Chapter 123: Final Chapter (Part 1)
June 21st, night.
Xu Chong and Shen Kuo, with fifty imperial guards and one hundred good horses, chased to the Yellow River crossing. In terms of time, Jin'er and the last leader of the Maitreya Sect were seven or eight hours ahead. They seemed to have someone to pick them up in Hebei, because someone saw them crossing the river and got horses. They galloped all the way to the northwest, and it was inferred that they were heading to Bazhou, which was the place where the Liao Gang was most likely to use troops.
At this moment, there was no time to notify the local defense envoy to strengthen the defense. According to the agreement of the Chanyuan Alliance, neither side had heavy troops in the border of Nabazhou, and there were many rivers, so the two sides were quite free to travel. So it was most convenient for them to sneak back to Liao from there. Shen Kuo secretly calculated in his heart that if they could not change horses along the way, they might catch up on the third or fourth day. If they failed to catch up after more than four days, they would probably enter Liao territory, and it was unknown whether Liao would have troops to support them? I heard that Yelu Zongyuan's troops were in Jizhou.
At the ferry, they arranged for several large boats to head north. It was already late at night, and the boats were moving forward in the rapids. Xu Chong accompanied the soldiers in the cabin to comfort the horses. Half of these Longyou war horses had never crossed the Yellow River, and some were afraid and needed careful care.
The boat was slightly stable in the middle of the river. Xu Chong breathed a sigh of relief, but turned around and saw Shen Kuo standing at the bow. He walked closer and heard Shen Kuo sighing.
"Why are you sighing, sir? Are you worried that we can't catch up with them?"
"Whether we can catch up or not, it doesn't affect the overall situation. The news will reach the Liao Clan sooner or later. They will come as usual and use troops as usual. I'm just worried about that place..."
Shen Kuo pointed to the eastern horizon. Xu Chong looked over there and saw that the Tianguan guest star was still shining there, and it was obviously much brighter than yesterday.
"Master, didn't you say that the guest star was getting dimmer and dimmer, showing signs of moving away? Why does it seem to be getting brighter now?"
"Yes, why is it bright again? Originally it was just an ordinary celestial phenomenon, but someone with ulterior motives tied it to destiny. Now, whether it dims or not really affects the rise and fall of the country."
"You mean, you're worried that the great wizard of the Liao Gang will use the guest star to make trouble?"
"The Liao court was defeated in the battle with the Western Xia several years ago, so I think the morale is not high. However, in the past, people have used strange celestial phenomena to boost morale. I think the Northern Courtyard's shaman must have used celestial phenomena to point out the theme, but he ended up writing about the change of dynasties."
"What should we do? There's nothing we can do about it."
"It all depends on whether the Privy Council can mobilize troops in time. If we can use military might to intimidate the enemy, perhaps we can avoid a war."
"If Di Gong could lead his troops to Hebei, it would boost the morale of the army."
"It's a pity that I see that Di Gong is already very ill. I'm afraid he won't live long, let alone lead the troops."
The two men stood at the bow of the boat in the wind, also speechless.
"Perhaps Master Huailiang still has a solution?" Xu Chong suddenly thought of another topic.
"Maybe. He told me that as long as Master Zhang comes back, he can also frighten the enemy. However, Master Zhang's reputation in the North is not big, I'm afraid he can't defeat the Northern Courtyard Grand Witch."
"I don't know if Master Zhang will be able to come back in time."
"Yes. The fate of the country has been decided."
At midnight, everyone landed and rushed north. It was not until the next day that they arrived at Dangyuan County. They stopped at the post station to feed the horses. Xu Chong went to the county government office to ask if anyone had seen the two women on horseback.
As soon as I arrived at the county government office, I saw officials busy coming in and out. It turned out that there had just been a murder. There was a dead body outside the door, covered with a mat. The feet exposed from under the mat were a woman's. Unlike the toes of other dead bodies that pointed outward, her toes pointed inward, which looked weird.
Xu rushed in to ask. After a while, he came out with a group of yamen runners and uncovered the mat. The woman inside was stabbed in the chest, her face was pale and her eyes were wide open, as if she died with her eyes open. Looking at her right hand, she was indeed missing a finger, and both legs were disabled.
Shen Kuo squatted down and carefully examined the woman's face. He could see scars between her eyes, ears, mouth and nose, and marks of strangulation on the back of her head. These were probably caused by wearing a heavy mask for many years.
Xu Chong took the knife that had stabbed him in the chest from the bailiff.
"It's exactly the same dagger that Jin'er threw at me."
"It seems that Jin'er was killed here to silence her?" Shen Kuo also sighed that his guess was correct, they were indeed heading towards Bazhou.
"It's probably because her legs are disabled and she rides the horse too slowly, so she was killed by Jin'er?"
