Dawn of the Empire

Chapter 71 Learning the Sword and Turning Itself (5)

After Zhao Xingde resigned, Wang Yan's deafening reminder was still circling in his mind.The night outside was as dark as ink, and the Liao people still drove the people of the Han army to attack the city, with the sound of fire and cannons. The soldiers at the top of the city were busy shooting arrows and throwing stones. The soldiers were sitting and lying down, moaning endlessly, as if they were in Shura Hell.Zhao Xingde only felt chest tightness and shortness of breath, and when he returned to the barracks, he couldn't sleep, so he simply got up and wrote a letter to vent his distress.

"Ming Huan, Lords of Shaoyang, my brother, I have heard the words of the wise men, the sages make the law, and the ordinary people accept it. The sages and emperors are all in the ritual, righteousness, and state laws. This is why this person is different from the beasts. The first birth of the people is as solid as the beasts and barbarians. However, the flesh of the weak is the food of the strong. The law hangs above, like the constant stability of the stars, and if a person lives below, his body will be peaceful and calm, and he will enjoy life and death. As Ming Huan said in the past, the power is so great that the country's legal system, Even those who are respected like emperors and virtuous like sages must be under the law. Goodness! Those who are better than beasts can be united by humans. False power and strength hang on the law, and the superior will eat it by force The weak, those who are under the sway are alienated from morality, each lives in secluded places and does not come out, fearing that others will harm him. In this way, rituals will collapse, morality will not exist, and people will go out of rituals and righteousness and return to animals. Outside of politics, there is the way of di barbarians and beasts. Those who are superior are not subject to etiquette and do not obey laws and regulations. Is this the so-called handsome beast that cannibalize people? There is nothing more important than benevolence and righteousness, and nothing is more important than ritual, music, and punishment. People are the foundation of all things. The spirit, the bell of good fortune, if we follow the law of the weak and the strong, and leave the Chinese guard, and return to the same as the beasts, it will not be too sad."

Zhao Xingde wrote all over the paper in a daze, until he vented all his inappropriateness, then he put the stack of letter papers in the scriptures and fell asleep.After writing the reply letter insulting the Khitan royal family, the Liao army sent cavalry to cut off the traffic outside Hejian City the next day, and even the military letters could not be sent out in the city.The Hejian military newspaper received by the imperial court is still Tong Guancong's daily one on the ship.

At dawn the next day, Su Wenyu invited Zhao Xingde to go to the archery range to regroup the army.When Zhao Xingde put on his pocket and came out of the barracks, Su Wenyu almost thought it was a different person, and looked at him in surprise.Joy and anger are not reflected in 'color' upbringing, full of anxiety and boredom, Zhao Xingde, who is full of worries, is now a stranger who should not get close.The gentle and elegant Confucian scholar in the past seemed to have transformed overnight, adding a sense of evil spirit, and becoming a dignified and self-respecting military commander.Even if Zhu Houwu, who had just been executed, was still there, seeing Zhao Xingde's appearance at this time, he dared not provoke him boldly.

"What's the matter?" Because Su Wenyu was a little abnormal, Zhao Xingde asked in confusion.

"It's nothing." Su Wenyu put away his sloppy air and said solemnly, "The six commanders have all lined up at the archery range, waiting for General Zhao's instructions."

"There is nothing to instruct." Zhao Xingde handed over a manuscript of the military order that he had rushed overnight to Su Wenyu. "Let the ten people who practiced first yesterday demonstrate. They will be the first to command and practice one by one according to the military order. The progress is slow." Yes, serve with military sticks, if you still can't practice well, you will be driven out with fifty sticks first. Anyone who dares to resist the military order, beheaded."

"Yes. General."

He stepped into the arena with a sullen face, and for a moment, the archery range, which was still noisy, was silent. Three thousand soldiers looked at Zhao Xingde with fear in their eyes.Last night, Zhu Hou Wu, who had been battered by the military stick, disappeared. The governing yamen announced that Zhu Dutou had been hit by an arrow and fell off the top of the city while patrolling the city. Everyone knew it well, but no one dared to say otherwise.

