Chapter 135 Targeting
Although the Song army did not reach Xingqing Prefecture, this reversal of attack and defense completely shattered the previous military intentions of the Western Xia army.
Move south before winter and reach the vicinity of the city of Bianjing. By then the Yellow River will be almost frozen, and the Western Xia army will be able to threaten the capital of the Song Dynasty.
If there is a chance, I will definitely destroy Zhao Song.
But even if we cannot destroy it, we can still besiege the city and negotiate "business" with Zhao Song.
Let Zhao Song spend some money to buy their stones, sheep horns and turfs back. It is mutually beneficial and it is a normal thing.
It's not like this kind of thing has never been done before.
It is a bit difficult for Western Xia to completely swallow up Zhao Song now, but that does not prevent them from thinking about digging out a piece of fat from Zhao Song.
However...such a plan is now impossible.
The Song army was converging outside the pass, and Di Qing took the initiative to withdraw a small part of his troops, climbed over the hills from a low place in the northwest, and planned to make a detour and outflanking move.
This action was carried out openly without even being concealed from the Western Xia army.
But the Western Xia army had no choice.
The terrain of that hill is quite rugged, so the cavalry cannot be deployed fully. If we send infantry there... we will never win.
It can be described this way, if we talk about cavalry combat effectiveness, Western Xia and Liao are like Zhang Fei versus Li Kui, equally matched, while the Song army is Li Gui!
But when it comes to infantry combat effectiveness, the Song army can shout: Who else!
There was no way around it. In most cases, the Song army had to use infantry to fight against the cavalry of the Western Xia and Liao. They were forced to do so.
When the cavalry was unable to participate in the battle, the Northern Song Dynasty actually had an overwhelming advantage over the Western Xia infantry.
Just like now, the Xixia people clearly knew that the Song army was starting to plan to cross the hill, but they could do nothing about it. They had to send a team of cavalry to guard on the other side of the hill to prevent the Song army from coming down at will and encircling their rear.
In the marshal's tent, Mei Zang Su'er's face was extremely gloomy.
"Now, what solutions do you have for solving the problem?" Mei Zang Su'er swept her eyes over all the generals in the tent, including those Song Dynasty staff members. "According to the secret reports from our spies in the Song army camp, the military supervisor this time is Master Lu. He not only delegated power to the three marshals of the Song army, but was even willing to take the responsibility on himself. He is quite a hero of our Great Bai Gao Kingdom. It is rare to see such a person among the Song people."
No one spoke.
Anyone who speaks at this time will offend the Marshal.
After waiting for a long time and seeing that no one was willing to speak, Mei Zang Suer continued, "Now it can be seen that Master Lu's simultaneous activation of those dozen Great Sun Immortal Magic instruments consumes a lot of mana and does not last long. But as long as it is activated once, the morale of our army will drop greatly. Everyone, do you have a good idea?"
"We can move along the city wall. As long as we hold the pass tightly and don't let Master Lu's magic shine on us, we'll be fine." Finally, a Song Dynasty staff member stood up and said with his head down, "I think Master Lu's magic, although it can ignite the human body, still can't crack bricks and stones."
The pass they are at now has very thick walls, and the city gate is also made of giant bluestone.
Moreover, the height of the city wall is much higher than those dozen well curbs.
Under normal circumstances, as long as you stand behind the city wall, you will not be afraid of being illuminated by the beam of light.
The prerequisite is that Lu Sen no longer raises the height of the well fence.
At this time, Mu Guiying also asked the same question: "General Lu, can you raise the fourteen fairy objects a few feet higher so that they can shine behind the wall of Xixia?"
Lu Sen shook his head: "It can't be raised any higher."
If it is higher, it will be top-heavy and easily collapse, and the weight will increase, making the chassis unstable.
Some friends may say, wouldn’t it be enough to just enlarge the chassis and put more wheels?
But we have to take into account that this is the Gobi Desert, not a smooth asphalt road.
The current manhole curbs are already very heavy. If we increase the height and enlarge the chassis... not to mention the problem of excessive pressure caused by the weight and the manhole curb sinking, this can indeed be solved by making more wheels.
However, the coefficient of friction when the well curb moves must be considered. The larger the chassis and the more wheels there are, the greater the friction and the greater the "pushing force" required.
The current well curbs are already heavy enough, far lower than the marching speed of ordinary infantry. If they are heavier... they will be almost unable to move.
"That's such a pity." Mu Guiying sighed.
She now feels that with Lu Sen as her son-in-law, fighting is truly exciting and fulfilling.
