In 1127, the Northern Song Dynasty finally ended its rule, and the Southern Song Dynasty, which followed it, took over the remaining half of the country in the storm. However, the minority regimes in the north did not stop, and drinking horses on the Yellow River was no longer their pursuit, but turned their eyes to the Yangtze River, not knowing whether their horses could drink the water of the southern river.
At this critical moment, the southern song generals took up the burden of defending the Great Song Dynasty, among which the most well-known and very story-like famous general Yue Fei was one of the representative figures, and his three surrenders, the recovery of Jiankang, the feats of the two Northern Expeditions are well known, and the story of being recalled by more than ten gold medals also makes us sigh.
But what we may not be familiar with is that there are several other generals who jointly shouldered the responsibility of supporting the Great Song with Yue Fei, and their stories are equally wonderful, and Jin Wushu has issued feelings of "I am too difficult" and "I really can't beat them" in the face of any of them.
Han Shizhong, also spelled Liangchen, was a native of Yan'an (present-day Yan'an, Shaanxi). He was born in the fourth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1090 AD) during the Reign of Emperor Zhezong of the Northern Song Dynasty, when the Great Song Dynasty had Khitan and Jurchen in the north, Dangxiang in the west, Tubo and Dali in the south, and the conflict of power developed by ethnic contradictions was continuous, and Han Shizhong gradually rose from a soldier in such an environment and became an outstanding general who became an independent general after that.
In the seventh year of the Taiping Revival of the Northern Song Dynasty (982 AD), the Dangxiang clan established the Western Xia regime and frequently raised troops to invade the Song territory, and the Song court repeatedly gathered troops or attacked or defended in order to protect the northwest frontier and curb its expansion and territory, and the two sides launched nearly a hundred years of offensive and defensive wars. By the Southern Song Dynasty, the soldiers guarding the northwest frontier had already experienced many battles, and were very strong compared with the combat effectiveness of the troops in other border towns, and many generals also grew up rapidly through the tempering of the northwestern war. Among them, the appearance of Han Shizhong is the most eye-catching.
In the environment of Shangwu in the northwest region, Han Shizhong had learned a good martial art since childhood, and after joining the army, he competed in martial arts, and the only Han Shizhong could use an iron tire bow to penetrate the golden stone. In the Battle of Yinchuan, Han Shizhong first appeared, facing the main force of Western Xia, Han Shizhong led his troops to fight to the death, saw that there was "a knight and a very strong warrior" in the enemy army, and after inquiring, he learned that it was a Western Xia horse, so the Prancing Horse beheaded it. Although the achievements of this battle were suppressed by the superiors and not reported, the most important thing when the two Song Dynasties intersected was the opportunity.
After that, Han Shizhong was gradually promoted by military merit in the campaign against Western Xia, and had become a mature young general, who was ordered to go to the southeast to quell the Fang La uprising and capture Fang La alive.
In the third year of the Southern Song Dynasty, Jin Wushu invaded the south, Gaozong fled south, Han Shizhong was appointed as an envoy to western Zhejiang, and in the case of all the Song armies being defeated and retreated, Han Shizhong led his army to retreat to Jiangyin (present-day Jiangsu), Xiuzhou (present-day Jiaxing, Zhejiang), and set up an ambush at Jiaoshan Temple on the Yangtze River east of Zhenjiang, with the purpose of cutting off the return of the Jin soldiers, and in March the Jin army returned north to Zhenjiang, Han Shizhong ambushed the troops out of Huang Tiandang, he personally put on armor, and his wife Liang Shizhong also wore a military uniform and beat the drum to help the battle, and rushed to kill, capturing Jin Wushu's son-in-law alive. The Jin army was trapped in Huang Tiandang, but because the water army led by Han Shizhong was a large ship without wind and could not move, the Jin army took advantage of the lack of wind to launch a fire attack and fled to Heaven.
