Madam, don't do this!

Chapter 291 Don't Forget the Jingguan (6,000 characters)

The cold moonlight hung overhead.

The reflection on the faces of the Jurchen barbarians made them appear even paler.

Whether it's a man, a woman, an old person, or a child.

They still held their weapons, but their bodies trembled. Even the most lively children had lost the ferocity they once displayed when killing, cooking, and eating meat; all that remained was an overwhelming fear. Their wide eyes stared at the sky, as dense raindrops seemed to descend like dark clouds… but those weren't raindrops; they were deadly arrows.

I've heard that locust plagues are common in the Central Plains. Once the locusts arrive, they swarm everywhere... I wonder how this rain of arrows compares to those locust plagues?
They're probably not that different.

In reality, Song Yan only had 30,000 soldiers under his command. Even if the remaining soldiers were all infantry archers, after deducting the black-armored soldiers and cavalry, the total number would be no more than 20,000.

Compared to the powerful crossbow formations and bow formations of the Qin Dynasty, it was far inferior.

However, the Haoshi tribe was not large, so the rain of arrows seemed much denser.

For a moment, the barbarians in the tribe seemed to have been captivated, standing there blankly, motionless, even forgetting to dodge.

Until an arrowhead grew larger and larger in Ulun's eyes, its twisted body and gleaming arrowhead even causing a stinging pain in Ulun's pupils... The next instant, with a soft thud, the arrow pierced directly into Ulun's left eye and then through his skull.

It really hurts.

With a thud, Ulun fell onto the snow, his body convulsing.

This should have been a fatal wound, but human vitality is incredibly tenacious, and Ulun hasn't died yet. Perhaps he can hold on for another minute or half a minute. However, for Ulun, this extra time is hardly a good thing. He feels the stinging pain, senses the approach of death, and hears continuous screams in his ears.

The despair of a people is perhaps the true torment.

The sounds of "plop, plop, plop" continued incessantly.

After Ulun fell to the ground, the remaining barbarians finally reacted, screaming in alarm and covering their heads as they tried to find a place to hide.

But in this situation, there's nowhere to hide.

Even if you crawl inside the tent, the thick animal hides can't stop the arrows from piercing you; you'll eventually get a piercing wound right through you.

Even worse, some tried to break through the encirclement on horseback, but before they could even get close, they were turned into hedgehogs.

Anyone taller than a cartwheel will be beheaded... With this order in place, most people can understand what it means: go ahead and kill.

Kill those who surrender.

Kill prisoners.

Killing an old man.

Killing children.

The Central Plains dynasties have always prided themselves on being a land of propriety, especially among scholars. If any general goes too far, he will inevitably face a barrage of criticism and impeachment in the imperial court. The merits and rewards he has just earned may be lost, and he may even be punished. Therefore, when fighting, generals in the Central Plains often show leniency to these types of people.

However, most of the soldiers in the army disdained it.

I scoff at this so-called benevolence and righteousness.

You scholars who only know classical Chinese all day long are so benevolent, but what about the soldiers? What about the comrades who died? What about the civilians who were slaughtered by foreign tribes? In the eyes of those scholars, they are probably just soldiers, peasants, in short, not worthy of respect. If sacrificing them can bring good reputation to scholars, it is probably a good deal.

These scholars probably never imagined that the elderly among the foreign tribes might have had the blood of countless Han people on their hands when they were young.

A child spared might become a disaster for the Central Plains a decade or so later.

Now, following a general like Song Yan, I feel great. I can settle scores and grievances. That's how a warrior should be. Why bother with so many complicated rules?

Even the soldiers under Jiao Junze's command had similar thoughts.

Song Yan didn't care much about what others thought; he just silently watched the battlefield. This massacre lasted a short time, and the war was actually over when the encirclement was formed.

Before long, the sounds of arrows piercing the air and the fighting gradually subsided. The entire tribe had been trampled to pieces, leaving behind a scene of devastation. The air was thick with the stench of blood, and the tribe was littered with corpses, each with a dozen or so arrows embedded in it. Occasionally, there were still some alive, groaning in pain.

The scene might have been a bit gory, but the soldiers didn't feel fear; instead, their chests were filled with suppressed excitement. Once upon a time, the Jurchen cavalry ravaged the territory of Ningguo, killing countless people. Now, it was finally their turn to taste what that felt like.

The rest is self-explanatory; Lei Yi had already led a group of black-armored warriors into the battlefield.

"Clear the area, and finish off any survivors."

"Also, ear-cutting as a reward."

The character 聝 (guā) means ear.

