The Happy Life of Small Officials in Northern Song Dynasty

() The wall of Dingchuan Village is one foot and two feet high, with a radius of less than a thousand steps. Except for the lower part of the wall that was abandoned for a long time, the whole upper part was the rammed earth and rocks when it was first built. It was built in a hurry when I came here, and the rammed earth splints have not had time to be removed.

Three thousand Song troops led by Ge Huaimin were stationed in Dingchuan Village. In the middle of the night, the sentry sent by Ge Huaimin reported that the vanguard of the Xia army was about to arrive. Huai, everyone brought a large pot of water with him, because he knew that once the enemy army started to attack, there would be no chance to eat and drink, so it was better to prepare early.

The width of the wall was only three feet, and there was no time to repair the wall stacks, but Ge Huaimin was not troubled. He ordered people to insert the sharp corners of the standing shields into the rammed earth to serve as wall stacks, and the soldiers hid behind the shields to defend; At the gate, Ge Huaimin ordered people to fill the vehicles with earth and rocks and block the gate of the village tightly.

When he gave the order to block the gate of the village, he clearly saw that the soldiers were hesitant. Because the gate of the village was blocked, the way for his 3000 people would also be cut off. The soldiers all understood this, but Ge Huaimin issued a strict order, and no one would Dare to violate.

In the morning light, a gleam of gold appeared on the eastern horizon, and thousands of rays of sunlight sprayed out to the earth, illuminating the three thousand Song soldiers waiting with bated breath on the wall of the Dingchuan village as if they had crossed a layer of golden light. On the road, the densely packed Xixia cavalry rushed forward in the form of skirmishers. The strange screams, shouts, and the sound of horseshoes filled the eardrums.

The enemy army is approaching quickly, the small hillside is not steep, and the slope in the north is especially gentle, which is why the Xixia army chose to charge on horseback; this kind of slope has little effect on the speed of the horses, just rush to the wall of the village, enter the arrow In the dead corner of the branch, the grapples prepared by the cavalry are useful. They can be used to climb the low wall at night, and they can also use the sharp hooks to pull the Song army down to the city.

Yuan Dezhong, who commanded the battle, was worried that there would be horse traps all over the hillside, and he would see a series of people turning their backs on their backs, but it turned out that there was no hindrance. It seems that the Song army did not set up any obstacles on the hillside at all.

Ge Huaimin put his hand on the highest point of the Zhuoli wall with his saber, and looked at the faceless enemy soldiers rushing in front of him. Just like the habit he had developed in countless battles, Ge Huaimin gently straightened his armor, and his powerful hands slowly Stretching behind his back, he drew out a big iron-armed bow; the guard standing beside him holding a quiver handed over an arrow with carved feathers and an iron head, Ge Huaimin took the arrow and flicked his wrist to slowly put it on the bowstring.

Every ten steps the enemy advances, the bowstring in Ge Huaimin's hand tightens a little. When the Xixia cavalry rushed up the hill and came within a hundred steps of the wall, Ge Huaimin's bowstring was stretched like a full moon. There was a slight crackling sound.

"Let the arrow!" Ge Huaimin shouted loudly, his thunderous voice resounded throughout the entire Dingchuan village, as soon as he spoke, the arrow in Ge Huaimin's hand drew a perfect curve like a shooting star, like a Xixia soldier In his chest, the arrow shot out from the strong iron-armed bow was terribly powerful, piercing the soldier with his horse and rolling down the hillside.

For a while, bows and arrows protruded from behind the shield, and the arrows poured down on the hillside like rain. Most of the arrows failed, but there were still [-] or [-] cavalrymen who fell from their horses and rolled down the hillside in blood.

"Fire the arrow!" Someone hoarsely shouted.

After shooting the arrows, the soldiers in the first row of the Song Army retreated quickly, and the soldiers in the second row who had set up the arrows stretched out for the second round of attacks, and then repeated again and again. In a few breaths, the Song Army had already fired seven or eight rounds of arrows .

Although the precision is not high, even though the north wall can only accommodate more than 700 archers, even though the soldiers of the Song Army did not aim at all, such a carpet of overwhelming arrows still caused a lot of damage to the Xixia cavalry within a hundred paces. After a few rounds, more than 300 riders fell under the rain of arrows, and the hillside was densely planted with arrows. It looked like a big porcupine crawling on the whole hillside.

The Xixia cavalry who entered the range suffered heavy casualties, but under Yuan Dezhong's urging, the cavalry in the back charged up bravely without fear of death. Song Jun simply poured the arrows on the hillside regardless of the accuracy.

