Dawn of the Empire

Chapter 58: Fate is a big fallacy (2)

Gaoyang Pass, the Taihang Mountain stretches for thousands of miles in the northwest, and the Yanshan Mountain in the northeast. The two major mountain ranges criss-cross in the north of Gaoyang, forming a natural barrier.Once you pass Gaoyang, you enter the hinterland of the Hebei Plain, a plain that stretches as far as the eye can see.Therefore, Gaoyang Pass is the gateway of Hebei, together with Yijin Pass in Bazhou and Waqiao Pass in Xiongzhou, they are also known as three passes.Although the Guancheng is small, it is rare to be built purely with bricks and stones, which is extremely strong. In order to facilitate long-term persistence, there are garrison fields and pastures outside the Guancheng. Since the founding of the dynasty, a fortress has been added. Not far away is where the current Dasong Hebei camp is located.

To the north of Gaoyang Pass, in order to prevent the cavalry from the Liao Kingdom, countless paddy fields have already been reclaimed, and the fields are full of mulberry elms. Originally, this kind of tree was not allowed to approach the pass. However, the Song and Liao countries did not use weapons, and the trees naturally grew continuously. The tenants enjoy their success. At this moment, the guards at the head of Gaoyang City looked towards the north, and there were layers of tree shadows everywhere. They didn't think about it, and cursed: "God, this thief must freeze to death." He snorted, wiped his nose, tightened the belt of the padded jacket outside the armor, hunched his neck, leaned under the bed crossbow beside the crenel, and took a nap.

Among the layers of tree shadows, occasionally a little light flashed, which was the light of the city lights reflected by the telescope lens.Xiao Dabu, the privy envoy of the Northern Academy, also put down his binoculars. As expected, the people of Song Dynasty did not notice this southward invasion, and Gaoyangguan City was completely unprepared.He bowed his head and asked: "Is the iron barrel and cannon used in the siege ready to be ready?" Chai Yibing, the commander of the Han army, said, "It's all ready. You only need the command of the commander to attack the city." Xiao Da didn't agree. Looking at the point of Chai Yi's right hand, he saw fifteen huge bronze cannons lined up in the open space in the woods ahead.This is the best cannon that the Liao Kingdom has cast in the past few years. Each cannon weighs tens of thousands of catties. The cannon body is seventeen feet long and the barrel is fifteen inches thick. This giant cannon can throw stone bullets weighing nearly a thousand catties three miles away.Surrounding the fifteen giant cannons are hundreds of iron barrel cannons of different sizes, all of which are used to fire stone bombs for siege. Cannons are successively enlarged and cast new cannons.Once the siege begins, the Han army camp will push these small and medium-sized Tietong guns towards the city.In order to serve these cumbersome big guys, the Han army's firearms battalion in this southern invasion reached [-] people.

The giant cannons parked in the forest are all covered with cotton cannon coats coated with beef and sheep fat, and the cannon covers are covered with thick branches to cover them. These cannons are well concealed. With so many supplies and vehicles in the ammunition battalion, it would be difficult for Xiao Da to identify the position of each cannon, so he nodded slightly.In order to plan this southward invasion, the Liao court made great efforts. Not only did they specially send the Khitan champion who is proficient in Khitan and Chinese, Yelu Dashi, the Jiedu envoy of the Liaoxing Army in Nanjing, was sent to the Southern Dynasty to observe the situation along the way, and he also sent the Grassland Kelie Department to feign surrender. Southern Dynasties.But the most difficult part of the whole preparation process was transporting the fifteen cannons to the woods two miles north of Gaoyang Pass without the Gaoyang Pass defenders noticing.For this reason, after Chai Yi, the commander of the artillery battalion, surveyed the location of the artillery, the Liao Kingdom specially sent people to pretend to be caravans to clear out roads and preset artillery positions from the woods. In the atmosphere, the number of patrols was reduced due to the freezing weather, and it was not easy to find that the Liao army launched a southward invasion during this period of movement.

Ever since leading an elite cavalry force of [-] to secretly leave Youzhou and sneak here, Marshal Xiao Dabu has been worried. The purpose of this southward invasion is to capture Hejian, Zhending, Zhongshan and other areas in the north of Hebei. The barrier, all taking advantage of the land, made the Song people lose the advance base of the Northern Expedition, and the second was to plunder more people from the Central Plains to the northern country. Since the Liao Kingdom used Han slaves as slaves in workshops, it gradually tasted the sweetness. This kind of enslavement The method is much better than the original establishment of Junzhou County, allowing farmers to reclaim and plant by themselves. As the death rate of labor slaves increased, the Khitan people gradually felt that there were not enough slaves for the first time, just like a child who has just tasted the juice and has to suck it hard. , For the sake of slaves and wealth, the voices of the upper class of the Liao Kingdom to invade the south are getting louder and louder.

