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

Yan Yun, just when the Song Dynasty was undergoing high-level political changes, the war in the Northeast also entered a fever pitch.

Di Qing, the deputy privy envoy and chief naval officer of the Song Dynasty, led the army like a sharp knife straight into the hinterland of the Liao Kingdom, cutting off the center of the Liao Kingdom.

In just two days, the Song army fought five times in a row and repelled the Liao army who tried to recapture Yuguan.

After establishing a foothold at Yuguan, Di Qing brought a large number of artillery and ammunition from the ship and blocked Yuguan and the entire Yushui coast, preventing even a single Liao cavalry from passing through.

In this case, the news quickly reached the ears of Liao Emperor Yelu Zongzhen.

In mid-October, Yelvzong was really confronting the Song army. Although the two sides had not officially started a large-scale war, the reconnaissance scouts on both sides had already taken over early.

But it is a pity that the Song army is basically suppressing the Liao army.

After all, the land of Youyan is part of the North China Plain, and a large area is a vast plain area. When the scouts on both sides saw it from a distance, the Song army started shooting directly.

From the time the Liao army charged a hundred steps away to the time they rushed into the face of the Song army, most of the soldiers had been shot to death. Even in close combat, there is no bargain—they still have short-fire muskets and bayonets, so how can they do this reconnaissance mission?

There is simply no way to do it.

Therefore, the Liao army's scouts could not even appear in the wild. Once the two sides met in the wild, it would basically be a situation where the Song army's scouts would chase and kill the Liao army's scouts. This was simply unimaginable before.

Unless the main force of the Liao army comes out, in which case the main force of the Song army will definitely come.

Judging from the current situation, a direct field battle with the Song Army face to face is something that the Liao people dare not try easily for the time being, which has led to the shrinking of the peripheral reconnaissance lines.

In the end, the Song army went so far that they compressed the entire reconnaissance line into the city. The scouts in the city could not get out, and they would be shot if they did.

If it weren't for the artillery on the city, the Song army would not have dared to get too close, and the Liao army would have been completely wiped out.

But if this continues, the Liao army will have big problems.

Morale is low and military morale is dispirited. In addition, if the Song army surrounded the city and cut off the food routes, even if there was enough food in the city, the siege would last three to five years, and the Liao Kingdom would probably collapse.

At this moment, there are many officials below in the imperial palace of Xijin Mansion.

Yelu Zongzhen walked around the hall with his hands behind his back and a very ugly expression.

He found that he seemed to have underestimated the Song Army's combat effectiveness from the beginning. In the past, the Song Army used grenades at most in field battles.

But now there are more advanced weapons.

And it was not a firearm that appeared during the war with Xixia.

During the Xixia invasion of Qingtang, muskets appeared, and Yelu Zongzhen obtained some muskets through special channels.

The craftsmen of the Liao State studied and imitated many of them, and restored the Song Dynasty firearms one-to-one.

They found that although these muskets had long-range shooting capabilities, their rate of fire and accuracy were ridiculously poor.

To complete the fire coverage, a large number of gunmen need to be assembled and arranged into a combined formation. Once the cavalry rushes into the formation from the rear or both wings, it will be completely finished.

When the Xixia people were defeated by the Song army's artillery, it was because the Song army sneak attacked from the rear and used powerful cannons, that is, small steel cannons, to bombard the Xixia people's rear square formation. This caused a large number of horses to lose control and the rear formation was chaotic. As a result, the army was defeated like a mountain.

In fact, after Li Yuanhao's statistics, he found that very few Xixia cavalry were actually killed by gunfire. Most of them were either thrown off by frightened horses and trampled to death, or were killed by artillery bombardment.

Therefore, based on these information, Yelu Zongzhen believed that although muskets were indeed powerful in field battles, and the Liao Kingdom was limited by materials and it was difficult to imitate them on a large scale without steel, those muskets were not completely able to suppress the Liao cavalry.

As long as the large force pretends to attack and makes a detour on both wings to make a surprise attack, the Liao army can kill the Song musketeers without leaving any trace behind.

However, he thought so, but the reality was cruel.

In the largest conflict between Song and Liao recently, a charge force composed of more than 800 Liao cavalry scouts encountered more than 200 Song troops in the wild. They were defeated by a hail of bullets and suffered heavy casualties, with a very large casualty ratio.

Even though these Liao cavalry had wisely chosen to go around from the two wings, even if they were close, they still had short-barreled muskets, specifically designed to attack at close range.

Basically, by the time more than 800 people get closer, there will still be a few dozen people left, which is considered too many.

