Okay, here is the English translation of the provided Chinese text, following all the given rules and guidelines:

September, a tapestry of autumn colors. Across the land of Sanxiang, the mountains rise and fall, a continuous stretch of green, yellow, and red foliage intertwined. Rivers wind through the mountains, bordering fields already harvested, with small villages scattered throughout.

Hidden amidst the mountain's vegetation, figures gathered in secret. Within a ditch formed by accumulated rainwater and scattered rocks, nine figures huddled together. At their head, Qu Qing placed small stones on the ground beside a crude dirt diagram, his voice low and serious.

"...The information is confirmed. The pursuers number over a thousand. Another one to two thousand are coming from Pingjiang. It seems Liu Qusheng and Yu Daya have made their choice. We could flee west or south, but they are locals. If they join forces, we'll be at a disadvantage. So, we take out Liu Qusheng's group first, then move."

"...Liu Qusheng's thousand-plus men have about sixty fast horses at the front. The leader is called Wang Wujiang, said to be a fierce general. Two years ago, he led his men against bandits in Lu Wang stronghold, leading the charge himself, his men fought bravely. They are loyal to him... So it'll likely be the same routine. Their column will come from that side. The mountain path narrows, obscuring the rear. The front will get bottlenecked first. Cannons target the vital point. Li Ji, your platoon targets the rear, making noise. Zuo Heng, cover the flanks..."

"...They are locals, a thousand men pursuing our two hundred. They're being cautious enough not to be separated from each other... Once battle starts, the rear section over the mountain will be out of sight. Wang Wujiang has two options: reinforce the rear or hold position. If he holds, Li Ji, Zuo Heng, you eliminate as much of the rear guard as possible, pushing them forward. The moment Wang Wujiang moves, we strike. Zhuo Yongqing and I lead the team, break up the cavalry, focusing on Wang Wujiang."

"...Yu Chen, you are in charge of the section, use grenades and crossbows, whoever charges to rescue, you will stun them first..."

In the low, rapid voices, Qu Qing completed the arrangements. Several squad and platoon leaders nodded briefly, received their orders, and left. Qu Qing raised his binoculars, scanning the surrounding hills, still speaking in a low voice.

"...Wang Wujiang's objective is pursuit, the speed cannot be too slow, and though scouts will be sent out, the chance of hiding here is good. Even if we can't hide, Li Suwen and his men will intercept them on the mountain. As long as they are killed on the spot, Wang Wujiang won't react. Zhuo, brother, change hats."

As he spoke, he untied the small bundle at his side and threw it aside. Zhuo Yongqing caught it, throwing his own bundle to Qu Qing. Each bundle contained a helmet.

The hat Qu Qing now held contained a scarlet tassel atop. This was the conspicuous symbol of Zhuo Yongqing's troop since they left Chengdu. Whenever negotiating or interacting with others, Zhuo Yongqing wore this high red-tasseled hat, a blood-red cape draped over his back, claiming it was loot from the battle where Lou Shi was killed, it was particularly arrogant.

When ambushed or luring enemies during the journey, Zhuo Yongqing and Qu Qing would alternate wearing the hat. In the nine months since leaving Chengdu, this troop had suffered multiple attacks and lost many men. Both men were lucky to survive. Zhuo Yongqing still carried unhealed wounds.

He opened the bundle Qu Qing threw and put on the protective steel helmet, stretching his neck. After nine months of hardship, though a separate force was secretly protecting them, everyone in the unit, including Zhuo Yongqing, was weather-beaten and radiated a murderous aura.

"Good, you lure Wang Wujiang over, and I'll personally take him out... Damn Liu Qusheng, smiling to our face and sending men behind our back, a traitor, I've remembered it..."

The enemy hadn't arrived yet, and Qu Qing hadn't taken out the red-tasseled helmet, but just said, "The last two times we negotiated, the people who turned hostile on the spot died mysteriously. Liu Qusheng guessed we had men hidden, waiting for us to leave, and the backup left, then he sent men to pursue us. Internal investigation and rectification has probably already begun... Don't underestimate Wang Wujiang, either. This guy used to run a martial arts school, calling himself the 'Number One Blade of Northern Xiang'. He's skilled in martial arts, a tough one."

"Oh..." Zhuo Yongqing thought for a moment. "'Number One Blade of Northern Xiang', so domineering... How does he compare to Liu Dabiao back then? How does he compare to Mister Ning..."

"Well, because there is the Badao Manor in the Miao region, so no one in this green forest for decades has dared to take the name of the First Blade of Huxiang or the like. But compared to Mister Ning..." Qu Qing didn't know what he thought of, and a complicated look appeared on his face for a moment, then he reacted and said affirmatively, "Well, of course he can't compare."

