Great Song Super Scholar

Chapter 539 The Only Choice
The Luzon soldiers who were running in front were shot down one after another, and screamed, which stopped their running momentum and slowed down significantly.

Even Prince Lagan, who was the only one riding a horse, was shot several times by arrows and fell off the horse. He was carried back by several soldiers, and his life and death were unknown.

The soldiers of the Lu Song Kingdom hadn't recovered from the chaos, and the second round of crossbow arrows came like raindrops. The rattan armor couldn't stop the strong bows and crossbows of the Song army. In just a moment, thousands of people fell in a pool of blood. During the battle, even Prince Lagan, the main general, was shot several times with arrows, and his life and death were unknown.

Without the prince's leadership and encouragement, the army's pity for life emerged, and the soldiers stopped moving forward and began to retreat slowly.

This is actually a big taboo in the army. Either simply retreat and get out of the range of the crossbow arrows, or rush forward and make short contact with the enemy. This is a dilemma, and it becomes a living target for the crossbow army.

At this time, another thousand spear infantry and crossbow troops came ashore, and the crossbow troops joined the counterattack team, bringing the total population of the crossbow troops to 2000 immediately.

The third round of crossbow arrows turned into two thousand crossbow arrows, and the number of crossbow arrows doubled, instantly turning into a storm.

The third round of crossbow shooting caused more than 800 Luzon soldiers to fall. In just three rounds of arrow rain, Luzon soldiers were shot and killed [-] people. Corpses and wounded soldiers, the remaining [-] soldiers fled towards the capital without their lives.

The Song army defeated the enemy's [-]-strong attack without injuring a single soldier, and their morale was immediately boosted. They did not pursue it, but protected the army and continued to go ashore.

This time, Fan Ning led an army of [-] to march south. The soldiers mainly took [-] oar troop carriers of [-] shi, while the other [-] were supply ships. They were powered by sails and could only follow fixed routes. Unable to conduct mobile operations, in a short period of time, they parked in Luzon Bay as base supplies.

Fan Ning also stepped down from the main ship. At this time, [-] soldiers had quickly assembled, including [-] crossbowmen and [-] spear infantry. Fan Ning got on his horse and ordered: "Leave a thousand infantry and a thousand crossbowmen. Guard the pier, other troops march towards the capital!"

'Woo—'

The loud horns sounded, the marching drums sounded rumblingly, and [-] troops lined up to march towards the capital of Luzon, ten miles away.

The capital of the Luzon Kingdom does not have a wall, but a small city with a circumference of more than ten miles surrounded by wooden fences. There are countless wooden houses in the capital and around the wooden fence, but there are no paddy fields. People here do not need to cultivate. The abundant forest fruits are enough to feed them, and they can also use gold to exchange food from Song Dynasty merchants.

When the eight thousand Song soldiers were less than ten miles away from the capital, the gate of the wooden fence was opened, and a large group of men and women came out naked and knelt on the ground. The leader was King Luo Gang. Although he was old, he was not yet 50 years old. It is because the life span of Luzon people is too short, they basically die around the age of 40, and the infant mortality rate is extremely high, at most two or three of ten children survive, so the population of the kingdom has always been low and difficult to increase.

He took his wife, daughter and son out to surrender to the Song army. The eldest son, who was dedicated to fighting, was hit by seven arrows and died on the way back to the capital. His ten thousand troops had collapsed and each fled home. The only army he can command is the palace guards, less than 200 people, and he has nowhere to go except to surrender.

Fan Ning said to Mingren: "Go up and tell him that the Lu Song Kingdom has not paid tribute to the Song Dynasty for many years, so the Emperor of the Song Dynasty sent troops to attack it, but the Song Army does not want to kill innocent people indiscriminately. As long as he surrenders sincerely, the Song Army will give him a way out. !"

Ming Ren knew a few words of Lu Song's native language, and he stepped forward and made gestures and gestures. Then King Luo Gang understood Fan Ning's meaning. He kowtowed to thank him and was willing to surrender to Song Dynasty.

Fan Ning immediately set up camp on the spot, and he led a thousand soldiers into the capital of Luzon.

There are already some rudiments of the city in the capital, with streets and a few shops. Fan Ning accidentally discovered that there are so many taverns and gambling halls in the capital. flutter appliance.

Akihito explained: "Women work here. They go to the forest to pick all kinds of fruits and balala, and they are basically women when they pan for gold in the river. Most of the men are lazy and like to drink and gamble. Men under the age of 30 go to the army. , Serving as a soldier has nothing to do, and there is a huge income every month, they actually feed the entire nation with gold and spices."

"Apart from gold sand, do they have gold mines?"

"Of course, I have taken people to explore the mines long ago. There are huge reserves of gold and copper mines here, which are easy to mine and refine."

"What about silver?" Fanning asked.

Akihito shook his head, "There seems to be very little silver, mainly gold and copper here, and silver has to go to Japan, where is the world of silver."

Fan Ning took a fancy to Luzon and its nearby islands. The fundamental reason is that there are no people there, except for the small Luzon, and then there are a small number of natives.

But the arable land, forests, gold mines, and spices here are all huge wealth, especially the water, heat and soil quality here, which will bring a huge amount of food to the Song Dynasty.

Fan Ning is very clear about what the huge amount of grain will bring to the Song Dynasty. When the Song Dynasty was founded, the population was only 3000 to [-] million. However, since the large-scale promotion of Champa rice, which is harvested twice a year in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the grain output of the Song Dynasty has greatly increased.