The word "聝" here refers to cutting off the left ear of an intruder in battle as a token of merit.

Of course, in actual combat, everyone is blinded by rage and wouldn't immediately crouch down to cut off an enemy's ear and stuff it into their clothes after killing them. That would be suicidal; doing so would most likely result in a knife coming from the side and chopping off your head. True ear-cutting for merit usually only happens after the war, during the cleanup of the battlefield.

However, soldiers often struggled to identify which enemy they had killed, and some might not even remember how many they had killed. Furthermore, some corpses were mutilated beyond recognition. Due to the nature of ancient warfare, even the victorious side suffered losses. These fallen soldiers might have had several heads severed, which were unclaimed. Therefore, under normal circumstances, most soldiers would receive slightly more credit than the actual heads, essentially fighting over a single ear.

As for those killed by stray arrows, they would probably be recorded and distributed equally among the archers.

This scene looks rather awful.

Just then, Lei Yi shouted again, "After cutting off the ears, don't forget to cut off the head too, we need to build a mound of heads."

A black line appeared on Song Yan's forehead.

Many soldiers in Dingzhou, including Jiao Junze, were looking at Song Yan with a slightly strange gaze. They had long heard that this general liked to pile up human heads into mounds, and they thought the rumors were exaggerated. Now it seemed that he really had a special interest in mounds.

That's really perverted.

Song Yan had a vague feeling that his reputation was being harmed again.

In all honesty, those words were said by Lei Yi, what does it have to do with Song Yan?

As the last survivor was finished off, all the soldiers rested on the spot, and the logistics team then entered the battlefield to collect arrows and plunder valuable items from the command post, whether it was food, animal hides, or even those mediocre scimitars.

Arrows are of utmost importance.

The production process of arrows is quite complex, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and costly. They are valuable military supplies for the army, and it would be a waste if they were not recycled.

Song Yan dismounted, found a clean place to sit down, called over Jiao Junze, and also summoned a military clerk.

"Recorded in the nineteenth year of Ninghe."

"Jiao Junze, the prefect of Dingzhou, and Song Yan, the prefect of Pingyang, led 30,000 troops out of the border on the 25th of the twelfth lunar month. Heavy snow blocked the mountains, making their journey difficult. They found traces of the Jurchens a hundred miles northwest of Xinhou County."

"On the 27th day of the twelfth lunar month, he led his army in a surprise attack on the Jurchen Haoshi tribe. His soldiers fought bravely and fiercely for a day and a night, and the Haoshi tribe was wiped out."

As Jiao Junze watched the clerk diligently writing down everything, recording every single detail of Song Yan's words without a trace of falsehood, his face suddenly twitched.

A day and a night of fierce fighting?
Jiao Junze looked up at the moon and, even counting the time it would take to travel after dinner, it probably wouldn't be a full day and night.

Is this kind of record a bit exaggerated?
However, upon reflection, if he didn't put in the effort to record everything, the credit wouldn't seem so significant. Besides, it was just a slight change to the conflicting time, which shouldn't be a big deal, so Jiao Junze held back.

"In this battle, a total of 22,174 Jurchen barbarians were beheaded. Their heads were collected and will be used to build a Jingguan (a mound of heads) in the spring of next year to demonstrate the power of our Great Ning Kingdom."

"We captured 300 warhorses, as well as countless supplies such as grain and animal hides."

puff.

Jiao Junze, who had just managed to hold back his saliva, couldn't help but spit it out. Seeing the clerk still writing furiously, Jiao Junze's face turned red. He quietly nudged Song Yan's waist with his elbow: "Brother, isn't this...aren't you going a bit too far?"

Good heavens, you actually dared to write that? The entire cell department, including men, women, and children, has a little over ten thousand members, and some of the elites were even transferred away. But Song Yan just casually mentioned over twenty thousand... and he even included the exact number.

Clearly, this wasn't the first time he'd done this despicable thing of falsely reporting his war achievements.

Even if you write 15,000 words, exaggerating by half would be fine, right?
Song Yan glanced at Jiao Junze with some surprise. It seemed that although Jiao Junze had served as the governor for many years, he had too little contact with the court. He was no match for that old fox, Fang Hai, in terms of the intricacies of the court.

Speaking of which, Song Yan really needs to thank Fang Hai; this is all valuable experience.

Thinking this to himself, Song Yan sighed and pointed around: "Brother Jiao, what do you see?"

"Our brothers, what else?"

“No, what I see is not brothers, what I see are the parents that brothers need to support, the children that need to be raised, and the dowries that brothers want to give to get married…” He patted Jiao Junze on the shoulder: “There are only 10,000 heads, but we have 30,000 brothers. How can that be enough? If you don’t report more to your superiors, where will the brothers get the rewards from the court?”

