Author: Our special guest author Qian Qiuyuan
Regarding the thirteen battle achievements of the Southern Song Dynasty, especially the southern invasion of Yan Liang, we have successively talked about the battles of Soap Horn Forest, Xupu Bridge, and Tang Island, but in addition to the Battle of Tang Island, these small fights and small troubles did not play a decisive role in the war situation of Song Jin. So, in the face of the menacing Yan Liang army, how did the Southern Song Dynasty achieve a headwind reversal? This is to say the Battle of Quarry Rock.
First of all, it must be said that Yan Liang was able to advance so quickly along the Yangtze River, which has a lot to do with the defense of the Southern Song Dynasty: it is reasonable to say that when the enemy forces press the border, they should take the initiative to meet the enemy and resist the enemy outside the national gate. However, Wang Quan, the commander of the Huainan Theater, perfectly inherited his predecessor Zhang Jun's "Escape Divine Gong", and as soon as he saw Yan Liang personally leading the main force, the "Divine Action and Changeable" Gong immediately possessed, and successively abandoned Luzhou (present-day Hefei, Anhui) and Hezhou (present-day Hexian County, Anhui) and other important towns in Huainan, allowing the Jin army to cross the Huai River, the first defensive line of the Southern Song Dynasty, without hindrance.
The old saying often says, "To guard the river is to defend Huai", but the Huai River defense line was easily handed over to the Jin army by the king. Of course, the matter of the king's dereliction of duty was worried about by the Organization Department and the Discipline Inspection Commission of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Secondly, the Yangtze River is so long, why did Yan Liang choose quarry rocks? This is related to Yan Liang's strategic choice.
Since ancient times, if the north wants to cross the Yangtze River to conquer the south, there are not many choices: either, from the upper reaches of the Yangtze River down the river, "Wang Maolou ship down to Yizhou, Jinling Wang Qi, the most obvious example" is the most obvious example; or, choose to land from the Yangtze River Sanji, these three rocks, respectively, Yueyang ChenglingJi, Ma'anshan Quarry Rock, Nanjing Yanziji. Han Huhu's destruction of Southern Chen, Song's destruction of Southern Tang, and later Zhu Yuanzhang's attack on Nanjing all started with quarrying rocks.
Fan Ruoshui, a famous spy in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, once repeatedly measured along the Yangtze River and determined that the quarry was the best landing point - the most suitable for building a pontoon bridge, so as to avoid a head-on duel with the opponent's powerful sailors. And Yan Liang's army of building boats has been burned clean by Li Bao and Wei Sheng, and he wants to cross the river, but he can only rely on small boats and pontoon bridges, so Yan Liang can only choose quarrying.
If you want to innovate, under the material conditions of that year, it was very difficult, Cao Cao, Cao Pi father and son are called heroic, but they are stuck by the Yangtze River, dead or alive is not enough to cross the Yangtze River. The bitter tears of the father and son of the Cao family finally turned into a sigh of Cao Pi: Was the Yangtze River born to cut off the north and south?
Of course, quarry rock is both a weakness and a natural danger. Especially for the Southern Song Dynasty, they once spent a lot of effort to build the quarry into a fortress fortress.
So what is the situation with the quarry now? Do you have enough food for the soldiers?
There were quite a few soldiers, and as soon as the king's power collapsed, more than 18,000 people were in the quarry at this time, but these people, driven by the escape of Commander Wang, had long become a group of scattered soldiers, and they also took a breath to prove that they were still alive.
As for the general, the soft egg commander's royal power is not counted on, and Li Xianzhong is not in place, it is the power vacuum period that is not received!
At this time, the person in charge along the Yangtze River was called Ye Yiwen, an executive from the Privy Council, who had come to depose the king and appoint Li Xianzhong. He established a temporary headquarters for former enemies in Zhenjiang Province. At the critical moment, this brother is not intimidated. Along with The Ye executives, there was also a person, Yu Yunwen, whose position at this time was zhongshu sheren and staff officer, in other words, secretary or clerk, who was responsible for running errands for the ye executives this time, and he should have gone to Wuhu at this time to urge Li Xianzhong to take up his post, and then to quarry the rocks and labor army. However, seeing that the Yangtze River defense line was in danger, Yu Yunwen took the initiative to decide to "deviate" - he went directly to the quarry.
