Chapter five hundred and eighteenth situation reversal
Seeing the dirt being thrown out from behind Guan Xia's wooden cart, Zhang Qing also knew what the Jurchens were going to do.
The place chosen by the Jurchens cannot be attacked by fire and thunder hand, and the bow and arrow can hit it, but it cannot kill the people under the wooden cart.
"Attack with stone cannons."
It was quite difficult for the gunners to aim at a wooden cart that was three to four feet in size. Many stone cannons hit the ground, only throwing up a cloud of snowflakes.
However, some wooden carts were still hit. Stone cannons weighing five kilograms were smashed down. The wooden carts immediately fell apart, and the civilians inside were also hit with broken bones and tendons.
As soon as one wooden cart was damaged, another wooden cart was repaired.
The golden soldiers lined up outside the firing range of the Fire Thunder Hands and dug forward at five points.
Under the threat of the roaring stone cannons above, the peasants in the wooden cart dug very quickly, and soon dug out a hole large enough for people to hide in. They hid in the hole one by one and continued digging.
The stone cannon can smash the wooden cart above, but it is difficult to hit the people in the cave.
Zhang Qing saw that the stone cannon could not perform any feat, so he ordered the gunner to stop attacking.
A captain said: "My subordinates are willing to take people out of the border and dig trenches to stop them."
The most common way to dig tunnels is undoubtedly to dig a trench under the city wall. When the enemy digs the trench, he will be exposed. Then the defenders can use many methods to attack the tunnel diggers.
Zhang Qing laughed and said: "It's too laborious to dig trenches. The Ministry of War has a new way to break tunnels. Just send a team of people out to dig a few holes. The openings of the holes should be two feet."
Yue Fei asked strangely: "What method?"
Zhang Qing smiled and said: "It is said that if artillery is thrown underground, it can directly kill people underground. The news just sent by the Ministry of War is now passed on by me."
Wanyan Zongwang used his binoculars to see the Daliang soldiers and horses leaving the city behind the formation. He originally thought that the Daliang soldiers would dig a trench, but he didn't expect that they would dig down at several points just like digging tunnels.
Telescopes have been sold in the mirror shop for a long time, and the Kingdom of Jin also bought a lot of them at a high price for the generals who led the troops.
Wanyan Zongfu was also puzzled: "What are the Han people planning to do? Wouldn't it be faster to dig trenches if we lined up?"
Wanyan Zongwang shook his head in confusion and said: "I don't know, have the Han people invented some new method to crack the tunnel? Just wait, you should know it soon."
The Daliang soldiers first used strong fire oil to burn the ground and dug downwards. The soldiers kept rotating, and even then it took an hour to dig out five holes more than ten feet deep.
The people of the Jin Kingdom wanted to enlarge the hole and dig more slowly.
The red sun gradually set in the west, and the evening wind kept blowing, bringing moisture from the east ocean. Frost began to form on the armor of many soldiers at the top of the city.
Zhang Qing asked Guan Zhong's soldiers to start rotating early, and only a thousand people were retained in Guan Zhong.
The Jin army couldn't stand it anymore and withdrew their troops back to the camp. They just left a team of soldiers and horses to monitor the civilians. It seemed that they wanted to let the civilians dig tunnels day and night. Anyway, the tunnels still need lights during the day. As for the cold, the tunnels are cold.
It's not much colder at night than during the day.
Zhang Qing saw that the Jin army actually planned to dig a tunnel overnight, so he had no patience to wait any longer. Although the eavesdroppers still did not report that the tunnel dug by the Jin army was close to the city wall.
Let's try the Ministry of War's new approach.
Yue Fei saw Zhang Qing was about to light up the artillery, and suddenly said: "General, wait a minute, let the people listening below take a rest first, otherwise I'm afraid they will be the first to die."
Zhang Qing also thought of the people below who were lying on the ground listening. They amplified the sound a lot through the water tanks buried underground. If the shock could really kill the people in the tunnel, then the people listening would definitely die even worse.
"Fortunately, you warned me, otherwise I might have accidentally hurt one of our own again."
Zhang Qing sent someone to tell the people listening below to take a rest. After receiving the reward, he lit the cannon and threw it at the hole under the wall.
Although the artillery is much heavier, the name of the featherless arrow is not for nothing. The artillery accurately fell into the hole and exploded with a bang.
A pile of dirt shot up into the sky, and the sound seemed a little louder. But it didn't seem to be enough to kill anyone.
Of course, this is the feeling of the people who were closed. The people who had almost reached the city wall were like thunder falling from the sky to the ground. Some were stunned directly, and some were bleeding from their orifices and became stupid. The people at the back were stunned.
His eyes were filled with stars.
