Chapter 298

The 14th year of Emperor Jia Zhao, March 12th.

At this time, in the Love Shenjing, the chill was gradually fading, and the signs of spring were already appearing.

But in the mountains and rivers of Liaobei, the cold winter had not yet taken its last steps, and the world was still shrouded in a piece of gloomy white cold.

Jia Cong's memorial on the strategy for governing the Jurchens made Emperor Emperor Jia Zhao adjust his strategy for the war against the Jurchens again.

On the imperial decree sent to the Liaodong Garrison, a line of words appeared shocking and full of murderous intent.

Sweep away the old Jurchen court and cut off their powerful bloodline!

Emperor Emperor Jia Zhao wanted to slaughter the last combat power of the Jurchen tribe to exchange for decades of peace on the Liaodong border.

Since receiving the imperial decree from the Love Shenjing, Liang Chengzong, the commander of the Liaodong Garrison, after careful scouting, multiple military consultations, and relevant troop movements.

Finally, he listened to Jia Cong's opinion, prepared for war for a month, and waited until April when the heavy snow melted, then reorganized the troops to clear out, preventing the Jurchens from fleeing into the deep mountains and being unable to pursue.

And the Jurchens had already suffered heavy losses after losing 6,000 elite soldiers in one battle under Yafu Pass.

Then the troops were divided into four routes: left, middle, right, and rear, to go deep into the old land of the Jurchens to clear out the remaining enemies of the three guards.

……

Therefore, when sending troops this time, Liang Chengzong had thought about dividing the firearm troops into three routes.

Liu Yongzheng, who led the left route, first raised objections, although he witnessed the power of firearms in the battle of Yafu Pass.

The rear army had a total of more than 2,000 people, responsible for the transportation of grain and materials, as well as the escort of Jurchen old, weak, and captives.

Deng Hui, the mobile corps commander of Yonglan Pass, was also a brave general in Liaodong; although he heard that the firearms were powerful, he did not witness the battle of Yafu Pass and was also unfamiliar with the use of firearms.

Among the three routes of the army, although Jia Cong's troops were only half of the other two routes, they commanded almost all the firearm troops of the Liaodong army.

The battle of Yafu Pass allowed all parts of the Liaodong army to see the huge power of firearms.

The right route army was led by Jia Cong, Supervisor of the Firearms Office and General of Martial Virtue, with 1,000 firearm troops and 500 elite cavalry, from Yafu Pass, Xichang Pass, Panduo City, Xuesong Ridge, and Moyun Mountain to Baju River.

In comparison, letting him command another 1,000 elite cavalry was more practical.

Whether it was the ranging of artillery on the city wall or the alternating use of porcelain mine firearms, Jia Cong could choose the most suitable time to launch, which others could not compare with.

Therefore, the strength of the 1,500 people of the right route army was not inferior to the 3,000 elite cavalry of the left and middle route armies.

Preparing for war for a month, the tail of the cold winter would only consume more of the Jurchens' grain and lives.

The middle route army was led by Deng Hui, the mobile corps commander of Yonglan Pass, with 3,000 elite cavalry, out of Bolang Mountain, Zhuoyu Ridge, over Meng Mountain, across Suzi River, to Yonghui City.

Liu Yongzheng's best tactic was fast cavalry assault; he was a layman to firearms; giving him a pile of firearm soldiers not only made it difficult to exert maximum utility but also occupied his soldiers.

But precisely because he was on the scene, he knew better than others that the reason why firearms showed great power in this battle was because of Jia Cong's excellent command and use of firearms.

According to scouts, the Jurchen tribes had no more than 2,000 available elite soldiers, and it would be difficult to recover as before without ten years of work.

By the beginning of April, the heavy snow in Liaodong began to melt, and several troops rushed out from the three passes of the Liaodong border and gathered 30 miles northwest of Yafu Pass.

The left route was led by Liu Yong, the battalion commander of Yafu Pass, with 3,000 elite cavalry, out of Dun River, Yun River, over Shimen, over Yongchang Mountain, to Fenshui Ridge.

