In July, the sun hangs in the sky like a fireball.
On the hill six miles north of the city, Brother Richard stared intently at Yinzhou City.
This city is one of the five Longxing states in Xixia, and it is also an important city in the Wudinghe area, which is of great significance.
At the end of May, Brother Richard led an army of 150,000 to besiege Yinzhou City, hoping to capture the city before the autumn harvest and prevent the Song army from occupying the city and attack the Wuding River area to destroy this year's autumn harvest.
But a month and a half later, Yinzhou City was still in the hands of the Song Army.
In Brother Richard's eyes, Yinzhou City is a hard and black stone.
Hard, that is, it is extremely difficult to chew.
Brother Richard mobilized 150,000 elites, gathered many supplies, and made all preparations.
They were real 150,000 elite soldiers, not the 500,000 or millions that Empress Liang and others often boasted about.
In addition, Brother Richard also learned from the Song army, made his own and collected Song-made crossbows captured over the years, and selected those with long arms and good archers from the Han men to form a crossbow army.
In addition to the necessary armor, bows and crossbows, the 150,000-strong army also brought hoes and other tools. While besieging the city, they were farming outside the city, as if they would be besieged for many years.
But even though Brother Richard had made all preparations, besieged for more than a month, and fought bloody battles for more than half a month, Yinzhou still stood there, like a hard granite stone.
Black refers to the fact that Yinzhou City has gone through many bloody battles. The city walls were burned by fire and soaked in blood, making them look black.
Brother Richard looked up at the sky. The sun was eastward and slowly moving directly upward.
Looking at the dazzling orange sun and the rolling white clouds, Brother Richard suddenly remembered the word destiny.
Brother Richard, who has read a lot of Chinese books, knows that a country always has its own era, with prosperity and decline. This is the so-called destiny.
Maybe destiny no longer favors me, Daxia? Then who is it favoring?
A general's question interrupted Brother Richard's thoughts.
"Your Majesty, please give me your order."
Brother Richard turned his head and stared at the general for a while with his eyes that had just recovered from his random thoughts. He finally clarified his thoughts and nodded.
"Siege the city!"
"Yes!" The general responded without surprise or joy, without joy or sorrow. He was probably a good man who was deeply baptized in Buddhism.
More than a dozen horns were blown, and then war drums sounded everywhere.
The thumping drums shook the earth, shaking tens of thousands of Xia troops out of various caves like ants. They formed a square formation, pushing various siege equipment, and slowly marched towards Yinzhou
The city was pushed away.
The northeast of Yinzhou City is next to the intersection of Wuding River and Mingtang River. The Song army relied on Wuding River, a muddy river that was not wide, to connect to Suide County on the other side of Hengshan, so that Yinzhou City did not become an isolated city.
Food, grass, and reinforcements can continuously flow into Yinzhou City along the river valley.
Therefore, the Wuding River Valley also became a place of fierce competition between the Xia Army and the Song Army. It was only because the Song Army built a series of forts along the valley hills to take advantage of the terrain.
In this kind of terrain, it was difficult for the Xia army to fully deploy and it was unable to take advantage of its strength. It could only use the tactic of adding fuel to the attack. As a result, the Xia army suffered heavy casualties but gained nothing.
Occasionally, they worked hard to conquer a stronghold. Within a day or two, the Song army's fortresses in Yinzhou City, Wudinghe River, and Mingtangchuan cooperated with each other to cut off the reinforcements, besieged them from all sides, and quickly recaptured the stronghold from the Xia army.
After trying for more than half a month, Brother Richard had no choice but to give up and use all his strength to deal with Yinzhou City.
The Xia army approached Yinzhou City from three directions.
Many of them have no armor and only wear tattered clothes.
Many people were only wearing a piece of leather armor. The leather armor was soaked with sweat and blood, and its true color could no longer be seen.
Some of them wore iron armor, in the Xia style, and they were all officers and generals. Those in the Song style, they were all "warriors" in the Xia army, so they were qualified to wear these captured Song armors.
Their faces all had a look of hunger, and their cloudy eyes were filled with viciousness, panic and a little despair, as if the Yinzhou City in front of them was a steaming steamed bun, but they couldn't get anything to eat.
"Your Majesty has an order. As long as your Majesty wants Yinzhou City, its population, women, food, cloth, and silk will all belong to you. Whoever grabs it first will get it!"
The officers said back and forth in the military formation.
These words can still make you excited when you first hear them. However, Xia Jun has heard them an average of ten or twenty times and has long been calm.
