The mountain range stretched on and outlined the fierce undulations on the land in the southwest.
Under the surging leaden clouds, white snow sprinkled down onto the ground. From Xiangfan to Jiange, the land for thousands of miles was chaotic and deathly silent.
The originally strong city gates had been knocked open in the past few months, and the damage caused by the hundreds of thousands of troops had not yet healed. Among the blackened ruins, there were still people in shabby clothes looking for the last hope. In the villages that had been ravaged by bandits and soldiers, old couples were dying in their cold homes. Refugees gathered outside the few cities that had not been broken through. After the snow fell, they started to die in large numbers of cold and starvation.
The land extended to Jiange, and the hundreds of thousands of troops were densely packed like ants, building a new ecological community on the gradually freezing land. The trees in the mountains adjacent to the barracks had been cut down. Every day, the huge barracks were filled with warm smoke, like a towering forest. In some military camps, new war resources were being manufactured every day, and they were being transported by ox-carts to the battlefield in Jiange. Some of the self-sufficient armies were still wreaking havoc in the lands of the Han people further away.
In the past autumn, most of the autumn fruits that the army had plundered through thousands of miles of land had already been gathered here. Correspondingly, there were millions of Han people who had completely lost their winter food and savings. The logistics camp used to support the war in the southwest had hundreds of thousands of troops, and the radiation range was hundreds of miles.
In November, Wanyan Xiyin had already arrived here. What he was waiting for and guarding against was a Black Flag troop of twenty thousand people coming from the direction of Dayang of Tubo. This was the most elite revenge troop of the Huaxia army that had been watered by the blood of the Little Cang River. Led by Qin Shaoqian, they were like a poisonous snake, pointing their blades at the hundreds of thousands of Jin soldiers gathered outside Jiange.
If Xi Yin had not prepared for the attack on the Black Flag for several years and carefully investigated the situation of this troop, the rear defense of the Jurchen army would have been defeated by this troop. At that time, the Jurchen elites who had already entered the southwest would not even be able to come out of Jiange. The river was locked, and they could not go up or down.
Therefore, in November, Xi Yin arrived here and took over the command of these tens of thousands of Jurchen elites, which could be considered as a heavy blow to this army. Qin Shaoqian understood that his side's movements had been discovered. Over twenty thousand people quietly stopped on the mountain. Up until now, they had not made any movements.
There were some things that people would find hard to believe before they actually happened, but Xi Yin understood that if the war in the southwest was lost, the Tang Empire would be destroyed. These twenty thousand people who were quietly watching the battle were going to cut off the Female Enlightened Master's path of retreat.
Would the Jurchen lose? No one on his side had such thoughts for now. However, this group of Black Flag Army soldiers who were waiting for revenge clearly treated this as a realistic future.
Not long after the battle at the frontlines began, Ning Yi had already laid down his saber in the rear. Sneak attacks, opportunistic attacks … or perhaps he was even waiting for the Jurchens to flee and kill the entire Western Corps. Such boldness and arrogance displeased Xi Yin.
He calmly reorganized and trained the Han troops that had surrendered in the rear. Step by step, he selected the soldiers he could use while organizing sufficient supplies to support the frontlines.
From here, the line of sight passed through Jiange and extended all the way. Among the boundless mountain ridges, the troops spread out like a long dragon. At the nodes of the dragon's body, there were military camps. The traces of human activity radiated out from the camps. In the mountain forests, there were also patches of pitch-black bald spots. Fighting and flames had created unsightly scabies everywhere.
In December, there was the occasional rain and snow under the leaden sky. The roads were muddy and slippery. Although the Jurchen Enlightened Master had organized a large number of logistical personnel to maintain the roads, it was gradually becoming more and more difficult to maintain the transportation forward. The advancing army accompanied the ox-carts, slipping in the muddy water. Sometimes people crowded together in the mountains. At every point of transportation, the scene of soldiers sitting in front of the bonfire could be seen shivering.
Ahead of Jiange, the figures of people, ox-carts, and carriages filled up the muddy mountain road that extended for fifty li. Under the encouragement and mobilization of the Jurchen Enlightened Master Zong Han, the advancing Jurchen troops appeared strong. The Han troops that were forced to move forward seemed numb, but the line was still extending. Some of the rugged parts of the mountains had even been forcibly opened up by the people. There were people shouting in the mountains. From time to time, scouts wearing strange clothes and wearing different expressions would come out of the forest to support their companions and carry the wounded. After resting and reorganizing, they would enter the mountains in waves.
In order to reduce the pressure on the road, the wounded at the frontlines were basically no longer transferred to the rear. The dead were all burned near the battlefield. The wounded were also left at the frontlines for treatment.
When the weather was clear, the hot air balloons would rise high in the sky. When it was rainy and windy, people would be on guard against possible small scale ambushes in the forest.