More than 600 of the 100 cavalry in the first echelon still rushed up the hillside, and after more than 100 steps forward, they entered the dead corner under the wall of the village. There was a huge ditch lying across, but unfortunately, the horses could not be reined in in a hurry, and more than [-] people rushed directly into the big pit when they heard the screams of the sky and the sad hiss of the horses accompanied by smoke and dust. During the battle, the remaining soldiers hurriedly turned their horses and ran down, and were knocked down by Song Jun more than [-] along the way.

One thousand soldiers and only five hundred left, Yuan De cursed angrily: "Turn back and charge forward, those who retreat will be killed without mercy."

A cavalry soldier rushed back and shouted: "There is a moat, damn it, it's so wide and deep that it's impossible to get through it, and a lot of brothers fell down."

Yuan Dezhong was a little confused, this small Dingchuan village also has a moat?This is too nonsense.

But the fact is that there is indeed a moat on the hillside to the north, but there is not a drop of water in the moat, and it is not a moat dug on purpose. It's just a big pit.

Seeing that these pits were big and deep, Ge Huaimin thought they could be used, so he ordered all the peasants to collect soil from the north slope, dug and connected the pits as deep as one person, and then threw some thorns and thorns inside to form a barrier; In fact, these big pits are only found on the north slope, but not on the other three sides. It's just that the enemy is coming from the north, and the north slope is the most gentle and easy to attack. A fool will know that it is better to charge from the north slope, which just comes in handy.

Ge Huaimin laughed loudly, watching the hundreds of Xixia cavalrymen who fell into the pit struggling endlessly, aiming at one of them to death, he shouted: "Send them to see Lord Yan."

This time it was not an aimless shooting. The Song army on the wall of the stronghold took the Xia army in the pit as a living target, took aim and fired one by one, and shot and killed all the hundreds of people who were desperate. In this way, the trench also lost its function. Hundreds of horse corpses and human corpses filled several deep pits, and they could come over by stepping on the corpses.

After Yuan Dezhong understood all this, his complexion was ashen, he didn't dare to look back, he knew that there must be a pair of angry eyes staring at him, and more than a dozen pairs of gloating eyes staring at him; too careless, It was simply too careless. I thought that the small Dingchuan village must not have many Song troops guarding it. Even if it encountered resistance, it would not suffer such a big loss. Song Jun.

"General Yuan, what should we do?" The men with no complexion hurriedly came to ask for instructions. Four thousand cavalrymen were shot and killed five hundred in one encounter. How can this battle be fought.

But Yuan Dezhong knew that he couldn't turn his head back. Unless he took this stronghold today, he would be finished. "Immediately ordered five hundred armored shield troops to attack. The more scattered the formation, the better, luring the Song army to shoot arrows. The army is only relying on bows and arrows, I don't believe that the bows and arrows in this small Dingchuan village are inexhaustible, I estimate that after ten rounds at most, the Song army will definitely have no arrows."

"The general has a good plan, and my subordinates will send the order immediately." The personal followers immediately went to send the order, and after a while, the five hundred cavalry put on their armor, and even the horses put on head armor and rushed up again.

Song Jun was really fooled, regardless of the rain of arrows and arrows pouring down, but this time because the formation was too scattered and covered by armor and shields, after several rounds of shooting, only more than 21 cavalry were shot, and the bows and arrows were consumed a lot.

Ge Huaimin saw the enemy's intention to send an order: "Shoot its head, face, hands and feet, or the horse's legs, there is no heavy helmet to cover it."

The soldiers of the Song Dynasty aimed according to the words. Although the aim was not good, it was quite effective after intentionally doing it. After dropping seventy or eighty corpses, the armored cavalry could not withstand excessive consumption and had to retreat again.

But after several tosses, the Song Army's arrows gradually ran out. Seeing that the Song Army's feather arrows became more and more sparse, Yuan Dezhong saw the dawn of victory.

"Boys, the time has come. Listen to my order and the whole army will attack. The armored cavalry will take the lead, and the rest will follow in skirmish formation. This time, no retreat is allowed, and those who violate it will be killed immediately."

The remaining more than 3000 soldiers and horses swarmed up, and Song Jun had to pour out all the remaining arrows again, but the sparse arrows could not stop Xia Jun from advancing. After paying the price of casualties of more than a hundred cavalry, The brigade of cavalry finally reached the wall of the village.

As soon as they got to the wall of the village, without waiting for the general to issue an order, the Xixia soldiers took out their hooks from their arms and threw them upwards. If they caught something, they yanked it down. The place on the wall of the village was too narrow. , can always make them hook something, hundreds of long ropes rise and fall one after another, and the soldiers of the Song Army who are hooked are cut into several pieces before they hit the ground, blood and flesh are everywhere, and the screams are endless. More than 200 people of the Song Army died under the hook, and the shortcoming of the wall being neither high nor wide finally brought disaster to the Song Army.