Morning light touched the southwestern mountains, and flames still burned above the Jange Pavilion pass.

The wooden watchtower had been reduced to charred black by the earlier fire, its beams and tiles peeling away under the licking flames. Although the blaze was gradually diminishing, the scorching, menacing black smoke continued to swirl and rise, the morning breeze carrying it south to engulf half the pass. On the northern side, within the ramparts, the heat was less intense, and soldiers from both sides engaged in fierce combat in the narrow passage.

With soldiers locked in close quarters, ranged assistance became temporarily useless. Jurchens formed shield walls, charging forward while others hurled ignited firebombs from the rear. The Chinese army responded in kind, throwing grenades.

Explosions bloomed on the city wall, and soldiers sought cover in the sweltering air, the shockwaves searing their faces with ghastly blisters. Taking advantage of the chaos, soldiers of the Chinese army pressed forward, hurling grenades into the stairwell behind the gate tower. The shockwaves from the earlier explosions shook the already dry and brittle watchtower, causing pillars to collapse, burying soldiers in charcoal, wood, and stone. A shower of sparks erupted into the sky.

"Charge—!"

The sound of the charge echoed in the morning breeze. Beneath the ash-covered hillside, soldiers of the Chinese army surged toward the burning gate.

The flaming gate was fearsome, but breaching it didn't take long. Chinese army soldiers who had reached the top of the gate tower, having no room to retreat, pressed forward through flames and smoke, armed with grenades. The rear of the gate tower was not as badly affected by the fire, allowing the Jurchen reinforcements to arrive more easily. However, the grenades caused them more damage. After several rounds of engagement, the Chinese army began hurling grenades down into the small plaza behind the gate tower, causing the Jurchens to retreat and retaliate with arrows.

The small plaza behind the gate tower was not large, and beyond it lay winding mountain paths. After a round of fighting, the Jurchens gradually retreated as the Chinese army surged forward. Mao Yishan led the first company onto the top of the gate tower, storming the small plaza. As hundreds of soldiers poured onto the gate tower, some descended to the rear. It was then that Bali Basu's true counterattack began.

A dozen or so cannons, positioned in the mountains behind, fired almost simultaneously. Cannonballs and explosions engulfed the gate tower and plaza. Flames spread across the gate tower, and the gate itself had been blocked with stones from the inside, turning the entire pass into a huge barricade. Although the dozen or so cannons could not cover the entire area, the intense fire still claimed the lives of over a dozen Chinese army soldiers.

Bali Basu even prepared two small catapults on the mountain path behind, launching barrels filled with explosives toward the still burning gate tower, causing another round of massive explosions.

The mountain wind blew, and Mao Yishan struggled to his feet, his ears ringing. He pulled up a nearby soldier, and started to move back, shouting: "Save the wounded! Find cover—!"

There was no cover in the small plaza, but there were still blind spots. As he helped his comrade to a blind spot beneath the city wall, the second round of cannon fire rang out, filling the air with smoke and the smell of gunpowder. Someone asked if they should retreat back to the gate tower, but Mao Yishan shook his head. "Save the wounded! Prepare grenades! Watch out for arrows!"

Only a dozen or so Chinese army soldiers retreated to the base of the city wall amidst the smoke. Several wounded soldiers were still struggling on the ground, but there was nothing to be done. As Mao Yishan's words died away, a rain of arrows descended from the sky.

The soldiers raised their shields, and a cacophony of clangs echoed. Through the swirling smoke, the Jurchens charged.

"Grenades—prepare to charge—!"

Amid Mao Yishan's roar, several grenades were hurled towards the charging Jurchen soldiers. In the enemy ranks, ignited firebombs were thrown in return, aimed at the blind spot beneath the city wall. But Mao Yishan had already taken the lead, charging forward.

