Chapter 125: One After Another

Xu Qing had come by stealth overnight, triggering a crisis that was barely a crisis... The reason it barely counted as a crisis was that as long as Yue Fei abandoned his efforts to gather the common folk around Pingyin and concentrated his forces to turn and fight, with both a city and troops at his back, even if it were not just mere Xu Qing but Kong Yanzhou and Liu Lin’s entire army coming, they would likely end up battered and bloodied.

But Yue Fei’s mind was on Jizhou behind him, and even more on the situation in Nanjing and Dongjing; he had no interest whatsoever in dealing with Kong Yanzhou and Liu Yu, and in his eyes, the military threat posed by Xu Qing was truly insignificant compared to the safety of the common folk of Pingyin.

At noon, the two sides met on the north bank of the Jishui River, ten li north of the city. Yue Fei simply led fifteen hundred troops to form ranks on the open plain, while Xu Qing had three thousand men, but the latter had come by forced march overnight, so his troops were inevitably disheveled.

As the two sides met and just settled into position, Tang Huai reined in his horse and came up behind Yue Fei, lowering his voice to suggest: “Brother, I know your intentions, but as things stand, Xu Qing’s troops are exhausted and unsettled. Why not strike quickly, seize the advantage while the enemy is unstable, capture that bastard Xu Qing, and then settle the rest?”

Yue Fei turned his head to glance at his sworn brother, merely shook his head slightly, then pursed his lips forward.

Though refused, Tang Huai took no offense; instead, he raised his spear, spurred his horse forward, and called out from the front of the formation: “Xu Erlang! Our Pacification Commissioner invites you forward to speak!”

In a moment, amid a stir, Xu Qing indeed rode out alone. Seeing this, Tang Huai relaxed and reined his horse back to the formation to take command of the troops, while Yue Fei likewise rode forward alone.

“Commissioner Yue.”

Xu Qing was about thirty years old. Having likely traveled all night, his eyes were bloodshot and he looked utterly exhausted. When he saw the approaching man, he could only force himself to cup his hands from afar, his voice unavoidably a bit hoarse.

“Brother Xu.” Yue Fei rode up to face him, their horses side by side, and responded. Then he narrowed his eyes slightly, but did not return the salute; instead, he gripped the iron spear in his hand.

Xu Qing could only sigh at this, then continued cupping his hands as he spoke: “Commissioner Yue, back then I led several thousand brothers over from Hebei. You wrote to me, telling me to go to Jizhou, but I thought your command was overflowing with talent, and it’s better to be a rooster’s head than an ox’s tail, so I accepted Kong Yanzhou’s invitation and went to Yanzhou. But I never imagined it would come to this... Commissioner Yue, that scoundrel Kong Yanzhou believed Liu Yu’s devilish talk—said the Jin were going to make Liu Yu emperor and Liu Lin crown prince, and the Liu father and son promised him the post of Grand Marshal of the Armies, and in turn promised me the post of Vice Marshal. But I came from Hebei, brother, and truly have no wish to serve the Jin. Now that I’m at the end of my rope and come to surrender, I hope you will take me in!”

Having said this, he cupped his hands again from atop his horse, with utmost sincerity.

Yet Yue Fei, upon hearing this, merely rolled his eyes slightly as he looked at the other man, neither responding nor nodding.

Xu Qing was about to speak again when Yue Pengju suddenly thrust his spear toward the man’s neck, startling Xu Qing into tumbling off his horse to dodge. When he got up, cold sweat poured from him... It turned out that Yue Fei’s spear thrust had deflected an arrow—and that arrow had come from behind Xu Qing.

Not only that, but as soon as the arrow came and Xu Qing fell from his horse, Xu Qing’s troops in the distance immediately erupted in clamor, and several dozen riders came swarming forward. Seeing this, Xu Qing hurriedly tried to mount his horse, only to find that his warhorse had been startled and run off. His heart turned cold... He knew full well that his actions today had blocked someone’s path, and if he couldn’t handle this properly, forget about reclaiming command—he might not even keep his life.

“Is it the one with the red headscarf?” At that moment, Yue Fei still did not move, but raised his spear from horseback to point at the several dozen riders now almost upon them.

Hearing Yue Fei’s question, Xu Qing understood at once, but had no time to say more; he could only hurriedly answer from the ground: “It’s that man!”

And in the blink of an eye, the moment Xu Qing had barely said the word “that,” Yue Pengju’s face turned stern. He laid his spear across his lap, took up his bow, and—unconcerned that the several dozen riders were about to reach him—calmly nocked an arrow and shot it forward.

Before Xu Qing could even grasp the situation, Tang Huai led several dozen riders charging up behind him, and someone even offered him a horse... By the time he remounted, he was stunned to find that the deputy commander with the red headscarf who had tried to ambush him had already fallen from his horse, and the several dozen charging riders were all panicked and uncertain, not daring to move rashly.

Yue Fei turned his head and gave a slight pursed-lip gesture. How could Xu Qing dare waste such a golden opportunity? He spurred his horse forward, bypassed the still-dazed riders, shouted with all his might to his trusted officers behind him, and galloped straight into his own ranks.

In a short while, the two forces merged, the deputy commander’s confidants were seized, and a disturbance that could have led to unpredictable consequences dissolved into nothing.

After this incident, Xu Qing was both awestruck and deeply grateful toward Yue Fei, and his defection became a matter of course. As for Kong Yanzhou, he had indeed sent pursuit forces... in fact, that was what had given the deputy commander the audacity to act on his wicked intentions... but when the pursuers heard from afar that Xu Qing had already joined Yue Fei and entered Pingyin city, intimidated by the reputations of Yue Fei and Xu Qing, they dared not come any closer.

