Northern Prefecture Rivers and Mountains

Chapter 407 Shun

On his escape, Yao Xing couldn't understand why he had been defeated.

And they suffered such a crushing defeat.

The Jin army pursued the Qin soldiers all the way from Qingni Pass to Lantian, killing seven or eight thousand Qin soldiers alone. That means each Jin soldier killed at least ten people...

Yao Xing was utterly terrified.

Although Liu Yu was not in the army, this force was trained by him and inherited his style from top to bottom.

The thought of the 30,000 Jin troops blocking the way outside Tongguan filled Yao Xing with even greater fear.

If the Jin army over there is as fierce as this force, then the end of the Qin state will truly be nigh.

In fact, the Qin army wasn't always this weak. In the Battle of Chaibi, all 40,000 elite troops left over from the Yao Chang era were captured, and the Qin state still hasn't recovered.

In order to resist the Jin army's northern expedition, Yao Xing temporarily conscripted various ethnic groups in Guanzhong to form a new army.

I didn't expect them to be so weak.

"Fortunately, there are Tongguan and Puban," Yao Xing comforted himself.

As if things weren't going to go wrong, just as he was thinking about the Jin army outside Tongguan, a scout came running from the north, his face full of fear, saying, "Your Majesty, the Jin generals Mao Dezhu, Liu Zhong, Zhu Lingshi, and others have sailed their warships up the Wei River and entered Guanzhong. They have already reached the Jing River!"

Jingshang is the confluence of the Jing River and the Wei River, and behind it is Bashang, and behind the Ba River is Chang'an!

What we feared most has come to pass; the situation has deteriorated to this point.

Yao Xing's face turned ashen in an instant. "Where are Yao Shao, Yao Qia, An Luan, Yao Moli, Tang Xiaofang, and the other generals?"

The Qin state had concentrated its only elite troops along the Tongguan and Puban line in the east, and they actually let the Jin army invade Guanzhong...

The scout quickly reported, "The General has led his troops in pursuit!"

Yao Xing glanced at the corpses scattered all over the city and the arrogant Jin army, and his scalp tingled. The Jin army to the north numbered 30,000, which was almost all the elite troops of the Northern Army.

Although Yao Shao had 50,000 troops under his command, Yao Xing had no confidence in the outcome of this battle.

Minister of the Left, Yin Wei, urgently said, "Your Majesty, you must not lose heart. There are still 40,000 troops in Chang'an. Now that the General is blocking their rear, and the Jin army has come from afar, their supplies will surely run out. They are already trapped. Your Majesty only needs to hold Chang'an and wait for their supplies to run out before launching a counterattack to destroy the main force of the Northern Army. Once the Northern Army is destroyed, the Central Plains will not be able to be defended. Then, we can go out of the pass for another battle and the Central Plains will be ours!"

The Jin army stormed into Guanzhong with great force, but the main force of the Qin army was still intact and had already cut off Mao Dezhu's retreat route.

Therefore, as long as Chang'an is defended in this battle, the 30,000 elite troops of the Northern Army will undoubtedly be defeated.

With the main force of the Northern Army wiped out, the Central Plains would inevitably fall, allowing Yao Xing to turn the tide and win.

At this moment, another scout came to report, "Your Majesty, Generals Yao Qiang and Yao Nan have led 10,000 infantry and cavalry to Jingkou to resist the Jin army. Generals An Luan and Yao Moli have been making day and night raids with their cavalry to Ba Shang to set up defenses!"

Yao Xing took a deep breath and composed himself.

The situation doesn't seem to have reached its worst point yet.

There is even a sliver of hope.

"Your Majesty can also seek help from Northern Wei. In the present world, there is a three-way balance of power, with Jin being the only strong power and Qin and Wei being the two weak powers. If Jin destroys Qin, Wei will also find it difficult to stand alone!"

Yin Wei was also a veteran official of three dynasties. He came from the Yin clan of Tianshui, joined Yao Xiang, and later returned to the Former Qin. He supported Yao Chang to establish himself. When Yao Chang was seriously ill, he and other important officials of the royal family accepted his dying wish and became the entrusted ministers to assist Yao Xing in ascending the throne.

