Just when the Song army had achieved major results in attacking the middle front of Kaifeng Prefecture, good news also came from the western front.

The main commander of the western front attacking Kaifeng Mansion was Gao Zhen, with the two imperial garrisons of Xiangyang Mansion and De'an Mansion as the main force, supplemented by a part of the forbidden army and the Xiang army, with a total of 80,000 troops, to attack Ruzhou.

Ruzhou is the westernmost of the four towns on the southern line of Kaifeng Prefecture, adjacent to Dengzhou and Tangzhou with Funiu Mountain as the boundary. Gao Zhen divided the army into two routes, marched north from Dengzhou and Tangzhou, jumped over Funiu Mountain, and attacked the territory of Ruzhou.

Liu Ren first sent troops from Tangzhou, and after entering Ruzhou, he first captured Yexian, and then waved his army north, and defeated the Jin army's blockers and horses by the Junshui River and captured Xiangcheng. Shi Jun led the army from Dengzhou and directly captured Lushan County. At this time, the Song army penetrated deep into the territory of Ruzhou.

The defender of Ruzhou was Shi Zhan, and the defenders had a total of 40,000 troops, because they knew that their troops were insufficient, so Shi Zhan did not rush to send troops to defend against the enemy's borders, but used the method of luring the enemy deep and then breaking them one by one. After the Song army successively captured Lushan County and Xiangcheng, it immediately dispatched 30,000 horses and horses to Baofeng County and Jiacheng, which was located between Lushan County and Xiangcheng, thus cutting off the connection between the two Song armies. At this time, Gao Zhen also led his men and horses to Fenglong City in the southeast of Baofeng County, where the Song and Jin sides confronted each other.

However, both sides were unwilling to continue in this way, and the Jin army began to act first, and a Jin army of more than 3,000 people sent troops to attack Xiangcheng County. In the town of Yingqiao, northwest of Xiangcheng, he met the outpost of the Song army. A big battle unfolded between the two sides. As a result, the outpost of the Song army was defeated by the Jin army because of the lack of troops. After Liu Renxian, who was stationed in Xiangcheng, heard Xun, he immediately led the army to Yingqiao Town, defeated the Jin army, and recaptured Yingqiao Town. And took advantage of the victory to send troops to attack Jiacheng County.

At this time, Shi Zhan immediately led the army from Baofeng County to rescue Jiacheng County. The two sides fought fiercely in the wilderness outside Jiacheng County.

The strength of both sides in this battle was roughly equal, and for a time they also killed an evenly matched enemy, and it was difficult to distinguish the winner from the loser. And Shi Zhan obviously regarded this battle as a battle to break the Song army's attack on Ruzhou, so he also did his best, and did not hesitate to lead the Jin army to repeatedly charge on the battlefield. And under his supervision, the soldiers of the Jin army were also very hard, one by one, they all fought hard, and the two sides fought fiercely for more than two hours, although they were still strong on the scene, but the Song army gradually lacked stamina.

At this moment, the defenders of Jiacheng County also led the only 2,000 men and horses in the city to go out of the city to help in the battle.

Two thousand men is not much, but this moment is enough to change the course of a battle. The morale of the Jin army, which had received reinforcements, immediately soared, and the weakened momentum gradually became new agitated. The Song army was obviously even more unable to parry, so he supported it for a while, and finally retreated from the battlefield and returned to Xiangcheng to garrison.

In this battle, the Jin army won, killing and capturing more than 4,000 Song troops, and also repelled the Song army, which was a big victory. It's a pity that Shi Zhan didn't have time to celebrate, so he received a report from the spies, and the army of Song Jun Shijun bypassed Baofeng County and went directly to attack Ruzhou.

After Shi Zhan received the report, he couldn't help but be shocked. In order to meet the Song army, the Jin army dispatched most of its troops, and at this time, there were less than 5,000 men and horses stationed in the city of Ruzhou, and they would definitely not be able to resist the attack of the Song army. If Ruzhou is lost, even if Xiangcheng and Lushan County can be recaptured, the gains will outweigh the losses. Therefore, Shi Zhan immediately ordered to return to the army immediately and go to rescue Ruzhou.

It turned out that after learning that the Jin army was concentrating its forces in Jiashan County and fighting with the Song army, Gao Zhen rejected the general's suggestion to rescue Liu Renxian's troops, but ordered Shi Jun, who was stationed in Lushan County, to ignore Baofeng County and immediately lead the army to attack Ruzhou. Because Gao Zhen knew that Liu Renxian was also a person who was quite good at using soldiers, and his strength was almost the same as that of the Jin army, even if he was defeated by the Jin army, he could successfully withdraw to Xiangcheng. However, Ruzhou, which the Song army attacked, was the place where the Jin army must be saved, so he was not afraid that the Jin army would not withdraw.

This is also because the Song army has sufficient troops, far more than the Jin army, so it can be arranged calmly and advance in multiple ways.

Sure enough, after Shizhan withdrew, the Song army took advantage of the situation to attack, and successively captured Baofeng, Jiacheng and other places, and successfully occupied most of Ruzhou. This was followed by an attack on the city of Ruzhou.

And Shizhan withdrew his army back to rescue Ruzhou, and finally caught up with the Song army by the Ru River, and the two sides started a fierce battle. But this time, the Jin army had just fought a fierce battle with the Song army in Qicheng County, and immediately rushed back, running back and forth, thinking that it was exhausted, and the Song army's physical strength and energy were very sufficient, so the two sides fought fiercely for more than an hour, and the Jin army could not support it and retreated one after another. Although Shi Zhan tried his best to supervise the battle, it was to no avail, and he still couldn't stop the defeated Jin army.

