The Happy Life of Small Officials in Northern Song Dynasty

Regarding Xiao Temo's question, Su Jin already had prevarication words.

"Firstly, the firearms are expensive and not many in number. During the fierce battles with the Western Thieves last year, there were only a dozen or so sharp guns, and the Shenlong Cannon had not yet been cast; second, although the Western Bandits were powerful, But my Northwest Army of the Great Song Dynasty is not yet unable to resist, and I am not too busy using these sharp weapons lightly. When the number is accumulated and the training is more precise, I will be transferred to the battlefield by surprise, and I am afraid that it will not directly hit the battlefield. Are you going to the Xingqing Mansion of the West Thieves?"

Xiao Temo was secretly startled. Listening to Su Jin's tone, the Song Dynasty's ambitions were not small. Once these firearms became large-scale and the accuracy was improved, Li Yuanhao's catastrophe would be imminent.

At the same time, Xiao Temo also had a deep worry about Daliao. This kid is not telling the truth. Who knows whether he is telling the truth or not, but there is one thing. I have witnessed the power of these firearms with my own eyes. Well, as for how much the Song Dynasty built, no one knows.

As Su Jin said, if the scale does not increase, a few hundred firearms will not change the balance of victory and defeat. If thousands of firearms are really collected... Daliao is in danger!

Su Jin was full of pride, and led the dazed Xiao Temo, Liu Liufu and others off the earthen platform, each got into a car and rode back to the city.

Along the way, Xiao Te could not stop thinking about how to deal with this situation, and when he returned to the post house, he couldn't wait to call Liu Liufu to discuss countermeasures.

"Vice Envoy Liu, what do you think of the firearms used by Song people today?"

"Master Xiao, my heart is still pounding, and my ears are still buzzing. The Song people's firearm is too powerful. When it fires, the landslides will crack rocks and rubble. If it goes to the battlefield , who can stop it?"

"That's true. This envoy has seen a lot of firearms, but they are not worth mentioning in front of such firearms. The magic gun is fine, but the dragon cannon is unsolvable. When attacking the city, it only takes ten Yu Men Shenlong cannons are placed under the city and bombard inwards, no matter how strong the city is, it will never be able to defend; this power is more than ten times stronger than our whirlwind stone cannon in Daliao."

Liu Liufu sighed and said, "My lord, to be honest, what I am worried about now is not the power of this firearm, but the ambition of the Song people."

"how do I say this?"

"Didn't you listen to what Su Jin said? They are now showing weakness to the enemy, deliberately delaying time with Li Yuanhao, and fighting a tug-of-war, in order to buy time to forge firearms and perfect training; after that, they will be transferred to the front line in one fell swoop and drive Li Yuanhao to death; he Didn’t you make it very clear when you said you were going to call Xingqing Mansion?”

"This...is similar to what I saw, and I also thought the same way on the road."

"Your Excellency is clear, but have you ever thought about how I, Daliao, should deal with myself? After the Song Dynasty destroyed Li Yuanhao, who will be the next target? I am afraid that Daliao will suffer."

"That's true, how can you allow other people to snore and sleep next to the couch, the Song people hold new-style firearms, and they will naturally deal with me, Daliao, but Song and Liao have always been brothers, so the Song people will not be so ruthless. "

"My lord, why do you still think that way? Then Su Jin is right. Isn't the reason why the two countries can live in peace with each other because of equal strength? Once the strength is out of balance, the Song people are still willing to form friendship with us." Help? That's strange."

"This one……"

"Furthermore, this time we stationed troops on the border, we thought we could take advantage of the internal and external difficulties of the Song Dynasty to reap some benefits. Can the Song people not remember this account? During the Taizong Dynasty of the Song Dynasty, there was no relationship between the two countries. Emperor Taizong even sent three armies to attack our Daliao. If it weren’t for the battle of Youzhou, God bless my Daliao, wouldn’t there be a Daliao today? From this we can see that the Song people have been coveting my Daliao for a long time, but they have been unable to defeat it. Only then did we meet and make friends; this time the Song people may not be so easy to get along with."

Xiao Temo's heart beat faster, thump thump seemed to come out of his throat, and he lowered his voice and said, "Deputy Envoy Liu, from what you can see, Su Jin has been not very enthusiastic about negotiating with us, is this delaying time? Woolen cloth?"

Liu Liufu frowned, got up and paced slowly, and said after a while: "I see, there are two possibilities. One is, as your lord said, they are procrastinating for the training of firearms manufacturing. This kind of firearms must be manufactured. It is even more difficult, I think the gunpowder used is also a different formula; how can the gunpowder we usually use have such power?"

"That's right!" Xiao Temo nodded slowly.

"However, the Song people must have slowly started to become proficient. You think, in September last year, the Song people fought against Xixia Yuanhao in Haoshuichuan. The Song people were defeated and returned. The Song general Han Qi is famous If you don’t admit defeat, if you had these firearms at that time, wouldn’t he have been transferred to the front line to take revenge? So Su Jin’s words are still credible. At that time, these firearms were still under consideration and could not be used.”