In the Battle of the Abandoned Bridge, he led his troops to seize the bridge and cut off the water supply. Fu Deng launched a fierce attack but could not take it. Two or three out of ten of his soldiers died of thirst. Afterwards, he led his troops to fight a decisive battle with Fu Deng and won a great victory.

The Qin state had reached such a point that it could no longer afford to dwell on old grudges.

Yao Xing grabbed Yin Wei's hand, "Without Lord Yin, I would have almost lost my country!"

He immediately dispatched a messenger on horseback to Wei to request aid.

Encouraged by Yin Wei's words, Yao Xing's confidence was greatly boosted. "All generals, listen to my command! Follow me back to Chang'an and together we will besiege the Jin army under Mao Dezhu and Zhu Lingshi. We will make sure they are wiped out!"

However, while his confidence returned, the generals did not; the fear in their eyes did not dissipate.

When besieging Shen Tianzi, Yao Xing was just as confident, but he suffered a crushing defeat.

The Qin army's morale was completely shattered, especially considering that this was Yao Xing personally leading the expedition!

The emperor's crushing defeat dealt an even greater blow to morale, and the Northern Army on the Wei River numbered as many as 30,000!

Victory depends on strength, not words.

"Did you all hear me clearly?" Yao Xing, his hand on the hilt of his sword, was already frustrated by the crushing defeat. Seeing his generals looking so half-dead, he became even more furious.

"Yes, sir," the generals replied listlessly.

Slide.

"Is this even human?" Liu Daogui was astonished after reading the battle reports from all sides.

The Shen brothers, with a force of over a thousand men, not only breached Wuguan and Qingniguan, but also defeated Yao Xing's army of fifty to sixty thousand men, killing seven to eight thousand in battle.

"It seems that the Qin army's fighting strength is not as good as that of the demon bandits of yesteryear. After this battle, Yao Qin will be destroyed, and the two brothers should be credited with the greatest merit." Liu Yu was full of satisfaction.

Birds of a feather flock together; no wonder he valued the Shen brothers so much.

These two are like him; when they fight, they are both ruthless people who are not afraid of death.

However, Mao Dezhu, Zhu Lingshi, and Shen Qingzhi were equally impressive, directly sailing their warships up the Wei River, bypassing the main Qin army forces at Puban and Tongguan, and defeating Yao Qiang and Yao Nan's 10,000 infantry and cavalry at Jingkou, killing Yao Qiang...

This Northern Expedition went far too smoothly.

Freezing three feet is not a day's cold.

After the pacification efforts of Liu Daogui and Liu Yu, the Jin dynasty's national strength was restored. After so many years of war, the morale of the Chinese people, which had been declining, quietly rose again through the brothers' many arduous battles.

It can be said that the Jin army is currently at the peak of its strength.

The people and soldiers throughout the country all held high hopes for this Northern Expedition.

This was not the Northern Expedition of Liu Yu and Liu Daogui, but a desperate counterattack that China had been brewing for eighty or ninety years after the migration of the elite to the south!
The fate of the entire nation is intertwined with this Northern Expedition.

Xie Hui said, "Mao Dezhu and Zhu Lingshi are surrounded. If Yao Xing holds the position without fighting and adopts a scorched-earth policy, the outcome will be uncertain. We can enter the pass and destroy Yao Qin first."

"No need, Mao Dezhu, Zhu Lingshi and other generals will surely win!" Liu Daogui had no intention of supporting Guanzhong.

"Oh?" Liu Yu chuckled. "It seems Agui is quite confident."

Liu Daogui said, "Huatai is nearly two thousand li away from Guanzhong, and Puban and Tongguan are both in the hands of the Qin army. It would be of no use for us to rush there. It would be better to continue to hold Huatai and confront the Wei army."

It's too late to get there now.

Xie Hui was good-looking, eloquent, and had excellent political and literary abilities, but he was far lacking in military strategy.