Finally, he also adopted Liu Yongzheng's choice of military tactics.

From this point of view, Liu Yongzheng and Deng Hui were both pragmatic and meticulous generals who knew that others' strengths were not their own; only by using the tactics they were most familiar with could they achieve the greatest results.

Finally, Liang Chengzong changed his original intention; except for leaving the artillery battalion and the necessary firearm troops at the pass, the remaining 1,000 firearm troops were all commanded by Jia Cong to go on an expedition.

……

Jia Cong led the right route army to march for eight or nine days, destroying four or five Jurchen towns along the way.

The army beheaded 560 Jurchen brave soldiers, rescued more than 400 Han people who had been abducted, and captured more than 800 Jurchen captives.

There was no mercy for the Jurchen young and strong who resisted stubbornly, and careful screening was carried out for the tribes who were willing to surrender, and those who followed in public but opposed in private were never tolerated, maximizing the consumption of the Jurchens' vital strength.

And the captured population was all responsible for being escorted back for disposal by the rear army.

Since Jia Cong led the army to go deeper and deeper into the mountains and rivers, kindness not commanding soldiers was a psychological barrier he had to cross.

He knew better than anyone how much of a hidden danger the Jurchen powerful bloodline would be to future generations.

……

On this day, by the Yunchang River in Liaobei, Panduo City, a Jurchen stronghold.

A team of Great Zhou scouts ran out of the open city gate.

Not long after, a Great Zhou border army of thousands of people marched into the city in a mighty manner.

Jia Cong was riding a black horse, wearing green rhinoceros armor, with a curved sword at his waist, and a pitch-black bear fur cloak on the outside.

After many days of marching, the wind and frost hit his face, and the hard work of the war made him much thinner, and his original fair skin became more bronze and dark.

But the spirit in his eyes became more and more fierce, nurturing an edge that was difficult to look at directly.

Through Ai Li still followed Jia Cong closely, wearing a dark blue embroidered long gown with green trim, a long sword hanging at her waist, and a short-sleeved deerskin jacket on the outside, looking heroic.

She also wore a snow-white fox fur around her neck and a playful colorful wolf fur warm hat on her head; a pair of deep blue eyes like water, with clear light flowing, were eye-catching.

Since joining hands to charge and kill the enemy at Yafu Pass, and watching over each other between life and death, the relationship between them is no longer just the employer and bodyguard connected by two taels of gold.

Originally, Through Ai Li was just a border girl who relied on her sword skills to serve as a bodyguard for the southern merchants in the town, earning gold to support her old mother, with a simple and straightforward mind.

If Jia Cong hadn't appeared, she might have spent a few years, and when she had saved enough gold, she would have taken her mother back to her hometown in Jiangnan, and then gradually disappeared into the world.

But her accidental encounter with Jia Cong changed her original trajectory; Jia Cong's affinity and wisdom allowed her to see a brand new world.

It is not just the gold and iron horses before her eyes, deciding the outcome of the enemy, but in the contact and chatting between the two, she knows the elegance and prosperity of the Love Shenjing and the beauty of the flowers and moon in Jiangnan.

It turns out that in this world, it is not just the vast snowfields of Liaobei, surviving between life and death, fast horses and sharp knives; this world is so vast, so vast that it makes the young her full of longing.

Until the battle of Yafu Pass that day, amidst the charging of thousands of troops, she watched with her own eyes as Fan Ercha's golden sword slashed across Jia Cong's chest and abdomen.

That moment of palpitation and stinging pain like a heavy blow made the heroic girl who had been walking on the edge of the knife since childhood suddenly wake up in the softest part of her heart.

From that moment on, staying with Jia Cong and accompanying him began to become Through Ai Li's habit, and it was no longer a matter of two taels of gold a month.

And for Jia Cong, this expedition, Through Ai Li is an important part; she is not only a heroic and good bodyguard, but her superb eagle training skills can allow Jia Cong to detect the enemy's tracks as quickly as possible.

