The time is about to reach the end of April, and as far as the eye can see, the banks of the Quye River are already rolling golden wheat waves. The Xixia people, who had worked here for a spring, smiled with joy on their faces when they saw the grain that was about to arrive. But no one thought that Li Buqi would show his fangs at this time, first of all, Jingyuan Road and Qinfeng Road made large-scale preparations for battle, which caused the Xia people to be vigilant and increased troops to defend the two places.

The Song people of Fuzhou and Yanzhou have been careful to protect their property, and for more than half a year, as long as there is a transportation of large quantities of goods, martial law will be imposed along the way, and the convoy will be escorted by a large army, which has become accustomed to the Tangut people. Therefore, the Tangut people in Hengshan did not care when they were under martial law in Fuzhou and Yanzhou for a long time, and they did not care when they knew that there was an army entering the city of Linfuzhou, and they basically did not realize that the 20,000 Song troops armed to the teeth had moved to the bottom of their noses, and the archers and volunteers of Yanyan Road had all completed their mobilization.

On April 20, some Tanguts were already harvesting by the Quye River, when suddenly the gates of Linzhou were wide open, and 2,000 cavalry and 3,000 infantry rushed to the Quye River.

The Tangut people thought that the Song people were also busy cutting wheat, but they did not expect that the Song people would suddenly kill when they were busy with farming, and only arranged 2,000 troops by the Quye River. The two thousand people tried to block the Song army in Linzhou, but the difference in strength was huge, and they began to retreat after almost only one round of collision, and the Song army also took advantage of the situation to kill the Quye River to expel the Xixia people and besiege the Xixia Fortress. Then the Tangut people in the walled fort saw a large number of Song people coming with ox carts and began to cut wheat.

This is a naked robbery! Is it tolerable or intolerable? However, the Xixia people in the walled fort did not dare to go out, because the walled fort was surrounded and impassable, and there were Song troops coming slowly from the direction of Fuzhou. Then they saw that the Song army was slowly and methodically erecting tall wooden frames on the river beach on the east bank of the Quye River, installing machinery, and was busy until late at night.

The next morning, the big stone bullets came into the air. The first few fell far or near, and the next stone bullets landed accurately on the wall and inside the stockade. With such a heavy stone projectile and a powerful projectile force, nothing could be stopped, and the wall collapsed in several places in just a few dozen strokes. However, the Song army did not seem to be ready to attack the city, but continued to throw stones into the stockade, as if they wanted to use stones to completely smash the fortress of the Tangut people directly.

On the east bank of the Quye River, Zhao Sheng, as the nominal commander-in-chief of the battle, rode next to the tall counterweight trebuchet, happily serving as his artillery commander. Whenever the soldiers pulled the boom with the net bag full of stones back to the waiting position, and then loaded the stones into the basket of throwing stones, he excitedly waved the red flag in his hand, and a stout soldier immediately smashed the machine with a heavy hammer, and the boulder was thrown into the fortress of the Tanguts.

The Quye River is not wide, and whenever the big stone smacks into the walled fort of the Tangut people, you can see with the naked eye that it stirs up a large area of dust, and the Song officers and soldiers are cheering. In a letter to Li Buqi, Zhao Sheng wrote a sentence to the effect: "This is the first time I really feel what it is like to have a great power. ”

Although the operation of the counterweight trebuchet was slow, it could not stand up to a dozen trebuchets bombing in turn, and there was not much left in the palm-sized village of the Xixia people in just one hour. The Tangut people finally couldn't stand the oppressive feeling of death, and howled and rushed out of the broken wall in an attempt to break through.

How could the Song army have a complete advantage and let the Tanguts run away like this, and the Song army that surrounded the village completely crushed the impact of the Tanguts with a single bow and arrow, strong crossbow and firecracker. The Tangut people, who were lucky enough not to die, completely lost the courage to fight, and most of them were captured.

After dismantling the Tangut stockade, the Song army dismantled the trebuchet and transported it to the front of another Tangut stockade to do the same, and destroyed the stockade before dark. But for the last and largest stockade, Zhao Sheng was not in a hurry to take it down, but surrounded it and attacked it with artillery.

