The cane has been used for many years, and the green bamboo has turned yellow.
Zhao Fang used it to lean on the ground with great force. The bamboo pole collided with the stone slab at the bridge head and slid deeply into the stone slab, making a creaking sound.
Zhao Fang lowered his head and stared at the carvings on the stone. After a long time, he bent down and touched it. The carvings went from shallow to deep, and there were cracks at the bottom. These should be the marks made by a heavy knife a long time ago.
On the roadbed at the head of this section of the bridge, the original exquisite pattern of Pegasus riding on the clouds is almost invisible, but a large number of scratch marks can be seen everywhere.
The traces are obvious and are caused by the collision of the shaft and axle of the chariot, but there are also many deep and long traces made by knives and axes. If you distinguish carefully, you can also see the results of strong bows and arrows fired fiercely at close range, but there are only a few.
Ten years of wind and frost have passed, and only tiny white spots remain. If you don't look carefully, you can't distinguish them clearly.
This was once a battlefield, where the armies of the Song and Jin Dynasties fought to the death.
Xiaoshang Bridge is a bridge on the Xiaoshang River at the junction of Linying and Yancheng. It is said to have been built in the Sui Dynasty. The bridge has a single arch with open shoulders and is extremely exquisite. It has been an important link on the official road to the south from Kaifeng for hundreds of years.
However, this place really became famous seventy-six years ago when King Yue Zhongwu launched his Northern Expedition to the Central Plains.
In the tenth year of Shaoxing, at the beginning of July, King Yue defeated Jin General Wanyan Zongbi's iron pagoda in Yancheng, and the kidnappers and horses were elite, and then advanced northward. On July 13, that is, seventy-six years ago today, King Yue
Yang Zaixing, a general under his command, led 300 cavalry on a patrol, and encountered Wanyan Zongbi's large army again at Xiaoshangqiao.
Yang Zaixing led his troops to fight to the death, killing more than 2,000 enemies and more than 100 officers below the rank of Ba Bo Jin from ten thousand households. Unfortunately, Yang Zaixing himself was trapped in the Xiaoshang River and was hit by numerous arrows. He died bravely in the battle. Later, the Jin army obtained his
After the corpse was burned, two liters of arrowheads were recovered.
After this battle, the Jin army was frightened. King Yue sent his troops to advance again and defeated Wanyan Zongbi's 130,000 horses in Yingchang. They killed all the people as bloody men and the horses as blood horses. The formation killed more than 5,000 Jin soldiers and captured 2,000.
Among them, there were 78 generals and more than 3,000 war horses.
After that, there was the battle in Zhuxian Town. At the last moment when the door to Bianliang was opened and King Yue was about to regain the capital, the imperial court awarded him twelve gold medals in a row, thus ten years of work were ruined.
Wang Han died unjustly, and the people of the Song Dynasty never came close to Bianliang again.
Zhao Fang often imagined the road from Xiaoshangqiao to Zhuxian Town in his dreams. When he was a boy, he often heard the elders at home talking about the majesty of King Wang's Northern Expedition, and how the people in the north brought their old and young to support King Wang and wept to welcome him.
Sometimes he would even secretly imagine how glorious it would be if he were the King of Yue, leading such an army to conquer the Helan Mountains for the Song Dynasty and wash away the shame of Jingkang.
This kind of imagination, decades later, suddenly became a reality.
At this time, the troops and horses of the headquarters began to move, and the flags were raised high. As Bianliang approached, the morale of the soldiers became higher and higher, as if they had no fear. Groups of infantry and cavalry were mixed in the march.
The sound of the flag blowing against the wind, the sound of footsteps hitting the ground, and the clanging sound of the armor and stomach all gathered together in one place, like thunder.
Amidst the rumbling thunder, Zhao Fang clenched his cane tightly. His thoughts were complicated and his heart was surging.
He was happy, he was excited, and he felt confused and sad.
"What is father thinking about? Has the military situation changed and made him worried?"
Asked Zhao Fan, the eldest son who was accompanying Zhao Fang and the newly appointed director of the Jinghu Manufacturing Department, Ji Yiwen.
He was eager to try again: "If the Jin army is still fighting somewhere, I am willing to lead one to defeat them!"
Zhao Fan is thirty-four years old this year. He is in the prime of life. He joined the army at a young age and went to battle to kill the enemy during the Kaiju Year.
Since the army entered the territory of the Kingdom of Jin, the enemy troops have been routed wherever they went. The forwards of the army, Meng Zongzheng and Hu Zaixing, have achieved successive victories. Zhao Fan obviously cannot restrain his desire to make meritorious deeds. At this time, he asked Zhao Fang what worries he had
, actually means asking for a fight.
Zhao Fang shook his head.
"You go and keep an eye on the rear team's baggage and urge the march. Don't worry about the rest."
Zhao Fan bowed angrily and went to the rear group. Not long after, the sound of the wheels of big wheels rolling against the ground was heard.
