The rise of the prince

Chapter 783 Opportunity
While waiting for the rear army, Wei Chaoren told him about the recent situation in Shanhaiguan.

According to the investigation by the scouts of Yanshan Mansion, the Jin people were not fools. After suffering a loss from a cannon, they began to strengthen the city defense of Shanhaiguan.

The first thing is to strengthen the city gate, not only adding several layers of wooden boards, but also adding iron bars, and the iron sheets are used for reinforcement.

The Jin people also saw that Shanhaiguan is known as the first pass in the world. The city wall about two feet wide can pass a horse-drawn cart. The cannons must not be able to open the city wall, but the city gate is hard to say, so the emphasis is on strengthening the city gate. .

"If I have a chance, I'll go and see for myself." Li Xingzhou said, the Jinren didn't know that they had new guns and had blooming shells.

"Your Highness, let the scouts go, it's too risky for you to go in person." Wei Chaoren stopped, "Don't be arrogant," he said cautiously.

Li Xingzhou said with a smile: "Haha, Master Wei, don't worry, this is not a matter of emotion. I'm going to see the structure of the Shanhaiguan city wall."

"Structure?" Wei Chaoren was a little puzzled.

Li Xingzhou picked up his teacup and took a sip, then said: "Yes, I heard from the spies that the Shanhaiguan city wall is four feet high and two feet wide. Such a strong city wall has no chance with the old artillery."

A two-foot-thick city wall is about six meters thick, and solid bullets of this thickness will leave at most a hole.

The last time they attacked the Liao Kingdom with cannons, they used the city gates to attack. The Liao people had never seen cannons before, so they didn't know how to guard against them.

This time the Jinren learned their lesson and focused on strengthening the wooden city gates, presumably to prevent shelling.

If, as reported by the scouts from the Yanshan Mansion, the Jin people used iron sheets and iron bars to reinforce the city gates, even the new army's cannons would have difficulty breaking through the city gates.

However, this does not mean that there is no hope at all, because there are blooming shells in the new army.

This is a new cannon, new equipment, and new tactics. The Jin people don't understand it. If they are operated well, they may not be able to win unexpected victories.

It was the same as when they fought against Liao. It wasn't that the Liao army couldn't defend, but that they were caught by surprise.

After resting in Yanshan Mansion for two days, the exhaustion and the pain of running around finally eased. At this time, the rear army also arrived at Yanshan Mansion and began to set up camp.

The army camp was set up outside the Yanshan Mansion, stretching for tens of miles. This is the rear of the army, and the former army camp is only a few days away from Shanhaiguan.

Although it was still a bit far away, they could not go further, because setting up camp here could also prevent the Jin people from sending troops directly from Shangjing to attack the rear from the direction of Juyongguan, the northwest gate.

Yanshan Mansion is an important road, where all the gates meet, and the army camps here can control all the gates overall, and there is a danger of being copied by the Jin people if they go any further.

On the second day, Li Xingzhou hastily asked someone to feed Meixue, and brought along some of the best soldiers in the [-]th Army, preparing to go through the camp in person and go north to see Shanhaiguan.

Before he left, he received a letter from Yang Wenguang who was rushing to go.

In the letter, he said that the soldiers and horses of Taiyuan Mansion and those of the Zhe family had joined forces and entered the territory of Datong Mansion. They fought against the small rangers of the Jin Kingdom on the outskirts, beheaded 43 people, and defeated the outskirts of the Jin Army. Datong Prefecture.

When they sent the envelope, they were waiting for a signal from Mr. Xin, the leader of the rebel army in the city. Once there was news, they would immediately attack the city.

After reading Yang Wenguang's letter, Li Xingzhou was actually nervous.

In history, there have been countless battles, the Zhejia army who attacked the party in the west, and the Zhejia army who attacked the Khitan in the north was manipulated to death by the dream of the emperor of the Song Dynasty. There was no serious opportunity to fight against the elite of the Kingdom of Jin.

It's unclear who of them will win.
However, Li Xingzhou is optimistic about the Zhejia army, because they were born in such an environment, bloody, wolf nature is born, maybe they don't want to, but they have no choice, so they shaped the brave Zhejia army.

But at this time their victories did not reassure him. They beheaded more than 40 people, and they were just peripheral rangers.

The border guards of this era are not more professional soldiers like later generations. It can be said that most of them are militiamen, who participate in production labor at home and guard the border by the way.

Destroying such an army is nothing to be proud of. Yang Wenguang probably has nothing to report, so he reported this small achievement.