The Battle of Huang Tiandang can be said to be a very brilliant battle of Han Shizhong, with 8,000 lone troops hard to shake 100,000 Jin troops, although not completely annihilated but besieged for more than a month, is the first serious blow to the Jin army since the establishment of the Southern Song Dynasty. At the overall strategic level, it greatly boosted the morale of these southern monarchs and military and civilians, and also proved that the Song army did have the strength to fight a large-scale battle, which bankrupted the Jin army's plan to go south to destroy the Song, and the Song and Jin turned into a stalemate.
Like Han Shizhong, most of the generals who were active in the anti-Jin front in the early days of the Southern Song Dynasty were generals from the northwest or the north, and most of them accumulated military merits from lower-level officers to become military commanders on the Weizhen side step by step, enjoying prestige, of which Liu Kun was one of the best.
Liu Chengji (present-day Tianshui, Gansu), a native of Chengji, Qinzhou (present-day Tianshui, Gansu), was a member of the Jiangmen family, whose father Liu Zhongwu was an envoy of the Northern Song Dynasty's Luchuan Army, who made great achievements in the war against Western Xia and Tubo at that time. Since childhood, Liu Kun was "generous and resolute, and had a Confucian style", and he often accompanied his father to fight against the Western Xia invasion in the area of Lintao and Linxia in present-day Gansu, and these experiences have laid a deep imprint of the times on him when he was still a teenager. Unfortunately, when the Northern Song Dynasty fell to the fall of the Country, the political center of gravity of the Song court shifted to the south, and Liu Kun also bid farewell to his homeland and moved south with his family at this time.
After Emperor Gaozong ascended the throne, he appointed Liu Kui as the Protector of longyou, and the prefecture of Min (岷州, in modern Min County, Gansu), the northwestern border of the Southern Song Dynasty, was responsible for the important defense of the northwest region, and during this period, Liu Kun repeatedly defeated the invading Western Xia army, and the people at that time often shouted "Liu Du Hu Lai" to silence the young children.
Later, in order to contain the Jin army to the south, the Song court opened a front against Jin in the northwest region. In the fourth year of Jianyan (1130 AD), Zhang Jun gathered the Song army in Fuping to confront Jin Wushu, and Liu Kun, who was then a slight envoy of Jingyuan Road, led his soldiers to rush into the Jin army and severely damaged the Jin army to encircle Jin Wushu for a while, but due to Zhang Jun's poor command, the Battle of Fuping ended in a complete rout of the Song army, and Liu Kun was also implicated in the surrender of his subordinates and was demoted to Mianzhou (present-day Mianyang, Sichuan).
In the third year of Shaoxing (1133 CE), Liu Was reinstated as the commander of Xuanfu Division, continuing to defend against the Jin army on the northwestern front. Coinciding with the return of the imperial court emissaries from Shuzhong, Emperor Gaozong, after hearing of Liu Kun's achievements, issued three edicts to summon Liu Kun to the wei, and awarded him the posts of deputy commander of the horse infantry army with imperial equipment and jiangnan east road, and then took charge of the Su Wei army, accompanied Emperor Gaozong's personal conquest, and then took over the deposed army of the former deputy army of the camp to command Wang Yan and the guards of the pro-army Ma Junsi to relieve the submarine, and from then on Liu Kun began to have the qualifications to become an independent army.
In the fifth year of Shaoxing (1135 AD), when the situation between Song and Jin was favorable to Song, Emperor Gaozong of Song insisted on peace. In the tenth year of Shaoxing (1140 AD), according to the content agreed upon by the two sides, Liu Kun was appointed deputy retainer of Tokyo and was ordered to lead his troops to Shunchang (present-day Fuyang, Anhui), but on the way came the news that the Jin army had destroyed the covenant and invaded the south, and the Jin army, under the command of Jin Wushu, directly attacked Shunchang and wanted to cross the HuaiShui River to the south to destroy the Song Dynasty. In the face of the menacing Jin army, Liu Kun ordered "breaking the cauldron and sinking the boat" and bringing the family into the city, indicating that the whole family and Shunchang coexisted and died.
