The Happy Life of Small Officials in Northern Song Dynasty

After Su Jin sent the letter into the city, he led people straight to the Hunan Dam. After a night of accumulation, the water in the embankment was about to overflow the earth dam, and the simple earth dam was in danger.

The dynasty led thousands of soldiers to stand in the knee-deep water on the bank. Every ten men had a thick rope, and the other end of the rope was tied to the corner of the straw bag on the embankment. Straw bags, the dam will collapse in no time.

Su Jin rode his horse and stood in the water overflowing the embankment, waiting quietly, looking at the city of Zuzhou. He knew what the collapse of the embankment meant, so he warned the other party in advance, hoping that the other party would pay attention to it and evacuate the people However, there was no sign of evacuating the people from the city of Zuzhou. It seems that the warning was useless.

"Marshal, at the beginning, we have done our best, so there is no need to delay."

"Wait a minute, wait another half an hour." Su Jin waved his hand.

An hour and a half passed, Su Jin gritted his teeth, he knew he couldn't wait any longer, the delay in Zuzhou was too long, and the scouts he had sent out had detected in Bailiwan that various units of the Liao Army were reinforcing Linhuang Mansion Intent, if it is delayed, I am afraid that it will really fall into the encirclement of the Liao army and fight against it.

"Don't blame me for being ruthless. It's a life-and-death struggle, and that's all I can do." Su Jin shouted loudly: "Open the dam!"

All the soldiers shouted in unison with all their strength. Bags of straw bags were pulled away from the dam, and hundreds of bags of straw were taken away. The already precarious dam was already crumbling. The dam collapsed slowly, and suddenly there was a rumbling sound, and the speed of the collapse intensified. In the blink of an eye, the dam had collapsed in the center, forming a large gap more than two feet long. And down.

A huge flood poured into the lake, a layer of huge waves moved quickly, and soon reached under the city wall on the opposite bank, stirring up a wave of ochre-yellow waves. With the continuous injection of water, the water in the South Lake surged wildly, half Two hours later, the water level had overflowed the embankment on the inner side of the northern city wall.

During this half an hour, Su Jin was relieved to find that there was movement at the top of Zuzhou City, and there was a loud clang of gongs from a distance. This was an alarm of fire or disaster. It seemed that the people of Zuzhou City The lake has already found signs of skyrocketing water. Although it is far away, the voices of the people crying and running can still be heard clearly. Many people fleeing upward gradually appeared on the high roofs and city walls. Su Jin called out It seems that the city lord of Zuzhou understood his warning.

An hour later, more than half of the water stored in the dam drained into the South Lake. The South Lake skyrocketed, and the water surface widened a lot. Looking at Zuzhou City, it was already a vast ocean. Half of the two-foot-high city wall was submerged. There is nowhere to vent, rushing to and fro in the streets of the city, and the stagnant water in the city is already more than half a person's height; on the roofs, walls, and tree tops, there are densely packed people, watching in horror the flood that is gradually coming up.

The situation was worse than what Su Jin had expected. Su Jin originally estimated that the north side of Zuzhou City was four or five feet lower than the south side based on visual inspection, but now it seems that it is far more than that; fortunately, there is not much water in the dam, and the lake surface The wider it is, the more water it can hold, and it can only increase by about half a foot at most, but even so, many people's hiding places are no longer safe.

Ye Lurong, the city lord of Zuzhou, was about to cry, but he never expected that the Song army would do this. When he realized the Song army's intentions, it was too late. Fortunately, he immediately ordered a gong to sound a warning, telling the people to find a high place quickly. Dodging, the water came too fast, he didn't even have time to open the north gate to let the soldiers and people escape from the city.

At this moment, he is lying on the city wall like the soldiers and the people, and the flood is half a foot below his feet. How can this be a fart?How can you fight when you can't move an inch?Fortunately, the Song army could not attack in the water, so it was safe for the time being.

Su Jin had already figured it out. Last night when Jingtai and the dynasty were busy, Panjiang led fifty thousand soldiers and was not idle. The trees around were lush and green, and fir was the most tree species here. It was both tall and light; overnight, Panjiang led people I have made thousands of simple wooden rafts, and it is just in time to come in handy.

With Su Jin's order, thousands of wooden rafts were launched into the water. Five or six soldiers of the Song Army bent their bows, set up arrows, raised their guns and held knives. Heart, if you make a move at this time, you will seek your own death. Others don't need to confront you at all, just turn around and everyone will be trapped in the water to death.