Wounded Chinese army soldiers staggered to their feet on the battlefield. A Jurchen spear pierced one, and Mao Yishan, roaring, crashed into the Jurchen formation, which had already been disrupted by the grenades, passing the soldier as he fell. The remaining Chinese army soldiers charged in as well, engaging the Jurchens in skirmishes.

With cannon fire blocking the front and firebombs raining down from behind, the only way out was to engage in intertwined close combat. The veterans who had followed Mao Yishan in the initial attack could all see the situation clearly. They used grenades to scatter the enemy, then charged, forming small three-man formations to create a two-on-one advantage in the local battles. The Jurchens were fierce individual fighters, but in the six months of the Southwest Campaign, even the most elite troops had often suffered in close-quarters combat with the Chinese army.

Mao Yishan cut down two Jurchen soldiers in the fighting, and several others had already fallen within his sight, the air thick with blood. Soldiers of the Chinese army who had broken through had come down from the city walls, firing crossbows and joining the fight. Several large, well-armored Jurchen soldiers charged forward as well—they didn't dare commit too many soldiers at once, fearing too many deaths in grenade explosions.

Then more barrels of explosives were hurled onto the gate tower, the billowing smoke swirling and spreading. Rocket propelled grenades also flew over the gate tower, landing on the opposite mountain wall, exploding in billows of smoke.

The firing of the Dijang had been adjusted several times, but because they couldn’t calculate the distance accurately and due to the strong mountain winds, the rockets were unable to threaten the Jurchen positions on the nearby mountain, eventually giving up after only a few were launched.

The two sides continued to fight in this smoke-filled, arrow-strewn environment, neither knowing how long they fought. The Jurchens began to show signs of retreat. Mao Yishan shouted, "Save the wounded!" But before long, cannonballs began to rain down again.

The soldiers retreated to the blind spot beneath the city wall, safe from the cannon fire. Before the wounded could be moved onto the city wall, the second wave of the Jurchen attack came...

Wave after wave of charges and skirmishes went back and forth, the Jurchen forces charging and being repelled again and again. The struggle for the small plaza continued for half an hour, with both sides suffering over two hundred casualties. As the flames above the gate tower gradually died down, the Chinese army finally managed to stabilize its position in the bloodbath of the small plaza.

The corpses were piled high like mountains.

The fight for this small open ground, with both sides using piecemeal tactics and suffering over two hundred casualties, was an incredibly brutal battle. Even the battle of Xiaocang River rarely reached such intensity. Mao Yishan's position teetered several times, with large numbers of wounded being evacuated in the first round, only to be killed in the second round of fighting. But until the very end, the Jurchens were never able to gain a true advantage.

This was what happened in the first hour after the attack on Jianmen Pass began. The Chinese army was pinned down in front of the small plaza beneath the city wall, with neither side gaining any ground. The Chinese army's fighting spirit was firm, and Bali Basu refused to show any weakness. Eventually, the small area was filled with corpses, and everything was extremely tragic.

Mao Yishan fell into the bloodbath during the fighting. A company commander ordered the soldiers to carry him up the city wall, over the gate tower, and send him to the rear. The soldier shouted to the medical team, "Save my regimental commander." This was perhaps one of the few favors he received as a regimental commander on the battlefield. Even more of his soldiers, unable to be sent back in time, had already been sacrificed on the battlefield.

The flames on the gate tower gradually died down, and as the passage was gradually opened, the Chinese army began to attempt a breakthrough towards the front. However, on the mountain road behind, Bali Basu used a cannon array to guard the narrow mountain road like an iron wall. It was not until the afternoon that the Chinese army, with the cooperation of several rockets, removed the dozen or so cannons in the rear and attempted to attack the mountain road.

What awaited them was also a stubborn resistance in a do-or-die manner...

****************

Every country or nation, when faced with danger, always has outstanding figures who emerge to carry out rounds of reforms or resistance in their own ways.

Of course, perhaps it is because of the silence of all horses that the rare resistance shows such a special weight.

