Infinite War Begins with Cao Thief

In this battle, Tong Guanjun was defeated miserably.

Of the small 200,000 horses that crossed the river, almost 50,000 were trampled to death by each other. A small number died in battle, while a large number were squeezed or jumped into the Yellow River and drowned. Another 150,000 or so surrendered to Dong Huang's army. .

Tong Guan and Zhong Shidao gathered up the remaining troops and defended on the south bank of the Yellow River, but the morale of the troops was close to zero.

Soon after, even worse news came. Gao Lian, cousin of Gao Qiu of the East Route Army, was killed. The bandit general Zhao Yun had assembled an army of 100,000 and had captured Puzhou. He could go west to Daming Mansion at any time. Tong Guan's troops were even threatened. No worries about the future.

Tong Guan's headquarters was in a dilemma for a while, and finally had no choice but to retreat to the Changyuan area to deploy defenses. Soon after, he was dismissed from his post by Zhao Ji.

Regarding his own wealth and life, Zhao Ji finally became anxious. He ordered Zhong Shidao to take over the defense of Xuncheng, Changyuan, and Dongming, and summoned local troops to serve the king.

It was so urgent that Zhao Ji could no longer care about the issue of losing face.

Because of the Song army's active retreat, Fazheng's troops successfully crossed the river from Liyang and besieged Huazhou.

In the meantime, the Song Army also wanted to cross the river and attack it, but Fa Zheng first asked the navy to cover it. After fighting a victorious battle on the river, he crossed the river cautiously. The Song Army could not find any chance for a sneak attack. Instead, they were afraid that they would be stuck by the main force of Dong Huang's army and would be unable to escape, so they took the initiative to retreat.

At about the same time, Zhao Yun's troops, who had won successive victories, also moved towards Nanhua and Dingtao, defeated the Guangji Army, and made a gesture of attacking Kaifeng with the main force of the Fazheng Division.

The city of Kaifeng was in shock three times a day, and Zhao Ji even came up with the idea of ​​letting his son succeed him to defend the city, while he went south to avoid trouble.

However, before he dared to express this idea, he was suppressed by the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty.

The Manchu Dynasty was full of savvy civil and military personnel. They quickly saw through the shortcomings of Dong Huang's army's weak foundation and isolated troops. They proposed that the imperial army stick to key nodes near Bianjing to confront Dong Huang's army, and then ordered Liu Fa and other northwest elites to mobilize the army and divide it into two. Road, all the way out of Jingxing to cut off the retreat of Dong Huang's army, all the way to Bianjing King Qin; ordered King Qin's troops in the south to gather at Yingtianfu to continue the policy of attacking Jingdong East Road.

Because Zhong Shidao's younger brother Zhong Shizhong fought vigorously in the offensive and defensive battles in Huazhou, Fa Zheng's army did not dare to go south because they could not capture Huazhou. The emboldened Zhao Ji initially adopted this strategy.

But soon, Zhao Ji's strategy changed. The reason is simple. Jingxing and Taiyuan were lost one after another.

Liu Guangshi sent Wang Yuan, Han Shizhong and other young generals to sneak attack Mingzhou. Forced by military law and the desire to make contributions, the two went there bitterly. As a result, they met the main force of Huang Zhong's army who came to help on the way.

——After Huang Zhong captured Jizhou, he led his army southward under Dong Huang's order. He first cooperated with Xu Huang and defeated the panic-stricken Baosai Army. Then Huang Zhong's troops attacked Jingxing, and Xu Huang's troops went south to support them. Fa Zheng.

During the battle, Wang Yuan and Han Shizhong showed the rare tenacity of the Song army, especially Han Shizhong's martial arts skills that made Huang Zhong happy. So Huang Zhong moved his muscles a little and captured the young Wang Yuan and Han Shizhong alive.

The second general was quite courageous and vowed not to surrender. Huang Zhong thought it was interesting and let them and the captured soldiers go.

After they returned to Jingxing, Huang Zhong led his troops to Jingxing in the middle of the afternoon. He asked the soldiers to loudly question Wang Yuan and Han Shizhong why they did not deliver Liu Yanqing's head as agreed, and ordered the soldiers to storm Jingxing.