After a pause, Liu Liufu said again: "But after just a few months, you and I witnessed hundreds of firearms and a Shenlong cannon with our own eyes, which shows that the people of Song Dynasty are very proficient in making firearms; If it is delayed for another month or two, I am afraid that tens of thousands of more firearms will be produced; the more these things are, the less the Song people will care about the heroic soldiers on the border of our Daliao; Confrontation, but as long as we hold a few dangerous passes, it is enough to cause a lot of damage to our Daliao iron cavalry; by then, wouldn't we suffer from being dumb?"

Xiao Temo nodded slowly and said: "What you said is very reasonable. This kid does this for a while and does that for a while. He doesn't care about the negotiation. I always feel that he has some conspiracy."

Liu Liufu said: "There is another possibility, that is, people in the Song Dynasty couldn't make many firearms at all. The officials are thinking, why did Su Jin let us know about such a secret matter? This is not a leak. Is it a secret matter of the Song Kingdom? I suspect that he did it on purpose so that we can get out of trouble."

Xiao Temo waved his hand and said: "That's why you worry too much, haven't you seen? I was going to take him back then, and he had no choice but to pull out the firearm and let it go, and those sharpshooter battalions were originally stationed on the school grounds For training, when we went there, we didn’t hear a sound of a firearm exploding, which meant that they didn’t want us to see it at all; later, after Su Jin took out the firearm and cast it, it was actually exposed, so he just kept going. He kept showing us the power of that firearm, of course it was meant to be deterrent; but from my point of view, he wanted to hide it, this kid is still too young to reveal such a big secret."

Liu Liufu thought about what happened in the afternoon, and it was indeed as Xiao Temo said, it seemed that Su Jin didn't think twice, and after inadvertently exposing the firearm, he sent out an invitation to let himself and others visit the firearm training, it doesn't seem like On purpose.

"My lord, Hong Fu Qitian, accidentally got such a big secret from Song Jun, so as not to keep us in the dark; in fact, the official wanted to say that if Su Jin deliberately let us see the power of this firearm, it would be The act of being strong outside and doing nothing in the middle shows that they must not be able to make more firearms, and showing off is actually cowardice."

Xiao Temo said: "Don't think so. If you miscalculate, do you know how much death and injury it will bring to my Daliao iron cavalry? If we go back and report this to the court, when my army attacks, the people on the checkpoint will be killed." How do you and I explain the sudden emergence of thousands of firearms? Do we still need our heads?"

Liu Liufu was so frightened that his neck shrank, this matter was not dangerous, the military law of the Daliao Liao was very strict, to put it bluntly, it was such a big matter as lying about the military situation, it was a prison in the barracks, once the generals found out, they would all He cut off his head mercilessly with a machete.

"Master Ambassador, what should we do now?" Liu Liufu asked.

Xiao Temo stretched out his big hand to fiddle with the iron brush-like beard on his face, and said slowly: "In my opinion, we need to end this negotiation as soon as possible, no matter what the result is, we can't delay any longer. The matter must be reported to the court immediately, and the court must not be kept in the dark; the emperor made it very clear that while I am staying here, the frontier army will pretend to attack the Song Dynasty after February [-] to give us a strong momentum. The Song people were forced to make concessions, and now it seems that we must rush back to Daliao territory before February [-]th, in case we suffer a big loss from this firearm during a false attack, we will be passive."

Liu Liufu nodded and said: "My lord is considering that today is already the sixth day of February, and there are only twelve days left. How many more days will it take on the way back? We must finish the negotiation around the tenth day of the lunar month." It's over."

Xiao Temo nodded and said: "Even if we can't finish it, we must hurry back."

Liu Liufu said: "Master Envoy, tomorrow morning we will take the initiative to find Envoy Fu and Su Jin. We can't wait for them to come to us. They are eager to waste time slowly, but we can't afford it."

Xiao Temo said: "That's right, just in case, you immediately write a secret letter and send someone to the border generalissimo, in case the time miss leads to a big mistake."

Liu Liufu nodded and said: "The next official will write immediately, even if we fail to negotiate this time, we will not be punished if we spy on this important news."

Xiao Temo tugged at his beard and said: "It would be great if I could get the model of the firearm, or the blueprint for making it. I, Daliao, can also make these firearms according to the gourd painting. At that time, the people of Song Dynasty will wait We have given them a pleasant surprise. And if we can accomplish this, we will definitely be rewarded heavily, maybe this envoy can become a general, but you, Deputy Envoy Liu, will definitely be included in the privy secretaries, and you will be among the most important ministers."

Liu Liufu licked his lips with his mouth half open, murmured longingly and entangledly: "This is a good idea, but... this matter is too difficult; if one is not good, we will all lose our lives here gone."

"Keep an eye on it, just play it by ear." Xiao Temo sighed, waved his hands, and walked away slowly like a big crab.