Gaoyang Pass, there is Taihang Mountain stretching for thousands of miles in the northwest direction, and the remaining vein of Yanshan Mountain in the northeast direction, and the two major mountain ranges crisscross in the north of Gaoyang, becoming a natural barrier. As soon as Gaoyang passed, it entered the hinterland of the Hebei Plain, an endless plain. Therefore, Gaoyang Pass is the gateway of Hebei, and Bazhou Yijin Pass, Xiongzhou Waqiao Pass, and called the three passes. Although the city is small, but it is rare to be built purely with bricks and stones, extremely solid, in order to facilitate long-term perseverance, there are tuntian, grassland outside the city, since the opening of the dynasty, the walled fort has been added again, Gaoyang is next to the high river, the south of the high river is not far away, it is the camp of the north of the Great Song River today.

In the north of Gaoyang Pass, in order to stop the cavalry of the Liao State, countless paddy fields have already been reclaimed, and the fields are full of mulberry elms, originally this kind of tree is not allowed to approach the Guancheng, but the Song and Liao countries do not use swords, the forest grows naturally, and the tenants of reclamation enjoy it, at this moment, the soldiers at the head of Gaoyang City look to the north, and there are layers of tree shadows everywhere, and they don't think about it, and scolded: "This thief God, he has to freeze to death." He wiped his nose, tightened the straps of his cotton coat outside his armor, shrunk his neck, leaned under the crossbow of the bed next to the battlement, and took a nap.

In the midst of the shadows of the trees, there was an occasional glimmer of light, which was the light of the clairvoyant lens reflecting the light of the city's headlights. Xiao Dabu, the privy envoy of the Northern Court, also put down the clairvoyant mirror, this time the southern invasion, the people of the Song Kingdom really did not notice it, and Gaoyang Guancheng was completely defenseless. He bowed his head and asked, "Are you ready to stop the iron barrel cannon used in the siege?" Chai Yibing, the commander of the Han army, said: "It's all stopped, and you only need the marshal to give an order, and you can attack the city." Xiao Dabu also followed Chai Yi's right hand and saw that in the clearing in the woods in front of him, fifteen huge bronze cannons had been lined up. This is the best artillery cast in Liao for several years, each one has tens of thousands of catties, the cannon body is 17 feet long, the barrel is 15 inches thick, and it is specially used to fire stone projectiles used in siege, this giant cannon can throw stone projectiles weighing nearly 1,000 catties to three miles away. There were also hundreds of barrel cannons of various sizes around these fifteen cannons, all of which were used to fire siege stone projectiles, some of which were old cannons that had been successfully cast in the past, and some of which were newly cast in order to prototype the cannons. Once the siege began, the Han military camp would push these small and medium-sized iron cannons towards the city. In order to serve these bulky big guys, the firearms battalion of the Han army in this southern invasion reached 30,000 people.

Now the giant cannons parked in the forest are all covered with cotton cannons coated with ox and sheep fat, and the cannons are also covered with thick branches, these cannons are well hidden, if it were not for the numerous baggage vehicles of the Han army firearms battalion crowded around the iron barrel cannons, Xiao Da would not be able to identify the location of each giant cannon, he nodded slightly. In order to plan this southern invasion, the Liao court can be said to have made great efforts, not only specially sent the Khitan champions who were proficient in Khitan and Chinese, but also sent Yelu Dashi to the Southern Dynasty to observe the situation along the way from the Nanjing Liaoxing Army, and also sent the grassland Kereh Department to deceive the Southern Dynasty. But the most difficult part of the whole preparation process was to transport these fifteen huge cannons to the woods two miles north of Gaoyang Pass without the defenders of Gaoyang Pass noticing. For this reason, after Chai Yi, the commander of the artillery battalion, surveyed the location of the artillery, the Liao State specially sent people to pretend to be a caravan to clear the road and the preset artillery positions from the woods, and also selected the New Year, after the Song people indulged in the festive atmosphere, and because of the cold and freezing weather, the number of patrols was reduced, and it was not easy to find that the Liao army was moving during this period to launch a southern invasion.

Since leading 30,000 cavalry elite to secretly leave Youzhou, sneaking here, the commander of the army Marshal Xiao Dabu also a heart hanging, the purpose of this southern invasion is to seize Hejian, Zhending, Zhongshan and other northern barriers in Hebei, all to take advantage of the geographical advantage, so that the Song people lose the advance base of the Northern Expedition, the second is to plunder more Central Plains people to the north, Liao since the use of Han slaves as slaves in the workshop, gradually tasted the sweetness, this way of enslavement than the original establishment of Junzhou County, let the farmers themselves reclaim and plant much stronger, As the mortality rate of the slaves increased, the Khitans gradually felt that there were not enough slaves for the first time, just like the children who had tasted the taste of milk had to suck hard, and for the sake of slaves and wealth, the call for the southern invasion of the upper class of the Liao State was getting louder and louder.