Everyone could only see that the cave under the pass had been blown up, but they could not see the results of the battle.
Zhang Qing thought for a while and said, "Let the monitor listen again to see if anyone is still digging tunnels?"
The eavesdropper heard the explosion of the artillery, and curiously lay down on the water tank buried underground to listen.
It was deathly silent, and there was no sound of digging at all.
When Zhang Qing heard the following report, he swallowed his saliva and said, "It won't really shock everyone to death."
Yue Fei thought for a while and said: "I'm probably injured even if I don't die. The sound can't be dispersed underground. I remember when I was playing in the cellar when I was a child, I yelled so hard that my ears hurt."
Zhu Tong said: "Wait a little longer. If no one comes out and no one digs the soil, he will probably be shocked to death."
The soldiers on the city wall also looked curiously at the openings in the distance.
Wushu was young and vigorous, and brought a group of soldiers to personally supervise the formation. At the same time, he also protected the civilians, lest a group of soldiers and horses suddenly appeared in the city and killed them all.
After seeing the Daliang soldiers throwing an artillery piece into the hole they dug, they also asked a few civilians to go up and have a look at the situation.
Since the civilians got into the tunnel, the defenders stopped attacking the civilians who replaced them. It was difficult for the stone cannons to hit the moving wooden carts, and the catapults suffered a lot of damage in one operation. Later, some civilians discovered that the archers did not attack them either.
, simply threw away the wooden cart and started running within the range of the archers.
The soldiers of Daliang never fired arrows. They did nothing more than let the civilians push the wooden carts to move, which was meaningless.
It can be said that both sides are waiting for Daliang to crack Jin Bing's method of digging tunnels.
The selected few people bravely rushed to the entrance of the tunnel and jumped into the hole. The hole had been dug down to the depth of one person. The horizontal tunnel was also three or four feet wide. The people could kneel down inside and keep digging forward. In a tunnel
It is not one person, but a row of people. The people in front dig forward, and the people behind carry out the soil.
The civilian husband jumped into the cave entrance and saw a man kneeling in the tunnel in front of him.
"Why"
The civilian husband shouted, and the people in the tunnel moved and tried to turn around, but they were stuck in the tunnel.
"ass."
The citizen cursed secretly, reached in, grabbed the man's leg, and pulled it out.
The man fell at the entrance of the cave and sat up, with blood hanging from the corners of his eyes and nose, and stared blankly at the person in front of him.
"ah"
The civilian husband was so frightened by the man's appearance that he screamed and almost jumped to the ground.
After a while, I saw that the man was motionless. I stretched out my hand and waved it in front of the man. Seeing that the man had no reaction, he asked doubtfully: "Are you stupid?"
The farmer leaned forward and looked into the tunnel again. The people inside were motionless. He didn't dare to stay any longer. He climbed up from the ladder at the entrance of the cave. He saw a farmer next to him also climbed out and asked: "The people below are alive."
?”
The farmer dragged a man up from the ground. His eyes and nose were also bleeding and he was stunned.
"It's the same here."
The two of them saw that the people below were shocked and their legs were trembling. They were afraid that the Jurchens would drive them to dig tunnels again. But they could only bite the bullet and go back to communicate.
The peasant husbands who were huddled together behind to keep out the cold started whispering when they saw the two men returning with a silly peasant husband who had bleeding from his mouth and nose.
The two peasants came back, knelt down in front of the Wushu horse, and said tremblingly: "Everyone in the tunnel was shocked."
Wu Shu saw the civilian husband standing blankly behind them. His face became very ugly.
He didn't expect the Han artillery to explode underground with such force. Listening to the movements of the civilian workers next to him, he knew that it would be difficult to drive them away to dig tunnels.
Wu Shu didn't say anything, and the two kneeling folk didn't dare to get up.
There was silence for a while. Then the next three peasants came back, and they pulled out more peasants from the tunnel.
Seeing their companions bleeding and dumbfounded one after another come back, the civilian husbands who were recruited almost burst into tears.
"Everyone inside died, and those outside were stunned."
Wu Shu heard the three people who came back from behind recounting what had happened. He hesitated for a moment and told everyone to stand by. He rode towards the military camp. He had no idea and could only go back and ask Wanyan Zongwang.
Wanyan Zongwang had just entered the big tent with his front legs. When he saw Wu's rear legs, he chased after him. He frowned and said, "What's wrong?"
Wu Shu said: "The Han people threw artillery into the holes they dug, and the local people were stunned."
Wanyan Zongwang was stunned for a moment, then sighed and said: "Let them all come back. There is no way to fight. I hope it's not too late to retreat now."
Wu Shu was unwilling to accept it and said: "Just retreat like this?"
