Chapter 155: Back and Forth

Now that the fighting was upon them, all scheming was meaningless. It came down to staking their lives, equipment, warhorses, and courage on a single breath. But no matter what, the commanders remained an extremely crucial part of this. At the very least, they were the ones who decided how to fight for that breath.

Thanks to Yue Fei's strategy of dividing his forces, the original frontline commander at Changshe city, Pucha Hubulu, and his ten meng'an had been lured to Changge by Ma Gao and the others. So the temporary real commander of the Jin army's front line had become the young wanhu Da Da.

Da Da was the younger brother of the deceased Da Tabuye, the successor of the Bohai Da clan in the Jin army... Of course, it was also fine to call the Da clan the Bohai imperial clan, because the character "Da" itself evolved from the meaning of "chieftain." The Bohai Da clan had long ago established the Bohai Kingdom, known as the "Flourishing Eastern Kingdom," during the Tang dynasty, only to be later destroyed by Yelu Abaoji.

It was precisely because of this, coupled with the fact that during the Jurchen rise, the Bohai people had revolted in an attempt to establish a Great Bohai Kingdom, that by the time of Wanyan Aguda, the Da clan, which held immense prestige and power in the Jurchen's original territory, immediately received sincere overtures and an alliance from the Wanyan clan. The two sides intermarried extensively, and the Da clan effectively enjoyed a transcendent status in Jin, second only to the imperial clan.

How to put it?

This newly appointed wanhu and Jin noble, Da Da, was not without military experience. He was not ignorant of Jin army military law. He had not shirked from risking his life in previous wars... But faced with the military orders conveyed by Wanyan Talan and the two meng'an of fresh reinforcements, this Great Wanhu hesitated.

He suddenly didn't feel like risking his life anymore.

There were many reasons, and they were all simple... For instance, his brother had died at the hands of the Song army, and barring any accidents, he had probably died at the hands of the owner of that large "Yue" banner before his eyes. He felt a bit of fear. For another instance, when the main army had gathered here earlier, the Fourth Prince, Wanyan Wushu, had discarded him when selecting the elite troops, which inevitably bred some resentment. For yet another instance, these days, Wanyan Talan and Wanyan Zonghan had been planning to establish a vassal state along the Henan front. Everyone knew it. What this Bohai imperial clan member found hard to accept was that a few newly surrendered Han Chinese could so easily establish a kingdom and proclaim themselves emperor, ruling over millions of people and over a dozen prefectures, while his Da clan, the legitimate Bohai imperial clan and in-laws of the Wanyan clan, couldn't even get a single prefecture or county carved out for them... So the resentment was even greater!

In a word, at some point, this great Bohai general no longer wanted to risk his life. At the very least, he didn't want to risk his own life!

But the Jin army's discipline was strict. Since the Right Vice-Marshal had personally ordered him, Da Da, to lead the cavalry and smash into the enemy lines, then he had to personally lead the charge, or else he would still lose his life!

"Follow me, smash in with me!" In an instant, after a jumble of chaotic thoughts ran through his mind, Da Da suddenly raised his cowhide-armored hand and shouted to rouse his spirits. "Today, with me here, we are invincible!"

The two newly arrived meng'an (thousand-man units, thousand-commanders) behind him, along with Da Da's own core meng'an, were also suddenly invigorated, each one stirred to action!

Then, three complete Jin army meng'an, all fresh troops, and also the largest mobile force Da Da could organize in a short time on the battlefield, began to form a tight formation—heavy armored cavalry moved forward, gripping their lances tightly; cavalry without horse armor automatically fell to the rear, bows in hand. Following behind Wanhu Da Da, they slowly turned and wheeled to the rear and flank, to create distance and make room for the charge.

Dense masses of Jin cavalry began to flow on a large scale. Horse armor, helmets, spear tips, and arrowheads began to glint with a chilling light under the spring afternoon sun... Even before the charge began, the Jin troops themselves were already experiencing an involuntary surge of adrenaline, their entire army growing excited. Meanwhile, the Song army on the battlefield couldn't help but feel fear, beginning to worry about the battle's outcome... This was the instinctive reaction of both sides, born from their respective war experience.

Everyone knew how terrifying the Jin army's armored cavalry charge was! Chuhedian, Taiyuan, Tongguan—the Jin army had carved out its awe-inspiring Great Jin state through one cavalry charge after another!

"Grand Defender!"