Warhorses galloped through, across ridges and distant roads, past camps lined with flags. When scouts delivered news of the fierce fighting at Jianmen Pass to Wanyan Zonghan, the Jurchen veteran, who had not even shown excessive emotion when his own son died, could not help but let two lines of turbid tears well up in his eyes.

Generals die in a hundred battles. The casualties of any general on the battlefield are unavoidable. The loss of a general, even one's own son, is merely a matter of luck. But when generals in the army are defeated and fall on the battlefield one after another, it represents that the fate of a country has reached its most urgent and critical moment.

Recalling when Aguda started his uprising with three thousand men, who among those three thousand could be considered special? In battle after battle, hundreds of thousands of people died successively, but the Jurchens were high-spirited, and no one's death ever truly affected the overall situation. Lou Shi was later called the God of War of the Jurchens, but back then, he was not necessarily more skilled in battle than anyone else. He simply survived those decades of war. When Lou Shi fell in the northwest, and then Ci Bushi was added, the Jin Kingdom felt extremely painful. On the one hand, it showed their preciousness, and on the other hand, it only showed that others were not as good as them.

In this Southwest War, from Elili to Sheyema, to Yuyu and Dalai, every loss was heartbreaking. Compared with the thirty years ago when Aguda started his uprising, such emotions would not have existed. Anyone's death was normal; if one general died, another would replace him. But now, none of them could be replaced.

In the Battle of Tanzhou, Yin Shuke was lost. He was originally one of the commanders who could hold the fort after himself and Gushen left. Unexpectedly, due to the drag of playboys like Wanyan Qingjue, he was defeated by the Han general's death trap. After Yin Shuke's loss, the power of his clan could have fallen on Bali Basu's shoulders—these brothers used their troops in different ways, one with fierce and grand momentum, and the other with steady and gentle tenderness. The status of each of them was originally higher than that of Elili, Yuyu, and Dalai—but with the news of the battle at Jianmen Pass, Zonghan knew that Bali Basu would not be coming back.

But there was nothing he could do.

Even if, from a rational point of view, the strength of the Southwest Black Banner Army was already stretched thin, Zonghan knew from the meeting in front of the Lion Ridge that the dangers of Jianmen Pavilion could not stop the will of that heart demon to break out from the rear.

If Qin Shaoqian's more than 20,000 troops were not outside the mountains of the southwest, perhaps the other side would have sought stability and waited until the Great Jin Dynasty left before calmly recovering Jianmen Pass. But precisely because these 20,000 people were blocking the road, the dark dragon of the southwest would break through that pass at all costs. Although there might be some backlash in the future, Jianmen Pass could not stop that heart demon's will, nor could it stop the attack of that new type of firearms.

If it was not a general like Bali Basu who was arranged at Jianmen Pass, the rest of the people would only collapse and fall faster. After the two Chinese armies were connected into one piece, the return journey of his army would only become more difficult.

Remembering the decades of campaigns in which generals gathered like clouds and gradually fell, Zonghan sighed, put on his helmet, and walked out of the main tent. The army had been mobilized and assembled.

Before Jianmen Pass was breached, he would concentrate all the elite forces to carry out a decisive battle and encircle and kill the so-called Chinese Seventh Army led by Qin Shaoqian.

This was the only explanation he could give for Bali Basu's sacrifice.

……

When it gets dark, people have to light fires. Sometimes, on the desolate earth, people can only ignite themselves to wait for dawn.

The Jurchens had just begun to experience this taste, while the people of the Wu Dynasty had already been immersed in it for more than ten years. If the consciousness of Zonghan, Xiyin, Bali Basu, and others still showed an atmosphere of reason and consciousness, then what was burning on Dai Mengwei by the Han River was more like a torch with madness and distortion.

To the north, Yunchong Prefecture, the weather was gloomy. Shi Liai stood on the city wall, his fire also supporting this dark color that enveloped Yunchong Prefecture.

