Chapter 1021: One Hundred Twenty Thousand Han Troops Besiege Jinling

While Pan Mei's army captured Shaozhou and achieved a major breakthrough in the campaign to pacify Yue, the situation on the Jianghuai front also entered a new phase, with the Han army advancing rapidly on all routes and making smooth progress.

On Cao Bin's side, after winning the naval battle at Hukou and a brief rest, he left a detachment to hold the position and control the waterway, then led his combined land and naval forces southward. They first broke the enemy's naval stockade and seized control of the entrance to Poyang Lake, then continued south along the Gan River, advancing on Hongzhou.

After the battle at Hukou, the Southern army at Hongzhou suffered heavy losses, and facing the onslaught of Cao and Liu's sixty thousand troops, it appeared even more isolated and precarious. Had it not been for the old general Lu Jiang's considerable prestige in organizing defenses, the royal army's arrival might have caused an immediate collapse.

Even so, by the time Cao and Liu's troops arrived, Nanchang was gripped by panic and fear, with no one knowing if they would survive the day. In truth, under the crushing pressure of an enemy force bearing down like a boulder crushing eggs, expecting a general over seventy years old to bear the heavy burden of defending the city and protecting its people was asking too much of him. For Lu Jiang to lead troops in defense of the city at such an advanced age was already a legend in itself; one could hardly expect more of him.

Following the same approach as at Ezhou, Cao Bin and Liu Guangyi separately led their land and naval forces to sweep away all the forts, strongholds, and camps outside Nanchang, then surrounded the city, cutting off all land and water routes and severing all contact with the outside world.

The situation inside Nanchang had long been reported to Cao Bin. While making preparations for the siege, Cao Bin personally wrote a letter urging surrender and sent a man to deliver it to Lu Jiang. Since the time of Li Jing, there had been repeated thoughts of moving the capital to Hongzhou, and though it never came to pass, much manpower and resources had been invested in repairing the city walls and reinforcing various facilities, and the garrison had always been well supplied. Thus the city was solid, with formidable defensive capabilities. If the army and people could unite as one and make good use of these advantages, it would be difficult to take it by force without paying a price.

However, the difficulty lay precisely in achieving unity between army and people. Everyone has a sense of crisis, and the soldiers and civilians had their own simple understanding of the situation. Even without adequate intelligence, they knew things were looking bad. Stubborn resistance would require sacrifice, cost lives, and even implicate their families and endanger the entire city's populace.

Surrender, on the other hand, was not so easy to voice, especially for an old general like Lu Jiang. To be fair, no matter how the state had declined, the three generations of the Li clan had treated their meritorious veterans quite generously.

Therefore, faced with Cao Bin's urging to surrender, Lu Jiang turned a deaf ear—neither agreeing nor refusing.

Before the siege of Nanchang began, the war situation on the lower Yangtze had also entered a new phase. Zhang Yongde leading his army across the river represented the collapse of Jiangnan's Yangtze defense line—and that was only the beginning.

At the same time as the Han army launched its river-crossing campaign at Dangtu, a bloody battle was also taking place at Changzhou. After repeated hesitation, Lin Renzhao, unwilling to sit and wait for death, decided to take a risk and gamble on a desperate strike. He personally led five thousand elite troops, moving stealthily eastward to Changzhou, where he coordinated with Zheng Yanhua, the city's defender, to launch a surprise assault on Guo Tingwei's army.

Guo Tingwei had previously received intelligence about Lin Renzhao's intention to strike eastward, and Li Gu had also sent dispatches warning of it, so the Han-Wuyue allied forces were on guard. Yet things often happen this way—when you think you know all the details, you tend to become careless and negligent.

Because Lin Renzhao moved suddenly and swiftly, using his most highly trained soldiers, when he led his troops into hiding near Jinling and launched his attack, it truly achieved the effect of a surprise assault.

Moreover, the Han army's southern campaign was sweeping all before it, with every front going smoothly, so it was inevitable that the Han soldiers would develop a sense of pride and grow lax. Such a state of mind was difficult to completely avoid.

Therefore, under Lin Renzhao's surprise attack, the Han troops at Changzhou were genuinely caught off guard. It was only because Guo Tingwei maintained strict discipline and the Han soldiers had solid fundamentals that they spontaneously organized resistance upon being attacked, and Guo Tingwei personally steadied the troops' morale and directed the defense.

But the Wuyue troops were not so fortunate. As a vassal force fighting alongside the Han army, their morale and fighting will should not be overestimated. Among their officers there were those who curried favor with the court, but the common soldiers mostly just went through the motions.

And Lin Renzhao's primary target for the surprise attack was precisely the Wuyue troops. Thus, the Wuyue forces collapsed first, and since they were part of the allied army, this naturally affected the Han troops as well. Zheng Yanhua, the defending general of Changzhou, had received word in advance, and once the fighting erupted on the canal bank, he decisively led his troops out to coordinate with Lin Renzhao in a pincer attack on the Han-Wuyue allied forces.

