The Happy Life of Small Officials in Northern Song Dynasty

At the junction of the Imperial City and Seoul City, there are two city walls connected by a huge gate. Between the two city walls is an artificial ditch five feet wide, edged with bluestone, bottomless.

The imperial city wall is as high as three feet and two feet. Along the inner side of the imperial city wall are more than 20 tall watchtowers built with rammed earth. Each watchtower has a bed crossbow archer stationed at the top, controlling the city wall for a hundred steps from north to south. large areas within the range.

The city wall of Seoul is only two feet high, and it is completely under the attack of the defenders on the enemy tower and the imperial city wall, so there is nothing to rely on at all.

Standing on a tall building, Su Jin led the generals to look at everything in front of them. Everyone was silent and worried.

The northern city wall of Seoul is useless. If there are enough troops in the imperial city, they can attack Seoul at any time. If they want to defend it, they will not be able to defend it. Yelu Chongyuan's army is coming. He doesn't have to think about anything at all. The attack can be unimpeded.

"The Liao dog is so damn snobbish. Seoul is the place where the Han people live together. They must have come up with such a plan because they were afraid of the Han people making trouble. In the current situation, not to mention attacking the imperial city, they would just rush into the city wall a hundred paces away. It's a problem inside, mother, this is tricky." Pan Jiang scolded.

Jingtai sighed, "That's right. In the afternoon, our military patrol team shot and killed more than 100 people inside the north wall, and they couldn't get close within a hundred steps of the city wall. Liaogou's defenses are impeccable."

Looking at the situation in front of him, Su Jin couldn't help admiring the elaborate design of the Liao people. The only city gate was actually an iron gate, and the artificial canal between the two walls was bottomless, apparently to prevent climbing or sneaking over. It was designed by digging in. If you give yourself [-] soldiers to defend this side of the city wall, you are absolutely confident that you can stop the strong attack of [-] troops. I thought that after entering Seoul, the imperial city would be at your fingertips, but I did not expect to encounter such a difficult fortification. .

"Everyone go to rest. I will be alone. A strong attack is definitely not a good strategy. We only have more than 8 soldiers left. I am afraid that we will not be able to break through if we put all of them on." Su Jin said quietly.

Everyone had no choice but to leave one after another, and went back to the camp to rest; Su Jin asked the guards to make a pot of tea, and sat alone at the window, lost in thought; A time like today made Su Jin feel unable to start; in ordinary siege battles, there is a final attack if a clever plan fails, but it is absolutely not possible here. How I wish I had a few cannons in my hand at this time, and bombarded the enemy building on the opposite city wall to solve everything, but this is just wishful thinking.

There were a few screams in the distance, and several soldiers of the Song Army who walked closer were shot and killed by the bed crossbow on the enemy building. Su Jin was so angry that he almost crushed the tea cup.

In terms of weapons and materials, the resources in Seoul are sufficient to support our own consumption. The only problem is that the Liao army occupies an absolute geographical advantage. How to break this geographical advantage is the most important thing; all kinds of methods seem to be unavailable. In practical use, water attack, fire attack, tunnel digging and various methods of sneaking over are not applicable here, and it seems that it has become a dead end.

Su Jin drank tea slowly, calming down the anxiety in his heart. Outside the window, thousands of Song soldiers turned out from the corner of the street. They held a wide door to block their bodies and slowly approached the north wall. Su Jin recognized the leader. The short and thick figure was Ma Han, and he couldn't help frowning. This idiot came with soldiers and horses knowing that the north wall was dangerous.

Su Jin was about to order someone to order them to retreat, but he saw the soldiers of the Song Army erecting the door panels to block their bodies, and hundreds of archers shot several rounds of arrows with flaming rain into the imperial city. When the fire came out, it was obvious that the rocket ignited the house or supplies.

The bed crossbows on the enemy building began to bombard, the door panels couldn't stop the huge impact, and dozens of people were killed or injured immediately, but all the ordinary bows and arrows of the enemy army were blocked by the door panels, causing no major damage. Ma Han waved his hand, Song The soldiers of the army retreated out of range one after another holding the door panel.

It seems that Ma Han is angry because the Liao army shot and killed the Song army. This is to bring revenge; Dazed, a strange thought came to my mind.

