Prince of Song Dynasty

Chapter 401 Landslide and Wall Crack
Masu Mountains, a line of peaks.

The cliffs on both sides of the mountain road have experienced thousands or tens of thousands of years of wind, rain and sun. They are as dark as cast steel, and they are built up layer by layer, which looks very solid.

Under the cliff, there is a road that can only accommodate an ordinary carriage through the mountain road and circles into the ridge. It is about mile long and connects the small town of Masu with the world outside the mountain.

There are steep cliffs on the left and right sides of the mountain road, and there are scattered shrubs, dwarf trees and bamboos growing on them. There are trees and bamboos, which are uneven, but from a distance, even in autumn, the green leaves are still green Want to drip.

When they came to Masu Town, Ye Chen and his party came in from here, and this is the only way to go out of the mountain at this time.

How could Ye Chen have no arrangements for such a dangerous place that is easy to ambush.The spies sent by Hu Sanguang had long been lurking on the steep slopes and cliffs on both sides. When they came in earlier, they also sent a hundred Song cavalry guards at the exits on both sides. Huaxia Jinwei from the investigation department climbed to the top of the mountain to watch out.

At this time, when he came to the entrance, Ye Chen opened the curtain of the carriage and looked up to the left until the top was over hundreds of feet high. He had to poke his head out and look up to see the top of the mountain.

The cliff on the left slopes upwards and outwards, forming a natural eave shape. Unless there is a strong wind blowing from the opposite forest, walking on the left side will never get rain, so the ground on the left side is relatively dry.Even looking up from the bottom of the mountain road, there is only a faint line of sky.The mountain peak here is called the first-line peak, which comes from this time.

Ye Chen suddenly remembered, if someone dug a stone cave on the raised cliff on the left mountain and put a large bundle of explosives, wouldn't it mean that hundreds of people in his line would all die here today.

But then he laughed. How could there be gunpowder in this era, except that because of his appearance, the Weapons Department was starting to study gunpowder.

Although he knew that gunpowder was one of the four great inventions of China in his later generations, even according to the records of "Fan Zi Ye Ran", China had already used gunpowder for folk livelihood applications in the Spring and Autumn Period. ".It is also the first book that records the formula of gunpowder that I see now, and it was written in the eighth and ninth centuries.It is said in the book that "burn it with sulfur, realgar and saltpeter, and honey", and the phenomenon of "flame rising, burning hands and burning the house" will occur.The "secret" here should be the "honey" of honey.Honey can be turned into charcoal when heated.Sulfur, saltpeter mixed with charcoal, this is the original gunpowder recipe.

In addition, according to Ye Chen's investigation of information a few days ago, gunpowder was even used in the military at the end of the Tang Dynasty.In the first year of Tang Zhaozong's Tianyou, Yang Xingmi's army besieged Yuzhang. General Zheng made gunpowder into a ring shape, lit the hanging wire and threw it out with a trebuchet; The bow shoots.

But since Ye Chen came to this era, he paid attention to the use of gunpowder, especially after the establishment of the Huaxia Weifu, he asked the intelligence department to pay attention to the investigation of this aspect of news.As a result, there has been no news of the use of gunpowder by any force today.

Ye Chen told Yu Qingyan the most basic formula of gunpowder a few days ago, and asked the weapons department to start the experiment.A few days ago, there was news from the headquarters of the Huaxia Weifu that the Weapons Department had successfully produced a can of gunpowder, but the blasting effect was not good. Improvements, readjustments and precise formula ratios were being carried out.

However, thinking about it, Ye Chen still asked Feng Zhiyuan to get in touch with the spies of the intelligence department on the steep cliffs on both sides, and after confirming that there were no abnormalities on the top of the cliffs on both sides, he was ready to order to start entering the mountain road.

However, at this moment, from the corner of Ye Chen's eyes, he faintly saw a black shadow flashing past the top of the cliff on the left, but when he looked again, he could no longer see it.

Ye Chen thought for a while, then wondered if it was some animal or bird living in caves on the cliff.

At this time, the arrow sounded from behind again, indicating that the five thousand Tang cavalry were less than two miles away from here, and Ye Chen knew that he could not wait any longer.

Near the middle of the mountain path, in a cave five feet away from the cliff on the left, a figure looked coldly at the entrance of the mountain path where Ye Chen and the others were.He doesn't have Ye Chen's abnormal eyesight, so he can't see specific people clearly, he can only see carriages and groups of people, but because he knows that Ye Chen and his party are the only ones who are going to pass this mountain road at this time, and he also knows that Ye Chen is Among the group of people below, except for Ye Chen who was riding in a carriage, the others were all riding tall horses.

Far away, on the top of the mountain, ordinary people can't tell whether there is a person sitting on the horse or not. They can only watch the group of cavalrymen the size of ants surrounding the carriage suddenly speed up and rush into the mountain road. The torch in his left hand ignited a rope that stretched to nowhere.

The sound of chi chi burning lasted for more than ten breaths. Suddenly, thunder and thunder suddenly sounded from above, followed by grinding stones on the ground, and finally until half of the mountain collapsed, burying the group of carriages, horses and pedestrians alive below.