On the walls of Changshe city, Cheng Min, who had been watching the battle southeast of the city, couldn't help but look at Han Shizhong. "Open the city gates. Let me lead the Beiwei Army out for a charge. I can definitely pin down one or two meng'an!"

Han Shizhong, fully armored and sitting on the city wall at the edge of a collapsed section, was playing with a dagger in his hand. Without even looking at the battlefield or at Cheng Min, he slowly shook his head: "It's not time yet. Wait a bit longer!"

Cheng Min immediately shut his mouth, but Wang Shan, the Controller-in-Chief of the Dongjing Logistics Command, hesitated slightly: "Grand Defender, I'm afraid this might be the last chance. If this ten thousand men that Yue Fei led across the river first are routed on the spot, the troops behind, and whoever that 'Wang' banner belongs to, probably won't be able to follow. The defeat will be sealed... Why wait?"

Wang Shan was, after all, a guest commander. The two sides had toiled together in the city for two or three months, and there was some personal connection. Therefore, Han Shizhong spoke the truth directly:

"Because the Jin army is too impatient... How long has the battle been going on, and they're already trying to smash through with a hard charge?"

Wang Shan, Cheng Min, and Xie Yuan, who had just returned from inspecting other parts of the city wall, were all stunned by these words.

Han Shizhong, sitting there, also turned his head to look at the large formation of Jin cavalry southeast of the city, which had already begun to create distance and was slowly starting to move under Da Da's banner. A cold smile appeared on his face:

"A hard charge is certainly formidable, but is it such an easy thing? One charge, and the opposing formation is certainly lost, but the Jin army itself will also have a huge chunk torn out of it... For the Jin army to be so hasty and disregard casualties, it can only mean that the real killer blow of this relief force is still behind them, and they have to deal with these ten thousand men who crossed the river as quickly as possible!"

"Correct." Xie Yuan was the first to chime in. "As for the opportunity, the Qingshui River stretches for twenty li. The Jin army has laid countless pontoon bridges over it. As long as the relief force still has a follow-up, there will inevitably be another opportunity. Our troops in the city have been trapped for months and don't have much strength left. We must wait until the necessary moment to strike for it to be effective... Besides, I always feel that staying out of the fight for now will make Talan cautious!"

Watching the large Jin army formation already galloping below the city, Wang Shan's expression was grim, but he nodded repeatedly... To be honest, he was also puzzled by not seeing the troops of the Dongjing Logistics Command. Others were one thing, but Zhang Yong and Sang Zhong were men of honor. Since a large relief force had arrived, they would definitely not fail to come.

As they spoke, the thunder of Jin horse hooves rose, charging straight for the riverbank. Even though Yue Fei's troops were strictly disciplined, they couldn't help but be terrified. But under the shouts of their officers, they tried their best to tighten their formation. Zhang Xian, leading the Tabai Army, desperately pulled his mere few hundred cavalry away from Yue Fei's large banner... This wasn't fleeing, but to seek room for a counter-charge, to charge back at the first moment after the Jin army smashed the formation, to protect his elder brother and commander.

In fact, just moments before, as soon as the Jin army had assembled and he understood their intent, Yue Fei had realized the gravity of the situation... At this time, Wang Yan's troops had almost arrived at a run, with no strength left to assemble for battle, let alone cross the river from other places like the north bank of the Qingshui River to form an effective support. As for Han Shizhong's troops in the city, in Yue Fei's view, the best course of action was to stay out of the fight, ensuring that Wanyan Talan would be distracted and have to split his forces to deal with them. At the same time, the relief army personally led by His Majesty Zhao Jiu had not yet arrived, and his own troops left on the east bank of the river were unable to fully support due to the blocked pontoon bridge passage... This Jin charge had indeed seized the best opportunity. If he were to be smashed, then it would truly be over!

But on the battlefield, such worry was meaningless. Because just moments later, Da Da's banner suddenly accelerated. Then the three meng'an of Jin cavalry, like tigers descending a mountain, supported by discipline, morale, battle instinct, and surging bloodlust, followed their wanhu in a vicious charge to the riverbank. With the mentality of two clay pots smashing together and shattering together, they violently collided with the Song infantry formation before them.

The Song army had given their all. During the charge, the crossbowmen desperately exchanged fire with the Jurchen archers opposite. Arrows fell like rain. The screams were completely drowned out by the shouts of battle and the whistling of arrows through the air. At the moment of contact, the spearmen stood firm like a fence, watching helplessly as the dazzling Jin armored cavalry crashed straight into them.

