People in the Song Dynasty were lawless

Chapter 293 Vulnerable

On September 2nd, at the end of the morning, the sky and the earth were vast.

The wilderness outside Lanzhou City is vast, and on the distant western plain, countless dense black spots are slowly moving towards the city.

The people who lived outside the city had long since fled. Some fled south into the mountains with their families, some hurriedly hid in the city, and some simply left their homes and fled eastward into the Song Dynasty.

The Xixia people took advantage of the Song army's internal reorganization and had no time to take care of themselves. He also took advantage of the fact that Qingtang had been doing business for a long time and had neglected military training. He wanted to capture Lanzhou in one fell swoop and then take Hehuang to the west.

Although the Song army sent 15,000 firearms troops to the northwest border, the news could not be sent out in a short time, and no Song army had yet come to help.

But luckily, there happened to be two battalions of firearms troops who were ordered to station in Huining, the northwest border of the Song Dynasty. When passing by the ancient Weizhai, they were pulled over by the local general Sun Guangyi.

They were originally stationed at the border to fight. When they heard that there was a war to be fought, the two commanders of the firearms battalion, Zeng Yong and Sun Guangyi, naturally wanted to come over to help.

The Song Dynasty and Qingtang had signed a Song-Qing Strategic Mutual Assistance Contract, and the imperial court often said that it would provide more help to Qingtang's slaves.

So everyone was eager to give it a try.

In late autumn and September, the weather in Saibei is slowly getting colder.

Although the grass has not yet turned yellow, the wilderness is already covered with brown and green.

Lanzhou City has always been the permanent residence of the Tibetan people, Uighurs and Han people. Many ethnic minorities here have learned farming. Nomadic herding and farming coexist, making them an extremely rare nomadic farming nation.

But at this moment, the farmland outside the city has long been uncultivated, and the village has been deserted for several days, leaving only abandoned dogs barking.

The large group of Xixia soldiers bypassed the village and headed north of Lanzhou City from the wilderness to the north.

It's not that they have the quality not to destroy villages or trample farmland, it's just that they are afraid of wasting time. It is better to take the main road than to go through the villages and fields with obstacles, and go to the battlefield as early as possible to form formations.

But even so, many horses did not follow the team and scattered into the wheat fields, chewing on the newly planted winter wheat seedlings, causing heavy losses to the Hu and Han people living outside the city.

By the beginning of Sishi, countless Xixia people had appeared in the north of Lanzhou City. The densely packed soldiers were divided into countless legions in the wilderness. The formations were widely spread out. This was not a traditional massed formation. This was to prevent cannons.

They were about seven or eight miles away from Lanzhou City. As the Xixia generals continued to roar, forty cannons were pulled up.

There is a huge difference between these cannons and the cannons of the Song Dynasty. The most obvious thing is that there are iron hoops on them to prevent the chamber from exploding. Even if the Xixia people have good smelting technology and their armor is better than that of the Song people, wrought iron is still wrought iron after all. Incomparable to steel.

"emission!"

The generals commanded by Xixia shouted loudly in Dangxiang dialect.

"Bang bang bang bang bang bang!"

The cannon fired huge sparks, and the lead bullets splashed out instantly, drawing an arc in the air and hitting Lanzhou City.

After a while, there were huge noises everywhere on the city walls, city towers and even inside the city.

The people on the city wall of Lanzhou were not to be outdone. The Tibetans did not know how to use cannons, but the Song soldiers did. They used the nine captured cannons to fight back and continued to fire artillery fire outside the city.

The two sides went back and forth, fighting each other from a very long distance, even if the hit rate was pitifully low.

But as long as the Xixia people are lucky and any shell hits the north city gate and breaks the city gate, they can withstand the artillery fire on the city and charge all the way to the city.

And while the two sides were in full swing, in this chaos, no one noticed that on the hillside more than ten miles away in the east, there were a thousand cavalrymen, looking at the majestic battle to the west from a distance. , as if the Xixia army could not see the end at a glance.

