People in the Song Dynasty were lawless

Chapter 292 The Song Dynasty has a gun

In late August of the fourth year of Qingli, a hundred thousand Xixia army attacked Qingtang.

Their vanguard also brought more than ten artillery pieces.

In the first year of Kangding, the artillery of the Song Army appeared for the first time on the battlefield of Song and Liao Dynasties, shining brightly.

After that, Song Liao and Song Xia signed treaties one after another, and both Liao and Xixia began to spare no effort to obtain artillery and grenades.

Hand grenades were okay. In the first year of Kangding, whether they were dumb bombs left on the battlefield or secretly purchased from the Song military, both Liao and Xia were able to get a lot of them.

But not artillery.

Because in the two years from the end of the war in the first year of Kangding to the second year of Qingli, the total number of artillery in the Song Dynasty was only more than 200.

And they are all bronze cannons, each of which is expensive and only supplied to special elite troops. These troops are strictly controlled and almost impossible to steal.

Things took a turn for the better in the second year of Qingli, when Zhao Jun built a steel plant and used converters to make steel, which greatly increased steel production. After the steel is used, the cannon is manufactured in a blowout style.

In the second half of that year alone, the Song Dynasty built more than 400 steel cannons.

In the third year of Qingli, it was even more exaggerated, with more than a thousand gates built. By the beginning of the fourth year of Qingli, almost the entire cities on the border of Hebei Road and Shaanxi Road were filled with cannons, scaring everyone to death.

When artillery is manufactured on such a large scale, there are naturally loopholes to exploit. At that time, Zhao Jun had not reorganized the army, so there were many private sales of arms.

The Liao Kingdom and Xixia obtained a lot of artillery from the Song Dynasty military at that time, but because they could not produce steel, they could only make wrought iron cannons.

Fortunately, the Liao Kingdom has imitated black powder, grenades, and cannons, and now it can be considered to have a certain degree of firearms strength.

Xixia felt uncomfortable.

Lack of raw material sulfur, the current cannons in hand are only more than fifty wrought iron cannons, except for a few steel cannons stolen from the Song Dynasty army.

It's not that Xixia is short of iron. In fact, Xixia's smelting and forging techniques are not bad. Otherwise, history would not record that in the war between the Song Dynasty and Xixia, the swords and spears of the Song Dynasty could not penetrate the armor of the Xixia people.

In fact, the black powder made from that little sulfur is simply not enough. The inventory of hand grenades is only tens of thousands, which shows how scarce the sulfur raw materials in Xixia are.

That is to say, the Liao Kingdom spent a lot of money this time, not only giving a lot of money, but also giving a lot of sulfur, so Li Yuanhao may not dare to send troops.

However, the sulfur is indeed on its way and has not been delivered yet. Worried that the Song Dynasty would reorganize its military as soon as possible, Li Yuanhao also wanted to take advantage of the fact that the Song Dynasty army was in a period of weakness and send troops immediately to capture Qingtang.

Li Yuanhao has already figured out the situation in Qingtang.

The Song Dynasty did not sell a single artillery piece to the Song Dynasty, not even grenades. It was obviously to make the Song Dynasty dependent on the Song Dynasty and completely tie the Qingtang regime to the Song Dynasty chariot.

On the Qinfeng Road side, only Qinzhou, which was later Tianshui City, had more than 30 gates in reserve.

The rest of the cannons are either in the hands of Fan Zhongyan's firearms army, or they are deployed in cities on the border of Hebei and Shaanxi Road. Lanzhou City cannot have cannons.

That's why Li Yuanhao sent troops confidently and boldly.

In his opinion, capturing Lanzhou City was not a problem. After capturing Lanzhou, he set up a defense line in Lanzhou and then immediately headed west to raid Xining.

If the Song army attacks and he cannot resist it, he will immediately withdraw his troops.

Then according to the original retreat route, Xixia only signed a peace contract with the Song Dynasty, saying that Bing Qingtang was justified, and then accused the Song Dynasty of tearing up the treaty by taking the lead in attacking.

I guess Zhao Zhen is a face-conscious person, so there is probably nothing he can do about it.

It would be interesting if the Song army attacked and he not only resisted it, but also defeated the Song army.

This shows that there is a big problem in the Song army's military consolidation this time, and the army's combat effectiveness is low. Then Li Yuanhao can figure out the reality of the Song Dynasty, and can immediately unite with the Liao Kingdom and go south to annex the Song Dynasty.

This is a plan that kills two birds with one stone.

What he never expected was that dozens of artillery pieces suddenly appeared on Gaolan Mountain in the south of Lanzhou City.

