Now, three miles away, iron bullets are being shot out to hit people. Do they still want the Liao cavalry to survive?
Seeing the attack on the north gate thwarted, Yelu Zongzhen was forced to retreat more than ten miles, reorganize his troops, and set up camp. Although the Liao army suffered few casualties, only a few hundred dead or wounded, its morale plummeted.
In this situation, it is obviously impossible to attack the city again.
Yelu Zongzhen discussed with his ministers again, and now there are only three options before them.
One is to withdraw troops immediately and go back in disgrace while the casualties are not too great.
The second was to negotiate peace with the State of Song. Although their attack was thwarted this time, they destroyed a large number of Song army fortresses and military camps as a whole. They just had not yet broken through the Song army's city, thus achieving the goal of deterring the State of Song.
But at least they won in terms of momentum. At present, the situation is that the Liao Kingdom is attacking and the Song Army is defending. As long as the Song Army admits defeat, there is still room for peace talks between the two sides.
The third is to continue the attack.
Although the new weapon did have a long attack range, its lethality was limited. As long as the cavalry supervision team forced the infantry to continue the attack despite the Song army's artillery fire, and as long as they rushed to the foot of the city and set up ladders, there might still be a chance to break through Baosai.
The problem is that the Song army only showed two cannons today. Who knows how many more they have? And whether they have more terrifying weapons hidden, can they threaten the Liao emperor in the rear?
These are all things to consider.
And more importantly, the Song army could attack from two or three miles away. By the time the Liao infantry ran to the city, the distance of two or three miles was enough for the Song army to fire several more rounds of artillery fire.
Then there are catapults throwing thunder bombs on the top of the city wall, and crossbows shooting, and there are bows and crossbows and grenades when they get close.
Just how many infantrymen would have died if they ran to the city wall?
Moreover, under the powerful firepower of the Song army, the infantry might not even reach the city and would have collapsed.
This is not a drill or fantasy. In ancient wars, there are many examples where only a small number of casualties would cause the entire army to collapse.
People in later generations often say that the ratio of this small number of casualties is 10. Although there is no exact source for the data of 10, it is normal for an army in ancient times to collapse after only a small number of soldiers died, even if it had an army of hundreds of thousands.
For example, in the Battle of Li Ze during the Spring and Autumn Period, the Yue army had 50,000 soldiers and the Wu army had 60,000 soldiers. The Yue army learned in advance that the three armies of Wu were evenly divided, with 20,000 soldiers in each army.
So the Yue army weakened its left and right wings to 6,000 men each, crossed the river first to lure away the 20,000 men on each wing of the Wu army, and then the central army with an absolute advantage of 40,000 men fiercely attacked the 20,000 men in the center of the Wu army. After the center of the Wu army collapsed, the entire Wu army collapsed.
There was also the Battle of Jingxing at the end of the Qin Dynasty, which is the origin of the idiom "fighting with one's back to the river". The commander of the Han army, Han Xin, first ambushed 2,000 cavalrymen, and then led the main force of 10,000 people to fight against the 200,000-strong Zhao army, fighting and retreating, pretending to be defeated.
When they reached the Mianman River, the Zhao army's formation had been stretched to its limits by the pursuit and could no longer form a battle line. However, Han Xin reorganized his army at the riverbank and withstood the enemy's fierce attack.
At this time, the two thousand cavalrymen in ambush moved out and captured the Zhao army camp. Although they did not cause too many casualties to the Zhao army, the Zhao army also collapsed immediately.
So although the overall proportion of dead soldiers is only a very small number of the entire army, this usually means that a certain front of the army has collapsed. The enemy at the collapsed point expands its advantage through a cycle of flanking, collapse, and continued flanking, which leads to the complete collapse of the entire army.
As the Liao emperor, Yelu Zongzhen had been skilled in horseback riding and archery since childhood, so he was no fool. Therefore, the thought of the Song army's strength, like the thorns on a tortoise shell, gave him a headache. Now he really couldn't think of a way to break through the enemy city.
The Liao Kingdom could not afford to continue the confrontation.
If we bypass these cities and go directly south, the problem is that the cities, fortresses and military camps to the south are all occupied by Song army, and the logistics line cannot keep up. We have to rely on the well-fortified Hebei area to fight in the wild. How much food and grass can be seized to support the 300,000-strong army?
Even if he could rob so much food and grass, what about the Yellow River? Could he build a boat by the river and cross the Yellow River to rush to Bianliang Kaifeng Prefecture?
Unless all the Liao cavalry have wings!
Therefore, Yelu Zongzhen was almost going crazy. It was not right to withdraw now, nor was it right not to withdraw. If he had known this earlier, he would have pretended to be deaf and dumb. As long as the Song State did not actively break the alliance, he could still earn hundreds of thousands of strings of cash every year. Why should he seek trouble?
Just when Yelu Zongzhen was in a dilemma, Wang Deyong, the veteran general defending Baosai City, found out through scouts that the morale of the Liao Kingdom was declining, so he immediately contacted Fan Zhongyan.
At this time, Fan Zhongyan had actually already known that the Liao Kingdom was making a feint to the east and attacking in the west. On the surface, it was attacking Gaoyang, but in fact it was counterattacking Baosai. It wanted to take Baosai first and then gnaw on other bones.
So Lao Fan immediately redeployed his troops, reorganized an army of more than 100,000, and marched north to rescue.
But his march was slow.
The main reasons were that, first, they had to defeat the Liao infantry outside Gaoyang City, and second, they had to guard against the Liao cavalry archers, so during the march, they had to maintain the infantry formation.
However, "marching formation" and "combat formation" are completely different concepts.
The Song army infantrymen arranged in a "battle formation" were actually not afraid of cavalry charges, because the main infantry units of the Song Dynasty all had heavily armored infantrymen. Once the Liao cavalry were trapped in them and lost their mobility, even the heavy cavalry would become lambs to be slaughtered.
What they were afraid of was that when the infantry were in the "marching formation" and had not yet entered the "combat formation", the Liao cavalry would launch a surprise attack. They would first use long-range kite-shooting from dozens of steps away to prevent the infantry from forming a formation, and then launch a surprise attack. This could easily cause the entire army formation to collapse instantly.
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