Chapter 23 203 Zong Ze shouted "Cross the River" three times

After the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, Kang Wang Zhao Gou, who had stayed in Xiangzhou, fled to Nanjing (now Shangqiu, Henan).In May of 1127 AD, Zhao Gou ascended the throne in Nanjing, this is Song Gaozong.The peaceful Song Dynasty later established its capital in Lin'an (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang), and was called the Southern Song Dynasty in history. After Song Gaozong came to the throne, under the pressure of public opinion, Li Gang had to be recalled to the court to serve as prime minister.But in fact, it was Huang Qianshan and Wang Boyan who he trusted. Li Gang put forward many propositions against gold.He also told Song Gaozong: "If you want to recover Tokyo, you must use Zongze."

Zong Ze was a general who resolutely resisted the Jin Dynasty. Before the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, Song Qinzong once sent him as a peace envoy to Jinjing to negotiate a peace. Zong Ze told people: "I am on an envoy this time, and I don't intend to come back alive. It would be fine if the Jin people are willing to retreat; otherwise, I will fight them to the end. I would rather lose my head than let the country suffer humiliation." When Song Qinzong heard that Zongze's tone was so tough, he was afraid that he would hinder the peace talks, so he dismissed him from the post of peace envoy and sent him to Cizhou as a magistrate.

When Jin Bing attacked Tokyo for the second time, Zong Ze led the troops to attack Jin Bing and won 13 consecutive victories. The situation was very good.He wrote to Zhao Gou, the king of Kang at that time, asking him to summon generals from all walks of life to join forces in Tokyo; he also wrote to three generals, asking them to join forces to rescue the capital.Unexpectedly, those generals not only refused to send troops, but also laughed at Zong Ze for talking crazy.Zongze had no choice but to lead the troops to fight alone.Once, the Song Army led by him was surrounded by the Jin Army, which was ten times stronger than the Song Army.Zong Ze said to the soldiers: "Today, going forward is death, and retreating is also death. We must make a way out of death." Inspired by him, the soldiers fought bravely with one against a hundred, and they really killed the Jin army. .

Song Gaozong had known Zongze's bravery for a long time. After listening to Li Gang's recommendation this time, he appointed Zongze as the prefect of Kaifeng Prefecture. At this time, although the Jin soldiers had already withdrawn from Kaifeng, the city walls of Kaifeng were completely destroyed after two major battles.People and soldiers live mixedly; coupled with the proximity to the Yellow River, Jin soldiers often move around on the north bank.People in Kaifeng were panicked and the social order was chaotic. Zongze has great prestige among the army and the people.As soon as he arrived in Kaifeng, he first issued an order: "Anyone who robs residents' property will be dealt with strictly according to military law." After the order was issued, several robberies still occurred in the city.Zong Ze killed several robbers, and the order gradually stabilized.

The people of Hebei couldn't bear the plundering, burning and killing of the Jin soldiers, and organized rebels one after another to attack the Jin soldiers.Li Gang tried his best to rely on the strength of the rebel army to organize a new anti-golden team.After Zongze arrived in Kaifeng, he actively contacted the rebel army.Rebels from all over Hebei heard of Zongze's reputation and voluntarily accepted his command. There was a rebel leader Wang Shan in Hedong who gathered 700,000 horses and wanted to attack Kaifeng.When Zong Ze heard the news, he rode alone to meet Wang Shan.He said to Wang Shan with tears in his eyes: "Now is the time when the country is in crisis. If there are a few heroes like you who work together to fight the war, will the Jin people dare to invade us?"

Wang Shan was moved to tears by what he said, and said: "I would like to listen to Zonggong's command." Other rebels like Yang Jin, Wang Zaixing, Li Gui, and Wang Dalang had tens to hundreds of thousands of troops.Zongze also sent people to contact them to persuade them to unite and fight against gold together.In this way, the outer defenses of Kaifeng City were consolidated, the people in the city were stable, the food stocks were sufficient, and the prices were stable, and the situation before the chaos was restored. However, at the moment when Zongze was about to go north to restore the Central Plains, Song Gaozong, Huang Qianshan, and Wang Boyan felt that Nanjing was not safe and planned to continue fleeing south.Li Gang was dismissed by Song Gaozong because he opposed fleeing south.

