At night, 50,000 Jurchen soldiers were lying in the wilderness outside the city to rest, and the war horses were still eating the leftover wheat stubble. The generals and the black-armored troops were all resting in the city, but the city was too small to accommodate many people and war horses.
Wanyan Nianhan did not dare to go any further, so he sent a team of spies to the central county to find out the news.
Wanyan Nianhan came to the city alone. He felt very heavy. After he realized that he had been tricked, his heart felt like a big stone. Of course he knew what the consequences would be. Chen Qing must have blocked him in Luo. On the waterway.
If this is the case, it means that Chen Qing knew that he was going to enter the Shaanxi Road, so he specially used Fushi County as a bait to let himself swallow the bait and take the Luoshui Road. He had already arranged everything, but he didn't know anything. , ignorantly fell into his trap.
No wonder the fourth prince and Ta Lan were repeatedly defeated by him, no wonder Wanyan Yinshu was almost killed and had no trace of his armor left, and escaped back in embarrassment, no wonder he was able to seize the opportunity to destroy Xixia.
This man was so terrible, but he didn't take him seriously, thinking that he was just like other Song generals.
Only after suffering a big loss did Wanyan Nianhan put down his arrogance and start to seriously examine his opponent, but by this time it was often too late.
Wanyan Nianhan felt extremely regretful, and anxiety and uneasiness were like two boulders weighing on his heart, making it impossible for him to sleep.
The time was approaching the third watch, and Wanyan Nianhan suddenly heard a strange sound, like a muffled thunder in the distant sky. But the night sky was cloudless and the moon was bright and the stars were sparse. How could there be any muffled thunder?
Wanyan Nianhan stood on the top of the city and looked to the north. Suddenly he saw a silver line appearing on the river in the distance. The silver line was speeding towards this side very quickly. Behind the silver line... there was a roar. of river water.
"not good!"
Wanyan Nianhan shouted, turned around and ordered: "Sound the alarm and let the soldiers return to the city! Go quickly!"
Luoshui has spring floods every year, and low-lying places in the river valley are often flooded. Luojiao County itself is located high in the river valley and will not be flooded. However, 50,000 troops are stationed on both sides of the low-lying river bed, stretching for several miles. .
The Song army repeated its old tricks and built a dam on the upper reaches, waiting for the water to be released in the middle of the night.
In fact, Wanyan Nianhan had already discovered that the water level was too shallow, but he was deceived by fake hunters, so he didn't take it to heart.
"Dang! Dang! Dang! Dang!" The alarm sounded loudly on the top of the city, but it was already a bit late.
The rushing river roared in, and the Jurchen soldiers were awakened and panicked. The horses ignored them, yelled, trampled on each other, and ran desperately to higher places. If they ran a little slower, they would be killed by the raging river. Swallowed.
Wanyan Nianhan watched the soldiers screaming and being swallowed up by the flood. He closed his eyes in pain...
Although there are spring floods every year, such violent floods do not occur. This is because water is deliberately stored upstream and released all at once, forming a huge flood.
This is also the tactic most likely to be used by the enemy in the river valley area. One is a fire attack and the other is a water attack. Wanyan Nianhan specially inspected the city and was able to defend against the fire attack, but failed to defend against the water attack.
In a flood, nearly 7,000 Jurchen soldiers were drowned, and more than 15,000 war horses were drowned. This was the heaviest casualty since Wanyan Nianhan led the army, but the enemy did not even see a shadow.
.........
It finally dawned. Both sides of the river valley were in a mess. Thick mud covered the original wheat fields on both sides. There were scattered armors, shoes and weapons everywhere. The soldiers kept digging out corpses one after another from the mud. Human corpses and
The corpses of the war horses were piled up like a dozen hills.
It was early May, which would be mid-June if converted to the Gregorian calendar. Although there was still a little coolness at night, it was very hot during the day. The body had to be disposed of as soon as possible, otherwise it would stink in two days.
There was no wood found in the valley, so the Jin soldiers could only pour kerosene on the corpse and set it on fire. Suddenly, thick smoke billowed and flames billowed into the sky.
Wanyan Nianhan couldn't bear to look at it any more, so he sighed and went back to the city.
At noon, the spies finally sent the news, and the result was not surprising at all. The Song army gathered tens of thousands of heavy troops a hundred miles away in the south, cutting off the official road going south, and even a section of the official road was destroyed.
"It should be possible to walk through the river valley!" Wanyan Nianhan asked again.
The spy centurion shook his head and said, "Reporting to Marshal Du, the terrain going south is different from here. If you go south for about twenty miles, you can't walk in the valley. There are cliffs on both sides. You have to take the official road halfway up the mountain. If you want to go
After more than a hundred miles, when we reached the central county, the terrain on both sides opened up."
"You just said that official channels have been destroyed?"
"Reporting to Marshal Du, a bridge was actually destroyed. The cliff is about five or six feet wide. It is still more than ten miles away from the central county. We can't get across, so we have to turn back, but we can see the Song army in front of us."
Wanyan Nianhan never understood why the Song army cut down all the trees and removed all the house beams in the county. He now understands that it was to prevent them from building bridges.
Beside him, Ba Ye quickly said: "Since we can no longer go south, then let's go back to Fushi County and find another way?"
Wanyan Nianhan sighed and said: "General, do you think we can still go back? If I guessed correctly, the entire army of 30,000 people has been destroyed, and Fushi County must have been lost."
In the big tent, all the generals were silent, and Wanyan Nianhan said again: "Now we need to do three things. First, calculate how many days our dry food can last; second, send people to find the trail; third, send
People go looking for trees; whoever finds the path and the trees will be promoted to the third rank and rewarded with thirty thousand guang!"
Although Wanyan Nianhan offered a large reward, no one could receive the reward, and no shadows of the trees were seen, and the official road leading to Luochuan had been completely destroyed. It would take at least a month to repair it, but even if
Even after the repairs are completed, they may not be able to get out. The key is that they don't have time.
The dry food they carried could last for five days. There was no time to slowly toss them. Many people began to regret that the horses that drowned last night should not be burned but should be kept as military rations.
But some sensible people pointed out that it was impossible to preserve horse meat on such a hot day. It would smell bad in two days, so it was better to burn it.
At dusk, all the generals above the thousand captain level gathered in the tent. Wanyan Nianhan loudly said to everyone: "The way out is to fight, there is no use worrying. We must risk our lives to fight, and would rather die on the battlefield."
, can't starve to death, so I decided to divide the troops into two groups. I led an army of 28,000 to attack the northern route, while Yelu Mawu and Wolu led an army of 15,000 to break out from the south on rafts. Our Jurchen army spread across the world.
How can we be trapped in the loess ravine? Everyone, we will definitely fight our way out!"
Everyone raised their arms and shouted, "Kill out!"
........
The 43,000-strong army set off overnight in two groups. Yelu Mawu, the commander of 10,000 men, and Wolu, the commander of 10,000 men, led 15,000 soldiers to the southern route. They had to drift by water, so they had to abandon their horses and take three soldiers with them.
More than a thousand skin rafts headed south.
All the war horses were handed over to Wanyan Nianhan, who then led 28,000 men to march north, preparing to fight back to Qingquan County.
They were traveling lightly this time, and they did not carry many supplies. The most useful thing was kerosene. They carried 10,000 bags of kerosene, and they might be able to use the kerosene to break out of the encirclement.
In fact, since Wanyan Nianhan discovered that he had fallen into Chen Qing's trap, his confidence had dropped sharply with a series of water attacks. He no longer had the confidence to defeat Chen Qing and break out of the siege. (To be continued)