Lin Renzhao's sortie fully displayed his boldness and military skill, and he did succeed in breaking the Wuyue troops. However, the Han army, under Guo Tingwei's command, held their ground. The two sides fought fiercely on the canal bank for over two shichen, and in the end, the Han army, with superior strength, emerged victorious.

In particular, Guo Tingwei ordered a naval unit to abandon their ships, land, and strike the Southern army from behind, breaking them in one blow. The battle of Changzhou was the first true bloody battle since the court's southern pacification campaign began, and it was also the most powerful resistance the Southern army had mounted against the Han forces.

Yet in terms of results, it did not achieve the expected effect. Lin Renzhao won first and lost later, ultimately escaping the battle with Zheng Yanhua and fewer than ten thousand remaining troops. Not only that, but Jinling city was lost, and Changzhou fell as a result.

Lin and Zheng had no choice but to retreat to Runzhou. This was not due to incompetence on their part—it was simply that the situation was what it was, and the gap in strength was too great to bridge, causing their efforts to fail at the last step. Even so, Lin Renzhao's surprise attack inflicted considerable losses on the Han-Wuyue allied forces, with Wuyue casualties exceeding three thousand. Of course, this also provided Guo Tingwei with a more favorable opportunity to digest and control the Wuyue troops.

With the fall of Changzhou, the Yangtze defense line moved toward complete collapse. Even without the battle at Dangtu, the trend could not have been reversed. News of the great defeat at Dangtu and the fall of Changzhou reached Jinling one after another, throwing Li Yu and his ministers into complete disarray. The situation had been relatively stable before, and this sudden decline was entirely beyond their expectations.

This time, however, the Jinling court reacted faster than ever before, immediately deciding to abandon Runzhou and recall the several tens of thousands of troops remaining there back to Jinling. It was not that they cared about Runzhou's perilous situation or were making a decisive sacrifice to consolidate their forces—rather, Zhang Yongde's eastward advance along the river made them feel that securing Jinling's safety was the first priority, and it was also the final plan they had originally conceived. They simply had not expected this final step to come so quickly.

On the Han side, after the battle of Changzhou, Guo Tingwei was somewhat irritated. After a brief reorganization, he led his land and naval forces westward, heading straight for Runzhou, hoping to recover some face. At the same time, the main Jianghuai forces on the northern bank also took advantage of the moment to mobilize on a large scale, preparing to coordinate with Guo Tingwei's operations.

In this life-or-death situation, the order to withdraw from Jinling arrived. Since ancient times, retreating has always been a highly difficult maneuver, especially when dangers lurk on every side and morale is unstable—one moment of carelessness and a retreat can turn into a rout.

Even Lin Renzhao, who moved quickly and was prepared, could not escape this fate. After all, the Southern army was not a unified, well-trained elite force. Each unit acted on its own, eager to retreat, and under Guo Tingwei's pursuit, it ended in a disastrous rout.

The Han army pursued for fifty li along the way, only stopping when Zheng Yanhua voluntarily led troops to cover the rear. Zheng Yanhua was wounded and captured, and of the Runzhou defenders who managed to escape back to Jinling, there were only slightly over twenty thousand, most of them reduced to scattered stragglers.

Meanwhile, the main Jianghuai army, which had been stationed at Guazhou—Yangzi City for nearly a month, successfully crossed south and landed at Jingkou. Li Gu, the commander-in-chief of the southern pacification campaign, finally set foot on Jiangnan soil after sitting in command at Yangzhou for four full years.

Before the defenders withdrew, some officers had suggested burning all the grain, cloth, and other supplies, but Lin Renzhao refused. As a result, everything stored at Runzhou was left to the Han army. Though he never said why, such an act offered a glimpse into Lin Renzhao's thinking.

With Zhang Yongde to the west and Guo Tingwei plus the main Jianghuai forces to the east, Jinling's situation had fallen completely into crisis. Even counting the troops withdrawn from Runzhou, at most the Jinling court could muster sixty thousand defenders—sixty thousand demoralized, restless rabble.

In this situation, Li Yu committed another foolish act that grieved his friends and delighted his enemies. At the suggestion of several censors, he had Lin Renzhao arrested and thrown into prison, on the grounds that his unauthorized sortie and defeat had caused the fall of Changzhou and endangered Jinling. Behind this move, Zhong Mo was pulling the strings.

Already in a dire situation, they went and discarded their own Great Wall. Though even Lin Renzhao, that Great Wall, could hardly have withstood the Han army's advance and turned the tide. With Lin Renzhao imprisoned, they still needed to choose someone capable of leading troops—but no one suitable could be found. Chen Qiao advocated resistance, yet he had no ability to command an army at all.

Thus, while the Jinling court was still selecting a commander to lead troops against the enemy, the Han army arrived at the city gates. To the west, Zhang Yongde led his forces to press against the Qinhuai River; to the east, Li Gu personally led the main army to encamp at Zhong Mountain. Several Han columns, combining land and naval forces totaling one hundred twenty thousand, surrounded Jinling.

The Jiangnan campaign had directly entered its final stage. From the time the Han army received the imperial order to march, less than a month had passed in total.