Dawn of the Empire

Chapter 412: The Officials Are Like Dogs and Sheep (1)

Li Ruoxu strode forward with excitement, "Wang Jiedu, why do you regret your life, I am willing to live and die with the soldiers of Hebei!"Even Qin Hui was a little surprised, and secretly said: "I didn't realize that this young boy is so strong!" He couldn't help but think of Li Ruoxu's elder brother, who had a teacher-student relationship with Li Ruobing when he was teaching at the Taixue In friendship, these two brothers seem to be gentle and peaceful, but they are actually stubborn people.

After Wang Yan was silent for a moment, he paid attention to Li Ruoxu, and said to Zhang Yi, the commander of the Jingsai Army, "Escort Master Qin and Master Li back to Bianliang." Zhang Yi was about to speak when Wang Yan's tiger eyes swept over him. He said in a deep voice: "Follow the order!" He brought four or five of his subordinates forward, and brought Qin Hui, Li Ruoxu, Meng Yuan and other civil servants back to the cavalry of the Jingsai Army, waiting for the opportunity to break through.

At this time, the war drums were beating more violently. Countless Hebei soldiers who were in the melee, hearing the drums, and seeing the handsome flag raised high, all their morale was greatly boosted.Although the defeat is set, the Jiedushi is still there.Will be the courage of the army.The Song army had been scattered by the cavalry of the Liao army, and at this time they all moved towards the handsome flag.

Wang Yan also sent out his own soldiers to gather and tidy up all the ministries, and there were still tens of thousands of them.Because the artillery posed a great threat to the Song army's strong formation, Wang Yan changed the strategy of the whole army advancing slowly, and instead used the heavy armored cavalry of the Jingsai Army as the vanguard, and the whole army moved southwest as fast as possible.The so-called fight to the death, under the Song army's casualties, the formation of the Xi army and the Jurchen army was once again broken by the Song army.As soon as the main force of the Song army left the shooting range of the Liao army's heavy artillery, they were heavily surrounded by the chasing Liao army cavalry, and fell into a bitter battle again, while the Han army artillery battalion moved and adjusted the position of the iron barrel cannon, and bombarded the Song army's solid formation.In this way, again and again, the soldiers of the Song Army suffered heavy casualties, and after breaking through the Liao Army's defense line again and again, more than ten thousand Hebei soldiers and horses broke out successively.The Hebei army's final resistance was much more violent than expected, and even to the point where the Liao army might be defeated by the Song army if it was a little careless.In order to deal with the main force of the Song army who was desperately struggling, Yelu Dashi could only send out a small number of soldiers and horses to chase the Song army who had broken through.

This "small part" of the Liao army's soldiers and horses is also nearly [-] Khitan cavalry.Surrounded by dozens of cavalrymen from the Jingsai Army, Qin Hui, the envoy of the Hebei Economic Strategy, was closely followed by a group of Khitan cavalry. Appear.The Jingsai army rode Hexi good horses, which were originally much better than the Liao army's war horses, but their horsepower had reached the end of their strength, and during the gallop all the way, some war horses continued to die of exhaustion.Many cavalry of the Jingsai Army simply stopped and shot arrows in place to intercept the Liao army.The Liao Army recognized that this large group of Song Army cavalry must be escorting important people, and they were not in a hurry, but patiently and slowly worn away the gradually depleted Song Army cavalry like a pack of wolves.At the end, there were only two or three cavalry escorts left beside Qin Hui, and the cavalry of the Liao army accelerated their horses, and surrounded Qin Hui and others from the north and south sides to the front.

When the Khitan cavalry rode forward unhurriedly from all directions, Qin Hui only felt a chill from his lower abdomen, and his anger spread in his chest. His whole body was frozen. Holding the hilt of Shang Fang's sword in his hand, he just couldn't draw it out.Several cavalrymen of the Jingsai Army stood back to back, bowed their bows and set arrows, pointing and watching the cavalry around them in the same panic.The long flight has exhausted the last trace of human strength and courage.Dozens of Khitan cavalry also bent their bows and set arrows. Two of them seemed to be leaders. After discussing for a while, one of them spoke in half-baked Chinese: "High officials of the Southern Dynasty, put down your bows and arrows. We won't kill you. We will take you to See the emperor."

Qin Hui's five internal organs were on fire, and after a long while of fighting between heaven and man, he pulled out the Shangfang sword bestowed by the official with a sound of "噕啷啷--".

The expressions of the surrounding Khitan cavalrymen changed drastically. If they hadn't seen that he was a civil servant and had no courage, they would have shot arrows.The cavalrymen of the Jingsai Army were also in shock. Everyone has heard the scene of the overlord of Chu being defeated in Gaixia and committing suicide with a horizontal sword.I saw Qin Hui holding the sword in his hand, his face turning blue and then white, and finally heaved a long sigh, the only one who died after all the hardships through the ages, the sword forged by hundreds of steel refiners fell powerlessly under the horse.

In the western sky, there are layers of burning clouds, as if there is endless blood flowing.The wind gently blew across the corpses all over the field. On this day, there were tens of thousands of heroes of the Song Dynasty in Hebei.However, the cavalry of the Liao army were still chasing those Song troops who were lucky enough to break out of the encirclement.

"嗖" and "嗖" several spiked arrows flew out of the head, and finally hit the back of the heart with a "snap". Song Jun fell powerlessly on the horse. Slow down.The Song Army's horse is good. The Khitan cavalry chased him for a long time before catching up. They happily urged the horse forward, thinking that the Song Army would untie the horse from the stirrups, search for the belongings with him, and strip off the boots and armor.However, when the Khitan cavalrymen stretched out their hands to grab the corpse of the Song army, suddenly, there was a "boom," like a thunderclap, and the Khitan soldiers just "hummed" before falling to the ground, with blood bubbling on their faces. .