Faced with the situation of the enemy being outnumbered, Liu Kun took the initiative to attack and repeatedly defeated the Jin army, causing Jin Wushu to personally raise 100,000 troops to surround Shunchang. However, Liu Kun calmly coped, using the radical method to induce Jin Wushu to venture forward, and then raided the Jin army when his people were sleepy and tired, and then robbed the camp day and night, making the Jin army tired of coping, and finally could not survive the retreat, and the weight left was piled up. Even the Jin people themselves said that the Battle of Shunchang was fought against the Song people for fifteen years without such a defeat, and even rumors were that the Song army had foreign ghost soldiers to help, and the Jin people were once "shocked and frightened".
In February of the eleventh year of Shaoxing (1141 AD), the Jin army attacked again, Liu Kun led the main force to garrison Gargao, and after the rest of the Song army met the division, the troops crossed the river at the same time in three ways, taking the lead in attacking the Jin army, and the Jin soldiers saw Liu Kun's arrival and rushed to flee, and from then on Jin Wushu did not return to the south.
When Liu Kun was in charge of the northwest border defense affairs, he once worked with another famous southern Song General, who was Wu Jiu who guarded the Shu land.
Wu Jie, also known as Jinqing, was also born in the northwest, was a shunde army longgan (a native of Jingxian County, Gansu), joined the Jingyuan army at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, and during the reign of Emperor Huizong, because of his bravery in battle, he repeatedly resisted the invasion of Western Xia and became a low-level officer. After quelling the Fangla rebellion with the army, the officer was appointed as the tenth general of Jingyuan.
In the fourth year of Jianyan (1130 AD), He was promoted to the deputy commander of the Jingyuan Road Horse Infantry Army. Soon after the Jin army knocked on the pass, Wu Jiu led the army to meet the battle, beating the Jin soldiers to the point of fleeing, and even one of the commanders of the Jin army, Sa Li, was scared to cry and won the title of "Crying Lang Jun".
In September of the same year, Xuanfu's disposition made Zhang Jun mobilize the Song army to launch the Battle of Fuping, and before and at the beginning of the war, Wu Jiudu suggested that the enemy army be tired by relying on the advantages of the northwest and the danger, and then annihilate in one fell swoop, but unfortunately, at this time, wu Jiu's people were soft-spoken, and no one was willing to listen to his good strategy, resulting in the Jin army successively attacking the Five Roads Song Army.
At this time, Wu Jiu gathered his troops at Shangyuan (present-day southwest of Baoji, Shaanxi) with the intention of defending to the death, and some of his subordinates suggested that they should continue to retreat to Hanzhong, and Wu Jiu said, "The enemy cannot break me, so dare to advance lightly?" I was strong and heavy, looking down at Yongdian, and the enemy was afraid that I would take advantage of the false attack behind it, and this good strategy was also good. So Wu Jiu's troops stubbornly defended and dragged the Jin army to Shangyuan, which not only made the Jin army dare not go south to Hanzhong, but also saved Fengxiang from intrusion, and the local people remembered Wu Jiu and sent grain to Wu Jiu overnight, Wu Jiu gave money according to the market price, and the people were even more moved, not afraid of the method of interception and sitting of the Jin soldiers, and took the risk of forbidding grain delivery, so that Wu Jiu's troops persisted for several years, and at this time he had lost all contact with the imperial court.
After that, the Jin army continued to attack Shang yuan and was defeated by Wu Jiu's troops. However, Jin Bing was still unwilling to give up, and because the monk was alone, Wu Jiu ordered his brother Wu Xuan to lead his troops to repair the "Killing Jinping" as a barrier to the Immortal Pass.