Zhao Jun did not invent the telescope. In fact, in the historical novels Zhao Zhen read, there was mention of how to make glass and then make a telescope.

Zhao Zhen went to experiment excitedly.

The result was a slap in the face.

TM's.

He found that many historical novels were fabricated.

The method in the novel is useless.

It was not until later that I read a novel called "The Conquest of the Three Kingdoms" that I understood the reason.

It turns out that due to limitations in firing technology and raw materials, China's local glass firing method will cause the raw material sand to contain lead and barium, so the fired lead-barium glass is not transparent soda-lime glass.

Many historical novels do not check the information at all, and they just write it out of the blue. Only when they actually work on it do they realize that there are big problems in it.

According to the description in that novel, if you want to bake soda-lime glass, you must use special methods to remove the lead and barium in the sand, and then you can bake soda-lime glass normally.

The novel records the method, which is to add sodium carbonate, that is, soda, during the production process.

It sounds simple.

However, before the Belgian Ernest Solvay invented the Solvay alkali production method in 1861, and later the famous Chinese chemist Mr. Hou Debang invented the Hou's alkali production method, it was almost impossible to make soda.

The novel only said that the protagonist knew how to produce it, but the specific method was not specified, so Zhao Zhen felt quite uncomfortable.

Another missed opportunity to plagiarize ideas and leave a name in history.

Famous thinker, educator, biologist, agriculturalist, father of modern genetics, reformist pioneer, founder of the world dominance of the Song Dynasty, pioneer of the dynasty, etc., unfortunately there is one missing chemical person. Home.

Without telescopes, Zeng Yong and the others could only watch from a distance with their naked eyes. They saw a large number of Xixia Iron Kites cavalry cruising in the periphery, which was obviously a threat to them.

"go!"

Zeng Yong waved his hand, and the cavalry behind him suddenly galloped forward.

Not to be outdone, Zhang Wenwu also urged the horses.

The cavalry regiment of one thousand people divided into left and right wings, formed a neat formation and ran forward.

Probably less than a few minutes later, the Iron Kites scouts who were at least ten miles away from the city quickly discovered them, and all kinds of horns and whistles kept sounding.

A scout quickly reported to Li Yuanhao and learned that only about a thousand Song cavalry were attacking. He didn't take it to heart. He just sent three thousand iron kite heavy cavalry to intercept, while still focusing on the city in the distance.

Due to the advantage of his artillery, Lanzhou City was obviously at a disadvantage at this time, and even the city towers were blown down. The defenders above were frightened, and the frequency of counterattacks was much less.

Here, Zeng Yong and the others continued to move forward. They were still about six miles away from the Xixia people's main military formation, and three thousand iron kites surrounded them.

"kill!"

They all wore heavy armor, held scimitars in their hands, and made sounds like wolf howls from their mouths.

Neither side charged, but just let the horses advance slowly.

Because horses are good at short-distance explosive power, if they charge at the beginning, it will seriously waste their horsepower. Especially the Xixia heavy armored cavalry can't actually run a few hundred meters in one charge.

But what the Xixia people didn't expect was that, only two hundred steps away from them, the enemy suddenly stopped and looked at them from a distance.

Although they were a little confused, the Xixia people would not stop. They continued to move forward slowly and steadily.

As long as they reach a hundred steps, which is about 140 meters, they will officially launch a charge, moving forward like a roaring steel army, crushing everything in front of them into powder.

"Raise the gun!"

Zeng Yong and Zhang Wenwu both shouted loudly.

Almost all the Song soldiers took off their muskets from behind.

"Reload!"

They continued shouting.

The soldiers methodically stuffed mini rounds into the barrels of their guns.

At this time, the Xixia people were still more than 200 meters away from them.

"Prepare!"

After waiting for ten seconds, the two commanders shouted again.

All soldiers raised their guns.

"emission!"

"Bang bang bang bang bang bang!"

White smoke instantly emerged from the barrel.

Under the thrust of gunpowder and rifling, countless small lead bullets came out of the barrel at extremely fast speeds, tearing through the void and shooting towards the enemy formation.

