Chapter 94: Crushing
On the other hand, after Bai Yizhou received the order to go to the capital, he immediately gathered his men and attacked Baixiang Tower with lightning speed.
The boss of Baixianglou is Yang Ting, who actually has some connection with the previous dynasty. His father is the nephew of Emperor Longwu, and he himself is also a royal relative. After the fall of the prosperous dynasty, he changed his name and became a running dog of the Jin people at the border.
When the truth was revealed, Yang Ting pulled Wanyan Xun and begged him to go with them.
Unexpectedly, Wanyan Xun kicked him in the chest and said in poor Central Plains dialect: "The divine eagle will not protect you lowly Central Plains people!"
Yang Ting was so frightened that his face turned pale and he collapsed on the ground, not knowing what to do.
Seeing that they were about to escape, Liu Yanzi, who was hiding on the roof, took out a hidden weapon and smashed the eagle's claws with one dart, destroying the mechanism that opened the secret passage.
Wanyan Xun was startled, and the other Jin people quickly surrounded him and looked around for the person who threw the hidden weapon.
The mechanism was destroyed and the sculpture could not be opened, so the golden men were trapped in the yard with no way to retreat.
When Bai Yizhou led his troops into the yard, he looked at the Jin men with anger in his eyes: "Come on, take them all down!"
The Jin people drew their daggers to resist. Wanyan Xun saw that the situation was hopeless and was only panicked for a moment before calming down. Qi Ren should not dare to kill him. As long as he saved his life, his father and brothers would definitely come to save him!
Wanyan Xun ordered his men to lay down their weapons, raised his hands and said, "I am Wanyan Xun, the prince of the Jin Kingdom. If you kill me, it will definitely cause a war between the two countries. I don't think you, General, would want to see this happen."
Bai Yizhou licked his back teeth and walked up to him. He was so angry when he saw Wanyan Xun's smug look.
Although he couldn't kill Wanyan Xun, he didn't say he couldn't beat him. He rolled up his sleeves and punched Wanyan Xun twice in the face, causing blood to spurt from his nose and mouth and several of his teeth to fall out.
The golden men struggled and yelled.
Wan Yanxun said angrily: "You will pay the price for what you have done."
Bai Yizhou sneered: "I'm waiting for you to take these people away!"
"Yes!" The officers and soldiers escorted them away, leaving no one in Baixiang Tower behind, and escorted them all back to the military camp for interrogation.
The remaining soldiers followed Liu Yanzi and Bai Yizhou to move the eagle sculpture away and check if there was any more fine iron underground.
The mechanism was broken, so they could only use brute force to push it open. It took a lot of effort for a group of people to move the sculpture away. A dark tunnel was revealed below. Bai Yizhou lit the torches he had prepared in advance and led a team of people to get in.
The tunnel was very narrow and cramped, only wide enough for one person to pass through. It was a bit damp inside, and two deep marks could be seen on the ground, which must have been left by the Jin people when they were transporting fine iron on carts.
Bai Yizhou walked in front holding a torch, and the rest of the soldiers followed behind him, moving forward step by step.
The tunnel is very long. After walking for half an hour, we still haven’t reached the end. I guess it leads to the outside of the city.
"Why haven't we reached the end yet?" The soldiers traveling with him murmured quietly. The air in the tunnel was thin, and walking for a long time inevitably made people feel irritable.
"Damn it, are these golden men mice? They actually made such a long hole!"
Bai Yizhou said: "Such a long tunnel cannot be dug in a short time. It seems that the Jin people have been planning this for a long time."
Fortunately, Liu Yanzi found them, otherwise they would not know how the Jin people escaped from the city. If a war breaks out in the future and the enemy sneaks in through the tunnel, the scene will be unimaginable.
The group walked a few hundred meters and finally saw a ray of light ahead. They quickened their pace and walked out of a hidden cave entrance.
This is a mass grave outside the city. There are no houses or fields around it. No wonder no one has discovered it.
Unfortunately, the fine iron had been transported away by the Jin people, so Bai Yizhou ordered his men to fill up the tunnel to prevent the Jin people from using it to enter the city again. He also sent a barracks to check the uninhabited areas outside the city one by one to prevent other tunnels in other places.