The two stood up and asked the police. The police said that this was a dead body found in the inn six hours ago. At that time, another woman who was staying with them paid the bill by herself, carrying a pipa, and took two horses away, seemingly heading to Cizhou. The waiter felt strange, and saw the store dog barking again, so he took the dog to the bushes not far from the store and found the body. Then he quickly reported it to the government.
"What a cruel and ruthless woman." Xu Chong said gritting his teeth.
"I don't think we can catch up with her. But we should go to the border first and keep an eye on the Liao Kingdom's movements."
The two waited for the horses to rest for a while before mounting their horses again and chasing after them. As expected, they could not find out where Jin'er was along the way, which showed that she either did not go straight to the north, or did not stay at an inn but ran away all the way.
Four days later, June 26th.
They finally arrived at Bazhou. First they went to the Hejie Patrol Office, which controls the border, to inquire. They did not hear anyone see the woman with the pipa, but they only heard that the Bazhou market was recently closed by the Liao State, and people in Bazhou were a little terrified, because the closure of the market was the first step . Another fisherman reported that he saw dozens of large ships of the Liao State hiding in the reed marshes in the north. The fisherman wanted to get closer to watch, but was shot with seventeen or eighteen arrows by the archers on the boat and turned around to flee. Some of those arrows were still nailed on the boat, and the fisherman was also hit by an arrow in the arm. Now no one dares to go to the north to take a look. Usually, the Song Dynasty relied on the market to find out the strength of the other side. At this moment, the Liao State cut off the market and blocked the Juma River. The spies in the north could not come back, and the news had been cut off.
The two men felt that if a war was inevitable, the enemy situation on the other side of the river was the most important, so they wanted to borrow an official ship from the Inspection Office and sneak down the Juma River under the cover of night, deep into the Liao territory, to see how many large ships and how many soldiers and horses were there in the depths of the reeds?
The Juma River is the border river between the two countries, flowing eastward into the Bohai Sea. Along both sides of the river, there are lakes scattered everywhere, and there are reed marshes and small river branches everywhere. The locals call them Jiujiu Ponds. It is not difficult to hide a large ship in the deep reeds.
However, the patrol officer refused to lend the boat, because it was midsummer and the wind was blowing from the southeast. It would be difficult for the small boat to sail north, as it would be chased by the large boats. The large boats had many people rowing and rowing, so the small boats would not be able to escape. The patrol officer of the boundary river was also afraid that the boats would be detained, which would give the Liao Kingdom an excuse to provoke them.
The two could only stay at the post house first. They could do nothing at the moment and could only wait for the follow-up troops to arrive. It was really a bit cowardly. Shen Kuo also climbed onto the roof like Hu Yong'er and sat down, staring at the northern river in a daze.
He saw a waterwheel rolling by the farmland from afar, diverting river water from the ditch to irrigate the farmland. He suddenly remembered the skyscraper that the monk had vowed to build in the south. He thought that the south had many mountains and the waterwheel would be much bigger than the one here. He stared at the waterwheel in a trance and found that they were both driven by the same water flow, but the big one in the distance turned very slowly, while the small one near turned very quickly.
I couldn't help but think: "If we want it to turn faster, wouldn't we have to make the wheel smaller?"
Suddenly, he was touched by something in his heart. He remembered that before Huailiang went to the south, he had borrowed the "Wood Classic" from Yu Jing to understand the principle of waterwheel. Yu Jing was a bit cunning and only copied a few pages for him. He quickly took out the "Wood Classic" from his arms and flipped through it. Sure enough, on the last few pages, there were several designs of pedal waterwheels. The larger the wheel diameter of the waterwheel, the slower it travels. And the turning of the wooden wheel stepped on by people's feet is also that the shorter the pedal, the faster the travel, but the greater the pedaling force. It can be seen that the circumference and pedaling speed cannot be achieved at the same time. Shen Kuo turned over the relationship between angular velocity and linear speed in his mind, and remembered the scene of using a lever to open the tomb door in Beimang Mountain. Suddenly, all the joints were figured out. Since the waterwheel can be used to transport water, it can also be used to hit the water. As long as the small wheel is used to travel quickly and drive the large wheel to rotate synchronously, a device for pedaling to hit the water can be designed.
In his excitement, he jumped off the roof and almost fell flat on his face. He returned to the house to draw a blueprint. Soon he had drawn a rough picture of a ship. He also wrote his thoughts on the side: use the wheel as an oar, arrange several oars around it, and the person is in the boat, pedaling the boat.
He went straight to the River Boundary Inspection Office, borrowed a small boat that could only carry seven or eight people and a carpenter, and asked them to modify it according to his drawings. The Inspection Office did not want to cause trouble, so they found manpower and wood, and bought a ready-made waterwheel from a nearby farmer, dismantled the tread wheel, and installed it in the boat.
