Chapter 312: Attack and Defense

At the end of the second month, spring plowing was largely finished, and war suddenly erupted.

The Imperial Guard Rear Army, which had rested for over half a month without leaving the front lines, was the first to move.

Under Wu Jie's command, the Imperial Guard Rear Army deployed at least twenty thousand combat troops in Bao'an Army and the northern region of Qingzhou—that is, the northwest flank of Yan'an, at the most sensitive junction of the three-way front along the Hengshan Mountains between Jin, Western Xia, and Great Song. Once deployed, they split into two columns: one advanced southeast along the Luo River toward Yan'an Prefecture, where Wanyan Huonu was stationed; the other moved northwest toward the Dingbian Army region, which had been seized by Western Xia during the Jingkang Incident.

By pre-Jingkang standards, the scale of this campaign would have counted as a major battle, but in the present era, it was neither large nor small. The form of combat was also destined to be a typical fortress-grabbing war, focused on contesting control of the castles along the Song-Xia front on the Hengshan Mountains. In the short term, it could not create any great waves or produce any particularly earth-shaking results.

Yet it still shook everyone.

Now, it goes without saying that Great Song and Great Jin were warring enemy states, their enmity deeper than the sea and higher than the mountains, and war had never formally ceased for a single day.

And while Great Song and Western Xia often achieved nominal short-term peace, deep down, because of a century of war, their enmity was also deeper than the sea and higher than the mountains. Even among the most anti-war high-ranking civil officials within the Song central government, aside from a very few who, weary of war, were willing to accept Western Xia, most had from the very beginning regarded Western Xia as a "rebel"—that is, an "illegal self-independence." Deep in their hearts, everyone believed that regime's birth was illegitimate.

Therefore, whether it was "parrots and zhajiang noodles" or "the Jing and Wei rivers clearly divided," or "I have endured you for a long time," and the fact that without fighting Western Xia, it would be impossible to acquire warhorse reserves to cross the river and fight... in short, this war with Western Xia was, in essence, the kind that left no one with anything to say.

So, it was not the war itself that shook everyone.

Then what was the off-field significance of Wu Jie's offensive? The answer was taking the initiative to attack—launching an assault against the regular troops of the Jurchens and the Tanguts, against the regular armies of Song's two most powerful enemies.

This year was the sixth year of the Jianyan era, 1132 AD, and the war had begun seven years earlier, in 1125.

In the first three years of the war, the Song army suffered defeat after defeat, finally leading to the world-shaking Jingkang Incident, the de facto destruction of the Song regime. Then, in the first year of Jianyan (which was also the second year of Jingkang), the Zhao Song Emperor, as the sole surviving orthodox member of the imperial clan, ascended the throne in Nanjing (Shangqiu).

At that time, the Song court was a refugee court, not daring to go to Hebei, not daring to stay in the Central Plains. The chief ministers and senior officials debated most fiercely over whether to go to Chang'an, Nanyang, or Yangzhou as a place to settle;

At that time, under the Song heaven, Hebei and Hedong were basically lost, the Central Plains, Guanzhong, and Jingdong were completely exposed to the Jin army's blade, commoners fled south in droves, officials abandoned their lands at the first rumor, and north of the Huai River had essentially entered a state of anarchy, while from south to north, military bandits and robbers were everywhere;

At that time, the Song army was a rabble of beaten and broken soldiers, a motley crew of a few cats and dogs. The highest-ranking military man was actually a piece of goods like Liu Guangshi, and even the universally acknowledged "loyal and brave" Han Shizhong could not restrain his own troops from mutinying and rioting right next to the temporary imperial residence;

Everything from that time was still vivid in memory.

And now, Zhao Song had actually struck out, launching offensives simultaneously against the regular troops of the Jurchens and Western Xia.

Some things are like this... although everyone was mentally prepared, although most knew that it might not necessarily produce any obvious results, and even a considerable number knew that this affair might be nothing more than a feint or some kind of preparatory action, they still could not help but feel a little excited, a little emotional, a little wistful.

Because this was the main text of history, the process of history.

Above countless deaths, survivals, flames, iron tides, nature, and humanity, history would ultimately, in its perverse way, choose such events as nodes for its emotionless recording... After seven years of resistance and five years of hard work, Zhao Song finally took that step of counterattack in the spring of the sixth year of Jianyan.

