Twenty. Great Jie around the state

31. One win, one loss

The seventh year of the Northern Song Dynasty, mid-July.

The northern border of the Song Dynasty was full of war. 100,000 Song army generals and soldiers fought bloody on the front line of Hejianfu and Zhendingfu, firmly holding back the pace of the three armies of Liao to the south. For this reason, the soldiers and soldiers of the border army paid a huge price, and the elite of 30,000 soldiers and 20,000 bows were killed in battle.

Half a month later, Liao Xingzong Yelu Zongzhen led the imperial tent's own army into Hejianfu and met with the middle army Yeluren first. After three days of preparation, he used a hundred iron armored artillery to bombard Hejianfu, instantly destroying a section of the five-long city in the outer city. Then the attacking army of Liao took advantage of the situation and bombarded the inner city with gunpowder barrels. Passing in the pass.

The veteran general Wang De led the army to defend the Hejian Mansion. He fought a bloody day and night, and sent all the useful soldiers. When the Liao army was about to break the city, he personally ignited the granary and the armor depot in the city and killed himself.

In this battle, more than 50,000 Song soldiers were stained with blood in the Hejian Mansion. Fortunately, only a dozen people who broke through the siege and reported the news were killed, and Guo Kui was among them.

In addition, the losses in Liaoning are initially estimated to be about 10,000 people.

Almost on the same day, the right-wing soldiers and horses of the State of Liao attacked Dingzhou under the leadership of Yelu Qiuhan, the king of the South Courtyard.

Wang Guo, Zhizhou, Dingzhou, led his army to fight against Jiashan and was trapped in Jiashan. More than 10,000 people died in the battle. Wang Guo killed himself at the Mengjiang Female Monument Pavilion on the top of the mountain.

A few days later, Yelu Qiuhan, the king of the South Courtyard, waved his army to attack Zhenzhou. Zhang Xi, Zhizhou, fought to the death of the city. Unexpectedly, the fierce battle was held at a critical moment. The gate behind him suddenly opened. Thousands of iron horses from Liao rushed into the city in the chaos. In an instant, they attacked and defended and changed their positions. Zhang Xiyi, an old minister of the Zhenzong Dynasty, personally led his family to meet the enemy and was shot in the melee. Kill.

Zhenzhou, Dingzhou and Baozhou all deployed Fubi and were captured. Later, it was rumored that Fubi defected to Liao and recruited troops and horses in Zhenzhou, gathering a large number of people with strong martial arts and anti-Song as pro-army to help Zhou.

This matter became more and more amazing, and later even the people of the Song Dynasty knew about it.

The father-in-law of the Privy Council Yan Shufubi was scolded by the minister of the court for this matter, and he was so angry that he almost vomited blood.

Xia Yu took the opportunity to impeach Yan Shu. The charge was that his son-in-law betrayed the country for glory. His father-in-law could not excuse himself. He lost the face of the Song Dynasty and should be severely punished.

When things developed into this field, no Wenwu in the Manchu Dynasty dared to stand up and plead for Yan Shu, and even Fan Zhongyan felt sorry for it.

Under the strong pressure of the imperial court and public opinion, Yan Shu, who had passed the age of Huajia, asked Empress Cao to resign and return to her hometown three days later.

Empress Cao allowed him to return to his hometown and ordered a battalion of imperial troops to be sent to protect them along the way.

Before leaving Beijing, Yan Shu came to Fu Bi's house and scolded her daughter Yan Xiaowan, and forced her to break up with Fu Bi'en and return to Linchuan to live in seclusion with her. However, Yan Xiaowan did not agree. Yan Shu forcibly took away her granddaughter Ruolan and Ruozhu in anger. For this reason, Yan Xiaowan was heartbroken and committed suicide when Yan Shu left Beijing and thanked her husband.

In less than a month, the soldiers and generals were damaged on Hebei East Road. The Song army was killed and injured by nearly 80,000 horses. In addition, the fall of Hejian Mansion, Zhenzhou, Dingzhou and Baozhou were lost, and there was no danger in the north.

If Xixia takes advantage of the fire to rob, Shaanxi Road is in a hurry, the treasury of the Song Dynasty is empty, the government is abandoned, internal fighting continues, and everything is not going well.

