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

For the Liao army, the city is not important, but killing the enemy's living forces is important.

If all the enemies are dead, even if the city becomes a ruin, they can rebuild it in the end.

But if the army is defeated and killed, no matter how much land they have, it will be useless and they can't defend it.

So they chose to burn Xijin to force the Song army to fight to the death with them.

For the Song army, the city is actually not important.

Their strategy is to eliminate the Liao people, drive them out of Yanyun, and recover the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun.

Even if the city is burned down, it is within the allowable loss range.

However, if you can kill two birds with one stone, both save the city and defeat the Liao people, wouldn't it be a win-win situation?

Fan Zhongyan decided to implement this strategy.

The Liao people were still restricted to the traditional tactical style, thinking that fighting should be a legion battle, and everyone should line up to attack each other.

But after years of exploration, Fan Zhongyan gradually summed up a lot of experience in the use of firearms tactics.

He believed that the tactics of queuing and shooting at the beginning of the firearms era in the West was a helpless move due to the immaturity of firearms technology.

At that time, the firearms were far from meeting the requirements in terms of power and firing rate, so they could only line up and cover firepower through dense square formations to achieve long-range strikes.

But why was the tactic of queuing and shooting abandoned later?

Isn't it because the firearms technology is becoming more and more mature, the firing rate is greatly improved, and there is no need to arrange the formation for firepower coverage?

The current firearms of the Song Dynasty are in such a stage of change, the peak of muzzle-loading guns and the beginning of breech-loading guns.

With the existing muzzle-loading gun technology and firing rate, it has basically reached the level between the Opium War and the Franco-Prussian War, and the tactical fighting method of queuing and shooting has been gradually eliminated at that time.

Therefore, Fan Zhongyan believes that with the improvement of technical level, slowly changing the way of fighting wars is also a change in line with the times.

At this moment in Xijin City, a large number of Liao people came out from the two north gates.

Yelu Zongzhen's convoy slowly moved northward, on a small hill about three or four kilometers outside the north city gate.

He rode on horseback and looked out.

Standing on the high slope, he could see the mountains and rivers in the distance.

The majestic Xijin City stood on the vast plain, like a small hill protruding from the horizon, stretching for more than ten miles from east to west.

Surrounding it were villages, farmlands, forests, and small rivers. At this time, the villages were dilapidated, the farmlands were barren, the forests were cut down, and only the small rivers were still flowing quietly.

Rows of Liao soldiers rode on war horses and slowly came out of the north gate of Xijin. At a glance, the black dots were endless and dense, like countless ants moving, extending northward along several official roads outside the north gate.

"What a pity. Xijin has gone through several dynasties and is the highest, thickest and most populous city of the Liao Dynasty. But today it will be destroyed."

Yelu Zongzhen looked at the distant horizon with regret. After a while, when the Liao army withdraws, the rear army of the Liao army will ignite the fish oil and remaining firewood that have been arranged in the city for a long time, and burn Xijin.

Although there is no gasoline in this era, the army will prepare fish oil and animal oil for supplies. In addition, most of the buildings in the city are made of wood. Once a fire is ignited, it will turn into a sea of ​​fire in an instant.

Zhang Jian comforted him, "Your Majesty, why worry? Defeating the Song people is the top priority. If we can defeat the Song army in this battle, maybe we can also obtain a large amount of their weapons. As long as we can get their guns and cannons, it will be worth it even if Xijin is burned down."

"Yes, their guns and cannons are really powerful."

Yelu Zongzhen shook his head: "For every shot of our cannons, they can shoot three or four. Once they dig trenches under the city, our cannons cannot suppress their artillery, and then they will be in danger."

This is also one of the important reasons why the Liao people are willing to abandon the city.

During the Franco-Prussian War, Prussia's artillery was Krupp artillery, which used steel rifled barrels, with a standard rate of fire of six rounds per minute and an effective range of more than four kilometers.

The French artillery was mostly bronze or iron artillery, not only with a maximum rate of fire of no more than two rounds per minute, but also a range of only about three kilometers.

Before the second year of the Qingli period, it was okay. The Song army was mostly equipped with bronze artillery with a range of just over two kilometers.

After the second year of the Qingli period, the Wu'an Iron and Steel Plant began to produce steel cannons, and the sophistication of the Song army's weapons and equipment increased sharply, almost crushing the Liao army's bronze cannons.