Then, as time passed, no one would remember all those once-living faces, and no one would remember all those flashing blades and shadows that once illuminated an era. Only some people, some events, like this counterattack, would be recorded without emotion.

After Wu Jie made his move, the other Song armies also kept up a stream of actions.

Han Shizhong's forces re-entered Tongzhou, and one column pushed forward into Danzhou, ensuring pressure on another flank of Yan'an while directly threatening the Jin army's supply route from the Daning area across the river to support Yan'an. This made the Jin army in Yan'an truly feel the danger of being surrounded and annihilated.

The pressure on the Western Xia side was clearly greater. Yue Fei's forces, Qu Duan's forces, and Wang De's forces—tens of thousands of elite Song troops—appeared in large numbers on the Jingyuan Circuit, with both cavalry and infantry complete. Then, apparently using Zhenrong Army (later Guyuan) as their main base, they launched a fierce assault on Huaide Army, commonly known as Pingxia City, which had been seized by Western Xia, and the fortress chain in the northern section of Xi'an Prefecture.

Pingxia City's strategic position was extremely prominent. It was built during the reign of Emperor Zhezong, who concentrated the entire manpower and material resources of Guanzhong, suddenly initiated the project, and completed it in just twenty-three days. As soon as it was built, it caused great shock in Western Xia... because this city and its surrounding supporting forts directly controlled the upper reaches of the Hulu River, which cut across the Douling Mountains and ran all the way to the Yellow River.

At this river mouth, the distance to the core Western Xia territory of Xingling (the Ningxia Plain) was actually only a mere one hundred and twenty li.

In the old days, when Li Qianshun's mother, the younger Empress Liang, chose this place for her second campaign, it was not without reason.

Now, the three forces of Yue Fei, Wang De, and Qu Duan were clearly drawn elite troops, and most of their officers and soldiers were actually locals, able to adapt to the battlefield as soon as they arrived. At the same time, their cavalry ratio was quite high, and from the moment they engaged, they had the momentum of "invading like fire." Under the fierce assault of these Song armies, the defensive line along the Hulu River basin—which the Western Xia called the Weiru River—collapsed rapidly, and the fortresses were quickly isolated and surrounded. It was easy to imagine that if large-scale, organized reinforcements could not be dispatched quickly, then all of Li Qianshun's efforts since the Jingkang Incident would be completely undone.

And this made Li Qianshun, who was already in a difficult position due to the sudden outbreak of war, even more troubled.

This man had been the ruler of Western Xia for nearly fifty years. He certainly knew the importance of Pingxia City, and he certainly knew that if Pingxia City, which he had managed to seize during the Jingkang chaos, were retaken by the Song army, Western Xia would never know peace. But he dared not lightly dispatch troops to meet the enemy... because, in early March, as the Song army launched its full-line offensive and advance, a repeatedly confirmed piece of intelligence from prisoners and wavering border tribes was that the Zhao Song Emperor's dragon banner had again moved north, directly entering Fangzhou's northernmost city, Fangzhou City.

Fangzhou City was certainly a strategic key point, as could be seen from Wu Jie's previous achievements there. It was only natural for the Song army to station troops there. However, merely deploying reserves did not require the Zhao Song Emperor's dragon banner.

Clearly, the Zhao Song Emperor intended to personally oversee Han Shizhong's and Wu Jie's forces in the Yan'an-Hengshan eastern battlefield.

The sight of the Great Song Son of Heaven appearing less than a hundred li from the front line had become routine for the Jurchens, but for the Western Xia, for the small Tangut tribes in the Hengshan Mountains, and for the officials and commoners in the occupied areas of northern Shaanxi, it was still an immense shock.

Many small Tangut tribes wavered back and forth. Although most of the time they still considered themselves Western Xia subjects, a century of immersion meant they still understood what the Great Song Son of Heaven was, and deep in their bones, they had a kind of fear.

Therefore, the single statement that the Great Song Son of Heaven was in Fangzhou brought such shock and pressure that the entire Hengshan region became panicked. Many small Tangut tribes inside and outside the mountains showed signs of wavering, and there were repeated incidents of uprisings and defections among the officials and commoners in the occupied areas of northern Shaanxi.

And whether it was Yue Fei or Wu Jie, their offensives clearly became smoother.

