In the spring of the third year of Xianping, the final decisive battle between Song and Liao was launched in Lanyuan, and the battlefield that should have been tense presented an extremely paradoxical phenomenon.

The Liao army, which was accustomed to fighting on the plains, was cowering in the barracks at this time, hanging a war-free card. The Song army, which had only won the battle before, did not attack the Liao military camp with the momentum brought by the victory, but set up camp at the place with their back to the Yellow River, and asked the soldiers to go to the bank of the Yellow River to fetch sand.

Since they couldn't understand what the other party's idea was, neither side dared to act rashly at the moment.

……

On this day, in the camp of the commander of the Liao army, Yelu Mo was pacing back and forth, he was waiting for two news, one was when the reinforcements would be available, and the other was what kind of tricks the Song army was doing.

At this time, a scout entered Yelumo's tent, and from his mouth Yelumo learned that the reinforcements would arrive in Lanyuan in five days, which made the big stone in Yelumo's heart finally fall to the ground, and now this batch of reinforcements is the hole card in his hand, and it is understood that the Song army does not know the existence of this support army, which makes Yelumo a little more sure of the victory in the war.

Just after the scout here finished reporting the news of the reinforcements, another scout also entered the big tent, bringing the latest information about the Song army.

"What do you say? The Song army put the filled sandbags on the battlefield? Jerumo couldn't believe the scout's report, for he had never seen such a battle before.

"Yes, Sumire. The Song army built sandbags into arc-shaped low walls, which were scattered on the battlefield. Then he used the remaining sandbags to build a long wall at the front. ”

As the scouts kept feeding back the details. Yelu Mo couldn't figure out what Zhao Weiji was doing: "They didn't have to refuse the horse?" What is the height of those walls? ”

The scout shook his head: "They used the rejection horse. But the horses were behind the sandbag wall. The height of those sandbag walls doesn't seem to be very high. ”

After listening to this. Still confused, Yelumo asked both scouts to retreat, and then he turned to look at the map behind him, hoping to find some reason for Zhao Weiji to do so, but the result was still very disappointing to him.

Just when Yelumo was still in contemplation, in the Great Song military camp, Zhao Weiji was leading a group of generals and staff officers to carry out pre-war deployment around a huge sand table.

At this time, the herald of the Song army entered the big tent: "Report to the prince, all the sandbags and horses have been arranged." ”

After hearing the herald's return, Zhao Weiji raised his eyes from the sand table and asked the herald: "When we were doing these things, what was the movement on the Khitan side?" ”

"There was no movement. It's still a no-battle card, but every now and then a scout will come out to observe the situation we have set up. ”

"Oh, it's fine, if they want to observe, let them observe. Pass me a new order for the soldiers to start digging a trench under the wall of the Changsha Bag now. ”

"What do you mean by a trench, lord?" There is no concept of this new term herald in Zhao Weiji's mouth.

Hearing the herald's question, Zhao Weiji patted his head and reacted, how can there be such a thing as a trench in this era, so he pointed to the location of the sandbag wall on the sand table, and then marked the location where he was going to dig the trench and told the herald to dig a pit three feet wide and three feet deep at this location.

The herald, who didn't know why the prince was digging such a tunnel, didn't ask any more. Instead, he went out of the big tent with an order, so the Song soldiers began to dig the pit with shovels again.

And so it passed for another three days. Gradually, the trenches on the Song army's side were basically completed, and Yelumo, the commander of the Liao army, was basically unable to sit still.

Every day, scouts came to report, and the Song army began to make new moves again, but Yelumo couldn't understand the meaning, and discussed with his subordinates for a long time, but there was still no progress, which made Yelumo no longer able to bear the chaos of the Song army.

So he decisively sent Song Ying to agree to a battle two days later, but what he didn't expect was that Zhao Weiji actually agreed decisively.

Two days later, both sides sent troops to appear on the battlefield at the same time, but when both sides appeared on the battlefield, Yelumo found that the Song army had come out again.

While the Khitan Iron Cavalry stood on the battlefield in a charging formation as always, the Song army did not put up any formation, they scattered all the soldiers behind those sandbag walls, and then there was no more.

Unclear, Jeremo decided to go at his own pace, and he gave the order to attack. At the moment when his order was conveyed, the Khitan Iron Cavalry began to charge.

However, not long after the Khitan iron cavalry rushed out of the position, the nightmarish cannon sound rang out again, and Yelumo never dreamed that Zhao Weiji would actually move those equipment used to defend the city to the battlefield of the field battle.

