Xiao Huaizhong is a person who is good at disguising. He usually keeps his emotions and anger hidden. But now anyone who is not a fool can see how bad Xiao Huaizhong is in a bad mood. The 40,000-strong army is blocked by a few hundred people under this mountain ridge.

Even after using crossbows, strong archers and even whirlwind cannons, they were unable to capture it. This was simply a great shame. If word of today's battle reached the imperial court, Wanyan Liang would be completely disappointed in himself, and the clan ministers in the imperial court would be afraid.

I crooked my nose from laughing.

There is naturally a reason for this because of the terrain. The mountain road several feet wide cannot give full play to the advantage of crushing troops. In this situation, it is in line with the saying that one man can guard the gate and ten thousand men cannot open it. The opponent took advantage of this geographical advantage, and in addition

The ferocious fire attack caused heavy casualties to his troops.

According to previous rough statistics, there were nearly a thousand casualties. Just now, the former army's attacking soldiers and horses fled from the cliff, and more than two thousand soldiers and horses disappeared into thin air. This is of course considered a casualty number. In other words, from the beginning of the morning to now in the afternoon,

At that time, in just three or four hours, not only did his army not make any progress, but also lost more than 3,000 soldiers including the fleeing soldiers. This is unimaginable. I have never fought such a useless battle. That mountain ridge

What kind of soldiers and horses are the envoys on board, and what kind of person is Fang Zian?

Xiao Huaizhong looked towards the top of the mountain ridge, where after the gunpowder smoke cleared, shadowy figures were swaying. Xiao Huaizhong seemed to see the soldiers on the other side laughing at him and celebrating their victory. His eyes moved to the slope, where corpses were piled up.

It was covered with a thick layer, the ground was red, and there was flesh and blood everywhere. From far away, from the slope and from the bottom of the cliff, there was a shrill howl like a wounded beast. It was the loud roar of the injured but not dead soldiers.

Howling.

The mountain wind was washing away, the forest waves were roaring, the weather was already cold, but at this moment Xiao Huaizhong's heart was frozen.

Xiao Zhengde came to Xiao Huaizhong angrily. His shame and fear mixed together, so that he did not dare to look at Xiao Huaizhong who was sitting on the horse. He reached out and took off his helmet, knelt in front of Xiao Huaizhong with his hair disheveled, and said in a trembling voice: "Zhengde is defeated, please punish the marshal.

The general is willing to die."

Xiao Huaizhong withdrew his gaze, glanced at Xiao Zhengde who was kneeling in front of the horse, waved his hand and said: "Get up, I don't blame you."

Xiao Zhengde could hardly believe his ears and looked at Xiao Huaizhong in shock.

Xiao Huaizhong said: "Zhengde, when you fight with me, don't say that you are the defeated general. When you say this, it seems that I have been defeated. I will be defeated by a few hundred thieves."

Huh? You shouldn't talk like that."

Xiao Zhengde kowtowed quickly and said: "Yes, yes, I shouldn't say that. I am stupid. Please punish me, Marshal."

Xiao Huaizhong sighed and said: "Why are you punished? Those are Xiao Yu's soldiers and horses, a group of scattered sand, a mob. How can they fight? Xiao Yu himself is incompetent, and his soldiers and horses are also incompetent. No wonder he was defeated. The emperor insisted

I am unwilling to come with ten thousand soldiers and horses from Xiao Yu. You are my trusted general, so I can only let you command this army. You have only taken over for a few days, so I don’t blame you for the defeat."

Xiao Zhengde burst into tears with gratitude. He originally thought he was going to be stabbed, but Xiao Huaizhong said such reasonable words, which made him both touched and ashamed.

"Marshal, the general will organize troops to charge again. This time, the general will personally take the lead and supervise the battle. The defeat will never happen again. If the general cannot attack, he will die on the battlefield and never come back." Xiao Zhengde shouted.

.

Xiao Huaizhong looked at the sky, shook his head and said: "No need, it's almost the end of the day, it's getting late. The soldiers and horses marched all night last night, and they didn't get enough water and rice. They encountered obstacles before they could rest. They were all very tired.

The small enemy on the mountain ridge is not worth mentioning. After passing the order, all the armies will camp and rest in place, bury the pots and make rice. When fighting, there is no hurry."

Xiao Zhengde said in astonishment: "Marshal, just attack again. This is already the case, how can we stop? Tell the generals to take turns to attack. They will be exhausted even if they are tired. Then mobilize the cyclone cannon to smash these enemies to death. Do more

How many cars..."

Xiao Huaizhong shouted coldly: "Have you ever seen the tactic of exhausting the opponent to death on the battlefield? Then adjust the cyclone cannon? Do you know how expensive the cyclone cannon is? Do you know that you need to bring your own stone bombs? One cart only pulls

Three stone bullets, dozens of which were lost just now, we only brought 300 in total. How to attack when the Eight-Character Army is defending the camp later? If you don't understand, don't say more, and go without giving orders."

Xiao Zhengde did not dare to say anything and hurriedly stood up to give the order and left. Xiao Huaizhong raised his head and scanned the terrain of the mountain ridge under the sunset, and finally locked on the towering peak on the east side of the mountain ridge.

…

On the mountain ridge, the Jin soldiers camped on the spot with all their weapons and drums stopped in everyone's eyes, which meant that the opponent's attack had come to an end. This time, unlike at the beginning, everyone celebrated happily. After today's day

During the nightmarish battle, many people became silent and calmed down. They knew that the battle would continue and everything was far from over.