The wooden raft shuttled back and forth, where there was a war, it seemed to be a rescue. The whole afternoon was spent back and forth to bring the people and the disarmed Liao soldiers to the high ground in the south. The soldiers were disarmed and sat on the ground dejectedly. , drenched all over; the people were gathered in another open space.

More than 3 defenders and more than [-] civilians in the city were not rescued until dark; hundreds of civilians had no time to escape or their houses were soaked and collapsed and drowned, but these were already very small casualties.

Su Jin was also scratching his head. It was originally a war, but now it has become a rescue. However, Su Jin has put down a barrier in his heart. It is better to seize the city without killing people than to kill people. But the problem now is that the flood has blocked the north This was not considered beforehand.

That night, Su Jin called everyone to discuss the direction of the next step. The flood blocked the road to the north, and Linhuang Mansion on the Shangjing Road was close at hand but could not pass. It would take many days until the flood receded. .

Pan Jiang's suggestion was to take a detour to the east and take a half-circle to attack Yikun County to the east of Linhuang Mansion; Jingtai's suggestion was to turn around and attack Yongzhou in the southeast. Going back to rescue the small group of Liao soldiers in Linhuang Mansion, they happened to intercept and kill them halfway.

Su Jin weighed again and again and decided to implement the second plan, because it would take more time to detour and attack Linhuang Mansion in Shangjing, and the Liao army was reinforcing Linhuang Mansion. It was a very good choice, because the farther away from Linhuang Mansion, the less deterrent the psychological shock to the Liao people, the longer it took, the harder it would be to go to Beijing, because there would be continuous reinforcements arriving.

The lesser of two evils, attacking Yongzhou at least won't confront the Liao people face to face, and continuing to move around in the hinterland of Liao is also a serious worry for the Liao people, they can't just ignore themselves.

How to deal with the soldiers of Zuzhou is a difficult problem. The massacre is naturally inhumane, but if they are left behind, they may become opponents on the battlefield in the future. The city lord, Ye Lurong, didn't need to be kept, and his curse was not clean, so Mahan dragged him into the woods and cut off his head.

Su Jin's decision to attack Yongzhou in the southeast is undoubtedly the most correct. Although Su Jin is unwilling and a little unhappy, in fact, if they pass through Zuzhou and arrive near Linhuang Mansion, they will find that they are facing the threat from the two Korean Jurchens. The blockade by the [-] frontier soldiers transferred back from the central government took nearly half a month from the capture of Raozhou to the flooding of Zuzhou. The army has also reached the vicinity of Gaozhou, which was burned to the ground. If Su Jin's army fought against the Liao army on the outskirts of Linhuangfu, it would be attacked from top to bottom.

As soon as Su Jin gave the order to turn around and go south, he accidentally picked up a big deal. At noon on the second day of the march, at a place called Niitou Mountain, two hundred miles north of Yongzhou, the cavalry who explored the road came to report and met three people. The figure of Wan Liaojun, Pan Jiang and the others immediately smiled when they heard the words, and they had another advantage to take advantage of.

These [-] soldiers were reinforcements from the Dading Mansion in Zhongjing who went north to rescue them. Since the army of the Song Dynasty raided Gaozhou more than ten days ago and pretended to attack Dading, it frightened the souls of Yeluji, the Pingzhang political officer of the Prime Minister's Mansion in Zhongjing, and hurriedly mobilized all the troops in the surrounding states and counties. Shrinking the protection, I didn't expect the Song army to be very cunning, dropped a flower gun and turned to the north to easily conquer Raozhou; Yelujiyou still didn't dare to act rashly, but then the emperor sent an imperial edict from the south, demanding that all the state capitals of Zhongjing Road must The boss of Yelujiyou was unwilling to quickly reinforce the Linhuang Mansion, because he was afraid that the Song people would return to their carbines again, and Dading would be lost after the troops were transferred.

After dawdling for many days, news came that the Song army had arrived in Zuzhou, and Yelujiyou was relieved, and ordered 5 troops to reinforce Linhuang Mansion, which was faster than the [-] troops who had withdrawn from the southern front. Even later.

Moreover, he has a mind. In order to avoid rear-end collision with the Song army in Zuzhou, he deliberately ordered his generals to detour to Yongzhou to go north. This can not only avoid encounters, but also delay time. Natural credit can be distributed, and he did not lose his soldiers and horses when he was defeated. After all, these soldiers and horses are all his tribal soldiers.

But I didn't expect that when the canopy was delivered, the sky didn't go according to my wishes, people were unlucky and drank cold water to stuff their teeth, even if they made a detour, they were still blocked by Su Jin's army.