There was a huge fire in the city. Liu Zhixue sent people to enter the city several times, but they were forced out. He could only order to temporarily enter the city. At this time, even outside the city, he felt the heat waves rushing. The entire Shouzhou city seemed to be burning, and the sky was red, and thick smoke circled in the air, like a fire dragon flying in the air, rising and falling, Mars splashing everywhere, and even falling outside the city.

Liu Zhixue realized that the fire in the city could no longer be extinguished and it was likely to affect himself. His position was filled with gunpowder, and the soldiers were carrying ammunition. Once they encountered fire, they would burn and explode and could not be controlled. So he ordered to retreat three miles to stand by and only sent a sentry to explore the city to check the situation. In the afternoon, there was still no sign of extinguishing the fire, but it was getting stronger and stronger.

In the evening, the whistleblower reported that someone in the city jumped out of the city and was captured by our army. Liu Zhixue hurriedly asked the fugitive to take the tent to interrogate himself. He saw that more than a dozen people brought were ragged, their hair and eyebrows were burnt, and they could not see their original appearance. Moreover, these people were dull, their eyes were filled with fear, and they could not even speak clearly.

Liu Zhixue sent someone to send food and water, and then asked again. Only then did he find out that after the battle began, the defenders in the city suffered heavy casualties under the bombardment of artillery fire, and their morale was extremely low and almost collapsed. It was all up to the guards to threaten death and give heavy rewards to fail to collapse immediately. The Ding Zhuang, who helped the war, also suffered many casualties and injured, and people kept running away in the chaos. At first, there were soldiers intercepting and pursuing, but later no one cared about it.

When the rocket launcher bombed the city later, the rockets flying everywhere triggered a fire. At first, the government organized people to put out the fire, but as the fire increased, the fire gradually lost control. The bombardment of the rocket also caused chaos in the city. People avoided everywhere and the fire was stagnant, so the fire spread and could no longer be extinguished. Later, the city was like a furnace, and people fled to the pond to hide, but were crowded into the water and drowned.

The people who could not avoid rushed to the city gate and tried to escape outside the city to hide, but in order to prevent the attack, the city gates were blocked and could not be opened for a while, and were blocked by the defenders. Many people were shot and killed. The people who were eager to escape were not at ease. They rushed forward and actually washed away the soldiers guarding the city. However, countless people were trampled to death. People still climbed up one after another, so that the bodies were piled up like mountains, almost as high as the city gates, and even blocked the road.

Then people rushed up the city walls, and people could not stand the scorching waves of fire, and jumped to the city to escape, but the city was tall and all those who jumped were killed. And they were able to escape from the city after searching for ropes and rushing down the city. The family members who stayed in the city were probably in danger. They were either bombed, burned, drowned, or died on the way to escape.

Liu Zhixue and others were silent after hearing this. They did not expect that this would be the result. A fire turned the impregnable city of Shouzhou into a sea of ​​fire without fighting, but the heavy casualties of the people made them unable to be happy. At this time, there was another reward, saying that someone in the city left the city from the east gate. He thought about ordering to leave the east gate and not stop the people leaving the city and let them escape.

The fire in the city gradually diminished until the morning of the next day, and it burned for another day and night before it gradually faded. Liu Zhixue sent troops into the city, but at this time, Shouzhou City was like a dead city, emitting a stinking smell everywhere, as if it were black snow covered with a thick layer of black ash, and collapsed buildings were everywhere, and the grass and trees were turned into ashes, and burnt corpses could be seen everywhere, and those who escaped from death were all confused.

Liu Zhixue ordered the injured to be treated. The dead were transported out for burial, trying their best to appease the people, and searched for officials and defenders in the city. Two days later, after rough statistics, nearly 100,000 soldiers and civilians in the city died in this battle, and most of them were burned to death. Seven or eight out of ten houses in the city were damaged, and the granaries of the yamen were burned, and property losses could not be counted. The defenders in the city had less than a thousand people, and they could not have the desire to fight again, and they surrendered like walking corpses...

"The Du Shu, I will be afraid that something will happen if I report it to the court!" There was no joy in the commander's tent after the victory, and the generals also looked gloomy. Ma Ying, the Du Shu of the Second Army, looked at Liu Zhixue and said.

"There is no airtight wall in the world, let alone tens of thousands of people know about this. Can you block everyone's mouth?" Liu Zhixue shook his head and sighed, "This battle plan was formulated by me, and the order to fire the cannon was also issued by me, but the punishment will be borne by me. You are just following my order!"

"DuShip, the battle was fought by all the soldiers of our Second Army. Does DuShip want to take the credit for the exclusive?" Yan Feng, the commander of the First Division, asked with great dissatisfaction.

"Haha, that's right, how can Dushang take the credit for the solemnity?" Li Ting, the commander of the Third Division, also took over the speech and agreed.

"I thought it was just as Du Shuai said, and the Sa family didn't believe that we would capture Shouzhou City without hurting one soldier. It would be fine if they didn't reward them. Could it be that they would punish us for killing more people in the enemy country!" Zhou Fu, the commander of the second division, said unconvincedly.

"Oh, you don't know the thoughts of those civil officials. What they are worried about is that we have made great achievements and stole their limelight. There is nothing wrong with it. Besides, our killing is too much!" Ma Ying looked at Zhou Fu and sighed. Although he fought with the army, he belonged to the civil servants and was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War. He knew the tricks best and sighed.

