Chapter 1: The Awakening of Shin Wang...

  Thus, the banner of Xinfeng was raised. Ma Kuo and Chao P'ang-chih established forts on Wu-ma Mountain, such as Ch'ao-t'ien and T'ieh-pi, and under the banner of Hsin-feng, countless village heads and scattered Sung and volunteer troops came to join them. In a short period of ten-odd days, the number of the Wu-ma Mountain volunteers, including their families, grew to over a million. The loyalist societies scattered throughout Hopei and eastern Honan were all in communication with the Wu-ma Mountain forts and gave each other mutual support.

  Just as the Righteous Army of Wuma Mountain was at its peak, the Jin army's siege troops began to mobilize. Liang Xing, the leader of the Zhongyi Society Righteous Army, received the news first and specially sent someone to ride a fast horse to deliver a letter to the Wuma Mountain Righteous Army.

  The Jin army's large army pressed the border, and the five horse mountain commander immediately convened all the generals to discuss countermeasures. In the commander's tent, Zhao Chen proposed that when the Jin army's reinforcements attacked the five horse mountain, they would immediately leave the five horse mountain and join forces with other righteous armies and Song armies. However, the leaders of the various righteous armies made excuses for various reasons, wanting to take the five horse mountain as their base and defend against the Jin army. In fact, the main reason was that this was their foundation, leaving their hometown would be like losing their foundation. Future events were all unknown, they actually did not want to leave their hometown far away. The opposing voices to Zhao Chen's proposal to leave the mountain were very strong, including the deputy commander of the five horse mountain, Zhao Bangjie, who also did not support it.

  Zhaoren knew that these righteous armies were unwilling to leave the land on which they relied for survival, and were unwilling to leave their roots. However, if they did not move away from Wumashan to fight, then he and the Wumashan Righteous Army would be surrounded by the Jin army, just like in history, and under Zhao Gou's secret communication with the Jin state, they would be annihilated by the Jin army.

  Zhao Gou initially colluded with the Jin State to attack and kill at Wusong Mountain, which was a plan that killed two birds with one stone. On the one hand, he could eliminate Xiang Wang and his forces; on the other hand, he could ingratiate himself with the Jin State and prevent them from attacking him.

  In another time and space, when Wuma Mountain was surrounded, the two traitors Huang Qianshan and Wang Boyan under Zhao Gou's command entertained Ma Kuo, sending a motley crew to support him while also dispatching someone to closely monitor his actions. Ma Kuo, in order to obtain Zhao Gou's support and jointly fight against the Jin people, would naturally unreservedly reveal all military situations at Wuma Mountain stronghold without any reservations. Huang Qianshan and Wang Boyan made some empty promises, seizing the opportunity to draw out as much information from Ma Kuo as possible.

  In this way, the Jin army obtained sufficiently accurate military intelligence to be able to wipe out the newly established Wumashan stronghold in the shortest possible time, and it is likely that none of the important leaders, including King Zhao Chen, would have been able to escape. As for how this intelligence was delivered into the hands of the Jin people by Zhao Gong, they certainly had a set of institutions for timely transmission. In order to cover up, it is unlikely that it would be directly handed over, but when passing on to each other, the efficiency must have been very high.

  In a short period of time, the Jin army was able to break through the Five Ma Mountains' various camps that had been unable to be broken for a long time. The Jin army's military operations against the Five Ma Mountains were carried out so quickly and cleanly, which shows that the tacit cooperation between the Jin country and Zhao Gou was very effective. Ma Kuo fell into Zhao Gou's trap, he ran all the way to Yangzhou in vain, and as a result, the anti-Jin cause of the Five Ma Mountains camp was lost overnight. After the elimination of Xinfeng Wang Zhao Chen's anti-Jin forces, Zhao Gou thought about his dream of becoming emperor, and only knew how to escape southward, never willing to return to the Central Plains again in his lifetime. The current Zhao Chen will not let history repeat itself.

  "Lately, I've been thinking about a question," said Zhao Kuang. "I just can't figure it out - we Han people are numerous, the Jurchen people are few, and yet we keep fighting one after another without stopping. But why do we find it increasingly difficult to fight? Let's not mention the shame of Jingkang, but our righteous army is still like a bandit, only able to hide in the mountains and struggle to survive. Meanwhile, the Jurchen people quickly defeated the Liao state, and now they're attacking our Great Song, occupying half of its territory. Why? Have you gentlemen thought about this question?"

