Ever since a group of people came to Zhongdu determined to kidnap King Sheng, the movements of the Mongolian army seemed to have been forgotten by everyone.
In fact, the situation in Zhongdu was turbulent. Although Guo Ning's troops entered the situation with strong force, they were not able to truly grasp the subtleties of the entire coup. They are always outsiders. In a turbulent environment, they need to be more cautious and tread on thin ice. Almost everyone is focused and ready to deal with it at any time.
But the actions of the Mongolian army will not stop just because everyone is not paying attention.
Compared with the Mongolian Plateau, the fields in Hebei seem less open, but more fertile. In the eyes of the Mongolian knights, those dotted villages and cities are endless wealth.
Moreover, this is wealth in the hands of the enemy. Apart from plundering, the only option is to destroy it.
This is not cruelty, but an unchanging truth that the nomadic peoples on the grassland have been fighting and fighting for thousands of years. On the grassland, there is no distinction between the army and the civilians, and there is no distinction between war and peace. Therefore, there is no distinction between the massacre of the enemy and the destruction of the enemy's war potential.
After crossing the Zijin Pass and attacking Hebei, the Mongolian army ran wildly in just one month, attacking like fire, as if spurring the mighty wind of death, breaking up cities and towns, flattening fields, and Rivers and canals burst open, and buildings burned down everywhere.
As for people...the slaughter of people is the simplest. Perhaps in the eyes of the Central Plains people, Hebei has become too desolate, but in the eyes of the Mongolian cavalry, there are still too many people in the Central Plains, and it seems that they can't kill them all, so they have to work harder to kill more.
For the Mongolian army, the Hebei area of the Jin Kingdom should have been an unfamiliar area. It took Genghis Khan three years to find out the details of the Jin Army's northern frontier, and another two years to completely destroy the Jin Kingdom's Great Wall defense line. This break into Hebei was supposed to be a test, the next major offensive. bedding.
However, with the military victories in the past few years, the subordinate tribes that originally gathered under the Jurchen army began to increasingly turn to the Mongols.
After all, it only took a hundred years for the Jurchens to rise to decline. They controlled the northeastern hinterland with one hand and the Central Plains with the other. They seemed to have the benefits of both, but in fact, their control over various places and tribes was never stable.
When the Jurchens were strong, all contradictions were covered up. Once the Jurchens' power began to waver, the Bohai people, Xi people, Khitan people, and even Han officials began to devote themselves to the newly rising powerful nation in the north on a large scale. .
Many of those people knew the inside story of the Jin Kingdom, understood the mountains and rivers geography, knew where troops could be stationed, where food routes were, where plunder was possible, where detours could be made, and where the must-take passes were.
Under their guidance and guidance, the Mongolian army, divided into three groups, was like a dragon swimming in the sea. Tens of thousands of cavalry separated like water within a range of hundreds of miles, constantly tearing apart the resistance of the Jin army everywhere, causing unimaginable destruction.
Urgent documents from various places were delivered to Zhongdu like snowflakes, but in Zhongdu, a coup was busy.
Even a capable and far-sighted minister like Tu Shanyi could only minimize the scope of the coup's influence and complete it in the shortest time. But when he freed up his hands to clean up the situation outside Zhongdu, the situation had already become unimaginably bad.
Right Prime Minister's Mansion.
Early in the morning, Xu Ding came to see Tu Danyi.
The massacre last night made Xu Ding admire Tu Danyi's methods even more. He and the political forces headed by him generally continued the political line of Xu Zhiguo, and they had frequent conflicts with the kings. When the two sides met in the court, they smiled broadly and secretly cursed each other a thousand times.
Now that the power of King Zong had been eliminated overnight, the sincerity of King Sheng and his disciple Shan Yi in cooperating with Han Chen was fully demonstrated. It turned out that the sharp blade in Tu Shanyi's hand was not just Guo Ning's, which shocked Xu Ding and overestimated Tu Shanyi's power.
It seems that for quite some time from now on, it will be a must for Xu Ding to visit Tu Danyi's house every day.
But at this time, Xu Ding's eyes did not show the slightest joy in Tu Danyi's eyes that his great wish had been fulfilled.
In the past two days, Tu Danyi has aged a lot. His face was already full of wrinkles, but now, those wrinkles are about to hang down, and his skin is covered with age spots. His gray beard and hair became visibly whiter and sparser to the naked eye, and even his eyes, which often flashed with sharp light, were obviously cloudy.
When he saw Xu Ding, he didn't say much. He pointed to the documents scattered on the desk and told Xu Ding to take a look.
