The main army camp of the Song and Jin Dynasties was located in the Baijingzhai area about fifty miles south of Chitangguan. There were a total of 70,000 troops, led by Niu Gao, the commander of the capital, with Liu Qiong and Tang Qian as deputy generals.
Niu Gao led the troops very steadily, but he was not pedantic. He could also use strange tactics at critical moments. It was his stability combined with cunning tactics that earned him the respect of Chen Qing. Of course, this Northern Expedition could not be done just by relying on generals.
There must also be a military advisor to follow.
The military advisor was Zhang Xiao, who served as the governor of Shangshu Xingtai on Hedong Road and concurrently as the salt and iron transport envoy on Hedong Road.
The director of the Hedong Road Shang Shuxing was appointed by Zhang Xiaochun. The governor was a kind of supervisory official. All aspects of the Hedong Road needed to operate normally. In particular, many magistrates and magistrates were surrendered by the Jin Dynasty. Whether they were qualified and whether they had been corrupt and perverted the law before, they were fishy.
It is impossible for people to consciously admit their evil deeds, so it is necessary to have the governor to verify it, mainly relying on various reports and revelations to collect clues.
Zhang Xiao took up this supervisory position. After a year of supervision, it was basically over. More than 70% of the officials passed the test. Those who failed were directly dismissed by Zhang Xiao, held accountable for their crimes, and spit out the stolen goods.
At this time, Niu Gao was about to lead his army in the Northern Expedition, so Zhang Xiao was appointed as a military advisor by Chen Qing to assist Niu Gao in his Northern Expedition.
In the afternoon, Zhang Xiao received the notice from Niu Gao and quickly came to the Chinese army's tent.
"Niu Dutong, is there any important news?" Zhang Xiao asked with a smile.
Niu Gao sighed and said: "I just received the eagle letter from the Taiyuan Intelligence Station. The Jin soldiers changed their plans and stopped the northern expedition to the Mongol tribe. They probably knew that we were going to attack north."
Zhang Xiao expected that Jin Bing would cancel the Northern Expedition, "I said two days ago that it is mid-September now. If there is not sufficient logistical support, it is very likely that they will be trapped in the grassland by a snowstorm and all of them will freeze and starve to death.
So I told the general to consider the worst-case scenario as we have to face Jin Bing’s 50,000-strong army.”
Niu Gao nodded, "The weather is indeed unfavorable now. The order given to us by His Highness King Yong is to seize the Xinzhou Basin before it snows. We have logistical support and will go north to seize Datong Prefecture after next spring. What I am worried about now is,
Will 20,000 gold soldiers march south to Xinzhou?"
Zhang Xiao smiled slightly and said: "Datong Prefecture is much more important than Xinzhou. Since the Jin soldiers gave up going north to the grassland, they want to protect Datong Prefecture. Therefore, the Jin soldiers will never go south. Otherwise, what will happen if we surprise Datong Prefecture from the west?
?The opponent must have figured this out. The most likely possibility is that the 10,000 Khitan troops from Daizhou will go south to Xinzhou, and the two auxiliary armies will come together to defend us, so we are facing 20,000 people. Now we must win Chidan as soon as possible.
Tangguan."
"I know. I have sent scouts to find out the news. I should hear back in the next two days."
As soon as Niu Gao finished speaking, there were soldiers outside the tent reporting, "To the commander-in-chief, the first scout team is back and they have gained something!"
Niu Gao was overjoyed and said quickly: "Let Li Sanghuai come to see me!"
After a moment, Li Sanghuai walked into the Chinese army's tent, knelt down on one knee and saluted, "I see you as the commander of the capital for your humble position!"
"How was the harvest?"
"We captured a team of enemy spies, a total of ten people. We killed three of them, and the other seven were brought back to the camp. Most of them were interrogated on the way. General Tang is currently checking the confessions."
At this time, Tang Qian and Liu Qiong walked into the big tent. Tang Qian held a confession in his hand and said with a smile: "It has been checked. Basically, there are no problems. It is almost as we expected."
Niu Gao immediately asked the soldiers to bring up a model, which was made of clay and stone and completely imitated Chitang Pass.
The soldiers carefully placed the model weighing hundreds of kilograms on the table. To be precise, Chitangguan is a valley, with Yunzhong Mountain on the left and Xiezhou Mountain on the right. The valley about half a mile wide in the middle is the distance between the two mountains.
