Destroy Jin and conquer Song, and carry the Northern Expedition through to the end

Chapter 26 Who Says Human Life is Worthless (Part )
The fighting in the port continues.

Liu Huai had single-handedly killed his way through the Jin army's regular formation and arrived in front of the formation of soldiers and civilians in the rear.

To be honest, it's surprisingly simple.

This had nothing to do with one's martial arts skills or courage. It was simply that facing the heavily armored knights charging, the light infantry, with their disorganized formation and lacking long weapons, could only risk their lives to stop them.

However, in such a chaotic situation, it was impossible for officers to issue orders. Most of the ordinary soldiers wanted to save their lives, which were not that important but extremely precious to them. Faced with Liu Huai, who was armed to the teeth, they unconsciously retreated to avoid the sharp edge.

From afar, Liu Huai's mighty charge was like a hare leaping across the autumn wheat field. The Jin troops on both sides were like shaking waves of wheat, dodging to the sides in a daze.

Of course, there were brave men who tried to pull Liu Huai off his horse, but Liu Huai's long sword was not for show!
The Jin army's originally disorganized formation was completely thrown into disarray after being split into two by Liu Huai. The Song army led by Wei Sheng used fifty armored soldiers as the vanguard, followed by two hundred infantrymen armed with spears, swords and shields, and later shirtless sailors armed with long oars and wooden sticks, who killed their way in along the path opened by Liu Huai.

It can only be said that Wei Sheng was strict in managing his army, and the elite troops he gathered were indeed fierce. In sudden battles, they were able to maintain their formation and not get caught in a melee.

The Jin army, unwilling to be outdone, spontaneously launched a counterattack without the command of an officer. Their years of repeated victories had naturally given them a sense of pride. However, facing the enemy, the Jin army could only rely on individual bravery, which was doomed to failure.

Liu Huai also saw the small army formation in the corner. He rode his horse to the front and asked loudly, "I am Liu Huai of the Loyal Army of the Great Song Dynasty. May I ask if this is Uncle Zhang in person?"

"It's me!"

In the small formation, Zhang Rong's white hair was very conspicuous. When he saw Liu Huai covered in blood, his eyes showed only admiration, without a trace of fear.

Liu Huai immediately bowed respectfully.

Zhang Rong's reputation of being able to defeat ten thousand enemies was not boasted like that of Liu Guangshi and Zhang Jun, but was earned through fighting.

Zhang Rong actually had the lives of more than 10,000 Jurchen founding soldiers in his hands.

He was originally a fisherman in Yuncheng County, Dongping Prefecture. He rebelled because he was oppressed by officials during Song Huizong's collection of flowers and stones, and gathered at Liangshan Lake. His influence was many times greater than that of Song Jiang before him.

During the Jingkang Incident, the Jin army marched southward and the Song army was defeated. Dongping Prefecture was almost turned into a ghost town after being burned, killed and looted by soldiers and bandits. In order to defend his hometown, Zhang Rong fought against the Jin army in anger.

However, the founding army of the Jin Dynasty was over ten thousand and was invincible. Zhang Rong was defeated in the battle and could only lead his people south.

Thirty years ago, in the first year of Shaoxing, the Jin army invaded the south again, and the Jin marshal Wanyan Talan, the left military inspector, took charge of the Huainan war.

In order to relieve Wanyan Wushu's worries, Wanyan Talan (Wanyan Chang) fought all the way to Taizhou on the Yangtze River, and Zhang Rong fought side by side with Yue Fei, who was then the Tongtai pacification envoy, in Taizhou.

Even with Yue Fei's ability, he could only give up Taizhou and temporarily avoid Wanyan Talan's attack. However, Zhang Rong took advantage of the terrain and navy to lure the Jin army into the Suotou Lake, killing Wanyan Teri in one fell swoop and capturing Wanyan Talan's son-in-law, the marching commander Pucha Hulu, and captured and killed nearly 10,000 people.

Wanyan Talai fled in a panic to the north of the Huai River with only more than 2,000 people, and from then on he changed from being a pro-war faction to a pro-peace faction.

There were even rumors among the upper echelons of the Jin Dynasty that Wanyan Talai had lost his courage in this battle and was beaten into a useless person who dared not even speak about the military.

