Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

Zhongshidao asked each ministry to count the number of people. This time they attacked by boat and killed more than 700 people in total.

Many of them did not drown, but were shot to death by the rebels as they approached the shore because they threw their weapons too slowly or individual soldiers did not react.

If you are shot without armor, the mortality rate is extremely high!

Some generals also died, such as Zhong Shidao's nephew Zhong Hao, Zhe Keqiu's nephew Zhe Yanye, etc.

"Father, withdraw the troops," Zhong Xi advised. "Baoguchou is a natural danger, and the bandits are well prepared. It is impossible to break through. What's more, the morale of the army has been completely lost."

Master Zhong seemed to have aged ten years overnight. He shook his head and said, "There must be thieves in Fengxiang Mansion. There are rumors everywhere that the Zhong family is colluding with the bandits, holding back the troops, and wasting food and fodder. How can we deal with the imperial court if we withdraw our troops like this?"

Zhong Xi said in frustration: "Are we going to send our soldiers to die like we did yesterday? We have already forced them to die once. Who will be willing to board the ship next time? I'm afraid there will be a mutiny!"

The tribesmen of the Zhong family and Zhe family are truly elite.

It was obvious that they were going to die, but with two families taking the lead, they were actually able to force many of the soldiers to board the ship.

Although the process was protracted, we finally got on board.

This can only happen once, and there will definitely be a mutiny next time.

Zhong Shidao deceived himself and said: "It is not easy to travel on the Bao River when the water is high, and it is easy to capsize if it is bombarded. If we attack again during the dry season, it will be much easier to fight at that time."

Zhong Xi stared at his father for a long time, sighed, and silently stepped back.

Zhongshidao ordered the soldiers to cut down bamboo trees. Although the iron weapons were gone, the soldiers who came back with bare hands could still fight with bamboo spears and wooden spears.

This military order quickly aroused the disgust of the entire army.

Zhu Dalang had already exhausted all his benevolence and righteousness, and was unwilling to fall out with the Western Army. Zhu Dalang continued to occupy Sichuan. The soldiers of the Western Army returned to their hometown in Shaanxi. If the well water does not interfere with the river water, why should they fight to the death?

Most of the soldiers thought this way.

In the consciousness of the ancient lower class people, this kind of rural thinking was normal. They can burst into combat effectiveness in Shaanxi, but they have no desire to fight when they are far away from home. There is no problem in fighting a favorable wind. If the wind goes against them, they want to withdraw their troops and go home early.

Zhu Dalang's rebellion in Sichuan, what does it have to do with us Shaanxi people?

"In summary, the bandits are building a plank road." Another day later, the scout came back to report.

Master Zhong was a little confused: "Where else can I build a plank road?"

The scout said: "Replace the temporary plank road built by our army with a permanent plank road."

The wood of the temporary plank road has not undergone special treatments such as shade drying and antisepsis. It can be used just fine at this time. In winter, when the climate becomes colder and the air humidity decreases, the gap between the stack beams and stack holes becomes larger, which will inevitably cause looseness and may collapse under excessive stress.

After Zhong Shidao thought for a moment, he understood what Zhu Ming wanted to do, and said angrily: "This person is so insidious!"

Changing the temporary plank road into a permanent plank road is just incidental.

Ju Ming's real purpose was to convey the message that he was going to attack.

But they decided not to launch an attack immediately, but changed the plank road every day. The further the plank road is renovated, the greater the pressure on the soldiers of the Western Army. Coupled with the previous kindness in releasing the prisoners, it is estimated that within a few days of repairing the plank road, countless Western troops will want to escape.

Zhong Shidao went to check it out in person and saw rebels holding strange iron rods on the plank roads on both sides of the bank.

The teacher's road was far away, so the rebels raised the iron stick, frightening him and retreating quickly.

The bed crossbow can shoot with a musket. The range of that thing is more than two miles. However, it is too big to be moved on the plank road. When marching, it must be disassembled to cross the plank road.

"Send the divine arm archers to shoot down the bandits and craftsmen building the plank road!" Zhong Shidao didn't make the rebels feel better either.

