You have truly caused me great suffering!

Rongcheng, the city garrisoned by the Zhong family army, is located at the junction of Youyan and Hebei, and was built near the Yi River.

Zhong Shizhong stood on the city wall, watching the dust rising in the distance.

At this moment, countless Tartars were rushing towards this place.

Looking at the city so close at hand, Nalu felt a surge of pride. If he could achieve this first merit in the northward march, he would be able to replace the deceased Wanyan Yinshuke and become Zonghan's trusted and beloved general.

He was not unprepared for this; he had already searched and arrested many civilians in the Hebei prefecture, which had long been occupied.

They're going to use their usual tactic.

The arrival of the Jurchen troops was nothing to be alarmed about, given that Zhong Shizhong had already been killed in battle in Hebei.

I already knew that the Tartars were strong, and I should have many opportunities to fight to the death.

However, Zhong Shizhong hoped to fight a few more battles and make one last contribution to the Central Plains, so as not to have been born into a family of such high social standing as the Zhong family.

But as the fighting went on, he grew increasingly resentful; these barbarians were truly inhuman.

Your Jurchen army was at its peak in destroying the Liao dynasty, and you had a numerical advantage. You can simply fight us, the Song army, sword to sword and spear to spear.

Why drive these people to fill the city walls?
Looking at the Dingnan Army's battle record again, Zhong Shizhong seemed to have an epiphany.

Since Tong Guan's campaign against Liao, the battle in Yan has resulted in immense suffering and loss of life.

The Prince of Dai could have waited until the Jin dynasty ravaged Hebei before ordering the Dingnan army to advance eastward, or even stopped in Yunnei.

However, his Dingnan Army always stood at the forefront, and it was only then that Zhong Shizhong began to understand Chen Shao's thoughts.

Is it really about seizing Song territory? Let the Tartars march all the way to Bianliang, then we'll fight them.

If one truly desires power and position, what difficulty would it be to directly lead troops under the pretext of serving the emperor, slaughter everyone in Tokyo, and repeat the deeds of Dong Zhuo and Zhu Wen?

Why send troops out in all directions while you struggle to maintain the situation in Taiyuan and keep your troops at the forefront?

They held nothing back, attacking the Jurchen Tartars relentlessly.

The Prince of Dai simply did not want the tragedy of the Liao people destroying the country to be repeated on the land of the Song Dynasty!
He did it for the people, for the people of the Song Dynasty. There is no other reason to explain it.

I used to be so petty and prejudiced!
Such people are very arrogant. They will not listen to your explanations at all. You can only make them realize it after they see it with their own eyes.

Before he came here, he was thinking about the Dingnan Army and the Song Dynasty. Although he knew he was coming to fight the Jurchen Tartars, he did not put the Tartars first.

Seeing them surge in, the people of the Great Song Dynasty were plunged into an unprecedented catastrophe.

Zhong Shizhong suddenly remembered the rumors about the Jurchen Tartars driving away the Liao people and besieging the city when they destroyed the Liao.

It's actually true.
According to the Tartars' custom, when driving captives to attack a city, they would slowly gather them outside the city.

Then they launched a series of increasingly powerful offensives, using only flesh and blood to pave a path through the enemy lines.

But the Tartars didn't have that time, so Zonghan ordered the various Jurchen tribes that were plundering and killing in all directions to gather some of them and drive others on their way.

Drive the people to the city walls, then force them to attack the city; however many people arrive, fill the city with them.

Such an offensive is naturally not as efficient as a concentrated attack, and it will cost many times more lives.

But these were all commoners of the Southern Dynasty who died, so what was there for Zonghan to feel sorry about?
It all comes down to whether the defending army has more arrows or the Southern Dynasty's people outnumber them!
No matter what, even if it turns this land into a sea of ​​blood, we must break through Rongcheng within a day or two.

Smoke and dust swirled to the south, and beneath the smoke and dust, a wave of people could be faintly seen slowly approaching.

If you have a keen eye, you can tell that this surging wave of people is made up of thousands of people from Hebei!
These people were dressed in tattered clothes and walked with difficulty, each step they struggled forward as if they had to exhaust all their strength.

In fact, they had been living as subjugated people for nearly a year, but the suffering did not stop; instead, it became increasingly cruel.

Among their throng were Jurchen knights moving about, but some collapsed from exhaustion. They were then beheaded with a single stroke of their swords.

They would even kill those lagging behind without reason at the back of the procession, just to drive them away and intimidate them. If someone tried to help those who had fallen, the Jurchen Tartars would simply kill them as well.