Originally, Zhao Xingde punished Zhu Houwu by holding it up high and putting it down lightly. Although some new soldiers were frightened, the officers and old soldiers were somewhat disdainful of him. Afterwards, the [-] soldiers who heard and witnessed the conflict between Zhu Houwu and Zhao Xingde yesterday immediately got to know the new Commander of the Quanhuoqi Battalion.The [-] soldiers transferred by Wang Yanxin were even rumored to be against the "firearms battalion who did not listen to Commander Zhao's orders, so cut as many as they could and replenish as many as they could." No one wanted to put their necks on the chicken-killing guillotine.

"The blacksmith workshop brought [-] firecrackers to use as iron gun heads, but the number of firecrackers is not enough." Su Wenyu Bing said.The students of this batch of Gongma disciples had the least ties to the Hebei Army factions, so for the convenience of commanding, Wang Yan sent them all under Zhao Xingde's command.

"Then use a seven-foot spear instead. Let's practice marching in formation first." Zhao Xingde said in a deep voice.He forcibly suppressed the contradictions between reality and ideals, power and system, but during the training of the Huo Gun Battalion, Zhao Xingde's aversion to power turned into almost paranoid criticism of the system and unity.He stipulated 24 basic commands for firearms soldiers. From the basic commands of starting and marching, to thrusting up the gun, stabbing down the gun, raising the gun, lighting the fire, retracting the gun, and stabbing the gun, these important commands, to the insignificant ones such as sitting and standing up. Yes, all are required to complete under the password.Even standing and sitting postures must be consistent.

Zhao Xingde kicked out the capitals and military envoys who did not satisfy him without hesitation, and promoted useful ones to replace them.More than a dozen members of the Gongma disciples were promoted, Wu Jian became the capital, and Su Wenyu became the Marquis of Yu.In addition, Zhao Xingde also replaced the original corps leaders and gang leaders with a large number of soldiers who responded flexibly to military orders. The personnel are for him to choose, and Zhao Xingde always gives priority to those soldiers who have served in free schools and have good looks.

Zhao Xingde asked Wu Jian to go to the treasury to choose an iron helmet that could protect the head and not block the line of sight specially for the Fire Gun Battalion. Finally, after an exchange, the [-] soldiers were replaced with iron helmets of the same standard.Because the effective range of firecrackers is shorter than that of bows and arrows, Zhao Xingde envisioned that in the future the firecracker battalion may march under the rain of arrows for a long time, and distributed the light infantry armor with the best effect of avoiding arrows for the whole battalion. One, but because the Fire Gun Camp also has a design to win in hand-to-hand combat with spears installed, the Blacksmith Workshop added a whole piece of armor to the chest.

The distribution and replacement of military supplies in the Song Dynasty has always been loose and random. It has become a common practice for the same soldier to have different styles of armor and uniforms. The three thousand soldiers of the Fire Gun Battalion finally reached a uniform order. This alone makes the Huo Gun Battalion The soldiers further realized that Commander Zhao had the full support of the ruling yamen, and even this obviously unreasonable thing could be done.In this way, no one dared to go against the command system of the Fire Gun Battalion.

Every day, a batch of blunderbuss with added thorns would be sent to the archery range, Zhao Xingde was still training the soldiers of the blunderbuss battalion to shoot the blunderbuss with all his strength.In order to avoid unnecessary loss of gunpowder, before finally going to the battlefield, he only planned to let the soldiers use a single shot of live ammunition to fire one round.Even the usual action of lighting the fire is to light only the 'powder' primer that has been 'inserted' on the empty gun barrel.

