Standalone Northern and Southern Dynasties

Chapter 480 Gunpowder
Yang Jia climbed Nanping Mountain again.

As Hou Jing strategically tightened the encirclement and suppression of the Nanping Liao, Yang Jia's mountain infantry also began to conduct continuous combat training in the Nanping Mountains.

During these days, Yang Jia also summed up a lot of tactics specific to mountain warfare. He summarized these experiences, and the military commander compiled them into text and handed them over to Hou Jing, who praised him highly. Hou Jing promised to recommend Yang Jia to study at the newly established Military Academy established by Su Jungong after this battle.

The Military Academy was a newly established institution, affiliated with the Chongwen Pavilion.

At the beginning, Chongwen Pavilion did not distinguish between civil and military officials. For example, Yang Jia's military Sima was a scholar who graduated from Chongwen Pavilion. He took the initiative to request to join the army in Shu.

The military commander does not have command authority, but is responsible for all clerical work of the entire camp, so his power is actually quite considerable.

However, compared to other scholars who could become county magistrates or marquises after graduation, being a marching Sima in the army was not such a good place. Fighting in a war was dangerous and they would be with the soldiers all day long, so the children of high-ranking noble families were extremely unwilling to do so.

Under such circumstances, Su Ze set up another department in Chongwen Pavilion, called Jiangwu Hall, which was specifically responsible for recruiting scholars who were willing to join the army.

At the same time, the Military Academy is also a school for systematic training of mid-level officers. Any mid-level officer who wants to become a senior officer must also meet a certain cultural level and need to study and graduate from the Military Academy.

Hou Jing promised Yang Jia that he could go to the Military Academy, which meant recommending him to be a senior military officer, which meant he would be out of the rank of colonel.

In Hou Jing's words, Duke Su not only likes soldiers who fight bravely, but also soldiers who use their brains in battle.

The soldiers around Yang Jia all wore green rattan armor and leather armor.

Especially the rattan armor, Yang Jia discovered that the rattan armor made in the rear workshop is actually not that afraid of fire.

Yang Jia didn't know that Su Ze used the method of making rattan armor from the Ming Dynasty's "Wu Bei Zhi" -

"Red rattan armor: use 50 jin of red rattan, soak it in water in a stone trough for half a month, take it out and dry it for three days, then put it back into the trough and add water.

The outside of the armor is oiled with tung oil. It is light and strong, and can block arrows and blades.

It is good for water and fire. You can also use this vine to make a hat, a helmet when facing an enemy, and a shield when in the shade.

The rattan armor is soaked in tung oil, which is the oil extracted from the fruit of the tung tree. This oil was widely used on the decks of ocean-going ships during the Age of Discovery and has fire-proof and moth-proof properties.

Tung oil has a relatively high ignition point and is not easy to ignite under normal circumstances.

The rattan armor could block the Liao people's blowgun arrows and could also hide the body in the mountains. After it was promoted, it quickly became popular among the soldiers.

In addition, the Mo Dao is also a very suitable weapon for use in jungle combat.

The mountains near Ba County are full of thorns, and one has to use a Mo Dao to cut a path through the thorns.

The progress of human development of the jungle is actually inseparable from the development of iron smelting technology.

Humans in the Bronze Age did not have a good way to deal with forests. In that era, bronze tools were valuable weapons and farm tools and could not be used to cut down trees.

Humans in the Iron Age were already able to develop forests, and ordinary forests had become places for people to cut firewood.

However, the rainforest and jungle were still forbidden zones for life for most civilizations of that era. There were a lot of thorns, and the blades of iron tools would become blunt after being cut for a while. There were also various dangers in the jungle.

It was not until the Steel Age that humans began to exploit jungles and rainforests on a large scale.

Yang Jia was not planning to develop Nanping Mountain. He just wanted to open up some roads on the mountain. It would be much more convenient to use the newly delivered weapons to break through the thorns.

But today Yang Jia did not come for training, but came with a mission.

Ambushing in the mountains, Yang Jia saw a colorful team.

It's really coming!

Some time ago, Hou Jing received news that Xiao Yan, the Emperor of Southern Liang, agreed to the request of Kexian, the Lord of Nanping Liaodong, to marry his daughter Princess Yongxing to Kexian and conferred the title of King of Nanping on Kexian.

As soon as the marriage team entered Ba County, they were targeted by the Xuan Jing Division.

After getting the intelligence, Hou Jing attached great importance to it. Nanping Liao was the largest tribe among the Liao people in Ba County. Dongzhu Kexian had always been ambitious. Once the marriage between Nanping Liao and the Liao was completed, he would have the prestige and reason to integrate all the Liao people.

This was something Hou Jing, who was busy clearing out the threat posed by the Liao people in Ba County, could not tolerate.

That's why Yang Jia appeared in the mountains, ready to attack the wedding party escorted by Chen Baxian.

As an officer at the rank of colonel, Yang Jia had been equipped with a telescope. He took out the telescope from the tube at his waist and quickly saw the configuration of the entire team.

Chen Baxian was an old acquaintance of Yang Jia. This envoy of Southern Liang was very active in Ba County. Yang Jia had once been ordered to hunt him down in the mountains, but Chen Baxian had managed to escape.

In order to escort Princess Yongxing to her marriage, Chen Baxian also led an elite team of a hundred people.

But this time, a smile appeared on Yang Jia's face.