Fortunately, at this time, the rescuers sent by Ruzhou City arrived at the battlefield at the very time, although the number was not large, but for both sides of the battle, there were subtle changes in their hearts. Shi Jun immediately ordered the Song army to stop pursuing the Jin army, and the men and horses immediately retreated and broke away from contact with the Jin army. When the Jin army saw that reinforcements had arrived, they were also relieved, and they did not chase after the Song army, and retreated to the city of Ruzhou to garrison.

Two days later, the men and horses of the Song army gathered under the city of Ruzhou and launched an attack on the city.

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From the beginning of the offensive and defensive battle of Kaifeng Mansion, the guards of the four towns on the southern front set up by the Jin army were not stationed in the city, but on the contrary, they all went out of the city to meet the Song army, and they would not retreat to the city to defend until they had no choice. This is mainly because the Central Plains is flat, extending in all directions, and the four counties are not on any traffic roads, once all retreat into the city to defend, not only is it too passive, but also the Song army has no need to storm the city, it is completely possible to leave a part of the troops to fight against the defenders, and the army bypasses the city and directly attacks Kaifeng Mansion.

Moreover, these four counties themselves are not border cities, and the foundation of urban defense is poor, once they retreat into the city to defend, they may not be able to withstand the attack of the Song army, in this case, they can only go out of the city to face the battle, and active defense is the best choice. Therefore, once all the defenders retreat into the city to garrison, it often means that the county's defense line is basically ineffective, and it only depends on the Song army's need to play a forcible siege.

However, Ruzhou City just blocked Gao Zhen's next march route, and if the Song army wanted to further expand the front, it must capture Ruzhou City, so this siege battle was inevitable.

After a series of fierce battles, the troops of both sides had considerable losses, and the Song army now had a total of nearly 75,000 men and horses, but they had to be stationed separately in the occupied places, and the strength of attacking Ruzhou was 62,000 men. In the previous stage, the Jin army consumed a little more troops than the Song army, and there were more than 33,000 people, and there were about 27,000 soldiers stationed in the city of Ruzhou.

From the point of view of siege, the Song army did not have much advantage in terms of strength. Therefore, the Song army attacked for three days, although it worked very hard, it failed to capture the city of Ruzhou, but lost about 7,000 troops, and the Jin soldiers defending the city also killed nearly 4,000 people.

However, in the past three days, the Song army was not without gains, first of all, it consumed a lot of materials for the Jin army to defend the city, and it was almost all used up by firearms. In addition to the wounded soldiers, the strength of the Jin army was reduced by about 5,000, and although it did not reach the point where the number of troops defending the city was insufficient, the room for deployment was also greatly reduced. Moreover, the siege of the city for three consecutive days also made the Jin army exhausted, and the fatigue of the whole army also increased a lot. However, the Song army has always maintained that 20,000 soldiers have not participated in the siege battle and have always preserved their physical strength.

At this time, the news came from the middle road, and the Song army, under the command of Yang Yan, conquered Xuzhou and Chenzhou with Jingjing, so Gao Zhen ordered that on the fourth day, the Song army would capture the city of Ruzhou at any cost.

So early the next morning, the Song army launched another tidal attack on the city of Ruzhou. Gao Zhen took 20,000 fresh troops as the main force, divided them into two groups, and took turns to launch an attack on Ruzhou.

This time the intensity of the Song army's attack was much greater than the previous three days, when the tower car leaned to the edge of the city wall, everyone bravely, along the tower car ladder, desperately attacked the city, almost without stopping, no matter how big the casualties, did not retreat. When the Jin army saw it, they also resisted desperately on the city wall, defending the city wall and never taking half a step back.

This battle was very fierce, only one morning, the Song army lost nearly 3,000 people, Gao Zhen still did not order the retreat, and immediately replaced the second 10,000 people, and continued to maintain pressure on the city wall.

After a morning of fierce fighting, the Jin army also killed about 2,000 soldiers, and the other soldiers were very tired from physical strength, and after the Song army replaced the new force, the attack immediately became strong again, and the soldiers stepped up to the city one after another to fight with the Jin army. At this time, the Jin army was obviously unable to support some of the strength, and in the battle with the Song army, six or seven times out of ten were defeated. Moreover, under the fierce offensive of the Song army, the battlements were broken one by one, and more and more Song troops stepped on the city wall, and the Jin army was retreating step by step. Although Shi Zhan desperately beckoned the Jin soldiers to fight hard, he couldn't stop the Jin army's decline.

At this moment, the Song army's crash car under the city also crashed into the gate of Ruzhou City, and the Song army, which had already prepared under the city, immediately rushed into Ruzhou City. When the defenders saw that the city gate was opened, they had no intention of fighting any further, so they gave up defending the city and found a way to escape. And Shi Zhan also knew that the city of Ruzhou had been broken by the Song army, so he hurriedly went down to the city, led the remnants of the army, and retreated to Junzhou.

After the Song army captured the city of Ruzhou, Gao Zhen did not stop for a moment, led the army to continue to pursue the Jin army, caught up with the Jin army in the Yangzhai area of Junzhou, defeated the Jin army again, and took Junzhou again.

Shi Zhan was beaten to the core, so he had to lead the remnants of the army to flee to Kaifeng Mansion. And Gao Zhen also led the army to chase to the territory of Kaifeng Mansion, and fought until Zhongmu County, which was only fifty miles west of Fengfu, before stopping his foot.

In this way, Gao Zhen's Western Route Army also became the first Song army to enter the territory of Kaifeng Prefecture.