Under such brutality, the people of Hebei who had fallen into the hands of the Jurchen Tartars cried out and struggled toward the city gate.

Behind them, countless corpses lay untold!
This tactic had always worked in the past, and the Tartars used it every time they attacked a city.

In some cities, the Tartars even took advantage of the situation and broke through the city gates because the Tartars could not bear to slaughter their own people.

Zhong Shizhong's eyes were bloodshot, but he was helpless; he didn't know whether he should order the arrows to be fired.

Suddenly, someone shouted, "Open the city gates!"

Zhong Shizhong suddenly turned his head and saw that it was Li Xiaozhong who had come.

"Open the city gates?"

Li Xiaozhong nodded. "Open the city gates!"

Some of the soldiers were puzzled, since this man had been fighting for many years.

The city gates were slowly opened, and the people were stunned, as were the Tartars.

Zhong Shizhong suddenly ran back a few steps and looked into the city, where he saw countless soldiers already in position.

Outside the city, the sound of drums and gongs suddenly rang out, and the Xiazhou cavalry, like a storm, charged in from the north.

When the Tartars attacked a city, they drove the civilians to serve as cannon fodder. This used to be effective because no one could defeat the Jurchen armored soldiers in open battle.

But things are different now!

The Dingnan Army was eager to encounter them, loved fighting them in the open field, and never knew what fear was.

The Yinzhou troops have already tried once, and even with 50% casualties, they did not retreat. Both sides are indeed strong troops.

Let's see who's stronger!

The people were given a chance to escape their predicament. Their numb eyes lit up, and they desperately ran into the city.

The soldiers on both sides of the road stood motionless, ready to fight.

If the Tartars followed and charged in, a battle would inevitably break out, killing the civilians behind them. The Xiazhou soldiers could do nothing about it and could only hope that the civilians would have a good chance of survival.

If you run fast enough to get into the city, it's like leaping through the gates of life.

These poor people are truly beyond words; each and every one of them is living a life of their own, and almost everything in their hearts has been shattered.

They were merely struggling to survive instinctively, and as for the purpose of living, what it was all for, they themselves might not even know, having long since become like wandering souls.

Every day they struggled for their lives under whips and knives, their only food being some stale, black bread thrown into the crowd. Each fight for these things that even pigs wouldn't eat resulted in more than a dozen deaths.

The Tartars turned people into ghosts, and in return, they had to help the Tartars charge into battle and die. They carried three bags of soil, thinking that they could survive if they threw themselves at the city gates, but little did they know that they would have no chance of survival at all.

If the Dingnan army had not opened the city gates, they would have been like soil piled up beneath the city walls, which the Jurchen Tartars would have used to attack the city.

Li Xiaozhong looked at the Jurchen army formation in the distance with a cold smile. "I'll open the city gate. Do you dare to come in?"
My cavalry are everywhere, covering the mountains and plains. If you come in, I will cut off your retreat; it's like trapping a dog behind closed doors.

If you don't go in, you're just sending a large group of civilians back to the Dingnan army for nothing.

Zhong Shizhong had fought for half his life, and he immediately understood, and a feeling of respect welled up in his heart.

Only Dingnan Army, truly only Dingnan Army!

In this world, only they dared to engage in open battle with the Jurchen Tartars, and achieved a respectable record.

How could I have forgotten this point? Xiazhou has nearly 50,000 soldiers and 100,000 horses.

They were not afraid of the Tartars. When the Tartars attacked the city, Li Xiaozhong did not think about how to defend the city, but rather why they dared to attack the city.
We're going to attack you again.

The balance of power has long since shifted, but the Tartars are used to being the attackers.

In this respect, Zong Han and his men did not put as much effort into this battle as Chen Shao.

He was not well prepared, did not analyze the Dingnan Army seriously, and did not take the enemy seriously enough.

They believed that their Jurchen people were invincible and that they would be undefeated as long as they fought on the plains.

The Tartars outside the city were indeed caught in a dilemma, but before they could make a decision, the Xiazhou troops had already arrived.

The cavalrymen who had broken into the flank of the Tartars suddenly stopped on horseback.

The air was filled with the sound of bowstrings vibrating like the flapping of wasps' wings, and a deluge of arrows and crossbow bolts rained down.

Zhong Shizhong could see clearly from the city wall that the Xiazhou cavalry were using a type of crossbow, which should have been designed specifically for cavalry.

After shooting, he would untie the weapon and hang it on his horse, then take up his weapon and begin to charge.

The Jurchen Puliyan, whose real name was Nalu, was originally a subordinate of Yinshuke and was in charge of a mouke.