The entire cliff collapsed completely, the thick dust dispersed, and the original mountain road has become a mountain ridge built of huge rocks.

The spies from the intelligence department on the top of the mountain were stunned for a while, and then galloped down the mountain with screams.Far away from the direction of Masu Township, five thousand light cavalry galloped in pursuit, but stopped a few hundred meters away from here, took a few glances from a distance, and a Tang general who led the team gave an order, and the army He even turned the horse's head and left quickly.

Lou Yanming suddenly appeared at some point, came to the foot of the mountain, and saw a pair of bloody rear horseshoes squeezed by the boulder smashed into the ground.

"Ye Chen...it's a pity." After Lou Yanming sighed, he turned and left.

On the mountain, the spies of the Huaxia Weifu galloped down, and came to the hill of collapsed rubble like crazy, looking at the bloody horseshoes, thinking about what the scene in front of them meant, with disbelief and despair on their faces .

On the other side of the mountain road, Song Qi, who was left behind by Ye Chen to guard the exit, heard the sound and charged more than 300 meters into the mountain road before being blocked, making it difficult for people and horses to pass.They are at this end, and they don't know whether Ye Chen and his party have arrived.But the young general who led the team was not mediocre, knowing that the matter was of great importance, he decisively sent someone to report to Hangzhou City Zhao Zan.

It was Zhao Zan and Xue Ju who heard the news of the collapse of Yixian Peak on the second night. They hadn't thought that Ye Chen and his party would be crushed below, but they only knew from the messenger that Ye Chen might be blocked on the other side of the mountain road. Moreover, the small town of Masu is next to the Southern Tang Dynasty, so I was worried that Ye Chen was ambushed by the conspiracy of the Maitreya Sect and the Southern Tang army. How dare he neglect it? Zhao Zan personally led the torch company of [-] cavalry and rushed to the front line that night. peak.

Zhao Zan led the people all the way without eating or drinking, it took them all night, and at dawn the next day, they arrived at Yixian Peak.Before they could investigate further, a spy from the Huaxia Weifu Intelligence Department came to Zhao Zan with bloodshot eyes and a sad face.

After Zhao Zan heard what the spies said, he was so clever that he almost fell off his horse.His face was extremely ugly, and he quickly ordered to start digging the mountain.

Soon, when they dug out half of the exposed arm and the fragments of the military uniform on the arm, they finally confirmed that something really happened.

With Ye Chen's current power in the Song Kingdom and his status in the hearts of the Song Emperor, his death is enough to cause a turmoil in the entire Song Dynasty and even the whole world.After Zhao Zan figured this out, he immediately thought that if Ye Chen's death spread to all states and counties in Wuyue, would there be any changes in the Wuyue Congress that had just merged into the Song State?The answer is yes.

Therefore, while Zhao Zan issued the death order and blocked the news, he dispatched his confidant to the battalion commander and ten army scouts to send a letter to Kaifeng in an expedited [-] miles.

For the rest, Zhao Zan ordered five thousand troops to rush to move the rocks and find the bodies of Ye Chen and his party.However, it rained again in the afternoon, and Zhao Zan and his party came in a hurry. The army's supplies were limited, and a large amount of supplies needed to be transported to be stationed here.Moreover, under the heavy rain, the rescue and removal of the dead bodies was even more hindered.

When the rain stopped on the third day, the stone mountain was officially moved.Some rocks are as huge as a bucket, overlapping and squeezing each other, making it difficult to move.What tools and how long will it take to move this hill?
Zhao Zan was extremely anxious, and expanded the search area. Finally, a spy from the intelligence department who was good at climbing found a cave with people at the bottom of the broken mountain on the cliff on the left, and found traces of people living in it.Although I don't know how the other party caused the mountain to collapse, there is no doubt that someone intends to frame and kill Ye Chen.Without too much speculation, Zhao Zan thought of Maitreya Sect.

It's just five thousand cavalry. After two days of work, the periphery of the stone has not been cleared. When will Nuo Da's stone mountain be moved?
Zhao Zan ordered people to set up checkpoints along the mountain, strictly prohibiting anyone from approaching here, and at the same time stepped up to move the stones.

Although it was said to be moving the stones, in fact, he no longer held the hope that Ye Chen could escape from the world, but the boulders had smashed the human body to pieces, and now it was raining again, if the corpses were not quickly transported, Once decomposed, the broken corpses were mixed together, and even the bones were unrecognizable. With Ye Chen's contribution to Song Dynasty, if even Ye Chen's body could not be found, Zhao Zan knew that he might arouse the anger of the emperor, and he would still It will completely offend Huaxia Weifu.

But Zhao Zan was also worried about Wu Yue's affairs, so he didn't dare to stay in the frontier town. On the fifth day, he left 4000 men and horses to continue digging, and he returned to Hangzhou with 1000 men and horses. No one dared to tell the news of Ye Chen's death.As for the thousand cavalry he brought back, he had already issued a gag order, anyone who dared to speak out would be punished without mercy.Therefore, for a while, no one in the land of Wuyue knew that Ye Chen had encountered an accident.

## Volume [-] hides in the south of the Yangtze River and stirs the wind and rain

(End of this chapter)