"Daliao and Song, in the end there can only be one standing." Xiao Da mused, he was not fighting for the slaves, but for the future of the Khitan people, the Jurchens in the north rebelled. It is getting worse and worse, and the court of Song State is clamoring for the Northern Expedition to Youyan every day. Now Youyan is the land that the Liao Kingdom must not lose, so the only way to completely beat Song State to the ground through war is to turn around and deal with Jurchen. Uncivilized barbarians, I heard that the Song State was even secretly funding the Jurchens' rebellion. The Southern Dynasty really deserved to be destroyed.

As of noon today, everything went smoothly, but the leader of the Kelei tribe, Klein Marcus, was suddenly assassinated by the Song people. A rebellion broke out in the hinterland of Song State.Xiao Da, the commander of the Southern Invasion, had no choice but to launch the Southern Invasion in advance.

"Hebei Daying from the Song Dynasty claims to have 20 people, and the [-] Tielin Army is 'pressing' Hejian, isn't it a little risky?" Xiao Da turned his head and asked the new Privy Envoy of the South Court, who was staring at the south with piercing eyes. Yelu Dashi.

"If the people of Song Dynasty haven't quelled the rebellion of the Kelie tribe, they might have a chance to defeat the Hebei Daying camp in one fell swoop." Yelu Dashi said slowly, he was still in his thirties, not much more than Xiao Dabu, who was nearly fifty years old. With a lot of vigor, "I will let the Tielin army go around to the back of the Hejian mansion, destroy all the post stations on the official road, and burn all the villages along the way, so that the army of the Song Dynasty will think that they are besieged by us, and flee in panic." He said. Gently patted the war horse's neck, calming down the restless horse.

Yelu Dashi looked at the huge cannons in the woods, and the people from the Han Army Firearms Battalion sat quietly around the cannons, all looking a little nervous.It turned out that there were still several roads for Liao's southward invasion that could bypass the three passes of Gaoyang, Yijin, and Waqiao, and go straight to the hinterland of Hebei. However, because there were no sharp weapons for siege, it was impossible to conquer the cities of Song.Although there are giant cannons now, in order to transport the giant cannons by official means, they have to storm Gaoyang Pass.This artillery has mixed advantages and disadvantages for the country's military advantage. Song Guo Daxing's lighter firecrackers may also have seen the disadvantage of the artillery being difficult to carry.

Xiao Da also sighed, this time the southward invasion, although Yelu Dashi was a subordinate, he won the support of the nobles of the Yelu family, Xiao Da must also respect his opinion, Yelu Dashi is a rare palace test for the Khitan people in a hundred years The number one scholar is also the royal family.The current emperor Yelu Yanxi is not very wise, and many young Yelu nobles even believe that the future hope of the Liao Kingdom lies in Yelu Dashi.Therefore, Xiao Da also specially assigned [-] of the most elite Tielin Army to command him.In order to make the cavalry move quickly, Yelu Dashi asked the Tielin Army to remove most of the heavy armor, leaving only one tenth of them to keep the full armor, which was shared with other people in the same team.

"Fire!" He gave an order to Chai Yi in a deep voice, and Chai Yi turned around and nodded to the lieutenant who had been looking nervously.

"Fire!" Ye Lunuge, deputy commander of the Firearms Battalion, ordered.

The order to "fire the guns", from the command of each battalion to the team leader in charge of each gun, the Han army nervously removed the branches and gun covers covered by the sound of the guns and threw them aside one by one. The deputy gunner checked the barrel for the last time, and then Started to load the 'medicine' bags and stone bullets, and the other Han troops in the back took all kinds of tools and prepared nervously. Many of these Han troops were selected from the workshop. The bad days are as different as the world, but once there is negligence or mistakes, the punishment will be extremely heavy, so I dare not neglect. "Manipulating" firearms is hard and delicate work, so the real Khitan people who are used to galloping horses are not willing to do it. It is the turn of these Han people. The Han army, who can't even use knives, guns, bows and arrows, is no different from slaughtering chickens and dogs.

The lantern at Gaoyang Pass in the distance is the best target, the night is so quiet, there is a loud bang, accompanied by the light of the fire, which startled the guards at Gaoyang Pass to fall to the ground, and then, "Boom" The sound of "Boom" continued, and the horses, dogs, and chickens in the pass city all screamed in panic, and the guards looked at what happened on the ground at the crenel, and saw the flash of fire in the distance In a flash, finally, a stone bomb weighing a thousand kilograms, with huge inertia, hit the tower of Guancheng with a bang, and immediately smashed a big hole in the ground made of city bricks. Jo could see the archers guarding the lower crenel looking up in horror.