"I knew it..." Zhuo Yongqing nodded confidently. The two men concealed themselves in the ditch, shielded by bushes and trees behind them. After a moment, the serious expression on Zhuo Yongqing's face crumbled, and he couldn't help but chuckle. Qu Qing almost laughed at the same time, and the two men laughed quietly for a long time.

"When we get back, I'm going to tell Mister Ning about this," Qu Qing said.

"Hehe..."

"...Then he'll hit you in the face with a Fantian Seal, letting you know the consequences of making fun of your superiors, which is to die like Lu Tuo..."

"Haha cough cough..."

Zhuo Yongqing finally couldn't help himself.

His head hit the dirt, clutching his stomach and shaking for a long time. The story of Ning Yi in the China Army likes to impersonate martial arts masters is only circulated among a few people, and is considered a unique "leader anecdote" that only senior personnel can understand. Every time they talk about it, they can appropriately reduce the pressure. In fact, now Mr. Ning is one of the best figures in the whole world. Qu Qing Zhuo Yongqing made a little joke about these interesting stories, and there was a sense of pride in his chest.

The afternoon sun gradually slanted, and in the roads below the mountains, the pursuing troops stirred up dust, circling towards this side. At the front were armed cavalry, and in the middle and rear were infantry who had slightly lost formation in the pursuit. The China Army veterans in the mountain bushes and trees, used to all kinds of combat formations, could roughly understand the quality of the opponent at what level.

Reaching beyond the concealing bushes, Qu Qing raised his right hand, silently bending his fingers.

Three...

Two...

One...

...

The cannon roared.

Zhuo Yongqing wiped the yellow dirt from his face, his gaze completely calm. He pressed down on the hilt of his saber.

On the mountain road, a burst of blood soared into the sky –

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

Northwestern end of Dongting Lake, outskirts of Huarong County.

A vast retinue passed through the mountain roads. The military camp ahead was in sight. Liu Guangshi opened the carriage curtain, looking deeply at the Wu Dynasty flags fluttering in the military camp ahead.

Before long, the convoy arrived at the camp. Generals who had been waiting emerged from within, leading Liu Guangshi and his party into the army's main tent. The great general stationed here was named Nie Zhao, with over forty thousand elite troops under his command. Occupying this area for more than two months under Liu Guangshi's instructions.

Passing through Huarong to the east enters the Dongting Lake area. At this time, Liu Guangshi led an army of more than 300,000, firmly occupying the area north of Dongting Lake, but Yueyang and other places south of Dongting Lake were still disputed by all parties. Changsha further south had been occupied by Chen Fan, and if the Jurchens did not come, I am afraid that no one would be able to drive them away again.

The vast Dongting Lake was the great rear area operated by Liu Guangshi. Once the Wu Dynasty completely collapsed and the front line became unsustainable, Liu Guangshi's army could enter the lake area and defend it to the death, which could always last for a period of time. After Nie Zhao occupied Huarong, he invited Liu Guangshi to inspect several times. Liu Guangshi had been operating in the front, and only at this time did he finally end the various preparations for facing the Jurchens in the north and rush over.

Retreating south from Xiangfan, spreading out the army as much as possible north of Dongting Lake, using the greatest effort to preserve as much of the autumn harvest as possible. Over the past few months, Liu Guangshi had been running around, his hair almost completely grayed, and his expression was a little tired. After ascending the tent, he gave words of encouragement to the generals under Nie Zhao's command. After everyone retreated, Nie Zhao took out various account statements and handed them over to Liu Guangshi for review. Liu Guangshi looked through them under Nie Zhao's gaze.

At one point, he propped up his head and said softly, "Wen Kai, have you ever thought about what will happen next?"

Nie Zhao's courtesy name was Wen Kai. Hearing his commander's inquiry, he cupped his fist and said, "We martial men, will die for our country."

"Mm." Liu Guangshi nodded. "So you were thinking of leading men to Jiangning to rescue the Emperor."

Nie Zhao's hands were still cupped there. He was stunned at this moment, and the atmosphere in the tent became serious. He lowered his head: "Commander is perceptive, how can we Wu Dynasty soldiers, at this very moment, watch the Crown Prince trapped in a desperate situation and not come to his rescue. Since Commander already knows, it is easier to say..."

"Do you know that you will all die on the road?"