"Shouldn't we try to give our brothers a better future? Even if they don't get promoted, a few more strings of cash would be good enough. Our brothers have risked their lives for us. What can we do with the little bit of silver I promised them before?"

Jiao Junze's lips twitched. He suddenly understood why Song Yan had been promoted and received a raise so quickly.

Seeing that Jiao Junze was speechless for a moment, Song Yan continued to ask in a low voice, "Do you have any subordinates on your side who you are on good terms with and who you are planning to promote?"

"There are indeed two. The documents have been sent to the Ministry of War, but we haven't received a reply yet."

"name."

Jiao Junze then named those people.

Then Song Yan spoke again: "In this battle, Luo Tianyang, the vanguard of Pingyang Prefecture, took the lead and killed Wulun, the Khan of the Haoshi tribe. Lei Yi, the adjutant, killed Wufu, the eldest prince of the Haoshi tribe. Zhang Han, the cavalry commander, personally killed the second prince of the Haoshi tribe..."

Another series of merits were recorded. On Song Yan's side, Luo Tianyang, Lei Yi, Zhang Han, Wang Chao, Ma Han, and even the few people Jiao Junze wanted to promote, most of them had a record of beheading a prince.

Although it was just a small tribe, he was still a prince, which made it sound better. With such merit in killing a prince, the imperial court would certainly reward him.

Jiao Junze was already somewhat numb. He roughly knew some of the inside story about military merits, but he never expected that the so-called distribution of military merits would be so... well, so simple and unpretentious.

"In this battle, our army suffered 367 cavalrymen killed, 2,296 infantrymen killed, and thousands wounded. We earnestly hope that the court will show mercy."

The clerk finally put down his brush; the yellow memorial was now covered with writing.

"Brother Song, are you planning to send him to Dongling immediately?" Jiao Junze asked with some curiosity.

"No, no need to rush." ​​Song Yan stretched and said, "It's just a small tribe. This amount of merit is not enough. Let's save it up a bit more. It would be best if we could get His Majesty excited all at once. When His Majesty is extremely excited, he will definitely reward us generously. Moreover, it would be even better if we handed it to His Majesty in person."

"personally?
"Huh?" Song Yan was taken aback: "Brother Jiao has been a prefect for quite some years now. Doesn't he know that prefects of various prefectures are required to report to the capital after the New Year and before the Lantern Festival?"

A prefect is, after all, a high-ranking official in a region.

To avoid situations similar to regional warlordism, the governors would make a trip to the capital every year after the New Year, partly to bestow rewards and win over officials, and partly to issue warnings.

Jiao Junze suddenly realized that he was naturally aware of this rule as a prefect, but he just couldn't recall it at the moment.

After a pause, Song Yan spoke again: "Brother Jiao seems to still have doubts? If you have any questions, please feel free to ask."

Although he was clearly the senior, he believed his military strategy was no less than Song Yan's, but in other aspects, he seemed far inferior. After a brief hesitation, Jiao Junze said, "We clearly captured over a thousand warhorses..."

A casual glance revealed that Lei Yi and his companions had already begun gathering warhorses, and those with injuries were being treated quickly. These were all precious horses, and it would be heartbreaking to lose even one.

Although the exact number is unknown, it is estimated to be at least a thousand.

"Why only report three hundred?"

Song Yan smiled and said, "This is a warhorse, a rare item. If an imperial decree were to be issued demanding it, would you give it to it?"

“Of course I will give it to you. I have no intention of rebelling, so why would I disobey the imperial decree?”

“That’s right. If you report a thousand, he’ll dare to take seven hundred. If you report three hundred now, even if the court is greedy and takes everything, they can only take three hundred. We’ll still have seven hundred left, right?” Song Yan chuckled. “Brother Jiao, you know how important warhorses are to our soldiers.”

"If these warhorses were to arrive in the capital and be put into the Imperial Stables for breeding, that would be fine. I would even accept them being given to other generals." Song Yan's smile turned somewhat sarcastic. "It's just a pity that most of them will be divided up by those second-generation nobles. If even one or two out of ten can be used for legitimate purposes, that would be considered fortunate."

"How can we let those bastards get away with what we brothers risked our lives for?"

Jiao Junze opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing.
He was also intelligent; he just hadn't quite grasped the concept before, but now, after a little prompting from Song Yan, he understood... Reporting casualty figures served two purposes: firstly, it provided compensation to alleviate the financial difficulties of the border generals; secondly, it highlighted the brutality of the war.