Just looking at the emission frequency, Li Yuanhao judged that there must be at least thirty gates.

This startled him.

At the end of the morning, after two days of traveling, the Xixia people first arrived north of Dongyuguan at noon yesterday.

Then he went east along the north bank of the Yellow River and crossed the river in the Xigu District of Lanzhou in later generations.

The attack on Lanzhou began this morning.

However, the defenders in Lanzhou City were tenacious and had artillery, beating his vanguard to pieces.

If Lanzhou Xicheng was not a vast plain area with a spacious area, his front army and the center might have been rolled back by the vanguard army.

"What's going on? Why are there so many gunshots?"

Located about ten miles outside the west city of Lanzhou, among the Xixia's former troops, Li Yuanhao suddenly heard the sound of many cannons and was shocked.

Naturally, he brought all the more than fifty cannons with him this time, but the problem was that the vanguard only brought twelve.

Just listening to the sound, there must be forty or fifty gates on the frontal battlefield.

Where are there so many cannons?

"Your Majesty!"

At this time, the scouts sent back by the generals from the front hurriedly reported: "The enemy deployed thirty cannons on the mountain and caught us by surprise!"

"This is impossible!"

Li Yuanhao said in shock: "Lanzhou City has no cannons at all."

"They must have placed it on the mountain."

The general next to him said: "Your Majesty, artillery is most afraid of close combat. Let's go around and attack immediately!"

"it is good!"

Li Yuanhao agreed. Now he must go and see the battlefield situation.

Now the army continued to advance.

As a result, he had just walked for more than ten minutes, still seven or eight miles away from Lanzhou City, and about three or four miles away from his vanguard army, when he saw continuous explosions ahead.

Immediately afterwards, the vanguard army finally couldn't resist and began to retreat.

Forget about attacking at this time, he immediately ordered to intercept the defeated vanguard army and reorganize them into formation.

"Run!"

"The Mighty One is angry."

"This is God's punishment for us!"

Many small tribesmen of Uighur, Uighur, and Tatar tribesmen shouted in terror and galloped wildly.

Not only them, but also the party officers who controlled them in the army couldn't bear it and followed them around in panic.

no way.

First, their cannons couldn't hit other people's mountains.

Secondly, Wang Shiyun and his small steel cannons couldn't compete with others in terms of distance and power on flat ground, but after having the range to make up for it on the mountains, the advantage in rate of fire became apparent.

In the past, both guns and cannons were designed with front chambers, and bullets and shells had to be inserted into the barrel through the barrel and inserted through milled tubes.

But the cannon needs to increase its power and range. The barrel is very long, so the reloading speed is very slow.

Shooting three to five rounds a minute is pretty good.

The barrel of the small steel cannon is shorter than that of the big cannon. If a shell is inserted into it, it will bottom out at once, and the rate of fire will naturally be much faster.

Under the constant bombardment, the Uyghur, Uighur, and Tatar tribes, whose morale was already low, simply could not bear it. Not to mention the people, the horses all fled in all directions, making it difficult to resist.

Li Yuanhao was extremely anxious when he saw this, but it was useless to be anxious. He could only order his generals and officers to go immediately to reorganize the troops.

As for himself, he glanced around, and finally set his sights on Gaolan Mountain in the distance.

The mountains are high and the forests are dense, and you can vaguely see the silver light shining on the cliffs halfway up the mountain. It seems that you can also see some almost invisible black spots looking this way.

The distance between the two sides is really too far, at least more than ten miles or even twenty miles. Even if the plain area has a wide field of vision and without a telescope, it is impossible to see what is over there.

"Your Majesty, I will take my men to go around and kill them on that mountain. The general will not believe how many soldiers and horses there are hidden in that mountain."

Some generals also noticed it and immediately asked Li Yuanhao for orders.

Li Yuanhao did not agree immediately, his eyes showed deep thought. However, at this moment, the gate of Lanzhou City opened in the distance, and an unknown number of Tibetan soldiers rushed out.

This makes the battlefield even more chaotic.

Seeing this, Li Yuanhao was worried that there was an ambush in the city, so he could only say: "Quickly retreat!"

"Get out!"

The surrounding generals also shouted quickly.

For a while, the two sides chased and fled without much fighting. Soon Li Yuanhao's army withdrew like a tide, and even the cannons brought by the vanguard army were captured.

The Xixia army retreated for more than thirty miles, which was almost the distance from Xigu District to Chengguan District of Lanzhou City in later generations.

As night fell, tens of thousands of troops were forced to camp.