Empress Cao can no longer look on coldly, watching the ministers of the court quarrel with each other and compete for power and profit. The court has reached the critical moment of life and death, and it is time for her to turn the tide.

The next day, Empress Cao made several decrees, and the forbidden army around Bianliang, known as one million, led by Fan Zhongyan, Han Qi, the Privy Councillor Xia Yan, and Wang Su, a member of the Ministry of War, and nearly a thousand soldiers.

Before leaving the division, Empress Cao said to Fan Zhongyan on the Zichen Hall, "Fan Qing's family, now the tiger and wolf division of Liao is unstoppable, and it is about to kill the Daming Mansion. The rescuers of Taiyuan are already on the way. I hope you can work together to serve the country and block the Liao army under the city of Daming Mansion. The future of the Song Dynasty depends on you. If it is defeated, my anger will be exhausted. My family will burn myself when the city is broken, and I will never escape. Well, my family's words are over, and the army will set off!"

At the same time, Zhao Ze won a big victory in Huanzhou.

On that day, it was July 18. Wei Minglangbu, the general of Xixia, who was sitting at the mouth of the camel at the foot of Hengshan Mountain, issued the last attack order. The whole army on the land attacked Guidebao, cleared the customs, covered the water army downstream, and tried to kill into the hinterland of Huanzhou and make a move.

At the beginning, the attack of the Xixia army was very fierce. It rushed to the front line of the Huanzhou Army several times, but it was quickly repulsed. Zhao Ze's artillery team first showed its power and cut off the attack force of the Xixia army. Then, Zhao Ze sent 3,000 Qiang archers who had been waiting in the rear, and 6,000 Huanzhou prisoners. The army, plus 2,000 gunners and 300 pearl warriors, suddenly killed the first wave of attacking troops of the Xixia army on the ground.

At this time, hundreds of warships of the Xixia navy along the river approached Guideburg and Qingping Pass, because they came along the water very fast and were difficult to stop. This killer mace will be used by Xixia generals in Huanzhou every few years, and they have repeatedly won. It was not until Zhong Shiheng began to pass through Huanzhou that Xixia did not dare to take the risk killing by the waterway. Now that Zhong Shiheng is dead, the famous Langbu is determined that the new state official would never expect that his army would kill into the hinterland of Huanzhou from the waterway and launch an attack from behind. .

However, on the contrary, Zhao Ze still has some research on marching operations, especially in the west of Huanzhou, there are only two big rivers, the Guide River and the White Horse River. Every summer when the flood season arrives, the water surface will rise, and the flow speed is very fast, and tens of thousands of big ships can float.

After Zhao Ze came to Huanzhou, he learned about this matter from local officials. Six months ago, he ordered people to build dozens of river-blocking iron cables, which were secretly hidden in Hongdezhai and kept by He Lin.

It was not until Xixia invaded Huanzhou this year that he ordered Chao Fang to secretly transport iron cables from Hongdezhai, sank into the river at night, and unconsciously completed the river-blocking plan.

Of course, for the sake of safety, Zhao Ze also sent He Lin and others to set up defense on the bank of the White Horse River in the west, and Ren Qian, Chao Fang and Li Tieqiang to set up defense on the Guide River in the east to ensure that the certificate is foolproof.

In the morning of that day, after the Xixia army began to attack with all its strength, Zhao Ze expected that something big would happen, and asked He Lin, Ren Qian and others to pay close attention to the movement of the upper water surface.

Sure enough, when the three masts were on the sun, the three-masted warships of Xixia came down the river. Zhao Ze saw the spectacular scene in the telescope. On the wide river, a huge fleet appeared in the waters northeast of Fort Guideburg, and there were hundreds of huge sails.

Almost at the same time, a large fleet of the same scale also appeared on the White Horse River. The front warship was as high as dozens of feet, indescribably powerful and majestic. There were countless Xixia warriors standing on it with murderous spirit. It seemed that they would launch a desperate attack as soon as they reached the shore.

Thinking of this, Zhao Ze quickly ordered Chen Shun to light the two piles of beacons behind the hill, send a signal to the ambush on the river bank, and ordered them to prepare for battle.