"It is not I who goes forward alone, not my army who goes forward alone, not only us who die on the road, as long as enough die, we can rescue the Crown Prince... We were previously discouraged because... the upper echelons were incompetent, and the civil servants were mismanaging the government, so the world has declined to this point. Now that there is a wise ruler like the Crown Prince, who has been fighting the Jurchens in Jiangning for several months without admitting defeat, how can we not die for him."

"Do you know that the advisor Rong Kuang who persuaded you to send troops has already defected to the Jurchens?"

Nie Zhao was slightly stunned.

Liu Guangshi took out a stack of letters from his body and pushed them forward: "This is... his correspondence with the Jurchens, take a look."

"How is Rong Kuang? He said earlier that he was going home to bid farewell to his mother..." Nie Zhao picked up the letter and opened it tremblingly.

"His farewell to his mother was false, and meeting with the Jurchens was true. When we arrested him, he resisted stubbornly... he is already dead," Liu Guangshi said, "But we searched out these letters."

"Rong Kuang and this general have known each other since childhood. If he wanted to meet with the Jurchens, there was no need to go out, and since there was correspondence, why take the risk of going out under the pretext of visiting his mother?"

"It must have been that he wanted to settle his family and meet with his contact person at the same time. General Nie, I have all the investigation documents and processes here, in case you don't believe it, I have brought them all."

"How can these things not be forged?"

"How can you doubt me so?" The white-haired general looked at him.

Nie Zhao looked back: "Only because... what Rong Kuang said made sense, it was this general... who wanted to go and serve the Emperor."

"Nonsense." Liu Guangshi said word by word, "You have fallen for the Jurchens' trick."

The tent fell silent, the two generals' eyes met, and after a long while, Nie Zhao held the letters in his hand, with a look of sadness in his eyes.

"Allow me to... think about it."

Liu Guangshi nodded, and only spoke when Nie Zhao retreated to the door, "General Nie, this commander came prepared, no matter what decision you make... please think twice."

"...Yes."

Nie Zhao slowly retreated out.

The light in the tent brightened for a while, and then darkened after the curtain was lowered. Liu Guangshi sat quietly, his eyes swaying, listening to the sounds outside. After a while, someone came in, a counselor who had come with him.

"How is it?"

"It seems... General Nie has not taken rash action."

"That's good..." Liu Guangshi closed his eyes and breathed a long sigh of relief, only to hear the counselor say: "As long as there is no trouble today, it seems that General Nie will not launch an attack. In half a month, Commander can replace him..."

"Alas..."

Responding to the counselor was Liu Guangshi's heavy, tired sigh...

...

In the months since Zhou Yong fled overseas, almost no place in the world has been peaceful.

Around Changsha, around the Dongting Lake area, large and small conflicts and frictions gradually broke out, like water droplets dripping into boiling oil, causing the oil pot to constantly churn.

These frictions were not large-scale military conflicts, but rather the constant collision of a world that was thinking of change and people with different minds. People who wanted to protect themselves, people who were at a loss, people who were brave and generous, people who followed the crowd... under the manipulation and wooing of various forces, gradually began to express their attitudes and began to erupt in countless small-scale battles.

Since July, the China Army's persuaders were in action, the Jurchens' persuaders were in action, Liu Guangshi's persuaders were in action, and people with loyalty to the Wu Dynasty were acting spontaneously. Around Changsha, from Tanzhou (later Liuyang) to Pingjiang, to Miluo, to Xiangyin, to Linxiang, it was unknown how many times large and small forces had fought.

In mid-July, Rong Ji, the prefect of Pingjiang, was so frightened by two assassination attempts that he resigned and left.

In late July, the Heshan Bandits near Miluo attacked the county town in the name of restoring the Wu Dynasty. In Linxiang, more than three hundred members of the Ma Yi Society took to the streets with knives, forcing the government to declare its allegiance to Liu Guangshi. The city's army suppressed them, and the battle was bloody.

In August, Xiangyin, where more than 7,000 Wu Dynasty troops were stationed, declared its allegiance to the Jurchens under the persuasion of Jurchen spies and Niu Baoyuan, the former prefect of Changsha. Those who resisted also immediately revolted, and the fighting in the city lasted for two days. Half the city was burned down, and after that, the heads of the resisters were hung on the city walls.

Mid-August, late August... Similar conflicts continued. This was actually an intense manifestation of everyone hoarding and plundering supplies before and after the autumn harvest. Although Chen Fan had captured Changsha, the total number of Miao troops was not large, and holding the city was the limit. Several special operations teams that had withdrawn from Jiangnan were active in it, seized a lot of victory materials, and also persuaded and won over some forces to express their friendship with the China Army.

