Chapter 554: Great Victory in Yancheng

The atmosphere in the Bianliang Palace finally became more lively.

Although there are still many ridicules about the Zhao Song in later generations, at least there is no avoidance of war this time.

The stalemate between the east and west lines, and the recovery of Henan in the middle line, is it not equivalent to a great victory?

So the eunuchs in the palace were also very happy.

The nobles' struggle for power and the emperor's cowardly behavior, these are quite far away from the eunuchs.

For these people who have been purified, they can't get rid of their identity as Song people and Bianliang people after all, so they are naturally excited.

Not to mention that Zhao Kuangyin watched the battlefield change, although he snorted heavily, his brows finally relaxed a lot.

Zhao Pu even had time to comment:

"Yue Fei is both brave and strategic. He can implement the strategy of connecting Hebei and can also ride alone into battle. He is very graceful and can be regarded as a famous general in ancient times."

This comment made Zhao Kuangyin nod his head repeatedly, and he also analyzed it:

"The Jin Kingdom first destroyed Liao and then attacked Song. It won consecutive battles and was very powerful. Han Yue tried his best to win a tragic victory and repel the enemy."

"At this time, Yue Fei was able to defeat the enemy head-on. He had the merit of ten years of training, but it was probably also due to the arrogance of the Jin captives."

"Now that the orders in the south of Yan are not working, if the people's hearts are not lost, they may follow the Jin captives' previous plan and cross the Yellow River to attack Youzhou."

"If the situation of Lianshan blocking the pass is achieved, we can close the gates and catch thieves, eliminate the Jin captives and pacify Hebei, and recover Look forward to Liaodong and get rid of the shame. "

The plan was too good, so Zhao Kuangyin sighed and said self-deprecatingly:

"I thought too much about this strategy. It is a blessing that Zhao Gou can promote three generals before the battle instead of taking power and controlling the battlefield remotely. How can I ask for anything else? "

So Zhao Pu's persuasion words rotted in his stomach, and he sighed instead:

"Every word the emperor said is reasonable. Look at the three generals promoted before the battle. It is normal for Han Shizhong to raid the battlefield and Yue Fei to attack, but why did this man named Zhang Jun return to the army? "

"The younger generation once said that Zhang Jun made the Huaixi army lose, so he gave up his military power. It seems that the defeat of Huaixi may not have happened yet. "

"Yue Fei seems to have many twists and turns in this battle. "

Zhao Kuangyin nodded, thinking that what Zhao Pu said was exactly what he thought.

Looking up at the screen, a Yellow River separated the borders of Song and Jin, and in the Hebei region, dots of the same color as the Southern Song exploded one after another, almost changing the color of the Jin territory.

Judging from the battle map alone, Jin Wushu was trapped in a situation of being besieged on all sides. The situation was obviously very good, but Zhao Kuangyin thought about the fact that Yue Fei might not have a good ending, and for some reason he felt a little sad.

Zhao Pu was still analyzing:

"Although Yue Fei is now in Heshuo, his army is uneven, and we still need to divide our troops to guard the pass."

"Although the Jin invaders are surrounded, they can gather their troops in one place. Yue Fei's troops are good in the overall situation but bad in the details, and it is difficult to complete the mission."

Zhao Kuangyin laughed at Zhao Pu's analysis:

"Why should Ze Ping worry? You also said that Yue Fei has the style of a famous general in ancient times. If so, he should be defeated by the momentum of a famous general. We will all wait and see."

[In Yue Fei's fourth northern expedition, Zhao Gou played an indispensable role as expected.

At the beginning of the war, Jin Wushu's 100,000 troops frightened Zhao Gou, so our comrade Wanyan Gou could temporarily be a human being at that time, and rewarded Yue Fei, Han Shizhong and Zhang Jun, and promised Yue Fei's northern expedition, looking like a monarch and minister.

But as Jin Wushu's three armies were blocked in Guanzhong, Shunchang and Haizhou respectively.

The frightened Zhao Gou immediately felt that Jin Wushu was nothing special. His mind immediately went offline and began to care about personal gains and losses. He immediately sent Li Ruoxu as an envoy to ask Yue Fei to "return home as soon as possible."

Yue Fei was of course unwilling. I have already pushed the troops across the river with six divine equipment, and you want me to surrender? What a joke.

