Chapter 379 King Qin (I)

A turmoil that many people expected started as expected and ended just as quickly.

This time, countless court officials and generals of the imperial guards participated in the conspiracy, which led to the fall of Luoyang City and the burning of the Yingtian Gate of the imperial city. Two generations of emperors of the Zhu family were forced into the palace and were besieged. The imperial guards were so rebellious that no one could stop them.

Fortunately, the King of Song took charge of suppressing the rebellion and mobilized countless powerful troops from the Eastern Capital to put down the chaos in one fell swoop. All the generals who instigated the rebellion were killed, and many court officials were also said to have been detained. In Luoyang city and outside the city, the King of Song chopped off thousands of heads of the rebellious imperial guards in just one night.

The number of heads killed in Luoyang had not yet ended. The Luo River had just been dyed blood red when the King of Song went to wipe out Yang Shihou’s troops in Chang’an, who had marched into Luoyang without authorization without following the imperial edict.

It is said that Yang Shihou’s rebellion this time not only colluded with the Tongzhou Kuangguo and Huazhou Ganhua armies, but there is even definite evidence that he also secretly colluded with the pseudo-Shu generals Wang Zongkan, Tang Daoxi and others. Not only did he put the Song Wang’s personal army Dingbadu in danger, but he also opened the Guanxi gate and sold Chang’an to the Shu army.

His crime was so obvious that it was difficult to pardon him, but there was no specific decree on how to deal with Yang Shihou, whether to exterminate three clans or nine clans, and no one in the court dared to inquire about it privately. The so-called imperial court was trembling at the feet of King Song and was in a state of panic all day long.

As for King Song Xiao Yan himself, after leading the two emperors west to destroy Yang Shihou, there was no news of his return to Luoyang. What came back was only an imperial edict, ordering Jing Xiang, the co-director of the Privy Council, to lead the imperial guards to Chang’an. Li Ting, who had been silent in the court, was transferred to the deputy envoy of the Privy Council to serve as Jing Xiang’s deputy.

In addition to the immediate transfer of the imperial guards to Chang’an, the prefect of Henan Province, Prince of Wei, Zhang Quanyi, was asked to preside over the restoration of order in the city, the reconstruction of destroyed houses, and the treatment of the wounded.

Let’s not talk about the major reshuffle in the court. For the people of Luoyang, these are too far away and they only care about what is happening right now.

Hundreds of houses were burned in Luoyang overnight, and more than 400 to 500 civilians were killed or injured in the chaos. The chaos later affected more than just the imperial city, and the casualties should have been even greater, especially since Niu Cunjie and his men set fires everywhere in order to cut off the retreat and stop the pursuing troops, causing smoke and fire everywhere in Luoyang. The defeated imperial guards also ran around, hoping to plunder and flee, and they were all bloodthirsty.

Fortunately, the King of Song promptly dispatched his personal army, the Guide Army, to enter the city to quell the rebellion. The tens of thousands of cavalrymen were strictly disciplined and captured and killed the imperial guards who were rioting in the city, and quickly participated in the firefighting. As a result, the riot that almost affected the entire city did not cause greater losses and damage.

The people in Luoyang City did not know the truth behind this chaos. Although they knew that King Song might not be innocent in it, it was also a fact that the imperial army entered the city and besieged the imperial city in an attempt to overthrow King Song, so they would not attribute this chaos to Xiao Yan.

For the common people, they only need to know that the ones who put out the fire, quelled the chaos, and resettled the injured were all soldiers under Xiao Yan’s command. That is enough.

Therefore, when the people of Luoyang heard that Xiao Yan had annihilated Yang Shihou, who was said to be leading his troops to Luoyang for a battle, they all breathed a sigh of relief and applauded.

In today’s world, there is no peace anywhere in the world. Unless people really can’t survive, they are unwilling to leave their homes and become refugees to seek survival in other places where they don’t know the situation. For many people, they are born in Luoyang and die in Luoyang.

