The Song army that arrived at Niangziguan on the morning of March 9th was of course eight thousand cavalry (including mounted infantry) and two thousand auxiliary troops led by Zhao Kai, the Chosen King of the Song Dynasty.
This journey was quite a hurry. The troops who were sent out on the third day of March completed the entire journey of about 500 miles on the morning of the ninth day of March and arrived at their destination, Niangziguan.
At this time, there was already a Song army in Niangziguan, but it was not the Song army from Zhending Mansion, but the army of Ma Kuo, the general under Zhao Kai. This Ma Kuo actually went north with Qin Hui, but Qin Hui's destination was the Pingdi Army, while Ma Kuo's destination was Wuma Mountain between Zhending Mansion, Pingding Army and Zhaozhou.
Ma Kuo had been an official in Zhending Mansion earlier, but because he was one of the "chief culprits" of "alliance with Jin to destroy Liao", he was naturally not invited to see him and was just a job in name only. There was no official business, and few officials and scholars were willing to associate with him. So he had no choice but to travel around Zhending Mansion and make friends with people in the world.
I don’t know what Ma Kuan’an was thinking, but he actually made friends with a group of bandits who occupied Wuma Mountain... In fact, they were not habitual bandits. The core group of them were from Hebei Province who refused to return to their hometown to cultivate land after the group broke up. There are more than 2,000 brave warriors, plus some refugees who have lost their property due to the war. Ma Kuo and one of their leaders, a former Song military captain named Yu Leishen, knew each other. After meeting in Zhending Mansion, they became more familiar with each other.
So this time I came to Zhending Mansion to recruit troops under Zhao Kai's order, and I easily recruited this group of bandits. Zhao Kai's target for Ma Kuo was 5,000 people. After recruiting 2,000 bandits, he was still short of 3,000. Therefore, Ma Kuo temporarily stationed in Jingxing County, training and recruiting troops at the same time.
As a result, not many soldiers were recruited, but they met Liu Ziyu who ran from the Pingding Army. After learning from Liu Ziyu that the Golden Thief's West Route Army was advancing eastward, Ma Kuo immediately led his troops into Niangzi Pass without saying a word, finally not letting the Golden Thief take the upper hand.
When Liu Kai, the pacification envoy of Hebei West Road and an acquaintance of Zhending Prefecture, learned that the Golden Thief West Route Army was advancing eastward, he immediately led 5,000 troops out of Tunjingxingkou and established a second line of defense. The reason for choosing Jingxingkou for defense was to take care of the Zhending Mansion in the rear, to prevent the Yanshan gold thieves from going south to attack the Zhending Mansion... It's really a bit shameful to say that as a commander of Hebei West Road, he also directly led the Zhending Mansion. Liu Kai's available troops were less than 15,000, less than half of the Han'er army left by Guo Yaoshi in Yanshan. Therefore, he did not have enough troops to defend the Jin people in the west and north directions at the same time.
If Zhao Kai hadn't led more than 10,000 people to come here day and night, Liu Kai, the handsome man on Hebei West Road, might really have become a "handsome man trapped in the city."
What's worse is that with an army of more than 10,000 people, it is impossible to defend a few cities. Therefore, most of the castles in the north of Hebei West Road will be easily captured by Wanyan Zonghan.
With the food stored in these castles, Wanyan Zonghan's army can stay in Zhending Mansion for a long time and surround the city where Liu Kai is stationed... No matter how good the Song army is at defending the city, as long as they can't defend the city in the small castle If enough crops are grown in the city, it will only be a matter of time before the city is completely exhausted!
In the original history, the castles dotted all over Hebei were all captured by gold thieves because they did not have enough strength to hold on and there was no endless food to consume...
So the biggest difficulty facing Zhao Kai, the marshal of troops and horses in Hebei, is not that there are no horses as people imagined in later generations... but that there are not enough soldiers!
Therefore, along the way from Jingxingkou to Niangziguan, Zhao Kai was discussing with Liu Kai the issue of setting up camp field divisions and even Jiedushi divisions in Zhendingfu, Dingzhou, Baozhou, Zhaozhou, Qizhou and other places—— In Zhao Kai's view, even if he could force the Jin Thief's West Route Army back, he would not be able to defend the entire Hebei Province with only tens of thousands of troops under the attack of the Yanshan Jin Army, Jin West Route Army, and Jin East Route Army.
Although he has a little bit of "two", he is not mentally retarded... He still understands the "military principle" that two or three hundred thousand is greater than fifty or sixty thousand.