Under these circumstances, Li Qianshun truly did not dare to transfer troops from the Hengshan defensive line, nor did he dare to send out the troops he had stationed in Lingzhou to meet the enemy. Because if there were any slip-up, resulting in a major defeat in the field—even if it were just ten thousand troops—it could very likely trigger a chain reaction, ultimately leading to a complete loss on the entire board.

After only a few days of fighting, this experienced Western Xia ruler fully realized a reality: the Song army of today was absolutely not the Song army of the past, and the Great Song of today was absolutely not the Great Song of the past.

Expecting Western Xia to achieve a strategic balance with the Song on its own had been a delusion from the start.

In his torment, Li Qianshun's only hope was the Jurchens. Letters begging for help began to fly out one after another, sent at the fastest speed from Xingqing Prefecture, passing behind the Hengshan Mountains into the Jin-occupied zone. Huonu, Wushu, and Eluguan—everyone who mattered got a copy.

Daning City was the main route from the Jin army's heartland east of the Yellow River to Yan'an.

This was because the Xinshui River, which flowed through here, and the Yellow River estuary of the Yan River on the opposite bank were only a dozen li apart, and the Yan River estuary was further downstream, making the east-to-west logistical transfer very convenient.

Therefore, the Jin Fourth Prince, Wanyan Wushu, who was targeting Yan'an, had long ago made this place his field headquarters, and here he had nearly succeeded in splitting and dissolving the Huonu group.

Now, by early March, after the war had fully erupted, the first plea for help—after who knows how many horses had been run to death—arrived here. The Grand Prince of Wei, who actually commanded the entire Western Route Army and the Western Theater, after a rough glance at the letter, made his judgment directly in the main hall of his Daning City headquarters:

"We must save Western Xia."

"Your Highness, save Huonu first!" said Wanyan Balisu, the commander-in-chief of the Western Route Army, who had rushed over from Taiyuan City specifically because of the sudden outbreak of war, speaking up from his seat. "Although Huonu and I have a grudge, we cannot abandon those ten thousand veterans of the Western Route Army no matter what... Compared to that, even if Western Xia is destroyed, what does it matter?"

The others in the hall nodded one after another.

Now, in the old days, Yan'an Prefecture had gathered nearly twenty thousand troops, but taking advantage of the favorable wind of the Zhao Song Emperor's entry into the pass and the subsequent ceasefire after his entry, nearly half had already withdrawn to Hedong with Wanyan Salaihe and Pucha Huzhan.

Therefore, Huonu now had only ten thousand men in hand. And Wanyan Salaihe and Pucha Huzhan were both sitting in this hall.

"We must save Huonu too." Wushu did not explain much. He simply stood up, paced back and forth in the hall with his hands behind his back for a moment, and then gave a definite response.

"Then the Grand Prince of Wei means... to send a large army across the river to Yan'an?" Balisu stared hard at Wushu, frowning deeply.

"No!" Wushu shook his head decisively. "I have been here for a long time and I see it clearly. Going from Daning to Yan'an is easy to get there but hard to return. Besides, Yan'an is mountainous, and there are two big rivers that are gradually rising. It's not a good place for our Jurchen cavalry to operate... I even suspect that Han Shizhong may already have enough troops to cut off the Yan River, forcing Huonu to withdraw from the north. The reason he is sitting still in Danzhou is that he is setting a trap, waiting for us to send troops over, so he can take a big bite out of us."

Balisu fell silent. The several generals beside him, Wanyan Salaihe, Pucha Huzhan, and others, were also silent... They could very well understand Wushu's thinking, because the greatest loss in the last Battle of Yaoshan was the two Wanhu units that Wanyan Wushu himself had led. And the reason those two Wanhu units had suffered such heavy losses was not because they had fought a bloody battle, but because, unlike the other units that had withdrawn in an orderly fashion after the battle, they had been cut off on the other side of the battlefield, unable to return, and then, having lost their supplies, they were surrounded and annihilated on the banks of the Yellow River.

Once bitten, twice shy.

The Jurchens really did not want to fight on the other side of the river, nor did they want to jump into a trap.

"How many troops are on the other side?" Wushu paced around the hall a few times and suddenly asked.

"As for manpower, naturally it's boundless," Balisu said, spreading his hands. "I don't need to tell you, Fourth Prince, you must have seen and heard it yourself... From Tongzhou to Danzhou, laborers and auxiliary troops are an unbroken stream. Across the river, visible to the naked eye, banners are thick and dense, everything you can imagine is there."