They had only one idea in their minds: rush into Yinzhou City and have a full meal.
"Siege the city!"
As the shouts rang out, tens of thousands of Xia troops burst into shouts.
It's just that the voice is a bit erratic and weak. This is what tens of thousands of people are shouting with all their strength after not having enough to eat for two or three months.
The crossbowmen rushed to the bottom of the city wall in one breath. At the same time, the shield bearers also rushed in out of breath. There were as few as five or six, as many as twelve or three shields, which were held up by the soldiers and put together to fight.
It became a big shield.
The crossbowmen hid inside, watching from the gaps. When the time was right, they jumped out of the shield array and fired an arrow.
Arrows should be fired sparingly, and only when the target is found is one allowed to shoot.
The Xia army was extremely short of arrows.
The Xia State has factories that produce arrows, but the production capacity is far from being able to supply the Xia Army's high-intensity battles over the years. For a long time, a large part of the Xia Army's arrows came from the "transporter" of the Song Army.
However, the Xia army was defeated one after another last year. Not only did they not obtain a large amount of ordnance to replenish their arsenal, they also lost a large number of soldiers, armor, bows and arrows, which made the already poor family even worse.
After the so-called peace talks, there were no major battles between the Xia and Song armies, but small-scale conflicts continued one after another. At the beginning, the Xia army was not aware of the shortage of ordnance, and followed the previous thinking and fired as much as it wanted.
A little adds up to a lot, and I don’t know how much waste it has caused.
By the time they realized this big problem, the Xia army's arsenal had already bottomed out. What's even worse is that Song State now implemented the most severe embargo in history on Xia State in the northwest.
Except for a few licensed products such as Buddhist scriptures, "newspapers declaring war", spirits, glassware, etc., which could be put into Xia abroad through designated gates, any other materials were strictly prohibited.
There is a shortage of copper and iron, a shortage of fish glue, a shortage of wood and poles for making bows and arrows...
Everyone in the Xia Kingdom gradually discovered that their hands and feet were unknowingly entangled with iron chains, making the days more and more uncomfortable, let alone fighting.
The soldiers of the Xia army arrived with ladders on their shoulders, and they hurriedly put the ladders up on the city wall.
Everyone's eyes communicated with each other, and they quickly decided who was in front, who was following, and who was holding the ladder below.
Everyone takes turns, with equal opportunities. The only difference is everyone's luck.
The Xia army soldier at the front held a long sword between his teeth, held up a shield in one hand, and held on to the ladder with the other as he climbed up while trembling.
The scattered arrows beside them were the only cover provided by their companions.
This ladder has been broken and repaired, broken and broken, and broken and repaired again. The patches on it have been countless for a long time. It is no longer possible to tell that this is a complete ladder, which is completely pieced together from dozens of pieces of wood.
If you walk on it and are thrown off due to shaking or if it breaks or falls directly, the chance of being thrown to death may be greater than being beaten to death by the Song army on the city wall.
The Song army's arrows began to fire.
They were much denser, and the whistling sound of arrows tearing through the air was like a swarm of locusts flying overhead. In the ears of the Xia army soldiers, it was like the sound of death waving a sickle.
From time to time, someone screamed and fell from the ladder, which was the result of being hit by a sickle.
“There’s wood and rolling stones thrown up there!”
A Xia army soldier shouted loudly.
Hearing the banging sound on the shield, the Xia army soldiers holding up the shield simply held the shield with their backs to withstand the impact and vibration caused by the heavy object falling down, barely holding on to the only and last protective barrier for their companions.
The crossbowmen hiding under the shields squatted down and stared with frightened eyes. You looked at me and I looked at you, just like ants hiding under the leaves in the pouring rain.
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"Buddha bless you! Don't throw the cupping down!" A black-faced Xia Army crossbowman put his crossbow on the ground, knelt there, worshiped in all directions, and muttered something.
With a thud, a heavy round jar smashed in from between the shields and landed in the middle of everyone.
Seeing the black round can with the flames emanating from it, the Xia army soldiers screamed heartbreakingly, "You bastard!"
They were like a group of ants licked by fire, running around in panic. They no longer needed swords, guns, bows and crossbows, and even the shield bearers dropped their shields, and they rolled and crawled in all directions to escape.
There were arrows and rolling stones flying down above their heads, but none of this mattered. The Xia army soldiers just wanted to stay as far away from the black jar as possible.
At a certain moment, this place with a radius of several feet became extremely quiet, and even the sound of shaking dust on the ground was so clear and audible. Then a fiery red cloud suddenly bloomed, hot and bright.