Therefore, it was almost difficult for the Liao army to fight in the field. Whether it was artillery or muskets, the range advantage was too great, and they had no way to deal with the Song army. Only when defending the city could they use the range brought by the height of the city to barely suppress it.

But when the Song army besieged the city, they were blind and forced to abandon the city to try to lure the enemy in.

If it weren't for the fact that they couldn't fight and couldn't defend, who would be willing to take a risky move and abandon the city?

After Yelu Zongzhen sighed, he asked his confidant around him: "How is the Song army?"

"Just now, the scout came to report that there was no movement."

The confidant replied.

"Haha."

Yelu Zongzhen sneered: "Fan Zhongyan's reaction is so slow?"

"Report."

At this moment, the scout came galloping.

After a while, he came forward to report: "The Song people sent a large group of scouts to watch from a distance."

"Boom!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a large number of artillery sounds rang out from the city.

Thick smoke filled the air, submerging the city walls.

"Hmm."

Yelü Zongzhen narrowed his eyes and said: "Keep exploring."

This was within his expectation.

When the Song people found something was wrong, they would definitely send a large number of scouts to investigate the situation.

The defenders in the city would certainly open fire and drive away the Song scouts.

Moreover, Yelu Zongzhen also deployed a large number of cavalrymen on the periphery with grenades, and the Song scouts could only fire a few shots to harass them.

By the time Fan Zhongyan, who was slow to react, woke up and reorganized his troops to attack, it would probably be dark, and their troops would have already evacuated Xijin.

So he was not worried at all.

In the wilderness in the distance, countless Liao troops were still moving slowly to the north. Their speed of movement was not fast, but it was not slow either.

Because of the siege for many days, the amount of food and grass in Xijin was not much, so the Liao army basically did not need to bring too much baggage. In addition to dismantling some artillery, many people were alone.

Time passed by minute by minute, and it was close to the end of the Si hour. At this moment, the Liao army had withdrawn about half of them.

At this moment, Xijin Prefecture of Liao State has gathered more than 400,000 Liao troops and more than 200,000 Song troops, but they are not piled together, but scattered in the surrounding cities.

However, Xijin City has the largest number of soldiers and horses on both sides.

There are about 100,000 Song troops.

There are about 160,000 Liao people, plus the Liao troops in Yuhe and Wanping, about 200,000 troops.

It is not so easy to retreat so many troops.

From the third quarter of Chenshi to the end of Sishi, an hour and a half has passed, and there are still a steady stream of Liao people retreating in an orderly manner.

And on the road behind, the Liao army is still arranging artillery positions.

Once the Song army pursues, they will immediately use artillery to block and kill.

In the seemingly dead silence of the Song army, a loud horn sounded suddenly from the main camp of the Song army.

More than ten kilometers away from the north city of Xijin and five or six kilometers away from the south city, the Song army camps seemed to wake up from this dead silence, all the camp gates were opened, and then a large group of Song cavalry rushed out.

"Song army, Song army is coming out."

"Report quickly."

"Prepare to fire artillery."

The Liao scouts on Xijin City and the surrounding areas who were observing the Song army were in a panic when they saw this scene.

No one expected that the Song army would move out in large numbers at this time.

Did they not reorganize their troops in advance and line up in front of the battle before marching forward?

However, at this time, not only the Liao army was a little panicked, but the Song army was also a little confused.

Because Fan Zhongyan only arranged strategic tasks, not combat tasks.

You must know that at this time, it was only one and a half hours, or three hours, since the Liao army officially left the city.

From the Song army scouts found that the Liao people left the city, they had to observe for at least half an hour to confirm that these people were not troops transporting food and grass, but real evacuation troops.

The scouts then reported their summary and judgment to Fan Zhongyan, and it took half an hour to run from the north gate of Xijin to the camp.

Fan Zhongyan held another meeting, and then the camp leaders scattered and ran back to their own camps, and finally gathered troops to leave the camp.

The whole process seemed to take three hours, but basically there was no time wasted. From reconnaissance to judgment, analysis and final decision, it was already very fast.

If Fan Zhongyan arranged combat missions again, he must send out scouts to continue to scout the current distribution of the Liao army, and then arrange which positions and directions each unit will attack.

This process will inevitably take a lot of time. At least the Song army will not be able to send troops before the afternoon. The opportunity for war is fleeting. It is very likely that the Liao people will successfully retreat because of this delay, and they have already set up a net in the rear waiting for the Song army.