On the battlefield, a general's merit is usually calculated by subtracting his own casualties from the number of heads taken.

If the number of kills exceeds the number of casualties, that is a merit; otherwise, that is a fault.

Reporting casualty figures might reduce the credit, but considering the inflated figures for beheadings, it wouldn't have a significant impact... On the contrary, if 20,000 beheadings were achieved without a single casualty, it would inevitably raise suspicions of killing innocent people to claim credit, and it would also make people feel that the victory came too easily and wouldn't be taken seriously.

If you don't value it, you'll receive fewer rewards.

"Brother Song is indeed quick-witted," Jiao Junze said with a smile. He was genuinely impressed; although Song Yan was only sixteen, he was more experienced than many seasoned veterans in officialdom.

"What should we do next? Please advise, Brother Song?" Jiao Junze clasped his hands in a fist salute.

Song Yan chuckled: "It's not really giving pointers, let's just discuss it together."

As he spoke, he took out a map from his pocket.

“We are in this location now.” He pointed to the map and drew an arc: “The Anchegu tribe is over here, and the Jurchen royal court is here, about three hundred li away from us.”

“Anchegu is also a large tribe. Even though Wanyan Guangzhi’s forces have an absolute advantage, it will not be an easy task to take Anchegu.”

“Anchegu’s geographical location is quite special. It is bordered by mountains to the north, and there is only one canyon in the middle for passage. Although the Anchegu tribe’s encampment is not close to the snow-capped mountains, it is not too far away. In other words, there is a certain possibility that Wanyan Guangzhi’s army will be discovered when passing through the canyon.”

Jiao Junze looked at the map and nodded: "That's right. Once discovered, the Anchegu tribe will be prepared. As long as they use swift and decisive means to kill everyone who has crossed the canyon and then guard the canyon exit, the two sides will be locked in a stalemate, and the war will be prolonged."

"If it were me, I would choose to set up a group of troops on the other side of the canyon, while the main force would bypass the snow mountain. Although it would waste some time, it would allow us to appear directly behind Anchegu and form a pocket with our numerical advantage, making it more unexpected. Even if Anchegu is defeated and tries to escape through the canyon, they will encounter the ambush we arranged earlier."

"In this way, the entire skeleton of the Anche can be annihilated."

Song Yan nodded. After all, he was a general who had led troops, so he had the ability in this area, unlike Qian Yaozu, who was a military supervisor who did nothing but recklessly charge around. When he lost, he would just cower in fear.

"Wanyan Guangzhi is a clever man; he can think of anything we can do. If we continue to fight in this way, how long do you think it will take for the Anchegu tribe to be wiped out?"

"It will take at least five days, or even seven days."

After a moment's thought, Jiao Junze replied, "On the one hand, the weather is too cold, which will seriously affect the soldiers' physical strength, and the efficiency of the battle will naturally decrease."

"On the other hand, although Wanyan Guangzhi has gathered the elites of all the tribes, these people may not be truly willing to fight for Wanyan Guangzhi. Most of them will only go through the motions. After all, there are many tribes that do not want the Wuji tribe to become the only dominant force. The real battles will mostly have to rely on Wanyan Guangzhi's direct subordinates."

"So, although the situation of the Anchegu tribe looks bad, it's not that bad... Moreover, large tribes like this, although they don't build cities, still create some defensive fortifications in their settlements, such as chevaux-de-frise, towers, and fences. Originally just to protect against wild animals, they can still hold out for a while."

"Furthermore, the Anchegu tribe has a large population, and it is a war of annihilation. As the saying goes, a desperate army is bound to win. It is possible for them to hold out for more than ten days."

Song Yan nodded with admiration. This analysis was quite good; it pointed out things that Song Yan hadn't thought of before.

"That's right, so we have two paths in front of us."

"The first option is to head to the vicinity of Anchegu and ambush them. We'll wait as planned, and when both sides are exhausted and weakened, we'll suddenly appear and take as many heads as we can. However, this might require us to endure a long period of time in the freezing cold, without being able to set up camp or even cook. We'll be easily discovered, and the brothers might not be able to hold out."

"Moreover, we are too few in number. If we appear, it is possible that the Jurchens will temporarily put aside their conflict, unite against a common enemy, and turn around to deal with us."

"What about the second way?"

"By bypassing Anchegu, bypassing the snow-capped mountains, bypassing Wanyan Guangzhi's marching route, we will strike straight at the heart of the enemy."

Jiao Junze's pupils suddenly contracted; Song Yan's target was none other than—the Royal Court!
(End of this chapter)