We will not steal your credit or power, but will take care of all your responsibilities. All you have to do is to do your job with peace of mind.
But Lu Sen suddenly said: "I can make some trebuchets."
"Oh?" Mu Guiying was delighted: "Such a siege weapon, isn't it a wonderful device of the Mohist school? Does Lu Jianjun also understand it?"
"I understand a little bit." Lu Sen chuckled and said, "But Marshal Mu has to find a way to cover it up for me. It will take two or three days."
Mu Guiying nodded vigorously: "No problem."
In the following three days, the Song army was not in a hurry to attack the city, but conducted extensive training in the camp, including various running and changing formations.
This is the Gobi Desert, which is originally a dry place. With a large number people and horses running here, a lot of yellow dust is immediately raised, covering the entire military camp.
People in the distance, even if standing on a high place, could not see any movement in the Song army camp.
At this time, Mei Zang Su'er was standing on a high place on the city wall, looking at the scene of flying sand and rocks in the Song army camp. She frowned for a long time. After a long time, there was a clear, sharp wrinkle on each side between her eyebrows.
"What kind of mystery is this Song people trying to create?"
Although he was followed by a large group of people, some brave and some wise, no one could answer his questions now.
"I guess it's Master Lu's magic that's causing trouble again?"
Mei Zang Su'er felt more and more insecure. He was really not afraid of ordinary people, whether it was Di Qing, Mu Guiying, or the Zhe family generals.
Even if these people are stronger than themselves, there is still a reason to follow.
But Lu Sen is different. This immortal on land always uses some weird methods that have never appeared before and have never been recorded in military books. This makes the war strange and bizarre, making it impossible to guard against.
Just as he was thinking this, the yellow dust in the Song army seemed to have lightened a lot. He frowned and looked for a while, and then he found that there was a team coming out of the Song army camp. They were walking very slowly, escorting some strange equipment, and were walking towards him.
Those tools were not as high as the well curb at the back, but they seemed to be of a certain length. After counting carefully, I found that there were seven of them, and there were at least 50,000 people surrounding them to protect them.
That uneasy feeling in my heart came back again, and this time it was quite strong.
Mei Zang Su'er really wanted to issue an order to withdraw troops, but thinking of the prime minister's order, she could only suppress this uneasy feeling for the time being.
Just because of this hesitation, the moving formation of the Song army stopped. The other side stationed on the spot about a mile away from the city wall and set up chevaux de frise.
This had become the habit of the Song army. Whenever they stopped marching, they would immediately set up chevaux de frise to avoid being ambushed by the Western Xia cavalry.
When the Song army stopped, the six instruments seemed to unfold in the distance, and then seemed to jump at the same time in the distance... Because they were too far away, it was difficult to see clearly what the instruments looked like.
Just as they were wondering, a black dot floated up from each tool, and a few seconds later, they heard the sound of a huge rock breaking through the air.
The whirring sound was a bit like the sound of clothes waving quickly.
But much bigger.
Mei Zang Su'er and the people from Xixia were attracted by the sound. They watched six black dots flying towards them quickly, then quickly growing larger. Three of them passed over them and landed on the camp behind the city wall.
A square boulder?
Just as they were confused, they heard six loud bangs in a row.
The thick ground of the city wall was shaking, and it seemed to feel the point where the soles of my feet touched the ground, and it was also in pain because of the shaking.
what happened?
Mei Zang Su'er subconsciously looked back at the camp behind the city wall, and saw three huge square stones falling to the ground and rolling for more than ten meters. Wherever they passed, blood splattered, leaving a bright red "ribbon".
Is this... a trebuchet?
Mei Zang Su'er pulled her gaze back, and then she saw that on the top of the city wall more than 20 meters away, there was a huge square object, "embedded" into the top battlement of the city wall, and caused several cracks on the wall.
He leaned on the crenel and looked down again, and found that there were two huge square stones embedded in the front of the city wall, one on each side of the gate.
It turned out to be a catapult. I guess it was the work of Master Lu.
Mei Zang Su'er slammed his hands heavily. He knew very well that the pass would not be able to be defended this time.
"Where do these stones come from?" He just didn't understand where Lu Sen got these square stones. It was impossible for the Gobi Desert to produce giant, hard rocks.
The Gobi Desert has a large temperature difference between day and night, is dry, and has a fast air flow rate. This means that everything on the Gobi Desert is being rapidly weathered all the time.
Even the hardest things will become brittle and break after being exposed to the air in the Gobi Desert for a period of time.