So Fan Zhongyan simply did not arrange combat missions, and directly asked the soldiers of each camp to send troops. He only needed one result of immediately dispatching to cut, disperse and disrupt the retreating troops of the Liao army.

After the Song army left the camp, they were a little at a loss.

Where to go?

At this moment, Zhang Kang was riding on horseback.

Although he was a civil servant, he was full of tendons and had a fierce face. His eyes searched everywhere, glanced at Xijin City, and then looked to the east.

The deputy general beside him asked: "Sir, where are we going?"

"Do I need to tell you?"

Zhang Kang pointed his finger to the east and said: "Bypass Xijin and attack the retreating Liao army from the flank."

"Yes!"

The deputy general agreed, and then waved his hand and said: "Let's go!"

Then the 8,000 elite soldiers led by Zhang Kang took the lead and galloped towards the wilderness plain in the east.

Seeing this, some Song generals who were closer to Zhang Kang's camp also followed suit and led their troops eastward.

And farther away, there were still a large number of Song generals holding telescopes and looking around.

You should know that the circumference of Xijin City is 36 li, and one li in the Northern Song Dynasty is 530 meters, which means that the average length and width from east to west and north to south is about 4.8 kilometers.

The Song army's camps are not connected together, but each is a military unit, with about 5,000 to 10,000 people in each camp.

Fan Zhongyan's main camp had 30,000 people. About five kilometers south of Xijin City, there were nearly twenty camps of different sizes connected east and west.

The easternmost camp was even more than eight kilometers away from the westernmost camp, so basically the Song army itself didn't know what its troops were doing.

Fortunately, these Song army generals were not fools. They knew that they would definitely not be able to break into the south gate of Xijin, so after a short pause, they all went west or east, bypassed Xijin City, and rushed to the northeast and northwest.

The movements of the Song army were quickly captured by the Liao army that was left behind on Xijin City. These people needed to wait for the main force to evacuate before setting fire everywhere in the city and burning Xijin to force the Song army to pursue them.

But at this moment, seeing that the Song army seemed to be playing by surprise, they hurriedly fired artillery everywhere and kept shooting at the Song army in the wilderness in the distance.

However, the Song army galloped on horseback and ran very fast, and did not approach the five-kilometer range of Xijin at all.

With the blessing of the city, the Liao artillery generally had a range of about three kilometers, but that was the flat shooting range. If it was an upward shot without calculating any accuracy, it would still be easy to hit outside the five-kilometer range, but the hit rate was basically random.

Countless Song troops in the wilderness surged like a tide. Within a radius of dozens of kilometers, there were galloping Song soldiers everywhere. After only two quarters of an hour, Zhang Kang's troops took the lead in bypassing Xijin and arrived at the rear of the Liao army.

There are two northern gates in Xijin Prefecture, Nanjing, Liao Dynasty. The one closer to the west is called Tongtian Gate, and the one closer to the east is Gongchen Gate. There are actually some affiliated streets and downtowns outside the city.

But after the war broke out, the people in Xijin City had already fled everywhere, and the population in the city was very few. Naturally, the streets and downtowns outside the city were already deserted, leaving only a large number of Liao soldiers evacuating.

At this moment, I suddenly saw dust and smoke rolling in the northeast direction, and countless horses galloping. For a time, the Liao people's migrating team was in chaos. At the same time, scouts in the city ran out and shouted: "Song people raid!"

"Enemy attack, enemy attack!"

"Woo woo woo woo woo woo woo!"

"Line up, line up!"

The desolate sound of the horn resounded through the sky.

The evacuated Liao army generals kept shouting, reorganizing the team and arranging the battle formation.

But surprisingly, those Song soldiers seemed to have no interest in them at all, but passed them and continued to go straight north.

"Why did the Song army suddenly send out troops? Don't they reorganize their troops before attacking?"

"Oh no, they are going to raid our rear troops."

"There are artillery on the city, they dare not approach, we must chase them and delay their steps."

"Khitan warriors, follow me!"

The Liao army generals are not all drunkards, and soon many of them reacted.

They are near the north gate, there are artillery on the city, the Song army will naturally not approach, so their target must be the team that has withdrawn.

For a while, the Liao army became more chaotic, some stayed where they were, without moving. Some chased in panic, spurring their horses. Others were at a loss, running around like a group of headless flies.

Before the Song army attacked, the Liao army itself was already in a mess.