Therefore, at this time, not only in Luoyang, but also in Bianjing, most people were actually looking forward to it. Seeing that the King of Song still had some integrity and a strong army under his command, it would be better for him to rule in peace and not let any blind people jump out and think of trying to shake the tree with an ant’s strength and cause another chaos…

——

While Xiao Yan was fighting on both fronts and taking off countless heads in Guanzhong, Fengxiang, far outside Guanxi, was finally no longer peaceful.

Many days ago, after Tang Daoxi, the commander of the Western Army of the northern camp of Shu Kingdom, led the Western Army eastward to besiege Wugong County in Daliang, the conflict between Qi and Shu under Fengxiang City became peaceful.

Wang Zongkan, the commander of the Shu army, was waiting for news from the front line of Wugong. He knew very well that the food reserves in the Qi camp would not last much longer, so he did not act rashly. What he wanted was to make sure that the Liang army would not interfere in the Fengxiang battlefield before he could go ahead and annihilate the three armies of Fengxiang, Tianxiong and Zhangyi led by the King of Qi.

But the fact that Qiying had been behaving well-behaved for several days in a row made Wang Zongkan feel strange.

Until this day, the Qi camp suddenly made a big move, and several troops were sent out to press forward towards the Shu camp that was besieging the east of Fengxiang City.

“Strange, strange. We didn’t try to lure him, but the Qi army dared to go out of the camp and fight in the field. Could it be that Qi Wang Li Maozhen is confused?”

Wang Zonghe, the Hanzhong Recruiting Envoy, was holding a map in the camp, looking quite stunned. He then looked at Wang Zongkan, who was surprisingly calm, and hissed, “General Kan, what are the Qi army trying to do? They only have less than 6,000 or 7,000 men at their disposal. How dare they confront our army? Even Wang Zongyou in the East Camp has more than 20 commanders available…”

Wang Zongkan paced back and forth, twirling his beard as he looked at the scout commander who was trying to get information: “Is the Qi army really going out in full force? Where is the cavalry that Li Maozhen left behind?”

“Li Maozhen has divided his cavalry into two wings and is threatening the two gates of the East Camp. All his troops have already left, that is certain.” said the scout leader.

“How dare you.” Wang Zonghe sneered, “With only a thousand cavalrymen, you dare to show off in front of tens of thousands of us… General Kan, I will lead the central army to fight.”

“No.” Wang Zongkan shook his head and said calmly, “Although the King of Qi made a foolish move to cut off his own arm by making enemies with the State of Jin two months ago, he has been fighting for a month and is clearly an experienced leader. Since he dared to take the initiative to attack this time, it is definitely not as simple as burning his boats.”

Wang Zonghe frowned. “According to predictions, Qiying’s food reserves are running low. If Li Maozhen doesn’t want to abandon Fengxiang City, he can only take the initiative to fight in the field and find our army’s weaknesses. The Qi army has been too quiet in the past few days. They may be preparing to fight to the death. Maybe they have already eaten up all the food reserves…”

Wang Zongkan was very calm and was still thinking. Even though the scouts outside kept reporting that the Qi army was approaching the East Camp, he remained unmoved.

Wang Zonghe was a little anxious. In his opinion, the Qi army was seeking their own death, and now was the best time to annihilate them, not to mention that it would save the difficulty of attacking the stronghold.

“General Kan, even if we want Dongying to close its camp and defend itself, we can’t just sit there and watch the Qi army show off their might outside, right?”

Wang Zonghe suddenly had an idea and suggested, “We have tens of thousands of troops under Fengxiang City. Can we be bullied by a few thousand Qi troops? General Kan has more than a thousand cavalrymen. I will go around and occupy the Qi army’s camp. Isn’t Li Maozhen sending out his entire army? I wonder if he still wants to keep that turtle shell!”

This suggestion is indeed good. This time, tens of thousands of Shu troops gathered under the city of Fengxiang. The reason why they were still a little hesitant in fighting was because the Qi army had set up a large camp outside the city to the north of Fengxiang. If the Shu army attacked the city, they could send out the camp to provide support.

Therefore, for the past two months, the Qi camp had been forcing the Shu army, forcing them to always be on guard against whether the Qi army in the camp would suddenly break out of the camp when they attacked the city. And because there were also a large number of troops in the Qi camp, the Shu army failed to capture the camp several times, which dampened their morale and led to the stalemate until now.

