The Happy Life of Small Officials in Northern Song Dynasty

Su Jin's strategy is both unexpected and reasonable. The lush trees on Longshan Mountain are the culprit. Whether it is the raw materials that Su Jin needed to build Weizhou City, or the current Xixia Army's on-the-spot attack The wood needed for the city's equipment is collected from Longshan without exception.

Of course, the entire Longshan Mountain has several peaks and a radius of tens of square kilometers. It is not practical to destroy all the forests on the mountains, but the part that Su Jin wants to burn is only the forests on the easternmost slope of Longshan Mountain. If you want to cut trees inside, you need to climb the towering east slope. Even if Xia Jun has the perseverance to go in and cut trees, how to get the felled trees out of the mountain will be a big problem, or it is impossible at all.

As soon as Su Jin came up with this plan, Jingtai, Li Chong, Pan Jiang and others were stunned. None of them thought of this idea. Stopping Xia Jun's thoughts of cutting wood to build ladders, when there is no way to harvest wood on Longshan Mountain, what will Xia Jun use to build those thousands of ladders?

The city wall of Weizhou City is more than three feet high. Originally, two ordinary ladders had to be connected to barely reach the edge of the city wall. The taller and longer the ladder, the thicker the wood needed would be. This is not casual. Cutting some miscellaneous trees by the roadside and miscellaneous willows by the river can make it. Besides, the quantity needed is too much. Except for the trees on the Longshan Mountain, the flat land is almost barren. At a glance, you can't see a few standing big ones. Trees, so Xia Jun had no choice but to go up the mountain to log.

"Master Su, what a plan, the humble job is really convinced."

"Yeah, the lower officials are also convinced, why didn't we think of this?"

Panjiang and Jingtai praised each other, but it didn't seem like pure flattery, they were sincere admiration.

"My lord, leave this errand to me." Chao Chao volunteered.

Su Jin smiled and said, "What are you going to do?"

Wang Chao said: "What else can I do? Just light it up and set it on fire, can't I know how to set it on fire?"

Su Jin shook his head and said: "Then you are wrong. It is midsummer and the trees on the mountain are lush. How do you light it? Even if it is lit, it will not be able to form a prairie fire; if you want to set fire, there will be a big fire. Burning the eastern slope of Longshan Mountain so that not a single blade of grass will grow, we must not let the western thieves take advantage of it."

The dynasty understood what Su Jin meant, and was worried that if half of the brocade was burned and extinguished, it would reveal the strategic intentions of the Song army. The Xia army would send troops to guard the mountain pass, and it would be impossible to burn the mountain again.

"Take five hundred soldiers tonight, and bring five hundred bundles of hay in the city, and a dozen barrels of kerosene. Taking advantage of the strong southeast wind, spread the hay with kerosene on dense forests. Evacuate only after the pine wood is burning, the pine and cedar are very fat, and it is not easy to extinguish the fire, the key is that the fire must be big enough to sweep up." Su Jin laughed.

Pan Jiang said anxiously: "Lord Su, do you need kerosene too? There aren't many of those things. Didn't you say that you still need kerosene to defend against the enemy? It's a waste."

Li Chong said with a smile: "General Pan, in fact, there is no waste at all. If this plan fails, the city will be destroyed. What else is there to talk about?"

Pan Jiang nodded and said, "I understand, I'm just a little bit reluctant."

Su Jin said: "Yes, I feel distressed too, but what can I do? I heard that this thing is produced in Sichuan and Shaanxi. Doesn't our Jingyuan Road belong to Shaanxi? Why didn't I hear that there is this?"

Jingtai said: "Yes, there are many of them. The Fuyan Road under the jurisdiction of Fan Shuai produced this product. It is said that it was born in a cave where sand, stone and spring water were mixed. People pick it up with the tail of a pheasant and put it into a pot."

Su Jin slapped his thigh and said, "Why didn't we say it earlier? If I said it earlier, I could ask Fan Shuai for more, and if I got a thousand and eight hundred stabs, are we still afraid that he will attack the city with thieves?"

Jingtai said in amazement: "Eight hundred barrels? Are you kidding me? The black oil collected is called 'petroleum' by the locals. It is extremely difficult to burn, and when it burns, it is black smoke billowing, choking people, and the black oil that comes out The smoke is like wisps of black fluff, it is difficult to remove when it stains the clothes and curtains; but it has yiyang benefits, the black smoke can be collected and melted with water, but it can be used as ink, which is not much worse than pine ink."

Su Jin widened his eyes and said, "Is such a precious strategic material only used to make ink? Why do we use kerosene that burns when it touches the fire? Are you talking about the stuff we use?"