However, when training soldiers to load gunpowder and put on iron guns, they still encountered troubles. Most of them could hardly maintain a military posture and properly load gunpowder and ammunition at the same time. The soldiers with disordered feet almost burst into tears. Someone actually filled the double dose of medicine into four doses of medicine, and someone nervously stuffed seven or eight iron bullets in, almost reaching the muzzle of the muzzle. .

"Army soldiers are rough people, and the time for training is short, I'm afraid..." Su Wenyu saw that several people were dragged down to be beaten with military sticks, and he couldn't help feeling a little anxious. These people didn't intentionally violate military laws, they were really helpless and unintentional. , he was a little worried that if he played too much with the army sticks, he would delay the training of the Huobao Battalion. You must know that these horse archers have no roots in Hebei. In the eyes of the rest of the Hebei army, the officers who were descendants of bow horses probably all had the word "Zhao" stamped on them.Wang Yan gave the Huobaying so much preferential treatment, so he naturally expressed his high expectations. If the training of the Huobaoying could not be completed within [-] days, or if the battle was defeated, the consequences would be quite serious.

"Then cancel the 'powder' loading and reload action." Zhao Xingde had already noticed this problem, he was fiddling with a firecracker in his hand, thoughtfully, this one was specially picked out by Han Tiedan for him, It is said that there is a secret mark of the workshop on it, and it belongs to the first batch of high-quality goods that have passed the inspection of the Secretary. Even if three doses of 'medicine' are used, they will never explode.

"What?" Su Wenyu asked in surprise.

"Wrap the 'medicine' powder and the blunderbuss with silk, and place them in the barrel of the blunderbuss in advance." Zhao Xingde gently twisted the thin belt. The Song Dynasty was rich in this kind of extremely light and thin fabric. After burning, There was almost no ashes. "The wooden stick behind the spear just reached the barrel of the gun, and it was almost able to fix the position of the gun and the 'powder' bag," he picked up the spear. Han Tiedan's incredible design, fell Unintentionally 'inserting' the willow, it has the purpose of fixing the pre-installed blunderbuss and the 'medicine' bag, "For this little position, just use cotton to stuff it between the wooden stick and the blunderbuss." Zhao Xingde said in a deep voice, he just now After trying to shoot a shot, I found that a little bit of cotton stuffed outside the blunderbuss not only did not affect the shot, but it was even more powerful.

In this case, the first action of the firecracker battalion when approaching the enemy is to squat down in the front row and stick out the spears to prevent the enemy from approaching. 'The finished firecrackers are handed over to the people behind, and the firecrackers that have been removed from the back row are handed over, and the action of igniting and firing the firecrackers is repeated. When the enemy's formation tends to collapse under the bombardment of the firecrackers, the whole battalion Make a charge and use your spear for hand-to-hand combat.

"For each firecracker, it only needs to be fired once," Zhao Xingde murmured. "It is the soldiers who will fight the enemy with all their might to decide the outcome!"

Su Wenyu nodded in agreement. Everyone has never tried firecrackers, and no one can tell the effect. Fortunately, after being stabbed, this thing is slightly better than ordinary long spears, especially the three hundred guns. The axes and spears and the three hundred iron halberds are all sharp weapons for melee combat. They are assigned to the tall, strong and agile soldiers.

Zhao Xingde let the Fire Gun Battalion concentrate on practicing the process of firing guns according to the military order, and it was almost familiar to the point of fluency. Later, when they were eating and sleeping, they suddenly beat drums and assembled, so that the soldiers lined up to fire guns in the shortest time, and there were very few people. Eat army sticks.As for the hand-to-hand combat with long spears, which is the basis for decisive victory, the Huobao Battalion did not take time to train, because spears and sticks were originally the housekeeping skills of the Song Army. Eating, drinking and playing money with people.

This year's cold winter seems to be lingering. On the third day of March, Wang Yan, the commander of the Hejian armies, was determined to attack from the city and invited the Liao army. , I want to surprise the Tiebiying of the Liao people.