  "Is it that we, the Great Song Han people, are not numerous enough? No, on the contrary, the Jurchen people are not numerous enough. When Wanyan Aguda raised his flag, he only had 2,000 cavalry, and even now they have no more than several tens of thousands of troops, among whom many are Kumo, Bohai, Khitan, and Han people. Our Great Song has hundreds of millions of strong soldiers, and the various righteous armies combined also number in the hundreds of millions, ten times or more than theirs." Zhao Ze looked at everyone, his eyes revealing a sharp and piercing gaze.

  "Are the Han people not intelligent enough? No, on the contrary, it is the Jurchen who are barbarians; they do not even have their own script."

  "Is it that we Han people are not brave enough? No, since the Han and Tang dynasties, our Han people have been strong and brave, and we defeated the Xiongnu people who were the strongest and made them flee to the west."

  Zhao Kuang suddenly stood up and shouted loudly: "Then tell me, why did the Jurchen people occupy most of the northern part of my Great Song Dynasty, and capture the imperial family of Zhao? And why are we still hiding in the mountains, shedding tears for survival?"

  The generals hung their heads in shame, shrinking away and not even daring to breathe. "Bang!" Zhao Xun slammed his fist on the table, roaring in anger: "It's because you're not united, you don't know how to use your brains to fight wars. Because of you selfish cowards, because of you people who forget righteousness for profit, our entire righteous army can't come together as one. It's because of a little bit of personal gain that everyone is disheartened and scattered, each occupying their own mountain and ruling their own territory. What's the result? We've lost battle after battle, tens of thousands of our brothers have died unjustly, our loved ones are crying under the iron hooves of the Jin dogs, our homes are wailing under the trampling of our enemies. Open your eyes, stand up straight, take out your hearts, and ask the heavens: why did Great Song fail? Why were our families humiliated? Why are our Han brothers and sisters being bullied by the Jin dogs? What are we fighting for? What are we living for?" The large tent was silent as death.

  At this time, Zhao Song's eyes were blazing with fire, staring at the crowd. Then, he said in a low voice: "Trees can be transplanted to death, people can be transplanted to life! Now that the Jin army is pressing in, once we are surrounded, it will be a dead end. Don't look at our five horses mountain being easy to defend and difficult to attack, but our water source can be cut off, and our defense can be broken. When the time comes, the Jin army will cut off our water source, surround us from all sides and launch a full-scale attack on the mountain stronghold, we will die without a place to bury our bodies."

  As Zhao Jun spoke, the other rebel leaders also came to their senses. The rebel leaders were a group of uncultured rough men who had no military strategy, and as soon as they heard Zhao Jun's reasonable words, they were convinced. Since it was already late, they decided to discuss how to retreat and when to leave later, and everyone returned to rest.

  The next morning, Zhao Yun was washing up in his tent. Suddenly a clear voice rang out, "Hurry up, hurry up, my father and Ma Chao are calling you to the main tent for a meeting." Zhao Qing'er rushed in like a whirlwind, looking very tense.

  "Is there something urgent?" Zhao Chen took the towel handed over by Princess Wang Er, wiping off the water droplets on his head, and asked. "The army is about to leave the mountain, we're going to battle." Zhao Qing'er said excitedly, "His Highness Wang requests you to go to the main tent first, Princess sister, I'll dispatch two female soldiers to clean up here and prepare for withdrawal."

  Upon hearing her words, Zhao Xun suddenly felt a surge of joy. He hadn't expected Ma Kuo's actions to be so swift. Just yesterday, he had persuaded everyone, and today they were already preparing to leave the mountain. Immediately, Zhao Xun thought back to what Zhao Qing'er had said earlier about going to war, and asked: "Are we going to war?"

  "Let's go...!" Zhao Qing'er grabbed Zhao Chen's hand and pulled him out without saying a word. The two of them walked out of Zhao Chen's military tent, only to see people rushing around everywhere, the soldiers of the righteous army hurrying back and forth, the tents disappearing rapidly, the war flags moving towards the grassland, although there was no sound of war drums or bugles, not even the sound of people shouting or horses neighing, but the atmosphere of an impending storm still made people tense and unable to breathe.

  Zhao Qing'er pulled Zhao Chen into the big tent, startling everyone. At this time, the atmosphere inside the big tent was very tense, and everyone was still looking at Zhao Chen with a mixture of resentment and grievance.

  Ma Kuo saw Zhao Chen and hastily stood up, beckoning to him to come over quickly.