This time Li Yuanhao brought 50,000 people. Of the 100,000 troops, 20,000 were stationed in Zhuoluo City as a reserve army, and the other 30,000 were at the mouth of the river to prevent Lanzhou from being captured in a short time.

As a result, I never expected that according to the detailed reports of infiltrating Lanzhou City disguised as businessmen, Lanzhou, which was supposed to have only 5,000 defenders, no firearms, and no cannons, actually had such powerful firepower.

Moreover, the enemy dared to go out of the city to fight, which made the suspicious Li Yuanhao have to retreat back, confused and uncertain.

At night, there are many tents on the plain in the wilderness.

In the big tent in the middle, Li Yuanhao held a military meeting with everyone.

Candles were lit in the tent. Although Xixia was a small country and lacked some resources, it did have paraffin mines.

In the Song Dynasty, resin and paraffin were commonly used to make candles. Although the smell was a bit unpleasant, it was not difficult for powerful people like them to add some spices to the materials.

The candles in the room were dim and bright, and Li Yuanhao's slightly lowered face was hidden in the darkness, making people feel a little uneasy and fearful.

He was silent for a long time, then suppressed his anger and said: "Who can tell me what is going on? Didn't the scouts come to report that there are only five thousand defenders in the city and no cannons?"

"This"

General Fangdang Qiu Hu hesitated and said: "But all the scouts who entered the city were like this. Could it be that Zusiluo bought cannons from the Song army during this time?"

"I don't think so. There must be some fraud involved."

Another general, Fei Tingguxi, said: "How did An Ziluo know that we were coming? How dare he go out of the city to fight? The last general is suspicious."

As he spoke, he looked at Zhang Yuandao, who had been silent next to him, and said, "I suspect there is something wrong in the army."

Li Yuanhao suddenly looked at Zhang Yuan suspiciously.

Zhang Yuan gave a wry smile and then said: "Your Majesty, I think that there is no detail."

"Oh?"

Li Yuanhao said without comment: "You tell me."

"With careful attention to detail, could we have safely crossed the river like this? All they had to do was place the cannon at the mouth of the river and attack halfway across the river, and our army would have suffered heavy losses."

Zhang Yuan explained patiently: "Besides, if the king defeats the enemy, he will also take advantage of the victory to pursue us, so there is nothing wrong with An Ziluo going out of the city to fight fiercely and trying to chase us down."

"Then what's the explanation for this cannon?"

Li Yuanhao asked.

"Your Majesty, don't forget the Song Army."

"You mean the Song Army outside Lanzhou City?"

"good."

Zhang Yuan said: "Before, we conducted a detailed investigation and found that they only had more than 2,000 people and no cannons. But what if cannons were delivered after a detailed inspection? Now there are more than a thousand cannons in the Song Dynasty. We will build a few more this year. It is also possible to send it to the military camp."

"I"

Li Yuanhao was speechless for a moment. Just think about it.

His scouts did investigate Wang Shiyun's department.

However, he did not dare to attack Song Jun directly.

Afraid of leaking any of the Song army scouts, what awaited him was the Song Dynasty accusing him of tearing up the alliance, and then the main force of the army went directly to Xixia.

So we can only attack Lanzhou.

Maybe Wang Shiyun's department didn't have cannons before, but now they are equipped with them?

If this is really the case, I don’t know where to go to reason.

"Even so, there are artillery in Lanzhou City now, what should we do?"

Fei Tinggu said carefully.

Zhang Yuan said seriously: "Your Majesty, I feel that Lanzhou City actually has only 5,000 people, plus at most 2,000 Song troops. Since we attacked Qingtang, and the Song army took the initiative to attack us, the Song State has broken the contract, and the Song State will hold them accountable in the future. , Li is also on our side, there is no need to worry. The most important thing now is to find a way to break the city."

"Do you have any ideas?"

Li Yuanhao asked.

"I took a look today. They are attacking from the mountains south of Lanzhou City to the west. Our attack from west to east is naturally within their range, but what if we attack from north to south?"

Zhang Yuan said.

"Oh?"

Li Yuanhao thought about it for a moment, and then said with great joy: "The military advisor is still smart, but now that we have suffered a new defeat and our morale is low, we will attack from the north city after a day's rest."

"Then why don't we attack that mountain and knock down the cannons on the mountain?"

someone asked.

Zhang Yuan patiently explained: "The mountain is steep. If we attack the mountain in reverse, we will suffer a big loss if they fire artillery down the mountain. Therefore, we only need to attack from north to south, and their artillery will be useless."