Since the expedition, the achievements he has made far exceed those of the left and middle route armies, which has already fully proved this.

……

Panduo City, where the Jurchen Left Guard Dong Shan originally belonged, three Battalion Commander of the Left Guard settled here, with nearly ten thousand people, is a relatively large town in the Jurchen Liaobei area.

According to common sense, more than a thousand young and strong soldiers could be drawn from here, but through the consumption of the battle of Yafu Pass, there were definitely not so many Jurchen young and strong soldiers left.

When he led the army into Panduo City, he found that the whole town was empty, like a dead city.

Through Ai Li gently shook her shoulders, and the gyrfalcon named Yingnu spread its wings and flew high, circling back and forth over Panduo City.

It was only a short time later that Yingnu suddenly dived down toward the left side of the town, making a sharp eagle cry, then spread its wings and pulled up, and dived again....

Through Ai Li said, "Yingnu must have found something on the left side of the town."

Saying that, she whistled and waved to Yingnu in the air; Yingnu lowered its altitude and flew forward to lead the way.

After the battle of Yafu Pass and the recent clearing of the three routes of the army, the Jurchen old land could no longer gather a single force of more than a thousand.

So Jia Cong had no too many scruples, left 500 firearm soldiers to guard the passes in the city, and led the rest of the troops to follow Yingnu all the way.

Soon they arrived at a large mansion in the east of the city, which looked like the residence of the Jurchen nobles in the city.

After carefully checking that there was nothing unusual around the mansion, when Jia Cong and Through Ai Li approached the gate, they smelled a strong smell of blood.

The soldiers pushed open the gate, and the scene inside the mansion shocked everyone.

The mansion was densely packed with corpses, roughly estimated to be hundreds, and most of them were elderly people.

These people were unarmed, and all were stabbed in the chest and abdomen, looking like a massacre without discrimination.

Jia Cong knows that in this world, medical treatment is not as developed as in later generations, and it is an era where seventy is truly rare; in the warm and rich land of the Central Plains, living past sixty is considered longevity.

And in the cold land of the north, very few people live past sixty; in most of the north, the weather is extremely cold, and there is not enough clothing and food; people in the north are old and weak after fifty.

Jia Cong sent soldiers in to check, and after counting, there were more than 480 corpses.

Except for more than ten corpses that were young and strong, carrying a few weapons, the rest were unarmed old people.

Through Ai Li grew up in Liaobei and heard too much about the Jurchens' ferocity, and said tremblingly, "They must be the Jurchens fleeing along the way, and their grain and grass are seriously insufficient."

"So they treated these old people as burdens that consumed food, and killed them all... those young and strong with weapons must be the relatives of the old people, who intended to resist and were all killed."

Jia Cong's face was gloomy; these 400 corpses were probably all the old and weak people in the town.

No matter in any era, the barbaric slaughter of the old and weak is something that both humans and gods are angry about; this has nothing to do with race or enemy and self.

……

These fierce Jurchen nobles who were brave in the mountains and rivers had been completely distorted in their basic conscience and nature by the survival law of the jungle.

Panduo City is the territory of Dong Shan of the Jurchen Left Guard, and even this luxurious mansion might be Dong Shan's residence.

Only Dong Shan, as the leader of the Left Guard, had the right to issue such a killing order for such a large-scale clearing of food mouths.

These Jurchen nobles, in order to preserve the last elite combat power and reduce material loss, did not even let go of their own relatives and clansmen.

Jia Cong recalled those bloody records of later generations, where foreign tribes rode horses into the Central Plains, and countless common people fell under barbaric butcher knives like livestock, pigs, and sheep, by the thousands.

Isn't this the countless tragic reenactment of the scene before his eyes?

Only by beheading the leaders and slaughtering the fierce and stubborn can we bring a real opportunity to this vast and wild land of Liaobei, and wash away the survival law distorted by ambition!

(End of chapter)