The counties and prefectures in Huainan were also recovered one by one by the Song army.

The victory at Shuotou Lake can be regarded as the first major victory of the Song Dynasty since the war between Song and Jin, and its significance is even higher than that of Huangtiandang.

As the saying goes, a person's reputation is like a tree's shadow. Even though Zhang Rong has been missing for nearly twenty years, once he reappears, he will become a significant weight on the scale. Even a reliance!
Didn’t you see that County Magistrate Li Ya immediately accepted his fate after learning about Zhang Rong’s identity?
"My dear nephew, I'm not in big trouble here, and the situation with Wei Dadao is settled." Zhang Rong waved his hand and said, "The most urgent task is to hold these soldiers captive and prevent them from running around."

Liu Huai lifted his helmet onto his head, stepped on the stirrup and looked at the array of soldiers who were either carrying loads or pulling ox carts, but he didn't know what to do for a moment.

Precisely because there were too many baggage in the army column and there were officers to control them from the outside, the nearly a thousand soldiers were just making a lot of noise and chaos, but had not yet reached the point of dispersing.

However, the problem was that there were too many people who signed up to join the army, more than 800 people.

No matter how good Liu Huai is at fighting, can he kill all these 800 people?

Even if you have the ability, you can't do this!

They are all poor people who were forcibly conscripted. If Liu Huai slashes at them with his knife, what is the difference between him and the Jin thieves?
Zhang Rong seemed to know what Liu Huai was thinking. He turned around and shouted, "Zhang Qing, the missing arrow! Come out and start working!"

A bald and bearded old man walked out of the shield formation, leading his horse. He was wearing brass leather armor and holding an unusually large iron-framed bow in his hand. His eyes were intimidating without being angry, which made people afraid.

"Zhang Qing without Feather Arrows?" Liu Huai was surprised. Although he knew that Zhang Rong was the leader of Liangshan, he had never thought that he would actually meet the hero of Liangshan.

There is a huge gap between Song Jiang and Zhang Rong!

This was actually a mistake made by Liu Huai. After all, "Water Margin" is not a historical record. When Shi Nai'an wrote it, he compiled a large number of characters from the Jing Kang period into a hodgepodge.

For example, Guan Sheng, the big knife, was clearly the defender of Jinan Prefecture during the Jing Kang period. He was poisoned by Liu Yu because he insisted on resisting the Jin Dynasty. He had nothing to do with Song Jiang at all, but he was forcibly arranged into the Five Tigers of Liangshan.

If this person knew about this in the afterlife, I don’t know whether he should cry or laugh.

In addition, Liu Huai suddenly realized that the "Mei" in Zhang Qing's nickname "Mei Yu Jian" does not mean "no" but "buried".

Considering the big bow in Zhang Qing's hand, it is enough to prove that this person's forte is not throwing stones, but drawing a hard bow!
"Da Lang, follow me!"

Without giving Liu Huai any time to think, Zhang Qing raised his bow and signaled Liu Huai to follow.

The two riders advanced along the edge of the army's formation. Zhang Qing fired his slingshot and shouted in his Shandong accent, "The Song army has arrived. Surrender and you will be spared! Get the hell down!"

Most of the soldiers were recruited from two routes in Shandong. When they heard the local accent, most of them were stunned on the spot and did not dare to run, but they also did not obey Zhang Qing's order to squat on the ground.

The officers in the army finally reacted, jumped on their horses, drew their swords, and hacked down the panicked soldiers around them. They pointed their bloody swords forward and said, "Push the soldiers forward! Smash them!"

He was giving orders to several Jin cavalrymen surrounding the Qian army.

The Jin army's armored cavalry immediately drew out their long weapons and began to kill the Haner soldiers in front of them, using their blood to force the soldiers to move towards the dock.

As long as the signed troops sneak in, the Jin army's regular troops can catch their breath, or even retreat behind the signed troops to reorganize their formation and then fight back.

After all, the attacking Song army was small in number. If a chaotic battle broke out, it would be hard to say who would live and who would die!
Chaos began to spread among the army. The men in the back cried and pushed forward, and many people were simply trampled to the ground.

(End of this chapter)