The people in Jingxing were already in panic. The generals were suspicious and the soldiers had no fighting spirit. Liu Yanqing was even more afraid of the enemy and took the lead in escaping. Jingxing fell into the hands of Dong Huang's army.

Huang Zhong led his troops in pursuit, but the unlucky Wang Yuan and Han Shizhong were captured again.

They were almost killed by Liu Yanqing because of Huang Zhong's conspiracy, but this time they were very happy and chose to surrender directly.

At this time, they, especially Han Shizhong, were young and vigorous, but they were repeatedly swallowed up and suppressed by their superiors. They were suffocating themselves and were very dissatisfied with the decadent Song army and the court, and captured them many times. The generals were also Han Chinese, and they were subordinates of His Highness King Qi who had recaptured the Sixteenth Prefecture of Yanyun. The two of them believed that they were already interested in the Song Dynasty and Liu Yanqing, so they surrendered this time without any psychological burden.

Surrendering with them were more than 3,000 elite soldiers of the Song Army who had been forced to perform a near-death mission to sneak attack Dong Huang's army at Jingxing.

With these soldiers who were familiar with the situation of the Song Army and Hedong Road, Huang Zhong drove straight in.

Before arriving at Taiyuan City, Han Shizhong proposed a plan, and he led the Song army to surrender and pretend to be defeated soldiers to deceive the city.

Huang Zhong's eldest son Huang Xu immediately said: "Father, Han Shizhong, the newly surrendered man, cannot be trusted. He must want to run away and never come back. He will also tell the Song army the truth and falsehoods of our army. Han Shizhong should be punished." ah!"

Huang Zhong was immediately furious and scolded Huang Xu. He patted his chest and said that Han Liangchen was not that kind of person and that I could trust Han Liangchen.

When Han Shizhong said that he would lead Dong Huang's army to disguise themselves as Song troops and defraud the city, Huang Zhong even refused: Not only can I trust you, but I can also trust your vision!

Han Shizhong, who had made great achievements but was hit hard by Tong Guan's distrust, was moved to tears by Huang Zhong's trust. He only selected more than 200 people and went to the city.

The general of Taiyuan was also very trusting. Although he knew about Han Shizhong, he still asked people to confirm in every possible way. He would never open the city gate and only Han Shizhong was allowed to enter the city first.

Han Shizhong was undaunted and generously threw away his long weapon, carrying only his waist knife, and entered the city in a basket.

After entering the city, Han Shizhong suddenly became angry, put a knife on Zhizhou's neck and cursed angrily: "I led the brothers in front to fight to the death, but you people who are greedy for life and fear of death didn't even let the brothers enter the city to have a hot meal. ! Believe it or not, I will kill this bastard right away!"

"Han Powu, you are crazy!"

The other generals couldn't help but cursed Han Shizhong with his nickname, and even cursed Han Shizhong in their hearts: It doesn't matter if you, bastard, are dying, if Lord Zhizhou has any shortcomings, the future of us people will be ruined.

Han Shizhong laughed and said: "Let us brothers in, prepare wine, food and 300 horses for us. When we are full, we will leave. At that time, I will also let Master Zhizhou go. After all, we still have to defend Taiyuan City." What about you! Dong Huangjun is not easy to deal with."

The more Han Shizhong said this, the more the civil and military officers on the tower did not think that Han Shizhong was here to steal the city. They only thought that he was out of the habit of military ruffians. In addition, they were not optimistic that everyone could defend Taiyuan City, so they wanted to take this opportunity to blackmail the war horses and escape. .

[When you all come up and relax your vigilance, see what we do with you! 】

Both the prefects and civil and military officials hated Han Shizhong.

However, what they did not expect was that after these military ruffians, who they regarded as greedy for life and fearful of death and just wanted to escape, got on the tower, the first thing they did was to cut down the surrounding soldiers and round up the main civil and military officials of Taiyuan. .

"Dog thief!"

The prefect, who had just wanted to settle the score with his wife, was so angry that he actually hit Han Shizhong's knife and wiped his neck.

The Song Dynasty had been raising scholars for more than a hundred years, and there were still many people who were willing to die.

However, death has always been difficult since ancient times. Seeing Zhizhou spurting blood from his neck and struggling on the ground without dying for a long time, other officials finally lost the courage to die.