After winning the second gold medal, Zhang Yue decided to immediately send troops from Xizhou out of fear of Chang Mengduo.
It is also possible that the third gold medal will be awarded if the official comes at some time.
Xizhou had only been attacked by the Tibetan tribe before, so it was a bit hasty to send troops at this time. However, Zhang Yue still adopted Minzhou's old method of letting blind Wu Chi and other Tibetan leaders who were loyal to the Song Dynasty go into the mountains to appease and recruit.
Because Zhang Yue was quite kind and powerful when he was in Xizhou before, unlike Wang Shao and Gao Zunyu who liked to kill, many tribes in Xizhou led their children to surrender.
Zhang Yue had a strong relationship with the leaders of the Tubo tribe, and allowed each hundred people to be given hundreds of salt notes and fifty bolts of cloth in proportion to their head count.
The Tibetan people in Xizhou were very poor and relied on the Song Dynasty for their economy. With this news, the Tibetan people all flocked to it.
Some of the Tibetan tribes had attacked the Song Dynasty before.
Lu Shengqing scolded the Tibetan people for having breasts.
However, this move not only solved the problem of insufficient troops, but also depleted the Xizhou Fan tribe.
Zhang Yue selected 30,000 strong soldiers from the Tibetan army as the vanguard, and was led by Wang Junwan and Bao Shun (Yu Longke) to cross the Tao River again and fight back to Hezhou.
The next day, Zhang Shouyue, Zhang Kai, and Zhang Yue led the main force of the Han army, 20,000 men, to set out from Xizhou.
Before the three armies marched, a cow was sacrificed to the flag, and two white cloths were smeared with cow blood as a flag. This blood-character flag means blood debts must be repaid with blood.
Seeing this, Cheng Yi admonished Zhang Yue: "Since passing through the Pingxi River, I have always treated people with forgiveness, treated Tibetan and Han people as one body, and made them grateful to Wang Huatian for his kindness. Now I am afraid that it is unbenevolent to erect this blood-lettered flag." The way of virtue has lost the heart of the people.”
Zhang Yue said: "Confucius said, repay kindness with kindness, repay hatred with kindness. The Tibetan people kill my generals, harm my soldiers, and burn my cities. We must repay them with blood, otherwise the Tibetan people will think that I, the Han people, are easy to bully!"
After Zhang Yue finished speaking, he was about to act, but Cheng Yi pulled Zhang Yue's reins and said: "If you don't implement benevolent government, how can you win the hearts of the people? If you don't have the hearts of the people, how can you defeat the Han and Tibetan families if you blindly suppress them? I also ask the minister to be loyal and forgive him as a saint. We should act according to the Tao and think of the common people on Xihe Road."
Zhang Yue pulled up the reins and refused to accept.
As soon as Cheng Yi heard that he was angry, he immediately chased Zhang Yue to admonish him until he could no longer catch up with Zhang Yue's horse.
Cheng Yi tried hard to persuade Zhang Yue but refused to listen, so he left without saying goodbye that day and returned to Luoyang to continue teaching his children with his brother Cheng Hao.
Zhang Yue felt very sorry after hearing this, and rejected the imperial edict that day. Su Che, Zhang Kai, and Cheng Yi were the first to stand up and oppose it, believing that the edict was groundless.
Cheng Yi was also Zhang Yue's classmate when they were in school. The two were friends when they were young. Zhang Yue later wrote a letter to Cheng Yi to explain, but Cheng Yi was angry and refused to reply. Later, Zhang Yue found out that he spent a lot of money to give lectures, so he gave him three hundred guan of money as a private gift, but Cheng Yi refused to accept it.
Cheng Yi's obstruction was just a small episode. Zhang Yue led his army to cross the Tao River again and arrived at Hezhou, first arriving at Dingqiang City.
At this time, Wang Junwan and Bao Shun had already fought with the Xixia reinforcements in Jiehe River. After a day of hard fighting, the Eljin tribe and the Xixia army were defeated, and more than 2,000 people were beheaded.
After the victory in this battle, Zhang Yue understood that Zhang Kai and Zhang Shouyue's predictions were correct. Gui Zhang Qingyi, Mu Zheng, and Xixia were indeed using Hezhou City as bait, and then ambush heavy troops around, waiting for the Song army to enter the trap. .
