Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

Since the troops had fled back, Li Renyi could not see the body with his own eyes and could only guess what happened based on the soldiers' descriptions.

After listening, Ding Zhongyi said: "In future battles, generals cannot lead the army to charge. They must hide in the formation and command, otherwise they will inevitably become the target of public criticism."

"Not bad." Li Renyi nodded.

Ding Zhongyi added: "We have not encountered the divine artillery mentioned in the request for help so far. These Han soldiers want to lure us to invest more troops and are determined to eat all our troops."

Li Renyi asked: "We know this, but can we withdraw our troops? The King of Jin has already gone around to the south. Once we retreat here, the King of Jin will become a lonely army and go deep. We can't lose the Southern Army, and the King of Jin can't ignore him. China has too much to do with it, and neither you nor I can afford it."

"Do you know that there is a danger of the whole army being annihilated, but you still have to head forward?" Ding Zhongyi looked a little anxious.

Li Renyi said: "I am the commander-in-chief and you are the supervisor. If you are willing to take responsibility, I will withdraw the troops."

These are all angry words. Ding Zhongyi, a Han Chinese, cannot bear such responsibility at all.

Ding Zhongyi said: "Let's wait for news of the surprise attack."

They sent 3,000 people to enter from a valley in the north, then crossed the mountains and ridges into another valley, and were able to get around several miles behind the Ming army.

We retreated and set up camp that day and did not launch any more attacks.

At midnight, the surprise army returned disgraced.

There were not many Ming troops defending the trail, only a thousand men, and they had no firearms. However, with the help of the favorable terrain, the Xixia soldiers who made a detour and made a surprise attack fled in panic.

The first battle was lost, the surprise attack was ineffective, and Li Renyi was completely blinded.

It's not that he is incompetent in commanding troops, but that he has never fought this kind of battle and doesn't know how to deal with it.

And the terrain is so disgusting!

After dawn, Li Renyi convened a meeting with the generals to brainstorm countermeasures.

With a word from you or a word from me, a few generals said it was time to retreat, while most of the generals clamored to attack by force.

As for how to attack by force, no one can tell the specific tactics.

Ding Zhongyi suddenly said: "The river near the left is very narrow. Can we build a dike to store water, and then open the dike to flood the enemy troops downstream?"

Li Renyi shook his head: "If you can't hold much water, it is estimated that it will not be submerged to the waist. At most, it will overflow ashore and wet the enemy's legs. Moreover, embankments will be built upstream and the water level will drop sharply downstream. The enemy will definitely be able to guess the strategy."

"Then camp still and delay with the enemy, waiting for King Jin to launch his attack in the south." Ding Zhongyi said.

Li Renyi asked: "What should I do with the Nanjun Division?"

Ding Zhongyi guessed: "The Henan Military Division is probably gone, otherwise he would not sit back and watch the Han people divide their troops and come here."

Li Renyi thought hard and actually followed the advice, huddled in the camp and never came out.

This made Yang Zhi extremely uncomfortable. He had already put oil in the pot and was about to stir-fry a plate of delicious food, but the food didn't want to be poured into the pot.

This Xixia army of more than 60,000 people suffered casualties and more than 4,000 prisoners in the first battle, and the deputy capital commander was also killed inexplicably.

They were really scared!

Now that he is guarding the camp and not leaving, Yang Zhi is really hard to attack. He had to leave people to defend the city, and he only brought more than 12,000 soldiers. How could he attack the enemy camp with nearly 60,000 soldiers left?

Once you take the initiative to attack, not only will your terrain advantage be lost, but the enemy will also occupy favorable terrain.

"We can fight," Li Jinyi said. "In the most open area upstream, the river valley is only more than two miles wide, which is much narrower than the downstream. Even if our army only sends out 10,000 people, we can form a formation to block the river valley. And what's the use of having more enemy soldiers? Can they fully deploy? The extra soldiers will either wait stupidly at the rear, or climb up the hills on both sides to shoot arrows. Our army also sent troops to capture the hills, making it impossible for the enemy troops on both sides to After bypassing the enemy, all that's left is to storm the enemy camp!"

