In the Song Dynasty, there was no law or order.

Boom!

With a shattering sound, a huge flame suddenly burst out from the muzzle of the cannon on the city wall.

The next second, a huge iron ball shot into the sky like a meteor.

It was so fast that it flew two or three miles in the blink of an eye, drew a brilliant arc in the air, and then passed over Yelu Dilugu's head and fell directly into the crowd of Liao soldiers outside the city.

"Bang!"

A huge sound wave then exploded like thunder. Because the city wall was high above and shot in a parabola, not in a straight line on the ground, it did not cause the effect of piercing a candied haws.

But even so, the huge solid bullet still killed the two people on the spot, and then penetrated into the ground, causing dust to fly.

Many people didn't even know what happened. They only knew that the originally dense crowd formation was in chaos in an instant. The blood and brains of the two people who died on the spot burst everywhere, dust flew up, and there were faint screams.

That was a cannonball hitting the ground, splashing dirt and rocks and injuring people around.

The entire battlefield was instantly silent.

Everyone stayed where they were, looking around blankly, unaware of the explosion and what had fallen into their army.

"Zhu Zi, you bastard, you missed the target!"

On the top of the city wall, an angry rebuke broke out. It was a middle-aged officer who was cursing at the artillery.

However, just a moment later, the second cannon fired again.

Boom!

After another loud bang, Yelu Dilugu opened his eyes wide, because he saw that the black iron ball was falling straight towards him, and he didn't even have time to urge his horse to run away.

The next moment, there was another "bang", without a single scream, and Yelu Dilugu's sturdy body, including the man and the horse, turned directly into a pool of meat paste. There was still only flying dust and the remains of the man and horse buried in the dust that were smashed to pieces.

"Kill!"

Almost at the moment of seeing the enemy's general's death, the north gate of Baosai City opened wide, and a middle-aged officer in armor galloped out, followed by thousands of cavalrymen.

This middle-aged officer was called Yang Wenguang, a left-hand palace guard, just a junior officer of the ninth rank, not even a general.

During the Bianliang period, after the artillery was built, artillery test firing was required, so Zhao Zhen transferred Yang Wenguang, who was a guard at the time, to be the squad leader of the artillery. Anyway, there were only a few cannons and more than ten artillerymen in total.

When the Liao Kingdom attacked this time, the court mobilized 100,000 imperial troops from the rear to the front line, and Yang Wenguang's artillery team was naturally among them. Moreover, his father Yang Yanzhao had been the governor of Baozhou and was very familiar with this place. As a son of a general, Yang Wenguang came to Baosai to defend against the Liao Kingdom, which was also regarded as a son inheriting his father's business.

The lethality caused by the two cannons was actually very small. Due to the difficulty in manufacturing grenades, solid bullets could only be used before the industrial level reached that premise. So far, two shells have killed only three people and one horse.

But almost at the moment when the gate of Baosai was opened, the infantry phalanx of the Liao Kingdom first became chaotic, and then with the strange cry of "Ah" by the first soldier, he threw away his weapon and turned around to run. The entire infantry phalanx of the Liao Kingdom collapsed in an instant, and the defeated army rushed to the rear.

In the era of muzzle-loading smoothbore cannons, the power of solid bullets was indeed not as good as that of explosive grenades. However, whether it was naval or land warfare, solid bullets were recognized as the most effective.

Because in the era of black gunpowder, spherical grenades were basically decorations, and there were too few fragments to deal with infantry. There are only more than 20 fragments of the 12-pound Napoleon shell. Considering that the fragments are scattered in a spherical distribution, and the effective fragments above the ground are almost halved, the probability of hitting people within a radius of 15 meters is very low.

On the other hand, if the solid bullet is fired in a flat plane, it can play the role of piercing a candied haws against the enemy's formation. One shot will penetrate the row of people standing upright on the opposite side, no matter how many people there are.

According to "The Science of Victory" and "On War", in the Napoleonic era, a solid bullet once penetrated 26 rows of infantry squares and directly killed more than 40 people. Moreover, these people were pierced through the body, torn into pieces, and died miserably, which was a great blow to the enemy's morale.

It can be seen from this that although the shells fired from the city wall are parabolic and cannot cause the effect of a shot piercing the heart like a direct shot from the ground, this solid thing that smashed people into pieces a few miles away caused great psychological damage to the Liao soldiers!

In this situation, the Liao soldiers around the dead began to collapse first, and then led others, like dominoes, and the battle was defeated before it even started.

Even the Liao cavalry who supervised the battle stopped killing the fleeing soldiers, but reined in their horses and ran away, running very fast.

First, their main general was dead.

Second, they were afraid of seeing the fate of Yelu Dilugu!

Yang Wenguang led the thousands of cavalry prepared in the city, chasing and killing all the way, chasing the Liao soldiers and horses for several miles, and killing hundreds of enemies before returning.

