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It is said that after the successful defense of Tokyo in the first battle, the Jin army retreated. There were 17 escaped Jin soldiers, who rode their horses day and night, fleeing all the way to their hometown in the northeast.

When the 17 Jin soldiers passed through Cizhou (now Handan City, Hebei Province), the one defending the city was Li Kan, a fierce general of the Northern Song Dynasty (who fought bravely when suppressing the Fang La uprising and was promoted to the chief general defending Handan for his military merits). Before receiving the news of "peace talks" from the Zhao Song court, he decided to capture these 17 people so that he could make achievements again, get promoted and be rewarded.

There were 2 imperial guards stationed in Cizhou City. These imperial guards were the most "elite" troops in the Northern Song Dynasty at that time. Lin Chong once served as the spear and stick instructor of the imperial guards.

In the armed forces system of the Song Dynasty, it was mainly divided into three types: the Imperial Guards, the Winged Army, and the Local Soldiers. The Imperial Guards were the central army of the Song Dynasty, "the emperor's guards, to guard the capital and prepare for garrison." The Imperial Guards were directly under the court, with generous treatment and excellent equipment. They were far superior to the Winged Army and the Local Soldiers, so their combat effectiveness was relatively strong.

Li Kan thought that it would be easy to intercept and kill the 2000 fleeing Jin soldiers by leading 17 elite troops of the Imperial Guard, so he was very casual and didn't take it seriously at all.

The fleeing Jin soldiers saw the Song soldiers blocking their way from afar and shouted, "Song and Jin are now negotiating peace. We are all messengers from Jin. We hope you can recognize the situation and let us pass."

The Song army was large in number and powerful at that time. Li Kan, as a representative of the pro-war faction, did not want the court to negotiate peace with the Jin Kingdom, so he decided to kill them to gain merit.

Li Kan didn't say much, he took a fighting stance of closing the door and beating the dog, ready to kill them all.

When the Jin soldiers saw this, they immediately formed a cone formation, with 7 cavalrymen in the front and 5 cavalrymen on each side as cover, and immediately charged towards the Song army.

Li Kan originally thought that with such a large force, he could crush the enemy with overwhelming advantage, and as long as the Jin soldiers did not surrender voluntarily, he would kill them all on the spot.

They never expected that these 17 Jin soldiers would fight for their lives. The Song army, who had never seen blood, were dumbfounded and retreated one after another. Few people dared to step forward and fight for their lives to kill the enemy.

The Jin soldiers on both sides also took advantage of the situation to charge, ride horses and shoot arrows, but they did not show any panic and always maintained the necessary battle distance. The Song army fled everywhere in panic.

The Jin soldiers charged back and forth on horseback, maintaining their battle formation the whole time. They rode their horses and shot arrows at the same time. The Song army was completely thrown into disarray, and they scattered in panic, trampling each other to death. More than a thousand people were killed or wounded, and only more than twenty were shot to death.

In the Battle of Cizhou, the Song army's claimed 2 elite soldiers were defeated by 17 people, with more than half of them killed or wounded. But the Song army was so bad in history that it really makes later generations feel sad, lamentable and shameful.

The key reason why the Song army suffered such heavy casualties was not because they were killed by the enemy in battle, but because they were afraid of dying in battle, so they rushed to escape after the defeat and trampled each other to death. This shows the low combat effectiveness of the Song army.

After this battle, the Jin army looked down on the Northern Song Dynasty even more. In early 1127, the Jin army captured Kaifeng City and captured more than 3500 nobles including Emperor Huizong and Emperor Qinzong of Song. The Northern Song Dynasty was destroyed. After that, Emperor Gaozong of the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhao Gou, was even weaker. He boarded a ship and fled before the Jin army crossed the river, showing no determination to resist.

In the early years of the Jin Dynasty, the Jin soldiers were indeed quite capable, but they were not able to defeat 17 soldiers with only 2000 soldiers. This was the result of the Northern Song Dynasty's policy of "respecting culture and suppressing military power" that had been in place for nearly 200 years. The Song army had lost its martial spirit and was like a lamb.