"Clap clap clap clap!"

A large number of bullets shot through the Xixia people's armor, and suddenly the iron kites fell down in pieces.

"hiss!"

The living iron kites gasped.

Because they didn't know what happened, they only knew that the Song people raised an inexplicable long pipe and pointed it at them.

After a "bang bang bang bang" sound, the cavalry at the front of the team fell from their horses as if they were possessed by a demon. Most of the people on the ground did not die on the spot and were still wailing in pain.

This made the rest of the Xixia cavalry hesitate for a while, and all of them couldn't help but pull on the horse's rope, afraid to move forward.

A general at the rear cowered when he saw the front, cursed a few words in Dangxiang dialect, and once again urged the soldiers to move forward. As long as they reached a hundred steps, they could urge the horses to launch a charge that would kill the opponent!

But just over twenty seconds later, the "bang bang bang bang" sound of death struck again, and a large number of soldiers fell down in front. In just one encounter, they lost hundreds of people.

"what!"

Finally, someone couldn't help it. After seeing the inexplicable death of his teammate in front of him, he couldn't help shouting, then turned his horse's head and ran away.

Like dominoes, the remaining two thousand remaining iron kites fled to the rear one after another.

"Chase!"

Zeng Yong and Zhang Wenwu shouted loudly.

Many Song Army cavalry immediately put away their guns and urged their horses to pursue forward.

Their equipment is like this. They are wearing the autumn military uniforms of the Song Army, with a straight sword hanging on the right side of their waist.

There is a small bag hanging on the left waist, and there are three grenades in the bag.

There are also two large cloth bags hanging on both sides of the horse. There are many small cloth bags in the cloth bag, each of which contains a mini bomb and a rationed pack of gunpowder.

After each shooting, the soldiers had to spend at least twenty seconds cleaning the powder box and loading ammunition.

Therefore, the firing efficiency is still relatively low. It can only fire 2-3 rounds per minute, which is far less fast than the small steel cannon. But the small steel cannon requires four people to work together, one person loads the match rope, two people fill the ammunition, and the last person lights the match rope and fires it, and it must be skillful to operate it every 6-7 seconds.

This is because the blast rate of steel in the black powder era was relatively low. Black powder was still not as powerful as yellow powder, and it was difficult to explode steel cannons with stronger structures and stronger strength.

If it was a wrought iron cannon, someone would have to use a brush dipped in water to cool the barrel, and the barrel could not be fired until it was completely cool.

而且每分钟2-3发的炮弹也只是在初期能用几次，到后面都必须保持1分钟1发，乃至2分钟1发，否则就要炸膛。

Although the Song Army's firearms were also made of steel and had a low explosion rate, soldiers needed to complete the three steps of cleaning the powder box, loading gunpowder, and loading bullets alone, so the efficiency was naturally much slower than that of steel cannons.

Therefore, in terms of rate of fire alone, muskets are still inferior to artillery. But in terms of close-range individual combat capabilities, muskets surpassed artillery by several blocks.

The cavalry continued to press forward mightily.

Soon the Xixia Legion in the distance noticed that the Iron Kites were defeated, and a scout reported to Li Yuanhao.

Li Yuanhao was eager for quick success at this time. After firing for 1-2 minutes in the initial stage, he did not stop and wait for the barrel to cool down, causing several cannons to explode and became irritated.

After hearing the report from the scouts, they didn't pay much attention to the attack of a thousand people, but sent an additional five thousand people to continue the siege.

But he obviously underestimated the power of these Song troops.

And what Li Yuanhao didn't know was that as these Song troops advanced slowly, Wang Shiyun from the rear arrived at the battlefield with more than a dozen small steel cannons of his own.

The small steel cannon is relatively light. Even without a horse, two people can carry it weighing more than 100 kilograms.

They arrived about four or five miles away and began to set up the fort.

During the Napoleonic era in the 18th century AD, without rifling, the longest range of the 12-pound Napoleon cannon could reach 2.5 to 3 kilometers.