*
The news of Wanyan Xun's capture soon reached the Jin Kingdom. He was Wanyan Zonglie's third son and his most valued son.
After learning about this, he was not too anxious. The people of the Central Plains were timid and afraid of trouble, and they would definitely not dare to harm their children. It would not be long before they would send people to negotiate peace, and maybe he could take the opportunity to blackmail them.
The Jin Kingdom had done this kind of thing many times before, but this time they misjudged their opponent. The current Da Qi is no longer the prosperous dynasty of the past.
Not long after, Da Qi indeed sent someone, and the person who came was none other than the Left Prime Minister Xu Bing.
He brought a letter of peace, which contained three things.
The first thing is to ask the Kingdom of Jin to return the official iron of Daqi. If it is gone, it can be converted into silver. The processing fee for 8,000 dan of fine iron is only 100,000 taels of silver.
The second thing is that Wanyan Xun, the prince of the Jin Dynasty, entered the country secretly, violating the laws of the Daqi Dynasty. If he wanted to be redeemed, he had to pay a ransom of 300,000 taels of silver.
The third thing is that the Jin Kingdom is not allowed to harass the border of the Qi Kingdom in the future, otherwise the Qi Kingdom will take tough measures.
After saying these three things, Wanyan Zonglie was so angry that he laughed. Are the people in the Central Plains kidding? Aren't they afraid that they can just raise an army and march south?
Xu Bing said: "Our emperor has been very sincere, I think Lord Wanyan will not be reluctant to part with this little money."
Wanyan Zonglie said sinisterly: "What if I don't pay the money?"
"Then according to the laws of Daqi, your son should be executed for entering the country without permission."
"You dare!" Wanyan Zonglie slammed the table angrily and stared at him fiercely.
Xu Bing was not frightened by his appearance. When he was on the diplomatic mission, Zhao Xiao had led his troops north and was ready to attack at any time.
He put the peace agreement into his sleeve and said, "It doesn't matter if Lord Wanyan doesn't agree. If you want to fight, Daqi will accompany you." After saying that, he bowed and turned to leave with an extremely arrogant attitude.
Wanyan Zonglie served as the emperor of the Jin Dynasty for thirteen years. He had been gathering his strength during these years, planning to go south and unify the world while he was still alive.
Now is the time to let the people of Central Plains have a taste of the iron hoof!
*
In early February, the Jin emperor refused to pay the ransom, and the Jin prince Wanyan Xun was hanged in Xiguan and his body was hung outside the city for public display.
Wanyan Zonglie was furious and personally led 100,000 cavalry south to attack Daqi.
The people at the border were in a panic. Everyone was afraid of war and the Jin people. It was a fear etched in their bones. There were still many skulls outside the border, all of which were people killed by the Jin people. Now that the war has resumed, many people are afraid of being implicated, so they packed up their belongings and ran away in advance.
In mid-February, Zhao Xiao led an army of 50,000 and 300 short guns to the border.
Having not seen each other for a long time, Bai Yizhou excitedly ran over to greet them.
"General Zhao!"
Zhao Xiao patted him on the shoulder and said, "Good boy, you have worked hard these years!"
Liu Yanzi came over, fanning herself, and said, "I didn't recognize him when I first came. He's dark and strong, and he looks completely different."
Bai Yizhou scratched his head with gritted teeth and explained clearly what had happened in the past few months.
"Now the Jin people have gathered an army of 100,000 and are heading this way."
Zhao Xiao snorted and laughed, "Don't be afraid, I brought you something good." Then he asked his men to take a low cannon down from the carriage and put it on the ground.
"What is this?" Bai Yizhou had never seen a dwarf cannon and didn't know the power of this lump of iron.
Although Liu Yanzi had heard before that the Ministry of Military Industry of the court had developed new weapons, she had never seen them. This time she had the chance to see their power.
The soldier in charge of firing the artillery adjusted the angle of the low gun and chose the target on a hillside not far away.
The shell was loaded into the barrel and the fuse was lit. Soon the shell flew out of the iron barrel and flew directly to the middle of the mountain. It made a violent explosion and blew a big hole in the hillside!
The soldiers stationed at Xiguan were all stunned. They stood still and looked at the smoking hillside in the distance.
Liu Yanzi also forgot to fan herself as she was shocked by the power of the dwarf cannon.