But such a charge was truly not something that could be withstood by courage alone.

In an instant, after the front-line troops of both sides had annihilated each other in a mutual-destruction posture, countless Jin cavalry, relying on their momentum, practically smashed themselves and their horses into the Song formation... Then, in a state bordering on deafening silence, they completely tore apart the Song army formation before them!

Seen from a distance, it was as spectacular as a torrent of iron breaking through a dam.

With this charge, the entire battlefield seemed to fall into a brief silence. And without a doubt, in that instant, everyone reached the same conclusion: the Jin charge had won, and the Song army before them had collapsed... The Jin army suffered countless casualties, but the entire Song battle formation was utterly shattered. As the Song formation shattered completely, sound instantly returned to the battlefield. The next moment, everyone watched as these three Jin meng'an, led by Da Da, wantonly trampled and slaughtered the Song troops whose formation had instantly disintegrated!

On the pontoon bridge behind this formation, crowding and trampling began. Countless scattered Song troops on the west bank, still wearing their armor, simply fled into the early spring river water, easily breaking through the thin ice and sinking into it.

This clash was so clear, so shocking, that Wang Yan on the opposite bank could no longer bear it. He immediately ordered his slightly rested Eight-Character Army to force a crossing upstream!

Han Shizhong and Wanyan Talan, who had the best view from their high positions, reacted completely differently after a moment of slight bewilderment—Han Shizhong stood up and burst into laughter; Wanyan Talan's face turned green, and at the same time, the knuckles of the hand gripping his horsewhip turned white.

"I'm going to kill that Bohai bastard!" After a full two breaths, Talan threw his horsewhip to the ground, clearly furious. "I'll skin him alive!"

The people around him exchanged glances, none daring to speak... How could they possibly kill their only frontline commander in this situation? And how would they kill him?

Besides, Da Da hadn't violated any military discipline, had he? This wanhu had indeed personally led the charge into the Song formation! Only, he hadn't charged at the largest, strongest formation, the one with the "Yue" banner and three to four thousand men. Instead, he had charged at the neighboring formation with the "Xu" banner, which had only a little over a thousand men.

That's right. At the most critical moment of the entire battlefield, the Jin wanhu Da Da had used what was probably the Jin army's last best opportunity, painstakingly organized their strongest assault, but led the reinforcements Talan had given him, along with his own core meng'an, to viciously smash into the formation of Xu Qing, a commander under Yue Fei.

The results were bountiful. Xu Qing himself died for his country on the spot. Several hundred Song troops were killed in action, causing several hundred more to scatter and the collapse of nearly a quarter of the battlefield situation.

With such results, it was no wonder that Han Shizhong, sitting high and seeing far, burst into laughter at the collapse of an allied force. It was no wonder that Wang Yan ordered his entire army to cross the river at all costs, to quickly expand the battlefield while the Jin cavalry had difficulty regrouping. And it was no wonder that Yue Fei and his generals Zhang Xian, Fu Xuan, Tang Huai, Li Zhang, and Li Bao fell into a strange state of speechlessness—they were saddened and enraged by the sudden death of Xu Qing and their comrades, but they also keenly realized that this most critical breath had been survived!

After Han Shizhong finished laughing, seeing that Wang Yan's troops were beginning to cross the river in force upstream, he still did not sally forth. Instead, he continued to sit and wait for the right moment. Just then, on the main road east of Changshe city, the direction that had gradually quieted down as Wang Yan's troops arrived one after another, dust began to billow up again.

Han Liangchen sat leisurely on the city wall and watched for a while. After roughly estimating the number of this last batch of reinforcements, he couldn't help but exchange a glance with his brother Xie Yuan—clearly, speculation was one thing, but when they saw no less than sixty thousand relief troops had all arrived, they were still somewhat incredulous. It was hard for them to imagine how the imperial army had managed to organize such a large-scale and decisive rescue operation.

Meanwhile, ever since Da Da's perfect charge, Talan on the reviewing platform below the city had fallen into complete rage and chaos.

Wang Yan's crossing of the river only made this emotional loss of control worse—because Yue Fei's banner was still flying downstream, and the part of Yue Fei's army on the east bank was still fully supporting across the pontoon bridges. Da Da's force still couldn't completely finish off this unit! This situation, combined with the new battlefield opened up by Wang Yan's troops, meant that Talan had to face a dilemma he had been trying to avoid. How many troops should he send to block Wang Yan, and how many should he keep to guard against Han Shizhong behind him?