Although he had suffered two big losses before, Yelumo still did not pay much attention to artillery, a weapon that surpassed this era, and he always felt that this was just a war weapon made by the Song army once, which may have a miraculous effect on siege or defense of the city, but in the field of field warfare, there should be no way to pose too much threat to the Khitan cavalry.

However, reality gave him a resounding slap in the face, and after Zhao Weiji organized the carpenters in Bianliang City to make artillery carriages, the artillery was pushed onto the stage of field warfare.

Those curved sandbag walls were designed by Zhao Weiji as the location of the forts, and the staggered distribution of the forts in front and back made it possible for the artillery to cover almost the entire battlefield without adjusting the angle of the barrels.

In addition to defending against the bow and arrow attacks of the Khitan cavalry, the trenches were also built so that the artillery would not accidentally injure the soldiers in front.

With the sound of cannons, the Khitan cavalry began to produce a large number of casualties, and seeing that it was undoubtedly a death in this way, Yelumo decisively withdrew his troops.

The first confrontation between the two sides ended with the heavy artillery fire of the Song army, and the Song army suffered almost zero casualties.

When Yelu Mo returned to the camp, he immediately gathered all the Liao generals, and they had to come up with a way to deal with the artillery before the reinforcements arrived, otherwise it would be in vain to bring any more reinforcements.

And although the Song army has won a big victory, Zhao Weiji knows that these still don't represent anything, on the surface, the Khitan people and the Song army have no way, but that is based on the premise of fighting, if the Khitan people choose to retreat, with the current mobility of the Song army, they don't want to catch up with the Khitan army at all.

At that time, it will inevitably be necessary to attack city by city, which is very troublesome and very costly, and the city that has undergone a baptism of artillery fire will at least not have any defense capability in the next year, and Zhao Weiji does not want to see such a result.

At this moment, he eagerly hoped that Li Jiguang's Northwest Cavalry would arrive on the battlefield soon, and only with these Northwest Cavalry could Zhao Weiji have the capital to pursue the Khitans.

Coincidentally, at this time, the scout who was in charge of contacting Li Jiguang came back, and he brought Zhao Weiji good news that Li Jiguang's troops would arrive at the battlefield in four days at most, which made Zhao Weiji very excited.

"You pass my order to General Li, tell him not to rush into the battlefield in the future, let him ambush him at this position on the map, once the huge cannon body starts to sound on the battlefield, let him directly copy the back road of the Khitan and approach their camp." As he spoke, Zhao Weiji handed a map to the scout, and a certain location on the map was drawn by Zhao Weiji with cinnabar.

Just when Zhao Weiji had already started to lay out for the next step, Yelumo was still having a headache about how to deal with the Song army's artillery.

They only know now that artillery can hit far away, and it is also very powerful, and it can kill dozens or even hundreds of Khitan soldiers at a time. But they did not know how far the artillery could fire, whether it could be attacked from a distance like a catapult, but not at close range.

In the hearts of the Khitan soldiers, this weapon is a demon, it is magic, as long as they hear a sound, there will be an explosion around them, not at all like a catapult, you can see the projectile flying over, and then have a reaction time to dodge.

"Can we spread out the team like we did before, so that even if we get blown up, there won't be too many casualties at once." Xiao Wolf, who really couldn't think of a way, brought up the method that Yelumo had used before.

It's just that this method was just put forward and was denied by Yelumo: "It's not that I haven't thought of this method, but haven't you noticed that the location of today's explosion is very evenly distributed and extensive?" Such an explosion range is not at all something that can be dodged by dispersing the team. ”

Yelumo's observation was very careful, the explosion points on the battlefield today were indeed uniform and widespread, and the reason why this was the case was because this was the power of all Zhao Weiji's artillery guns combined.

Whether it was firing on the ship or on the city gate before, the number of artillery was insufficient, and without sufficient quantity, it was impossible to achieve sufficient firepower coverage, which allowed the previous Khitan army to seize some gaps.

Just when everyone was at a loss again, a disgraced general suddenly spoke: "Since we can't pass through the Song army's position during the day, can we rob the camp at night?" ”

The proposal of this method made Yelu Mo suddenly open his mouth, yes, although the Khitan army is not good at night fighting, it does not mean that it cannot fight at night.

As long as the timing of night warfare is good, even if he is not good at it, he can still achieve good results if he takes the initiative to attack, so he hurriedly passed down the order and asked the generals to hurry up and select warriors and rob the Song camp at night. (To be continued......)