In addition, the palace also sent a secret letter, informing that half a month ago, the new navy had set off and left quietly.

The big ship set off at night, and the transport and supply ships behind were disguised as merchant ships and set off in several batches, which did not cause much disturbance in the entire capital.

This is exactly what he wanted, and he felt better after reading it. It is the easiest to fight across the sea in Liaodong. This is also to learn from the experience of the Tang Dynasty. The terrain is narrow, and it is difficult to deploy an army, which is very difficult.

However, Liaodong has a stretch of coastline, and there are many places where you can land, and you can bypass the Liaoxi Corridor to go to Shanhaiguan, Ningyuan, and Jinzhou, the three golden city soup pools.

The next step is to gamble!
Li Xingzhou understood what he should do, and tried his best to put pressure on the Kingdom of Jin, and the bigger the better, forcing them to continuously move their troops south. The more troops they moved south, the more opportunities Di Zhi and Shen Lin's navy would have.

If he can find a way to win Shanhaiguan, the "No. [-] Pass in the World", the pressure on the Kingdom of Jin must be unprecedented. Even if there are Ningyuan and Jinzhou behind, the Kingdom of Jin will nervously gather a large number of troops to stop him in the Liaoxi Corridor.

Let the enemy's strategic center of gravity move southward completely. If that effect can be achieved, he will wake up laughing from his dreams.

In the afternoon, Li Xingzhou led his soldiers out of the city in a low-key manner, Wei Chaoren also followed, Yan Shen, Wei Yubai, Liu Ji, Yang Hongzhao and others arranged camping in the army camp.

He repeatedly told several people that the camp should not be sloppy, because according to the data of later generations, the most powerful part of the Jin army is all-weather fighting.

Now the Jin Army may also repeat the old tricks and attack them at night across the Shanhaiguan Pass. This is the Jin Army's specialty.

Therefore, the camp must be strong and must be manned 24 hours a day.

After leaving Yanshan Mansion and passing through the camp of the Chinese army, they headed north all the way, speeding up their horses.

But there is still a long way to go, and they will have to go for about two or three days on fast horses.

There are dense post stations along the way, and there is one every ten miles to provide horse feed, clean water, and military horses. After all, these places are already on the front line, and any news cannot be sloppy, and must be rushed to the rear.

This also provides them with convenience, otherwise the road may take longer.

Finally, after three days of running around, a team of more than thirty people arrived in Pingzhou.

Pingzhou is also an important town between Yanshan City and Shanhaiguan, but Pingzhou is only a small town, and it is an important town extending in all directions, unlike Yanshan City, which is strangled on important land.

Pingzhou is a small city, less than one-tenth of the size of Yanshan Mansion, but there are more than 5000 defenders, or the entire Pingzhou City, the army is more than the civilians, because it is only more than an hour's foot away from here to the north. Cheng is Shanhaiguan!

The front line of the front line, when you arrive in Pingzhou, you can say Shanhaiguan. The Pingzhou guard Gu Lichuan heard that Wei Chaoren and him were coming, and hurried to greet him.

Li Xingzhou explained to him that he wanted to see Shanhaiguan up close. Gu Lichuan was in a dilemma for a long time, and then asked him to choose and assemble elite cavalry, pretending to be the defenders to inspect, so that he could get closer to see it.

Because after the big battle last year, Jin Guo and Jing Guo have completely torn their faces and entered a state of war. If they approach rashly, the Shanhaiguan defenders will definitely fight back. It is too dangerous to approach the Shanhaiguan city wall with only 30 people.

Li Xingzhou followed the good advice, because what the general said was really reasonable, just wait for one day, it takes one day for the elite to assemble, and they can go the next day.

He was actually very nervous, because whether he could be caught by surprise depends on tomorrow's field trip.

Under normal circumstances, the six-meter-thick city wall would definitely not be able to be blasted by cannons, but he did not give up. Li Xingzhou knew that the ancient city walls were used to deal with some heavy siege equipment, such as catapults, bed crossbows, etc.; also to save manpower , the city walls will be treated with rammed earth, that is, there are solid stone walls on both sides, and rammed earth inside.

There is nothing to do with such wall-impacting siege equipment, such as trebuchets, such as solid shells. Even if the outer stone wall is smashed, the thick rammed earth inside can greatly reduce the impact.

In the era of cold weapons, it was almost an unsolvable city wall.

But
The new army has flower bombs!

If the Shanhaiguan City Wall is really a structure with earth on the inside and bricks on the outside, that is an opportunity!
(End of this chapter)