Dawn of the Empire

Chapter 6 - 58

In Liaodong Han'er and Huqun, people's hearts are much more floating than in Central Plains.When Shi Siming of Anlu Mountain rebelled against the Tang Dynasty, there was a saying among the people that the future ruler of the world would rise from the northeast.Later, when the Central Plains were "dangling", Khitan flourished again. According to the records of the Liao Dynasty, Taizu Yelu Abaoji once "shot" a black dragon in Shangjing, and the dragon fell to the west of Huanglong Mansion.It is rumored in Liaodong that sooner or later this dragon vein should be on the real dragon emperor.Han Chang raised troops against the Liao Dynasty, and most of the Han army regarded themselves as "ministers of the dragon".

The Han Army Commander's Mansion was able to stand in Liaodong for decades without breaking up, and it also took the strengths of the Xia and Song Dynasties.The Han family is the co-lord of the Han army, but the young master of the Han family must first obtain the approval of the generals to succeed to the throne and take control of the power.Han Ningshuang's purge of Han Kuang's party members earlier has been a common occurrence in the past few decades.Although it restricted the development of the Han army itself, it did eliminate most half-hearted people.

Xu Detai learned mixed things when he was young, but he was generous and fierce when he joined the Han army. He wanted to assist the Ming Lord to drive Hu Xinghan and make contributions.After decades of running and fighting, although he is the third head of the Kaizhou village, his ambition has faded a little bit.Han Ningshuang's performance made the veterans of the Han army quite gratified, and the idea of ​​"conglong" in the past involuntarily popped up again.However, after Zhao Xingde arrived in Liaodong, he recruited refugees, formed a team, and conquered the city. In Xu Detai's eyes, no matter how he looked at it, it seemed that he was accumulating strength and recruiting heroes in order to make a big move.He was secretly wary at first, but now seeing Han Ningshuang and Zhao Xingde getting closer, he had some happy thoughts.However, this thought is hidden in the bottom of my heart and I dare not show it.These are not the ways of ministers.

This is also a different standpoint, if it were Jin Changtai and others, they would never think that Zhao Xingde has the will to stand on his own.Although Xia Guo only occupied Guanzhong Bashu, it guarded the Central Plains separately from Song Dynasty.But the sergeants looked at the countries in the four directions, and they all had a faint sense of pride and pride, just like the people of the Zhou Dynasty looked at the barbarians in the four directions.In the Xia Kingdom, from the ministers to the soldiers and the common people, everyone has a way of self-defense.So what about the high officials of the Liao Kingdom?The power is as great as Han Chang, and his family is wiped out in the end, far inferior to the position of the captain of the Huguofu who is as stable as Mount Tai.The life of the Xia people is better than that of the people in the neighboring countries.There are land grants, job salary, Juelu and the annual income handed in by Yinhu, most of the sergeants have a lot of income.A while ago, the eighth battalion of Chengying issued dozens of different distributions.The soldiers of Chengying Battalion were calm and composed, while the former poor guards were drooling.

In the Han army camp at the foot of Liaoyang City, the guards lined up in five rows, with 100 people in each row. Under the command of the centurion, they completed the five tasks of brushing the barrel, loading the ammunition, tamping, setting the blunderbuss, and igniting the fire. step.This kind of firecracker made of fine iron is also called hand cannon in Liaodong to distinguish it from iron barrel cannon.Therefore, this gun battalion was also called the Hand Cannon Battalion by the Han army.When Zhao Xingde heard about it, he could only smile wryly.Because the iron used is a bit rough, the wall of the gun had to be thickened a lot during the trial production.As a result, the gun body was much heavier than the fire gun of the Song Dynasty. If Zhao Xingde had planned to make it into a Zhang Xu long gun, the front end would be too heavy for the guards to hold it.Later, the handle of the gun had to be shortened.In order to take advantage of the extra weight, a small ax was added to the lower end of the thorn.Many of the garrison soldiers were from logging, so they were quite familiar with axes.

The fire gun battalion's "shoot" command in front of the enemy is the simplest five, but the whole operation is subdivided into more than 20 actions. Zhao Xingde's requirement is that the actions of each centurion guard must be consistent. , It's like "drilling" in the queue, and the whole team will be punished if they can't do it.

Liu Zhijian is now the commander of the Fifth Garrison Battalion. Accompanied by his voices of "One!" "Two!" "Three!" "Four!" "Five!" Extremely flowing beauty.

"This kind of military training is really good-looking, is it useful in war?" Gao Bolong said with pouted lips.Just the day before yesterday, Han Ningshuang specifically asked Wang Xuansu to train the Hand Cannon Battalion in the same way as the Xia Guoying, to make up for the lack of archers in the Han army.

"You'll know it once you've been on the battlefield." Tong Yunjie said in a deep voice.He already sincerely admired Zhao Xingde.Now he is in charge of the Artillery Battalion of the Han Army, and he is always eager to explain the intentions of Xia Guoying's various measures to his colleagues. Zhao Xingde and Xia Guoying have gone from being suspected to accepting among the generals of the Han Army, and Tong Yunjie has done a lot.

"Our recruits have rarely seen blood. Don't look at how loud they usually are. If we are about to go into battle, the cavalry from the Liao Kingdom will rush over, I'm afraid they will lose their courage. This hand cannon is extremely troublesome to fire. , if the training is not detailed, I am afraid that few people will be able to really make a sound. This method of training soldiers may seem clumsy, but it is actually very safe."

Gao Bolong suddenly realized: "That's true, this method is easy to use." He looked up at Xia Guoying not far away, and sighed, "It's a pity that our Han army has a shallow foundation. If there were more than a hundred thousand elites from the commander's mansion back then, I'm afraid Shangjingcheng will also be taken down."