If Yelu Zongzhen did not concentrate all his forces to attack outside the north gate, in addition to the north city, there were still Liao soldiers in the west and east cities who had not collapsed, and they rushed to help immediately after hearing the noise, I am afraid that this would directly cause the Liao invasion troops to completely collapse.

But even so, Yelu Zongzhen was shocked when he learned that the Song army had a super long-range killer. The Song army was too powerful. There were catapults throwing thunder bombs about a mile away, crossbows a hundred steps away, and grenades under the city.

Now, three miles away, iron bullets are actually shooting out to hit people. Do they want to keep the Liao cavalry alive?

Seeing that the attack on the north gate was frustrated, Yelu Zongzhen had to retreat more than ten miles, reorganize the troops, and set up camp. Even if the entire Liao army suffered few casualties, only a few hundred people were killed or injured, but the morale of the army fell to the bottom.

In this case, it is obviously impossible to attack the city again.

Yelu Zongzhen discussed with the ministers again. Now there are only three options before them.

One is to withdraw troops immediately and go back in disgrace while the casualties are not large now.

The second is to negotiate with the Song State. Although their attack was frustrated this time, they also destroyed a large number of Song Army fortresses and military camps as a whole, but they have not yet broken through the Song Army's city to achieve the purpose of deterring the Song State.

But at least they won in momentum. At present, the Liao State is still in a situation of attacking and the Song Army is defending. As long as the Song Army admits defeat, there is still room for both sides to negotiate.

The third is to continue the attack.

Although the new weapon has a long range, its lethality is limited. As long as the cavalry supervisors force the infantry to continue the attack despite the artillery fire of the Song army, as long as they rush to the city and set up ladders, there may still be a chance to break through the Baosai.

The problem is that the Song army only showed two cannons today. Who knows how many more they have? And whether there are more terrible weapons hidden, can they threaten the Liao emperor in the rear?

These are all things to consider.

And more importantly, the Song army can attack from two or three miles away. When the Liao infantry run to the city, the distance of two or three miles is enough for the Song army to fire several more rounds of artillery.

Then there are catapults throwing thunder bombs on the top of the city, and crossbows shooting. There are also crossbows and grenades when they are close.

How many people will die just when the infantry run to the city wall.

And under the powerful firepower of the Song army, the infantry may not even run to the city and collapse.

This is not a drill or fantasy. In ancient times, there were many examples of a large army collapse when only a small number of casualties occurred.

Later generations often said that the proportion of small casualties was 10%. Although there is no exact source for this data, it was normal for an ancient army to collapse with only a small number of soldiers killed, even if it had hundreds of thousands of troops.

For example, in the Battle of Li Ze during the Spring and Autumn Period, the Yue army had 50,000 soldiers and the Wu army had 60,000 soldiers. The Yue army learned in advance that the three armies of Wu were evenly divided, with 20,000 soldiers in each army.

So the Yue army weakened the left and right wings to 6,000 each, crossed over first to divert the left and right wings of the Wu army with 20,000 each, and then the central army attacked the 20,000 central army of the Wu army with an absolute advantage of 40,000. After the collapse of the central army of the Wu army, the Wu army collapsed across the board.

There was also the Battle of Jingxing at the end of the Qin Dynasty, where the idiom "fighting with one's back to the water" originated. Han Xin, the commander of the Han army, first ambushed 2,000 cavalry, and then led the main force of 10,000 people to fight against the 200,000 Zhao army, fighting and retreating, pretending to flee.

After running to the Mianman River, the Zhao army's formation had been stretched to a great length by the pursuit, and they could not form a battle formation. Han Xin re-formed his formation when he reached the river and withstood the enemy's fierce attack.

At this time, the two thousand cavalrymen in ambush were dispatched to capture the Zhao army camp. Although they did not cause too many casualties to the Zhao army, the Zhao army also collapsed directly across the board.

So although the proportion of soldiers who died in general was only a very small number of the entire army, this usually means that a certain front of the army has collapsed, and the enemy at the collapsed position has expanded its advantage through flanking, collapsing, and continuing to flanking, which has led to the complete collapse of the entire army.

As the emperor of the Liao Dynasty, Yelu Zongzhen was good at riding and shooting since he was a child, so he was naturally not a fool. Therefore, when he thought of the strength of the Song army's city, which was like a tortoise shell with thorns, he felt a headache. Now he really couldn't think of a way to break through the enemy's city.

The confrontation continued, and the Liao Dynasty could not afford it.

Bypassing these cities and heading south directly, the problem is that the south is full of Song army cities, fortresses and military camps, and the logistics line cannot keep up. Relying on the sturdy Hebei area to fight in the wild, how much food and grass can be seized to support 300,000 troops?