He said to the military commander beside him, "Master Zhang, tell me how we should fight this time?"

Zhang Chong was from Chizhou. His father and brother were both members of the first batch of government soldiers, but they had all died in battle. As the only remaining male in the family, he could not join the army according to regulations. However, because of the merits of his father and brother, he was recommended to join the Chongwen Pavilion.

However, Zhang Chong still insisted on joining the army. After completing his studies in Chongwen Pavilion, he insisted on becoming a military commander.

Compared with those military teachers in other camps who were full of nonsense, Zhang Chong was very much to Yang Jia's liking.

Yang Jia has rich practical experience and cooperates well with Zhang Chong, who has read military books. Zhang Chong knows that Yang Jia already has a tactic in mind and this is a test for himself.

He thought for a while and said:

"Our army should set up an ambush at the foot of the mountain, attack from the front and back, and surround the bride's escort team."

Yang Jia grinned and could only say that these military teachers were good in every way except that they were too theoretical.

There were only more than a hundred people in his own team. Even if he attacked them by surprise, it was impossible to defeat all the enemies.

Moreover, there were many Liao people nearby, who surrounded and pinned the enemy down, so the enemy had already run for help.

Seeing Yang Jia shaking his head, Zhang Chong also asked modestly: "Captain, how should we fight?"

Yang Jia pointed at the gorgeous sedan chair in the team and said:

"Don't forget our mission. We are not here to destroy Chen Baxian, but to disrupt the marriage between Nanliang and Nanping Liao."

"Chen Baxian can run away, so we just need to kidnap the princess."

Yang Jia licked his lips. He didn't expect that he would have the chance to kidnap the princess.

This is the princess of Daliang!
"Sometimes having more people is not an advantage. Those guys who came with the dowry are the breakthrough point. If we give them a chance to escape, they won't unite and fight to the death."

Zhang Chong then nodded, it turned out that Yang Jia’s method was the most brilliant!
To this team, Princess Yongxing's dowry was a burden.

The princess has so many entourage that if chaos breaks out, it will be difficult for Chen Baxian to rescue them.

Yang Jia calculated this accurately, and said to the guards around him:
"Is the thunderbolt ready?"

"It's already loaded!"

The Hongtianbomb is also a new product of the Chengdu workshop.

This name sounds domineering, but it is actually a kind of gunpowder pottery jar that can make a loud explosion.

This was originally just a product that an alchemist obtained accidentally while refining elixirs. After being discovered by Duke Su, a workshop was set up and it began to be promoted in the army.

It just so happens that saltpeter, an important raw material for gunpowder, is a specialty of the Longshan area. Sulfur is also easy to obtain, and the last one is charcoal, and the technology is already very mature.

However, the power of this black medicine is still very limited.

In fact, the generals on the front line did not like this new weapon very much.

The first is that the explosion is too loud, which will not only disturb the enemy but also scare our own people.

Secondly, it is too susceptible to moisture and is also particularly prone to fire, making it inconvenient to transport and store.

The weapons manufacturing workshop successively produced several types of weapons using gunpowder. In the end, the only ones that could be accepted and used at the front line were the "Thunder Bomb".

The most useful one among them is this kind of "thunder bomb".

To put it simply, this is a pottery jar filled with black powder. After the fuse is lit and thrown out, it can produce a loud explosion.

The flying pottery fragments still have some lethality, but other than that their main function is to scare the enemy.

But Yang Jia still liked the thunder bomb very much. For the superstitious Liao people, the thunder bomb was a weapon with considerable psychological impact. He once encountered a tribe, and after he threw a thunder bomb, the entire tribe laid down their weapons, knelt down and surrendered.

They regarded Yang Jia as a god with supernatural powers, and even worshipped the fragments of the pottery jar of Hongtianlei, which made Yang Jia feel a little amused and helpless.

No matter whether it is real killing or shocking damage, or taking advantage of the superstitious psychology of the Liao people, the thunder bomb is very effective.

After lighting the fuse, several soldiers aimed at Princess Yongxing's dowry convoy and threw the bombs in their hands.

These slingers were selected by Yang Jia from the army. Some of them were from his own clan, experts in hunting with slingshots in Qiuchi Mountain.

The thrown sky-bombs accurately landed in Princess Yongxing's dowry convoy, but unfortunately only two of the five bombs exploded.

Two out of five shots went off, that's pretty good, Yang Jia thought to himself, this is why many frontline officers don't like to use it, this thing is too unstable.

However, the two detonated bombs still had a huge effect.

Although the violent explosion did not cause much damage, it caused a huge psychological impact on the pampered dowry convoy.

Princess Yongxing was so frightened that she jumped off the sedan chair and shouted in fear: "Buddha bless you! Buddha bless you!"

Chen Baxian reacted quickly. He had heard from the Liao people around him about this kind of weapon in Hou Jing's army. He immediately ordered the soldiers on both sides to be on alert.

But it was too late. The chaos in the dowry convoy spread to Chen Baxian's team.

Only the elite soldiers around Chen Baxian responded to Chen Baxian's order and drew their swords.

The palace maids and eunuchs who came with Princess Yongxing as a dowry were originally unwilling to come to the deserted Nanping Mountain, and now that chaos had broken out, they were scrambling to get the dowry items and were ready to run away.

This looting also spread to the escorting troops. Just when Chen Baxian led his personal guards to block Yang Jia's army, the rear army had completely collapsed!
(End of this chapter)