On the twentieth day of the first month of the second year of Deyou in the Southern Song Dynasty (1276), Wen Tianxiang, together with Wu Jian, Xie Tang, Jia Yuqing, Deng Weishan and others, stepped into the Yuan army camp of Yinming Temple in Gaoting Mountain and met with Boyan.
Boyan found that Wen Tianxiang was different from other Song Dynasty ministers, and deeply felt that he had different ambitions and refused to surrender, which could become a problem in the future. Therefore, after discussing with the Yuan generals that night, he decided to let Wu Jian and others go, but detained Wen Tianxiang in the Yuan army camp.
In the camp, Wen Tianxiang asked Boyan a strong **, asking why he was stayed. Boyan explained that Wen Tianxiang, as a minister of the Song Dynasty, had a great responsibility, and today's incident should be discussed with him.
Wen Tianxiang asked for release many times, but Boyan lied to him that he was sending Cheng Pengfei to see the emperor of the Song Dynasty and wait for his punishment.
However, Boyan had no intention of letting Wen Tianxiang go back, because he could see that Wen Tianxiang was a staunch patriot, and if he was allowed to go back, he would lead the rebel army, and the strength of the resistance to the Yuan would be even stronger, and the victory or defeat of the Yuan army would be difficult to predict.
Therefore, the Boyan faction was busy with the ancient gangsters and instigated the capital as a supervisor, put Wen Tianxiang under house arrest, and placed heavy troops around Wen Tianxiang's residence to prevent him from escaping.
After Wen Tianxiang was detained by the Yuan army, Wu Jian, Jia Yuqing and others came to the Yuan camp on the order of the Empress Dowager Xie, indicating that the Song Dynasty had decided to fully surrender to the Yuan Dynasty, and brought the edict of the Empress Dowager Xie ordering the states and counties of the Southern Song Dynasty to surrender to the Yuan Dynasty and the documents of the three provinces and the Privy Council.
Boyan asked Wen Tianxiang to come out and sit down with Wu Jian and the others. After the event, Wu Jian and the others were leaving, but Wen Tianxiang was left in Yuanying. He was very angry, stood up and scolded Jia Yuqing**, and accused Boyan of being dishonest, ignoring the death threat, scolding more and more fiercely, and even the translator didn't know how to translate.
Boyan was angry, but felt that he was at a loss. The generals of the Yuan army present reprimanded him, but Wen Tianxiang still refused to give up. Lu Wenhuan tried his best to persuade and pulled Wen Tianxiang away, but Wen Tianxiang dismissed it and reprimanded Lu Wenhuan for being a rebel.
Lu Wenhuan defended himself, but Wen Tianxiang refuted and said that Lu Wenhuan was a thief of eternity. Lu Shimeng jumped out to ridicule Wen Tianxiang, but Wen Tianxiang did not show weakness, not only scolded Lu Shimeng speechless, but also made the faces of the generals next to him tremble.
Boyan praises Wen Tianxiang's heart is straightforward and fast-talking, and he has a man's heart.
The Yuan Dynasty didn't really trust the thieves Lu Wenhuan and Lu Shimeng's uncles and nephews, but just used them to serve themselves. In a casual conversation with Wen Tianxiang, he also expressed this opinion, saying that "the prime minister scolded the Lu family".
Therefore, Boyan was even more reluctant to let Wen Tianxiang go back.
On the 8th day of the first month of February, Jia Yuqing, Xie Tang, Jia Xuanweng, and Liu Yu embarked on a journey to Dadu, and they were to set off on the boat at the North New Bridge in Lin'an. Seeing off was Wu Jian, who came from the abbot of Tianqingguan out of the North Gate.
Boyan suddenly decided to ask Wu Jian and Wen Tianxiang to also go north together. Wen Tianxiang knew that this was Boyan's intention to drive away the ministers of the Song Dynasty, and he was afraid that he would become a problem in the south. On the same day, Wen Tianxiang wrote a letter to his family, arranged the funeral, and planned to die for the country.
Jia Xuan Weng believes that "the dead and wounded are brave, pray but do not allow, and it is not too late to die". Wen Tianxiang thought about it instead, and there might be a chance to serve the country in the future, so he endured it. At the same time, Wen Tianxiang was also preparing to go to Dadu to have a spiritual contest with the supreme ruling group of the Yuan Dynasty.
He wrote in the poem "Making the North": I am nameless in the initial cultivation, and I am not a dancer with the class. Whoever sends a vassal to ask for an envoy shall teach the suo to know the loyal ministers. Who knew that Jia Yuqing, a sinister and shameless guy, was worried that Wen Tianxiang would obstruct him because he fantasized that he could return from the mission, so he told Boyan Wen Tianxiang's thoughts and suggested that Wen Tianxiang be detained in the desert.