The rebel navy sent several boats to patrol every day.

Seeing someone carrying a large crossbow more than one meter long, the flat cannons of eight warships started throwing stones at the plank road.

The accuracy was too bad and I failed to hit it.

But the divine arm archers of the Western Army were also frightened. He was also afraid of the "magic weapon" of the rebels and did not dare to get too close. He started to draw his crossbow from a distance of 300 meters, and an arrow flew past the musketeer, shocking the rebel musketeer.

When Ju Ming learned of the situation, he immediately sent his personal musketeers to board the ship.

After more than a year of raising the army, Zhu Guoxiang expanded the scale of production. As more and more craftsmen became proficient, the speed of musket manufacturing also increased rapidly.

At the same time, the gun manufacturing process was also broken down into several steps to carry out original "assembly line" production.

There are more than 360 muskets so far!

The rebels on the plank road had withdrawn, and when the warships arrived with the musketeers, they came out from the stone gate to build the plank road again.

The divine arm archers on the plank roads on both sides of the Taiwan Strait were working hard to draw their crossbows. They heard a bang, bang, bang, and more than three hundred muskets were fired, and several of them lay down in an instant.

The lucky ones who survived were so frightened that they crawled away.

Not only that, the rebel navy continued to sail upstream. Along the way, if anyone saw anyone on the plank road, he would shoot them with bullets.

After some operations, no Western troops dared to stand on the eight-mile long plank road.

Zhe Keqiu said: "That is not a magical weapon, but a weapon of the bandits. No matter how generous the overseas immortals are, they cannot give away many of them in one go. They can only be made by the bandits themselves. Withdraw your troops. The son of the Western Army should not be here. Lose your life.”

Historically, the Zhe clan was captured by the Jin soldiers, and Zhe Keqiu took the three states to pay gold, and also led the Jin army to attack Shaanzhou.

This man was not a die-hard loyalist to begin with, but now he is disgusted by the manipulations of the emperor and his ministers, and he no longer wants to fight against the rebels.

Zhong Shidao was silent. He also wanted to withdraw his troops, but he could not report to the court.

He is the commander-in-chief, and he needs to take responsibility for withdrawing the troops!

"Just wait, we can still fight after the water is shallow." Zhong Shidao said to himself while looking at the rushing water.

Since no one dared to stand on the plank road, the Western Army had no idea what the rebels were doing.

All I know is that the rebels are building a plank road, and they are definitely getting closer and closer.

When will it be repaired, or will it no longer be repaired, just walk on the temporary plank road and kill it. What should we do then?

There were also Western troops who escaped from musket bullets. After returning to camp, they also exaggerated and publicized the terror of muskets. The spread of this news made morale even lower.

Master Zhong ordered the plank road to be demolished. He was afraid of being shot during the day, so he demolished it at night.

It was impossible for the rebel musketeers to come by boat at night, and it would be difficult to find targets in the dark.

Once the plank road was demolished, the soldiers of the Western Army finally regained some morale and no longer worried about the sudden attack of the rebels.

…

Shahe.

Zhe Yanzhi once led his troops to make a surprise attack on Hanzhong along the river valley. He encountered a rebel camp halfway and returned in despair.

These days, both sides are focusing on the plank road.

The rebel navy often patrolled with musketeers, and occasionally crossed the plank road area to shoot at the Western troops sentrying along the river.

Zhong Shidao could only strengthen the vigilance at night to prevent the rebels from coming by boat to rob the camp.

Although Zhongshidao also warned the soldiers to beware of surprise attacks from the direction of Shahe, their attention had long been attracted by the plank road and the navy. Not to mention the patrolling sentries, even the generals were inevitably careless.

Gu San and Shi Biao, leading Ju Ming's personal guards, first went to the mountain camp to supply supplies.

After a day's rest, we set out with dry food.

Carrying the boat over the mountains and ridges, we walked more than 20 miles on the mountain road, and then took the boat down the river and went straight to the Western Army camp 40 miles away.