Zhao Xiao asked: "How about this thing?"
Bai Yizhou said, "Awesome! So awesome! With this, no matter if the enemy is cavalry or infantry, I can fire at them and I guarantee they will be so badly blasted that they won't even recognize themselves!"
Everybody couldn't help but burst out laughing. Hundreds of years of humiliation had made the people of the Central Plains change. Now that they had new weapons, they were no longer afraid of the Jin people's iron hooves!
Only at this moment did Zhao Xiao finally understand the purpose of Song Yuzhu's persistence in researching gunpowder. Only if the military is strong enough can they have the upper hand when negotiating with other countries.
Thousands of years of history have taught the people of the Central Plains to treat others with courtesy. Although they do not actively bully the weak, they will not allow others to trample on their dignity!
*
This war is destined to be a crushing defeat.
The Jin cavalry had been an overwhelming force for nearly a thousand years, and Wanyan Zonglie also believed so, which was why they were so powerful.
Although the current strength of the Jin Kingdom is not as strong as it was during the reign of Emperor Tiansheng, it is still enough to defeat these people from the Central Plains!
He didn't know that no matter how powerful the cavalry was, it could not defeat the cannon.
When cold weapons collide with gunpowder, there is no chance of fighting back. Wanyan Zonglie watched with his own eyes as his army was blown to pieces by the clanging shells without any chance of fighting back.
They did not recognize the shells and thought they were magic used by the enemy. The soldiers were frightened by the "thunder" that fell from the sky. Wanyan Zonglie's second and fifth sons were also hit by shells and died in this war.
The Daqi army ended the war in twenty days, forcing the Jin army to flee in panic.
This war reversed the status of the Great Qi Dynasty, and all the small countries around it that had originally paid tribute to the Jin Dynasty turned to become dependent on the Qi Dynasty.
We cannot blame these small countries for being fence-sitters. They are already in a difficult situation, and if they do not rely on powerful countries, they will be destroyed sooner or later.
Wanyan Zonglie fell ill when he returned to the Jin Dynasty. He heard the sound of thunder in his dreams and died not long after. His eldest son Wanyan Hong succeeded to the throne.
This man had a mediocre character and did not have the ambition of his father. He immediately sent someone to deliver a letter of truce to Qi Dynasty. Not only did he bring silver, but he also followed the agreement and stopped invading the border of Da Qi.
However, Song Yuzhu refused to do it. How could he spend hundreds of thousands of taels of silver to treat a beggar?
Don't artillery shells cost money? What does the army need to eat, drink, defecate and urinate when it sets out? And the money from the burning, killing and looting at the border over the years, three million taels of silver in compensation is not too much, and five thousand war horses are also needed.
Zhao Xiao had long taken a fancy to the horses of the Jin Kingdom and got some for him to breed.
The envoy of the Jin Dynasty who was in charge of peace negotiations was so angry that he was speechless, but he did not dare to refuse. He could only send someone to send a letter back, asking the emperor whether he could make compensation according to their proposal.
Song Yuzhu said: "My time is limited. If you delay for too long, I'm afraid it won't be this much money."
"Yes..." The envoy dared not speak, but the officials of the Qi Dynasty were proud. In the past hundred years, the people had lived almost in the shadow of the Jin people, and almost never heard the Jin people change.
Adults often threatened children by saying, "If you don't behave, the big bearded man will catch you and eat you!" (The big bearded man was another name for the Jin people among the people)
Now Daqi not only won the battle, but also forced the Jin people to pay compensation and negotiate peace. This is simply unheard of!
After the court session, many officials shed tears of excitement. The Han people could finally stand up straight!
Soon the Kingdom of Jin agreed to the compensation and promised to send someone to deliver the horses after June.
For a time, the whole country celebrated and scholars wrote poems to praise Qijun's bravery.
Qin Fengtu also wrote a poem: The Han family's banners fill the Yin Mountains, and they will not send any Hu children back. I wish I could serve my country for the rest of my life, why would I need to enter Yumen Pass alive?
The people at the border were singing and dancing, praising the wisdom of the new emperor and the bravery of the Qi army. They were celebrating that they could live in such a strong country and no longer have to live in fear.
(End of this chapter)
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