choke element

Chapter 4 Gao Yang
In recent years, the Jurchen's Meng'an Mouk's armaments have been weakened and become more and more unusable.Many elite meng'an who were originally well-known were filled with excuses that were forced by the Jurchen master to replace the army.Therefore, the defensive armies located north of Jiehao gradually relied on the tribal armies of the Xi people and the Bohai people.

These tribal armies are headed by the Jiedushi. Under the Jiedushi, there are those who are called "Yi Li Jin" who are in charge of tribal village affairs, and those who are called "Tuli" who are in charge of tribal lawsuits and violations.

The hundreds of households below are not only the leaders of the settlement, but also the generals of the army.

This state of both fighting and farming, where all the people are soldiers, makes the cohesion of the tribal army naturally much stronger than the Han'er-dominated sub-fan army or driving army.

Following Guo Ning's journey south, the warriors separated and reunited over the past year or so, and in the end there were only a few scattered people left.Xiao Haohu, on the other hand, benefited from the tribal army system.

He also retreated from Rouyuan County, Fuzhou, north of Yehuling, all the way to Hebei with [-] or [-] remnants of soldiers. Not only did his subordinates not decrease, but they swelled to nearly a hundred people.

Recently, the governor of Anzhou, Tu Shanhang, planned to recruit local defeated soldiers and form a commander of the capital.Xiao Haohu believed that Guo Ning was quite brave among the few defeated soldiers in the surrounding area, which would undoubtedly be an obstacle, so he immediately sent people to attack and kill Guo Ning's troops.

The Gaoyang Pass where he is occupying is more than 80 miles away from the lake and swamp area in the southwest of Ansu Prefecture where Guo Ning usually moves, and the journey is even more difficult.

In the past, Xiao Haohu's manpower rarely arrived in this area, let alone mastered the route of Guo Ning's going out to hunt grain, so Guo Ning was completely unprepared for this, and he was hit by him.

Xiao Haohu has both the ability to gather routs and the decisiveness to attack potential opponents.

Guo Ning felt that this Xiren did have the talent of a hero in troubled times, and given time, he might not be able to make a career out of it.In contrast, the original Guo Ning was just a brave man.

It's a pity that Xiao Haohu has no chance to display his talent again.

Xiao Haohu must die, he must die!
Guo Ning brought enough military equipment, and left the river port branch of the army that day, first went east around Bian Wudian, and bypassed Gecheng at dusk.Stayed overnight in the field that night, then turned south and went straight.

Gaoyang Pass, where Xiao Haohu is entrenched, is about forty miles south of Gecheng.

This pass, also known as Caoqiao Pass, was once one of the important military forts set up by the Song people in northern Xinjiang.This place is located in the south of the three passes of Yukou, Yijin, and Waqiao. It plays a central role in the second line of defense for the Song army to control Youji.Therefore, the pass defense is extremely strong, and the defense is extremely heavy, and famous generals are often used as guards.

However, after the Jurchens swept the Central Plains, military forts such as Gaoyang Pass were no longer on the border, and had no military significance.

Moreover, these military forts all rely on artificially excavated Tangluo as terrain cover.In recent years, the ponds have silted up and dried up one after another, and the military forts are no danger at all, they are just dilapidated castles located on high ground.

Gaoyangguan had been requisitioned by the inspection department of nearby counties and counties before, as a stronghold for arresting thieves in Shuizejian.

In the eyes of experienced frontier veterans, the military force of the inspection department is not enough.Around September last year, Xiao Haohu easily seized Gaoyang Pass, just like gathering screams.

At that time, Guo Ning was a little worried, fearing that this move would arouse the wrath of the court.Once the imperial court sends troops to fight, isn't it likely that the surrounding defeated soldiers will all suffer disaster?
For this reason, he deliberately went to Gaoyangguan to check the situation, but he saw that the officials in Gaoyang County and even Anzhou turned a blind eye to this, and only wanted to be safe on the face.

After Guo Ning came back, he sighed to Yao Shi'er, Gao Kezhong and other companions that the imperial court was so weak that it might be difficult for the Black Tartars to be controlled.

Because he has been there once, he still knows the way back and forth.

In the second day, he did not take the main road all the way, but proceeded along the long and narrow river valley from Gecheng to Gaoyangguan.

This river valley is the riverbed of the Majia River.

Majia River is a tributary of Hutuo River, with water from Yangcun River and Tuwei River upstream.In summer and autumn, the entire river channel is often the Majia River Lake, and most of it dries up in winter.Wherever Guo Ning passed, he could see all the large and small gravels at the bottom of the river bed exposed. There were dots of unmelted snow on the stones, and the silt at the bottom of the river was dry and cracked.

