The 20,000 defenders of Xiping Mansion also received King Qin's order, and they did not dare to slack off, and immediately set off for Xingqing Mansion.

Xiping Mansion has not yet appeared in the Song army at this time, the wharf is crowded with people, the war horses neigh, the voices of the people are boiling, there are hundreds of huge rafts moored on the wharf, this is the Yellow River ferry of Xixia, each raft can transport two hundred soldiers or fifty war horses at one time, and it takes about an hour to cross the river.

According to the custom, soldiers were transported first, and then horses were transported, and 20,000 soldiers were put on huge rafts, and 18,000 people were transported at once in 100 huge rafts, leaving 2,000 men to guard the horses.

'Woo-' a low horn sounded, and hundreds of rafts slowly left the dock and headed across the river.

For a hundred years, the Western Xia used this kind of giant raft as a ferry, which was very convenient, and the soldiers and ordinary people were used to it, but due to the blockade of the news by the Western Xia court, the soldiers of Xiping Mansion did not know about the attack on grain and grass.

At the bottom of the huge raft were two layers of hundreds of sheepskin sacs, on top of which was a wooden row, and then two layers of cowhides, and the soldiers sat on the cowhides, surrounded by a wall surrounded by sheepskin bags, and the raft was slightly longer in front and back, and each stood a captain, who supported the raft with long bamboo poles.

The raft is very large, with a length and width of more than ten zhang, like a passenger ship of 2,000 stones.

Just as hundreds of rafts sailed into the middle of the Yellow River, more than a dozen huge Song steamships appeared, each of which was a behemoth of five thousand stones, and it was full of Song sailors.

In fact, they had been waiting in the north for a long time, waiting for the Western Xia soldiers to enter the water, and it was their strategy to attack halfway.

More than a dozen huge warships appeared, and when they landed, the ferries in the Yellow River panicked, and the captain tried his best to speed up, but they were not as fast as the Song army warships driven by steam engines, and the warships were getting closer and closer, and suddenly countless black shadows jumped from the big boats, which were hundreds of Song army water ghosts into the water.

The two of them were in charge of a raft, one left and one right, and used the blade to cut hundreds of skin bags, without air bags, a wooden raft alone could not bear the weight of two hundred people, the wooden raft sank to the bottom of the water, in a scream, all two hundred soldiers fell into the water, most of the soldiers were swept away by the current, and some soldiers grabbed the raft and the skin bags on the side, and shouted for help on the water.

But the soldiers had no chance, and as the Song warships rumbled, what awaited them was the Song army's total annihilation, and the Song army on the ship mercilessly shot the soldiers of the Western Xia army on the water.

In just over half an hour, not a single Xixia ferry could successfully dock, all of them capsized in the Yellow River, broken rafts and scattered logs floating everywhere on the water, and only the sound of steamboats rumbling back and forth echoed on the river, and all 18,000 soldiers died at the bottom of the river.

At this time, the 20,000 cavalry of the Song army on the shore had also been killed, and the 2,000 Xixia soldiers who did not get off the ship were terrified, and Xiping City did not dare to return, so they fled to the south in panic.

.........

The Song army then occupied Xipingfu, but this time, contrary to Dingzhou, the Song army entered the city and was greeted with unprecedented enthusiasm.

On the one hand, most of the young and strong party members in the city have left the army, and on the other hand, Xiping Mansion is a famous handicraft and textile center in Western Xia, so that more than sixty percent of the residents in the city are Song Dynasty slaves who have been taken captive, concentrated in more than a dozen government-run handicraft workshops to work, and there is an iron mine nearby, and nearly 100,000 miners are Song Dynasty border residents.

Hundreds of thousands of Song people sang and danced, and many people cried and shouted to welcome the troops from their hometowns, looking at the faces that were full of excitement and tears, and the Song soldiers were also extremely moved.

Commander Di Qing shouted to the hundreds of thousands of people who welcomed them into the city: "From now on, you are no longer slaves, we are too late, and we have wronged the old folks." ”

The whole city suddenly burst into tears, and Di Qing immediately ordered that all the tens of thousands of party residents in the city be driven out of the city, give their houses to the Song people to live in, demolish the shacks where the Song people lived before, and open the official granary to give food to hundreds of thousands of Song people.

Fanning arrived at Xiping Mansion at dusk, and the people of Xiping Mansion were still immersed in the joy of being liberated, and Di Qing personally went out of the city to welcome Fanning's arrival.

"How many Song people are in the city, have you counted them?" As soon as they met, Fanning asked Di Qingdao.

"Roughly counted, plus the miners, there are 3560,000, all of them are captive Song people, or their descendants."

"So many?" Fanning was surprised.