In the captain's camp, bows, arrows, sabers and other things were hung on the wall, under an oil lamp, Zhao Xingde sat cross-legged in front of the desk, reading a letter.Chen Dong asked him for advice on how to use the reclamation refugees to organize and train rural soldiers.After seeing Chen Dong's whimsical idea of ​​using a relegated scholar as an officer, Zhao Xingde couldn't help being a little dumbfounded.Zhao Xingde frowned, looking at the tone of the letter, Chen Shaoyang was very determined, he concluded that if it wasn't for this, and there were no restrictions overseas, the so-called country soldiers were actually no different from rebellion.However, the civil and military of the Song Dynasty had different paths, and the gap was also huge.Scholars are not good at fists, knives, knives and guns, at most they have read a few military books, even if they are appointed as officers, they have no prestige in the battalion.

"In this way," Zhao Xingde murmured, "this country soldier can only practice like the firecracker garrison." Unbearable to fight, in addition to using well-mannered Neo Confucian scholars as officers, a group of instructors with excellent skills were selected, who were usually responsible for teaching skills, but not leading troops.Officers have to teach the principles of soldiers several times a day in the morning and evening.

As for Chen Dong's idea of ​​using punishments and rewards to manage refugees, Zhao Xingde agreed very much, and he only reminded him that the way of punishments and rewards is the same, and he must not think that "the court is not inferior to the common people, and the punishment is not superior to the doctor".Let officials everywhere use it for their own purposes, and let scholars stand outside punishment and reward.Otherwise, there will be no rules and records, and these refugees will rebel sooner or later, and it will be too late to regret by then.

Because of his busy military affairs, Zhao Xingde didn't have time to choose his words carefully, so he sent out the letter immediately after replying.Only then did he stand up, wear the horizontal knife, bow and arrow on his body, put on the iron helmet, and went out to patrol the camp.Now outside the city of Liaoyang, there is an atmosphere before the war.Iron barrel guns and trebuchets from the Kingdom of Jin have also been brought in one after another, and there are thousands of them. Whenever stone bullets are fired, it really seems like a rain of stones is falling on the top of the city. .The Artillery Battalion of the Han Army seemed less important, but because of the imminent battle between Jin and Liao, the conflict between Han and Jin was suppressed temporarily. Wanyan Wu Yaren even sent a batch of military rations to Han Ningshuang.

The Golden Army came continuously from Shenzhou and set up a camp under the city of Liaoyang, as if they were going to wait for the Liao army to come to battle.Just outside the Xiaguo camp, the golden soldiers in iron armor kept driving their horses to practice rushing up the low wall, crossing the trench, fighting in battle and so on.There are scenes of people screaming and horses neighing, smoke and dust covering the sun, and killing sounds shaking the sky.

Not long after, the forward of Liao's reinforcements arrived at the outskirts of Liaoyang.Wan Yanci, the commander-in-chief of the Jin army, sent the brave general Lou Shi to lead the army to meet them. The two sides fought fiercely, and the Liao cavalry was repelled.This battle frustrated the spirit of the Liao army.The 15 troops of the Liao State were actually stationed a hundred miles away from Liaoyang City, and they dared not advance.Xiao Suxian, who stayed behind in Tokyo, had no choice but to send a messenger to Beijing for help.

Emperor Yelu Dashi of the Liao Kingdom publicly reprimanded Brother Yelu Tie. Brother Yelu Tie wrote a letter of apology.In desperation, Yelu Dashi had no choice but to personally lead a cavalry army of 40 and an infantry army of [-], claiming to be an army of [-], to march against Liaoyang.

After Yelu Dashi left Shangjing, some unruly people immediately started to move.After being convinced that Yelu Dashi had left, Yelu Zhangnu, the king of the Northern Academy, was proclaimed emperor, and the rebels gathered tens of thousands of troops to besiege the imperial city.Empress Xiao Ta Buyan and concubine Xiao Sesu summoned the guards of the palace tent to guard desperately, and the boy camp who got the queen's favor and entered the palace to accompany him also went to the city to help guard.The rebels besieged for a day and a night, but failed to succeed.On the third day of the rebellion, the Northern Expeditionary Army, which was supposed to be hundreds of miles away, suddenly returned, and some of the rebellious soldiers in Shangjing opened the city gate to Wang Shi.

At the beginning of the Yelu Dashi uprising, he called for the restoration of the ancestral system and ruled the world with all the Khitan dignitaries, and promised to distribute all Haner slaves to the Khitan tribes.But after he ascended the throne, although he reopened the meeting of the eight Khitan tribes, he replaced many Khitan tribe leaders with his cronies, and still firmly held power.Most of the slaves and wealth that were originally distributed to the tribe belonged to the patriarch. As a result, Yelu Dashi assigned these directly to the warriors, and the warriors in the army were directly under the control of the centurion, thousand commander, and even the Beiyuan privy envoy. His command is equivalent to taking away most of the rights of the tribal chiefs.In the past two years, although his prestige has grown day by day, there are also many people secretly wishing to crush him to ashes.

Although Yelu Dashi is authoritative and self-respecting, he can't kill all the Khitan nobles.With the opportunity of this rebellion, most of the aristocrats in Shangjing who had evil intentions were finally drawn out.A bloodbath begins.More than 100 royal families were killed alone, and countless other families were implicated.After everything was cleaned up, Yelu Dashi left the former imperial commander Xiao Orila to guard Shangjing, and he himself led the army to Liaoyang.