And Yu Yunwen's "deviation" was too timely, and in the quarry, he, the secretary from the central government, directly became a "number one". At that time, there were several senior generals in Quarry Rock: Zhang Zhen and Shi Jun, as well as General Han and General Cai, but no one obeyed anyone or listened to anyone. And these soldiers from Jiangbei did not think that Yu Yunwen, the "secretary", could change his life against the sky and create miracles.
If Yan Liang crossed the river at the first time, the quarry rock might really be pushed flat by him. Perhaps, thinking that the wish of "the first peak of Wushan Mountain" is about to be realized, or perhaps he is a little tired after days of marching and fighting, on the edge of the Yangtze River, he blows the sea breeze, from the beginning of November to the beginning of November, he repaired for a few days, as if waiting for the opponent of the fateful war to appear.
Of course, if we read the "History of Jin", we will know that at this time, Guanyanliang's heart is incomparably entangled, and his worries in the past few days are too much - the backyard is on fire, and his cousin Wanyan Yong, who he once despised incomparably, has already claimed the title of emperor in his hometown and created his rebellion. In view of the fact that the amount of information is too large, it takes time to digest it.
Well, Yu Yunwen is in place, in the face of 18,000 scattered soldiers, what can he do? Wake them up, scold them? No, Yu Yunwen's approach is chicken soup plus lure!
The so-called chicken soup is very simple, Yu Yunwen opened a chicken soup conference, which roughly means this: Boys, you are the last line of defense of the country, you must summon up courage, defend the country, and be an iron-blooded man.
Yu Yunwen was surprised to find that the chicken soup was very effective, in fact, it was easy to understand, since the establishment of the Jurchen Empire, the killing of the Central Plains was too heavy, the lesson was painful, and the Song people of this era were hard to remember.
The purpose of Yu Yunwen's trip is - labor army: I am sent by the emperor to labor, as long as we repulse the Jurchens, gold and silver jewelry all kinds of rewards, we have!
The effect of inducement is also very good, and for people who have been displaced and displaced for many years, what can be more attractive than wealth?
Well, at the instigation of Yu Yunwen, 18,000 scattered soldiers and brave soldiers actually magically "returned to blood and returned to blue", and everyone had the posture of "sheep turning into wolf dogs".
On the eighth day of the first month of November, Yan Liang, who was in the north of the river, ordered the ships to sail in unison and cross the river to fight.
Yu Yunwen of the quarry rock was also ready to deploy: more than 10,000 soldiers were lined up by the river, in a purely defensive formation. Five large ships were sent out of the harbor, two of which were cruising along the river, one was waiting for battle in the center of the river, and the remaining two were hidden in the small harbor on the riverbank, waiting for the opportunity to move.
The total number of Jin troops is indeed very large, but only these 70 boats cross the river at a time, Yu Yunwen calculated that there were 10,000 people, the number was almost the same, and he could fight!
Although the Song army had already made a good deployment, an accident still appeared, and when more than 10,000 Jin troops rushed to the river beach with great momentum, the Song army actually wavered - under the impact of the Jin army, some formations began to collapse sporadically.
Yu Yunwen saw it in his eyes and remembered it in his heart, he understood that the collapse would be contagious, if it was not stopped in time, his efforts would all be in vain, and hundreds of thousands of Jurchen troops in Jiangbei would all arrive one after another.
At the critical moment, Yu Yunwen rushed up, and he found the commander Shi Jun and said an earth-shattering swear word: I heard that you are very brave, how can you be like a lady today (Ru Qian slightly smells the four directions, and after the formation, he is a woman)?
For Chinese, being scolded on the battlefield is too harsh! Shi Junyi was excited, and suddenly woke up: What is there to be afraid of when the Jurchen who got off the horse? Besides, if the Yangtze River can't be defended, where else can it go?
Shi Jun roared, and rushed up with a knife, and when the Surrounding Song Army looked at it, the commanders were all gone, and in an instant, "the ladies became grandfathers" and rushed up to fight desperately. It turns out that courage and discouragement are contagious, and more than 10,000 Song troops have suffered from "courage disorder". In addition, the Song military had already been properly deployed, as long as it did not panic, it already had an advantage: the forwards struggled to resist, the two wings held the position, the archers fired ten thousand arrows in unison, and the first ten thousand golden troops who landed were pressed back under this blow, but unfortunately, the rear was the Yangtze River, what about the ferry? The ferry has returned to Jiangbei to continue to pick up people.