Zhang Yue arrived at Qiang City, and Wang Hou led his army to meet him.
When Wang Hou saw Zhang Yue, he burst into tears. Zhang Yue supported him and remained silent for a long time.
Zhang Yue put his hand on his back and said: "The matter has reached this point. It is useless no matter what. Can you tell me how General Jing died for his country?"
Wang Hou nodded.
This time the Xihe First Army was defeated and suffered more than 5,000 casualties. It also killed generals such as Jing Sili, Wang Cun, and Wang Ning.
Wang Hou and Zhang Yue cried out about the misfortune of the defeat. In addition to being ambushed by Gui Zhang, they also misbelieved Hezhou's words to surrender to the Tibetan tribe. Switching sides caused me huge losses.
In the last battle, Jing Sili was hit by three arrows and still led his army to break out. Finally, he saw that the Song army had many wounded soldiers. He personally led a hundred cavalry to the rear and fought and retreated. In the end, he died fighting hard.
Even the head was taken away by the ghost chapter.
When Zhang Yue heard this, he felt sad for a long time when he thought of his interaction with Jing Sili. He originally wanted to train Jing Sili as a confidant, but now...
Zhang Yue said: "The matter has come to this, the only way is to solve the siege of Hezhou."
Wang Houdao: "All of this is due to my father's selfish motives. My father has offended the marshals many times. I am here to apologize for him."
Zhang Yue said to Wang Ho kindly: "I have done my utmost to be benevolent and righteous to your father, but I can't bear it when the matter has reached this stage."
Wang Houdao: "I have tried to persuade him many times about my father's matter, but he did not listen. I can't blame the teacher for this. But please, teacher, consider that my father has been following you for many years and give him a good ending. I am willing to be a cow." Become a horse to repay the Marshal's kindness."
Zhang Yue nodded and said: "I know that you are a kind person, so you continue to stay by my side and work. As for your father, I will leave it to him."
Just then, Wang Junwan and Bao Shun were already surrounding the Eljin tribe in Jiehe River.
The two asked Zhang Kai for instructions: "What should we do next?"
Zhang Kai thought for a while and said: "If I want to make you do evil, then you cannot do evil; if I want you to do good, then I will not do evil."
At this point, Zhang Kai sighed.
Wang Junwan, how can Bao Shun understand what this means?
The two of them looked for Xu Xi and asked.
Xu Xi looked at them and explained that this was what Fan Dan said to his son before he died.
The general idea is that when you encounter this world in this world, I want to force you to do evil in order to survive, but evil things cannot be done after all. But I also want you to do good deeds, but I have done good deeds all my life and ended up like this.
Wang Junwan still didn't understand and asked: "What does this mean?"
Xu Xi looked at the large tent in front of him and said, "What else can there be? Think about the blood-lettered flag in the general's army. The eminent monk with great compassion also wants to eliminate demons and protect the way."
On the edge of Jiehe River, Wang Junwan led 30,000 Song troops to attack the Eljin tribe.
The Eljin tribe was the most resolute in resisting the Song Dynasty. When they followed Guizhang's rebellion, they attacked and destroyed two small tribes close to the Song Dynasty.
Jing Sili's Song army pursued the Song army when it retreated, and killed all the wounded soldiers and prisoners of the Song army.
Now they are surrounded by the Song Army.
The Tibetan cavalry under the Song Army were all recruited from Minzhou and Xizhou. They launched an attack on the Eljin tribe from three sides. For a while, the sound of horse hooves was rolling, as if the ground was shaking.
The Tibetan cavalry galloping on horseback fired countless arrows towards the stockade.
In order to protect their families and property, the soldiers of the Eljin tribe resisted vigorously.
However, facing the overwhelming number of Song army and Tibetan cavalry, they fell one after another.
It didn't take long for the orderly resistance of the Eljin tribe, which had lost its strength, to stop.
However, the Tibetan cavalry who entered the tent cut down people when they saw them and burned the tents when they saw them.
The tribal leader holding a white flag wanted to surrender to avoid being killed, but was cut down by the oncoming Tibetan cavalry.
In less than half an hour, this tribe with a total of 20,000 tents was wiped out.
Not a single resister was left, and the remaining women and children were sent to the garrison as slaves.
(End of chapter)
