Volume 1 The World Moves Chapter 38 Thunder and Fireball

Although King Zhao Wuling received the support of grain and grass, he still felt that it was not a long-term solution, so he summoned Lou to ease the two of them, and said:

"Although I have food and grass to live now, but I have been trapped in the city for a long time, I am a fish and meat, and I am a knife, and it is not a long-term solution, the two of you need to find a good strategy to make the Qin soldiers retreat as soon as possible!"

"If the Qin soldiers are inside the city, we will attack the city outside, but there is a way! Now that the Qin army is stationed in the mountains and fields, the terrain is empty, and the camp tents stretch for several miles, and we are short of manpower and equipment, and it is not easy to break the enemy in an instant!" Lou said slowly.

After this battle, my Zhao State must be vigorous in all aspects, and all aspects must be prepared, so that we can play in battle in wartime!" King Zhao Wuling had already participated in this battle with a learning attitude, and at this time he also realized the shortcomings of Zhao's army.

"If there are fifty taels of chariots, hundreds of dead soldiers will be handed over, and he will kill 200,000 Qin soldiers and flee!" Qiu Liquid said.

"Yes! As long as there are ten chariots to open the way, supplemented by the 'thunder fireball', no matter how many troops and horses can stop it! It's just that at the moment, we have very few equipment and things on fire, and it is difficult to create fireballs in a hurry!" Lou said slowly.

"Thunder Fireball, what is this?" Zhao Wuling King said curiously.

"There are two kinds of thunderbolt fireballs and burning fireballs, which can be dragged on flat ground or rolled down from a high place, and there are no people and animals left everywhere they go, and the city houses are completely destroyed, and the power is huge!" Lou said slowly.

"Is this more difficult to build than an eight-ride chariot, how can it be made?" asked King Zhao Wuling again.

"It's not too difficult to make, but it requires a lot of pine oil, sulfur ore powder and saltpeter!" Lou said slowly.

"These things are unheard of, how can we obtain them?" asked King Zhao Wuling.

"In the past, we waited in the Taihang Mountains, all of them were collected by the mountains! Pine oil is not difficult to obtain, sulfur powder and saltpeter can be slowly collected in the caves in the mountains, but it takes time! If there is a volcano nearby, there will be more sulfur powder, and saltpeter is also called 'ground frost' among the people, and ordinary doctors have some more or less!" Lou said slowly.

"Now there are two eight-seater dead cars, if ordinary carriages can tow thunder fireballs, you can give it a try!" Zhao Wuling said.

"You can use a four-ride carriage to drag the fireball, although it can't be compared with an eight-ride dead car, but it can also be used temporarily!" Lou said slowly.

"So why don't you hurry up and prepare, if you can create a thunder fireball within half a month, you will have to count on it to break the Qin army!"

Lou Xiao, Xia Lu and others immediately arranged manpower to prepare to create thunder fireballs, and the Qin army was also stepping up the manufacture of catapults, and the two sides coincided, both preparing to attack each other with fire.

It was much faster to build a catapult than to collect sulphur powder and saltpeter little by little, and in about five or six days there were 120 catapults ready on the side of the tree.

Another day later, seeing that the northwest wind was tight, Lizi set up a large army, set up more than a hundred catapults, and threw fireballs into Xiuyu City.

At this time, Lou Chuan and the others had already collected a lot of fire objects, and they were placed in the open space to dry and remove impurities, and suddenly the fireball fell from the sky, and Zhao Bing didn't have time to clean it up, and all the fire materials burned in an instant.

Xiuyu City is not big, and the fireballs hit many houses one after another, and many places in the city are on fire, and they are in chaos.

The Qin army used this method to attack the city for three consecutive days, and King Wuling of Zhao had no choice but to prepare to lead the army to abandon the city and flee to Xiuze. Before leaving, King Wuling of Zhao sent Xia Barley to inform Gongsun Yan and asked him to meet Zhao Jun halfway.

King Wuling of Zhao led his army out of the city from the south gate, and the brigade walked less than five miles before encountering an ambush by the Qin army. Here he arranged a heavy ambush for the Zhao army, intending to annihilate the Zhao army in one fell swoop.

