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December 7th, Yanzhou.

At dawn, approximately three thousand Jurchen cavalry launched a four-sided attack on Yanzhou City.

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Deng Fanxi, the then prefect of Yanzhou, had been in office for a little over a month. He was from Jintan in Southern Zhili, and his courtesy name was Jinbo. He was a Jinshi in the seventh year of Chongzhen and had served as a principal officer in the Ministry of War in Nanjing.

Although he had only recently taken office, he was aware of the Jurchen invasion of the capital region and Shandong, and thus had made preparations for defending the city in advance.

Deng Fanxi personally went to the palace of Prince Lu and persuaded Prince Zhu Yipai, saying, "There are officials in a prefecture, and five in a state; they are like boats in the same boat. I have heard that the city is not defended because the noble families within the city are stingy with their money and love their own comfort, while they send poor people and servants to climb the walls and beat the watchmen, which leads to many failures. If Your Majesty can spend money to reward the soldiers who are willing to die for their country, the city can still be saved, and your life can still be preserved. Otherwise, once the great cause is lost, all the precious things will be reduced to ashes."

Unfortunately, Prince Lu Zhu Yipai completely ignored Deng Fanxi's good advice. Like Prince Fu of Luoyang, he was extremely stingy and did not agree to Deng Fanxi's suggestion.

Deng Fanxi could only use his own private wealth and encourage officials and gentry in Yanzhou to donate. He recruited civilians in the city to climb the city walls to help defend it, and at the same time, he made defensive weapons and repaired the city's defenses.

At this moment, he knew that most of the Jurchens were gathered under the walls of Jining City, so he wrote a letter to Han Guangcang, the prefect of Jining, asking him to persuade Luo Rucai to send a part of his troops to help defend Yanzhou City.

Before they could receive a reply from Han Guangcang and Luo Rucai, they received a royal decree from Prince Lu, Zhu Yipai. He firmly opposed Luo Rucai's troops coming to Yanzhou City and only requested that local soldiers be dispatched to provide assistance.

The reason why Prince Lu, Zhu Yi, acted this way was mainly because when Luo Rucai was a bandit, he participated in robbing the ancestral tombs of the Zhu family in Fengyang, and when he joined forces with Li Zicheng, he massacred several Ming princes in Henan.

It was because of these two incidents that Prince Lu, Zhu Yipai, was extremely wary of Luo Rucai. No matter what, he refused to allow Luo Rucai's troops to come to Yanzhou City, fearing that Luo Rucai might kill him on a whim and plunder the Prince's mansion.

Left with no other option, Deng Fanxi, the prefect of Yanzhou, sent a messenger with a letter to Jinan to request assistance from Wang Yongji, the governor of Shandong. This was also the reason why Wang Yongji wrote to Zhao Guangbian, the governor of Jizhou, requesting that he send troops to aid Yanzhou.

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Fortunately, the Jurchens' offensive on the seventh day was not particularly fierce.

Even so, after discussing with Wang Weixin, the deputy military commissioner, Tan Si and Zeng Wenwei, the prefectural magistrates, Xue Ming, the general of Rencheng Guard, and Ding Wenming, the deputy general, Deng Fanxi still felt that Yanzhou City could not withstand the attack of the Jurchens.

However, they sent several teams to break through the encirclement and beg for help in Jining Prefecture, but they were all intercepted by the Jurchen cavalry, and not a single one of them managed to break through the Jurchen encirclement.

Moreover, the Jurchens dragged back the bodies of the intercepted cavalrymen who had come to request reinforcements, neatly arranged them in an open space outside the city, and publicly beheaded the Ming cavalrymen they had captured alive, in order to intimidate the defending soldiers and civilians inside the city and demoralize them.

Helpless, Deng Fanxi and his men, having failed to obtain reinforcements, had no choice but to dismantle the houses near the city walls at night, taking their bricks, stones, and timber to strengthen the city's defenses, hoping to hold the city and drive away the Jurchen invaders.

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On the eighth day, several thousand more Jurchen cavalrymen arrived from who-knows-where, and the number of Jurchen bandits gathered under the walls of Yanzhou City was about to exceed ten thousand.

Just after dawn, the Jurchens launched a fierce attack on Yanzhou City.

The east and north sides of Yanzhou City were the main attacking areas for the Jurchens, while only a few hundred Jurchen cavalry were deployed to patrol the west and south sides. This was to prevent the Jurchens from withdrawing their troops to support the defenses on the east and north sides, and also to prevent the soldiers and civilians in the city from escaping from the west and south sides.

At 9:00 AM, the enemy finally broke through the northern city defenses.

First, several fierce bandits climbed onto the city wall. Yan Ding, the prefectural magistrate of Yanzhou, led the soldiers and civilians in a desperate resistance. However, due to exhaustion, he was killed by the bandits on the city wall. The remaining defenders, seeing this, were terrified and dared not fight any longer.