Wanyan Zongwang said helplessly: "It would be fine if Daliang asked us to retreat like this. I'm afraid Daliang will summon troops to counterattack. We still have to hold on here to prevent Daliang from counterattacking from Yuguan. I will ask the emperor and other Boji
Lie discussed the matter of sending troops, from now on we must be careful of Liang Jun’s counterattack."
Wu Shu said: "Then Nianhan's death was in vain?"
Wanyan Zongfu said: "If we continue the fight, more people will die, and maybe the Jin Kingdom that dad conquered will be destroyed. It's so troublesome to fight just one Yu Pass, and there are so many cities behind, and each city is so difficult to fight.
There is no way we can fight Daliang."
Wu Shu was not a fool. Seeing that his second brother and third brother said so, he had no choice but to go out and deliver the order.
Not long after, a group of people left the camp and headed north.
The next day, Zhang Qing did not wait for the Jin soldiers to attack, but instead waited for reinforcements.
Chao Yong personally led Hua Rong's tribe northward, preparing to completely destroy the Jin Kingdom.
Zhang Qing welcomed Chao Yong into the pass and said impatiently: "The Jin soldiers attacked the city for two days, but we blocked it with artillery and fire thunder. They seem to have lost their energy and did not attack the city today. The prince looked at us
When can we counterattack?"
Chao Yong shook his head and said: "We are not the main force in this attack."
Zhang Qing thought for a while and said: "Are we going to let the barbarians on the grassland be the main force?"
Chao Yong nodded and said: "After the establishment of Prairie Road, almost all men in various ministries had to serve as vassal soldiers. If the Ministry of War had not asked Dong Ping to strictly limit the age, I don't know how many vassal troops there would have been on Prairie Road. These 100,000 vassal soldiers would be sent to the imperial court every month
The salary to be spent is hundreds of thousands of dollars, so naturally we need to use them, we can't let the court support them in vain."
Zhang Qing said with a smile: "What the prince said is that the Jurchens are cruel and it is just right to let the prairie barbarians deal with them."
Chao Yong nodded and said: "After Dong Ping leads the troops on the grassland road to capture Linhuang Mansion, he will directly attack the capital of the Jin Kingdom. When the time comes, the Jin soldiers will inevitably return for reinforcements, and then it is time for us to pursue."
There were only 10,000 people from Shi Xiu's tribe holding Gubeikou, but in addition to receiving a large number of artillery and fire mines from the Ministry of War, they also received some secret weapons. Although there were only 10,000 people, no one was worried that the Jin army would break through Gubeikou.
Shi Jin was promoted to deputy general because of his outstanding contribution in killing Jin Guobo.
Wanyan Gao's journey was mostly mountainous, and the heavy snow had just passed. Therefore, the march was very slow. Wanyan Zongwang had already turned to the defensive, and Wanyan Gao had just led his troops to the Iron Gate Pass.
Seeing that the Tiemenguan city wall they had built before had been blown down, all the Jin people screamed with anger. If Wanyan Gao hadn't been so prestigious, they might not have been able to suppress the angry savages.
Early the next morning, Jin soldiers came to Gubeikou aggressively.
Shi Jin saw that the Jin soldiers had arrived two miles away from the city, and couldn't help but said: "General, they have entered the artillery range. Do you want to give them a warning first?"
Shi Xiu used a telescope to observe Jin Bing. Seeing that Jin General's big banner was still behind him, he shook his head and said, "Don't worry, let's see if we can catch a few big fish."
When Shi Jin heard this, he had no choice but to suppress his temper.
Next to it, ten jet-black artillery pieces squatted on the city wall. The one-foot-long barrels pointed diagonally at the sky, like roaring beasts looking up to the sky.
This is the latest research result of the Guns and Artillery Bureau, and the range can reach two and a half miles. This time three troops were sent out, and only Gubeikou got real artillery, but their mission was to hold on, not to attack. Of course, they also have the strength to attack.
.So Shi Xiu was unwilling to expose the power of the artillery too early.
This time to wipe out the Jin Kingdom, Chao Yong only brought 10,000 Huarong troops, and did not mobilize domestic troops on a large scale.
Most of the domestic troops and horses cannot adapt to the severe cold in the Northeast, and the Jurchens are ferocious. If the domestic troops and horses are used, even if they can win, the casualties will be huge. When Chao Yong encouraged the Han people to expand, he was not willing to use a large number of them.
Loss of young adults.
Chao Yong has already persuaded Chao Gai, and asked Chao Gai to issue a decree, and the people will give birth. The court will pay for the employment of Wen Po. For twins, the court will subsidize ten guan, for three children, the court will subsidize 20 guan. If there are more than five children, the court will
One hundred acres of farmland will be awarded.