Wushu sighed even more deeply. "And combat troops?"

"Combat troops can only be estimated," Balisu replied solemnly from his seat. "Han Shizhong's Imperial Guard Left Army has always been there, Wu Jie's Imperial Guard Rear Army has always been there, and Li Yanxian has never moved. The only unknown is how many troops the Zhao Song Emperor brought in this time... They themselves say it's fifty thousand, saying it's Yue Fei's Imperial Guard Front Army, Wang De's Imperial Guard Center Army, and Qu Duan's Imperial Guard Cavalry Army. These three together could naturally pull out fifty thousand, but it's not certain. We can only say that, according to the Western Xia letter, these three men and their main subordinates have all shown up at Pingxia City, beating the Western Xia so badly they're begging us for help, while the Zhao Song Emperor is in Fangzhou, which should also have some directly commanded reserves... So even if there's some bluffing, it probably won't be too far off."

Wushu nodded continuously and finally gave a specific number: "Adding Li Yanxian, one hundred and fifty thousand?"

Balisu thought for a moment, and beside him, Salihu also thought, but neither of them spoke.

"The Song people came prepared." Jin Wushu did not dwell on this question that was destined to have no concrete answer, but which everyone had a rough idea about. Instead, he continued along this line of reasoning to raise a conclusion and a new question. "We can't cross the river, at least not from Yan'an to cross and go to the rescue... Instead, we need to let Huonu prepare early, and if necessary, go through Suide Army and Linzhou from the north... Is Zhe Keqiu in Linzhou reliable?"

"I don't know." Balisu shook his head repeatedly. "The entire north bank of the river in Shanbei—Yan'an Prefecture, Suide Army, Jinning Army, Linzhou, Fengzhou, Fuzhou—was all taken by Loushi with Huonu, and then handled by the Xijing Garrison. But just before Yaoshan, the Khitans in Xijing rebelled, and the newly appointed Xijing Garrison was simply the Sixth Prince, just appointed..."

"Let's not discuss that for now." Jin Wushu was also helpless, but he frowned even more. "I still feel something is off. With so many things happening on our side, how can the Song people have nothing going on? Do they really have the grain reserves to mobilize 150,000 troops in Shanbei to delay, set bait, and fight a decisive battle? Having an army stationed in place is one thing, the cost of moving them is another, and once fighting starts, it's yet another... How can they be so composed when we are not prepared?"

Balisu looked thoughtful: "Is the Prince of Wei saying that the Han people are feinting, their real intention being to intimidate us and take the five prefectures of Shanbei for nothing? Perhaps their logistics simply cannot support a large-scale war for two or three months? And their military supplies are insufficient to launch a major battle of a hundred thousand men at Yan'an?"

Jin Wushu was silent for a moment, then shook his head with difficulty: "We can't gamble on that!"

Balisu let out a scornful laugh, finally no longer hiding his feelings: "Prince of Wei, you say both the good and the bad. What exactly should we do? It has to be your word!"

Jin Wushu replied slowly: "It's been a long time, things are no longer like they were at Nanyang. General Han has already died on the opposite bank. I just want to avoid making mistakes as much as possible... Balisu, you've been with the Western Route Army for a long time. You tell me, if I want to rescue the Western Xia, protect Huonu, avoid the risk of crossing the river, and still delay the Song people, what exactly should I do? Is there a proper response?"

"Simple." Balisu, hearing the mention of the Nanyang affair, became serious again and replied frankly. "This is precisely the reason I came to see the Prince of Wei... I ask the Prince of Wei to order the army to converge on Hezhong Prefecture! Lay pontoon bridges at Pujin and Longmen Ford to pressure Tongzhou; cross the Zhongtiao Mountains to attack Pinglu, thereby pressuring Shanzhou, forcing the Song army to draw troops from Shanbei to confront us there! If we do this, I dare not say everything will be solved, but it will certainly be enough to ease the overall situation!"

Jin Wushu suddenly understood. This was the so-called 'besiege Wei to rescue Zhao,' or rather, pretending to besiege Wei to apply pressure and rescue Zhao. One could only say that for thousands of years, the area around Pujin and Tongguan had always been the key to Guanzhong, and there was indeed a reason for that.

With this thought, the Prince of Wei of the Great Jin, as always, made his decision without hesitation: "I will follow the Commander's advice. I will personally go to Pujin once more!"