At this time, it was a good time to enlist civil servants to build water conservancy projects and dredge rivers.However, in recent years, the states in Hebei sometimes confiscated the land, and at the same time passed the inspections, and there were large-scale acquisitions, requisitions, and signings of troops when the war was approaching.I heard that there were more than 3 households in the Anzhou boundary in the early years, but now they have been tossed and turned over and over again, and I don’t know if there are [-] household registrations left.

In such a situation, how can the local officials still have the mind to manage the river?
Even though Anzhou Governor Tu Shanhang is thoughtful, his main energy is concentrated on military affairs, and he hardly cares about trivial civil affairs.

Because there was no one person along the entire river valley, Guo Ning strode forward very fast.

With armor and weapons on his back, his footsteps were inevitably heavy, and when he stepped on gravel, he made a rattling sound.The sound echoed between the tall river banks on both sides, and it seemed a bit too loud.

Guo Ning didn't care.

To the east and south of this river valley, there is also a three-fork embankment extending fifteen miles as a cover.

The Sanchakou embankment runs across the height of the line of sight, and the top is bare, not even a tree.If someone is watching on the embankment, Guo Ning can see everything from a distance.On the contrary, it was Guo Ning himself, wearing a gray-white military robe, walking between the gray-white riverbed soil and stones, which was difficult to distinguish from a distance.

Guo Ning is only 20 years old this year, but he has been in the army for eight years.He has accumulated a wealth of experience through countless fights and battles in the frontier fortress, and he is already a very experienced warrior.

Guo Ning has already mastered many routines and tricks of marching and fighting, so there is no need to be particularly careful and nervous on weekdays, and what should be guarded against will not be overlooked.

Guo Ning felt that in the past few months, there was probably only one omission, which was the day before yesterday.

He didn't expect Xiao Haohu to act so violently, so he ruined the lives of Yao Shi'er and others.

Guo Ning touched the long knife at his waist, and touched the armor and helmet on his back.

The cold touch calmed his anger that was about to boil, and he continued on his way.

At dusk, he crawled on the top of the Sanchakou embankment and looked southeast.

Below the three-fork embankment, there is a long dirt road.Walking along the dirt road for two or three miles, bypassing a depression, there is an earthen platform with a length and width of several tens of feet and a height of about ten feet.On the top of the earth platform, there is a broken wall.

Among the broken walls, there are several newly built high walls, several courtyards, and two watchtowers. On the watchtowers, there are figures walking around, looking around.That is the ruins of Gaoyang Pass that Xiao Haohu occupied.

Relying on the strength of less than 100 people, it is not easy for Xiao Haohu to build a considerable scale here.Probably strong men were recruited from the surrounding villages to work as coolies, or the manpower of their subordinates was enriched again.

And for a walled city of this scale, as long as the defenders are not negligent, one can be used as five or ten.

Under normal circumstances, Guo Ning was alone here, and it was just a dream to rush in and kill people.

However, Guo Ning had driven more than 80 miles in two days, and he deliberately rushed to arrive at this time, and he had his own reasons.

Guo Ning sat down behind the Sanchakou embankment, unwrapped the package behind his back, first took out the remaining pancakes, ate them hungrily, then took out the armor, and put it on carefully.

This is an excellent set of armor, including iron armor, capes, arm guards and skirt armor, and the leaves of the armor are all tied with green velvet silk ribbons.Generally speaking, such armor belonged to the Jurchen elite of Zhongdu, or was used by the trusted guards of Du Ji Sizhong, the coach of the Jin Army at that time.

However, no matter how well equipped these people are, they are actually silver pewter gun heads.When Yehuling was defeated, did the owner of the armor die, or did he take off the armor and run away?On the contrary, it was Guo Ning who, relying on this set of armor he picked up, fought fiercely several tough battles with mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and survived several dangerous situations that narrowly escaped death.

After Guo Ning finished dressing, a sound came from behind him on the dirt road below the Sanchakou embankment.

Guo Ning listened attentively, the sound was getting closer and closer, it was the rumbling footsteps of a small army marching, sometimes mixed with the light sound of weapons clashing.

Guo Ning quickened his movements, put on the military robe in twos and threes, and then placed the long knife, iron bone, bow and quiver properly, and finally put on the phoenix-winged helmet, pressing the edge of the helmet slightly lower.

The next moment, he turned over and stood on the top of the slope, and asked loudly, "Who is here?!"

　Note 1: According to the "Three Dynasties Beimenghui" records, King Hailing had [-] Jurchen soldiers, contradictory halberds, pure equipment, made of purple antler silk strips, wearing iron armor, and named Zirong Army.Secondly, use yellow velvet, named Huang velvet army, and then use green velvet, named Qing velvet army.A small army of the purple, blue, and yellow armies, also known as the escort army, is dedicated to a group of royal guards.

Note 2: I haven't read "Huibian", the ones above are from Baidu.

　
(End of this chapter)