In the third year of Shaoxing (1133), the Jin soldiers attacked Jinzhou, and the local guards sent a letter to Wu Jiu at Xianrenguan to come to the rescue, Wu Jiu hurriedly marched for a day, trekked three hundred miles, and gave the Golden Soldier Huang Mandarin "talk about quenching thirst", it happened that it was the "Crying Lang Jun" who commanded this Jin soldier to leave the drink, frightening him to complain with a cane and pestle that Wu Jiu had entered the army so quickly. The two armies of Song and Jin fought at Rao Fengling, because there was a small colonel who surrendered to the enemy, Wu Jiu was forced to lead his troops to retreat, after which Wu Jiu thought that "outside the pass, the gateway of Shu, should not be abandoned lightly", he returned to Xian ren guan to guard, but the Jin army did not know wu Jiu's return, led his troops to sneak attack Xian Ren Guan, was bumped by Wu Jiu, and fell off a cliff with thousands of people.
After several exchanges, in the fourth year of Shaoxing (1134 AD), Jin Wushu led an army to formally attack Xianrenguan.
The Immortal Pass War was about to break out, and at this time, Wu Xuan, who was Wu Jiu's younger brother, came to prominence in this battle.
Before the Battle of Xianrenguan began, Wu Jiu relied on tens of thousands of people to resist the Golden Soldiers who had carved the mountain and opened the road, giving Wu Xuan the opportunity to advance lightly from qifangguan, break the encirclement of the Golden Soldiers, and make peace with Wu Jiu.
After the Battle of Xianrenguan began, the Jin soldiers attacked fiercely, and Wu Xuan drew his sword and strictly ordered, "Death is death, and retreat is beheaded!" The words did not fall, and the Jin soldiers came forward in two ways, and Wu Xuan led the elite soldiers to intersperse the left and right with "random hair", at this time the Fatigue of the Song Army was slightly obvious, and Wu Xuan led the troops to rush to the second line of defense. The Jin soldiers took advantage of the victory and pressed forward, facing the Jin soldiers wearing heavy armor and fishing through, Wu Xuan ordered the troops to take turns shooting with crossbow arrows. After paying a heavy casualty price, the Jin soldiers ascended the pass.
After that, Wu Jiu ordered reinforcements to arrive, and Wu Xuan took advantage of the situation and won one victory after another. The Jin soldiers, who were confident that they would be able to break through the pass, repeatedly ran into a wall under the Immortal Pass, and deeply felt that Wu Jiu and Wu Xuan's troops "could not be violated in the end", so they had to retreat. After Wu Jiu fell seriously ill and died at Xianrenguan, Wu Xuan was appointed to continue defending the northwestern frontier. After the Battle of Xianrenguan, the Song court negotiated with Jin and wanted to abolish Xianrenguan, and Wu Xuan argued on the basis of reason, and some of the courtiers also opposed it, believing that it was the place where the grain was tuned and could not be easily abolished, so the imperial court allowed Wu Xuan to send troops to continue to garrison.
In the tenth year of Shaoxing (1140 AD), the Jin people turned their backs on the alliance and went south, Emperor Gaozong ordered Wu Xuan to lead the Shaanxi armies and horses to resist the enemy, in the face of the plan proposed by the generals to retire xianrenguan, Wu Xuan resolutely advocated going to war, in the face of the Jin soldiers' cavalry charge, Wu Xuan chose to defeat it with a horseback, and quickly expanded the results of the battle to attack Fufeng, and the old enemy Sa Li drank and personally put on the battlefield, but after seeing wu Xuan's strict order, he issued a sigh of "the good warrior is in an invincible position", and led the troops back.
In the thirty-first year of Shaoxing (1161 AD), the then Jin lord Guanyan Liang sent an army to invade the northwest, and at this time, Wu Xuan, who was already over the age of flower armor, once again draped himself, supported the sick weight to climb Xianren Pass, successively recovered Shangzhou, Heyuan Prefecture, Dashanguan and other places, and sent his son to defeat the Jin soldiers at Ma Yuwating, and captured the Jin general Yelü Jiujin. After that, it took only eight days to personally supervise the battle to recover Deshun, and then successively recaptured thirteen states and armies such as Huizhou, Xizhou, and Gongzhou, but these achievements were forced to give up in the subsequent peace talks.
In the end, before his death, Wu Xuan pleaded with the imperial court not to abandon Sichuan and died suddenly at the age of sixty-six.
It was an era of humiliation, and it was also an era of "famous generals".