Chapter 28: Awakening from a Dream

The wind rose over the Huaihe River, small waves lapping at the thin ice along the banks. In the early morning of the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month in the first year of the Jianyan era, His Majesty Zhao Jiu finally led the last group of his accompanying civil and military officials across the Huai to Bagongshan.

And on that very day at noon, while personally supervising the construction of a military camp on Bagongshan for Zhang Jun and Liu Guangshi to hold by relying on the terrain's danger during their retreat, under a clear, cloudless sky, His Majesty Zhao Jiu, waiting on the ridges of Linhuai Mountain, witnessed with his own eyes the routed troops of Liu Guangshi's forces surging from the northeast toward Xiacai City!

The mass was dense, countless in number, with banners in disarray and cavalry and infantry in chaos, scattered across the plains east of Xiacai City and north of the Huaihe River, yet all converging uniformly on Xiacai City, like a messy swarm of ants that had caught the scent of honey water.

Zhao Jiu sat on Bagongshan watching for half a day, his mood growing worse and worse, until he finally turned to find an expert and asked: "Zhengfu, although I don't understand military affairs, isn't this number a bit too many? How many men does Liu Guangshi's force have?"

"To report to Your Majesty," Yang Yizhong replied cautiously, "Grand Commandant Liu's troops, based on previous counts, were the largest among the various armies, yet they only numbered twelve to thirteen thousand. Now the number is no less than twenty thousand. It should be that the local militia and archers from the six prefectures and armies in southern Shandong have all followed southward..."

"So that's it..." Zhao Jiu suddenly let out a scornful laugh. "Grand Commandant Liu may have rarely shown his mettle on the battlefield, but he still has some methods. Facing such a perilous situation, he can still have so many militia troops abandon their homes to follow him?"

Yang Yizhong grew even more cautious, lowering his voice to reply: "Your Majesty, Grand Commandant Liu's troops have been raised by his father and himself for decades since their time in Hebei. The military families of the Western Army have much inherited tradition and are skilled at fostering loyalty through favors..."

"I know what you mean." Zhao Jiu interrupted him impatiently. "Do I have any intention of laying blame? If I truly wanted to assign blame, haven't I also fled in disgrace? Whether it's a hundred thousand or fifty thousand, the Jin army is powerful; Liu Guangshi cannot be considered at fault."

Yang Yizhong then fell silent.

As for Zhao Jiu, after watching for half a day and seeing the soldiers crowding and jostling at the city gate, he instead turned and gave an order, having Wang Boyan draft an edict, instructing Zhao Ding to find Wang Yuan and cross the river to Xiacai City to pacify Liu Guangshi, telling Liu Guangshi to properly reorganize his defeated troops. Those who could be used were to stay and hold the city together with Zhang Jun, while those truly unusable were to be properly escorted back by Wang Yuan to the south bank for resettlement and rest.

Once the edict was delivered, Zhao Jiu no longer knew how the other side of the river reacted, but he sat motionless on Bagongshan for the entire afternoon, lost in thought. The others stood by in attendance, watching as Xiacai City, once famous for its prosperity and vastness, visibly regained a sense of clamor—clearly the routed troops were pouring into the city one after another—and they couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Of course, Zhao Jiu also breathed a sigh of relief, but he still showed no intention of moving.

The other civil and military officials understood this tacitly and all waited by his side, straining their eyes to look into the distance, quietly awaiting news.

Finally, as dusk approached and the light was about to fade, Yang Yizhong, sharp-eyed, suddenly pointed toward a direction in the northeast and spoke words that, surprisingly, made everyone feel a sense of release:

"Your Majesty, look—the Jin army has arrived!"

Zhao Jiu, wearing a round-collared red robe, sat upright on a grand armchair in the center of the hillside. He raised his head slightly to look. In the sunset, he indeed saw a small cavalry unit, well-equipped and with its formation intact, galloping swiftly from afar toward the city walls.

And as this cavalry unit approached, the scattered routed troops outside the city scattered almost instantly, like headless flies fleeing in all directions. Some even jumped into the Huaihe River, despite the Jin army being still far away...

Zhao Jiu caught a glimpse of this scene from afar and was instantly stunned, his eyes wide.

One must know that in this weather, unless one was a hardy fellow born by the Huai's banks, jumping in was practically suicide. Yet these soldiers of the Great Song, though they had not yet faced a life-or-death crisis, were all so utterly terrified.

And in a certain sense, if they dared to jump into the Huai River in winter, weren't they unafraid of death? But if they were unafraid of death, why were they so frightened as to jump into the Huai?

Even more absurd was that this Jin cavalry unit, only about five or six hundred strong, completely ignored those panic-stricken routed troops and instead brazenly charged straight at the east gate of Xiacai City, which was densely covered with banners and bristling with crossbows, seemingly attempting to seize the large city of Xiacai, garrisoned by tens of thousands of troops... Fortunately, it could be seen from Bagongshan across the Huai, and the city walls of Xiacai on the opposite bank had also spotted them. So after a flurry of panic in which the drawbridge over the moat was raised, countless arrows flew down from Xiacai's walls, finally forcing back this Jin cavalry unit.

After being forced back, the Jin army seemed somewhat annoyed. They turned around and scattered, wantonly cutting down those routed troops of Liu Guangshi's who had failed to enter the city, as a form of venting their anger.

Watching this "battle," Zhao Jiu felt an immense sense of suffocation in his heart... Clearly, both sides were cold-weapon forces, yet it was as if there was a generational gap between them. Even the worst troops of that Mr. Jiang back then were no worse than this against the Japanese, were they?

But what was even more frustrating was that the civil and military officials around him, every one of them having fled from Hebei and Dongjing, showed little surprise, as if they had all become accustomed to it!

"Your Majesty, please go and rest for a while!"

As darkness fell, the Jin army departed on its own, apparently to find a place to stay in a nearby empty market town. In the dim light, seeing His Majesty sitting motionless, his expression displeased and his state of mind extremely poor, Lu Haowen hesitated for a moment before finally fulfilling the duty of a chief councilor. "The two Grand Commandants Zhang and Liu have joined forces. They have ample troops, the strong city of Xiacai, control of the Huai River crossings in our hands, and supplies from Huainan can be provided... Before the main force of the Jin army arrives, Xiacai can certainly be held."

Zhao Jiu forced a smile, didn't decline, and was about to get up and leave. But just as he stood up, he heard a sudden commotion from across the river, a clamor that carried across the water!

Everyone turned their heads to look in unison, but because the sky had already darkened, it was hard to see the specific situation. They only vaguely sensed that the disturbance seemed to be coming from some direction within Xiacai City, and they grew even more puzzled and tense.

Zhao Jiu instinctively looked toward Yang Yizhong.

"It should be that Grand Commandant Liu's troops, having just arrived, are unwilling to submit to Grand Commandant Zhang's troops' discipline. Because of matters like evening billeting and rations, a conflict has arisen." Yang Yizhong thought for a moment and then gave a highly plausible conclusion. "This is a common occurrence in the army, especially since Grand Commandant Liu's forces already have no military discipline whatsoever..."

Everyone murmured a few remarks, as if they still found it a very natural thing, and then fell silent, dispersing to find clean places to rest in the camps on and around the mountain.

And for some reason, perhaps because everything he had seen and heard over the course of that day and night had exceeded his past experience, and he could only drift through it all like a puppet, echoing from start to finish, His Majesty Zhao Jiu, having accumulated too many emotions, quickly fell into a deep sleep after camping on the mountain that night.

PS: Happy New Year to everyone.