Below the city were the siege crowds who had been driven from all directions, including Jurchens and Han slaves - which proved that it was not the Han people from the south who had attacked. In fact, the style of the cavalry and camps running from a distance had already explained this. The people who detoured and broke through Yanmen Pass were the grassland people who had once been blocked in the west.

The siege had lasted for several days.

The original residents of nearby small towns and villages were driven over wave after wave by these grassland people. These cannon fodder besieging the city could not violate the city, but for the Jurchens, the most hurt might be the loss of dignity and face after experiencing this kind of thing for the first time. The aristocratic children in the city kept clamoring to ask for battle, but Shi Liai suppressed this idea.

On the second day when the vanguard of the grassland people came to the city, Shi Liai once ordered a small number of cavalry in the city to attack and test the opponent's quality. This grassland cavalry appeared to be aggressive and reckless, and retreated in panic after experiencing a volley. This was the first round of confrontation between the two sides in Yunchong. As Jin warriors who had almost conquered the world, it was taken for granted that they were not afraid of life and death in the volley and repelled the other side. However, Shi Liai vaguely sensed something was wrong, and only realized that his cavalry had almost been deliberately led a long way away when he sounded the gong to withdraw.

That was an extremely delicate distance. This cavalry was the elite of the defending army. After receiving the order, they immediately returned, and the other side did not follow up with an attack. But Shi Liai could always feel that many eyes under the city were quietly watching him, waiting for a certain opportunity to come.

In the next two days, the old man carefully observed the movements of the cavalry on the city wall, and only then could he vaguely perceive that although this cavalry seemed untamed, it actually had quite excellent combat literacy, and there was a subtle difference from the performance in the attack and retreat that day. If his gong to withdraw had been sounded later, the other side's army might have quickly killed towards the city gate following his own cavalry. Not to mention whether they could take the opportunity to enter the city, at least his team would not be able to come back.

He was a person who had experienced war all his life, and even if he saw these things, he would not speak to the younger generation in private. On the one hand, his prestige was great, and there was no need to specifically explain trivial matters. On the other hand, maintaining the rebelliousness and sharpness of young people was also very necessary in many cases.

Such a siege lasted for several days, and a series of battles, large and small, were taking place near Yunchong - the Jin Kingdom's fourth southern expedition took away most of the elite troops, but it did not mean that the Jin Kingdom's interior had been emptied to the point of being undefended. The permanent teams, security teams, and even veterans in various places could pull out a considerable number of troops at any time. Since Yanmen Pass was breached and the grassland people's soldiers quickly touched Yunchong Prefecture, one troop after another from various places had been dispatched and quickly gathered here.

They encountered wave after wave of arrow attacks on the way. The grassland people's bows and arrows were strong, and their horsemanship was amazing. In the situation where the main force of the army had already gone south, at least in terms of cavalry, the Jin people could no longer compete with these grassland riders, and these grassland people would never engage in any frontal combat with the Jin army. They would fire from a distance after encountering infantry, and after the infantry team formed a good formation, they would leave and come to harass again after a while, harassing from day to night, and then from night to dawn.

The Jin army that came to aid mostly fell into the quagmire and could not reach Yunchong City at all. Only two cavalry troops passed through the blockade line on April 13 and 15, and were then hunted down by large-scale grassland cavalry in the distant view outside Yunchong City.

Shi Liai stood still.

On April 17, several seemingly crooked catapults had been erected in front of the position. When the other side pushed them over, preparing to throw them, the Yunchong Prefecture city wall was also ready to counterattack. Wanyan Dezhuo and others who were next to him persuaded Shi Liai to go down from the city wall, but Shi Liai just leaned on his crutches and transferred to the nearby city tower.

"I personally supervised the renovation of Yunchong Prefecture. A few stones can't knock open this stupid wall. Let's see what they want to do."

What was thrown into Yunchong City first was not stones...

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