Thousands of horses galloped, and the wind and clouds were agitated. The fierce sound shook the ground, making the viewer's heart shake.

Wang Zhongzheng's face was nervous, and his face turned pale little by little. Even in the dangerous Luo Wu retreat, he was protected between thousands of troops, whether it was an ambush or a counterattack, the Song army occupied the initiative. It's just that at the moment, the weak forces are facing nearly three times the enemy's attack. Although he has experienced wars, he has never seen adversity, and at a glance, he was frightened by the fierce Tibetan riding like a pack of wolves.

"You don't have to worry...... The thieves can't get in. ”

Han Gang's tone was a little more confident than it contained, Wang Zhongzheng looked at his smile with excessive self-confidence, but his mind was really a little more settled.

Han Gang's heart is as stable as a mountain. In his opinion, the leading general was too impatient and made the biggest mistake. The cavalry charged towards the camp, which was even more reckless than directly attacking the Song army's arrow formation, which had already been lined up.

Although not as safe as a fort with walls, a wooden fence was more than enough to defend against cavalry. And the people and defenders in the fort have already come up, each holding a heavy crossbow, and the armor on their bodies is temporarily assigned by Han Gang. Weiyuan Fort is a key transshipment point, and the fort is full of weapons such as bows, crossbows, swords, etc., all of which are reserved in wartime. In particular, although the Divine Arm Bow is powerful, it is easy to damage the bow arm if it is too strong, so the number of spare parts is the largest.

The people and soldiers in the fort were indeed surprised by the sudden enemy troops, but under the hard work of a group of former generals and colonels, the morale of the army was excited. When he heard the attack of the Tibetan cavalry, Han Gang had already given the order, and these military heavy weapons were not only reissued to the soldiers, but also distributed to the people. They are all former members of the Guangrui Army, and they cooperate with their old officials, but they are flawless and smooth.

The horses came like a tidal wave. Liu Yuan and the other more than 30 generals who rode on horses were not stupid enough to go straight to the front, but they did not return to the camp, but were far away from the flanks. Like a poisonous snake, he took a hard bite on the periphery and shot down seven or eight thieves with his skillful bow and horse skills. More than 200 horsemen were drawn from the enemy's formation to pursue them.

Liu Yuan and the others fled along the camp fence first, and the Fan cavalry chased closely, but unintentionally exposed the flanks to the eyes of the shooters guarding behind this section of the fence, and after a bowstring, more than 20 horses landed.

Seeing that the Song people made a trick, the pursuers were even more angry and held on to it. Seeing this, Liu Yuan and the others turned their horses to flee to the west. chased and fled, and in the blink of an eye, it was far away.

Liu Yuan led away a part of the enemy army, which was equivalent to doing the defenders in the fort a great favor, Han Gang looked at the city and nodded with satisfaction, and then turned his gaze back to the enemy formation.

He didn't understand the banner of the Fan people, but there were more than 2,000 cavalry, and a third of them were armoured, so the leader was either Mu Zheng's cronies and generals, or Blind Wu Qi, or Mu Zheng's other younger brother Wu Yanzheng. As for Yu Zang Huama, Han Gang didn't think he would take such a big risk for the Mu Zheng brothers.

The road bypassed by Mabang Mountain was out of the protective range of the existing military forces of the Great Song Dynasty, so the pacification envoy of the edge of the border put the plan to control this road in the future. In the case of insufficient troops, it was reluctant to keep a passageway, and between the two roads, the Marginal Pacification Division chose the northern route of the more rugged but shorter distance by nearly half and took the northern route of the Bird and Mouse Mountain, rather than the southern route of the Mabang Mountain.

Now the Fan army outside Weiyuan Fort, they walked on the southern line from Weiyuan to Lintao, and waved their troops to attack Weiyuan, which means that their retreat may be blocked by the Song army that has occupied Lintao at any time. Yu Zanghua is crazy to take the fire for the Mu Zheng brothers, and it is already a favor to be able to rob the grain road.

In the case that Lintao City may select elites to block the back road at any time, the Tubo people who attacked this time can be regarded as smart, and if there is a chance, Han Gang has the intention to solve it under Weiyuan Fort. Now he feared that the thieves would go east to harass the Tuntian Forts in the Wei River Valley. The strong and strong in the fort were all taken away, and the old and weak women and children could not withstand the attack of the thieves.

"Don't worry about surrounding Weiyuan Fort." Han Gang said to Wang Zhongzheng, "I'm afraid that they will divide their forces and kill them eastward." ”

"Is there really anything wrong now?"

"We still have thunderbolts!"

Although Han Gang's troops are scarce, the defensive structure of the camp he is in is prepared to face the invasion of 10,000 people, and all kinds of equipment are prepared one by one. And stored in the camp, the grain, grass and weapons that need to be transferred urgently, all kinds of defense and siege equipment are also readily available, and the heavy ones have eight oxen crossbows and nearby divine arm bows. Of course, whether it is placed in the barracks or ready to be transported to the front line of Lintao, the thunderbolt cannon that has recently gained fame is indispensable.