There were only a thousand people in the attacking force, all of them Ju Ming's personal guards. One-fifth of them came from Daming Township and Jintan Village, and the rest were selected from the elites of the various armies.

There were still several miles away from Shahekou, so Gu San and Shi Biao abandoned the ship and landed ashore, fearing that they would be discovered by the Western Army guarding there.

Hundreds of years later, this area also belonged to the Shimen Reservoir. When the water level rose, there was no place to stay.

But at this time, there were some flat river banks, together with less steep hillsides, where the Western Army's camps were located.

There were tens of thousands of troops, and the terrain was narrow, and the camp stretched for nearly ten miles.

Gu San and Shi Biao led their troops to abandon their ships and cross the mountains to avoid the place where it was easiest to attack the camp and where the Western Army was most heavily guarded. They randomly selected a camp as the target of the night attack.

Hiding in the mountains during the day, Gu San and Shi Biao went to observe the enemy's situation in person.

They are located on a cliff overlooking the Western Army Camp.

After choosing a suitable place, they returned to the forest to rest. In the evening, they connected the ropes carried by each person and tied them to the trees to fix them.

He also found a rock in the forest, hid behind the rock and built a bonfire, and used the bonfire to light the firewood for later use.

One after another, the guards descended from the cliff along the rope and came to the rear of the Western Army camp.

This kind of operation cannot be prevented by strengthening the vigilance. Zhongshidao just asked the soldiers to guard the mouth of Shahekou. Who would have expected that the surprise attack troops would descend from above?

The Western Army camp stretches for ten miles, how can you have the energy to guard your head everywhere?

The elite selected from tens of thousands of people can eat meat every day and can be called "special forces".

They descended to a gently sloping spot halfway up the mountain, took out the torches and torches from their waists, and gathered around each other to block the light of the fire.

Then hold the torch and rush towards the camp below.

In order to cross the mountains and ridges, he did not wear any armor, and did not even carry a spear. He only held a waist knife.

The sentries of the Western Army were all guarding the Baoshui side, and no one paid attention to the rear.

After setting several military tents on fire, a soldier shouted: "The enemy has escaped!"

"kill!"

The elite rebels rushed into the military tents and hacked them wildly. Instead of hacking the enemies to death, they only needed to frighten them into fleeing for their lives. They focused more on setting fires everywhere.

Raging fires lit up one place after another.

Countless Western soldiers woke up from their sleep. Not to mention wearing armor, they didn't even bother to pick up their weapons, so they ran around in panic in the dark.

These Western Army soldiers had long since stopped fighting. After being attacked at night, their morale completely collapsed.

"Father, leave quickly!" Zhong Hao and Zhong Xi dragged Master Zhong away and ran away.

Xijun Yingzhai is divided into three parts, one part is on the east bank of Baoshui River, the other part is on the west bank of Baoshui River and the north bank of Shahe River. The camps where Gu San and Shi Biao attacked at night were located on the west bank of Baoshui River and the south bank of Shahe River.

The Shahe River is a tributary of Baoshui River. There are many small boats docked at the intersection of the two rivers.

Zhong Shidao, father and son, fled for two miles in the darkness and quickly jumped on the boat to go to another camp.

The Western troops who escaped quickly could board the boat, while those who escaped slowly could only jump into the river.

Many others knelt down and surrendered directly, because they remembered that Zhu Dalang would not kill prisoners.

After Zhongshidao escaped across the Shahe River, he found that the north bank of the Shahe River was also in chaos. The Western Army here was not attacked at all, but they still panicked and ran for their lives. Zhong Shidao spent the whole night before he managed to contain the defeated troops, but still thousands of people escaped inexplicably.

After daybreak, boatloads of rebel troops were transported to the camp captured by surprise attack, and faced off with the remaining Western troops across the Shah River.

Ju Ming no longer replaced the plank beams. He led his troops on the temporary plank road and repaired the northernmost section. The main force of the rebel army moved to the south bank of Shah River.

The offensive and defensive positions have changed, now it's the rebels' turn to attack!