Zongze was very anxious, crossed the Yellow River himself, and asked the generals of the rebels from all walks of life in Hebei to fight against the Jin soldiers.He built twenty-four forts around Kaifeng, and set up camps along the Yellow River, which were connected to each other and densely packed like fish scales, called "Lianzhuzhai". It's getting stronger and stronger. Zongze repeatedly submitted memorials, asking Gaozong to return to Kaifeng to preside over the anti-golden war.But when the memorial came into the hands of Huang Qianshan and others, these traitors actually made fun of Zong Ze as a madman and withheld his memorial.Soon after, Song Gaozong fled from Nanjing to Yangzhou.

It didn't take long, and the golden soldiers really split up and attacked aggressively.Jin Taizong sent general Wushu (sound wuzhu, also called Zongbi) to attack Kaifeng, and Zongze sent his generals to garrison Luoyang and Zhengzhou in advance.When Wushu led troops approaching Kaifeng, Zongze dispatched thousands of elite soldiers to go around the enemy's rear, cut off the enemy's retreat, and then flanked back and forth with the ambush soldiers, beating Wushu into a panic and fleeing. Another time, Jin general Zonghan led Jin soldiers to capture Luoyang, and Zongze sent troops to attack Zonghan with Guo Zhenmin and Li Jingliang, and was defeated.Guo Zhenmin surrendered to the Jin army, and Li Jingliang fled in fear of crime.

Zongze sent troops to capture Li Jingliang, and reprimanded him, saying: "The defeat in the war could have been forgiven; now that you have escaped privately, you have no leader in sight." After speaking, he ordered Li Jingliang to be pushed out and beheaded. After Guo Zhenmin surrendered to the Jin army, Zong Han sent a Jin general to Kaifeng with Guo Zhenmin to persuade Zongze to surrender.Zong Ze met them in the lobby of Kaifeng Mansion, and said to Guo Zhenmin: "If you die in battle, you can be regarded as a loyal ghost. Now that you have surrendered and become a traitor, how dare you come to see me!" The soldiers also beheaded Guo Zhenmin.

Zong Ze turned his head and sneered at the Jin general who persuaded him to surrender, and said, "I defended this city, and I was ready to fight you all. You are a general of the Jin Dynasty, and you are not capable of fighting on the battlefield, but you want to trick me with sweet words!" The golden general was so frightened that his face paled, only Zongze yelled, and several soldiers came up, pulled the golden general down and killed him. Zong Ze killed three people in a row, expressing his firm determination to resist the gold, which greatly inspired the morale of the Song army.He has strict orders and flexible command, and has defeated Jin Bing many times in succession, gaining more and more prestige.The soldiers of the Jin Army feared and admired Zong Ze, and when they mentioned Zong Ze, they all called him Grandpa Zong.

Relying on the rebel army in Hebei, Zong Ze gathered troops to accumulate food, and believed that he was fully capable of recovering the Central Plains. He wrote more than 20 memorials one after another, inviting Gaozong to return to Kaifeng.Needless to say, those memorials were put aside by Huang Qianshan and the others. At this time, Zong Ze was almost seventy years old. He couldn't bear the anger, and fell ill with a sore on his back.Some generals of his subordinates went to greet him, and Zong Ze was already seriously ill.He opened his eyes and said excitedly, "I got this disease because I couldn't avenge my country, and I was worried and angry. As long as you work hard to kill the enemy, I will die without regret." After hearing this, the generals were all moved to tears.When everyone left, Zong Ze could only hear two lines of poems by Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu: "Death before leaving the teacher will make the hero burst into tears!" Then, with all his strength, he shouted: "Cross the river! Cross the river! Cross the river!" before closing his eyes. When the soldiers and civilians in Kaifeng heard the news of Zong Ze's death, none of them were so sad that they wept bitterly. After Zong Ze's death, the Song Dynasty sent Du Chong to stay in Tokyo.Du Chong was a fatuous and cruel man. Once he arrived in Kaifeng, he abolished all the defensive measures of Zongze.Not long after, the Central Plains area fell into the hands of the Jin Army again.