If they could destroy the large camp to the north of Fengxiang City in one fell swoop, not to mention whether they could annihilate the several troops led by King Qi himself under the city of Fengxiang, as long as the Qi army lost their large camp, they would have no choice but to abandon Fengxiang and head north.

For a moment, Wang Zongkan was somewhat tempted, but he could not help but hesitate when Wang Zonghe asked for more than a thousand cavalry to take a detour to cut off the retreat of the Qi army.

Although Shu had a “cavalry” organization, it was always small in size due to the lack of high-quality war horses. Most of the time, the cavalry was only used for reconnaissance, messaging, and protecting the flanks of elite main forces, and was almost never used in major field battles.

Even the overlord of the Central Plains, Daliang, was extremely short of cavalry before it obtained Hebei, let alone Shu. Therefore, even in the northern camp with as many as 50,000 to 60,000 combat soldiers, there were only about 2,000 cavalry. They have always been the apple of Wang Zongkan’s eye, and he would be heartbroken if any of them was lost.

The Shu Kingdom not only lacked horses, but also elite cavalry. Compared with the light cavalry in the north that could charge in thousands or even tens of thousands at a time, the Shu Kingdom seriously lacked experience and initiative in using cavalry. The only ones who could be called elite were probably the small number of cavalry Yuancong who followed Emperor Wang Jian into Shu. However, even the latter were now too old to be used.

In this battle, the Shu army of tens of thousands was constrained when fighting against the Qi army of tens of thousands. One of the reasons was that the Shu army did not have the same strength to confront the Qi army’s cavalry head-on.

If more than a thousand cavalry were assigned to Wang Zonghe, the main camp would lose initiative. However, if Wang Zonghe had an accident, he would be to blame, and I am afraid the emperor would have to personally intervene.

Seeing Wang Zongkan’s rare hesitation, Wang Zonghe knew the seriousness of the matter and was not impatient. He just spread out five fingers and said, “Five hundred cavalrymen, General Kan, I will give you five hundred cavalrymen to help you capture Qiying!”

“Forget it.” Wang Zongkan couldn’t help but sigh. “If we can capture Qiying, we will cut off Li Maozhen’s retreat. This is a matter of great importance. It’s better to be safe. Go and lead a thousand cavalry… If we capture Fengxiang, the several horse farms in Qi will all belong to our army. I almost lost the big picture because of the small one.”

Having made up his mind, Wang Zongkan no longer hesitated. Knowing that the opportunity for battle was fleeting, he immediately sent Wang Zonghe to lead the cavalry out of the camp.

Wang Zonghe left immediately, and a military secretary asked, “General Kan, what’s going on in Dongying?”

“Has any news been sent back from the envoy of Wugong County?” Wang Zongkan was not in a hurry. The Eastern Army Recruiting Envoy Wang Zongyu was personally in charge of Dongying. There were more than 20 commanders with a total of more than 10,000 soldiers and horses left in the camp. Unless the Qi army could fly, they would not pose any threat to Dongying.

As for the envoy, it was Tang Daoxi, the commander of the Western Army. At the invitation of Yang Shihou, he was leading the Western Army to besiege Dingbadu, the personal army of King Song of Daliang, who was said to be stationed in Wugong County.

The military secretary shook his head, and Wang Zongkan waved his hand in a deep voice: “Fengxiang is already in our pocket. We should not entangle with the Qi army any more, so as not to fall into Li Maozhen’s trap. The Liang army is like a thorn in our side, so we need to retain our strength and be careful not to let the Liang army reap the benefits.”

Several councilors and generals in the tent flattered him, saying, “General Kan used his troops steadily. He is a good warrior without any great achievements. He is truly a famous general.”

Wang Zongkan had no intention of correcting these flatterers who took his words out of context. He just frowned as he looked at the map, secretly wondering what the motives of Qi Jun were.

“Is the Qi army looking for an opportunity to enter Fengxiang…” Someone suddenly spoke silently in the corner.

