Li Yanqing stood at the head of the camp wall and watched the battle, he always felt that something was wrong, but he couldn't say it clearly for a while, until the Western Xia army projected the fire oil, and he finally found out what the problem was?

"Marshal, the enemy's fire oil is very problematic!"

Seed Master Dao frowned, "What's the problem?" ”

"Da Shuai found no, the projection distance of the oil is about two hundred and fifty steps, not three hundred steps, and more importantly, the amount of projection is not much, only two rounds of projection, there is a big gap between the oil and oil, although the momentum is very large, but in fact there is no lethality, the big marshal has thought about it, why do they throw the oil?"

Seed Master Dao was secretly taken aback, he faintly thought of something, "What do you mean......."

"I suspect there's something wrong underground!"

As soon as Li Yanqing's words fell, the soldiers shouted, "The enemy has thrown fireballs!" ”

I saw more than a dozen large fireballs rising into the air and smashing towards the head of the running Song army, and the fireballs smashed into the fire oil, immediately igniting the raging fire. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

The seed master Dao also realized that something was wrong, and immediately shouted: "Collect the troops!" ”

"When! While! While! ”

The hurried bell rang, Yao Zhongping was stunned, why did he collect the troops?

But the military order was like a mountain, and he had to shout: "Collect the troops!" ”

At this moment, only the earth-shattering explosion sounded, the fire cannon buried in the ground of the Western Xia army was ignited by the raging fire, a series of explosions, only to see the smoke of gunpowder, earth and stones flying wildly, countless Song soldiers were blown up by a huge amount of gunpowder limbs, flesh and blood flying, the screams were extremely terrible, as if falling into the hell of killing.

At this time, the oil altar above the head smashed into the altar, fell to the ground and shattered, and immediately ignited a fire, and the soldiers of the Song army ran wildly in the flames and explosions, and everywhere were soldiers who were ignited by the fire, they wailed and ran, and soon fell to the ground and were burned and curled up.

Li Yanqing's heart was like a drop of blood, he slammed his fist against the wall, he closed his eyes in pain, and the cruelty and tragedy of the war made him feel as if a knife had been inserted into his heart.

"Handsome! Handsome! ”

Li Yanqing heard the shouting next to him, and when he turned around, he saw that the commander had fainted, his face was like gold paper, and several soldiers were giving first aid.

"Let me come!"

Li Yanqing put the Planter Dao on the ground, pressed his chest hard, and after a moment, the Planter Dao slowly opened his eyes and said with a long sigh: "Collect the troops and return to the camp, hang up the battle card!" ”

The first tragic siege ended with the defeat of the Song army, in which the Song army lost more than 4,700 dead and wounded more than 2,000 people, with a total of nearly 7,000 casualties, and the losses were extremely heavy, and even the deputy general Yao Zhongping was seriously wounded.

When the time came to dusk, the blood-red sunset shone on the wilderness in front of Yinchuan City, only to see that the land became pitch black, and there were stumps of soldiers and siege equipment everywhere, which were burned into charcoal, twisted and piled up, and the blood-red sunset shone on the stumps, which was particularly desolate.

Hundreds of soldiers are cleaning up the corpses, the corpses are already difficult to identify, can only be transported back in cloth bags, the city head of the Western Xia army is not blocked, this is the Song and Xia Hundred Years War reached a tacit agreement, allow the other side to clean up the battlefield corpses, otherwise the corpses are decomposed and prone to epidemics, which is a big threat to both sides.

The Song army was stationed in the canyon, although the mouth of the canyon was as wide as three miles, and the depth was as wide as five to six miles, but the Song army still set up a camp tent within the range of three miles wide, which was also to prevent the enemy from throwing rockets from the top of the head.

This is also the biggest weak point of the Song army, and it cannot be avoided, the Song army can only increase patrols to prevent the sneak attack of enemy scouts.

However, the mountains on both sides are hundreds of zhang high cliffs, there is no way up the mountain, there is no path down the mountain, the Song army has been stationed at the mouth of the canyon of the ancient original road five times, but has never encountered the enemy army over the mountain, which is also the grasp of the master in his heart.

Li Yanqing and his intelligence division camp was located in the core camp, occupying more than 30 large tents, the wounded soldiers were treated in time, and more than 100 fallen soldiers have been cremated, and the ashes are packed into urns to be taken back to their hometowns.

The remaining 160 or so soldiers had no combat mission for the time being, and could only wait patiently for the end of the war day by day, but due to the crushing defeat of the Song army in the first siege three days ago, the morale was greatly affected, and even the soldiers of the intelligence battalion were also affected, and everyone remained silent, and the atmosphere was relatively depressing.

But Li Yanqing has not been in the camp for the past few days, and he has spent most of his time in the logistics camp.

There are about 3,000 people in the logistics battalion, in addition to 2,000 fortification soldiers, there are nearly 1,000 craftsmen of various kinds, carpenters, stonemasons, iron smelters, armor craftsmen, archers, sword and arrow makers, shield spear makers, etc., a total of more than 30 teams.

There are five or six large tents in the southwest corner of the logistics fortification battalion, which is the station of the firearms team, and the firearms team is composed of a total of 33 firearms craftsmen, who are mainly responsible for making various weapons with gunpowder, including gunpowder arrows, fire crossbow arrows, fire thistles, fireballs, thunderbolts, etc., and the fire crows shot by the Song army before were also made by them.