"Da Liao and Song Kingdom, in the end, there can only be one standing." Xiao Dabu also muttered, he is not for slaves, but for the future of the Khitans, the Jurchen rebellion in the north is getting more and more serious, and the Song court is clamoring for the Northern Expedition to Youyan every day, and now Youyan is the land that the Liao State must not lose, so it can only completely defeat the Song State through war, so it is good to turn back and deal with the uncivilized barbarians of the Jurchens, I heard that the Song State is even secretly funding the rebellion of the Jurchens, which is really the Southern Dynasty that should be destroyed.

As of noon today, everything was going well, but the leader of the Kereh tribe, Keremakus, who had surrendered by fraud, was suddenly assassinated by the Song people, and the original plan to seize Gaoyang Pass and even Hejian City could not be implemented, and the Kereh tribe had already launched a rebellion in the hinterland of the Song State in advance. Xiao Da, the commander of the southern invasion, had to launch the southern invasion in advance.

"The Hebei camp of the Song people claims to have 200,000 people, and 10,000 Tielin troops are approaching the river, is it a bit dangerous?" Xiao Dabu also asked sideways, staring at Yelu Dashi, the new privy envoy of the Southern Court in the south.

"If the Song people have not put down the rebellion of the Kereh tribe, they may have the opportunity to defeat the Hebei camp in one fell swoop." Yelu Dashi said slowly, he is still about thirty, and he has a lot more sharpness than Xiao Dabu, who is nearly fifty years old, "I will let the Tielin army go around to the back of Hejian Mansion, destroy all the post stations on the official road, and burn all the villages along the way, so that the Song army will think that they are besieged by us, and flee in panic." He patted the horse's neck lightly, calming the somewhat restless horse.

Yelu Dashi looked at the huge cannons in the woods, and the people of the Han Army's firearms battalion sat quietly around the artillery, looking a little worried. It turned out that there were still a few roads in the southern invasion of the Liao State that could bypass the three passes of Gaoyang, Yijin and Waqiao, and go straight into the hinterland of Hebei, but because there was no sharp weapon to attack the city, it was impossible to conquer the city of the Song State. Although there are huge cannons at the moment, they have to storm Gaoyang Pass in order to transport the huge cannons on the official road. The military advantages of this artillery to the country are also mixed, and the lighter guns of the Song State Daxing may also see the disadvantages of the difficult handling of artillery.

Xiao Dabu also sighed, this time in the southern invasion, although Yelu Dashi is a subordinate, he is deeply supported by the nobles of the Yelu clan, Xiao Dabu also has to respect his opinion very much, Yelu Dashi is a rare palace test champion of the Khitan people for a hundred years, and he is a royal family. The current emperor Yelu Yanxi is not very wise, and many young Yelu nobles even think that the hope for the future of the Liao State lies in Yelu Dashi. Therefore, Xiao Dabu also specially assigned 10,000 of the most elite Tielin Army to him as commander. In order to make the cavalry move quickly, this Jelu Dashi let the Tielin army take off most of the heavy armor, leaving only one-tenth of the people to keep the full armor, and also share it with the rest of the team.

"Let's shoot!" He gave an order to Chai Yi in a deep voice, and Chai Yi turned around and nodded to the lieutenant general who had been looking nervously over here.

"Fire!" The deputy general of the firearms battalion, Jerunugo, ordered.

The order of "open - cannon -", from the commander of each battalion to the commander in charge of each gun, the Han army nervously took off the branches and gun jackets on the cannon sound and threw them aside, the deputy gunner checked the gun chamber for the last time, and then began to load the medicine bag and stone projectiles, and the other Han soldiers in the back took all kinds of tools and prepared nervously, many of these Han soldiers were selected from the workshop, and the treatment in the artillery camp was no less than the days when the pigs and dogs in the workshop were not as good as the worlds apart, but once there was negligence or a mistake, the punishment was also extremely heavy, so they don't dare to slack off. Operating firearms is a hard and delicate job, so the real Khitan people who are used to galloping on horses are not willing to do it, so it is the turn to get these Han people, and the artillery battalion alone is not enough to mess up, and the cavalry of the Khitan people slaughter these Han troops who can't even use swords, guns, bows and arrows, which is no different from slaughtering chickens and dogs.

The lantern of Gaoyang Pass in the distance is the best target, the night is so silent, "boom-" a loud noise, accompanied by firelight, startled the soldiers of Gaoyang Pass fell to the ground all of a sudden, and then, "boom-" "boom-" The sound of "boom-" continued to be loud, the horses, dogs, and chickens in the city were all barking in horror, and the soldiers were looking at the battlements to see what was happening to the ground, only to see that with the distant firelight flashing and flashing, finally, a thousand-pound stone bullet, with huge inertia, With a bang, it slammed into the castle tower, smashing a large hole into the brick-made ground, and the archers guarding the lower battlements could be faintly seen looking towards them in horror.