Su Jin quickly went down the tall building, and Ma Han walked with the soldiers cursing and saw Su Jin hurriedly standing and saluting.

Su Jin said with a straight face, "What are you doing?"

Ma Han scratched his head and said, "I couldn't be more angry, so I led someone to launch a round of rockets over the wall, and taught Liaogou to have a taste."

Su Jin said: "What's the use of a drop in the bucket?"

Ma Han said: "At least vent your anger."

Su Jin said: "If you want to do it, you can do it big. There are basically no important facilities and materials near the city wall. If you can burn the fire to the hearts of the Liao people, it will be considered a skill."

Ma Han opened his eyes wide and said, "I would like to, but such a big city, how can an arrow shoot so far?"

Su Jin laughed loudly, patted Ma Han on the shoulder and said, "Brother, although what you did was stupid, you reminded me unintentionally. I have a clever plan. If it succeeds, the people of Liao will probably cry."

Ma Han was overjoyed and said: "I knew that there was nothing that could trouble the young master. How to do it, the young master said quickly."

Su Jin waved his hand and said, "Come with me."

……

At night, the large courtyard of the Privy Council in Seoul was brightly lit. In the open space in the middle of the courtyard, there was a strange thing. Several pieces of cooked cowhide were sewn into a ball-shaped Cuju, and a large basket was hung below it. Watching the excitement from the sidelines, the handsome man was sweating profusely working around this strange thing, not knowing what new tricks he had.

"Pull up the four corners and stand up." Su Jin shouted.

Several personal guards pulled up the four corners of the cowhide ball and stood on the high stool to lift it up. Su Jin poured a pot full of kerosene and ignited it in the hollow under the cowhide ball. After a while, the whole cowhide ball was inflated. After a while , an unbelievable thing happened, the cowhide ball rose up slowly, lifted the big basket below and left the ground.

Su Jin jumped into the basket, the cowhide ball swayed a few times, and then rose up unsteadily, lifting Su Jin who was standing in the basket off the ground to a height of Zhang Xu.

The generals below were stunned, and shouted at the same time: "Quickly pull the commander down, it will be terrible to fall."

Su Jin said loudly: "Don't pull, I will come down by myself."

After finishing speaking, he reached out and took out an iron piece with a handle from the basket and slowly covered half of the mouth of the brazier. Sure enough, the cowhide ball fell slowly. When it was almost on the ground, Su Jin completely covered the iron piece. Covering the brazier, the flames extinguished, the bamboo basket fell to the ground, and the cowhide ball also clattered down to cover Su Jin in it.

Everyone hurriedly pulled Su Jin out, and Su Jin's arm had several blisters, but he didn't realize it, and laughed to himself: "It's done, but the stability is not enough, and it needs to be adjusted."

Jing Tai said: "Marshal, what the hell are you doing?"

Su Jin said with a smile: "This is called a hot air balloon. It can soar into the sky and reach a height of tens of feet or hundreds of feet."

Pan Jiang rolled his eyes and said: "The commander-in-chief really knows how to play, the last general will be worried to death, you still have the mind to play."

Su Jin said: "You know what, don't you think this thing is very beneficial for us to attack the city?"

Pan Jiang said: "What's the use of this thing?"

Jingtai came to his senses and said loudly: "The commander-in-chief is using this thing to transport soldiers into the imperial city?"

"Ah?" The generals took a breath.

Su Jin smiled and said, "I guessed right, it's not for transporting troops. How can there be so many hot air balloons for an [-] army? Besides, the closer to the ground, wouldn't it be a living target?"

Jing Tai said: "Then this is...?"

Su Jin said: "Air attack on the imperial city, understand? We still have [-] barrels of kerosene, which is enough to burn the imperial city through. We only need a dozen of these things to fly over the imperial city with a large barrel of kerosene. Toss fire oil at the Liao people's palaces, halls, and military camps, and if they don't burn, will they cry for their fathers and mothers?"

The eyes of the generals are flying around in the air, my mother, I can think of such a way, if it works, the people of Liao will feel better.

"Don't just stand and watch the show, everyone helped me pull all the cows in the city to slaughter overnight. The cowhide must be intact and must not be broken. I need dozens of big bamboo baskets. I will figure out how to improve the stability. Sex, go, go." Su Jin waved his hand, and buried his head between the leather ball and the big basket again, concentrating on chanting.