However, in early September, three surrendered Han armies stationed in Jiangnan West Road, totaling 140,000 men, began to march towards Changsha, and the disputes between large and small forces near Changsha gradually subsided. Forces that had expressed their attitude or had not expressed their attitude but had substantially surrendered to the Jurchens gradually increased.

...

The sun sets in the west, the mountain is filled with smoke, and the bloody smell floats away.

Fleeing soldiers scattered into the distance, or were driven across the fields and jumped into the nearby small river, drifting downstream. On the battlefield littered with corpses, soldiers reined in runaway warhorses, and some were counting the wounded and prisoners, stabbing the warhorses that were dying from the shelling with the tips of their guns.

Zhuo Yongqing, wearing a soft hat and a steel helmet, walked up the hillside with a head in his hand. Qu Qing sat beside several corpses, half of his body covered in blood, and the accompanying doctor was bandaging the wound on the left side of his body.

"Ah, it hurts so much..." He grinned and hissed in cold air.

Zhuo Yongqing took off the red-tasseled iron crown from his head: "It's good that you didn't die. We grabbed some horses, so we can carry you away."

"We have to leave quickly... What are you doing with the head?"

"The Number One Blade of Northern Xiang, let me show you."

"Bad luck..." Qu Qing grinned, and then looked at the head, "Alright, don't walk around with it, although he is from the green forest, he used to be a hero, helping the poor, and he was also brave when removing mountain bandits. Before going to Liu Qusheng, Feng Zhen inquired about information, and at the most intense time, this hero can be considered to win over."

"That is to say, even if he leads more than a thousand people to chase us, it is possible to let us go." Zhuo Yongqing picked up the head and looked at each other with four eyes.

"..." Qu Qing glanced at him, and then said, "It hurts so much."

Zhuo Yongqing's question naturally had no answer. In the past nine months, through dozens of life-and-death situations, they could not place their safety on this small possibility. Zhuo Yongqing stuck the other person's head on a stick by the roadside, and when he came back, he saw Qu Qing calculating the nearby situation on the ground.

"If Chongyang Liu Qusheng and Pingjiang Yu Daya collude to surrender to the Jurchens, this area will be connected, hundreds of miles, tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians. Yu Daya, this guy, looks like a reckless man who is loyal and heroic, but when it comes to the end, he does this kind of thing - he wants to take you as a certificate of surrender to get a good impression in front of the Jurchens..."

Zhuo Yongqing sat down: "When will Guo Baohuai and the others arrive?"

"Guo Baohuai has 50,000 men, Yu Gusheng has 40,000, and Li Touhe has more than 40,000, three directions, Yu Gusheng will arrive first, it is estimated that in five to seven days, he can reach the Pingjiang area. Just the Han army is already 140,000, plus the ones coming one after another, plus the ones surrendering one after another... On our side, there are only more than 15,000 people in Changsha, and our group of scattered soldiers..."

Qu Qing drew a map on the soil, and when he drew here, he looked back, and the small battlefield below was almost cleaned up. The wounded on his side were basically treated, but the traces of iron-blooded killing and the scattered corpses would not be eliminated. His words also came to an end here. He didn't know why, but he was almost laughed at by the disparity and desperate situation he spoke of.

"His mother's, how can this battle be fought..." Qu Qing found the swear word commonly used inside the General Staff.

Zhuo Yongqing also sighed: "Yes."

The two sighed there for a while, and before long, the team was reorganized and prepared to leave. Qu Qing wiped off the drawings on the ground with his feet, and with Zhuo Yongqing's support, got on his horse with difficulty.

"...There are still five to seven days. Feng Zhen is probably already playing tricks. Yu Daya, that animal, betrayed us. We will bypass them to see if we can find a way to kill him..."

"I'm listening to you."

"You also think about it, when have you used your brain? Brother Zhuo, I find that you are getting lazier and lazier since you came out. You were not like this in Zhang Village..."

"Brother Qu, I trust you."

"...Forget it, you wear the red hat next time, it's pretty good, I won't compete with you, anyway, even if your brain is blown up by a cannon, it's not a big loss for our China Army."

"Hahahaha..."

The sunset fell on the horizon, and the team that had just experienced the killing folded to the other side of the mountain road in the final silhouette. Zhuo Yongqing's laughter, which seemed heroic and hearty, came over with the evening wind.

Mid-September, this is just a corner of the countless tragic killing scenes near Changsha. Soon after, the first batch of surrendered Han troops, as many as 140,000, will arrive here and launch the first wave of offensive against Chen Fan's troops, who are only over 10,000 strong.

But soon after, the real first wave of offensive was launched by Chen Fan first.