The Chinese troops would ambush the Jin troops, and the Jin scouts would sometimes ambush the Chinese troops.
The chaotic road stretched for fifty li. On the battlefield to the south, a small city called Huangming County was in a mess. Pieces of corpses were strewn all over the place. Artillery shells had hit the ground until it was full of holes. Broken catapults left traces on the ground. All kinds of siege weapons and even the wreckage of iron cannons were mixed with the corpses.
Several large siege shield carriages that were strong enough to withstand cannon fire had collapsed everywhere on the battlefield. These shield carriages looked like a right-angled triangle that was as tall as the city wall. The front was a thick surface that could withstand cannon fire, and the back was sloping enough for people to climb on. When the soldiers attacking the city pushed it to the side of the city wall, the attacking soldiers would be able to climb the city in groups from the slope and display the advantage of the formation. Now, these shield carriages had also fallen apart on the battlefield.
In the past month, the Jurchen Enlightened Masters had relied on various kinds of weapons to climb the city wall several times. However, it was not very meaningful. When the soldiers climbed the city wall alone, they would be focused on by the Chinese soldiers. When they rushed up in groups, they would only be met with grenades thrown at them.
Before all the Huaxia soldiers on the city wall died, it became a completely unrealistic attempt to climb the city wall and win the battle in one go. During this period of time, it seemed that the only things that could really cause damage to the defenders on the city wall were arrows, fire and thunder, catapults, or iron cannons that were pushed to the front and fired at the city wall. However, in this aspect, the Huaxia army still had an absolute advantage.
For Ba Li Su, who was in charge of the battle here, there was something even more devastating happening in front of him.
The attack on Huangming County began at the beginning of November. During this process, the hot air balloons of both sides were observing the movements of the opposite side every day. The attack had just begun when the soldiers in the hot air balloons reported to Ba Li Su about the changes that had happened in the opposite side of the city. In that small city, a new city wall was being built several hundred feet behind them.
The Huaxia army had organized a large number of construction workers to demolish the buildings in the city at an astonishing speed. Some of the preparatory work had actually been done long ago, but they had just used the buildings in front of them as camouflage. They quickly put up iron and wooden frames, built the foundation, threw in the earth and stones that had already been removed from other houses, and poured in the gray "mud." In just half a month, the front of Huangming County had withstood the repeated attacks of the Jurchen Enlightened Masters, and at the back, a new gray city wall that was several feet tall had been built.
In the process of building the new city wall, the leader of the Huaxia army, whose name was Ning Yi, had even appeared at the construction site several times, giving instructions and participating in the construction of some key areas.
To Ba Li Su, this was simply a terrible slap in the face.
But this also caused the Jurchen Enlightened Master to calm down and give up on many of her fantasies. He used large amounts of lives and resources to exchange for the lives and resources on the city wall. By the middle of December, the first city wall of Huangming County was already riddled with holes and was on the verge of collapse. The troops under Ba Li Su's command who had participated in the attack had suffered tens of thousands of casualties. Among them, the direct descendants of the Jurchen Enlightened Master, who were regarded as the main force, had suffered more than five thousand casualties.
If they fought wave after wave on the city wall while enduring the bombardment, the casualties would be higher. But if they relied on their advantage in manpower and continued to attack, the exchange ratio would be pulled closer. In a month and a half, Ba Li Su organized several attacks that lasted for eight or nine days. He used the scattered Han soldiers to cover the battlefield and did his best to reduce the efficiency of the enemy's cannons. Occasionally, he would feint attacks and forcefully attack. In the early stages, a large number of Han captives were chased out, causing the Black Flag Army on the city wall to be unable to relax.
In the early stages of this battle, the Black Flag Army on the city wall was clearly full of fighting spirit, but later on, the city wall gradually quieted down, withstanding wave after wave of Ba Li Su's fierce attacks. Under the premise of the Jurchen Enlightened Master's heavy casualties, the number of casualties on the city wall continued to rise. Ba Li Su organized cannons and catapults to occasionally focus fire on the city wall, then ordered his soldiers to seize the city. But every time, the Huaxia soldiers would seize the city back.
The Rainwater Creek battlefield in the north was relatively low-lying, and the attacking position had long since turned into a swamp. The Jurchen Enlightened Master's attacks often had to cross the blood-soaked mud to fight the Huaxia army, but the nearby forest was relatively easy to pass through. Thus, the defensive line was stretched out, and the rhythm of attack and defense was somewhat strange.
The defense on this side did not rely on the flawless city wall. Instead, they occupied several key highlands and controlled the main road to the rear. There were three lines of defense in front and behind them. In fact, there were many small paths in the nearby streams and forests, and the vicinity of the position was not completely sealed off. But if they disregarded everything and forcibly broke through, they would be trapped in the narrow mountain path and step on landmines. Then, they would be attacked from the front and back by the Huaxia army, and they would die even faster.
