demoted because of lax military discipline, defeat and injuries in the central army of the Imperial Camp; and Wang Gang, who was in the front army of the Imperial Camp and was the first to cause the Song army's defeat in the Northern Expedition and then died... But even Wang Gang was demoted first and then died in battle.
In other words, Chen Yanzhang was one of the only two Song army commanders who died in battle since the war began, and the only commander in Hedong who died in battle. What's more, unlike the military report that said Hu Qing of the Right Army of the Imperial Camp died in a fierce battle, Chen Yanzhang's death was too pathetic, and it directly caused a shock to the entire army in the Taiyuan base camp... The previous arrogance and impatience were also restrained for a while.
Fortunately, although Chen Yanzhang died easily, Yang Congyi, the commander of the imperial camp army, and the reinforcements he brought were already outside Wenshui City, so the city did not lose its backbone.
Next, after realizing that even killing or wounding the enemy general would not break the siege, the Meng'an in the city lost his patience and immediately mobilized elite troops to try to break out. However, this time there were no surprises or miracles. Under heavy siege, especially with Li Shifu's Dangxiang light cavalry nearby, the Jin army was wiped out outside the city.
When the news came, Wu Jie, who was in charge of the daily operation of the base camp, felt relieved. He ordered the heads of the Jin army generals to be displayed to the public, but he did not say much about Chen Yanzhang... It seemed that he was concerned about the brilliance of the belt of Han Shizhong, the number one man in the army and the Prince of Yan'an.
Emperor Zhao remained silent about this... This made many generals and officers feel relieved, but also a little nervous... All we can say is that fortunately this incident came suddenly and ended quickly.
But the news is not over yet.
On the twelfth day of the first lunar month, only three days before the Lantern Festival, the Fen River had completely melted. An additional edition of the official report full of praise for the victory of Taiyuan and Daming Prefecture was urgently delivered to Taiyuan. The messenger also brought the good news that some sections of the upper reaches of the Yellow River had been frozen over, while other sections had thawed and were passable.
This was certainly good news, so Emperor Zhao took the rare court report with him and a small stool to the bank of the Fen River. He found a willow tree with tender branches and read the newspaper under it... The only people accompanying him were Yang Yi Zhong and seventy or eighty imperial guards.
However, just as Emperor Zhao was reading the congratulatory message written by a certain student, a rider suddenly appeared behind him from Taiyuan City, looking for him.
"Officials!"
Taira no Kiyomori, who was on duty in the city today, rode over on horseback, rolled off his horse, and spoke out some terrible news. "Vice-Governor Wang was badly defeated in Pingxing Village, with over a thousand casualties!"
"I know." Emperor Zhao, who was sitting on a stool, was not angry at all, and did not even look up. "We lost so badly, how did it go?"
"So that the emperor knows, according to the military report, Yelu Mawu was well prepared, and should have sent troops there from Hebei a long time ago, pretending to be defeated and abandoning the camp to lure our army deeper. Deputy General Wang was eager to kill the enemy, and the front and back were out of touch. Unexpectedly, the Jin army set up an ambush at the bottle mouth outside the camp in advance, and waited for Deputy General Wang's main force to pass first, then abandoned the cavalry and fought on foot, and attacked from both sides, burning our army's logistics convoy and killing nearly a thousand of our rear guards..." Ping Qingsheng on the ground spoke more and more carefully, and in the middle he looked at Emperor Zhao's face before continuing. "Deputy General Wang realized something was wrong in front, and quickly abandoned the fake defeat of the Jin army and turned back to the bottle-shaped camp... As a result, the Jin army did not dare to fight again and fled directly... But without the baggage, Deputy General Wang did not dare to go in again, so he could only stay in the bottle-shaped camp for a while and write a letter to apologize."
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