However, the Jin Army, who had no way back, instead broke out a strong desire to survive, and could not live anyway, it was better to fight hard. In this way, the Song and Jin sides once again fell into a stalemate in which no one could retreat. From morning to evening, the two sides still won or lost.
Seeing that the sun was approaching, Yu Yunwen was very anxious, he could not solve the battle during the day, and the night would be more dangerous. At this moment, a fortuitous episode occurred: he saw a group of crooked Song soldiers running, and when he inquired, he realized that this was Song soldiers fleeing from Gwangju. The number of people is not large, only three hundred people.
Yu Yunwen decided to make good use of this group of people: he distributed battle flags and stag drums to the gang, ordered them to make as much movement as they could, and rushed to the battlefield with clamor.
Facts have proved that Yu Yunwen's decision-making effect is very good: the Jin army, which has been fighting fiercely for a day, is waiting for reinforcements to arrive, but instead sees the Song army rushing out of the "brigade", and the remaining momentum is immediately vented -- if you don't play, you really can't play. The Jin army began to flee along the river beach, Yu Yunwen ordered a full-fledged pursuit, and the Jin army fell in the night. After the war, the Jin army counted more than 4,000 corpses, including 2 killed 10,000 household chiefs, 5 thousand household chiefs, and more than 500 live female zhen. Basically, the first golden army that landed on the shore was completely destroyed.
So after a day of fierce fighting, why didn't the Jurchen army on the north shore reinforce? Hey, they are also powerless, because the five loach-class ships designed by Yu Yunwen have successfully blocked the route: several large ships have rampaged through the Yangtze River channel, and the jurchen small boats have basically become sampans facing the sky. As for the Jurchen soldiers on the ship, they basically became "fish turtles".
If it was Cao Cao who commanded the battle of crossing the river this time, if it was fought like this, the army could basically be withdrawn, but Yan Liang was different, he was the emperor of the Jin Dynasty who had not tasted defeat in the southern expedition, and in the face of failure, he jumped like thunder, beheaded all the Jurchen generals who fled and returned, and showed the public, strictly ordering that they must cross the river as soon as possible.
The next day, the weather was very good - the north wind was blowing strongly, too suitable for the north bank to cross the river, but 300 small boats just came out of the river, the song army's big ships have come straight down the river, I have to say that the big ships have advantages, can hit, can send stones, can shoot crossbows, can put rockets... Almost none of the 300 or so small ships were spared, either burned or sunk.
At this time, even the ferry was gone, but Yan Liang was still unwilling, there was no way, if he could not make some achievements in the southern invasion, why did he go back to his hometown to suppress the rebellion? Is it because of his tyranny and absurdity? However, the quarry is really a hard stone, and it really can't be chewed. In desperation, Yan Liang left, and he withdrew to Guazhou ferry, preparing to land from Zhenjiang.
The battle of the quarry, thus ending.
postscript
But in Guazhou Ferry, Yan Liang collapsed again, and the guard here was called Liu Kun, although he was already sick and heavy at this time, his armament was better than that of Quarry Rock, at least there were a lot more warships. Yu Yunwen, who was the first to prepare for the enemy plane, also arrived in Zhenjiang.
With warships, Yu Yunwen began to lead the Song army to take the initiative to attack, directly blocking the Yangtze River, so that the Jin army could not get out of the port at all.
Fight like this, it's time to go, right? However, Yan Liang was just the opposite, and he instead issued a death order: within 3 days, he must cross the river, and if he is afraid of his life, he will be beheaded. No boats, just swim me across the river!
And this command has become a catalyst for yan liang. Think about it, give such an order, that is, let the Jin Army die, advance is death, retreat is also death, sit still and die! Well, if you are forced to go to the end of the road, you can only - rebellion.
On November 27, the general of the Jin army, Yan Yuanyi, with his soldiers who had no way to live, rushed into the tent and killed Yan Liang. In the history of the Jin Dynasty, the most conceited, tyrannical, and most talented emperor hastily ended the curtain.
References: History of song, Baidu Encyclopedia