Even if he can rob so much food and grass, what about the Yellow River? Can he build boats by the river and rush to Bianliang Kaifeng Prefecture?

Unless all the Liao cavalry grow wings!

Therefore, Yelu Zongzhen is almost crazy. It is not right to retreat now, and it is not right not to retreat. If he had known it earlier, he would have pretended to be deaf and dumb. As long as the Song Dynasty did not take the initiative to destroy the alliance, he could still earn hundreds of thousands of strings of cash every year. Why should he ask for trouble?

And just when Yelu Zongzhen was in a dilemma, Wang Deyong, the defender of Baosai City, was also a veteran. Through scouts, he found that the morale of the Liao Dynasty was declining, so he immediately contacted Fan Zhongyan.

At this time, Fan Zhongyan had actually known that the Liao Kingdom was making a feint to the east and attacking the west. On the surface, it was attacking Gaoyang, but in fact it was counterattacking Baosai. It wanted to take Baosai first and then gnaw on other bones.

So Lao Fan immediately redeployed his troops, reorganized more than 100,000 troops, and marched north to rescue.

But his marching speed was very slow.

The main reason was that, first, he had to defeat the Liao Kingdom's infantry outside Gaoyang City first, and second, he had to guard against the Liao Kingdom's cavalry archers, so during the march, he had to maintain a good infantry formation.

However, "marching formation" and "combat formation" are completely different concepts.

The Song Army infantry in the "combat formation" formation was actually not afraid of cavalry charges, because the main infantry units of the Song Dynasty all had heavy armored infantry. Once the Liao cavalry was trapped in it and lost its mobility, even the heavy cavalry would become lambs to be slaughtered.

What they fear is that when the infantry is in the "marching formation" before entering the "battle formation", the Liao cavalry will launch a surprise attack. They will first use long-range kite-shooting to prevent the infantry from lining up, and then launch a surprise attack. This will easily cause the entire army to collapse instantly.

So in simple terms, if Fan Zhongyan encounters the Liao cavalry in the wild, he will not be afraid at all if he has already set up the army formation. However, he must march to Baosai, and if he encounters an attack on the way, the problem will be serious.

If Yue Fei is here, he will definitely be able to handle these problems, but there is only one Yue Fei in the entire Northern and Southern Song Dynasty. It is not easy for Fan Zhongyan to coordinate the overall situation as a civil servant. If he wants to command more than 100,000 troops to be ready for defense at any time and adjust the formation, it is naturally not that fast.

This caused his marching speed to be quite slow. From December 17th, the scouts had already discovered the main force of the Liao army, and then he received Wang Deyong's letter for help on the 18th, and then adjusted the team to set off.

From Gaoyang to Baosai, a distance of 40 to 50 kilometers, he walked for four days, and could only march 10 kilometers a day, which was quite difficult.

There was no way.

The army was bloated, and Lao Fan's strategy was excellent, but his practical command was not so strong. In addition, the Song army had a unique problem that the generals did not know the soldiers, and the soldiers did not know the generals. The soldiers and generals were not familiar with each other, which caused a serious split between the superiors and subordinates. It was often difficult for a general to quickly adjust the formation.

Unless Han Xin or Yue Fei came, they could only maintain a half-combat and half-march posture. Once there was a slight disturbance, they had to line up immediately. It can be said that it was still Lao Fan's classic tactics, step by step, one step at a time.

Facing Lao Fan's turtle-like tactics, if the Liao army retreated immediately at this time, there would obviously be no problem.

But Yelu Zongzhen hesitated.

It was still the same problem. If the troops were withdrawn now, they would go back in disgrace, without any benefits, and so many casualties would be caused. Obviously, there was no way to give an explanation to the domestic nobles.

Therefore, after thinking it over again and again, even though the scouts had reported to him that Fan Zhongyan's main force was heading towards Baosai, Yelu Zongzhen still had not made up his mind.

He even naively thought at that moment that Fan Zhongyan's main force had no city cover, so he would definitely have to fight with them in the field.

He did not dare to fight with Fan Zhongyan in the field before, because at that time Fan Zhongyan's main force had 170,000 to 80,000 troops, while his was only 80,000, and Old Fan also had grenades, so there was a small gap in manpower and technology.

Now after joining forces with Xiao Hui, there are 130,000 Liao cavalry alone, plus the infantry of other ethnic groups recruited, the total manpower is not much different from Fan Zhongyan, even if the Song army transferred support from other places, he still has the strength to fight!

Thinking of this, Yelu Zongzhen finally decided to try a field battle with the Song army. If it didn't work, he had so many cavalry, and he could always run away if he couldn't win!

So on December 22, the second year of Song Baoyuan, the main force of the Liao Kingdom welcomed the main force of the Song Kingdom.

The two sides were in a confrontation at Baosai.