The Happy Life of Small Officials in Northern Song Dynasty

() Li Yuanhao was blessed by misfortune. Although he lost a small battle, he managed to capture the [-] army of Brother Yeli. This is more worthy of celebration than winning Weizhou City in World War I.

For a long time, Li Yuanhao has been most afraid of these two people. Although these two are the elder brothers of the Queen Ye Li, they can be regarded as his loyal supporters after he ascended the throne, but the supporters of the 10,000+ Ye Li army are always It's frightening, and most of the time it depends on their faces. This time, Li Yuanhao was ecstatic to take advantage of such an opportunity to successfully get rid of their agitated generals.

Li Yuanhao didn't stop there. It's hard for these two old fools not to wake up on the way back. After all, the soldiers of the Yeli tribe still have to listen to them. After this battle, he has no reason not to return the military power. After returning the military power, the two It's really hard to say what people will do.

In view of this, Li Yuanhao did not stop doing anything, and immediately sent personal guards to follow the Yeli brothers, beheaded the two kings who had left in anger in a secluded wilderness on the spot, and left the standard weapons of the Song Army It was faked as the scene of the attack by the Song army. . .

Then he sent Zhang Yuan to the left and right camps of the Yeli clan to spread the word, saying that the two kings had important matters to return to Xingqing, and they asked their generals to lead their personal guards to protect them; At the scene of hacking to death with a knife, you will see the weapons of the Song people scattered on the spot, so Li Yuanhao announced that the two wild kings were intercepted and killed by the Song army's small group, and grafted their hatred on the Song people.

In less than two hours, Li Yuanhao got rid of his confidant. Although this action caused a huge shock in the army and aroused the suspicion of many people, Li Yuanhao didn't care about it, except Brother Yeli , he is not afraid of anyone's gossip at all.

Li Yuanhao immediately ordered himself to be the commander of the three armies, mixed the left and right armies and the central army, and replaced a group of key generals in the wild army for the people with the defeat in the first battle. Under the control of the army, at the same time Li Yuanhao ordered the army to cut wood and build ladders tomorrow to prepare for a full-scale siege.

The surge of people and horses in the Xixia army that Su Jin and others saw was Li Yuanhao's order to reorganize the troops to avoid chaos in the Yeli army. After the Xixia army gradually calmed down, groups of Xia army soldiers began to go Long Shan marched forward. It looked like Li Yuanhao had come to his senses and was going to attack the city from all directions by cutting down trees and building ladders.

Even if Wang Chaodang wanted to take people to burn the mountain, Su Jin hurriedly stopped him. Su Jin wondered what could these Xia soldiers do when they rushed to Longshan at this time, it was only two hours before dark.Logging overnight is impossible.

Su Jin raised a question, and the shrewd Jingtai's eyes lit up all of a sudden: "Master Su, in my opinion, these are the vanguard troops of Xia's logging army. They will definitely camp on Longshan Mountain and plan to stop there and wantonly cut down. Trees for a few days, and then send soldiers and horses to the camp, this group of people is less than [-], the lower officials have a bold suggestion..."

Before Jingtai finished speaking, Su Jin, Pan Jiang, and Li Chong said in unison: "Night attack...!"

Jingtai laughed loudly and said: "Heroes see the same thing, but we are not opponents in the horse battle, but in the mountains and forests, we are not afraid of the thieves at night. Besides, they are not many in number, and the terrain is not familiar to us. It is a good opportunity. .”

Su Jin clapped his hands and said: "Yes, they certainly wouldn't have thought that we would dare to take the initiative to attack, and that's why they dared to be so unscrupulous, Dynasty Mahan, immediately lead someone to secretly find out where the enemy camped, and don't disturb them , You only need to know how many of them there are and where they are camping, and report back immediately after finding out.”

Chao Mahan bowed his hands and left. Su Jin thought for a while and stopped them and said, "Old man Lu, please go with you. He knows everything about the plants and trees on Longshan Mountain, and he may be of great help."

Chao Mahan agreed, invited Lu Laosan to go with him, and led a dozen horsemen out of the south gate and made a big detour to the southeast of Longshan Mountain.

When it was getting dark, Chao Mahan, Lu Laosan and others rushed back to Weizhou City and went straight to the government office to see Su Jin. Su Jin was anxiously waiting for the news. Hearing the announcement, he hurried to the lobby of the government office. There was a lot of blood on Chao Mahan's face, and several horse soldiers behind him were also injured. Su Jin was startled, and asked in surprise, "What's the matter? Did you encounter the Western Thieves? How are your injuries?"

Wang Chao hurriedly said: "Ma Han and I were not injured, Ma Jun brothers were injured four, but the injuries are not serious."

Su Jin said: "That's good, how can the western thieves detect it? Then you can't go to sneak attack tonight."