These guns can already be regarded as real field guns, one caliber is four millimeters, with a magnification of 24, and one caliber of 5.5 millimeters, with a magnification of 18. Although these guns are somewhat overweight for safety, in this day and age, they are almost the strongest of the weapons. The only artillery more powerful than them was to comfort the emperor's frightened heart, and to defend the Jingshi, twenty cannons with a caliber of ten millimeters and a diameter of fifteen times.

Now, the gunners operated the guns in an orderly manner, using two guns of caliber 4 mm and two guns of 5.5 mm to pour shells unhurriedly at the wall of the Tangut people. In the course of the anti-bandit operation, these gunners had already used these guns to bombard the bandits' cottages, and they were already very skilled in handling the guns, and they even invented the method of tying together shells, wooden feeders, and silk bags containing gunpowder and loading them into the barrels of the guns, so that the firing speed of the guns was greatly increased.

The power of the artillery bombardment was very huge, and some wooden walls were like paper paste in front of the 5.5 mm diameter lead-clad iron balls, but because of the caliber limitations, the power of the artillery was still far from that of the counterweight trebuchet, and the speed of destroying the walled fort was significantly slower. Zhao Sheng also no longer focused on attacking the village, but turned to the direction of Hengshan in the company of Yao Gang, Zhe Kerou, Chong Xu, and Qu Zhen.

After looking through the binoculars for a while, looking at the Tangut cavalry that appeared and disappeared in the distance, Zhao Sheng was a little anxious: "Why can't the Tangut people come over?" Did they abandon the wheat and the Tanguts in the stockade? ”

The actual commander of this campaign, Lin Fudu, deployed Zhi Kerou to comfort him: "Hengshan Qiang is also busy harvesting wheat now, and it will take time to gather a large army in an eagerness. In my opinion, the Tangut people have been arrogant all these years, and when they see the wheat in their hands being cut away by us, they will inevitably come to take revenge. It's just that now they are afraid that they will not be able to gather enough troops, so they dare not approach. It is estimated that tomorrow, Hengshan Qiang should attack in a big way. There is no need to be anxious, we only do our own thing according to the instructions of the envoy, and wait for the Tangut people to take the bait. ”

Facts have proved that Zhe Kerou has figured out the details of the Tangut people, and before noon the next day, a fire broke out in the southwest direction, and then the dust rose, and the scout Pegasus came back to report that thousands of cavalry galloped from the direction of Hengshan, followed by a large number of infantry.

"It's finally here!" Zhao Sheng, who was facing the Xixia people head-on for the first time, was so excited that his voice trembled a little, although he knew that it was Zhi Kerou who actually gave the order, but he still ordered: "Act according to the predetermined plan." ”

Zhe Kerou also pretended to receive the order, and then passed the order.

The scouts were released for dozens of miles, and when they saw the Western Xia army coming, they immediately set fire to report the news as agreed. What to set fire? and the wheat that the Tanguts had not yet had time to harvest.

In front of Hengshan Qiang, the wheat they had worked so hard to grow was ruthlessly swallowed up by the raging fire, which was simply a naked provocation, how could the bloody Qiang men tolerate it. The cavalry couldn't help but whip their horses again and again, gritting their teeth and chasing after the Song scouts who fled quickly.

Large wheat fields were engulfed in fire one after another, and thick black smoke swirled in the air, so that when the Qiang advance suddenly found a Song cavalry coming out of the black smoke, the two sides were too close to use bows and arrows. However, this was nothing for the brave Qiang cavalry, who immediately brandished their scimitars and maces to urge their horses to rush towards the Song cavalry.

The cavalry of the Song army originally searched and advanced in battle formation, so encountering the Western Xia cavalry was an expected encounter for them.

When the two sides could already see each other's faces clearly, something strange happened to the Western Xia cavalry, and the poles and sticks held by the Song cavalry - they thought they were iron whips or maces or something like that, suddenly flashed fire, smoke, and made a roar, and the Western Xia cavalry fell off their horses and wailed.

The Western Xia cavalry suffered an unusual blow, and fell into confusion for a while because they were at a loss, and the Song cavalry slashed into the ranks of the Western Xia cavalry like sharp knives, and the heavy three-eyed gun was used as a hammer to slash over......

The two sides almost only looked at each other, and there were only a few of the four or five hundred Western Xia cavalry left, and they all turned their horses and fled quickly. The battle-hardened cavalry of the Song army did not chase after them, but just laughed: "This three-eyed gun is really useful!" Happy, happy! ”