However, after handling Xu Qing’s surrender with ease, Yue Pengju led his troops to escort the common folk from the northern part of Dongping Prefecture in an orderly withdrawal southward. After two days, they reached Yunzhou city (the seat of Dongping Prefecture—in fact, Dongping Prefecture had originally been called Yunzhou), where he met Zhang Rong, who had come out from the Shuipo Marshes to receive him. There, he received an expected piece of bad news—Dingtao, the seat of his subordinate Guangji Army, had fallen.

There was no help for it. Dingtao was the place where Old Commandant Yang had once gathered heroes from all over for the grand assembly, and where Yue Fei and Zhang Rong had first met. But that city lay to the west and north of the Jishui River and Liangshan Marsh, right on the path of the Jin cavalry’s southward advance... And the defending general, Fu Xuan, had only about a thousand men left under his command because of the current expedition.

In fact, when the Jin army had swiftly moved southwest along the north and east banks of the Jishui River that day, Yue Fei had detected it at once from Pingyin, but with the vast Liangshan Marsh in between, he couldn’t even send a fast horse ahead of the enemy to deliver a message. So the entire army had long expected Dingtao’s fall.

On the other side, since it involved the safety of his own base, Zhang Rong did not detain Yue Fei. He simply took over the common folk Yue Fei had been escorting and offered weapons from the city as thanks. As for the allocation of men like Li Kui and the others, he made no ambiguity, directly reaffirming the chain of command and handing over all those out-of-town officers who had lost faith in him to Yue Fei. Then he actively urged Yue Fei to take his newly acquired generals and head south immediately to salvage the situation.

Yet Yue Fei left the Dongping Prefecture common folk behind, reorganized his troops, and rushed south at top speed. Only half a day later, he received a devastating report—after breaking through Dingtao, the Jin had immediately crossed the river, but after crossing, they did not attack the poorly defended Jizhou at all. Instead, they continued straight south!

In other words, the situation Yue Fei had most feared had come to pass. The Jin had schemed so carefully—crossing by stealth, splitting their forces—all to catch the Song off guard with a black-tiger-steals-the-heart strike, taking out Zhang Suo, the Military Commissioner of Nanjing (Shangqiu), right from the start!

And then, as Yue Fei led his troops into Jizhou territory, bad news came one after another without pause.

For instance, Fu Xuan, who had fought his way out at the risk of his life, sent word that the Jin force that had broken Dingtao that day was no fewer than ten thousand men. He had seen with his own eyes two columns of five to six thousand Jin cavalry each converging on the city together that day... One column had come from the northeast along the Jishui River—that was the force led by the Alian Myriarch. The other column, bearing the banner of the Myriarch Elubu, had no unusual markings on their gear and had come from the wilderness to the northwest—no one knew whether they had come from Puzhou or Huazhou.

“Jurchens under ten thousand cannot be matched; above ten thousand, they are invincible!”

Of course, to Yue Fei, who had extensive experience fighting the Jin, this saying was absurd. He had first joined the army specifically to deal with the Jurchens, and after four or five years of fighting, he knew full well that Jurchens were also human and could die. Moreover, ever since he had become Pacification Commissioner, he had always thought that in just two or three years, he could train ten thousand infantry capable of facing ten thousand Jin iron cavalry in open field battle...

But back to the present, Yue Pengju knew in his heart that not only were his own troops barely half a year old and likely unable to stand and fight the Jurchens head-on, but Zhang Suo’s Nanjing garrison had only a nominal fifteen thousand men—in reality, a weak force of twelve to thirteen thousand.

Truly a weak force: of those twelve to thirteen thousand, four to five thousand were surrendered bandits, five to six thousand were newly recruited troops brought from Shouchun, and only one to two thousand were so-called “elite” Western Army troops—and even those were led by that dandy-like Xin Daozong (one of the Three Xin).

In Yue Fei’s estimation, if it were only five to six thousand men, and if Xin Daozong were alert enough to hold the city, they might just hold out until he and Grand Defender Zhang Jun could come to their aid. But with over ten thousand Jurchen troops, unless he could fly his troops over... or even flying might not be enough, because by now Nanjing might have already fallen, and his benefactor Zhang Suo, the Grand Academician, might already be in grave danger.

At this thought, Yue Fei, who still clung to a sliver of hope, did not even enter Jizhou city. He abandoned his baggage train, left Wang Gui to clean up behind, and led his troops rapidly southwest.

But just as he led his army to the border between Danzhou and Jizhou, dense streams of routed soldiers and refugees from Yingtian Prefecture (where Nanjing was located) and Danzhou brought the exact news to Commissioner Yue’s ears—Xin Daozong had hastily engaged the enemy and been killed in battle. Zhang Suo, ashamed beyond measure at having been caught off guard by his own miscalculation, chose to burn himself to death in the Nanjing palace.

This event dealt Yue Pengju an unprecedented blow, because Zhang Suo’s kindness to him was on par with Zong Ze’s. To Yue Fei, who had lost his father at nineteen, these two men had held a measure of true father-son affection.

But one must never raise an army in rage, especially when the enemy’s situation is unclear.

Yue Fei had learned this lesson long ago, back when he was at Xiangzhou. So, with no other choice, the Jizhou Pacification Commissioner could only take careful precautions, withdraw into Jizhou territory, and then rely on the He River southwest of Jizhou to set up a cautious defense. He also sent messengers southeast to the only nearby ally with sufficient troops—Grand Defender Zhang Jun—to request instructions.

But bad things always seemed to come in clusters. No sooner had he stabilized his defensive line than a massive internal conflict erupted within the Yue Family Army!

PS: I encountered something today... I’ll post one chapter first... Everyone, go to bed early. I’ll write and make up the rest right now.