  "General Ma just received the news, which was sent by Liang Xing's brother from the righteous army. Brother Liang said that the specific location of the righteous army in Wumashan has been exposed, and it is said that there are tens of thousands of elite golden soldiers rushing towards us. What General Xinwang said yesterday was not wrong, once we are surrounded by the Golden Army, there will be no way out, and we need to retreat immediately." Zhao Bangjie was a veteran of many battles, and at this moment he was still as calm as Mount Tai, his voice was steady and powerful, without any signs of panic.

  "Ma Shuai planned to lead the army to withdraw to the Taihang Mountains and merge with Wang Yan's troops, but Liu Xi and Wu Feng disagreed, believing that the Taihang Mountains had not only Jin Dynasty garrisons but also trailing Jin armies, making it easy to be attacked from both sides and difficult to survive. He requested a direct withdrawal southward to merge with Zong Ze's imperial army, which would not only be safer but also have a chance of success."

  Zhao Xun immediately agreed with Ma Kuo's suggestion. Ma Kuo's proposal coincided with his own thoughts, it seemed that his previous words about Zhao Cong selling out had already influenced him.

  Go to Taihang Mountain, take control of Wang Yan's army in your own hands, and merge the strongest righteous armies of both sides into one rope. This is the most urgent task at present. There are also loyal and righteous societies near Taihang Mountain, gathering these troops together, plus the vast depth of Taihang Mountain, which has a great advantage. If mobile warfare is carried out in Taihang Mountain, it will have super strong strategic advantages at that time.

  At this time, Ma Kuo spoke up. He pointed to the Taihang Mountains on the map and explained in detail his reasons for advancing into the Taihang Mountains. The Eight Banners Army of the Taihang Mountains was said to have tens of thousands of troops, truly elite warriors, probably at least tens of thousands strong. Otherwise, it would not be possible for Wang Yan to repeatedly defeat the Jin army. In addition, they could also join forces with the Zhongyi Society's army near the Taihang Mountains, and the Taihang Mountains were vast, with room to maneuver for dozens or even hundreds of miles, which was conducive to the survival and development of the Righteous Army. On the other hand, if they retreated south to Bianliang, the Righteous Army would be operating in the heavily fortified area of the Jin army on the front line between the two countries, and the large number of Jurchen troops deployed along the border of the Song-occupied zone would do their best to encircle and annihilate them, making it difficult for the Righteous Army to survive.

  Liu Xi immediately said: "You can't just see Wang Yan's Taihang Mountain Eight Trigrams Army, Wang Yan's Eight Trigrams Army is also wandering around fighting everywhere, without a foundation. On the contrary, if we go south to join the Great Song army, not only will we have various righteous armies and the Song army as guarantees, but in the future, we can also have a good origin."

  Wu Fengtou continued Liu Xī's words, saying: "The current problem is that the Jin army has already surrounded us. If we break through their encirclement and head south, as long as we don't run into the main force of the Jin army, we can forever stand on safe ground. But if we go to the Taihang Mountains, not only will we face continued attacks from the Jin army, but also lack support from the imperial court's troops. If we are surrounded by the Jin army, we will still be isolated and outnumbered, and in the end, our entire army will surely be annihilated."

  Ma Kuo immediately retorted: "Once we march south to Kaifeng, we will pose a threat to the main force of the Jin army. The various Jin armies will inevitably attack us from both front and rear, and we will also be deeply besieged and annihilated." The generals had different opinions and joined in the debate one after another.

  Time is slowly disappearing, and Zhao Kun is getting more and more anxious. This group of people are truly a bunch of useless rabble, what's the point of arguing at this time? They should just listen to their commander's orders and run away quickly. Ma Kuo is also like that, looking majestic on the surface but actually being a coward, his own subordinates can't even get enough to eat, what's the use of him?

  Actually, Zhao Kun also wrongly blamed Ma Kuo. Ma Kuo had only arrived at the Five Horses Mountain Righteous Army not long before him. Everyone elected him as the leader of the righteous army because of his reputation and his original official position. The leaders of various righteous armies were all village heads or owners of various villages, and they were also in charge of various villages. How could Ma Kuo make everyone obey him in such a short time? In fact, it was very difficult for him to deal with these people every day.

  "King Xian Qiansui, what's your opinion?" Zhao Bangjie suddenly turned his gaze to Zhao Chen and asked loudly. The big account suddenly became quiet, King Xian Qiansui was the mainstay of everyone, although Zhao Chen appeared weak on the surface, but the generals still attached great importance to King Xian Qiansui's opinion. Upon hearing Zhao Bangjie's words, everyone's eyes turned to King Xian at once.

