Author: Our special guest author Qian Qiuyuan
Between the Jurchens and the Southern Song Dynasty, from east to west, the front line is long, but it is generally divided into: the eastern front and the western front, and this western front battlefield is at the junction of Sichuan and Shaanxi.
After the jingkang revolution, the Southern Song Dynasty was able to continue the state for more than a hundred years, and even finally consumed the Jurchens, which had a lot to do with the long-term preservation of Sichuan and Shu. After all, Sichuan, with its dangerous terrain and abundant products, is simply a feng shui treasure land that the Southern Song Dynasty can attack and retreat.
Such a good Sichuan and Shu land, the Jurchens don't want to take it? Of course I want to, I want to dream! But in Sichuan, there is a pair of brothers who have always made it impossible for them to realize their dreams - Wu Jie and Wu Xuan.
Wu Jiu and Wu Xuan can be called the nightmare of the jurchens in the southwest direction, and the monk is the beginning of the nightmare, and the climax of the nightmare should be said - the Battle of Xianrenguan.
First, the Jurchens are here again
The Battle of Shangyuan in 1131 AD made Jin Wushu suffer enough. For the Wu family brothers, not only did Jin Wushu hate his teeth itching, but even the entire Jurchen Empire was eager to "tie the villain every day" and curse the Wu family brothers.
Perhaps the curse really worked, and Wu Jiu, who had made Yan Zongbi suffer enough, actually lost the battle - at RaoFeng Pass, Wu Jie won the battle with a "miracle" of finishing Yan. This victory made the Jurchens regain their confidence: Wu Jie was a human being after all, not a god.
Here is a brief explanation: in the Battle of Raofengguan in 1133 AD, Wu Jiu did lose. But in this battle, in fact, the Song army fought very bravely, and Wu Jiu's strategic deployment was not too much of a problem, if it were not for the traitors leading the way to take a detour, the Jurchens would not be able to take advantage.
However, the loss of Rao Fengguan also opened another big war - the Battle of Immortal Pass.
2. Kill Jinping and Immortal Pass
After the defeat of Rao Fengguan and the change in the strategic situation, Wu Jiu decisively abandoned Shangyuan, shrunk the defensive line, and retreated to the area of Hechi and Xianrenguan.
Seeing the retreat of the Song army, the Jurchens quickly occupied the monk Yuan, who had suffered enough. With the posture of "victor", "revisiting the old place", Yan Zongbi's heart is "incomparably heroic", and the fertile Sichuan Shu and the beautiful Jiangnan seem to be surrendering to him.
Regarding the abandonment of Shangyuan, let me spoil it first: this is just a strategic shift by a military expert, not a renunciation of the national territory.
In the area of Xianrenguan, Wu Jie built another fortress and took a domineering name - Kill Jinping! At that time, the Eight Character Army stabbed the "oath to kill the gold thief" in the face, and today's Wu Jie carved the "killing gold" on the stone, and soon, he will also carve the "killing gold" into the blood of the Jurchens.
The newly built Killing Jinping and Xian ren guan formed a corner of mutual support and mutual support, and for safety, Wu Jiu also built a second pass between the killing jinping and the xian ren guan (without a name, we will call it the second pass). This is Wu Jie, a famous general who is always good at taking advantage of "the time, place, and people".
Killing Jinping and Immortal Guan stood majestically, quietly waiting for the arrival of the Jurchen army.
Before the start of the great war, it is necessary to talk about the comparison of the strength of the two sides: 20,000 people in the Song army under the command of Wu Jiu, and 100,000 people on the Jurchen side led by Yan Zongbi and Yan Sa.
3. Kill the Battle of Jinping
In 1134 AD, the Jurchen army of 100,000 people rumbled with iron hooves, and the target was directed at Xianrenguan. But first, what they have to cross is to kill Jinping!
At this time, the person stationed to kill Jinping was named Wu Xuan--he was Wu Jiu's brother, who was also a famous general among famous generals. Wu Xuan's deputy was guo zhen — a name worth remembering, to be precise, he was specially assigned by Wu Jie to assist his younger brother. Guo Zhen has a characteristic, he is a fierce general, a fierce general who dares to compete with the Jurchens immediately.
At dusk on February 27, the Jurchens arrived and rushed to kill Jinping, while the Song army side was Guo Zhen sent troops to kill the enemy, leading a team of people and horses, and fearlessly launched a counter-charge against the Jurchens, and an unusually fierce battle began!
