(Thanks: Tips from the Moshaocong brothers, Thanks: Sevenpolo, Kofgheaven's monthly pass.) ）

When the news of the defeat of the Hexi Army and the Longyou Army in attacking Shibao City reached Chengdu, it was the wedding day of Huang San's marriage to Tan Nier. Wang Yuan, as Tan Nier's brother-in-law, presided over the wedding, and after sending the two newlyweds into the cave room, Wang Yuan received an urgent report from the capital, and got the news that the Tang army was defeated, and nearly half of the 150,000 soldiers and horses were lost, and even the captured Antelope City and Doma City had to be abandoned, and the news that they had retreated to the camp of Gravel Mountain in a hurry.

Wang Yuan was extremely shocked, this kind of defeat was incomprehensible, both in terms of strength and preparation, the Tang army was superior to the Tubo people. What's more, the general who led the army was Wang Zhonghe, a famous general of the Tang Dynasty, which is even more incredible. Although the urgent report sent by the imperial court did not elaborate on the causes and consequences of the defeat, Wang Yuan knew that there must be something wrong with it.

At the beginning, Yang Guozhong proudly revealed a few words to himself, saying that Wang Zhongsi would never come back after leaving Beijing this time, and that Li Linfu had prepared a strong backhand for him. At the beginning, Wang Yuan also did not understand what reason could prevent Wang Zhongsi from winning this battle, and then return to the dynasty triumphantly with merit. But now Wang Yuan faintly feels that the defeat of this battle is obviously related to Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong.

Wang Yuan felt a deep fear, if this defeat was really the follow-up of Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong, what a terrible thing it would be. If the struggle for power has reached the time when the overall situation of the country is ignored, what else can the imperial court controlled by Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong use to save it?

Wang Yuan didn't have much of a good impression of Wang Zhongsi, although Wang Zhongsi had sent troops to save his subordinates outside the Boulder Pass, but Wang Zhongsi's performance at that time left a bad impression on Wang Yuan. At the beginning, Wang Zhongsi was the last to hear that Liu Jun was also trapped outside the Boulder Pass, so he agreed to send troops. It was not so much that he persuaded him, but that the status of the Yang family persuaded him. But even so, Wang Yuan never wanted the Tang Dynasty to suffer such a crushing defeat in the battle with Tubo.

The defeat of this war will cause an uproar, Wang Zhongsi represents the power of the crown prince, and once Wang Zhongsi falls, the prince will be severely damaged. The only external force that the prince has now is Wang Zhongsi and the three armies of Hexi Longyou and Shuofang under his jurisdiction, Wang Zhongsi stepped down, and the prince has nothing to rely on, will the prince sit and wait to be killed? Apparently not. In a desperate situation, the prince will fight back against everything, just like when Li Heng dared to order Li Guinian and himself to assassinate Yang Guifei and want to replace him with a palace maid who looks like Yang Guifei. From that incident, it can be seen how crazy the prince must be in order to keep his position, and his methods will be unpredictable. The DPRK and China will set off a new round of mutual conflict, which may lead to a major earthquake and great turmoil.

On the other hand, Wang Yuan seems to be out of the matter, but in fact, he has also been deeply affected by this matter. Not to mention whether the prince Li Heng, who is in a desperate situation, will ask him to show his identity to support him and help him confront Li Linfu head-on. The defeat of the Tang army to the Tibetans alone would greatly threaten the safety of Bison City and the source of the huge amount of money that was flowing into Wang Yuan's pocket.

If Wang Zhonghei won in the north, it would not only divert the attention of the Tibetan state, but also attract a large number of Tibetan soldiers and horses to be stationed in the north to prevent Wang Zhongsi from taking advantage of the victory to go south. In that case, Bison City is perfectly safe. As long as the Tang army in Bison City did not cause trouble, the Tubo Congress would rather endure the bitter fruits of losing Bison City and choose to forbear, because they had no time to take care of it. But now, the northern border has broken the Tang army, and the Tang army will not be able to invade the northern border of Tubo in a short time, and the Tubo people will focus their attention on Bison City, and they will not forget that when the northern border is in an emergency, the Southern Army stabbed them in the back of the buttocks, and they will definitely transfer troops to recapture Bison City.

Wang Yuan was a little restless, Bison City must not be lost, if you lose Bison City, you will lose the source of funds, and the blueprint you planned will become a piece of waste paper. He can't blame Wang Zhongsi for actually losing this battle and triggering his own crisis, but he can only blame the cruelty and bottomless fighting in the court. The struggle between the DPRK and China will affect all parties, even innocent people. One of the reasons for the decline of a strong dynasty is the enormous damage caused by internal strife, as the events at hand prove it.