Li Ruoxu heaved a sigh of relief, the automatic fire blunderbuss was still emitting green smoke, and the sleeve of his robe was burned through a big hole by the flames from the muzzle of the blunderbuss. The wire chain mail stuck the arrowhead, but the force of the arrow body hit the back heavily, and there were bursts of pain in the back, as if the pain was about to split open.Still holding on to his spirit, he let the horse walk up to the corpse of the Liao army in small steps, and stomped on the iron hoof a few times to confirm that the Khitan cavalry who had been chasing and killing him was completely dead.

Only then did Li Ruoxu pat the neck of the spiritual war horse lightly, took the water and spiked arrows from the Khitan cavalryman, tied the reins of his mount behind his saddle, and gently urged him on. Moving the horses, the two horses ran slowly towards the southwest, one behind the other.

The cooperation between Chunyu Iron Works and Gao Changhang has been finalized.In the evening, Chun Yuyue and Xie Ximin came to visit.When Xie Ximin saw Zhao Xingde, he smiled and said, "Lieutenant Zhao has been very busy recently." Because Zhao Xingde was busy lobbying all the captains to attack Liao, he didn't care about Chunyu Iron Works, Gaochanghang and the exchange of bank shares.Although Zhang Shanfu has decided to transfer Zhao Xingde from the Dragon Tooth Army, it has not been announced yet, even Zhao Xingde himself does not know about this news, so Xie Ximin is still referred to as the captain.

"Where, where," Zhao Xingde said with a smile. Since the Huguo Mansion decided to send troops to Kanto, he has been much more relaxed. Remembering that Xie Ximin and Chunyu Yue didn't have time to discuss with him several times before, he couldn't help but feel apologetic. He raised his glass and said: "Today I apologize to both of you." This wine was brought by Xie Ximin, Gao Changxing's best fine wine 'Jade Dew', which is said to be like the 'Jade Dew' of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, drinking it can make people immortal.Most of the wine in the Western Regions is light apple wine, but this fine nectar and jade dew is a strong wine made from rose apples. When it is served in a jade bowl, it seems colorless and clear. When you drink it down, it is like a line of fire coming from your throat. Burn to the stomach.

The climate in the northwest is extremely cold, and the snow in the courtyard has not disappeared, but when someone comes to visit, Zhao Xingde will open the doors and windows of the hall, so that the vision is wide, and the distant mountains can be seen faintly.The gorgeous clouds are like crimson veils.In the cold winter, the vegetation withers and the birds disappear, but Mingsha Mountain looks clean and round.A layer of snow has accumulated on the top of the mountain, and the sun sets, coating the white snow with a faint rouge.As the breeze blows, the soft smoke of Xia Yingsha flutters gently, blending in with the distant scenery.

Although the scenery was good, the cold wind came straight in, which was just as good as the raging charcoal fire in the house. The three of them sat around the fire, and the scene was like when they were marching and fighting, except that there were two beauties named Jiyue and Caiyun beside them. Serving by a maidservant is enough to make the soldiers in the camp saliva without food.

After the three of them had a full drink, Xie Ximin said with a smile: "It's a good start, the two of us have just decided to cooperate, and the Huguo Mansion decided to set up a training camp in Daxing, Guanzhong, and also need to stockpile a large amount of firearms and ammunition. The saltpeter in our Gaochang Bank is even more expensive, and the purified saltpetre sells for three hundred yuan a catty, which is not bad." Seeing that Zhao Xingde seemed to be frowning, he said, "Brother Zhao, don't worry, Looking at the preparations made by the five prefectures, it will be a matter of time before they send troops to Kanto to rule the world."

Zhao Xingde nodded with a smile, but did not speak.The bloody battles of the Liao and Song Dynasties, for most of the school captains and even most of the sergeants of the National Guard, meant an opportunity to dominate the world. After all, the national policy of "stand by and watch the provocations, and win two tigers with one blow" has been popular for many years.Soon the topic returned to the cooperation between Gaochanghang and Chunyu Iron Works. The three of them were drinking and talking while Chunyu Yue briefly introduced the business expansion of the Iron Works. The iron factory ordered four hundred four-inch and three-inch iron barrel guns at a time, and the deposit alone was [-] guns, and the Ordnance Department had to order another five-inch iron barrel gun.

Xie Ximin became more excited the more he heard it, and sighed, patting his thigh: "Brother Chunyu, you have to build this cannon well, and let the General's Mansion use it as much as possible. His 'grandmother' 'grandmother', fire ten shots per round." There are at least five catties of shells and gunpowder, and out of these five catties, nearly four catties will be used with our saltpeter, and once the cannon fires, it will be worth a lot of money." His eyes sparkled.

Chunyu Yue coughed lightly, and said in a deep voice: "Brother Xie and I have also discussed that Gao Changxing will use saltpeter to make high-quality gunpowder, and then cooperate with the iron barrel cannon of our iron factory to make the iron barrel cannon , shells and gunpowder are sold to the Ordnance Department together, which also saves the Ordnance Department from using other products. If the cooperation is not good, our reputation will be damaged." He sighed, "Unfortunately, this thing is sold very cheaply. The more you kill, the more you kill, you are committing crimes." He is a loyal man, with a bit of compassion in his words.

"Brother Chunyu, you are wrong," Xie Ximin shook his head and said, "To eradicate evil is to do good. This battle is going to be fought anyway, whether it is a knife or a firearm, it will kill people. We are just following the tide and following the fate of heaven. "He laughed as he spoke, filled the wine glasses in front of Zhao Xingde and Chun Yuyue, and persuaded them to drink again.