The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 416 The Fortress of the Northern Song Dynasty

Meng An gaped in astonishment: "How long has the Northern Song Dynasty occupied Qiao County? Enough time to build a sturdy fortress?"

The soldiers under his command were also bewildered: "They've only been stationed in Qiao County for less than two months."

"Damn it! How could such a huge gray rock have been moved in two months?"

Meng An angrily said, "I think this gray stone fortress is definitely fake. It might be a crudely made structure to scare us. Let's shoot an arrow and see."

Meng An, bow in hand, spurred his horse forward.

A Northern Song soldier poked his head out from the fortress, glanced at the Jin cavalry in the distance, and lit a signal fire... A column of smoke shot into the sky...

Meng'an then rushed to within an arrow's reach of the fortress. He stretched out his arm on horseback and shot an arrow. The arrow flew like a shooting star, heading straight for the outer wall of the fortress.

He concluded that the fortress was poorly constructed, and the arrow was intended to pierce a hole in the thin walls of the fake fortress.

However, the arrow struck the gray outer wall of the fortress with a "ding" sound and bounced backward.

Meng An's mouth gaped open in astonishment: "Huh?"

He realized that the arrow had struck a solid rock, which was so hard that the iron tip could only make a small hole in the gray wall. It was nothing like the arrow he had imagined, which had penetrated deeply into the rock.

"Damn it, how did they do that? How did they build such a fortress in two months? Even moving all these big rocks wouldn't have been enough time!"

While he was still in shock, he saw a row of Northern Song soldiers' heads emerge from the craggy top of the fortress, and a row of small black iron pipes protruding from the firing ports, sparks flying.

Meng An suddenly woke up, quickly reined in his horse, and ran away.

He heard a series of "bang bang bang" sounds behind him, and several clouds of dust exploded from the spot where he had just been standing.

"Damn it, fire the arrows, get them!"

Meng'an's rangers charged forward and unleashed a hail of arrows at the fortress.

The Northern Song soldiers inside the fortress immediately shrank back, and Aotu'ao shielded them from a volley of arrows. Soon, they poked their heads out again, and bang bang bang bang, another barrage of gunfire erupted.

A ranger's horse was struck in the rump, let out a scream, and threw the rider off.

Fortunately, the cavalryman had two horses. He jumped up and climbed onto the other horse, but immediately spurred it away and dared not approach the fortress again.

"Boss, if we want to take down this fortress, we'll have to dismount and form a human ladder to get up there, which will result in heavy casualties."

Meng'an understood this perfectly well; they were rangers, not assault troops, so it was best not to touch such a fortress.

"Run! Let's go to Haozhou from another place."

Meng'an led his thousand troops, galloping far away. They quickly crossed a small river where the channel was narrow and the water was shallow, and then continued running southeast along the river.

Unexpectedly, after running for a while, another gray fortress appeared in front of them!

This fortress was situated on a crucial passage between two small rivers, its sides littered with garbage, leaving only a narrow dirt road for passage. Soldiers were also stationed inside the fortress, and upon spotting the Jin cavalry, they immediately lit the beacon fire.

Meng An was so angry his nose was crooked: "How could they do this? What kind of despicable tactic is this?"

Doesn't he understand?
To defend against raids by nomadic cavalry from northern ethnic minorities, Zhu Yuanzhang built nine border towns and eleven garrisons, totaling more than 150 passes and over 720 forts, protecting the Ming Dynasty for more than two hundred years.

The number of border fortresses Yue Wenxuan is currently building is nothing compared to Zhu Yuanzhang's. Meng An could only say, "Go around!"

As he was leading his team to continue circling, a scout came from behind to report: "Boss, we've spotted a Northern Song cavalry force a few miles behind us, about a thousand riders."

Meng An laughed: "What use are Song's cavalry? If it's a thousand against a thousand, we're not afraid of them."

At this point, his expression suddenly froze: "Is Cricket here? And is that brute with the gun here?"

Subordinate: "Not here!"

Meng An breathed a sigh of relief: "But he was still worried and couldn't help asking again, 'What's so special about these cavalrymen?'"

The subordinate said, "Their breastplates are very shiny; you can see them glittering from a distance. When the sunlight shines on them, they blind me."

Meng An asked in surprise, "Why make the breastplate so shiny?"

Subordinate: "I don't know either."

Meng An: "Who cares why? Let's go and meet them first. We have no reason to be afraid of the cowardly Han cavalry. Anyway, it's better to face cavalry than these strange gray stone fortresses."

The Song army was not good at field battles, while the Jin army was not good at siege warfare.

Therefore, Meng'an's current choice is correct: instead of attacking the fortress, they attacked the Northern Song cavalry. Any Jin general in this situation would have made the same judgment.

The cavalry abandoned the border fortress and turned to meet the Northern Song cavalry.

From a distance, they saw a large flag with three big characters written on it: "One-Zhang-Qing".

This flag has a strong bandit-like feel to it!
Regular generals usually only write their surname on their flags. For example, the Yue Family Army would only write "Yue". Their official title would be written in smaller characters in the corner of the flag.

But the flag in front of us has three characters written on it: "One Zhang Green." This kind of thing looks like something a bandit would do.

Meng An laughed loudly: "They're just a bunch of bandits from Shandong! They put on a shiny breastplate just to give the bandits some prestige. Kill, kill, kill all these trash."

The golden cavalry charged forward with howls and screams...

These Jin cavalrymen were all lightly armored on horseback, without any armor on their bodies, in order to facilitate long-distance raids. Therefore, they mainly relied on archery and did not prefer close combat. Of course, there were also lightly armored horsebacks that could be used for close combat, as mentioned earlier, so I won't go into detail here.

The Jin cavalrymen rode forward, nocking arrows as they went.

As soon as they entered the range of the arrows, they were the first to strike.

Arrows flew in rapid succession toward the army of the One-Zhang-Qing...

At this moment, none of the men of the Ten-Zhang-Qing tribe fought back! The range of the musket cavalry was shorter than that of the musket infantry, so they had to endure it.

It's all thanks to the breastplate!
With a series of clanging sounds, the enemy's arrows struck the gleaming breastplate of the cuirassier and bounced off. A few arrows also hit the horse, but the horse was also covered in a little bit of armor in key areas.

The "face curtain" for the horse's head, the "chicken neck" to protect the horse's neck, the "chest shield" to protect the horse's chest, the "body armor" to protect the horse's torso, and the "back guard" to protect the horse's rump are all made of very lightweight leather. For warhorses that are scientifically bred, this weight is negligible and does not affect the horse's speed.

The arrows of the Jin soldiers were not easy to penetrate these armor plates. Even if they managed to penetrate the armor plates, the arrows would be exhausted and could only cause a slight puncture wound to the warhorse at most.

(End of this chapter)