However, Fang Zian was very happy, with a smile on his face. Fang Zian knew in his heart that the battle this afternoon was the most challenging and difficult moment. After suffering a loss, the Jin soldiers launched an extremely fierce attack, which was the most difficult to withstand.

Everyone withstood the battle. This is something worthy of celebration.

But Fang Zian also knew very well that the mountain ridge could not be defended, and Jin Bing was not giving in. The battle would start again, and it would be more fierce. After understanding his own strength, Jin Bing should not have the slightest chance.

When the commander-in-chief of the Jin Army paid full attention to it, there would be no possibility of taking advantage of the situation. Of course, the ultimate goal of this battle is to delay and hinder the Jin Army. As for how long it can be delayed, it depends on the casualties.

And the consumption level of materials. Especially the consumption level of muskets and thunderballs.

Fang Zian regretted that he didn't study and improve firearms before, which was his specialty. When he was in the army, he had touched all kinds of firearms, and he could quickly assemble the firearms with his eyes closed and heard the sound of gunfire.

Then he knew how far away it was and what kind of gun it was fired from. After coming to the Song Dynasty, he actually didn’t work on this aspect. Maybe his ambition was not to fight and kill before, or maybe he knew that with the technology of the Song Dynasty,

To this extent, it is difficult to make firearms. But since you can find talented people to tinker with steam engines, you should be able to develop a purely mechanical device like a gun.

Or, even if you can't make a new type of firearm, you have to go back and study how to make and improve thunderbolts and thunderballs. At close range, thunderballs and thunderbolts, two firearms that were not valued by the Song Dynasty army, succeeded.

It has the effect of breaking the defense and killing the enemy. The thunderball has a miraculous effect on breaking the formation of shield and arrow defense. Once the shield formation is in chaos, the musket can blast the opponent in a large area. Even if the iron sand often does not

Deadly, but on the battlefield, as long as the opponent has no chance of fighting

The fighting force was also annihilated.

The other party had ceased its activities, and Fang Zian was not idle either. He ordered to check the consumption of supplies. It didn't matter if he didn't check, but when he checked, Fang Zian was shocked. There were not many thunderballs left, less than a hundred. The ones from the muskets.

There is not much gunpowder left. These are valuable items and are inconvenient to transport, not to mention that Yang Cunzhong didn't give much at the beginning. There are plenty of bows and arrows. Less than half of the bows and arrows shot by the Jin soldiers are still usable, and they have about seven or eight thousand.

The number of arrows is sufficient. However, arrows have great limitations. It is impossible to snipe and kill the opponent by shooting arrows alone.

The sunflower cannons have actually been replaced. Most of the sunflower cannons have been damaged in the previous heavy bombing. Fortunately, there are spare ones, so the battle is not missed. But now there are only a dozen sunflower cannons left that can be used in the battle.

Because of their excitement, the soldiers who fired used too much force and sometimes broke the bamboo directly. Bamboo is originally very tough, but here in the cold mountains of the north where the sky is full of ice and snow, bamboo will become easy to break due to the cold. New Bamboo

There is too much moisture inside and it is easy to freeze, which is why there is such trouble. If it is dry bamboo chips, there will be no such problem.

Sunflower cannons can be remade, but the gunpowder thunderballs will become less and less as they are used. There is no way around this. Fang Zian estimated that these few thunderballs and muskets can only last for one day at most. Fang Zian decided that once the firearms are exhausted,

He evacuated immediately and would not stay here for a second. Even if he held off for two days, it was already a feat, and he had done his best.

After fighting for a day, once they stopped, physical fatigue quickly came over them. Fang Zian knew this very well. He asked everyone to light a fire to cook immediately and rest after eating. There was no need to search for firewood, as there were arrow shafts all over the ground.

It was burning enough, and everyone sat around the fire, eating and discussing the next matters spontaneously.

"There may be fighting tonight. Be careful of their night attacks," Zhao Gang said.

"It's very possible. If they set up those stone cannons to bombard us at night, it would be terrible. It seems that we will sleep with our eyes open tonight." Lei Hu also said.

Everyone turned to look at Fang Zian. Fang Zian took big mouthfuls of rice, his cheeks bulging from chewing. Seeing everyone looking at him, he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Husband, don't you say a few words? Didn't you hear what the two generals just said?" Zhang Ruomei said angrily.

Fang Zian nodded and said: "I heard it, it's very good. It will definitely not be peaceful tonight. Since you all understand this, you should be more careful when resting tonight. But don't worry, there will be another group of brothers in the evening rotation.

Come on, Zhao Gang Leihu, you can rest now. Don’t worry about the stone cannon. That kind of hammer thing needs to be assembled before it can be used. It cannot be fired if it is blinded by a black light. We will find out as long as they have a little light. We will hide when the time comes.

.”

Everyone was a little reluctant, and Master Fang's tone seemed to be an understatement. Isn't night the time when we need to worry the most?

"By the way, Ruomei and Ling'er, after dinner, you come with me to the mountain before dark. Brother Feng and the others have been watching the battle on the mountain for a day, let's go and have a look at him. Everything here in the evening will be left to the brothers here.

It's up to you." Fang Zian said.

"What? Why don't you go down the mountain and take charge? Why are you going to the mountain?" Zhang Ruomei said in surprise.
Chapter completed!