With over 100,000 infantry and cavalry holding firm on the north bank, Liu Daogui can no longer retreat even if he wants to.

Otherwise, if the army moves, hundreds of thousands of Wei troops will press down, and not only will the Central Plains be in danger, but even the Jianghuai region will be in peril.

After the migration of the elite to the south, the biggest weakness of the powerful families was the continuous decline in their military capabilities. The most obvious example was the Xie family. Xie Xuan was exceptionally talented, Xie Shi and Xie Wan were still capable, but by the time of Xie Yan, Xie Yu, and Xie Hui, all that remained was empty talk.

This situation also occurred with the Huan family. Strictly speaking, Huan Wen's several Northern Expeditions were not defeated on the main battlefield, but rather in terms of logistics. In the early stages of each Northern Expedition, he was suppressing the Hu people.

But after Huan Wen and Huan Chong, the Huan family also became corrupt, and fewer and fewer people in the Huan family were capable of fighting.

At this moment, a scout rushed in to report, "Report—Generals Mao Dezhu, Xiao Chengzhi, and Shen Qingzhi have decisively defeated the armies of Yao Shao, Yao Zan, and Yao Pi at Ba Shang, beheading over four thousand enemy soldiers and defeating forty thousand Qin troops in total, and are continuing their advance towards Chang'an!"

"Excellent!" Liu Daogui also looked pleased.

In fact, the Qin state's backbone had already been broken in the Battle of Qingni Pass. Yao Xing personally led the expedition, but he couldn't even handle eight or nine hundred Beifu soldiers. What would the people and soldiers in Guanzhong think?
As an emperor, one cannot easily go to war; and once one goes to war, one cannot be defeated.

"The General's forces are truly full of hidden talents." Xie Hui quickly came up to flatter him.

Liu Yu said, "With no worries about the west, we can now prepare to attack Wei!"

Everyone looked at Liu Daogui.

Liu Daogui said, "Chang'an has not been captured, Guanzhong is not peaceful, and Yao Qin's generals are all abroad. Now is not the time to attack Wei."

Although the western campaign was going well, Chang'an had not yet been captured, and Qin's influence remained.

Sending troops north at this time is really overconfident.

When the Northern Expedition was launched, Liu Daogui did not really agree with attacking Wei. He just didn't expect Yao Xing to be defeated so quickly. He was easily defeated, and in less than three months, his army collapsed like a house of cards.

But Wei was different from Qin; it was powerful and its people were loyal.

Even if we were to attack Wei, we should have done so after annexing Qin, and then transferred one or two elite troops from Guanzhong.

Attacking only Hebei is meaningless. Hebei is more like a large net, with tens of thousands of Tuoba Si's elite cavalry stationed in Zhongshan, looking down from a high position, waiting to strike.

"Time waits for no one. The threat to Wei is even greater than that to Qin. Now, with the momentum of a great victory, we have the courage of all sides broken and can advance straight in. You can sit comfortably in Huatai and watch me defeat the enemy!"

Liu Yu's expression was unusually serious, and he wouldn't listen to Liu Daogui's advice at all.

At this moment, Xie Yu stepped forward and added fuel to the fire, saying, "Since the Song army rose up, it has been invincible in every battle and has never been defeated. Tuoba Si is still wet behind the ears. As long as we win a great victory in Hebei, the Wei Kingdom will surely disintegrate like the Qin Kingdom! Moreover, the people of Hebei are eagerly awaiting the royal army's northern expedition, just like they are waiting for the stars and the moon. If our army hangs south of the Yellow River for several months without crossing the river, we will surely lose the hearts of the people!"

"My mind is made up." Liu Yu coughed violently.

Liu Juanzi quickly stepped forward to take his pulse, but her eyes were filled with deep worry as she looked at Liu Daogui.

Liu Daogui was inspired by Shen Tianzi and Mao Dezhu's great victory.

Given his personality, he would never have wanted to die of illness in his bed.

Although Liu Yu's northern expedition was partly driven by personal motives, it was also his lifelong ambition...

(End of this chapter)