Jingtai smiled and said: "My lord does not know that kerosene is indeed the oil, but after it is picked out, it needs to be refined through many processes, which costs a lot, so refining is very little, but ink is easy to make, so most of them It was used to make ink instead of refining it."

Su Jin was very interested and said, "But I don't know how to refine it?"

Jing Tai said: "I don't know much about it, but it is said that oil is collected in a big cauldron and boiled. After several times of tossing, one barrel of kerosene can be obtained for every hundred barrels. Think about how much manpower and firewood it will cost. Salary? If it wasn't for military use, who would refine it?"

Su Jin carefully recalled the knowledge learned by later generations, and seemed to have a little impression that the soil method of oil refining is distillation and decomposition, which seems to be decomposed into liquefied gas, gasoline, diesel, etc. according to the temperature, and the final dregs are paving roads. Asphalt oil; Su Jin was suddenly very excited. Although he could not extract a large number of strange things from oil like later generations, at least he could find a way to produce fire oil, an important strategic material, whether it is military or civilian. will have a huge impact.

Su Jin raised his head and yelled, and suddenly heard the sound of drums from the city tower. At some point, Xia Jun's catapults stopped bombarding the city wall. The sound of the drums was a signal for the remaining troops monitoring the enemy on the tower to warn against the enemy's attack.

Pan Jiang hurriedly ran to the soldiers who were sitting on the school yard to rest after eating, and shouted: "All go to the city wall! In case the western thieves attack again."

All the soldiers got up quickly, and the whole team climbed to their positions on the city wall. Su Jin and others also returned to the tower. From a distance, the Xixia camp was crowded with people. It seemed that the troops stationed behind were moving forward. No sign of attack.

……

The atmosphere in the large tent of the Chinese army of the snow-white and tall Li Yuanhao was oppressive. Although the smell of wine and meat in the tent was tangy, the faces of all the people present were gloomy and gloomy, and they couldn't swallow the food and wine.

Li Yuanhao sat at the top, holding a wine glass in his hand and thoughtful. Although his expression seemed calm, the suppressed anger in his eyes revealed his heart.

The first battle of the siege in the morning was thwarted, with tens of thousands of casualties. Although thousands of them were newly recruited cannon fodder recruits, Li Yuanhao, who planned to make contributions in the First World War, was still very angry. Completely disregarding Li Yuanhao's advice, he adopted extremely simple and brutal siege methods, and wanted to break through the defenses of Weizhou City in one fell swoop, but the result was disappointing.

Although extremely angry, Li Yuanhao still gave face to the two wild kings, and did not blame them. On the contrary, he specially set up a banquet to reward the two. Of course, there was no lack of humiliation in it, and the more important reason was that Li Yuanhao wanted to withdraw the decision of this battle Right, let Brother Yeli follow his own advice instead of going his own way.

"Generals." In the silence, Li Yuanhao spoke.

Everyone visibly shook their bodies. Due to self-blame and panic, the generals didn't know what kind of punishment was coming. The emperor was notorious for his cruelty. With a force several times larger than the enemy's, he was beaten to disgrace. He would definitely kill a few scapegoats to relieve his hatred, but he didn't know which one or two of the scapegoats were present here.

"Great generals, you have worked hard." Li Yuanhao felt complacent when he looked at the silent crowd, and even the Ye Li brothers were full of shame and panic, which made Li Yuanhao very manyi.

"Your majesty... I am incompetent... Please forgive me." Ye Liyuqi got up and left his seat and knelt down in front of Li Yuanhao's case. Some can't stand it.

Ye Liyu begged to be subdued, and Ye Li Wangrong didn't have the courage to persist anymore, so he got up and knelt down, and the tent suddenly fell to his knees.

"What is this for? I don't mean to blame you. I sincerely invite you to drink to relieve fatigue. Get up quickly." Li Yuanhao said lightly.

"The ministers are incompetent and lost in the first battle. Please also ask the emperor to punish us, otherwise the ministers will feel uneasy." Ye Liyuqi said in a hoarse voice.

Li Yuanhao got up with a smile, came to Yeli Yuqi, stretched out his hand to support him, and said quietly: "Victory or defeat is a common matter in military affairs. This battle has just begun. How can we say victory or defeat? Although we lost in the first battle today, our army only suffered injuries. Fu Mao, why are you so sad? Besides, this battle has also found out the details of the Song people, and it has gained something, everyone, get up, I won't blame you."

Everyone was relieved, it was rare to see Li Yuanhao so magnanimous, today's luck is really good.

"However... the reason for the defeat in this battle is worthy of our careful analysis. Who will tell me why we lost today? Where is the reason for the defeat?" Li Yuanhao changed the subject, making everyone feel relieved.

Everyone looked at me, I looked at you, no one wanted to speak first, and the tent fell into dead silence again.