The number of people is not equal, but they still have to play a frontal attack, is Guo Zhen too "tiger", or is there a problem with Wu Jiu and Wu Xuan's decision-making? Neither! The reason for this is that Killing Jinping is a narrow mountain, and if you want to maintain the advantage of the highlands, you must not sit and wait for the Jurchens to besiege.
But in any case, this is indeed an unequal battle: the Jurchens are not only numerous, but also "thick skin" - in order to resist the Divine Arm Bow, they are specially equipped with double-layer heavy armor weighing dozens of pounds.
The double gap between numbers and equipment defeated Guo Zhen: after more than thirty rounds of back and forth, he could no longer slash and kill, and he chose to retreat. With this withdrawal, the Song army's defensive line immediately revealed a flaw.
A number needs to be stated: what is the concept of rushing to kill thirty rounds? Normally speaking, cavalry confrontation is generally three rounds to decide the winner or loser, and thirty rounds, even a piece of steel has to grind off a layer of skin!
Guo Zhen persisted for more than thirty rounds in front of the Jurchens who were several times larger than himself, and no matter what, he was a hero. However, Guo Zhen, who returned to kill Jinping, did not get flowers and applause, but ushered in the ghost head knife - Wu Jiu ordered to kill any retreaters!
Here, we want to applaud Wu Jie's strict military discipline, but we also have to pay tribute to Guo Zhen - although defeated, you are a real warrior! You are the real Guo Daxia!
After a whole afternoon of fierce fighting, The Killing Jinping finally fell, and Wu Xuan had no choice but to retreat to the second pass.
Fourth, the Second Pass Armageddon
To be precise, the second pass cannot be regarded as a pass, it can only be regarded as a highland, but this is the real decisive battle place set by Wu Jie this time - killing Jinping is not, neither is the Immortal Pass, this seemingly flat second pass is!
It is necessary to explain the second pass, this is not a natural danger, can not naturally block the Jurchen cavalry, but the Wu family brothers at this moment turned it into a dangerous land: everywhere is rolling stones, wood, these things Qinling Mountains are the most lacking.
Stones and wooden blocks are nothing to the infantry, but they are fatal to the cavalry. What to do? Jin Wushu and Guanyansa decided to manually clear the roadblocks - people carrying horses, soldiers turning into migrant workers.
The idea of Jin Wushu is very good, but will Song Jun let you do architecture smoothly? Not at all! Suddenly rain and hail fell in the sky: rain was a rain of arrows, to be precise, arrows from the bow of the Divine Arm; hail was a stone block, a stone thrower from the Song army.
It has been half a day, tired and breathless soldiers, in an instant, hundreds of people and half into the meat paste, what about the scene environment? It's even messier!
No way, in order to avoid long-range strikes, Jin Wushu could no longer care about the stones and wood on the spot: give me a rush!
If under normal circumstances, the Jurchen cavalry's longitudinal charge would soon cause the Song army to collapse, but today it is definitely an "abnormal situation"!
First of all, stone and wood seriously hindered the play of the cavalry, which made the Jurchens not only lose their speed advantage, but also always beware of not tripping, and they could not even play 30% of their normal skills.
The second is the two great killing weapons: the Divine Arm Bow and the Strange Knife. Needless to say, the Divine Arm Bow has always been the Song Army's long-range sniper rifle against the Jurchens. The Mo Dao is an artifact developed by the Central Plains Dynasty specifically to deal with grassland cavalry, and the Tang Six Classics record that (Mo Dao) is like a wall, and the people and horses are broken.
In addition, although the second pass is not very steep, it is not an open area, and the numerical advantage of the Jurchens cannot be fully utilized.
Under the superposition of several conditions, the advantages of Jurchen have been completely offset, and at this moment, everyone is fighting for "boldness"!
Wu Xuan led a large army, desperately guarding the second pass, from the beginning of the rising sun to the fierce battle until nightfall, the Jurchens who had no advantage at all copied the fiasco of the monk Yuan. Throughout the day, the corpses of jin jun almost filled the ravine of the second pass.
On the thirtieth day, the Jin army, which had suffered enough, became "smart": completely abandoning the mount, the cavalry became infantry, and completely fighting with the Song army.
I have to say that this move is very "powerful", completely exhausted, and the party with fewer troops will suffer losses no matter how heroic it is. In the Battle of Xiaxia that year, although the Han army commanded by Han Xin suffered greater losses, as long as Xiang Yu died, it was a victory!