By the beginning of the 19th century, with the advent of rifled guns, this range was directly increased to 3 to 5 kilometers, which is a distance of ten miles.

Nowadays, Zhao Jun's artillery is all rifled artillery, and the artillery imitated by the Xixia and Liao people also have rifling.

The two countries do not have the technology to smelt steel. Although the production method is not like the mold used by the Song Dynasty, it is simple and crude. Just use the most primitive scraper method.

Their cannons all weigh about one thousand to two thousand kilograms, have a very large caliber, shoot at an elevation angle, and with the blessing of rifling, the longest range is about 10 miles. If they are at a high place, the distance will be further.

The small steel cannon has a small caliber and a small amount of gunpowder.

Although they are blessed with rifling, the range on flat ground is only four or five miles, so they must rely on the protection of musketeers to advance forward.

Of course.

It's okay to flank the enemy's artillery position.

Because the steering and maneuverability of other people's cannons are so poor, it is difficult to threaten the small steel cannon position.

But it can't withstand other people's cavalry raids.

Therefore, the Musket Corps position is actually to protect the artillery position.

The Xixia people on the periphery could already see about two thousand Song troops appearing behind them. As Li Yuanhao issued the military order, thousands more cavalry surrounded them.

At this time, the rear was still loading small steel cannons, so Zeng Yong and Zhang Wenwu ordered to stay in place and use three-stage shooting to block the invading enemy.

The result was that enemies from all directions came to kill one by one, and a large number of Xixia people were shot to pieces.

Many people also tried shooting with bows and arrows, but the Xixia people were all cavalry, and the cavalry bows they used had a terrible range compared with muskets.

For a time, the Xixia people in the rear were unable to break through the hail of bullets, and Wang Shiyun had almost no pressure on his side.

"All right!"

After about a few minutes, Wang Shiyun finally installed the small steel cannon.

He raised his head and looked at Zeng Yong and others who were guarding them not far away, and shouted angrily: "Shoot out all the cannonballs, leave no one behind, even if the barrel is exploded!"

"Yes!"

Dozens of gunners responded.

Although steel cannons are stronger than wrought iron cannons and bronze cannons, they are not immune to explosions. If they are used frequently, they may explode.

But they can't care about that much at the moment. They use a small number of troops to deal with Xixia's 50,000-strong army and must go all out.

The artillerymen quickly performed their duties, loading the gunpowder and loading the shells. In just 6-7 seconds, everyone completed all the steps.

"emission!"

Wang Shiyun shouted.

"Bang bang bang bang!"

Flames erupted from the muzzle.

The barrel of the gun seemed to be erupting from a volcano.

Smoke was rising.

A few seconds later, the Xixia people's position was several miles away.

Suddenly there was a loud noise.

More than a dozen howitzers exploded in their dense crowd, sending mud flying and rocks flying.

"what happened?"

Suddenly hearing a huge explosion from behind, Li Yuanhao quickly turned around to look.

But there were so many cavalry heads behind him that it was impossible to see the situation clearly.

He glanced around and noticed a small slope three or four meters high in front of him on the right, so he quickly rode up.

When he reached the small slope, he noticed an artillery position very far behind, so far away that he could only see some small black dots.

Li Yuanhao said angrily: "Why did the enemy come behind me? Pass it on, go and clear out those artillery pieces!"

"Yes!"

The ordering soldiers around him immediately went to the rear to convey military orders.

However, at this time, there was chaos in the rear.

The Song Army used whatever shells they had, speeding up the attack, completely ignoring the danger of exploding the barrels, and firing the artillery at full power.

The quality of the steel produced by Zhao Jun was really good. While maintaining a rate of 8-10 rounds per minute, it was a miracle that not a single steel cannon exploded.

毕竟所谓每分钟8-10发，基本上也就能持续个2-3分钟就不错了，正常情况下，还是应该每分钟3-4发最好。

Under the indiscriminate bombardment of the small steel cannons, the Xixia rear army was defeated. Several legions were defeated and fled in all directions.

At this time, from the far west and out of range, the troops mobilized by Li Yuanhao arrived belatedly.

