Xianxia version of Water Margin

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Although he won the Central Plains region without much effort, Jiang Hongfei still felt regretful!

Zhao Gou ran away.

A large number of Song ministers and Song troops loyal to the Zhao and Song Dynasties also ran away.

There will be endless troubles.

Rather than procrastinate like this, Jiang Hongfei would rather fight Zhao Gou decisively. Even if he pays some casualties, Jiang Hongfei hopes to solve this serious problem once and for all.

It's a pity that Zhao Gou is not good at fighting, but his ability to escape is as good as that of his ancestor, the God of Chaoliang River.

It's not that Jiang Hongfei doesn't want to pursue Zhao Gou.

But as soon as Jiang Hongfei defeated Fan Zhixu and Zongze, Zhao Gou decisively went south without any hesitation. Unlike his uncertain battle, this time he acted very decisively.

What's even more troublesome is that Zhao Gou also deployed troops from Weng Yanguo, Zhao Zisong, He Zhitong, Rong Yi, Xiang Ziyi, Zongze and other tribes in the Huaihe River Basin and the Nanjing area of ​​the Song Dynasty.

The total number of troops from Weng Yanguo, Zhao Zisong, He Zhitong, Rong Yi, Xiang Ziyi and other tribes totaled more than 300,000.

What surprised Jiang Hongfei even more was that the previous defeat did not make Zongze unable to recover. On the contrary, Zongze actually broke the boat and rode alone to the king who was originally active in the Haozhou area and claimed to have 700,000 men and horses and 10,000 chariots. Shantou Shan, and then said to Wang Shan:

"Jiang Yan has a strong nature and cannot tolerate heroes. The prince has hundreds of thousands of people eyeing the Central Plains. He will have trouble sleeping and eating. When he pacifies the Central Plains, he will send a large army to suppress him. How can he be punished?"

"We, the Great Song Dynasty, are the orthodox of China. Your Majesty is a young hero. He recognizes heroes and values ​​heroes. If you lead the crowd to vote, you will definitely be reused."

"A real man was born in troubled times, and he should carry a three-foot sword to achieve unparalleled achievements. What do you think?"

Zongze used his sharp tongue to persuade Wang Shan to join the Zhao and Song dynasties.

Soon after, Zongze used the same words to surrender. He was originally active near Luoyang. Later, because the Yuan, Song, and Chu kingdoms all fought for Luoyang, he was afraid of being involved, so he moved to the Lianghuai area, claiming to have a support of thirty Yang, the hornless cattle with thousands of horses, entered the tribe.

These two surrenders gave Zongze a taste of the sweetness.

Therefore, Zongze sent people everywhere to recruit and surrender "heroes".

Wang Zaixing, Li Gui, Wang Dalang and others each had tens of thousands of troops. They traveled between Huaixi, Lianghuai and Henan, invading and looting, and became a disaster. They were all surrendered by Zongze.

Soon, Zongze had hundreds of thousands of troops, claiming to have a million troops, and his momentum was great.

And Zhao Gou also knew that in terms of combat power, Weng Yanguo, Zhao Zisong, He Zhitong, Rong Yi, Xiang Zichen and others could not compare with Zongze, who was good at fighting and dared to fight.

When the Yuan army was likely to pursue him, in order to survive, Zhao Gou appointed Zongze as the Nanjing left-behind department and asked him to contact various Song armies, the rebel armies in Huaixi, Henan, Lianghuai and other places to collect the defeated troops. , Youyong and the peasant uprising army formed a left-behind army to resist the Yuan army from going south.

At the beginning, the reason why Zongze supported Zhao Gou to ascend the throne of emperor in Yingtian Mansion was to allow Zhao Gou to reorganize a government of a relatively large scale. Everyone would work together to fight against the Yuan Empire, avenge the humiliation, and restore the Zhao and Song Dynasties.

Who would have thought that Zhao Gou would run to the south before the battle was fought.

How does this work?

Isn't this the exact opposite?

Zongze had just dispatched a million troops, and Shangshu asked Zhao Gou to return to Nanjing to "conquer personally."

However, not long after, the small court of the Southern Song Dynasty suddenly issued an edict: "Jiang, Huai and other places are ready to wait for the emperor's visit."

