At the end of autumn and beginning of winter in the second year of Wu Jianshuo, the chaotic situation in the northwest was like a gunpowder warehouse that had exploded with a loud bang, scattering the enormous flames on this barren and dangerous land. Even the continuous rain was unable to extinguish it in the slightest. In a short period of time, it had reached its peak, and the aftermath seemed to be growing more and more powerful.
The first confrontation between the Huaxia army and the Jurchen Western Army was on the night of August 25. After the first wave of confrontation ended, the propaganda of the resistance against the Jin began to spread on a large scale under the operation of the Takeshi members and the cooperation of the Zhong family forces.
With Yanzhou and Qing Prefecture as the center, the nearby Ning, Fang, Yuan, Huan, Lin, Fu, Fengzhou, Security Army, Qingjian City, and other places, Takeshi's storytellers and agents began to spread the news and incite the atmosphere of resistance against the Jin. With the retreat of the Jurchen and the collapse of Yan Zhenguo's army, the situation in the northwest began to change on a large scale in the next two or three days.
The first to join the battle was naturally the Zhong family army led by Zhong Lie. In addition, in Yanzhou, Qingzhou, and other places, the villagers, who were spontaneously formed by the citizens, began to gather. Some of the bandits in the northwest and other places also began to make their own moves under the persuasion of the Bamboo Ji Store. Previously, when the goods were being transported in the Little Canghe River, these mountain bandits had actually benefited a lot and had a certain connection with the members of the Bamboo Ji Store.
In the northeast of Qing Prefecture and the border of the Security Army, a mountain called Luofeng Mountain was actually a small part of them.
Several troops in the direction of Jingzhou and Pingliang Prefecture began to move. On the other side, Yan Zhenguo, who had no way out, gathered his defeated troops and regained his sanity, and once again charged toward Qing Prefecture. Supporting him were two troops of the Wu dynasty who had been forced to surrender under the threat of the Jurchen. One troop of 20,000 people, the other 30,000 people, charged toward the northwest from the southeast.
The regular army, the local forces, the villagers, the volunteers, and the bandits, no matter what kind of thoughts they had, had already formed a huge vortex of war on the land of the northwest. All kinds of conflicts and clashes occurred frequently in the surrounding areas of the main battlefield.
The real core of the battle was still Lou Shi's West Army and Canghe's Huaxia Army. The two armies, each consisting of only twenty thousand men, were fighting at the edge of the loess slope. However, the intensity of the battle at the edge was so intense that no one could keep up with it for a while.
In order to maintain their momentum and attack the weak, the Huaxia army immediately pressed Wanyan Loushi's army to the front. Wanyan Loushi used his cavalry to harass and tear apart the Huaxia army's lines, attempting to force them to retreat. However, after small groups of Black Flag Army forces unfolded, the probing of both sides at the edge of the battlefield frequently became confrontations.
Even if it was a small Black Flag Army, in a situation where there were many old soldiers as the backbone, when faced with the strength displayed by the Female Enlightened Being, they really were too resolute.
The Female Enlightened Masters, especially the elite Female Enlightened Masters under Wanyan Loushi's command, never feared battle. They were a powerful army that had swept through the world. After destroying Liao, they had swept through the Wu Dynasty twice, like the autumn wind sweeping through fallen leaves. Right now, in a corner of the northwest, they were repeatedly provoked by the other side. Normally, when they met a weak opponent, they would not feel ashamed of retreating. But when they bit a hard bone, it was hard to avoid their blood boiling.
After all, when necessary, the courage to charge without hesitation was the reason the Female Enlightened Master could sweep through the world.
In these first few days, the intersecting tearing and killing constantly occurred. Because it was not a large scale chaotic battle between armies, both sides did not treat these exchanges as official battles. However, the willpower of each side was at its peak. In order to avoid the Black Flag Army's cannons and formation advantage, Wanyan Loushi almost gave a death order to the cavalry under his command. No matter what, they were not allowed to charge. They only had to harass, shift, harass, shift … of course, he did not give this rigid order. But if they continued to fight like this, the kiting tactics commonly used by the Mongols in later generations would first become practiced in Loushi's hands.