Therefore, if we want to keep as much land in Hebei as possible, we can only give full play to the enthusiasm of powerful people from all over the country... But this is not the Han and Tang Dynasties after all. It is easy to find more than a dozen scholar-bureaucrat families in Hebei who can make a fuss, but it is difficult to find some powerful families similar to Li Xiaozhong's family!
Zhao Kai and Liu Kai discussed it all the way, but in the end they didn't reach a conclusion.
So Zhao Kai left Liu Kai at Niangziguan (Niangziguan is a castle built on the mountainside) and prepared to continue the discussion the next day, which was the tenth day of March.
But early the next morning, Zhao Kai, who was sleeping soundly in his bedroom with Guo Tiannu in his arms, was awakened by a warning bell.
He opened his eyes suddenly and opened his mouth hazily: "Alarm clock, where is the alarm clock? I'm going to be late..."
"Your Majesty, have you had a strange dream again?" Guo Tiannu, who was talking next to her, was already fully dressed and brought some clothes to Zhao Kai.
Zhao Kai just smiled and didn't explain anything. He just asked Guo Tiannu, "Where is the bell ringing? What happened?"
"Your Majesty, another golden army has come from the west, about ten thousand people, and they are setting up camp by the Mianman River."
"Ten thousand golden soldiers?" Zhao Kai thought for a moment and suddenly burst out laughing, "It seems that Pingding Military City is still in our hands! King Gu knows that Yue Fei will not let me down!"
If the military city of Pingding is gone, the ones coming now will not be 10,000 gold soldiers, but 20,000 or 30,000!
Zhao Kai said again: "Goddess, hurry up and help the lonely king change his clothes and wash up. After breakfast, let's go and have a look outside the golden thief's camp together!"
"Your Majesty is going to visit the camp?" Guo Tiannv frowned slightly and asked in a low voice, "How many troops and horses are you going to lead?"
"It doesn't take much," Zhao Kai said with a smile, "Just let Huang Wuji lead 500 cavalry to follow... The lonely king will test it out. Remember, don't let others know, so as not to stop them from stopping the lonely king."
500 cavalry is not a small number. If the gold thief is brave, he should send out an equal number of cavalry to compete - because Zhao Kai is the "Chosen King" who cannot be killed, so the cavalry of four to five hundred gold men is definitely no match. .
If the Jin people stood still or went out in full force, it was because they were afraid of Zhao Kai. The morale of the Song army in Niangzi Pass and the camp outside the pass will naturally increase.
Of course, Zhao Kai was not afraid of being killed by the Jin army. After all, the terrain on both sides of the Mianman River was just that, very narrow. The Song army set up a stronghold under Niangziguan and guarded the intersection. The gold thieves set up a stronghold four or five miles away, and also entered the stronghold on the road. No one can get around anyone, and if you want to get past, you have to fight hard.
However, no matter which side wants to fight hard, it is not easy.
Just when Zhao Kai summoned the cavalry to explore the camp, after traveling all night, Wanyan Sheyema and Yelu Yujian, who were a little tired and tired, had already boarded the watchtower of the Jinbing camp on the south bank of Mianmanshui west of Niangziguan. .
When the two of them looked at the mountain city in front and the camp under the mountain city and were a little worried, they saw a group of cavalry coming out of the Song Dynasty camp. There were quite a few, four to five hundred cavalry, and a water of armored cavalry. . At the front was a tall man with a silver helmet and a visor, and behind him was a red recognition flag, fluttering in the wind.
At first, Wan Yanshe couldn't see clearly the words on the flag, but as the other party got closer and closer, almost a hundred steps away from his camp, he finally saw it clearly, and he also Read it out in Chinese: "The King of the Qing Dynasty, Zhao Mudu... Du Jian, have you heard of this King of the Qing Dynasty, Zhao Mudu?"
Yelu Yujian was stunned for a moment, shook his head and said: "No, I really haven't heard of it... There are many sons of officials in the Southern Dynasties. I wonder who this Hun Wang is?"
Wan Yanshe also immediately smiled and said: "Whatever! Wait for someone to go and test his skills first!"
"Young master, wait a minute," Yeluyu said quickly, seeing how he dared to put Shi Yema in danger, "he is just a Hunwang from the Southern Dynasties, so there is no need for you to take action? You'd better send someone else to do it!"
Wanyanshe nodded immediately and said with a smile: "That's right, Governor Yelu, why don't you go out and give it a try?"
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