A moment later, the right-wing Xixia warship approached Guideburg. Zhao Ze could clearly see the Xixia general standing in the bow of the ship. He was laughing loudly.

However, in just a moment, the smile froze on his face.

The giant whale-like ship hit the river-blocking cable hidden in the water and broke through two lanes before stopping. Zhao Ze's back was sweating coldly. Fortunately, it was stopped, otherwise the consequences would be unimaginable.

The water war soon began. Nearly 10,000 archers ambushed on both sides of Guidechuan shot three rockets. The overwhelming arrows shot the huge ship into a hedgehog with flames. In the blink of an eye, the Xixia warship caught fire, and the fire became more fierce, and even the water could not be extinguished, but the Xixia generals on the warship did not know. What's going on? I thought it was too little water to put out the fire, so I shouted crazily and ordered the soldiers around me to continue to take water to put out the fire, which led to a bigger disaster.

A hot fireball suddenly burst out in the cabin. Several feet of flames and air waves rushed to the deck and shot out dozens of people near the side of the ship. Not only that, but it also aggravated the fire. The whole ship suddenly fell into a sea of fire, and fear shrouded everyone's hearts.

In an instant, the Xixia soldiers on fire screamed and began to dive and escape, but the archers of the Song army on both sides of the river would not be alive. After a while, they shot the vast majority of those who fell into the water. For a while, the wailing came one after another, and the Xixia soldiers who were still struggling on the water soon fell to the bottom of the water.

The first ship was blocked, and the subsequent ships were about to dock in a panic, but the water flow was too fast and they could not change the direction immediately. More than a dozen of them hit the iron cable and ran aground, and then suffered a ruthless blow from the ambush on both sides.

In the chaos, many Xixia warships were set on fire, and more of them capsised due to collisions. The Xixia soldiers in the ship scrambled to dive and escaped, and there were countless drowning people.

Although there were many warships that barely landed, they went to the wrong place, which was the territory controlled by the archers of the family army. With a random arrows, a large number of Xixia soldiers suddenly fell down on the bank.

After returning to Tokugawa, the Xixia soldiers on the White Horse River were also slaughtered, and the family army did a better job. They actually organized a death squad to row bamboo platoons to get close to the burning Xixia warship and board the ship to fight.

After a fight, the breeding army successfully captured a large wooden ship, beheaded more than 200 people, and obtained nearly 1,000 catties of grain, grass and dried meat, adding a legend to the victory around the state.

The battle that day lasted until dusk, and the shouts on the battlefield were uninterrupted from morning to night.

The Xixia left-wing army, which intended to break the city from the tunnel, was burned to death hundreds of people by fire oil under the Qingping Pass. On the way to retreat, it was detonated by Jiao Zhenhua's explosive bag, which collapsed and almost completely destroyed the tunnel.

Xixia's left-wing soldiers told the news to Wei Minglangbu, the commander sitting in the mouth of the camel. When he learned the news, he had a premonition that something bad was going to happen. As he expected, on this day, the Xixia army was defeated, more than half of the 80,000 horses were killed and injured, and more than 20,000 horses escaped. Each was injured, and most of it was injured by firearms.

After careful weighing, Wei Minglangbu ordered the whole army to retreat to the territory of Xixia, assist Hanhai to defend the two passes of Qingyuan Military City and Shrimp Village, and build a city opposite Qinggang Gorge to resist the enemy.

Looking back, let's talk about the Huanzhou garrison. This battle was a complete victory, and our side lost less than 5,000 people.

This is still the casualties caused by the melee during the last charge. If we continue to stick to the position, the number of casualties will be even lower. However, there is a preamblem. Zhao Ze's army has enough ammunition.

However, after nearly a month of fighting, Zhao Ze found a very serious problem. The ammunition was about to run out. At most, he could fight a high-intensity battle, and then he had to meet each other. He completely relied on tactics, morale, number of people, and hand-to-hand combat to defeat the enemy.

In case of this situation, the casualties of the Huanzhou Army will increase exponentially.

In order to avoid this situation, Zhao Ze led his troops back to Tongyuan City and used a communicator to contact Su Su, who was thousands of miles away in Ryukyu, and asked her for help.