Xu Chong had no interest in Shen Kuo's nonsense. He only went to Hejian to Gaoyang Pass Pacification Office every day to inquire about news from all sides, but there was no news from the Privy Council, and no troops were sent.
After waiting for another four days, it was June 30th, the last day of the month, a moonless night.
Shen Kuo's warships were finally completed, and they were launched on the river when the moon was dark and the wind was strong. The patrol officers just wanted to give it a try, and if the boat couldn't be launched or sank, they would consider themselves unlucky, because they also saw Shen Kuo's drawings, which showed that many holes were opened on the side of the boat, which was clearly the work of an amateur.
Xu Chong was also skeptical about Shen Kuo's machine. He walked into the cabin and found that there was almost no place to stand, and all the pedals were stuffed in. Shen Kuo was quite confident and ordered Yang Fan to sail north. Time was too tight, and he didn't want to waste time testing his invention. In theory, he had already figured it out, so there was no need to try it.
Under the moonlight, the strange ship headed northward according to the approximate location the fisherman said. Xu Chong was also curious and found that the cumbersome paddles were not put into the water, but just hung on both sides of the ship, and were not coaxial with the pedals installed in the cabin.
So he asked Shen Kuo what was the use of these things if they were not put under the water? Shen Kuo only said that now they were heading north with the south wind, so they just needed to set the sails. Putting down these wheels would only increase the resistance of the boat. When they needed to return north, they would retract the sails and put down these paddles. He also admired Xu Chong for being able to observe that the treadwheel and the paddle wheel outside were not coaxial. Xu Chong had also learned a lot in the past six months and could understand many principles of mechanical transmission. Shen Kuo said that if they were coaxial, they might not be able to accelerate in time. He had figured out the key to the small wheel driving the big wheel, and specially designed a ratchet with large teeth on the pedal shaft in the cabin to link the small teeth on the paddle wheel shaft outside to increase the speed of the boat. When it was needed, they could just engage. The more Xu Chong listened, the more confused he became, and he could only believe what he said was true.
The boat sailed a few miles, entered the reed marsh and sailed a little further. On the next day, they saw sparks of fire deep in the reed marsh.
They pushed aside the reeds and saw about fifty large ships parked in the deep water, surrounded by dozens of small boats, all filled with Liao soldiers. The two men approached with courage and the darkness. They could see that a high platform was built on the largest ship in the middle, and lanterns were lit around the platform. A general flag was hung on the ship, which puzzled Xu Chong. He only heard that it was the Northern Courtyard King Yelu Zongyuan who came, so why was there such a general flag? The current Liao army commander is the crown prince Yelu Hongji.
Xu Chong had good eyesight and saw a wizard skipping rope on the stage. There were several tables and chairs under the mast behind the platform. In the middle sat a Liao man in a yellow robe. From a distance, he looked very impressive and not very old. Next to her sat a woman in red. It was her enemy Jin'er.
Xu Chong took out a crossbow from his hand, but was stopped by Shen Kuo. The two continued to mix in the fleet and approach. But the wizard on the high platform jumped for a while, then pointed to the guest star that was still shining in the horizon. I couldn't understand what he shouted. Thousands of Liao soldiers on the surrounding ships cheered together. Obviously, the wizard was forcibly linking his prayers to the guest star, and probably got the astrological hint he wanted - the Song Dynasty was going to fall.
On the big ship, the people sitting under the flag with the Chinese character "帅" on the mast stood up and raised their glasses. Only Jin'er seemed to be uninterested. Perhaps she had seen too many such shaman dances recently and knew what was going on.
Shen Kuo was quite bold and continued to approach. In the end, he even mixed into the surrounding small warships. The protruding wheels on both sides of their ship were out of tune with the surrounding ships. Fortunately, at this moment, the people on the Liao army ship were more focused on the big ship, and no one noticed these.
The cheers of the crowd died down a little, and Jin'er stood up holding something. At this moment, she was already wearing the attire of a Liao noblewoman, and she had transformed from a maid into a noble princess.
"I brought my brother's enemy's portrait and birthday to perform a magic spell on him." She said it loudly so that everyone around could hear clearly.
As she spoke, she handed the box in her hand to the Liao king's subordinate.
The men opened the treasure box, and the two paintings inside were unfolded one by one. At this time, Xu Chong and Shen Kuo were already under the big ship, and they could see clearly from the bow that they were the portraits of the emperor and Di Qing.
"What did they do with the portraits of the emperor and Di Gong?" Xu Chong asked.
"This is a method of defeating the enemy."
"Yan Sheng?"
"An ancient spell that uses the power of an unknown curse to kill people invisibly."
"Is it useful?"
“It’s both useless and useful.”
"How can you say it's both useful and useless?"