Meanwhile, Xue Ming, the commander-in-chief of Rencheng Guard responsible for guarding the north gate, had long been colluding with Han bannermen who had surrendered to the Jurchens. Taking advantage of the chaos, he opened the north gate, letting the Jurchens into the city, and Yanzhou fell completely. The prefect of Yanzhou, Deng Fanxi, the assistant prefect, Tan Si, the judge, and Li Changqi, among others, were all exhausted and captured. No matter how the Jurchens tried to persuade them to surrender, they cursed them and were beheaded outside the ceremonial gate of the prefectural government office.

Deputy Commander-in-Chief Ding Wenming, former Deputy Military Commissioner of Fengyang Guo Shiqi, and Magistrate of Ziyang Hao Fangsheng, among others, all fought to the death; Guo Shidong, an instructor at the prefectural school, also fought to exhaustion and, knowing that the situation was hopeless, committed suicide on the city wall.

The most tragic death was that of Wang Weixin, the Deputy Military Commissioner. After the fall of Yanzhou, he fought bravely against the enemy in the streets, refusing to surrender even at the cost of his life. He was wounded in twenty-one places and died in battle at the foot of the Drum Tower. Only Zeng Wenwei, the Assistant Prefect, was missing.

Even the miserly Prince Zhu Yipai was not spared, and eventually became a prisoner of the Jurchens. All the wealth of the royal palace was seized by the captives, and the princesses and palace maids were all taken away and suffered great mistreatment.

Yu Qijiao, the chief secretary of the Prince of Lu, led the guards of the Prince's Palace in a desperate battle against the Jurchens, killing five of them. However, he was ultimately outnumbered and beheaded outside the main hall of the Prince's Palace.

The imperial family and commoners of Yanzhou Prefecture were also massacred. Palaces, government offices, and houses were all burned down, and the whole city was deathly silent, like a ghost town.

The ninth day, at the hour of Si (9-11 AM).

The Jurchens split into three groups: one headed north to Tai'an and Dongping; another headed south to Zou County and Teng County; and the third returned to Jining Prefecture.

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On the fifth day of the twelfth lunar month, Huang Xixian, the river official in charge of waterways, had already led his troops across the Yangtze River and marched to Huai'an Prefecture.

At this time, reports about the invading Jurchen forces were also arriving in droves. The more Huang Xixian read them, the more his brows furrowed and his worry deepened. In particular, the news of the siege of Jinan and Yanzhou made him even more uneasy.

The Jurchens have now captured Linqing Prefecture and are dividing their forces into five routes to plunder. They are advancing rapidly and at breakneck speed, and almost the entire territory of Dongchang Prefecture has fallen, while Jinan Prefecture has also lost half of its territory.

The Jurchens had already invaded Qingzhou and Yanzhou, and their vanguard had even reached the territory of Shanxian, Tengxian, and Tancheng. Even the men and women of Fengxian, Peixian, Pizhou, and Haizhou in Southern Zhili began to flee south in an endless stream to avoid the Jurchens.

He Chen Huang Xixian dispatched elite cavalry to secretly investigate the movements of the Jurchens, while simultaneously advancing by land and water to urgently reinforce Yanzhou Prefecture.

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At this time, although many enemy cavalrymen were still roaming the countryside around Qihe, there had been no sign of a large-scale gathering of enemy troops for several days, and Qihe had not been attacked by enemy troops again.

It turned out that after Abatai's defeat in Qihe, he led his troops south and captured Changqing County. However, the other bandit groups were all out plundering and could not be recalled in a short time.

Furthermore, Turgh, who was the deputy commander, also sent him a message that his side had encountered the main force of the Ming dogs in Jining and did not have enough troops to attack Jining and Yanzhou at the same time.

Turge requested Abatai to mobilize various Jurchen tribes to provide assistance, hold back the Ming army, launch a surprise attack on Yanzhou Prefecture, capture the Ming Prince Lu, and plunder the wealth in the Prince Lu's palace.

Abatai also thought the plan was feasible, so he ordered all the bandit groups that had plundered the southern half of Jinan Prefecture to rush to the aid of Jining Prefecture and be under the command of Turge.

Meanwhile, the Jurchens in the northern half of Jinan Prefecture continued to plunder according to the original plan, and gradually moved towards Qingzhou Prefecture, waiting for an opportunity to turn back and launch a surprise attack on Jinan Prefecture.

He himself did not go elsewhere, but only plundered around Changqing County, and from time to time sent elite cavalry into Qihe County to plunder the villages, in order to create the illusion that his army had not gone far away, thus deceiving Cao Bianjiao and Lin Dengyou in Qihe.

Moreover, he also sent some spies from the Han Banner Army to Jinan to make contact and see if they could find an inside agent to launch a surprise attack on Jinan.

After all, Turg broke through Yanzhou and captured the Prince of Lu; he couldn't let Turg outdo him on this side... (End of Chapter)