Great Song Super Scholar

Chapter 675
Fan Ning was in Dengzhou at this time. He did not accompany the emperor to Taiyuan for inspection, but was waiting for news on the Shandong Peninsula. Six days ago, he received an urgent eagle letter from Liaoyang Prefecture. Song.

Fan Ning immediately sent a letter to Taiyuan, asking the emperor to withdraw from Taiyuan City in time, and he rushed to Dengzhou immediately.

Whether it was the battle against Xixia or the war against the Liao Kingdom, he talked about the battle of national power at the most on the table, and even newspapers frequently published similar articles.

But there is also an extremely secret strategy hidden under the table, which is to wipe out the living forces as much as possible. From the war against Liao the year before last to the battle against Xia last year, we can see Fan Ning's strategic thinking.

This is actually a very precise strategic attack, which has seized the biggest weakness of Liao or Xixia. The population of this tribe is small, and the party members of Xixia are only more than one million. Although Liao controls a vast land, it also has the largest number of Khitans. 200 million.

Once the population of its own tribe falls to a certain limit, the empire it built will soon fall apart.

Fan Ning has also seen through this point, so all his strategies are based on the elimination of the enemy's vital forces. This time the warship scam is the same, using 150 five-thousand-stone ships to lure the Liao army into hell.

150 warships had sailed out of the mouth of the Yalu River, which was more than 100 miles away from Shenmi Island, slightly to the north, and the Song Army base could not find them.

150 large ships loaded with [-] Liao troops headed for Dengzhou thousands of miles away.

Just as the Liao army fleet sailed out of the mouth of the Yalu River, the patrol ships of the Song army ambushing more than [-] miles away discovered them.

A scout brigade marshal used a binoculars to discover dense black spots in the distance, and finally came out. The brigade commander immediately ordered, "Go back!"

Several sentry ships quickly turned around and headed for the base a hundred miles away to the south.

At noon, more than 300 large and small warships left the harbor and rushed westward. They divided into three groups, and a group of more than a hundred warships sailed northward, circled behind the enemy ships, and cut off the retreat of the Liao army.

The other navy went to the west to prevent the Liao navy from fleeing towards the Liaodong Peninsula. Similarly, the third navy went to the east to block the route of the Liao army warships fleeing to Koryo.

They formed a character shape and surrounded the Liao fleet from three directions, but the distance was relatively long. The Liao fleet did not realize that they were surrounded, and the fleet continued to sail south.

At this time, a Laizhou navy composed of more than two hundred Wanshi warships was already waiting for them quietly in front.

Fan Ning was on a large ship of [-] shi. The fleet set off last night and arrived at the scheduled location an hour earlier.

A general ran over and said beside Fan Ning, "The enemy warship has appeared fifty miles to the north."

Fan Ning raised his binoculars and focused his attention on looking into the distance. Sure enough, he saw countless black spots. He put down the binoculars and asked, "Is the navy at the base in place?"

"It's all in place!"

Fan Ning nodded and ordered: "Pass my order, go up to the battle!"

The leading main ship sounded a long whistle, and two hundred warships headed north to meet them.

On the leading Liao army ship, Gao Yuanji also found that something was wrong. The Liao army did not have binoculars and could not see such a distant place, but their watchmen on the mast spotted the Song army sentry ship to the east.

The appearance of the patrol boat made Gao Yuanji nervous. Although he had no experience in the navy, he knew that the appearance of the patrol boat meant that the main force was not far away.

At this moment, a sentry shouted from the mast: "An enemy warship is found ahead!"

Gao Yuanji was taken aback, leaning on the side of the boat to look south, the weather was fine, and he could clearly see the situation on the sea ahead.

I saw countless small black spots appeared on the blue sea surface, faintly emitting black smoke, and they were driving towards me at a high speed.

Gao Yuanji panicked in his heart, and urgently ordered: "Turn around and go west!"

To the east is Koryo, where there may be a base of the Song Army, and to the west is the Liaodong Peninsula. Although it is a little farther away, it is the land of the Liao Kingdom itself.

The fleet of the Liao Army began to turn west, but the wind was from the northwest, which was equivalent to sailing against the wind. The fleet of the Liao Army was extremely slow, while the warships of the Song Army were powered by steam engines, and they were extremely fast, getting closer and closer. It was just a small black dot just now, but now I can see the appearance of the ship clearly.

Gao Yuanji was in a hurry, and quickly shouted: "Quickly speed up! Speed ​​up!"

A general ran up and said: "General, we are going against the wind now, and the speed cannot be increased. It is better to go in the direction of Koryo, it will be with the wind!"

Gao Yuanji was stunned for a moment, drew his sword and slashed fiercely, cursing: "Why did you report it now!"