Now it was just Puliyan. He felt several arrows whizzing past his head and ears, the force of the wind stinging his cheeks. Then, a large cavalry force charged in.

Did anyone really dare to break through the Jurchen armored soldiers' formation?

Enraged, Naru ordered his men to form a battle formation to meet the enemy.

The Tartar cavalry charged forward, and the two groups soon collided.

Amidst the battle formation, the familiar sounds of men and horses clashing violently rang out once more.

It was a terrifying sound, a mixture of the sounds of men and horses colliding heavily, bones and flesh being torn apart, metal clashing, armor breaking and flesh being ripped apart.

Then came the screams of armored soldiers, the neighing of warhorses, and the suddenly intensified stench of blood!
A metal rod whistled down with a fierce sound. The one wielding the rod was a young man with crisscrossing scars on his face, small eyes, and a hooked nose, whose appearance was frightening.

The young man was dressed in the standard blue armor robe of the Dingnan Army. He had the reins tightly wrapped around his left arm for leverage during mounted combat. He stood up with his feet in the stirrups, leaned forward, and swung his mace down, causing his warhorse to bend over and kick up a lot of dust. Clearly, he had used all his strength in this blow!

The one who was hit was a Jurchen knight, wearing only half armor and no helmet. Judging from the style of the armor, it looked like lamellar armor captured from the Song army.

Compared to the Liao armor that the Jurchens had previously been accustomed to using, the Song army's armor on horseback was less protective, but lighter.

In summer warfare, they preferred to wear Song armor because the Liao people, like them, lived in the northern border, and leather armor was primarily for warmth.

The Jurchen people found it difficult to endure the scorching heat.

This design was adopted because the Song army didn't have many good horses and had to reduce the weight of their armor.

This kind of lightweight armor was actually more popular with the Tartars.

After removing the leg armor and iron boots, lamellar armor doesn't need to be stored in an armor pouch; it can be worn directly to explore dozens of miles away, and it also makes movement much more agile.

It's said that the Tartars like to wear heavy armor, but when the enemy doesn't have the ability to penetrate armor, who wouldn't want to wear something lighter?

Unfortunately, this time the Xiazhou soldiers truly possessed the ability to penetrate armor. Whether it was the volley of crossbow bolts or their current charge, they had taken down many Jurchen armored soldiers.

The Jurchen knight, battered and bruised, was covered in blood and too exhausted from the fight to even raise his longsword. Fortunately, he was only wearing half-armor of Song soldiers, which allowed him to move nimbly.

He kicked off with his left foot and slid to the right, miraculously avoiding the vicious blow.

A muffled thud followed by the sound of bones breaking, and finally the long, agonizing whinny of the warhorse.

The iron rod landed on the saddle, smashing the wooden saddle into pieces with wood chips flying everywhere. A magnificent Liaodong horse suffered broken tendons and bones, and with a long neigh, it fell to the ground with a thud!

The Jurchen warrior fell down along with his mount, and the Dingnan Army warrior wielding the mace drew his sword, ready to dismount and deliver the final blow.

But a rider charged out from the side, his spear protruding from afar. As he passed the Jurchen soldier who was struggling on the ground, pinned down by his warhorse, the spearhead pierced his throat.

The blood fountain shot into the sky with bubbles, severing the esophagus and trachea in the process; even a god couldn't save him.

The soldiers from Xiazhou wielding the clubs were former Xifeng clan warriors in the Western Xia army. They were basically raised on horseback and were responsible for defending against the southward incursions of the steppe Tatars in Western Xia.

Those wielding horse spears were orthodox Han warriors, and they had already achieved a high level of teamwork.

The gaze shifted from the dead Jurchen warrior to a range of several dozen feet, where hundreds of armored cavalrymen were locked in fierce combat, with some falling to the ground.

In such a chaotic battle, the casualties on both sides were still close to one to one.

The fighting power of both groups is indeed the ceiling of this era, and neither can suppress the other.

However, there was still a difference in numbers, and more and more Xiazhou cavalrymen were flanking from both sides.

Their goal was to cut off the retreat of these Jurchen knights and wipe them all out!
The enemy was furious; they had come to attack the city.
If you only look at the current situation, who would believe that!
He finished the attack with his spear, charging forward at breakneck speed, almost reaching Naru.

Looking at the endless stream of Dingnan Army cavalry surging from afar, he felt as if he had stirred up a hornet's nest in a dense forest.

These Dingnan troops would quickly rush up and hold on tightly until they completely wiped out his group.

Smoke and dust billowed, and the sound of hooves thundered.

Nalu knew there was no way to escape; he could only fight to the death and see if any reinforcements would arrive.