Of course, Wang Yuan could not remain indifferent, he immediately sent people to Bison City to inform Liu Dehai to strengthen the vigilance of the enemy, and at the same time ordered Wei Guangzhong, who was stationed in Yazhou, to lead 5,000 Yazhou defenders to enter Bison City. and ordered the transfer of heavy equipment to the Bison City. The Fuyuan crossbow in the Jiannan army at the time of the golden price, and the limited number of arm crossbows in the army were also allocated to the defenders of Bison City, ready to face the battle.

At the same time, Wang Yuan had to advance the gunpowder workshop, which was originally scheduled to start construction after the year, and began to develop gunpowder grenades. If a batch of grenades can be made before the Tibetan soldiers and horses attack, it will have an additional guarantee for the defense of Bison City.

The New Year is approaching, and when everyone is busy buying New Year's goods to prepare for the New Year, Wang Yuan took Zhang Zhengyi and others to be busy in the gunpowder workshop in the northwest of the city. At first, Wang Yuan's idea was to make an iron grenade for gunpowder, but now he had to settle for the next best thing, using a fired spherical clay pot as the shell of the grenade. Because this can greatly reduce the cost and is simple and fast, the disadvantage is that the weight of the clay pot is not enough, which will affect the distance of throwing, and it will be very troublesome to carry and transport.

But Wang Yuan didn't care about these anymore, and collected two kilns outside the city to fire spherical clay pots. Zhang Zheng and his people dismantled the gem nitrate, equipped it with gunpowder, and made dozens of sample grenades. Test firing began.

At the foot of the barren mountain to the west of the city, a Shenwei cannon stands here, where the grenade test is carried out. The grenades are divided into four models according to their weight, which are tested one by one here. The rumbling explosion sounded for a day, and the barren hill was almost flattened, and the dead grass around it was ignited, but fortunately the fire could not spread under heavy snow. All those who witnessed the grenade test will never forget the power of these grenades. The explosion caused by the grenade landing was earth-shattering, and it was like a rain of fire within a radius of several feet, rocks and dirt flew in all directions, and the rising black smoke columns looked like towering mushrooms.

Song Jiangong, who participated in the test and witnessed its power, wrote a paragraph describing the scene in his notes after returning home: "The power of the explosion of the fire bomb is comparable to thunder, and the grass, trees, mud and sand in several square feet have been razed. If this thing is thrown into the enemy's ranks, who will be able to resist it? The marshal Wang Yuantian Zong genius obtained this artifact, and since then the Jiannan Army has been invincible. The name of this thing is a thunderbolt, and I don't think it's an exaggeration, and the power of the thunderbolt is just so ......."

After a day of testing, the final clay pot grenade was about the same size as the basketball of later generations, weighing about 35 catties, which was the result of adding a large number of porcelain and iron pieces. It is not possible to increase these contents indefinitely, because the power of the grenade still depends on the amount of gunpowder, and increasing the content too much will compress the amount of gunpowder and reduce the power. However, according to the throwing data of the Shenwei cannon, the distance that a 35-pound grenade can be thrown is only about 400 steps.

Wang Yuan didn't want to increase the weight of the thunderbolt to about fifty catties, because that was the best projection weight of the Shenwei cannon, which could reach as far as seven hundred steps. However, in the throwing experiment, it was found that if the spherical clay pot was fired too large, the violent rotation in the air during throwing would cause the tank to break, which was counterproductive. The larger the volume, the more the structural stability is lacking, so Wang Yuan had to give up the plan of a large clay pot. The most stable and reliable thirty-five-pound Thunderbolt grenade was chosen.

The manufacturing workshop immediately began to work overtime to make thunderbolt grenades, but in fact, it was impossible to make too many of them with limited raw materials and funds, and only 500 pieces were made in the first batch, and all the gem nitrates in the inventory were exhausted, and the continued manufacture could only rely on the arrival of gem nitrates collected in the salt lake. But with these five hundred pieces, Wang Yuan was already very satisfied in his heart, which was already a lot more than Wang Yuan expected.

On the night of the thirtieth day of the Chinese New Year's Eve, when the families were gathering for New Year's dinner, these 500 thunderbolt cannons were packed in boxes covered with straw and sailed to Yazhou in the night, from there they were transported to Bison City with fifty Shenwei cannons.

The New Year of the seventh year of Tianbao was calm and peaceful for many people, although the imperial court was defeated in the crusade against Tibet, but this year was smooth and rainy, and it was another bumper harvest year. The people had enough food and clothing, and lived a comfortable and prosperous life.

The storm at the court and the defeat of the Tang Dynasty and the Gentiles did not make the common people panic. They're used to it. In the shelter of the super giant ship of the Tang Dynasty, no one would think that these small setbacks would make this giant ship in danger of sinking. They believe that no matter what kind of wind and rain and ups and downs there will be, this giant ship will still drive steadily, and their comfortable days will not be affected too much.

But in the dark night, there are open eyes, and some people know that the giant ship of Datang has sailed towards the iceberg, and danger is imminent.

(At the end of this volume, please see the next volume: Beacon City)