Someone nearby sneered, “Why enter Fengxiang? It would be a great thing if the King of Qi really entered Fengxiang. If he hadn’t been outside the city to support Fengxiang, how could the war have lasted until today? After entering Fengxiang, the Qi army would be trapped. Zhang Zimei, are you stupid?”

Wang Zongkan frowned and looked over, and saw a frail old man in his fifties wearing a scarlet robe standing in the corner of the tent. Hearing the man’s sarcastic words, he pursed his lips, but in the end he just looked at the man without saying a word, and then lowered his head to sort out the documents in his hands.

The old man’s name was Zhang Dao Gu, with a courtesy name Zi Mei. He was a Jinshi during the Jingfu period of Emperor Zhaozong of the Tang Dynasty. However, in the fourth year of Qianning, he was demoted to the post of Si Hu of Shizhou because he directly advised Emperor Zhaozong that the country was in five dangers and two difficulties. He then entered the Da Shu state and was appointed as Wu Si Lang Zhong. Although he was assigned to this official position, he was summoned to the court because of his good talent in poetry, which was appreciated by the eminent monk Master Chan Yue who was highly respected by the emperor.

In the past, this person would have been a nobody, but Wang Zongkan’s ears twitched when he heard this. He walked over and said to Zhang Daogu, “Doctor Zhang, why do you say that the Qi army will enter Fengxiang?”

Zhang Dao Gu was stunned for a moment, but then he did not stand up. He just sat behind the desk and twisted a few documents stuck together with his fingers and said: “The Qi army’s military rations have all been used up. Whether they want to launch an offensive against our army or not, they will have to retreat sooner or later. But if the King of Qi is unwilling to abandon Fengxiang, we can still choose to rush into the city. Fengxiang has been managed by the King of Qi for many years, and the reserves are at least enough for 10,000 people and the people for more than a month. In this way, we can wait for other towns in Qi to come to our rescue…”

“Nonsense.” The man who had refuted Zhang Daogu sneered, “Once the Qi army enters the city, they will really be in a dead end. Qi and Jin are already enemies. The three armies of Baoda, Baosai, and Yisheng in the north of Qi have to guard against the Jin army entering Qi and dare not use them easily. If these three armies move, Qi will lose Weibei! Fengxiang and the entire Weibei, can’t the King of Qi tell the difference?”

Zhang Daogu stopped talking.

Wang Zongkan frowned but did not scold the man because both of them were obviously right.

No matter how you look at it, King Qi should not have chosen the worst path. Even if the Qi army entered the city, they had completely lost the initiative. Even if the Shu army fought hard, they could still take Fengxiang if they mobilized the whole country to attack Qi. You know, even the emperor Wang Jian had left Chengdu and went to Hanzhong to supervise the army in person.

Something weird…

But after this reminder, Wang Zongkan realized that he could not let the Qi army enter the city, because no matter how he looked at it, even if he could not annihilate the Qi army, forcing them away was the best option!
The more Wang Zongkan thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong. He always felt that he had missed something, so he immediately called for someone to come in and pass on the message to Dongying, asking them to guard against the Qi army from taking the opportunity to enter the city. If the Qi army wanted to enter the city, they should take advantage of the Fengxiang city gate being wide open and lead their troops to attack.

“Have someone prepare and bring me my armor.” Wang Zongkan said to his left and right generals.

As he was speaking so calmly, there was the sound of horse hooves outside and someone rushed in without a care in the world.

What’s going on? Is the Qi army really going to enter the city?

Wang Zongkan was surprised, but his face showed no emotion. He just looked at it calmly.

Then a scout covered in sweat crawled into the tent, “The envoy from the east sent an urgent message! Zhu Liang’s military line is completely empty, and there is no sign of Xiao Yan’s personal army to conquer the capital!”

The rest of the people in the tent were still confused, but Wang Zongkan suddenly widened his eyes and became speechless. He just kept giving orders to the scout commander who was waiting outside the tent.

“Hurry, hurry! Get Wang Zonghe to retreat immediately!!”

A terrifying thought suddenly popped up in Wang Zongkan’s mind.

Behind the King of Qi who suddenly turned against the State of Jin and seemed to have made many stupid moves… could it be that the weird Xiao Yan was behind it! ?
(End of this chapter)