People changed from two meals a day to three meals a day, and the population grew rapidly. By the late Northern Song Dynasty, the population had grown to 2000 million. It was the increase in food that made the living standards of the Song Dynasty change drastically.

At this time, a general came to report, "Report to the envoy, brothers have found a large amount of gold and various jewels in the warehouse of the palace!"

Fan Ning was a little interested, and immediately turned his horse's head to the palace. The palace is also a wooden building, covering an area of ​​about ten acres, surrounded by a large circle of walls. It was built by craftsmen from Sanfoqi, and it has a Buddhist atmosphere. Some mansions were the residences of royal officials and were also built by Srivijaya craftsmen.

There are soldiers of the Song Army standing guard in front of the palace and high-ranking official residences. The royal dignitaries have been placed under house arrest. The warehouse of the palace is located at the back. It is the only stone building in the entire Luzon. Stone buildings of great wealth.

Fan Ning walked into the warehouse, and saw that the warehouse was divided into two parts by a wooden wall. Hundreds of wooden boxes were stacked on both sides. The wooden boxes were very rough, and there was not even a piece of cloth inside. revealed in the gap.

Soldiers were moving down large wooden boxes. The boxes were opened, and inside were simply smelted gold nuggets. Many soldiers were weighing them.

One of them stepped forward and said to Fan Ning, "There are a hundred boxes of gold, and each box weighs about a hundred catties, excluding the wooden box, so that's one hundred thousand catties."

Fan Ning was also taken aback. One hundred thousand catties of gold is 160 million taels, which will take at least a hundred years to accumulate. He asked again, "What about the other boxes?"

Dutou opened other boxes, all kinds of sea pearls, tortoise shells, corals, and more than a dozen boxes of black items. Fan Ning recognized it at a glance, it was ambergris.

"How to deal with these wealth?" Sima Zhang Nan asked in a low voice.

Fan Ning said coldly: "We also need a lot of food, tents, and daily necessities to resettle them in other places. Some of this wealth will be reserved for the soldiers, and the rest will be shipped back to the imperial court. This year, the task promised to the Zhizheng Hall will be considered complete."

The next few generals were all gearing up with excitement, a battle that would not hurt a single soldier, and there would be post-war rewards, who wouldn't want such an expedition?

Zhang Nan secretly sighed in his heart, no matter what reason Fan Ning found, plundering the property of other countries was already a certainty. Fortunately, he didn't keep any money, otherwise he would be liquidated sooner or later.

At dusk, the Song army had set up a large camp in the open space, and the payment of the Luzon army was over. All the weapons and armor were gathered together, and they were not going to be destroyed. They would return them after they migrated. give them.

In the big tent of the military camp, the negotiations between Fan Ning, the king and the three royal families have also come to an end.

Fan Ning proposed three plans. The first plan is to continue to retain the title of King of Luzon and allow hereditary succession, but the royal family of Luzon must move to the capital of the Song Dynasty. The people here will be managed by Song officials; the second plan is that the Song Dynasty will help Lu Song The whole country of Song Dynasty migrated to Sulu Island, and rebuilt the Luzon Kingdom on Sulu Island, or changed the country’s name to Sulu Kingdom; the third plan, the Luzon Kingdom was disbanded, and the King of Luzon went to live in the capital of Song Dynasty, and he could be granted a title. Moved to Ryukyu Island and became a citizen of Song Dynasty.

As for the plan proposed by the King of Luzon himself, Luzon became a vassal state of the Great Song and retained the territory of Luzon Island. This plan was rejected by Fan Ning. Keeping them in Luzon Island would become a hidden danger for Song Dynasty immigrants, and conflicts would break out sooner or later. , the best way is to be separated by the sea and not communicate with each other.

King Luo Gang had no choice but to say to Fan Ning, "Let us discuss it ourselves!"

A man from Song Dynasty who was doing business in the Guanpu shop in Luzon acted as an interpreter. He told Fan Ning what the king wanted. Fan Ning immediately nodded and said, "Yes, I hope to get a final answer tomorrow morning!"

He left with several officials, and only King Luo Gang and his two brothers remained in the big tent. One was the prime minister and the other was the general.

"What do you think, big brother?" The two asked King Luo Gang.

Luo Gang sighed, "There is a saying in the Song Dynasty, people are called Daozu, and I am fish and meat. We are lucky that we have not been destroyed. How else can we choose? I only have one idea. The inheritance left by our ancestors cannot be lost. It must survive."

His two brothers were silent for a moment and said: "Then there is only one choice, we move the whole country, is that what Big Brother means?"

Luo Gang nodded silently, and then sighed: "I have been to the Lu Island they mentioned. It is in the south and consists of more than a dozen islands. It is not far from Boni Kingdom. Enough is enough, the key is how we survive in the future, I think this is the key to our negotiation with Song Jun, we must strive for more benefits."

"Then what benefits does the eldest brother want?"

"The technology I want the most is farming. If we can farm, then we will have no problem in surviving. The second is that I want a little shipbuilding technology. With shipbuilding technology, we can expand to the south. Third, I want food. And basic daily necessities, they must guarantee our rations for one year. Fourth, I want to be safe. Once the Boni country invades us, they must send troops to protect us. I think these four points are very important. If you have any ideas, it’s okay Replenish."

(End of this chapter)