This policy can not only encourage people to have more children, but also solve the problem of some people who are unwilling to move to the border and have no land to cultivate.
Of course, another reason is that the Ministry of Revenue does not understand the organization of the vassal armies of the Ministry of War. The vassal armies on Ningxia Road and Caiyuan Road have almost no effect, but the vassal armies on the two routes combined consume nearly one million dollars in salary every month.
, that’s ten million dollars a year.
Although the national treasury is sufficient now, when the mirror bank's income begins to decline, the Ministry of War's military expenditures will strain the treasury, so the Ministry of Revenue also recommended that the Ministry of War control military expenditures.
Chao Yong did not want to reduce military expenditures, so he had to let the vassal armies reflect their value. Of course, Chao Yong also hoped to reduce the number of strong men in each ministry through war, which would also speed up their assimilation.
Gubeikou and Tiemenguan are both in the valley, and it is impossible to deploy many troops and horses. Wanyan Gao could only ask the front army to deploy in the valley, and then sent a team of Bohai navy to test.
Wanyan Gao also brought a group of savages to the front to watch the battle and formulate ways to attack the city.
In their opinion, about two miles is a safe distance. Although the crossbow can also reach here, as long as you pay attention, you can completely avoid it. Nothing can cross the distance of two miles at once.
The Bohai Navy was the earliest foreign military force established in the Jin Kingdom. They fought many victorious battles with the Jurchens and were very energetic. They rushed towards Gubeikou carrying the ladder.
"All artillery is aimed at the front of the Jin National Front and fires."
Shi Xiu used his binoculars to keep looking at the front of the Jin army's formation. He saw a dozen Jin generals wearing fine armors, including two fiercely dressed Jin generals wearing furs, and gave the decisive order.
The people operating the artillery were all gunners who had been experimenting in the gunnery bureau for two years. After hearing the words, they all adjusted the gun body.
"boom"
"boom"
…
There was a muffled sound, streams of fire erupted from the muzzle, and then violent explosions began in front of the Jin army's formation.
Wanyan Gao heard the sound on the wall and saw something spraying fire, and then black dots rushed towards him. Just as he was about to dodge, streaks of fire exploded in front of him.
The people with telescopes on the wall were all using telescopes to observe the Forbidden Army formation. Where the artillery shells fell, smoke and dust were everywhere, but they still could not cover up the splatters of blood and flesh.
The gunner did not stop attacking, but continued to adjust the gun body, from near to far, and continued to bomb backwards.
Artillery shells spread from the front and back of the Jin army's formation, and the valley that could only accommodate one vehicle was completely covered by artillery.
Seeing that the soldiers and horses in front were blown to pieces inexplicably, as if by witchcraft, the explosion spread all the way back, and the Jin army finally couldn't restrain their fear and fled back.
The Bohai navy who had not yet rushed to the pass saw that the Jin army behind them had fled, so they did not dare to attack again, so they threw down the ladder and fled back in embarrassment.
The artillery bombarded for a while, and then it stopped after there were no more Jin troops in the range.
All the soldiers in the gate were shocked. This is artillery. The previous catapults could only hit one mile, and hundreds of people were needed to fire the cannon. However, this iron cannon only requires three people. It seems that one person can do it.
Operation, the range can reach more than two miles, and the launch speed is much faster than the catapult.
After standing there for a while, Shi Xiucai said: "With these ten cannons and a thousand soldiers and horses, we can defend Gubeikou."
Shi Jin walked up to a cannon obsessively and reached out to touch the black cannon.
An artilleryman hurriedly shouted: "Be careful of scalding your hands."
The reminder was a little slow, but Shi Jin had already touched it, and the hot feeling made Shi Jin immediately retract his hand and said with a smile: "What a good thing, how many artillery pieces did the Guns and Artillery Bureau make?"
The craftsman responsible for tracking the ten cannons said: "Sixty cannons were made, and fifty were shipped to Dengzhou to be loaded onto the Prince's fleet. Only ten were shipped to Gubeikou."
Shi Jin sighed: "This artillery is a powerful weapon. With artillery, who can take down the city with beams?"
Shi Xiu also calmed down, shook his head and said: "Not necessarily, this valley is where the artillery exerts its power. If there is a flat plain outside, ten artillery can't cover much area."
Shi Jin thought for a while and said: "General Shi said the same thing, but with artillery, our Gubeikou can be blocked with one gun. No one can open it. I don't know who was killed just now."
Shi Xiu smiled and said: "There must be a few Dutong, and maybe Bo Jilie. Once the Intelligence Department verifies it, we can take credit."