With Yang Zhi's character, he would not fight like this easily, but there were tens of thousands of Xixia troops behind him, forcing him to fight hard if he didn't want to.

"Then attack the enemy camp!"

Immediately the whole army crossed the river and moved forward. After approaching the enemy camp, the main army formed an array in the river valley. Each sent two thousand soldiers to occupy the hills on both sides. More than a thousand musketeers also followed them to attack the mountains.

These hills are not steep, and the reason why they are impossible to march is that they are endlessly rolling.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the population exploded, and villages even formed one after another in the low places between the mountains.

The Ming army was very dispersed when attacking the mountain. They used the Yuanyang squad as a unit, followed by a musketeer, and climbed up in groups of thirteen people.

Stones were constantly being pushed down the mountain, but no serious casualties were caused. Unpolished irregular stones did not roll quickly on the not-so-steep hillside.

Climbing halfway up the mountain, arrows rained down from the top of the mountain.

There were many troops in Xixia, but they couldn't deploy in the valley anyway, so they simply sent a large number of troops to the hills for defense. The Ming army really couldn't attack them for a while.

"Array forward!"

Yang Zhi did not expect to capture the top of the mountain, as long as the enemy did not flank the main force from there.

Thousands of troops lined up horizontally, filling the valley with only some passages left by various ministries in the middle.

The Tiger Crouching Cannon and ammunition were also carried, and they advanced slowly, getting closer and closer to the enemy camp.

Due to the rush of time, the enemy's camp had not yet dug trenches or piled earth mounds, and only had some wooden fences as protection walls.

About a hundred steps away, the entire army stopped.

Forty tiger squatting cannons were carried to the front of the formation, and they first inserted an iron bullet the size of a fist, and then filled it with shotgun the size of a pigeon egg. This method of loading can shoot farther than using all shotgun shells.

The valley here is about 1,400 meters wide, and the river flows close to the mountains on the west side.

The enemy camp blocked the river valley. Countless enemies were guarding behind the wooden fence, and not a single general could be seen. Even the lower-level officers deliberately stood behind the soldiers.

These Xixia generals finally did not dare to stand in front anymore.

Artillery commander Deng Xia studied with Zhu Guoxiang for several years. At this time, use a sky ruler to measure the distance and adjust the shooting angle of the Tiger Crouching Cannon. The specific method is to use analytical geometry to measure the landing point of the parabola.

"Test the cannon!"

"Boom boom boom!"

At a distance of more than a hundred steps, which was only about two hundred meters, a small number of fist-sized iron bullets flew out among countless shotguns.

The Xixia soldiers behind the wooden fence watched the bullets flying in the sky, and then screams came one after another.

Deng Xia held the telescope and observed, and ordered: "Cannon legs forward half a degree!"

The Tiger Crouching Cannon, a small cannon that can move quickly, naturally does not have a very precise angle adjustment device.

It's just a gun barrel, with gun legs on the front end to support the ground, like an animal squatting on the ground. If you have never seen the tiger squat, you must have seen the dog squat, that is, you sit down with your hind legs retracted and your front legs straightened to step on the ground.

The collar of the gun leg moves forward, that is, the angle of the gun barrel is adjusted downward.

The second salvo after adjusting the angle was obviously more accurate. The wooden fences of the Xixia camp fell down row by row, and the Xixia soldiers behind the wooden fence were also hit by shotguns.

Seeing the Ming army loading ammunition again, the Xixia soldiers who were still alive turned around and ran away, and the supervising team could not stop them at all.

There was a simple high platform on the south side of the camp. Li Renyi stood on the general platform and witnessed what had just happened.

The two armies are still beyond the range of ordinary bows and arrows, and only a few archers who can draw strong bows can shoot that far. But that thunderbolt cannon can actually hit it!