This made Yelu Zongzhen realize that either Li Yuanhao had deceived him, and Li Yuanhao deliberately reduced the ratio of gun casualties. Either the Song people's firearms were updated and iterated again, and the muskets were more powerful than before.

Considering that Li Yuanhao's actions were detrimental to others and would only make Liao and Xia alienated from each other and eventually be annexed by the Song Dynasty, Yelu Zongzhen believed that the latter was the most likely possibility.

"well"

Yelu Zongzhen let out a long sigh and said: "I never expected that the Song people's firearms would become more and more powerful. In the past, their muskets had slow shooting speeds and poor accuracy, so there might not be any way to deal with them, but now."

"Your Majesty, there is no need to panic. They were just careless this time. If we had more people and attacked faster from the side, they might not have time to react at all."

"Yes, it is only a few hundred people now. This kind of musket may only be able to exert such an effect, but if tens of thousands of people rush forward, and the people in front hold shields and rush forward with their lives, it will not work. It’s possible to fight them to the death.”

"Have you tried holding a shield on a horse? Even if the Song people's muskets can't penetrate the thick iron shield, the terrifying momentum can completely push the person off the horse. No matter how superb the equestrian skills are, it's useless. How can a person be so strong? ?”

"It may be feasible to protect the upper body with a short round shield and add heavy armor. As long as the people in front can withstand the offensive, and the front troops on both sides rush forward, so close to the front, are they still afraid of their Song troops who can only fight from a distance?"

Everyone below was talking about it and each came up with their own ideas.

Not to mention, after brainstorming, they really came up with a feasible strategy. The only drawback was that it cost the lives of the front row soldiers.

"Maybe this approach is feasible, but that's not what I'm most worried about."

At this moment, Zhang Jian suddenly said.

Yelu Zongzhen asked hurriedly: "What is Xiangfu worried about?"

"What worries me is that the firearms of the Song people are changing with each passing day, and new weapons are coming out every moment."

Zhang Jian said: "If we let them continue like this, I'm afraid they will be able to come up with a musket that can shoot continuously, like a repeating crossbow."

He looked sad and shook his head slightly bitterly. It’s not that he was a prophet, but that’s how the long crossbow developed.

Originally, the long crossbow could only be fired one by one like the long bow.

Qin's crossbows are unparalleled in the world, sweeping across the six kingdoms. They only need to be able to load, unload, and fire to cover the firepower, making up for the shortcomings of an elite archer who needs long training.

After that, the continuous crossbow slowly appeared. Although the long crossbow developed, it was still not as good as the bow and arrow in terms of range, and it was impossible to completely eliminate the bow and arrow.

But today’s firearms are different.

It has a longer range than a crossbow, more power than a crossbow, and a faster rate of fire than a crossbow.

It also doesn’t take too long to train like a crossbow.

It can be said that it combines all the advantages of the crossbow and all the advantages of the bow. It is already a king-level existence among long-range weapons.

Perhaps the only drawback now is that it cannot fire continuously, and you need to load the bullet once every time it is fired.

But even so, it can eliminate traditional crossbows, and once the Song State solves the problem of continuous fire, I am afraid that artillery cannot prevent the Song State from completely rising and wiping out the entire east.

So Zhang Jian was troubled.

He found that he had seriously underestimated the speed of Song Dynasty's development.

This is too exaggerated.

There are still ways to crack the muskets from a few years ago.

Today's muskets can only be filled with lives, not to mention that they not only have muskets, but also artillery, grenades, etc.

The probability of sacrificing life to ensure victory is very small. How many elites in the Liao army can do this?

"No matter what, we must decide to fight to the death with the Song Dynasty."

Yelu Zongzhen clenched his fists and said in a deep voice: "If we don't fight decisively, they will besiege the city step by step. Once the city is besieged, we will really have no choice but to die."

They originally wanted to lure the Song army to fight on their own territory and use their artillery and terrain advantages to defeat the Song Dynasty.

But now it is discovered that their advantage has been made up by the Song army's muskets. The gap between the two sides is getting wider and wider. It is no longer possible to restore the Liao Kingdom's previous status.

But what to do?

They lost the war at the beginning. If they don't continue to fight, in a few years they will no longer be able to fight and will have no choice but to wait for the country to be destroyed.

So at this time, it is still the same sentence - it is difficult to get off the tiger.

"Your Majesty, give me the order."

Xiao Ying and others stood up one after another and bowed their hands to Yelu Zongzhen.

"Well, let's discuss it. We must find an opportunity to sneak attack the Song army, preferably at night."

Yelu Zongzhen returned to his desk and looked at the map of the surrounding situation in Youyan.