"There is no sight on the battlefield. You either die or I die. There is no need to care about it. Moreover, the fact that this battle caused such a large casualty was not our original intention. It was mainly because the enemy generals blocked the city gates and the people were unable to escape. How could they blame us!" Zhou Fu still said angrily.

"Mr. Master, I can report this way, just say that after we attacked the city and fired artillery, the enemy generals saw that they did not defend and set fire to the city. But before, they were worried that the soldiers and civilians in the city would flee and close the city gates, which would lead to the people being buried in the sea of ​​fire!" Ma Ying seemed to have received a reminder from his words, and his eyes lit up and suggested.

"Haha, no need!" Liu Zhixue smiled bitterly, "Mr. Yu had advised me to use artillery carefully to avoid hurting innocent people. But my generals will do their own way, which led to the current situation. I will not implicate Mr. Yu. I will state in the memorial that when Mr. Yu is like Fan, he will grow into generals and prime ministers in the future, just don't forget the feelings of our robes!"

"I'm so handsome and joking. Now I'm a thorn in the eyes of some people in the court. And I don't want to be with Fan Xiwen, who knows how to brag about himself, and I don't want to be a pissing Jia Jichuan and be unsuccessful!" Ma Ying snorted coldly.

"What do you mean?" Liu Zhixue was originally a compliment, but unexpectedly it made Ma Ying dissatisfied and asked strangely.

"Does everyone think that this dynasty is just promoting civil and suppressing military affairs? In fact, they are also very careful about the leaders of civil officials..." Ma Ying sighed and said the whole story.

It is said that during the war between the Song Dynasty, two civil officials, Zhong Shiheng and Zhang Kang, were converted into military positions because they were concerned about national defense and repeatedly proposed military strategies. Zhong Zhang and Zhang were rare promising border officials in the Northern Song Dynasty, but they were eventually suppressed. The career of the government was bumpy and they were unable to show their prominence until their death. If you do, don’t change it. Is it okay to fight as a civil servant to expand the border? In theory, it is OK.

In fact, many people thought, but it was not successful. Fan Zhongyan said to the emperor: "The observing commander is in charge. I have been guarding the border for several years. The Qiang people are quite dear and call me "Longtu Laozi. Now I retreat and join Wang Xing Zhu Guan (both of them are observing commanders and soldiers). I am afraid that the thieves will be underestimated." Fan Zhongyan's incident opened up the atmosphere of civil officials being ashamed of changing military affairs.

Fan Zhongyan only made up some songs of "There is a Fan in the army, and the Western thieves were shocked and brave when they heard it", and made several poets praise him for "wisdom, reputation, courage and merit, and they can beat Qiang and Hu". He said that he would defeat the soldiers without fighting, and sent people to build a few forts and villages until they were successful in their military achievements. If he wanted to learn from Xie Xuan of the Jin Dynasty and Wei Gao of the Tang Dynasty, he formed a strong army and stood up in the battle formation to defeat the strong enemy. Then Jia She's fate is a good example.

During the Song-Jin War in the Jin Dynasty Xuanzong period, Song's counterattack was very limited. Whether it was An Bing and Zhang Wei on the West Road or Zhao Fang and Meng Zongzheng on the Middle Road, his actual authority was only a few state troops along the border, and he had more counterattacks and insufficient progress. According to the idea of ​​Prime Minister Shi Miyuan, it would be thankful to be able to fight the Jin people back. On the East Road, he relied almost entirely on the Shandong rebels recruited from the Jin Dynasty and was unwilling to expand his field army.

At that time, the highest official in the Song Dynasty in Huaidong was Jia She, the commander of Huaidong. He was not a civil servant like Fan Zhongyan, Pang and Han Qi, who could only hide behind and let his subordinates make merits in the melee. At that time, the Southern Song Dynasty handed over Chuzhou to the rebels to guard, but the rebels each had their own leaders and the imperial court was insufficient to control. Jia She recruited 10,000 refugees from the north and formed a loyal and righteous army in front of the tent, which was commanded by himself, and mobilizing them to attack the Jin Kingdom was quite effective.

But after Prime Minister Shi Miyuan received the news, he was very annoyed. Jia She, you recruited the army without permission. What does it mean? Do you want to be a general and a prime minister and establish a military merit to seize my position as prime minister? So whenever Jia She had a conflict with Li Quan, the leader of the rebel army, and Jia She wanted to limit Li Quan's power, Shi Miyuan would help Li Quan.

Shi Zhunshi Qiu Shoumai had originally thought that the Zhongyi Army in front of the tent was all northerners and difficult to manage. After asking Shi Miyuan for approval, he actually handed over the ten thousand people to Li Quan. Jia She had worked hard to establish the elite force directly belonging to the Huaidong War Zone, and eventually fell into the hands of others. So Jia She resigned angrily and was angry to death not long after.

"In this way, let's report the facts to Your Majesty first, and then report the victory to the court. In this way, even if someone uses this to make trouble, Your Majesty can protect us and avoid being punished by villains!" Liu Zhixue was shocked when he heard this, but he felt that the two of them had met badly, and the little emperor was not a foolish monarch and was familiar with military affairs. He would definitely be able to distinguish the truth and give them justice...
Chapter completed!