To be honest, amidst his emotional collapse, Talan was still keenly aware of one thing: he was truly going to be in a hard fight today!

As for whether Pucha Hubulu could return in time for support, that was no longer a question of whether he could solve the problem of the large Song army before him, but whether he could preserve his own army!

At best, he might be able to force the enemy back!

However, contrary to Talan's expectations, after he sent another three meng'an to the riverbank to coordinate with Da Da's force in an attempt to block the Song army, Han Shizhong in the city remained silent.

And it was precisely because of this silence that the battle remained confined to the banks of the Qingshui River—the Song army on the east bank began to use the existing pontoon bridges on the river to widely extend their battle line, expanding the battlefield to display their numerical advantage. The Jin cavalry began to shuttle back and forth, barely holding on with their tenacity and cavalry mobility... Of course, under these circumstances, it was a fool's dream for the Jin army to try to organize another large-scale charge like before.

The two sides seemed to be entering a kind of agonizing war of attrition. This relaxed Talan a little, because based on past experience, in this kind of battle of endurance and tenacity, the final result was often a Jin victory.

But just a quarter of an hour later, looking at the reinforcements billowing dust on the east bank once again, Talan fell completely into a state of racing heartbeat and panic.

Because, for some unknown reason, with the arrival of this last batch of over twenty thousand reinforcements, which had been expected, the entire Song army on the battlefield, numbering as many as sixty to seventy thousand, began to gradually enter a strange state of excitement... The two most obvious phenomena were, first, the speed of the Song army's river crossing and their desire to join the battle greatly increased; and at the same time, Song troops who had been routed by the Jin cavalry often gave up fleeing and, under the shouts of some officers, tried to regroup and reassemble.

"It must be the Song commander-in-chief Hu Yin himself arriving!" a surrendered Han official explained briefly. "In the past, Song commanders were mostly cowardly. I never expected Hu Mingzhong to have such courage... But the Marshal need not worry. The Song commander has no command ability and is newly arrived. This morale will dissipate after the first burst."

Talan believed this explanation, because it did seem very likely.

But a quarter of an hour later, no one knew how many bursts it was, the Song army's inexplicable morale still hadn't dissipated. Not only that, but as a strange yellow banner with three tails approached from afar, reached the riverbank, and then, almost without pausing, went up a pontoon bridge, directly leading an elite force into Yue Fei's most solid formation, the entire battlefield fell into a frenzy.

Countless Song troops, disregarding formation, swarmed across the river from various pontoon bridges. The speed at which the routed troops on the east bank regrouped was astonishing. The constantly shuttling Jin cavalry could no longer suppress the Song army's crossing offensive. In a short time, they lost their posture of dominance along the river.

But even more terrifying was that, just after that banner with a tail was planted on the west bank, the eerily quiet city of Changshe suddenly erupted into a boil. To Talan's almost horrified astonishment, all the city gates were thrown open—the man who had become the Jin Right Vice-Marshal's greatest fear over the past two or three months, after remaining silent for most of an hour, had suddenly and inexplicably charged out.

"Tear down the pontoon bridge!" Just as Talan was sinking into a kind of panic, Zhao Jiu had already arrived at Yue Fei's formation. After dismounting, this Song Dynasty emperor, whose face was clearly flushed and nervous, took several deep breaths before barely managing to slow his heartbeat. But once his heart rate recovered, he turned his head at once and gave a strange order to Li Qiong, who had followed him. "Tear down the pontoon bridge behind us, then pass the word to everyone—after crossing the river, tear down all the pontoon bridges! Tell them that today, I have locked myself, them, and these ten thousand-plus Jin troops together... only one side can walk out alive!"

Li Qiong was stunned for a moment, then immediately turned and left amid Yue Fei's silence... because the two men from Xiangzhou realized at once that the Emperor's move of crossing the river and destroying the bridges was not purely a matter of admirable courage, but a brilliantly cunning maneuver. By doing this, Pucha Hubulu's ten thousand fresh troops were instead cut off on the east side of the river.

This way, even the Emperor himself became much safer.

PS: Thank you to the book friends "He Changed the Human Empire" and "Tom Ding" — these are the sixty-first and sixty-second patrons of this book... First, I bow in thanks to both friends for their support, deeply grateful.

And to be honest, although my tooth still hurts a lot today and I can only schedule the extraction for tomorrow, I unexpectedly feel very happy because I've reconnected with many old classmates.