The ancient city of Lanzhou was not located by the Yellow River, but at the foot of Gaolan Mountain, about ten miles away from the Yellow River. Domestic drinking water relied on the Agan River, which was later the Leitan River in Lanzhou.

Therefore, if you attack from north to south, Lanzhou does not have the natural danger of the Yellow River. To the north is an endless plain area, which is very easy to attack.

The Xixia Army attacked from the west, so the Gaolan Mountain artillery in the south did not need to cross Lanzhou City and flew directly from the northwest wilderness to hit their position.

But if it were fired from north to south, then the artillery shells would have to pass over Lanzhou City. Not only might they accidentally damage Lanzhou City, but they would also be farther away.

It is several miles from Lanzhou to Gaolan Mountain, and several miles north and south of Lanzhou City. In addition, the Xixia Army must have started running several miles away.

All of them add up to a distance of more than 20 miles.

No matter how powerful the Song army's artillery is, it can't shoot more than 20 miles.

Therefore, it is indeed better to attack from north to south.

After everyone finally understood, Li Yuanhao decided to take a rest first and launch a general attack on Lanzhou the day after tomorrow.

While the Xixia Army was analyzing the situation, the Song Army was also analyzing it.

In Lanzhou City, Wang Shiyun and An Ziluo discussed countermeasures.

"When will reinforcements arrive?"

An Ziluo asked anxiously.

"It's more than 200 miles from Lanzhou to Junzhai, but there are our beacon towers along the way. We have lit the beacons a long time ago. I think we can get there the day after tomorrow at the latest."

Wang Shiyun replied.

Historically, during the Shenzong period, the Qingtang regime was slowly annexed and a large number of fortresses were built on the border.

But there is none at this time, and the closest one is only the ancient Weizhai, which is more than 300 miles away from Lanzhou.

However, Fan Zhongyan adopted Zhao Jun's suggestion and built a large number of beacon towers on the border to quickly convey news.

This thing is much faster than sending messages on horseback. Almost as soon as the war here started, Wang Shiyun had the beacon lighted.

The terrain in the north of Saibei is open and hilly. The beacon tower is built on the hills. As long as it doesn't rain, the green smoke can be seen twenty or thirty miles away.

So in almost an hour, relying on the beacon tower to send messages, the Guwei Village had already learned the news, and the governor of the Guwei Village immediately led his troops to come to the rescue.

"I'm afraid the bandits will attack tomorrow."

An Ziluo sighed.

The nearest reinforcement is the Song Army, but there are not many people in the ancient Weizhai Village. There are only three armies, about 7,000 people, and there is also an army in Lanzhou controlled by Wang Shiyun.

And Qingtang, which is hundreds of miles away from Zusiluo, is even less likely to come to rescue immediately. Now they have thousands of people trapped in the isolated city.

Wang Shiyun comforted: "Don't worry, the Western bandits suffered a disastrous defeat today and the army's morale has been weakened. Li Yuanhao should not be in a hurry to attack. The only thing to worry about now is that they attack from the north city, which is dangerous."

"Why?"

An Ziluo was puzzled.

"I saw it on the mountain today. It's too far away from the North City. If the Western thieves still have cannons, our cannons cannot hit them if they are placed on the mountain, and they can easily hit the city accidentally. If they are placed on the city wall, we can't hit them either."

Wang Shiyun explained: "Their cannons can shoot more than ten miles, and our cannons can only shoot three or four miles, unless they continue to attack from the West City like today."

An Ziluo said hurriedly: "Today we captured nine of their cannons and many artillery shells."

"Place it in the city first, and then I'll think of a solution."

Wang Shiyun fell into deep thought.

Night falls and the day passes quickly.

By the evening of the next day, dust was flying on the official road east of Lanzhou City.

"Hurry up!"

Thousands of war horses galloped, and the leader was a strong bearded man. This man was Sun Guangyi, the governor of the ancient Weizhai tribe.

The defenders on Lanzhou City in the distance saw the banner of the Song Army and did not open the door immediately.

It wasn't until Wang Shiyun saw Sun Guangyi at the top of the city that he immediately ordered the city to be opened, and a large group of soldiers poured in.

"General Sun."

Wang Shiyun and An Ziluo greeted him.

Sun Guangyi smiled and said: "It's not too late."

"Just in time."

Wang Shiyun smiled, and then asked in confusion: "General, you came so quickly, did you bring the cannon?"

He sent the message at noon yesterday, and as of this afternoon, about fifteen hours have passed, which is almost thirty hours.