Seeing that Zhao Gou still wanted to run away, Zongze wrote again: "Nanjing's price market is gradually returning to normal. Those who have loyalty among the soldiers, family members, businessmen, and scholar-bureaucrats all hope that Your Majesty will return to the capital immediately to comfort people's hearts. Those who put forward different opinions are not out of loyalty to His Majesty, but are just like those Song officials who surrendered to the Yuan Dynasty and secretly colluded with the Yuan Dynasty. "

However, Zhao Gouli ignored Zongze's suggestions. He only appointed Zongze as a bachelor of Yankang Palace, a stay in the capital, and the Yin of Tianfu.

When Bianliang City was captured by the Yuan Army, there were many prefectures and counties in Henan and Lianghuai areas that were not occupied by the Yuan Army.

Some of these prefectures and counties were defended by the government troops of the Zhao and Song dynasties, while others were defended by loyal militiamen who gathered on their own initiative.

The reason why Zhao Gou was able to escape from Wei City to Yingtian Mansion and ascend the throne in Yingtian Mansion and proclaim himself emperor was that the resistance of the soldiers and civilians in these states and counties played a certain role.

Zongze saw this clearly, so among his suggestions for reviving the Zhao and Song dynasties, he considered that the most urgent was to manage the Henan and Huaihe areas.

Although Zhao Gou and his ministers pursued escapeism, they also knew that to defend the river, they must defend the Huaihe River. Nothing could be lost in the Huaihe and Lianghuai areas, otherwise they would have nowhere to go.

In order to let Zongze help them defend the Lianghuai area, Zhao Gou and his ministers agreed to almost all Zongze's requests except that they personally responded to Tianfu's resistance.

Including, at Zongze's suggestion, the small imperial court of the Southern Song Dynasty sent Zhang Suo to be the Henan ambassador and Fu Liang to be the deputy economic envoy to Henan, so that they could go to the Central Plains to contact the armed forces who were still loyal to the Zhao and Song Dynasty.

In short, Zongze's main intention is to organize and lead the loyal militiamen in Henan and Lianghe areas as soon as possible, so that they will not be deprived of unified leadership, command and dispatch, and will not be able to receive food, salary and other material support for a long time. They were defeated one by one by the Yuan army.

After Zong Ze was ordered to be the prefect of Yingtian Prefecture and the governor of Nanjing, he first divided the entire city and the surrounding areas into four districts, east, west, south and north. He selected strategic and brave men to serve as the leaders of each district. He established 24 strong camps in the scenic spots of the surrounding areas, each with a general to lead the defense, commanding tens of thousands of newly recruited volunteers to train and lecture in the newly established training ground. In addition, in the 16 counties along the Huai River, Lianzhuzhai was established like fish scales to strictly guard the area so as to connect with the loyal militia in Henan and Huaibei areas.

Thus, Song Nanjing gradually formed a strategic base for recovering the lost land in the Central Plains after the reconstruction of the Song regime. All the regular and irregular armies that were still loyal to the Zhao Song Dynasty were willing to obey Zong Ze's orders and control.

Seeing this, Jiang Hongfei and his ministers weighed the pros and cons and did not let the Yuan army continue to move south. Instead, Xu Guanzhong was left in Tokyo, leading 500,000 Yuan troops to continue sweeping all armed forces in the Central Plains.

At the same time, Qiao Daoqing, Han Shizhong, Wu Jie, Zhe Keqiu, Yelu Dashi, Yue Fei and other generals were used to attack Shaanxi.

Zhang Suo, who was recommended by Zong Ze and used as the pacification envoy of Henan, had proposed to recruit Hebei volunteers as early as when the Yuan Empire attacked Hebei.

But Gao Qiu, who was in charge of the defense of Hebei and Shandong at that time, did not listen at all.

Later, Zhang Suo heard that Jiang Hongfei was holding a military examination in Daming Prefecture, so he sent his son Zhang Xian to participate in the military examination, intending to infiltrate the Yuan army.

Zhang Shuye's second son Zhang Zhongxiong also did this.

However, Zhang Zhongxiong was a young man with great ambitions and little talent, and he could not bear this hardship at all.

Moreover, as the strategic focus of the Yuan Empire shifted to the Yanyun area, Shuibo Liangshan gradually became less important. If Zhang Zhongxiong wanted to make achievements, he might have to lurk in Shuibo Liangshan for many years.

Zhang Zhongxiong, who felt that there was no point in doing so and was unwilling to waste his youth, found an opportunity to escape back to Zhang Shuye.