Zhao Fang straightened up and stepped across the bridge.
When he was young, he was enthusiastic about his book business. He felt that making meritorious deeds on the battlefield seemed very simple, and killing people and killing people was just a number on paper. With his own talents, he wanted to achieve the great cause of liberation, and he could only turn the palm of his hand.
However, as the official position gradually became larger, Zhao Fang organized military training in Jinghu. In order to achieve results in military training, he had to use a large number of old members of the Yue Family Army. From this, he became more and more aware of the extraordinaryness of the Yue King.
He often thought that compared with King Yue, he had lived a long life in vain, and he was afraid that his civil and military talents were not as good as one-tenth or one percent of King Yue's.
Under the rule of the Song Dynasty, there were hundreds of millions of people. An old scholar like Zhao Fang was nothing. But as he got older, his black hair turned white. Zhao Fang saw that the Wu Jie brothers had not fulfilled their ambitions.
, watching Duke Yu Zhongsu have great ambitions but unfortunately died in time, watching Han Kanwei's intention of the Northern Expedition but having no capable general, but wasting his own life; watching Xin Jiaxuan exchange his employer's tree planting book with ten thousand words of military policy...
It’s too difficult. It’s too difficult to make a career in the Song Dynasty.
There are so many sages and predecessors who couldn't do it. Is it because they are incompetent? Of course not, it's just that the current situation forces us to be held back by too many people!
And today the Song Army is here, is it because I, Zhao, am so talented?
I'm just very lucky, and the situation caught me off guard!
What’s ridiculous is that this situation was not at all due to the efforts of the Song Dynasty, but because of the civil strife in the Jin Kingdom!
Because all the hundreds of thousands of elite soldiers and generals of the Jin Kingdom were lost in the battlefield with the Black Tartars in the north!
Because within the Jin Kingdom, the Han'er named Guo Ning swept over half of the Jin Kingdom with his mighty force, forcing the princes of the Jin Kingdom to rely on Tokyo Bianliang to pray for the possibility of survival in the three-party battle!
For many years, the Song Dynasty looked down on the Northerners, feeling that there was no hero among the millions of Northerners. Otherwise, they should have taken the initiative to destroy the Jin Dynasty.
But now, the heroes among the northerners have reached this level. The Duke of Zhou, Guo Ning, rose up in the wilderness, with no land and no people to rely on, but he has already killed the Jurchens in the north to a river of blood, and then used Bianliang in Tokyo as a execution ground.
, I’m going to tie a rope around the neck of Da Jinguo and make a noose!
The rise of Han heroes in the north was so fierce. What did the Song Dynasty do when the Jin Kingdom was in decline?
The Song Dynasty is the one who should hate the Jin Kingdom most in the world. The Song Dynasty should work hard to recover, and should suffer hardships for decades. It is true that God's way is easy to repay, China has the principle of justice, people follow suit, and every man will take revenge.
!
This is what they say, but the Song Dynasty actually did nothing.
Even in this joint operation to extinguish money, the Song Dynasty was completely exploited.
There are some things that Zhao Fang can understand even if he is in Xiangyang or Tangzhou. In the past six months, Mr. Shi Miyuan was moved by the trade profits released by Guo Ning. On the surface, he had no dealings with the Dinghai navy regime in the north. In fact, the people underneath him
They are all running wild for money and bribes.
As a result, the Song Dynasty's military strength was used as a tool to entangle and weaken the Kaifeng Jin Army.
In order to prevent his own power from being overthrown by the turbulent scholars in both the government and the public, Shi Xianggong unexpectedly advocated the Northern Expedition and decided on a military and national policy as if it were a child's play!
Is Mr. Shi a fool?
Doesn't he know what it means to the Song Dynasty that a new Han'er regime replaced the Jin Kingdom?
Shi Xianggong is so good at balancing, of course he knows.
It's just that he doesn't care about those. What he values more is the wealth and honor of his family in front of him. He will do whatever it takes to let the entire historical party overcome the turmoil in the court and continue to be in power. As for what happens next, it is more difficult than losing power, and he is too lazy to do so.
Don't pay attention to that far!
So, I, Zhao Yanzhi, actually stood on the Xiaoshang Bridge and watched the soldiers continue heading north.
But is this also considered the Northern Expedition? Is this also considered the restoration?
Zhao Fang is very confident in the fighting power of his 20,000 elite troops, and also believes in the bloodshed and loyalty of his soldiers. But to decide the fate of a great country in the world, how can 20,000 people be enough?
If you just go to a fight like this, do you really expect to win Bianliang?
So what if we were lucky enough to capture Bianliang? Twenty thousand people faced the tiger and wolf troops sweeping across the north, and then relied on the rhetoric of the scholar-bureaucrats in the court?
This is too rash! If you are not a hero, but you are lucky, if you fall into the history books, you will probably be laughed at for hundreds of years.