For a distance of three hundred miles, if you travel day and night, it is normal for the cavalry to arrive in one night. For example, Cao Cao sent tiger and leopard cavalry to chase Liu Bei for more than three hundred miles in one day and night.

The problem is that you have to bring the small steel cannon.

In this case, the speed would be much slower, so Wang Shiyun speculated that they would not arrive until tomorrow.

Who knew it was so fast.

"What cannon do you want? Do you know what I picked up on the road?"

Sun Guangyi smiled.

"what?"

Wang Shiyun wondered.

Sun Guangyi pointed to the two young officers behind him and said, "I picked them up."

The young officer cupped his hands and said: "Zeng Yong, the commander of the Tokyo Firearms Third Battalion of the Dragon Regiment, has met the general!"

Another person also raised his hand and said: "Zhang Wenwu, the commander of the 4th Tokyo Firearms Battalion of the Dragon Regiment, has met the general!"

Firearms camp?

Even Wang Shiyun knew the other party's reputation at the border.

In fact, Wang Shiyun and Sun Guangyi were investigated by the envoys sent by Bianliang last month.

Neither of them had committed any crime, nor had they collaborated with the enemy. Therefore, the envoy was very satisfied. Not only did he look kind, but he also told them a lot about Tokyo.

It is said that this firearms camp was organized and built last year by Xianggong Fan and Xianggong Zhang, who mobilized 50,000 elite troops and divided them into ten legions, with each legion having 5,000 men. They had strong combat effectiveness and were the artifacts of the Song Dynasty.

This time the whole army was reorganized, and envoys were sent from all over the country to strictly inspect the army and improve military discipline. In order to prevent the invasion of Xixia and Liao, the imperial court specially sent 35,000 firearms battalions to guard the border. Among them, 20,000 people are on Hebei Road and 15,000 are on Shaanxi Road.

I didn't expect to encounter two battalions of one thousand people this time.

Sun Guangyi introduced: "The two of them were ordered to go north to Huining to guard. Passing by the ancient Weizhai, I happened to see the beacon fire you sent out, so I immediately asked them to come to help."

"How many cannons did you bring?"

Wang Shiyun asked quickly.

cannon?

Zeng Yong and Zhang Wenwu looked at each other and smiled: "There is no one."

"No cannons? What to do?"

Wang Shiyun said worriedly: "I don't know when the Western thieves also made cannons. Although they are not as good as our cannons, their range is much farther than ours."

"It doesn't matter."

Zhang Wenwu took out a long and thin object from behind, patted it and said: "We have guns!"

"gun?"

Wang Shiyun looked up and down and said, "Is this considered a gun?"

Although the musket was successfully produced two years ago, it has always been kept secret. From the time it was manufactured to the time of formal mass production, it was only available in the firearms camp.

Zeng Yong said: "The general doesn't believe it. If the Western thieves come in the future, we will naturally let them know how powerful we are."

"Let's go to the city first."

An Ziluo greeted them quickly.

At that moment, Wang Shiyun took Sun Guangyi and others into the city first.

After entering the city, everyone gathered at the city lord's mansion.

They briefly explained the current situation to several people.

The current balance of forces is very disparate. Even if Sun Guangyi and others come over, the Qingtang and Song coalition forces will only have more than 10,000 people, while the enemy has 100,000.

Therefore, Wang Shiyun suggested that the captured Xixia cannons should be installed on the mountains, so that the cannons and the range of the mountains could reach the enemy positions.

The only problem is that it is easy for them to carry a small cannon weighing more than 100 kilograms up the mountain, but it is difficult for them to carry a large cannon weighing more than 2,000 kilograms.

The mountain road was originally rugged and difficult to navigate, so it was difficult to carry this cannon up.

However, Zhang Wenwu and Zeng Yong rejected their proposal. They suggested that the cannons should be placed on the city wall to confront the enemy. After the war started, they would launch a surprise attack from the flanks.

Since it is difficult to turn artillery, not to mention that the opponent will definitely place the artillery in front of the formation to fire from a long distance. As long as they attack from the side or the rear, and there are Xixia troops on the side and rear, it is impossible for the enemy to hit them with artillery.

When the time comes, Zhang Wenwu and Zeng Yong will give the Xixia army a taste of the power of muskets.

Both Wang Shiyun and An Ziluo felt that they were a bit blindly confident, which showed that they were full of confidence. They also felt that since the imperial court had built a firearms camp, it would not be without aim. After discussion, they decided to implement their method.

So on the next day, Qingtang and the Song Dynasty allied forces began to prepare seriously.

(End of this chapter)