Shuibo Liangshan did not want to alert the enemy, so they let Zhang Zhongxiong, a small character, leave.

Later, Zhang Zhongxiong and his father Zhang Shuye went to Bianliang City to rescue the king and were trapped in Bianliang City.

Not long ago, Bianliang City was broken, and Zhang Shuye swore to die and was thrown to Zhao Ji and Zhao Huan by Jiang Hongfei to fend for himself.

Seeing that his father's career was over, Jiang Hongfei recruited a large number of Song army soldiers without asking where they came from, Zhang Zhongxiong joined the Yuan army despite his brother Zhang Bofen's dissuasion.

At that time, Zhang Suo was in Bianliang City.

Zhang Suo was very contemptuous of Zhang Zhongxiong's performance!

Zhang Suo felt that his son Zhang Xian would definitely not be as traitorous and spineless as Zhang Zhongxiong.

Therefore, Zhang Suo wanted to contact Zhang Xian to see if Zhang Xian could bring a large Yuan army to serve the Zhao Song Dynasty.

At the beginning of Zhao Gou's accession to the throne, Zhang Suo was one of the Song officials who resolutely left Bianliang City to join the small Southern Song Dynasty court, so Zhao Gou appointed Zhang Suo as the Supervisory Censor.

Zhang Suo once wrote a memorial advocating that the rebuilt Song regime be moved back to Yingtianfu in order to control the Central Plains area that the Zhao Song Dynasty had not yet completely lost.

Zhang Suo strongly opposed the plan of the Song court to move south, which was already rumored at the time, and therefore impeached Huang Qianshan and Wang Boyan who proposed the idea of ​​moving south.

At that time, although Zhang Suo was dismissed from his official position for this, he also gained a high reputation in public opinion, especially in Henan.

In the words of people at that time, it was "famous in the Central Plains".

It was precisely because of this that Zong Ze recommended Zhang Suo as the Henan Recruiting Envoy.

It is no exaggeration to say that, like Zong Ze, Zhang Suo was one of the most loyal ministers of the Zhao Song Dynasty and was very serious about making contributions in the fight against the Yuan Empire.

Zhang Suo found out that Zhang Xian was in Luoyang and was the garrison commander of Luoyang, responsible for defending the Chu army from attacking the Central Plains, with 40,000 to 50,000 troops under his command.

Moreover, many of Zhang Xian's men were Song troops from Fan Ne, Zhao Ye, Wang Xiang and other units recruited by Yue Fei.

Such fence-sitters were obviously easy to be pulled away.

Therefore, Zhang Suo went to see his son Zhang Xian alone, wanting Zhang Xian to take his 40,000 to 50,000 troops to fight back against the Yuan Empire with him.

But what Zhang Suo never expected was that as soon as he saw Zhang Xian and explained his intention, Zhang Xian sent someone to send him to Bianliang City to be dealt with by Jiang Hongfei.

Zhang Suo angrily questioned Zhang Xian: "Rebellious son, are you going to be disloyal and unfilial?"

Zhang Xian said calmly: "I may be unfilial, but I am not disloyal at all. The general trend of the world has been determined. My master will definitely make the world chaotic. King Kang is at the end of his rope and is just resisting stubbornly. I beg my father not to be stubborn anymore."

When Jiang Hongfei saw Zhang Suo, he only said: "Zong Ben is a tiger general with a bright future. Don't hold him back and make him unable to leave a name in history."

After that, Jiang Hongfei asked someone to send Zhang Suo to Zhang Xian's home in Bianliang City and let Zhang Xian's family confine Zhang Suo.

In fact, all Zhang Suo's efforts were in vain.

Because only he and Zong Ze and others had the intention to fight against the Yuan Empire and recover their homeland.

Although Emperor Zhao Gou appointed the pro-war faction Zong Ze and others, and adopted some of Zong Ze's political and military suggestions, he himself never had any serious plan to fight against the Yuan Empire, recover lost territory, and avenge the humiliation.

Zhao Gou's most trusted and obedient people were Huang Qianshan and Wang Boyan, who wanted to move the newly established Song regime to the south and surrender to the Yuan Empire.

Huang and Wang not only catered to Zhao Gou's wishes every day and made preparations to move the Song court to the south, but also strongly slandered Zong Ze's entire military and political facilities.

Zhang Suo and Fu Liang both advocated the restoration of the old borders, and were both recommended by Zong Ze, so they became the targets of Huang and Wang's faction at the beginning of their tenure.