Zhao Jun originally fled in the wilderness, but at this time, he suddenly encountered an ambush halfway, so it was naturally difficult to fight. King Zhao Wuling and Zhao Qi and others rushed forward behind the chariot, Lou Jie and Qiu Ye and the others fought hard for a while, and finally rushed out of a bloody road, but at this time, the dead soldiers driving the chariot had also exhausted their strength.

The dead car can charge into battle, but it is not conducive to escaping, Lou Chu and the others saw that the Qin soldiers behind them were chasing on horseback, so they abandoned the chariot, killed a few Qin soldiers on horseback, and prepared to change into fast horses and flee to Xiuze.

The Qin soldiers were in hot pursuit, and in the melee, King Zhao Wuling was hit by an arrow in the shoulder, and everyone tightly escorted King Zhao Wuling and fled in the direction of Xiuze. At the critical moment, Gongsun Yan's rescue arrived.

Although King Zhao Wuling was young, he had a beginning and an end in his work, and before the army retreated, he arranged for Gongsun Yan to come to meet him, so he also saved his own life and the lives of others.

After this battle, there were few of the 30,000 horses left in the Zhao army, but King Wuling of Zhao was born brave, and when he was young and vigorous, he ate another arrow, and he was not convinced, and he was determined to take revenge.

King Wuling of Zhao asked Lou Chuan and others to continue to create thunder and fireballs in Xiuze City, and at the same time wrote to Prince Han Cang, asking to take over the 20,000 Zhao soldiers left in Yiyang City. After the crown prince Han Cang received the letter, it was naturally difficult to stop him, so he asked Yiyang Zhao General to lead his troops to detour to Xiuze City, which was taken over by King Wuling of Zhao.

Lizi got Xiuyu and prepared to attack Xiuze, once Xiuze was lost, the army could go straight to Xinzheng, the capital of South Korea. The situation in Korea was critical, and the king of Han ordered the crown prince Han Cang to attack the Qin army behind Lizi to relieve the pressure on Xiuze to defend the city. Lizi knew what the crown prince Han Cang was doing, so he put down Xiu Ze and concentrated the elite to deal with Han Cang.

On this day, Han Cang sent Shen to lead 80,000 troops to attack the right side of the Qin army. Sima Cuo used the strategy of luring the enemy to go deep to lure the main force of Shencha to the banks of the Yellow River, and used chariots to cut off the retreat of the Korean army, defeated the Korean army, and captured the main general Shencha alive.

When King Han learned that the Han army was defeated in Xiuyu and that the main general Shencha was captured, he was so anxious that he scolded Gongsun Yan. South Korean Prime Minister Gong Zhong took the opportunity to speak to King Han:

"Qin and Chu are not in harmony with each other, Qin has always had the heart to attack Chu, why not ask Qin for peace, promise to give Yiyang Zhucheng as a gift, and join forces with the Qin army to attack Chu, and lead the troops south, so it can be said that one loss is exchanged for two gains!"

"Now the plan has to be like this!" King Han then ordered Gong Zhong to travel west and Qin.

When he learned that the King of Han had the intention of seeking peace, and he was afraid of the Zhao masters in Xiuze City, he did not dare to attack the city rashly for a while, so he did not move and waited for the order of the King of Qin.

When the king of Chu learned of this, he was very nervous, and a strategist named Chen Zhen said to the king of Chu:

"The Qin people are greedy, if the king of Han really unites with Qin, he will definitely join forces to attack Chu! The king can follow my practice, first strengthen the vigilance in the whole country, and at the same time threaten to send troops to save Han, let the chariots fill the road, make it look like rescuing Korea, and then send someone to see the king of Han with generous gifts, so that he firmly believes that the state of Chu will definitely save Han, so that the king of Han will definitely stop making peace with Qin, and the state of Qin will also be angry and even more dissatisfied with Korea!"

"This plan is very good! Just do what Qing said!" said King Chu happily.