At this moment, the Song Army and the Liao Army were at odds with each other. The Liao Army was mainly concentrated in the surrounding cities centered on Xijin Prefecture, which later became Beijing.

The Song army was infiltrating, and the main force had surrounded Liangxiang, the front fortress of the Liao army, which was almost an area between Fangshan District and Daxing District in Beijing in later generations.

Their next step was most likely to go deep into Yuhe and Wanping, which would later become the Fengtai District and South Fourth Ring Road of Beijing, cutting off the connection between Liangxiang and the north, and thus besieging the city.

Yelu Zongzhen pondered deeply and decided to deploy arrangements for the surrounding Song troops. Although they didn't know what the situation was like there due to the lack of daytime investigation, they could also use the night to sneak in and conduct investigation.

The place is so big, can the Song army arrange sentinels on every inch of land?

That's not realistic.

"Xiao Xiaoyou, please send me."

Just when Yelu Zongzhen was preparing to ask Xiao Xiaoyou to send a death squad to investigate outside Song Camp tonight.

Suddenly a guard came in and knelt down on one knee and said: "Report, urgent report at Yuguan!"

"Yuguan?"

Yelu Zong was really stunned, and then said: "Let people come in."

Zhang Jian frowned below, feeling that something bad had happened.

After a while, the messenger hurried in and said anxiously: "Report, Your Majesty, the Song Dynasty sent a large fleet to raid Yuguan, and now they have occupied the pass and cut off our rear troops."

"What?"

Yelu Zongzhen stood up from his seat all of a sudden, his eyes showing horror.

Yuguan is not only the connecting channel between Nanjing and Tokyo in the Liao Kingdom, but also the only way for his current main force to pass.

Although nearly half of his main force has already arrived due to advance arrangements, Tokyo is still rushing here one after another.

In addition, there are a large amount of supplies, food, grass, and equipment.

You should know that the current gunpowder production base of Liao is in Liaoyang Prefecture, Tokyo. It is not that Yelu Zongzhen is unwilling to move to Zhongjing, but the geographical factors.

Liao does not produce sulfur. Their main source of sulfur is imported from Japan, and the nearest point of sea transportation is in Liaoyang. Other places such as Xijin and Donghai are very far away, which will greatly increase the transportation cost.

Therefore, the gunpowder production area of ​​Liao can only be placed in Liaoyang. This is an inevitable thing caused by geography, and has nothing to do with other things.

Once Yuguan is cut off, it will not only be a problem of soldiers and horses, but their firearms and supplies will be cut off. As long as the Song army sieges the city for more than three months, Yelu Zongzhen can imagine what will happen at that time.

Therefore, Yuguan can be said to be a lifeline.

"We must not let Yuguan be cut off. We must take Yuguan back immediately!"

Yelu Zongzhen gritted his teeth.

Then he asked the messenger: "How many enemies are there?"

"About ten thousand."

"Who is the commander?"

"The word Di is written on the flag."

"It's Di Qing!"

Yelu Zongzhen said coldly.

This general of the Song Dynasty, who has recently gained fame, seems to be only slightly inferior to Fan Zhongyan and Zhang Kang in terms of military exploits and strength.

This man is probably not easy to deal with!

"I am willing to lead the troops immediately, rush to Yuguan, and take the head of Di Qing!"

Xiao Xiaomu, the Privy Councilor of the Northern Court, said immediately.

"Okay, I will let you lead 10,000 troops, and mobilize the local troops and the troops that have not yet arrived in Tokyo to jointly encircle and suppress."

Yelu Zongzhen said immediately.

It's not that he is stingy and only gives this little troops, but now he can't fight back with a large force.

Once he retreats, the Song army will press on step by step, and Yanyun will give up.

Yanyun is a great strategic location for the Han people, and it is also for the northern ethnic minorities.

After Yuguan and Xifengkou, it is the Liao Dynasty's Tokyo. After Juyongguan and Zijingguan, it is the Liao Dynasty's Zhongjing. After Pingxingguan and Yanmenguan, it is the Liao Dynasty's Xijing.

Therefore, if Yanyun is lost, relying on the current strength of the Song Dynasty, the Liao Dynasty will quickly lose its strategic location, and the offense and defense will change from the original Liao attacking the Song Dynasty to the Song attacking the Liao Dynasty.

In this case, how can Yelu Zongzhen not be anxious?

Fortunately, although he did not give many soldiers, some troops in the rear had not arrived yet, plus the troops deployed near Pingzhou, it should not be a problem to gather 50,000 or 60,000 people.

Even if Di Qing had more than 10,000 troops and artillery, he also had a large number of firearms in the rear that had not been transported, so there might be a chance to destroy the enemy.