To be sure, the battle of the thirty days was even more fierce than the previous day, the Jurchens were slowly approaching the second pass step by step, the Highland advantage of the Song army was being lost, and the pressure on the Song army was increasing.
At this moment, some Song troops suggested retreating and going to Xianren Pass to fight a decisive battle, to which Wu Xuan issued a death order: Retreat, behead!
Not only that, Wu Xuan also stewed a pot of "chicken soup" for everyone: although our pressure is great, but the loss of the Jurchens is even worse, to continue is to fight perseverance, as long as they persist for another day, the Jurchens will retreat, and then it is time for us to counterattack.
On March 1, the Song army gathered up enough courage and prepared to hold out for another day—they unconditionally trusted their commanders.
On this day, the offensive and defensive battles were as fierce as ever, with 10,000 Song troops stubbornly defending the defensive line and never retreating, and 100,000 Jin troops using all kinds of means, but they could not take the second pass.
At this time, Song Jun looked at Wu Xuan with questioning eyes: Boss, the enemy army has not retreated?
Wu Xuan smiled: "It's okay, my brother will help them."
5. Miracle Night Raid
At this time, the exhausted Jin Army is falling into a deep sleep - continuous combat, who does not want to sleep well?
But at this moment, Wu Jiu, who was stationed at XianrenGuan, went out, and this time he unreservedly took all his family to join the Song army in the second pass, taking advantage of the night, and went out to attack the Jin army at night.
Doing things at night has always been Wu Jie's strong point, since this battle, Wu Jie has not used this trick, Jin Wushu and Yan Sa are about to forget about drinking, but the timely review summary is still wanted. But apparently, the lesson of the monk Yuan, Jin Wushu had forgotten.
On this night, with a shout, more than 10,000 Song troops slaughtered the sleeping Jin army together, and in the sound of chopping melons and cutting vegetables, nearly a thousand Jurchen soldiers slept peacefully forever.
Night Raid! When these two words swept over Jin Wushu's heart, the great fear of Shangyuan struck again! Escape, leaving Wu Jiu's attack range is the best way to save your life.
On the morning of the second day of March, Jin Wushu counted the number of people and found that the night had lost about 10,000 people at once!
Jin Wushu, who had suffered heavy losses, suddenly had a whim: change the route to attack the Seven Square Pass, and take this place, you can enter the land of Sichuan and Shu from the direction of Hechi, and achieve the purpose of the same destination.
For this move, Jin Wushu was very proud, he bet that Wu Jiu did not know, he bet that Wu Jiu knew and did not dare to chase.
But he was wrong, on the matter of boldness and fierceness, Wu Jiu definitely belonged to the first echelon, and when he found out that Jin Wushu wanted to march into Qifangguan, he quickly rearranged the arrangements: he ordered his son-in-law Wang Jun to set up an ambush in the hechi area, and he followed the Jin army brigade to seek an opportunity to fight a decisive battle.
Decisive battle? It is a decisive battle, but Wu Jie's definition of a decisive battle has always been different from others, and he wants to fight a decisive battle at night!
On the night of the second night of the first month of March, Wu Jiu, who had followed the Jin army all the way, launched a surprise attack on the Jurchen camp again. For thisnother raid, we don't know whether Jin Wushu was prepared, but what we do know is that Wu Jiu won again--the Jurchen camp was breached again, completely replicating the defeat of the previous day and losing more than 10,000 people.
Well, now it's time to go, where to go back and forth, right? When Jin Wushu walked to the vicinity of the river pond, Wang Jun, who had been waiting for a long time, rushed out again, which reminded Jin Wushu of Yang Congyi of the monk Yuan—was it that this time Wu Jiu was ready to make dumplings for himself? Forget it, don't think about it, or run!
Wang Jun rushed to kill and killed more than a thousand people.
However, Jin Wushu was actually worried, the Wu family brothers did have the ability to completely kill him, but the problem was that Wu Jiu's troops were too small, and Wang Jun's ambush troops were only a few thousand. This number of them could not completely eat the Golden Army.
However, after experiencing Wang Jun's ambush, Jin Wushu no longer dared to wander in the Qinling Mountains and retreated to the other side of weishui in one breath.
The Battle of Xianrenguan ended at this point, although the Wu brothers were limited by troops, and the Wu brothers could not fight on the other side, but from then on, the Jurchens no longer dared to covet the Sichuan-Shu area.
Facts have proved that the so-called military peace was only fought out by the soldiers desperately, not some Qin Juniper and the like begging for mercy.
References: "History of Song", "If This Is History of Song", Baidu Encyclopedia