On the ninth day of February, Wen Tianxiang and Wu Jian were forced to board the ship and were about to set off. At this time, Wen Tianxiang's entourage and subordinates dispersed one after another, and even Chen Zhidao, who had praised Wen Tianxiang's envoy to the Yuan camp, also sneaked away.
Only Du Hu was afraid that Wen Tianxiang would be lonely and helpless, so he took the initiative to ask to accompany him, and Song Ting temporarily gave him the title of military department. In addition, following Wen Tianxiang to the north, there were Lu Fen Jin Ying, the general Lu Wu, the former general Yu Yuanqing, Yu Hou Zhang Qing, Xia Zhong, the tent soldier Wang Qing, and the servant Zou Jie
On that night, Wen Tianxiang and Du Hu almost fled from Xie Village, but suddenly the Yuan army sent Liu Baihu and twenty or thirty others to force them to get on the boat, making their escape plan fail.
Liu Baihu was a native of the Central Plains, and Wen Tianxiang wanted to escape through him, but unfortunately, Jia Yuqing spoke ill of Wen Tianxiang in front of the Yuan general Temur, which led to the failure of the plan.
The next morning, Temur personally drove a boat to arrest Wen Tianxiang. On 14 February, the ship arrived at Pingjiang, where Wen Tianxiang had been stationed, and was now occupied by the Yuan army.
This reminded Wen Tianxiang of the Tang Dynasty's An Lushan Rebellion, Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan held on to Suiyang, and although they failed, they prevented the rebels from invading south. Wen Tianxiang also won the hearts of the people in Pingjiang, and if the imperial court had not urged him to lead the troops into the guard, he might have held on to Pingjiang like Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan, and did not let the Yuan army occupy it.
However, the Yuan army was worried about his journey and did not dare to stay for a long time, so he took the opportunity to escape, drove ninety miles overnight, and sent more than 300 cavalry to escort to Wuxi. On 18 February, Wen Tianxiang and the envoys arrived at Zhenjiang, and he decided that he must try to escape anyway in order to return to the south to raise the banner of resistance against Yuan Yi.
However, across the river from Zhenjiang is Guazhou, after crossing the river is the Lianghuai region, Ashu in order to prevent the Song army of Huaidong and Huaixi from entering Lin'an, he personally sat in Guazhou.
Wen Tianxiang was full of thoughts when he crossed the river, and he was arrogant when he received the Southern Song Dynasty envoy and Wen Tianxiang. Jia Yuqing and Liu Qi flattered him, Wu Jian and Jia Xuanweng had to entertain a few words, only Wen Tianxiang glared angrily and never spoke.
Ah Shu found that Wen Tianxiang was not convinced, and once said to the guard: "Prime Minister Wen is silent, there is a minions in his stomach." At this time, the Yuan court was issuing an edict ordering Li Tingzhi and Xia Gui to surrender.
During his house arrest by the Yuan army, Wen Tianxiang was bent on how to escape. He conspired with Du Hu, Yu Yuanqing and others, and decided to flee to Zhenzhou first. In order to find the ship, Du Hu looked for people in the city who were willing to help, gave them silver taels, and quietly told them that he wanted to escape.
Although they were unsuccessful, Du Hu found some people who still had nostalgia for the Song Dynasty, and none of them leaked his plans. However, it was very difficult to get to the bank of the Yangtze River and get on the boat, as they had to pass through the checkpoints set by the Yuan army.
So, they needed a guide to lead the way.
Du Hu befriended a veteran of the Yuan army, and the two had a very close relationship, and the veteran promised to help him find a path to the river. However, they found that all the ships were controlled by the Yuan army and could not row from the shore privately.
So, Du Hu decided to seek the help of a friend in the Yuan army. The friend promised to help him get an official position and agreed to help him row from the shore privately. However, they found that the Yuan army imposed a curfew at night and could not reach the riverside through the Yuan army's investigation.
So, Du Hu decided to take advantage of a Yuan soldier named Liu Baihu, with whom he became friends, and planned to use his official lights and Xiaofan's escort during the curfew to privately row boats from the shore.
However, the plans of the Yuan army did not go well, and they had to "escape" in a thrilling way in order to successfully reach the river.
Wen Tianxiang knew that he had to pass through the veteran's house to leave the riverside, so he sent three people to the veteran's house first, and fled together when he crossed the door. The question of how to escape from Shen Yi's house remains.
However, Wang Qianhu followed Wen Tianxiang closely, and the two shared the same bed and did not separate for a moment. In order to get rid of Wang Qianhu, Wen Tianxiang specially set up a banquet to bid farewell to the landlord Shen Yi in the evening, and invited Wang Qianhu to drink together.