In order to attack Lintao City, the Marginal Pacification Division made all preparations in advance. The siege equipment was also prepared in advance, and even the craftsmen recruited more than 30 people. But they didn't come in handy. If Wang Shao attacked Lintao and attacked the city but could not conquer it, these craftsmen would go to Wang Shao's army with the core components of the thunderbolt cannon and the eight-ox crossbow to listen to the command. But Lintao City was unexpectedly fragile, so they didn't have a chance to perform.

Because of this, now they happen to be on Han Gang's side. The number of craftsmen is not large, only more than 30 people. Han Gang didn't need their craftsman's skills, but he could use their hands. The hand-made thunderbolt cannons are naturally not inferior to those selected from the soldiers. Now, there is a lack of manpower in the fort, so Han Gang transferred their group of craftsmen and asked them to operate the thunderbolt cannon, and freed the original dozens of artillery players, put on armor, raised the divine arm bow, and went to the front to fight.

Two heavy thunderbolt cannons, about two feet high, like a pair of giants with slender arms, stood on two terraces not far from the gate of the camp - near the three camp gates, two thunderbolt cannons were erected to protect them - the thunderbolt cannons were still cumbersome, but compared with the old artillery trucks, the current thunderbolt cannons still need many fewer personnel.

The craftsmen were divided into two teams and prepared in an orderly manner. In the small half an hour before the arrival of the attackers, Han Gang had already asked people to carry out all the artillery shells needed for this battle and place them next to the thunderbolts.

Not just round stone bullets, but also mud bombs, gravel bombs, and poisonous smoke balls that resemble chemical weapons. If it is a city wall, a boulder shell weighing thirty or fifty catties is indeed effective, but in the face of a brave enemy group, gravel and mud are more effective than boulders.

The craftsmen were very skilled in handling the thunderbolts, carrying the shells, calculating the distance, and adjusting the counterweights. In the blink of an eye, two whistles slipped into his ears as if they were nothing, and the catapult with the artillery bomb planted waved its long arm. There was a whirring sound, and two black shadows flew into the air.

Drawing a perfect parabola, two mud bombs fell from the sky and splashed violently in the crowd outside the camp fence.

The Tibetan cavalry swarmed outside the camp, and the Song army's divine arm archers were shooting at the periphery, while the Tibetan people on the inside were trying to cut through the fence and rush into the camp. In the melee, no one had time to look up at the sky. It wasn't until there were two muffled bangs, countless hard mud and stone fragments smashed into their heads and faces, the riders screamed in pain, and the war horses neighed, that they realized that the Song people had a magic weapon that was better than the divine arm bow.

The mud bombs used this time weighed about 25 kilograms, and the exact weight made it possible for the artillery crew to roughly approach the target as long as the counterweight was adjusted when calculating the landing point. The power of the mud bomb was not great, and with two artillery shells, only one of the unfortunate Fan Riders standing at the landing point was smashed by men and horses. The scattered mud flakes also caused chaos among the enemy group. And the heavy objects flying from the air gave the people a lot of shock mentally. Before rushing to the camp, they had to look up, which put a little hesitation on their indomitable determination.

The mud bomb was only a test shot, followed by a second round of gravel shells. The outside is a net woven with ropes, and the inside of the net is stuffed with gravel, and the bulging is a ball-shaped package.

The new catapult has an astonishing speed of fire, close to the Divine Arm Bow used by individual soldiers, faster than the Eight Bull Crossbow, and much faster than the old artillery carts. The two clearings smashed by the two mud bombs in the enemy group had not yet been covered by the cavalry that had regrouped and charged, and the next round of shelling had already arrived.

Under the artillery cart, two whistles sounded one in front of the other. The slender seven-bow arm is like a bouncing willow branch, and when it is raised, two thunderbolts are fired at the same time. Gravel nets flutter in the air. smashed into the enemy troops in front of the barracks. It was slightly closer to the landing point than the previous one, but it still landed accurately in the crowded horse.

The package, which was tightly tied together by ropes, exploded as it landed. The gravel splash is different from the previous mud chips, and the lethality is more than ten times stronger. The hard stones, which were more deadly than the mud chips that had been dried and hardened, broke their heads and bled out, and the horses were also smashed. Even jumping and jumping, throwing a lot of riders off their backs.

The role of the stone crushing bullet was not only to kill and injure, but also to disrupt the rhythm of the Tibetan attack. With the landing point as the center of the circle, there is a chaos in the range of about five or six zhang. And farther away, the riders and war horses who were disturbed also lost the ability to attack for a while. The cheers of the defenders' archers then rose to the occasion, and they took the opportunity to wind up and shoot, shooting the already chaotic enemy army even more chaotically.

The defeat is like a mountain, the formation is in chaos, and they want to rectify in front of the enemy, unless the elite can do it. The Tibetans did not have this ability, and became as blind as headless flies.

"Almost." Han Gang suddenly spoke, and without waiting for Wang Zhongzheng to ask, as if echoing, the horn of retreat sounded from the rear of the enemy army at this time.

The Fan cavalry retreated like a tide, and the leading Fan generals finally gave up the extravagant hope of breaking the city in one fell swoop, and recycled their own cavalry, as if they wanted to reorganize and then attack.

"Will the thief just retreat?" Wang Zhongzheng asked hopefully.

"The Tibetans are not stupid, and when they retreated outside the camp, they did not forget to drag the corpses away, which shows that the morale is still there. But they bit Weiyuan and didn't let go...... That's a good thing! ”