Therefore, there are no hard stones to be found in the Gobi Desert.
The rock here can only be considered relatively hard at best.
The bricks and stones used to build the city walls were all forged by fire and have strong resistance to weathering. Therefore, under normal circumstances, it is impossible to breach the city walls on the Gobi Desert head-on.
But what did Mei Zang Suer see now?
Huge, square-shaped rocks were thrown over from a distance.
Each square rock mass could easily smash a large section of the city wall, or embed itself forcefully into the wall, violently tearing a network of cracks on the wall that were visible to the naked eye.
"Damn it, this is definitely Master Lu's trick again." Mei Zang Su'er shouted, "Pass the order, continue to retreat, retreat to Hengduan Mountain fifty miles away and continue to station there."
After finishing speaking, Mei Zang Suer immediately descended from the city wall, rode her warhorse, and quickly left the pass.
During this process, huge rocks would occasionally fall from the sky and land in front of or behind him, creating balls of blood.
At this time, the morale of the Western Xia army dropped again. Anyone who was attacked like this without any means of counterattack would be like this.
During the army's retreat, everyone was terrified because the pass was a long and narrow passage. So even if Zang Su'er had not quickly issued a retreat order, the army would not be able to withdraw in a short time.
During this process, huge rocks would occasionally fall from the sky with a roar.
When it fell, there was a loud bang, and more than ten or twenty people were turned into meat. After rolling for several meters, another twenty or thirty people died.
Fortunately, the boulders that fell were all square and did not roll far. If they were round boulders that could roll dozens of meters after falling to the ground, it would have been a real disaster.
Fortunately, the Song army had only six catapults, and most of the stones were used to smash the city walls. Only occasionally, due to miscalculation of the trajectory, a stone would fall under the city wall and kill a large number of Xixia soldiers.
But even so, the huge rocks that fell from time to time still became a nightmare for the Western Xia army.
Everyone prayed that the boulder would not fall on their heads, including Mei Zang Suer.
For the first time, he felt that his life was so fragile.
If there is any big rock that is not careful, he will suffer the same fate as those lowly soldiers, and his body will be torn into pieces.
But fortunately... Mei Zang Su'er had good luck. He quickly escaped from the giant's throwing range and ran quickly towards Xingqing Prefecture.
Thanks to his decisiveness, he managed to escape the disaster.
When Di Qing saw those parabolic boulders, he ordered an attack at all costs. He endured the pain of certain casualties, repelled the previous cavalry harassment, and rushed to the exit of the pass.
Mo Zang Su'er was not as fast as he ran. Not long after he escaped from the long and narrow passage, Di Qing rushed over with his elite infantry regiment and blocked the exit.
As I said, as long as no one gave blind commands, the Song army was almost invincible in positional warfare, let alone the troops led by Di Qing.
At least 120,000 soldiers were blocked in the passage of the pass and could not get out, and the catapults in the rear quickly collapsed the city wall. Mu Guiying rushed up with a large army, and together with Di Qing, they attacked from the front and back, killing 30,000 enemies and capturing about 90,000.
If it is said that Lu Sen's ten thousand wheeled chariots and 200,000 soldiers had severely damaged the Western Xia Kingdom.
This great victory dealt another heavy blow to Xixia, almost sending the opponent into shock!
Nearly 90,000 captives are not 90,000 pigs. Guarding them requires a lot of energy. Therefore, it is impossible for Mu Guiying and others to pursue the victory even if they want to.
Soon, the news of this great victory spread.
Xixia naturally knew about this.
After the Liao Kingdom learned about this, it quickly gathered 300,000 troops on the southern border to prevent the Zhong family from suddenly going crazy.
The capital soon received news of the great victory.
Zhao Zhen was as happy as a child in the court.
The enemy was about to move south, and the city of Bianjing felt in danger, but they did not expect that not only had they repelled the enemy, but their manpower had also been almost completely wiped out.
"The specific situation should be known to all the nobles. Marshal Mu is sending 90,000 captives to the capital. If any of you want to take in some slaves, you should get the news." Zhao Zhen smiled happily. "Marshal Mu's memorial was also submitted last night. In it, she asked the nobles in the Secretariat whether she should continue to fight or retreat?"
At this time, a middle-aged official stood up and said, "I would like to report that Master Lu, as the military supervisor, ignored the order issued by the Secretariat to defend to the death and took the initiative to command Di Qing and others to attack. This is suspected of disobeying the court. Please recall him immediately and strip him of his title of Tianzhang Pavilion Scholar. I dare to ask the emperor to consider the above proposal."