  He was the son of Huizong, the younger brother of Qinzong, and the Son of Heaven. As he was the King of Xinwang of the imperial family, he should have been exceptionally talented, should have had special skills, and should be much more brilliant than ordinary people.

  People's eyes suddenly showed a glimmer of hope, even Ma Kuo's eyes had a hint of expectation, only Wang Jin hung his head in dismay. This child was indeed the son of Huizong, but he knew deeply that serving the imperial family, the Zhao royal family had no military knowledge except for poetry, songs and calligraphy skills. Relying on him to command the army, lead the righteous army to break through the current difficulties, it's a waste of time.

  Zhao Jun felt a little nervous under the gaze of everyone. This was a major military matter, related to the lives and deaths of tens of thousands of people. If this idea went wrong, it would cost lives, not only harming others but also himself.

  "Trust King Qian to live for a thousand years, let's discuss whether it is better to join forces with the Taihang Mountain Righteous Army or surrender to General Zong Ze's Great Song Army?" Zhao Bangjie also didn't have a clear plan in mind, and his expression was very anxious as he faced the approaching Golden Army.

  Facing the gaze of many people filled with hope, Zhao Xun cannot say anything that he is not capable of doing in front of everyone. Although everyone actually has some doubts about themselves, no matter what, he is nominally the King of Faith, the banner in everyone's mind, and also the mainstay of everyone.

  After calming down, Zhao Chen said: "The Golden Dog occupied nearly half of the North in a very short period of time. Do you know why?" Everyone was puzzled and waited for him to continue speaking.

  "To say something unfilial, it's all the credit of my emperor father and imperial brother being deceived by a group of petty people. Some petty people for their own interests wanted to surrender to the Jin State, deceiving my emperor father and imperial brother not to resist the Jin army, but instead sought compromise. What was the result? The Jin State took our wealth, recruited more soldiers and horses, becoming even stronger and more justified in attacking Great Song. We didn't resist and let the Jurchen people take advantage of us, if my emperor father and imperial brother had used all their military strength and wealth to fight against the Jurchen people, would there still be Jin State's invasion of our Great Song? Would there still be the Jingkang disaster?"

  Everyone looked at each other in dismay, each thinking to themselves. After careful consideration, it was indeed the case. The crowd's eyes began to change. With just these few words, plus yesterday's remarks, this King is not simple, has insight and brains.

  "Let's not talk about other things, I only say that we can't just retreat. We need to attack, attacking is the best defense. We will unite with various righteous armies in the north and launch a fierce battle against the Jin army, which will be much stronger than retreating to the south. As for General Zongze's side in the south, we need to find someone reliable to contact him, so that the main force of the army near Kaifeng can respond with us from both north and south, and jointly resist the Jin. With me, Xiang Wang, here, you are all meritorious ministers. After defeating the Jin army and welcoming back the two emperors, your enfeoffment and appointment as officials is just a matter of time."

  Ma Kuo, Zhao Bangjie and others stared at him with eyes wide with surprise. This Wang was indeed extraordinary, a few words made it clear what was originally a difficult decision to make, truly a hidden master. Wang Jin was stunned, this Wang was someone he had known since childhood, when did he become so capable, speaking in a way that seemed very convincing.

  Ma Kuo turned his gaze towards Zhao Bangjie. Zhao Bangjie stared at the map for a long time, then suddenly slammed his fist on the table and said, "Go to Taihang Mountain."

  Zhao Ke did not follow the other generals out of the main tent, but instead stayed behind to talk with Ma Kuo. At this time, inside the main tent were Commander-in-Chief of Wuma Mountain Ma Kuo, Deputy Commander Zhao Bangjie and Wang Jin, a total of four people.

  "Now that everyone present is a familiar face, I have something that requires your assistance, Maruo. Could you please run an errand for me?" Zhao said, glancing at the three of them before addressing Maruo.

  "Your Highness's order, I will rush to the boiling water and walk through the fire, and die a thousand times without regret." Ma Kuo bowed his head and said very solemnly to Zhao Chen.

  Zao Ju nodded and said, "General Zong Ze is already old, now relying on his passion to lead the various armies and militia to fight against the Jin army. However, my brother Zhao Gou is a weak person. When facing the Jin army, he either flees or seeks peace talks. Even General Zong Ze cannot change this situation. With a heart focused on defending the country against the Jin army, General Zong Ze has been working hard to unite the various militia forces to resist the Jin army. Moreover, he has to deal with my incompetent brother. Under the pressure of both physical and mental strain, coupled with his advanced age, I fear that his body..."

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