During this imperial edict, the envoy Li Ruoxu stood on Yue Fei's side and took the initiative to take the crime of forging the imperial edict and supported Yue Fei's northern expedition.

In this situation, Zhao Gou was naturally unhappy, so when facing Yue Fei's request to send troops to guard the recovered areas in Sichuan, Shaanxi, Henan and other Xuanfu Divisions, Zhao Gou was all kinds of evasive.

Yue Fei sent a victory report to ask for assistance. Zhao Gou first said that it was very dangerous over there and he should return home as soon as possible. Later, he said that if it really didn't work, you, Yue Shaobao, could come back alone on a light horse to report the victory to me. Later, he simply said that military affairs could be handed over to your subordinates, and you should come back quickly. It can be said that he was basically holding back.

The recovered area was getting bigger and bigger, but the troops at hand were still limited, and he had to talk back to Zhao Gou. Yue Fei was so tired that he could only temporarily gather troops in Yancheng to prepare for any eventuality.

While Zhao Gou was holding Yue Fei back, Jin Wushu found out that Yue Fei was in Yancheng and had few troops, so the veteran general immediately decided to gather elite troops and implement the decapitation tactic.

According to the research of the famous historian Mr. Wang Zengyu, the victory report submitted by Yue Fei and the records preserved in the Jin History:

In order to achieve the effect of a surprise attack, Jin Wushu did not let his soldiers (infantry) go with him, but chose to gather the cavalry of his generals and his own Iron Pagoda, a total of 15,000 cavalry, and raided to a place 20 miles north of Yancheng before being discovered by Yue Fei's army.

At that time, Yue Fei had only the Beiwei Army and the Youyi Army in Yancheng, totaling more than 10,000 people. Excluding the city defenders and baggage and logistics personnel, the number of combat soldiers was at most 10,000. Even without considering the type of troops, they were already at a disadvantage in terms of numbers alone.

When the plains encountered a frontal battle, the Jin army used their best tactics from the beginning: the Crooked Horse (light cavalry) lured the enemy into a disturbed formation, then the two wings withdrew to encircle the enemy, leaving the front for the Iron Pagoda to attack in order to form an encirclement and annihilation. This tactic of light and heavy cavalry has been tried and tested from the Parthian Empire in Central Asia to the later Mongolian cavalry, and it can be said to be the most classic tactic.

But Yue Fei was too familiar with this tactic. At the beginning of the war, he abandoned the panic of being attacked. His eldest son Yue Yun was ordered to lead the Beiwei Army to charge directly and break into the Crooked Horse Army, making it impossible for them to detour.

The Jin army, which did not take advantage, immediately dispatched the Iron Pagoda to rescue the Crooked Horse, but Yue Fei's Youyi Army also joined the battlefield and fought to the death, making the Iron Pagoda's attack unsuccessful.

Yue Fei seized the opportunity accurately and sent the Beiwei Army to counterattack with long-handled axes and long-handled knives, chopping people's chests and horses' feet. The Iron Pagoda, which had lost its speed and flexibility, fell into the massacre of the Song Army. The Jin Army was at a disadvantage and was basically doomed to failure.

Yang Zaixing, a general of Yue Fei's army, even rode into the battle alone to capture Jin Wushu alive, but unfortunately he failed.

The two sides fought until dusk. The Jin Army organized the last charge but was defeated by the Beiwei Army. The morale finally collapsed. Jin Wushu broke through in the night, and the Battle of Yancheng ended with Yue Fei's victory.

The whole battle seemed simple, but for the Song people, they had suffered from "Liao phobia" and then "Jin phobia" since the Huizong era. It was a miracle that Yue Fei's army could lead infantry and light cavalry to fight against elite cavalry without collapsing. This was also the biggest gap between Yue Fei's army and other regular Song troops.

In addition, in the cold weapon era, if a cavalryman was fighting with a crooked horse and then faced the charge of the Iron Buddha, nine out of ten armies would collapse on the spot.

So the battle of Yancheng was not because Jin Wushu's light and heavy cavalry mixed tactics were weak.

But Yue Fei's Beiwei Army was too strong.

Jin Wushu himself saw this very clearly. After Yancheng, he sighed and said:

Since the war started from the sea, all the victories have been won by this, but now it's over.

What he was talking about was the invincible cavalry tactics of the combination of crooked horses and Iron Buddha. 】