The third volley came soon, but there were always some areas that it didn't hit, so I adjusted slightly left and right to hit it.

After another round of shelling, finally no enemy dared to stand at the wooden fence.

However, after the Xixia soldiers who were holding on to the wooden fence fled, the Ming army did not pursue the victory, but the entire army slowly advanced again.

After traveling a certain distance, it stopped and the Crouching Tiger Cannon was placed on the ground again.

This plan is to use a large infantry formation and artillery fire to push it all the way!

At this moment, the infantry formation has passed the contested hilltop, and there are a large number of Xixia soldiers on the mountains on both sides.

Ding Zhongyi said anxiously: "These Ming army's divine artillery are just like the Song army's thunder cannons. They need time to reload the cannons. We cannot let them continue to fire. After the cannon is fired, order the cavalry to attack from the front. The soldiers from the hills on both sides also rushed down to attack! The cavalry was divided into three teams. If the first and second teams were hit by artillery, the third team would continue to charge."

Easier said than done, somewhat confusing to execute.

A large number of Xixia infantry retreated automatically and did not obey military orders very much, blocking the passage of troops.

The Xixia cavalry slashed their own infantry all the way, and then the passage for troops was opened.

The cavalry were also afraid of artillery and did not dare to get too close.

By the time these cavalrymen rushed over, the Tiger Crouching Cannon had already been loaded with ammunition, and nearly half of the first group of cavalrymen fell during the charge. Moreover, the trajectory of the shotguns was elusive, and some of the second wave of cavalry that followed were also affected by stray bullets.

The fallen human and horse corpses caused the cavalry rushing from behind to slow down slightly.

The gunners retreated one after another and hid in the infantry formation.

The remaining cavalry finally rushed to the Ming army's formation. They came to destroy the cannons, just like the cavalry went out to destroy the siege equipment.

These people actually got off their horses, drew their swords and hacked at the cannon body, and some tried to set it on fire with torches.

Until now, the Xixia generals still don’t know that this thing is not made of wood at all!

"Dang-dang-dang!"

The collision of iron weapons kept making sounds, and the Xixia cavalry who were brandishing their swords were instantly stunned.

Iron?

The rattan player threw his javelin, the squad leader shot his arrow, and they all greeted the cavalry. The armored riders might not have died from their injuries, but their stalled horses fell to death one after another, and some injured horses rushed wildly.

If it weren't for the Xixia soldiers coming from the hills on both sides, Yang Zhi would have ordered the infantry to charge.

The main force of the Ming army quickly changed formations. There was no need to worry about the river blocking the river on the west side, but they formed formations on the east side to engage with the enemy coming down the mountain.

These Xixia soldiers rushed down from the rugged hillside. They had no formation at all, but they had to face the Ming army who was waiting for them.

As the Ming army adjusted its formation, a group of soldiers came out from the west position to attack the cavalry who stopped to destroy the cannons. The Xixia cavalry whose horses were still alive fled one after another.

Then, the Xixia troops who came down the mountain to attack were also defeated by the Ming army's formation.

"Catch up and occupy the hilltop!"

Li Jinyi, who was in charge of the front command, immediately seized this opportunity, divided his troops to chase the broken troops up the mountain, and took advantage of the situation to occupy the top of the mountain.

Then he went south from this hilltop to join the troops who had attacked the mountain before, and attacked the enemy troops on the other hilltop from the north and south.

"Capital, those cannons are made of iron and cannot be destroyed!"

The cavalrymen who fled back were all crying.

Li Renyi looked blankly at the Ming army in the distance and muttered: "How can you fire a cannon made of iron?"

Ding Zhongyi asked: "The torsion bar is also made of iron? If you cut off the torsion bar, the cannon will not fire."

The cavalryman replied: "There is no torsion bar. It is just a big iron pipe with a few hoops on the outside and two legs in front of it."

Belt hoop?

And two legs?

Ding Zhongyi said confusedly: "Is it some kind of monster?"