Coincidentally, Huang and Wang heard that Zhang Suo's son was Zhang Xian, and Zhang Xian took Zhang Suo back to Bianliang City to enjoy his life.

So, Huang and Wang proposed impeachment.

Zhang Jun, the imperial censor in the palace, followed the intentions of Huang and Wang and reported that Zhang Suo had committed more than a dozen crimes, which led to Zhang Suo's dismissal.

The Henan Jingzhi Division was also dismissed.

Fu Liang, the deputy envoy of Henan Jingzhi, saw this and retired to the mountains and forests on the grounds of his mother's illness.

At the same time, Jiang Hongfei made an important decision-to return to Yuan Dadu in triumph.

Although the Yuan Empire had basically recovered the Central Plains.

But since Zong Ze and Wang Qing were eyeing the Central Plains, and the Central Plains was flat, war was inevitable.

Don't be afraid of ten thousand but be prepared for one.

If Zong Ze or Wang Qing kills Jiang Hongfei in Bianliang City and beheads Jiang Hongfei, the Yuan Empire will go from a sure victory to an uncertain future.

It is precisely because of this that all the ministers asked Jiang Hongfei to withdraw to Yuan Dadu and not give the enemy any chance.

Of course, if it were just that, Jiang Hongfei would not return to Yuan Dadu immediately.

There are four main reasons why Jiang Hongfei chose to return to Yuan Dadu:

The first reason is that at this stage, the spheres of influence of the Yuan and Song dynasties have basically been drawn out, and the next step will most likely be a tug-of-war.

- Although Zong Ze dreams of returning to the Central Plains, he is constrained by Zhao Gou and his ministers, and he is unlikely to make much of a wave.

The second reason is that although Wang Qing intends to compete with Jiang Hongfei for the Central Plains, Wang Qing also knows that he is not Jiang Hongfei's opponent, so he is very cautious and forbearing. Not long ago, he sent envoys to congratulate Jiang Hongfei on destroying the Zhao Song Dynasty and presented a lot of gifts, which did not give Jiang Hongfei an excuse to destroy the Chu State. Therefore, for a while, Jiang Hongfei could not take action against Wang Qing.

The third reason is that Jiang Hongfei does not want to expand his territory in the short term.

Jiang Hongfei does not want to fight for territory anymore, not because Jiang Hongfei is soft-hearted, but because Jiang Hongfei cannot fight in the short term.

There is no other reason.

The grain of the Yuan Empire can no longer support Jiang Hongfei to expand his territory.

Long before competing for the world, Jiang Hongfei had already paid attention to storing grain and grass.

At one time, Jiang Hongfei stored tens of millions of stones of grain.

Not only that, in the past two years, Jiang Hongfei has also paid special attention to encouraging farming and promoting cultivation, and has always put planting crops in the first place in his administration.

But even so, as Jiang Hongfei's territory became larger and larger, as more and more people came to Jiang Hongfei, and as natural disasters and man-made disasters continued in the past two years, Jiang Hongfei's grain reserves were still exhausted.

This was because Jiang Hongfei had laid out Liuqiu in his early years, turning it into a large granary of the Yuan Empire, which continuously provided blood transfusions to the Yuan Empire.

Otherwise, the Yuan Empire would have been stretched to the limit in terms of food.

But Liuqiu had only been developed for less than ten years, and its blood supply capacity was still very limited.

As for Jiang Hongfei's territory in the southeast, due to the burden of Fujian and the constant war there, they could barely be self-sufficient.

As for the surplus of Jiang Hongfei's other territories, they could only barely afford the consumption of the people in the Central Plains and Shaanxi.

Therefore, if Jiang Hongfei continued to fight regardless of the consequences, the Yuan Empire would definitely be in trouble due to food shortage.

Therefore, without solving the problem of food shortage, Jiang Hongfei could only stop recovering Huaixi, Lianghuai and Jiangnan, including Sichuan, although these areas were large grain-producing areas.

——There is no other way. Most of these areas have been destroyed by war. How can people have time to grow crops?

Finally, the reason why Jiang Hongfei wanted to return to Yuan Dadu was because the situation in the north had changed. The Jin people began to be dishonest again. Jiang Hongfei had to go back to fight against the Jin.

In short, the autumn was high and the sun was cool. Jiang Hongfei ordered to return to Yuan Dadu in triumph...

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