"You can't kill your enemies with witchcraft, curses, etc., but you can use them to boost morale. If the soldiers are afraid of Di Qing, the witch doctor can claim that he killed Di Gong with witchcraft, which can naturally coax and deceive them to dispel their fear. It seems that the witch doctor also knows that Di Gong will not live long, so he wants to take credit for it, haha."
"No wonder that evil woman left the Di Gong mask in the palace. It turns out that she is most afraid of Di Gong and wants to get rid of him."
Xu Chong touched the crossbow again.
But the Tai Wu, who was wearing a strange cloak, danced for a while around the two paintings that were tightly attached to the wooden board on the high platform, then picked up a bow and shot a few arrows at each of the two paintings. The arrows were clearly ordinary, but the two paintings caught fire. The Liao soldiers on the surrounding ships cheered and jumped for joy, probably thinking they saw the miracle of the human figures spontaneously combusting.
"This is probably a trick played by arrows or wooden boards. They want to boost the morale of the troops with such tricks."
Jin'er on the boat was not very interested in such a trick to fool the soldiers. She turned her head and saw the strange boat not far away. So she walked to the side of the boat and looked carefully, and saw two people standing on the bow.
At this time, a boat with torches was passing in front of Shen Kuo's boat. She saw Xu Chong and Shen Kuo talking in the light of the torch and was startled. She hurried back to get her bow and arrows, but she didn't have time to look for them carefully. She just took the bow and the remaining arrows that Tai Wu had just used.
Xu Chong sensed something was wrong, and when he looked up, he saw Jin'er drawing his bow on the big boat about fifty or sixty steps ahead. He hugged Shen Kuo and squatted down, and an arrow flew over their heads and hit the mast, which immediately caught fire.
Shen Kuo was overjoyed: "Sure enough, I guessed it right. I said there is something special about the arrow."
Xu Chong had never seen anyone so tolerant, so he shouted, "Turn around quickly."
At this time, the enemies on the ship were in chaos. Xu Chong rushed forward, pulled out the burning arrow and threw it into the river.
The sailors behind quickly raised the sails, and slowly turned around by taking advantage of the speed of the nearby docked ships. At this time , they were just ordinary arrows, and the arrows hit the deck with a bang. At this moment, the fire on the mast was still burning, and it had already burned the sails. Xu Chong wanted to put out the fire, but he didn't dare to show his head, for fear of being hit by the arrows, and watched the fire spread to the sails.
The small boat turned around first, but a large boat appeared from behind and blocked the way, so the small boat had to rush west first. However, the sail was already blazing, and in a blink of an eye, it could no longer use the wind.
The Liao ships behind saw the small boat slow down, and the gong sounded. The ships stopped shooting arrows, probably wanting to capture it alive. The fleet surrounded the small boat from both sides, trying to surround it.
"What should we do now?" Xu Chong asked.
"Just wait and see. Lend me your knife," Shen Kuo confidently took Xu Chong's knife, cut the mast rope, watched the burning sails fall into the water, and then gave orders to the sailors who looked at each other in bewilderment: "Put down the oars on both sides of the wheel and prepare to set sail."
On the ship with the flag flying with the Chinese character "Shuai" on it, the commander-in-chief, the crown prince, Yelu Hongji, was standing at the bow, watching the small boat in front of him throw away its sails.
Jin Er was standing next to him: "Your Highness, among the spies on the ship, there is a man named Shen Kuo who is quite talented. He must be captured alive."
"Cousin, how are the others besides Shen Kuo?"
"Leave them all alive. I feel like this is a hasty battle, so it's better to leave some wiggle room."
"Now that a guest star has suddenly appeared, the Heavenly Book has been destroyed, and Di Qing, the pillar of the Song Dynasty, is seriously ill, the people in the Song Dynasty are probably in chaos. What room is left?"
"That being said, it's better to be cautious."
The two men watched as more than a dozen boats on both sides slowly surrounded the boat that was gradually stopping by rowing. It seemed that the Song Dynasty spy on the boat would have no chance of escaping.
"Xu Chong, I see you..." Jin'er shouted at the boat that was already very close, "Your Song Dynasty values civil officials over military officials, and treats heroes like you as worthless. Why don't you surrender to the Liao Dynasty and tie up Shen Kuo and offer him to me, and I'll count it as a merit for you. I know you are infatuated with me, and I will repay you."
Xu Chong suddenly rushed out of the stern, raised his hand and drew his crossbow without saying a word. The arrow flew straight towards the crown prince Yelu Hongji like a cold star. Jin'er reacted very quickly and quickly pushed the crown prince away, and the arrow hit her back.
Yelu Hongji rushed forward angrily, but saw Xu Chong had already hidden in the cabin.
He drew his sword.
"Catch this thief and cut him into pieces!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he saw the Song ship without sails or oars suddenly start to speed up.