Meanwhile, the main force of the Black Flag Army could only relentlessly push forward in an iron bucket like formation. From a certain perspective, Loushi was continuously adapting to the fighting style of this elite army that possessed cannons. On Qin Shaoqian's side, he was also doing his best to thoroughly understand the strength of this army under his command. Just like what Ning Yi had said in Little Canghe, before using the strange, he had to first familiarize himself with the good side.
Even though Qin Shaoqian and the others had been accompanying the growth of this troop every day, they had yet to figure out the potential and limits of this troop that had been tempered through a new training method.
After looking at it for a long time, the confrontation that suddenly broke out in the northwest land, the initial performance of the two armies was already the peak strength of this era's army. In the past two to three days of friction, the strength and tenacity that both sides displayed was already not inferior to any other army of the same era. The intensity of the battle was astonishing. But at the moment of battle, both sides continuously played chess according to the situation and did not consider this point.
On the evening of the twenty-ninth of the eighth month, the autumn rain fell. On the edge of the battlefield, several units of the Black Flag Army realized that the heavy rain would obliterate the advantage of firearms and simply chose to lure the enemy. Meanwhile, a Jurchen unit of around a thousand people, under the leadership of their general, A Xibao, also seized the opportunity to brazenly launch an attack. The chaotic battle between both sides continued for over ten li, and a portion of people from both sides were separated from the main force during the battle.
On the same night, even more things happened. That was a force that played an important role in the northwest. Several days after receiving Wanyan Loushi's order to send out troops, the Zhe Family, who had always had an ambiguous attitude in this area, finally made a move.
Under Zhe Keqiu's orders, Lin Province, Fuzhou, Feng Province, Qingjian Province and other places began to arrest the Takeshi members who were inciting the resistance against the Jin.
At the same time, Zhe Keqiu mobilized forty thousand elites of the Zhe Family and personally led the troops. With Zhe Yanzhi as his assistant, he charged towards the direction of the Qing Province battlefield, clearly expressing his intention to support Wanyan Loushi.
Not many people could clearly grasp Zhe Keqiu's thoughts at this time, but if one were to look from the back to the front, his choice was not without clues.
When the Jurchen people first went south, the Zhong Family Army supported the capital, and the Zhe Family Army also sent troops. At that time, Zhe Keqiu chose to cooperate with Liu Guangshi to rescue Taiyuan. In this battle, the two suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Wanyan Zonghan near Heaven's Gate. After this great defeat, Bianliang was relieved. Qin Siyuan and the others submitted a petition to send troops to Taiyuan. Zhe Keqiu also submitted a similar petition. After this, the Zhe Family Army sent troops to rescue Taiyuan twice, but in the end, they were defeated because they could not defeat the Jurchen.
Later, when Taiyuan fell and Ning Yi rebelled, the Jurchen people attacked Bianliang a second time. The Zhong Family Army still sent troops, and the Zhe Family only cared about the battles in Fuzhou and other places and at the front line of Taiyuan. Moreover, they fought extremely conservatively. Next, when the Xixia people invaded south, the Zhe Family Army, which was supposed to protect the northwest, saw that the Zhong Family Army was destroyed and only defended their own land, not sending troops.
This time, when Lou Shi attacked, the Zhong Family Army refused to surrender. The Zhe Family Army verbally agreed, but they were not willing to send troops to attack the northwest for Lou Shi. However, no one expected that the Zhe Family Army, which had been unwilling to send troops when things were going smoothly for Lou Shi, would choose to stand on the side of the Jurchen when Lou Shi's army encountered a problem.