Gao Yuanji is a descendant of the royal family of the Bohai Kingdom, and is currently the number one general of the Bohai tribe in the Liao Kingdom. Realizing Xiao Weixin's cunning, he gave up the danger to himself.

At this time, Gao Yuanji also knew that he would not be able to escape the pursuit of the Song army's warship today. He slashed at the side of the ship with a knife, and ordered: "Order all the soldiers to go to the deck and prepare to shoot with bows and arrows!"

Each warship carried about 700 soldiers, and some warships carried siege weapons. These ships were not transport ships, but warships.

More than [-] soldiers rushed to the deck, covering the first and second floors of the deck, aiming their bows and arrows at the approaching Song army ships.

Not only did Song Army warships appear on the south side of the sea, but Song Army warships appeared on both sides of the sea, and the warships on the west side even started fighting.

In fact, the battle of the warships of the Liao army was meaningless. A warship was hit hard from the side by a warship of the Song army, and it was immediately smashed into two pieces, revealing the completely rotten wood inside. Otherwise, they will all sink before encountering the Song Army fleet.

Ships one after another were smashed by Song Army ships, and there were Liao Army soldiers calling for help in the sea.

Gao Yuanji no longer cared about the wrecked warship. He stared intently at the Song army ship that was getting closer and closer. Rolling, stirring up billowing white waves, pushing the boat forward.

The two big ships passed each other with a distance of about a hundred steps. Gao Yuanji shouted, "Shoot the arrow!"

Hundreds of soldiers fired arrows together, and the dense arrows shot at the ships of the Song army.

Suddenly, four windows opened on the side of the Song Army warship at the same time, and four black wooden pipes stretched out. The diameter of the wooden pipes was four feet, aiming at the Liao Army warship.

Everyone was startled, they didn't know what it was, there were four crashing sounds, and a big black iron egg was shot out from each of the four wooden tubes, weighing fifty or sixty catties, it looked like a pumpkin, and it was whistling white. cigarette.

"It's Iron Fire Thunder!"

Gao Yuanji reacted immediately, and his heart was broken with shock. He only heard a few heavy blows, and the iron fire thunder directly smashed through four large holes in the ship's wall, and shot into the belly of the enemy's main ship. .

The main ship of the Song army and the warship of the Liao army passed by alternately, and they left quickly, but within a hundred steps, they only heard 'Boom! With a loud noise, the first iron fire thunder exploded, and white smoke and air waves wrapped in countless pieces of wood soared into the sky, and many soldiers were also blown into the air.

Immediately afterwards, the three iron fire mines exploded almost at the same time. The huge explosion smashed the entire five thousand stone ship to pieces, and the smoke filled the air. Influence.

At this time, the ballista was used for the first time in a naval battle to launch iron fire mines, and the four ballistas were repeatedly adjusted to reach the best condition.

When the gunpowder smoke cleared, the enemy's main ship had disappeared, and the sea was covered with large and small pieces of wood, and some hulls that had not been blown up had sunk quickly, and the sea was full of mutilated corpses that didn't want to go anywhere. The main general Gao Yuanji was also bombed so that his body was separated and sank into the sea.

At this time, there were continuous explosions in the distance, and the ballistas installed on other ships began to show their power. Generally, four ships with [-] shi were installed, two for ships with [-] shi, and one for ships below [-] shi.

Compared with the extremely powerful iron fire thunder.Most of the ships used the collision method, hitting the enemy ships from the side. The decayed hulls couldn't stop the strong impact at all, and they broke when they hit each other. Large ships sank in the sea.

The Song army did not accept the surrender, and mercilessly slaughtered the Liao army at sea. The Liao army's warships were surrounded on all sides, and they were desperate. One after another, large ships sank into the sea.

At this time, the wind rose on the sea, the wind and cloud changed rapidly, the sky darkened, the storm came, and the waves were raging. The warships of the Song Army turned around and left one after another. The waves broke, and countless soldiers who were calling for help at sea were completely swallowed by a wave.

The storm didn't stop until midnight. A Song army's three thousand stone warship capsized in the storm. Dozens of Song army soldiers were missing, but the rest of the Song army's warships were safe and sound.

The 150 warships of the Liao army were generally destroyed by the Song army, while the other half completely perished in the storm and huge waves, and [-] Liao troops were killed on the seabed.

This was the heaviest loss since the founding of the Liao Kingdom. Including the [-] Liao army soldiers who were about to cross the sea to Kunzhou two years ago, a whole hundred thousand soldiers were buried in the sea. Liao's navy dream was completely shattered.

The morning glow shone on the surface of the sea, and the surface of the sea was sparkling and dyed red, only some broken wood was still undulating slightly with the waves, other than that, there were no traces of naval battles.

Fan Ning stood at the bow of the ship and stared at the sea for a while, then ordered: "The army goes north!"

(End of this chapter)