"In fact, it is not surprising that this is the result of decades of captivity and plundering of the Song people in the Western Xia, the manufacturing of weapons in the Western Xia is in Xingqing Mansion, and a small number of party craftsmen are in charge, while the non-military handicraft industry is done by the Song people, including mining and smelting, and Xiping Mansion is the largest handicraft city in the Western Xia, so the Song people have the most."

"What's the takeaway from the warehouse?"

"There are more than 300,000 stones of grain, 200,000 quintals of forage, 700,000 taels of silver, more than 400,000 catties of pig iron, 2,000,000 catties of copper, armor, shields, etc., in addition, 20,000 horses have been captured."

Fan Ning nodded, "Dingzhou has also harvested a lot, and the warehouses in Huaizhou, Jingzhou and Shunzhou are also spectacular, and I am ready to transport all the grain and grass materials from these three states to Xiping Mansion." ”

"Does Xianggong want to occupy the other three cities?" Di Qing asked.

"This is the purpose of my coming to Xiping Mansion, I found that 200,000 troops are still not enough, I still need 100,000 troops to guard the three prefectures of Huai, Jing and Shun for me, and see if I can recruit troops from the Song people?"

Di Qing sighed and said: "If it is just recruitment, I believe that Song Min's enthusiasm will be very high, first of all, at least 80,000 of the 100,000 miners can be turned into soldiers, and it is not a big problem to recruit 100,000 soldiers, but I am afraid that the combat ability will be poor." ”

"Then train them and train them to be auxiliary soldiers to defend the city."

"What about the party members in Huaizhou, Jingzhou and Shunzhou?"

Fan Ning said lightly: "I have driven all of them out of the city and sent them to Xingqing Mansion, I will send someone to send a letter to Xingqing Mansion, if they refuse to accept these party members, then I can only kill them all, but according to the feedback, they should accept these hundreds of thousands of people." ”

"Isn't this a reinforcement of the troops of Xingqing Mansion?" Di Qing was a little puzzled.

Fan Ning smiled and said: "There will be pros and cons to everything, the population of Xingqing Mansion may be as high as one million, how can their food be solved?" Densely populated and the weather is getting hotter, what if there is an outbreak of disease? I guess Empress Dowager Liang may not actually want to accept it, but she doesn't dare not accept it, otherwise she will be charged with persecuting party members. ”

"Xianggong is right, even if they gather 300,000 troops, what can they do, they don't have so many armor and equipment at all, let's fight a protracted war with them, see who can't hold on in the end?"

The two came to the temporary military office, which was originally the official office of Western Xia, and was requisitioned as the military office of the Song army, there were soldiers standing guard at the door, and the guard was heavy, the two walked into the military office, Di Qing spread out a large map, and said with a smile: "This is the biggest harvest of seizing Xiping Mansion, found from the captured baggage, Xianggong look at what this is?" ”

Fan Ning stepped forward to take a closer look, and was immediately surprised and delighted, it turned out to be the deployment map of the 100,000 army on the southern border, which was very detailed, and the troops and food of each cottage, sentry post and city were clearly marked, which could be regarded as the most confidential information in Western Xia.

Fan Ning lay on the map and looked carefully, from the east of Yinzhou, Xiazhou, Shizhou, Longzhou, Hongzhou, Youzhou, Yanzhou, Weizhou and other military cities, as well as 36 cottages, more than 100 checkpoints, 100,000 troops are distributed among them.

"This is the latest map?" Fanning asked again.

Di Qing pointed to a map in the lower left corner with a date that had been corrected twenty days ago.

Fan Ning frowned, "Why are the armies of Longzhou, Hongzhou and Youzhou very concentrated, reaching as many as 70,000 troops, and the eastern and western forces are very small, the defenders of Weizhou are only 3,000 people, and Yinzhou, Xiazhou, and Shizhou are only a few thousand people each, what is the reason for this?" ”

"I have also considered this problem, and I guess that the Western Xia was preparing to attack Gyeongju on a large scale before, so the army was mainly hoarded in the middle road, and as a result, we occupied Hetao, and they had to withdraw their troops, but the pattern of attacking Gyeongju has not had time to change, so the troops are mainly hoarded in the center."

"If that's the case, will we have a chance?"

Di Qing smiled slightly: "It is very easy for all the Western Xia Army checkpoints and cottages to attack from behind, the key is to see if Xiao Fan Xianggong's strategy should be changed?" ”

Fan Ning paced back and forth with his hands in his hands, and finally said: "We also deployed 300,000 troops in the south, and it is a bit unreasonable not to give Han Xianggong and the old generals a chance, so we will open a passage for them, and it is up to them to decide how to deal with the Western Xia army." ”

Di Qing thought for a while and said, "Leave this matter to me!" I opened the two passages of Yinzhou and Weizhou for them, except for the three cities of Longzhou, Hongzhou and Youzhou, the other cottage posts could be swept away from behind, and they concentrated their forces to deal with the three cities on the border of Western Xia. ”