Wang Chao hurriedly said: "My lord, we just ran into the scout team of the Western Thieves on the way back. There were about [-] people. We could have escaped quickly, but I was afraid that these scout teams would encounter the news that we were going to Longshan. Sending it back to the Western Thieves camp would arouse the Western Thieves' alertness, so they took the risk and took the initiative to attack and killed them all. The Ma Jun brothers suffered some injuries, but it was not a serious problem."

Su Jin breathed a sigh of relief, and praised: "You guys are quite generals now, and you are quite careful about things now. After this battle, I will ask for credit for you."

Ma Han chuckled and said, "Young Master, what is the point? Being an official is useful. I don't want to leave Su Ji. It's more comfortable to work with Young Master."

Chao Chao nodded and said: "Yes, I will not leave the young master, no matter how big the official is, I don't want it."

Su Jin smiled and said: "You guys, if you have meritorious service, you will naturally be promoted. Otherwise, people will say that I, Su Jin, don't know how to take care of the people under my command. We will discuss this matter later. Old man Lu is not frightened?"

Lu Laosan cupped his hands and said: "Thank you for your concern, the old man has seen a lot, so there is nothing to be scared about."

Wang Chao laughed and said, "Old man Lu is strong and strong, he slaughtered a scout of the Xia Army with his own steel fork, and his skill is even inferior to the youths of our horse army."

Su Jin raised his thumb and praised sincerely. He had heard that the folk customs in the Northwest are tough, and it can be seen from Lu Laosan, but he was not inspired. A tough guy like Lu Laosan would be a tricky thing at that time.

"Master Su, the old man knows a passage leading to the hillside where Xia Jun camped, and the old man will take you there at night."

Su Jin was overjoyed and said: "You eat some food first, I will immediately order Panjiang to reorganize the army, and we will set off after the sky is completely dark."

……

In the dark night, three thousand Weizhou troops headed for Longshan on foot under the leadership of Su Jin, Panjiang and Chao Mahan.

Under the leadership of Lu Laosan, the troops did not go directly to the place where the Xia army camped in the east of Longshan Mountain, but walked along the foot of the mountain for an hour to the bare mountain ridge on the southern slope, which has been occupied by the soldiers and civilians of Weizhou. Crazy logging has left only weeds and bare rocks.

Lu Laosan walked in front of the team, and saw him climbing up a large bluestone vigorously, stretched out his hand and pointed at the mountain wall and said in a low voice: "Master Su, there is a cave there, do you see it?"

Su Jin stared carefully, but couldn't see anything clearly in the pitch black, Lu Laosan said: "Listen carefully, is there any sound of running water?"

Su Jin listened carefully, and sure enough there was the sound of the gurgling stream with an echo. Although the sound was small, it could be heard clearly in the quiet night.

"This cave is called Huanglong Cave. It is the longest cave among the many caves on Longshan Mountain. It runs from the south slope to the east slope. In the afternoon, we secretly observed the place where the western thieves camped. It is just under the exit of the east slope of Huanglong Cave. In the valley, we can pass through this hole quietly, and we can reach the top of the western thief camp without anyone noticing."

Su Jinxi said: "This is great, but since there is a cave entrance, the western thieves may also find the cave entrance. If they are blocked in the cave, it will be troublesome."

Lu Laosan smiled and said: "My lord, look at the exit of Dongpo is very secret. It is a place with dense trees and entangled with thorns and vines. The western thief has not yet logged there. How did you find it? Besides, the snake in the cave Wolves often come and go, and they don't dare to drill into caves indiscriminately."

Su Jin was startled and said, "Are there any snakes or wolves in the cave?"

Lu Laosan nodded and said, "Yes, are you afraid, sir?"

Su Jin is not afraid of anything else, but he is a little afraid of snakes, but at this moment, the mountains of swords and seas of fire are about to be crossed, not to mention Lu Laosan is here, so he doesn't answer at the moment, and steps forward to the entrance of the cave with one foot deep and one foot shallow. Lu Laosan chuckled, followed quickly, pushed aside the weeds and entered the cave.

Three thousand soldiers filed in, and when they entered the cave, they could light torches to illuminate it. The cave was cramped at first, but the more it went inside, the more spacious it became. , under the feet is an underground river channel with fine gravel, flowing a clear and cold stream, and from time to time there are strange noises coming from the shaft vertically descending from the cave, which is a bit frightening.

Fortunately, the journey was safe and sound. Except for lizards and bats flying around, there were no tigers, wolves, insects or snakes. After walking for about half an hour, the cave wall turned sharply to the right.

Lu Laosan stopped walking and said, "My lord is almost at the Dongpo exit."

Su Jin sent an order to go down, put out the torches, and everyone pulled their clothes back and forth and groped slowly in the dark. Before a cup of tea, they heard the sound of the mountain wind sweeping through the treetops like raging waves hitting the shore, and it was obviously Dongpo. The hole has arrived.