When Qu Yuan heard this, he disagreed, and said to the king of Chu:

"In the past, the king was the chief of the alliance, and he was the first to retreat from the army, and he had already lost his trust in the kings, but now when Korea is in danger, if the king is inconsistent with his words and deeds again, he will be retaliated by the Koreans in the future!

"The widow has made up his mind, don't say anything more!" The king of Chu did not listen to Qu Yuan's words, but adopted Chen Zhen's idea.

When the king of Han saw the envoy sent by the state of Chu, he was happy, so he withdrew his move to make peace with Qin. Seeing that the king of Han had fallen to Chu again, the king of Qin was angry and prepared to let Lizi continue to attack Korea.

Taking advantage of the day when Qin and Han negotiated peace, King Zhao Wuling had already asked Lou Xuan and the others to make a thunder fireball. In the evening of this day, Lizi and others were discussing the siege of the city, when someone suddenly came to report urgently, and Zhao Jun led the army to attack the camp.

Zhu Lizi was stunned in his heart, although he didn't believe that the other party had such courage, but he also had no bottom in his heart, so he urgently ordered General Qin to lead his troops to meet him.

General Qin had just walked out of the camp position, and heard a rumbling sound from a distance, but when he saw the fire in front of him and the thick smoke billowing out, he didn't know what was happening. Just as he was hesitating, the opposing vanguard had already arrived, followed by a number of wagons lined up, dragging a number of huge fireballs rolling in.

The Qin general had never seen such a formation, and when he saw that the huge fireball was fierce and rumbling, it was very scary, and he hurriedly ordered the soldiers and horses to retreat in a panic.

Lou Jie, Qiu Ye and others rushed to the front, leading dozens of fireball carriages straight to the center of the Qin army's camp, and rushed to the Qin army's camp after a while. Lizi urgently ordered the soldiers to intercept, but the fireball was dragged behind the carriage, and the war horse could not stop at all, and only rushed forward, unstoppable.

Lizi and the others watched the carriage rampaging through the camp, and everywhere they went, there was a burst of fire, and they were anxious and helpless. The carriage rushed for a while, and suddenly there was a loud noise, which shocked Qin Bing in a daze. Immediately after that, there were loud noises, and the camp was full of fire, and the screams were endless.

It turned out that the thunderbolt fireball used by Lou Slow was a thunderbolt fireball, and in the middle of the fireball was a huge hollow stone ball, which was filled with sulfur powder, saltpeter, and carbon powder. The stone ball was slowly heated by the outer fire, detonating the gunpowder inside, causing a loud explosion.

Although the direct casualties caused by the thunder and fireball were not large, the Qin army had never seen such a killing weapon, and the soldiers were already frightened. At this time, King Wuling of Zhao led a large army to kill.

At this time, night had fallen, and the Qin army camp was killing everywhere, and Lizi had no choice but to order the troops to retreat and retreat in the direction of Yiyang overnight.

The army of Lizi was temporarily stationed west of Yiyang, and then counted the men and horses, and found that more than 40,000 people had been lost, and he was a little impressed by the young king of Zhao Wuling.

King Han was overjoyed to learn that his son-in-law had repelled the Qin army with a thunderous fireball, and after learning that Chu had not really sent troops to aid Han, he was afraid that the Qin army would make a comeback, so he took the prince's warehouse into Qin as a hostage and negotiated peace with Qin again. The Wei king, Wei Hei, also sent people to sue for peace with the king of Qin, and expelled Gongsun Yan to show his sincerity, and since then both Han and Wei have fallen to Qin, and the combined forces have collapsed.

Although the 200,000-strong army led by Lizi won the final victory, it also suffered more than 70,000 casualties at a high price, and led the army back to Hangu Pass after the Qin and Han peaces.

King Wuling of Zhao also led his army back to Handan of Zhao after the peace of Qin and Han, and it happened that Queen Han Ji gave birth to a son, and King Wuling of Zhao named his son "Zhang".

When Hui Shi heard that Gongsun Yan's allied army had finally failed, he was depressed, and he was too old and sick to pass away not long after, but before he died, he read the names of Zhuangzi and Le Yi in his mouth.