Xu Ding was the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue who was busy with work. Even though he had recently become a political advisor, he kept to himself and rarely came into contact with military aircraft. But after the new king takes the throne, Xu Ding must be one of the rulers with real power. He must grasp many military trends in a timely manner.
Each military newspaper, some were messily written, some were dirty, and some were even bloody.
In the past few days, everyone in the imperial court has been watching the changes in the court, but someone has to read military reports, and bad news will always be known.
Xu Ding looked at them one by one and his face gradually turned pale.
"Enzhou, Jingzhou and Xianzhou have all been lost, and the water transportation from Damingfu to Zhongdu has been completely cut off? Linqing and Liting in Enzhou, Jiangling in Jingzhou, and Hecang in Dongguang counties, A total of two million dan of grain reserves fell into the hands of the Mongolian army?"
With trembling hands, Xu Ding put aside these military reports and read the next pile.
"The situation on the north and south roads of Henan... After Pucha Ali's elite cavalry was defeated by the Mongolian army, our army stayed in the Zhending area and did not dare to advance. On the contrary, the southern states of Ze, Lu and other states and Pingyang Mansion were empty and lost one after another. Now. Taiyuan and Xindai were shocked by dozens of people a day. The Xijing province was attacked on three sides. What remained in Xijing's hands was Datong Prefecture? In addition, Jizhou, Xizhou, Lanzhou and other places had long lost their troops. Report, I guess it’s been lost too?”
Xu Ding's chanting voice became lower and lower. He put aside the pile of military reports and flipped through the third batch. There are only two copies of this batch of military reports, and the contents are brief:
One said that Wanyan Chenghui, who had been appointed as the military envoy of Shandong Road Command earlier, intended to go south, but the army blocked Cangzhou and the road was cut off and difficult to travel.
Another one said that the current commander of the Shandong Road Army, Wanyan Salara, led an army of 20,000 people and arrived in Dezhou, where they were defeated in a battle with the Mongolian army.
Think about it calmly, Shandong has two routes, east and west, in such a vast area, except for these two, there are no other military reports?
There is no military report, which proves that something big has happened!
Xu Ding sighed and read the next letter. It was not a military report, but a letter from home.
Obviously, such a large number of military affairs gave Tu Shanyi a headache. His old man's desk was in a mess, with personal letters and official documents mixed together.
Xu Ding took out this family letter alone and placed it in front of Tu Danyi.
Tu Danyi lowered his eyes, his cloudy eyes motionless.
Xu Ding thought that Tu Shanyi was dozing off again, so he leaned forward slightly and wanted to call him. Tu Danyi said slowly: "I've seen it."
"What?"
"This is the letter that Monk Zhang sent me. Please read it."
Xu Ding knew that the man named Zhang Seng was Tu Shanhang, the nephew of Tu Shanyi and the current governor of Anzhou. The previous political battle between Tu Danyi and Wanyan Gang was unfavorable, and many of his party members in the Sixth Department were unlucky one after another. Together with his disciple Shanhang, he was kicked away from the position of Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs and fell directly to the barren Anzhou to serve as the governor.
Tu Shanhang himself was very unwilling, so he thought of many ways. Tu Danyi has always liked his nephew and has been trying to find ways to create opportunities for Tu Danhang.
Xu Ding opened the letter, and there were only a few words on it. At the beginning, he greeted Tu Danyi for a few words, and then said that the Mongolian army's light cavalry traveled freely and horizontally, hundreds of miles away, and could arrive day and night. Although the army had previously detoured southward through Baozhou and Lizhou, Anzhou was inevitably attacked. The son-in-law of the Shan family for two generations, who has been favored by the country, will never surrender. He can only perish together with the city.
Seeing this, Xu Ding was a little surprised, but then his disciple Shan Yi said slowly: "Seng Zhang's temperament has always been a bit soft, but he likes to bluff. To be honest, he is fierce in appearance but soft in heart. But this time, he is a little tougher. .”
"Could it be that Anzhou..."
"Anzhou was besieged ten days ago. Zhang Seng led his troops to defend for five days and finally fell. He, his wife and family have all hanged themselves to death."
Xu Ding sighed and comforted Tu Shan Yi with a few words.
There were so many military reports on the table, but he had read less than half of them, and the rest of them would not have good news. Obviously, with so many cities changing hands, the connection between Zhongdu Daxing Mansion and the vast territory of Dajin is being rapidly blocked. In the following months, how to maintain the situation in Daxing Prefecture and how to persevere under the invading Mongolian army?
That was so hard.
He thought for a while and then asked: "Sir, since the situation is like this, why is it necessary to send Guo Ning's troops to Shandong? In my opinion, it is better..."
Tu Danyi smiled hoarsely: "He Zhi, don't you know? That's because they want to go."
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