The surging Dingnan army, apart from the thunderous hooves of their horses, showed no sign of hesitation or retreat among its riders.

Just like waves forged from layers of steel, they steadfastly roll forward!

The only reinforcements Naru had hoped for did not come. He himself had moved too quickly, misjudged his own strength, and did what the vanguard should not have done: rashly attacking the city.

The battlefield at this time was no longer the battlefield during the campaign against Liao, nor even the battlefield in Zhen Ding Prefecture.

Back then, if you couldn't capture a fortress or city, you could simply turn around and leave.

The enemies in the city and the village didn't dare to come out at all, and even if they did, they couldn't defeat the Jurchen warriors.

The reckless enemy troops were completely annihilated at the foot of Rongcheng.

He himself was beheaded and his head was hung on the city wall of Rongcheng.

Those who witnessed the battle firsthand, including Zhong Shizhong, were filled with excitement.

They all thought that this time they would likely repeat the same mistake as Tong Guan's campaign against Liao. After the disastrous defeat last time, few of the Western Army soldiers were willing to leave their homes and fight again.

At this moment, their thinking is changing.
-
Taiyuan, late July.

The sky had just darkened, the heat of the day had not yet dissipated, the sunset was brilliant, and the setting sun was like melting gold.

Inside a courtyard east of the Prince Dai's Mansion, a small dish of vegetables and a wine cup were placed in a pavilion.

After a busy day, Zhong Shidao was reading the letter sent by Xiao Zhong, with two guards standing beside him.

This letter was brought back by a wounded member of the Zhong family army on his return journey; it even had some bloodstains on it. However, it was well-preserved and had few creases.

His own soldiers were doing better, enjoying the pensions and benefits afforded to them by the Dingnan Army. You see, the Western Army didn't do that.

The military families of the Western Army were notorious for exploiting their soldiers and embezzling funds. Even the Zhong family was only slightly less corrupt, not immune to the same practices.

Even if they wanted to bestow lavish rewards, they didn't have the means; they didn't have the resources of the Dingnan Army.

However, the farmland of Dingnan Army is located in the northwest or Hedong.

The families of these wounded or killed soldiers of the Zhong family may have to cross the Hengshan Mountains and settle in the Northwest.

The two sides are now exchanging goods and having close ties, so they naturally know that the other side is doing quite well.

Zhong Shidao had no complaints about this blatant poaching.

Although this move does indeed harm the interests of the seed family.

But people are all made of flesh and blood. These soldiers have fought alongside the Zhong family for many years. We have no means to provide them with compensation. Should we prevent them from receiving their rewards?
What surprised Zhong Shidao even more was Xiao Zhong's change.

He always thought that this cousin was the kind of stubborn person who wouldn't turn back even if he hit a wall. Don't be fooled by his cold face and few words. Old Zhong knew that this guy was much more stubborn than an ox.

However, in his recent letters, his words have become increasingly strange, even somewhat childlike, reverting to the impetuous, confident, and ambitious manner of his youth.

Although Zhong Shidao was a veteran who had fought for fifty years, he had not personally witnessed the Dingnan Army's battles on the battlefield.

Therefore, he found it difficult to understand why his stubborn younger brother had changed in this way.

If he had just thought about it, he would have realized that he was in the same boat here.

Only after witnessing the overall planning and coordination of the Dingnan Army's rear did he realize how much suffering his own Western Army had endured.

During wartime, although there were also military headquarters, they were more about intrigue and deception.

Today in Taiyuan, however, everyone is united and working together with one mind and one heart.

Sometimes he couldn't help but think how he wished he had such a support system when he was young.
The Western Xia dynasty was pacified long ago!
We can also conquer Xizhou, and perhaps even restore the Anxi Protectorate of the Tang Dynasty.

Zhong Shidao closed the letter, feeling deeply moved.

To be honest, he didn't feel uncomfortable after a busy day; on the contrary, he enjoyed it.

No one was more familiar with the details of battle than him, so he could understand the meaning of the front lines at a glance what the soldiers' abstract and brain-teasing questions and various complex military reports seemed to Chen Shao's staff and Hedong officials.

Those under Chen Shao's command also learned a lot from Lao Zhong.

Old Zhong stood up, and a thought suddenly popped into his mind:
In just one month, both the young soldiers who went to the front lines and the older soldiers who stayed in the rear have changed.

It seems they have all been "subdued" by the Dingnan Army.

Therefore, it is easy to imagine how attractive they were to the heroes of the world.

Looking up at the sky, Zhong Shidao sighed.

The world is truly changing; it's unstoppable. (End of Chapter)