About ten thousand people surrounded the position from three directions.

But when they were about to make a breakthrough, the 1,000-man musketeer army in front maintained a continuous shooting rate.

Zeng Yong and Zhang Wenwu kept giving orders to fire, and each time more than 300 people fired bullets, forming a dense firepower network within 200 meters in front, which almost no one could break through.

Each Xixia soldier felt a pain in his chest for no apparent reason, and then fell off his horse as if struck by lightning.

This scene obviously frightened the other Xixia soldiers. After several rounds, they lost thousands of people, but they did not advance to a hundred steps of the local position.

Even if they were galloping, many war horses were frightened by the loud sound of guns and ran around, making it impossible to organize an effective charging formation.

For a time, the positions in the northeast of Xixia's rear were in chaos. At least 10,000 to 20,000 people were hit by muskets and artillery, and they were running around, almost completely defeated.

Soon this situation swept through the entire Xixia army. A large number of fleeing soldiers dispersed part of the military formation, causing the rear defense line of the Xixia army to close to collapse and completely unable to form an army.

If you look down from a high altitude, you will see that in the northeast corner of the Xixia Army, artillery and musketeers formed a small position of the Song Army to launch a fierce attack on some of the legions in the northeast corner of the Xixia Army.

This part of the army actually only numbered more than 10,000 people, but it could not withstand the firepower of the Song army. The horses and horses were so frightened that they ran around in panic.

Howitzers are not as powerful as solid rounds, but they are really effective against cavalry.

Because it would explode after landing and produce a huge sound, the horses would be like a frying pan after hearing it and would not listen to the knight's command at all. As a result, the place fell in just two or three minutes.

Then began to roll back the entire Xixia army.

In an instant, the army was defeated like a mountain.

Li Yuanhao stood on the hillside and looked out, and saw that his troops fled inexplicably. The entire army was attacked and subsequently defeated.

He was stunned for a moment, and quickly ordered: "Quick, call the gold to withdraw the troops, call the gold to withdraw the troops!"

But before he could ring the bell, the gate of Lanzhou opened wide in the distance.

All the Tibetan soldiers were killed.

Then the Song army from behind also launched a charge, pursuing them like a hunter driving away his prey.

Li Yuanhao had no time to gather his troops. All the 50,000 troops fled for their lives without any formation. Many people were even trampled to death in the crowd and fell off their horses.

At this time, Li Yuanhao could no longer control the troops, and he was forced to flee westward on horseback.

Wang Shiyun from the rear looked at the defeated Xixia army, watched Zeng Yong and Zhang Wenwu put away their spears, drew out their straight swords from their waists, shouted and rushed forward, grinning at the corner of his mouth and said disdainfully: "Vulnerable! "

"boom!"

The next moment, a small steel cannon more than thirty meters away from him on the right was finally overwhelmed and exploded, making a huge noise.

　A friend said that the range of cannons was wrong. I guess he missed it. The cannons in the book are all rifled cannons, and their range is twice as far as that of smoothbore cannons. Some people have said before that rifling cannot be made by hand, but in fact rifling existed in the 15th century. There are many ways to make it by hand. The information found includes not only molds, but also knife engraving, and even original lathes.

　　The range and rate of fire of the firearm are also different from the original flintlock gun. This is because the Mini bullet was used directly. With the Mini bullet, the flintlock smoothbore gun became a flintlock rifled gun. The rate of fire and range are not the same. ?

　　The rate of fire of the small steel cannon is also reasonable. 10 rounds per minute is the maximum rate of fire. In the 18th century Anglo-French war, it was recorded that the bronze smoothbore small-caliber cannon could reach 7-8 rounds per minute at the fastest, but it would easily explode the chamber.

　　If it is made of steel, the explosion rate will be lower, and it is normal to increase the rate of fire.

　　Both the Mini bullet and the rifling are not products of the industrial era. They basically existed in Britain and France around the 18th century. Therefore, the data in the book are basically reasonable. Please rest assured.

　　

　

(End of this chapter)