In a very dilapidated tent, Li Yanqing and two old craftsmen in their forties carefully weighed gunpowder, these two old craftsmen are two brothers, one is called Hao Da, the other is called Hao Er, the Bashu people's clan, generations are gunpowder craftsmen, neither of them is currently married, under the Taiyuan Firearms Bureau of the Ordnance Supervisor.

At present, the gunpowder and firearms production methods of the Song Dynasty are recorded in the "Wujing General Essentials", which is the official weapon production standard, but the gunpowder production technology in practice is also constantly improving and improving, from the Northern Song Dynasty initially based on fire attack arson gunpowder, gradually evolved into a great counterthrust of the advancing gunpowder, in the "Wujing General Essentials" at least three gunpowder records.

There is a new type of gunpowder that has just been recorded in the "General Essentials of the Martial Arts", that is, the gunpowder used to make thunderbolts, which is a kind of gunpowder with preliminary explosive properties, which was successfully developed more than ten years ago.

Because the Liao State seized Youyan and other Central Plains regions, with a large number of advanced Han craftsmen, their technology is almost synchronized with the Song Dynasty, when the Song Dynasty developed the explosion gunpowder just three years later, the Liao State also developed the manufacture of 'thunderbolt cannon' gunpowder, three days ago the Song army suffered heavy casualties, was made by the Liao State made thunderbolt cannon with fire oil wounded.

Gunpowder is what Li Yanqing called the 'strange soldiers', he witnessed the damage brought by the Western Xia people to the Song army using thunderbolt cannons and fireoil, but he also found that the power of thunderbolt cannons was actually not great, and most of the soldiers were still burned to death by fireoil, which showed that the formula of thunderbolt gunpowder was not perfect enough, and the power of the explosion was far from being fully realized.

For three days in a row, Li Yanqing was discussing with the Hao brothers to prepare a new gunpowder, and he vaguely remembered the formula of military black powder.

On a small copper scale, Hao Da read the scale and said: "Nitrate is seven and a half centimeters." ”

"Add a little more, less than seven and six centimeters, about seven and a half centimeters."

Hao Er added a small spoonful of nitrate powder with a small spoon, and Li Yanqing hurriedly said: "It's almost!" ”

The gunpowder of the Song Army's thunderbolt cannon was nitrate hexasulfide dicarbon, the nitrate content was too small, and the explosion force was not enough, and the ratio demanded by Li Yanqing was: 75.8% nitrate, 10.6% sulfur, and 13.6% charcoal.

"Below is sulfur powder, sulfur powder is a little more than a centimeter and a half, and toner is a little more than a centimeter and a half."

The Hao brothers are all extremely experienced gunpowder craftsmen, as long as Li Yanqing says the formula ratio, they can perfectly prepare the best gunpowder according to Li Yanqing's requirements, Li Yanqing is the opposite, he knows the formula, but he will not use the Song Dynasty's soil method to purify saltpeter.

Li Yanqing put the gunpowder into a thick porcelain bottle, sealed the mouth of the bottle with mud, and inserted a fuse wire after the mud dried.

"Is there a testing ground here?" Li Yanqing asked.

"Yes! Li Senjun, please come with us. ”

The Hao brothers took Li Yanqing out of the big tent, and more than a dozen firearms craftsmen outside the tent rushed up, Hao Da shook the medicine bottle in his hand proudly, "The new firearm invented by Li Shenjun, let's go and see it together!" ”

Everyone gathered around Li Yanqing and came to the firearms test site, which was actually a cave, five feet deep, the innermost part had been cleaned, and a flat boulder was used as a test bench.

Hao Da placed the porcelain vase on the platform, and a pile of scraps of paper was placed around it, which was to ignite the fuse.

"Oil rope!" Hao Da waved back,

"It's coming!" Hao Er handed the end of the oil rope to his brother.

At this time, a craftsman came in with a papier-mâché box, and Li Yanqing stopped him, "No need for this." ”

When he saw another craftsman holding a wooden crate box, he said, "Take the box." ”

Hao Da saw that it was a wooden box, and couldn't help but glance at Li Yanqing, Li Yanqing nodded, and he carefully covered the wooden box on the porcelain bottle.

"That's it!"

Hao Da slowly pulled the oil rope back, the oil rope was two zhang long, it was the thing that ignited the fire, the person lit the fire two zhang away, and then quickly dodged, of course, this time there was a wooden box cover, everyone did not dodge, but stood a few zhang away to watch.

But Li Yanqing was still not at ease, so he asked the soldiers to bring a few shields, and asked the first few people to hold the shields to watch.

Hao Da lit the oil rope and ran back, the rope was coated with a layer of fire oil, and it burned very quickly, and the flame quickly ignited the confetti, just wait for a moment, listen to 'Bang! With a loud bang, white smoke rose into the air, the wooden box was blown into three pieces, flying a foot high, the porcelain bottle was blown to pieces, the fragments were inlaid with the wooden box, several pieces of porcelain splashed over, heavily embedded in the shield, one of the pieces of porcelain crossed Hao Da's arm, and immediately bled endlessly.

More than a dozen craftsmen were dumbfounded, and Li Yanqing was also stunned, he didn't expect the power to be so great.