This situation is like a lotus in a mire, straight from the outside but miserable inside. Unfortunately, as a minister of the Song Dynasty, he could only do his best for the good luck of the court.
Seventy-six years later, the army of the Song Dynasty came here again. The Song Dynasty court was still dim, but the soldiers of the Song Dynasty still had passion, and the scholar-bureaucrats of the Song Dynasty still had... no, the Song Dynasty also still had the national interests in mind.
, a scholar-bureaucrat who dares to fight bravely!
"Zhizhi Xianggong! Zhizhi Xianggong!"
While I was thinking about it, the soldiers rushed over shouting: "There are light cavalry from the Jin Army approaching to take a look!"
"Oh? Where?"
As Zhao Fang asked, he quickly got on his horse, stood up straight in the stirrups and looked out. He immediately saw the appearance of the Jin Army's light cavalry.
That small group of cavalry was completely different from Wanyan Yoke's troops who had previously fought in Tang, Deng and other places.
They all wore military robes outside and light iron armor inside. Although the military robes were dusty, the weapons in their hands were bright and shiny. Looking at the more than ten of them, they were all riding tall horses from the North, and everyone had a horse look.
The movements of the horse and rider are all very skillful, and the man and the horse seem to be integrated into one body, with a free rhythm.
Such a sophisticated cavalry must move at an unimaginable speed, so Zhao Fang's covering cavalry placed on both sides of the formation failed to stop them.
It was not until they approached the central army that the Song cavalry caught up slightly. Worried that the soldiers were disturbed, more than a hundred knights shouted warnings and turned around from several directions, trying to surround the cavalry.
But this group of cavalry didn't seem to care too much. They continued to move forward close to the Xiaoshang River until they could clearly see the distance between the Song troops.
Zhao Fang also saw their appearance clearly. They were all capable men, with confident faces and high-spirited attitude.
A cavalryman noticed Zhao Fang and the general's flag behind him, so he pointed in the direction of Xiaoshangqiao and said a few words to his leader. The cavalry leader also looked this way, cupped his hands from a distance, and then led The team rode away.
Until they retreated far away, the encirclement of the Song Army's cavalry had not yet formed.
Many cavalry were cursing and wanted to pursue. Zhao Fang hurriedly ordered: "No need to pursue, those are Ding Haijun's scout cavalry... They are our allies!"
Under the command of Zhao Fang, the Song army no longer paid attention to the scattered Jin army, and no longer attacked the small villages along the way. The 20,000 infantry and cavalry from Jinghu once again accelerated their marching speed, chasing the retreating Kaifeng Jin Jun.
On July 14, the Song army arrived at Linying; on July 15, they arrived at Changshe; on July 18, they arrived at Weishi.
On the night of July 19, the Song army arrived forty-five miles south of Bianliang City.
Early the next morning, the envoy rushed to Kaifeng and reported to King Sui: "The Song army has arrived just after our reinforcements, and they are already at the gates of the city!"
Tian Zhuo stood up excitedly: "Our opportunity has come!"
The envoy rushed to Lincai Pass and reported to the remaining generals of the Thirteen Commandants who had gathered here yesterday evening: "The Song army is approaching, do we have to retreat again?"
Monk Wanyan Chen was busy comforting the wounded and collecting food last night. At this time, his body was stained with blood and had not been bandaged. He stood upright and said calmly: "How can we retreat? We retreated into the city and sat back and watched as the enemy besieged us and surrounded us. Are you going to starve to death or be trapped to death? Previously, the enemy troops were attacking from north to south. Our army lacked food and had inconvenient deployment. It was inevitable that we were left to one side and the right to the other. It was not a crime of war! Now they have gathered at the gate of Kaifeng City, and they are just about to kill each other!"
The messenger rushed to Chenliu and reported to Admiral Ding: "Yesterday evening, the Song Army came in hot pursuit of the Jin Army. The Jin Army stationed at Lincai Pass and joined the troops of Monk Wanyan Chen and Jia Guze who had arrived earlier. The Song army occupied Zhuxian Town."
Guo Ning laughed, stretched out his arm, and held Tie Guduo: "Both the Jurchens and the Song people have traveled hundreds of miles, which is really hard... Don't let them slow down! Send the order and raise the troops to fight! Let's go to war. Defeat the Central Plains in one battle!"
It was the second year of Xingding in the Jin Dynasty, the first year of Yuanguang when King Sui came to power in Kaifeng, and the ninth year of Jiading in the Song Dynasty.
At the turn of summer and autumn, on July 20th, the red sun rose, shining on Bianliang City, and also on the hundred thousand soldiers of the three forces gathered in a radius of hundreds of miles around the city.
No matter whether you are high-spirited or tired, excited or lucky, no matter whether you are struggling with a trapped beast or destroying your food, whether you are a swordfight or a deceitful person, it is time to see the outcome.