August 30th, autumn rain. If the addition of the Zhe Family Army meant that there was no middle ground in the northwest, then the clashes and fighting at the center of the battlefield in Qingzhou were even more desperate. Borrowing the momentum of the rain, Wanyan Loushi gathered his infantry and launched a large-scale counterattack against the advancing Black Flag Army.
Qingzhou's Huangyang Ridge. At the edge of the loess slope, the terrain was complex. Between the mountains, hills, and river valleys, the main forces of both sides fought at several places. The momentum of Wanyan Loushi's deployment of troops was great, and the soldiers under his command were truly the elites of the battlefield. The Black Flag Army's side chose to fight in a conservative formation at the first moment, but in reality, at the four points of the battle, three were fake and one was real. On the side of the mountain ridge where the view of the four regiments was obscured by the forest, Wanyan Loushi personally led his soldiers to launch repeated attacks.
After this battle had gone on for more than two hours, the formation of the four regiments had been torn in several places. The Jurchen charge spread over, and the commander of the four regiments, Sun Ye, led his personal guards to block at the front. He managed to maintain the situation for a moment, but in the end, he was still beaten back repeatedly. Only when the nearby Special Forces came to the rescue did they manage to save a portion of the soldiers who had fallen into a dead end.
From a certain perspective, whether it was Qin Shaoqian who was leading the army or the commanders of the regiments, none of them could be considered mediocre. They could be considered outstanding figures among the people of the Wu Dynasty. However, the situation that the Wu Dynasty's army had faced in the past was vastly different from the one before them. When they faced the most powerful of the Jurchen commanders who had built up their empire from scratch and experienced countless campaigns, after several days of pressing forward, they still lost a piece in the art of war.
The tenacity of the soldiers themselves did not make the situation too bad. At several other points, the Jurchen troops that attempted to feint attacks were dragged into fierce battles, resulting in large numbers of casualties. But at the same time, over half of the Black Flag Army's Fourth Regiment was lost, and the commander at the front, Sun Ye, was heavily injured. When he was rescued, he was already on the verge of death.
The Jurchen army retreated, and the Black Flag Army continued to press forward. Sun Ye and the wounded were temporarily left near Huangyang Ridge, the vanguard of the Zhong Army taking over the rescue. That night, in a grass hut near Huangyang Ridge, Sun Ye was the last to wake up. He was a forty-seven year old man from Yingchuan in Xu Province, skilled in strategy. When he woke up, two personal guards were standing guard at his side. Sun Ye asked them about the situation up ahead. After learning that the Jurchen losses might not be any less than the Black Flag Army's, he nodded and blinked.
He seemed to be searching for his thoughts in his extremely weak state, and only after a long time did he speak softly.
He said, "Later on, we often discussed whether or not regicide and rebellion was right … but with soldiers like you, I think that it might be right. Sir Ning, he …"
Sun Ye looked forward and blinked again, but his gaze was unfocused. He remained calm like this for a moment. "I used troops clumsily, my death is not to be regretted … unfortunately … so soon …"
At this point, his voice grew weak. His final words were, "… I can't see the future. Go and see for me."
The wind moaned, and the sobs of two soldiers who had experienced many fierce battles soon followed.
Long songs were weeping. That night, the news of Sun Ye's death reached the front lines where the Black Flag Army had spread. In the following days, the surviving soldiers of the four regiments would wrap white strips of cloth around their arms as they charged.
Even more intense confrontations and massacres occurred every day after that. Both sides seemed to be gritting their teeth as they tested the limits of their willpower. This was the first time Wanyan Loushi had encountered such a situation in this southern expedition — perhaps even in his entire life. He participated in the massacres several times, and it was said that he was in an extremely good mood. At the same time, the battle on the outskirts had already erupted like a volcano. After the Zhong Clan and Zhe Keqiu's negotiations, they shed all pretenses of cordiality. On the second day of the ninth month, the two western armies clashed for the first time.
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