, In fact, this valley is not alluvial by mist water, but formed naturally. The entire valley is about ten miles long, and it is also the smallest part of the two mountains. A city gate was built in front and behind.
Tang Qian pointed to the valley and explained the information to everyone, "The enemy's 10,000-strong army is composed of Han Xie soldiers. Three thousand of them are stationed in the valley and 7,000 are stationed in the north. The equipment of these 10,000 Xie soldiers is mediocre and there is no iron armor.
They are all single-layer leather armor, but the spies have double-layer leather armor. Their weapons and other equipment are no different from those of the previous Congjun. However, there are a thousand barrels of kerosene and twenty medium-sized trebuchets in the valley. This is how they guard the gate.
The sharpest weapon, if we forcefully attack the problem, they will definitely use kerosene to burn it."
"How is the morale of the army?" Zhang Xiao asked.
"The morale has never been very good. This army was recruited a few years ago. They are all children of the former Western Army. They have the lowest status and the lowest salary among the CCP soldiers. They only have a military salary of 500 yuan per month, and they are owed nearly 500 yuan in salary.
In the first half of the year, the food was the worst. The soldiers were very resentful and their morale was low. Because they had enough to eat, there was no desertion. Although everyone was dissatisfied, at least they could eat. The taxes back home were too heavy and the people were hungry and cold.
, suffered from exploitation.
But if there is no war, they will continue to serve as soldiers. But now that the war is coming, the morale of the military has begun to become unstable. Several spies have confessed that the soldiers are very war-weary and do not want to sacrifice their lives for the Jin soldiers, including them, so they surrendered like this.
Quickly, without any resistance."
"General Li, are the ten of them really without resistance?" Niu Gao asked Li Sanghuai, who was standing by the tent, with a smile.
Li Sanghuai quickly bowed and said: "They did not resist, but three of them wanted to escape, but we stabbed them to death without hesitation."
Niu Gao nodded and said: "Although their morale is low, I don't expect them to surrender. Even if the soldiers have this idea, the generals may not."
"How will Niu Dutong decide to fight?" Liu Qiong asked from the side.
Niu Gao said slowly: "The opponent has kerosene and trebuchets. We can't fight at close range. The medium-sized trebuchets are not scary. As long as we bring out the heavy trebuchets, we can destroy everything."
After saying that, he looked at Zhang Xiao and waited for Zhang Xiao's opinion. Zhang Xiao said lightly: "I support General Niu's plan and use our most advantageous siege weapons to capture Chitang Pass!"
In the night, the Song army raised its camp and began to kill in the direction of Chitangguan in the north. Behind the team, ten trebuchets rumbled, and each trebuchet was pulled by twenty oxen.
Slowly, closely guarded by five thousand soldiers.
At dawn, the Song Army's 20,000 advance troops arrived at Chitang Pass and began to set up camp ten miles south of Chitang Pass.
General Zhang Zhongfu got the news and hurried to Guancheng in the south. He stood on the top of the city and looked at the Song army camp gradually appearing ten miles to the south. He was really worried. According to the news they got, the Song army's strength was already 50,000.
As mentioned above, Chitang Pass is not a natural danger. Can they hold it?
Of course, Zhang Zhongfu also knew about Chen Qing's deeds of leading more than a thousand soldiers to guard Jianxiao Pass, blocking tens of thousands of Jurchens from going south.
But the situation is different. The Jurchens are all cavalry. They have no siege weapons or kerosene, so they can only fight to the death to attack the city. If the defenders are strong, they can indeed hold the pass, but what they are facing now is elite equipment and various large-scale attack machines.
With tens of thousands of Song troops equipped with weapons in the city, the situation was completely different. The Song troops only needed heavy trebuchets to destroy Guancheng.
Do you hope that the Song Army will not carry heavy trebuchets? What a naive idea.
For a moment, Zhang Zhongfu was at his wits' end. The general next to him said, "Du Tong, if we really can't defend Guancheng, it would be good to preserve our troops. At least we can preserve one of the two."
Zhang Zhongfu shook his head, "That's because you don't understand the Jurchens. They don't care about the life and death of the Han people at all. They only care about Guancheng. If we lose Guancheng without losing our troops, they will definitely think that you will withdraw without a fight."
, we must die, so we have no other option but to fight to the death."
Zhang Zhongfu looked back at the generals, and every general had a look of despair on his face.