He managed to make Shen Yi and Wang Qianhu so drunk that they couldn't wake up, and then he changed his clothes, and prepared to open the door and sneak away with Du Hu and the other seven people. Just as Wen Tianxiang was about to leave Shen Yi's house, the veteran suddenly changed his mind because he was worried that something would happen, pretending to be drunk and unconscious.
The veteran's wife found that three strangers had come to her house, and she was puzzled, so she asked the veteran, and the veteran was silent, and she was ready to call the neighbors to ask what was going on. If the wife of a veteran is asked to call out the neighbors, then everything is over!
At this critical moment, the three Wen Tianxiang entourages in the veteran's house, while dealing with the veteran's wife, sent a person to report to Du Hu in a hurry. Du Hu hurriedly called the veteran out and pulled him in front of Wen Tianxiang, and the other three also came back at the same time.
Wen Tianxiang hid the veteran in the tent, woke him up, and took out three hundred taels of silver to hang on his waist, explaining that he would thank him with this silver after the deed was completed. The veteran saw that Yin's heart was moved, and he took Wen Tianxiang and a group of ten people on the road on the second watch.
At this time, Xiaofan, who was sent by Liu Baihu to deliver the official lanterns, also arrived as scheduled. Wen Tianxiang and the other ten people left Shen Yi's house, Xiao Fan walked in front with an official lamp, and the others followed, led by veterans, through several alleys, and no one inquired.
After walking to a place where there were no residents, Du Hu sent some silver to Xiaofan, and asked him to wait somewhere tomorrow and return the lamp to him. Xiao Fan is a fifteen or sixteen-year-old child, and he is not sensible, and he doesn't know what Du Hu and they are going to do, so he went back after getting the silver.
When everyone reached the edge of the city at the end of the street, they found that the Yuan soldiers had set up a checkpoint here, and more than a dozen horses were tied at the intersection to block pedestrians. Although the crowd quietly walked through the street, the horses were still alarmed, and everyone was shocked and felt a pang of fear.
Fortunately, the soldiers who guarded the card were all asleep, snoring like thunder, and Wen Tianxiang and the others were able to pass this hurdle safely. Wen Tianxiang and other ten people came to the Ganlu Temple by the river, but they didn't see the boat waiting there, everyone was stunned, thinking that the boat had broken the appointment, and they didn't know what to do?
Wen Tianxiang wanted to commit suicide with a dagger in his hand, but he couldn't bear to mutilate himself, and thought that things had not yet reached a time of complete despair, if he had no choice but to throw himself into the river and die.
Yu Yuanqing lifted his trousers, regardless of the cold of the river, waded and searched for a mile or two, and finally found the boat, and everyone turned their worries into joy. It turned out that this was a ship selling smuggled salt, if Wen Tianxiang hadn't sent two people to the ship in advance, maybe this boat would have gone elsewhere to sell smuggled salt.
Wen Tianxiang waited for the boat, and then went up the river and headed in the direction of Zhenzhou. They thought that they would no longer encounter danger from now on, but they did not expect that the ships of the Yuan soldiers were all along the Yangtze River for dozens of miles.
Wen Tianxiang's ship had no choice but to pass by the Yuan army's ship all the time.
After encountering the thrill of the Yuan soldiers' inspection, Wen Tianxiang's boat finally arrived at the Qili River. However, the Yuan army patrol ship in front suddenly asked: "What kind of ship is this?" ”
Wen Tianxiang's captain had an idea, and replied that it was a pufferfish boat, and successfully evaded the interrogation of the Yuan army. Fortunately, when the Yuan army was about to rush to the boat for inspection, it coincided with the ebb tide in the river, and the Yuan army patrol boat could not move, so it could only watch the boat speed away.
Later, the boat encountered a tailwind on the Yangtze River, but unfortunately, the wind soon stopped, and until dawn they were still twenty miles away from Jinzhou. Everyone was worried, fearing that the Yuan army would follow after them, or that there were Yuan cavalry on the north bank of the Yangtze River.
With the joint efforts of everyone, the boat finally successfully landed five miles away from Jinju City. They walked all the way, looking at the desolate and lonely scene outside the city, and their hearts were filled with unease.
Wen Tianxiang kept turning back, lest he be discovered by the Yuan army's sentry horse. Luckily, they managed to reach the city. The Song Dynasty defenders in the city noticed that there were strangers and visited one after another.
Wen Tianxiang's entourage told the defenders that Wen Tianxiang had escaped from Zhenjiang and was now defecting to Zhenzhou. When the generals in the city heard that Wen Tianxiang had arrived, they immediately invited them into the city.
Under the custody of the Yuan Dynasty army, Wen Tianxiang spent a difficult forty days, arriving in Zhenzhou on the morning of the 20th day of the first month of the first month of the second year of Deyou to the first day of the third month.