Because of this situation, the nearby mountains were like a huge maze. The Huaxia army often had to find the right time to take the initiative to attack and create results. The Jurchen Enlightened Master could choose more and more tactics. For more than a month, the two sides fought back and forth. The Jurchen Enlightened Master suffered several losses, but also forcibly uprooted one of the Huaxia army's frontline positions.
The person in charge of guarding this position was Yu Zhongdao of the Fifth Division of the Huaxia Fifth Army. In a battle at the beginning of December, the two sides fought hand-to-hand in the mud and cold muddy water, and both sides suffered a lot of casualties. Qu Zhengyan of the Fourth Division led half a regiment of less than 500 people to carry out a counter-attack through the mountains, directly attacking the periphery of the Jurchen Enlightened Master's camp at Yu Shuixi. At that time, the Jurchen General Xie Lili, who was commanding the battle at Yu Shuixi, was about to lead a surprise attack, but Qu Zhengyan took advantage of the gap and intercepted him, almost killing him on the spot.
The movement from the rear spread to the front. The Jurchen's frontline was in chaos, and there were heavy casualties. Qu Zhengyan saw that he could not kill Xie Lili, so he immediately ordered the soldiers to break through in the direction of the Yu Shuixi position.
His sudden advance was so determined that someone held a head in their hand and shouted, "Xie Lili is dead! Attack from the front and back and destroy them! " There were thousands of Jurchen Enlightened Masters who had retreated from the frontline to rescue their General. But at first glance, they really thought that they were being attacked from the front and back. They hesitated for a moment, and Qu Zhengyan broke through the middle of the troops.
The stench of blood permeated the winter air. Fights and clashes continued to spread through the mountain ridges every day.
Further southwest from Yu Shuixi and Huang Ming County, stretcher teams and reinforcements could be seen running on the mountain road from time to time. Pack horses carried supplies and pulled artillery shells, gunpowder, rations and other supplies. Every day, they were also sent to the battlefield. In the camp for wounded soldiers built in the col, screams and shouts could be heard from time to time. The hot steam and black smoke from boiling water in the shack lingered above the camp, looking like a strange fog.
Ning Ji ran out of the tent and poured the bloody water in the wooden basin into the ditch by the side of the camp. He did not rest at all, but turned to the shack to pour boiling water into the wooden basin and ran back. In theory, the camp for wounded soldiers at the rear of the battlefield was not safe. The Jurchen Enlightened Master was not a pushover. In fact, it was not impossible for the frontline to suddenly collapse one day. In fact, the possibility was quite high. But Xiaoning Ji still pestered him to come here.
In a sense, this was also the bottom line he could accept.
Not far from the camp for wounded soldiers, there was a long stretch of prisoner camps. In November, the prisoners were mostly civilians who had survived the battlefield. In December, gradually, the Han troops who broke into Yu Shuixi were surrounded and surrendered, and were sent here.
These people were not trustworthy. The Han troops selected by Zong Han to join the battle were either outstanding in combat or relatively "reliable" in the eyes of the Jurchen Enlightened Master. They were not the kind of troops who had been driven to the mountains one after another during the battle of Little Canghe, and could not be recruited in a short time.
These people could not stay nearby for more than a few days, and the biggest reason why they could not be transferred quickly was because of the road. The Huaxia Army staff responsible for guarding them would conduct a quick round of examination, and the work of preaching and educating them would be carried out immediately. Hou Wu, who had left the main army to participate in the security work in the rear, was one of the people in charge here. At this time, Hou Yuanyong, who was involved in the battlefield intelligence management, had come to see her father several times.
The winding road extended to Zizhou and spread out in the Chengdu Plain in the southwest. The clouds in the Chengdu Plain in winter were extremely low, and as far as the eye could see, the sky seemed to be covered with an oppressive lead cover. Workshops were operating at full capacity in the cities, and large and small blast furnaces were spitting flames under the hazy sky. People driving oxcarts, wheelbarrows, and even carrying poles were also continuously gathering all kinds of materials in the direction of Zizhou and Jiange. This was a scene similar to the material transportation outside Jiange.
This was also the scene of two giant beasts fighting under the winter sky …
*****
On the 19th of December, before the New Year, it was raining continuously.
For more than a month, every time it rained, it would bring the most tragic battle, because the Jurchen Enlightened Master believed that the rain would make up for the difference in firearms, and now was the time when they could take advantage of the situation.
On a fork near Yu Shuixi, in the direction of the Eagle Beak Rock, where the road was not wide, Mao Yishan exhaled hot air and clenched his fists. In his field of vision, a dark mass of figures was advancing in his direction.
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