In the Song Dynasty, people were lawless. Chapter 285 of the main text: Li Yuanhao couldn't hold it anymore. In September 1044, the fourth year of the Qingli period of the Song Dynasty, a 100,000-strong army of Western Xia invaded Qingtang, but was bravely repelled by the Song army.
Li Yuanhao retreated to the river mouth, reorganized his troops, and then withdrew to Zhuolao City.
He could no longer continue attacking Qingtang.
First, the city of Lanzhou suffered a great defeat. Although the losses were not great, with thousands of people killed by muskets and cannons, the morale and military spirit plummeted to the bottom.
Secondly, because Lanzhou City was not captured quickly, the news had already spread, and both Zuo Silu and the Song Dynasty knew about the situation.
The previous transport envoy of Qinfeng Road was Wen Yanbo, and the new transport envoy is the former deputy transport envoy Yang Xie.
In the early Northern Song Dynasty, there were fifteen routes in the country, and only one route covered the entire northwest, namely Shaanxi Route.
During the Song-Xia War, the imperial court divided the original Shaanxi Road into five routes: Qinfeng, Fuyan, Huanqing, Jingyuan, and Yongxingjun.
At the same time, five transport envoys, pacification envoys, and recruiting envoys were set up, and they were commanded by Fan Zhongyan, the governor of Shaanxi.
Among them, Fuyan, Huanqing and Jingyuan are the large area west of Yan'an and east of Guyuan in later generations.
Qinfeng Road was located in the southeast of Lanzhou and northwest of Baoji in later generations, including Tianshui City, Dingxi City, Tongwei County, Huining County and other places, and bordered Lanzhou controlled by the Qingtang regime.
Because Qinfeng Road is geographically located to the west, it did not become Li Yuanhao's attack point when the Song and Xia war broke out, so it has always been relatively peaceful.
Only the three routes of Fuyan, Huanqing and Jingyuan participated in the war.
Yang Xie had never had the opportunity to fight in a war before, and he had long wanted to make achievements. When he heard that Western Xia had started a war again, he made a prompt decision and immediately dispatched troops to provide support.
Unexpectedly, before the army set out, they heard news of victory from below.
This shocked him greatly.
But the war is about to start, so we must not be timid.
He immediately led an army of more than 30,000 people from the seat of Qinzhou, which is Tianshui City in later generations, to the west to Xishi Town, which is the area of Yuzhong County under the jurisdiction of Lanzhou in later generations.
At the same time, Zuo Siluo also learned that Lanzhou had been attacked. He also gathered 50,000 men and went east along the Huangshui River to the river mouth.
This river mouth was called Kalaochuan in the Song Dynasty, and later became Zhuanglang River in Yongdeng County. It is the confluence of Zhuanglang River and the Yellow River.
The Song Dynasty and the Qingtang regime, one in the east and one in the west, formed a pincer attack on Li Yuanhao in the north of Zhuola City, which is the direction of Yongdeng County, from the southeast and southwest.
This made the situation even worse for Li Yuanhao, who had just suffered a defeat.
Although the total number of the coalition forces is about 80,000, even if the more than 10,000 people in Lanzhou City are included, it is still less than 100,000, which is comparable to Li Yuanhao's current military strength.
The problem was that the battle in Lanzhou City left Li Yuanhao stunned. He didn't know why he lost and didn't dare to fight again.
Therefore, they could only hide in the city.
On September 8, after retreating from Lanzhou to Zhuolao City, Li Yuanhao was already in a very bad mood.
He wanted to kill people in a rage, but he knew that getting angry at this time when the army's morale was low would only cause division between the superiors and subordinates, so he could only hold it back.
In Zhuola City, Li Yuanhao's face was so gloomy that it looked like water could drip out. Clan leaders such as Fang Dang and Fei Ting were not present. When he held a meeting, he would only discuss with a few trusted advisers and the Yeli clan.
In the City Lord's Mansion, everyone gathered in the hall, no one spoke. The atmosphere was clearly silent.
They could actually foresee that if the Song army launched a large-scale attack, they would probably be defeated.
After all, the Song army dared to carry out such a high-profile reform, so they must have something to rely on.
The Firearms Battalion is their reliance.
The reason why Li Yuanhao attacked Qingtang was actually to test the strength of the mysterious firearms battalion.
What no one expected was that they lost so badly.
Fifty thousand people besieged Lanzhou, but were defeated.
If Li Yuanhao had not deployed another 30,000 troops at the river mouth and 20,000 troops to defend Zhuola City, the frontline would have been completely destroyed by the Song army and the Zuo Silu.
It's such a shame and humiliation!
"Your Majesty."
After a long silence, Zhang Yuan finally said in a hoarse voice, "At least in this battle, we did find out the strength of the Firearm Battalion. They only had a few thousand men, but they were able to stop the siege of tens of thousands of our cavalry."
"Yes, fortunately we did not attack the Song Kingdom directly. Otherwise, facing so many of their firearms battalions, our cavalry would have been nothing but a death wish."
"Their firearms battalion can kill people from a distance of one or two hundred steps. Although it's not as far-reaching as artillery, our artillery is extremely difficult to turn. If they attack from the rear, the artillery will be completely useless against them."
"We must find a way to obtain such weapons. Otherwise, we will never be able to defeat the Song Dynasty."
After the conversation started, Yang Su, Yeli Wangrong, Yeli Yuqi and others spoke one after another.
In essence, this battle was to test the strength of the Firearms Battalion.
If the situation looks bad, retreat immediately. If you find you can fight, notify the Liao Kingdom to join forces with them to attack the Song Dynasty.
What made Li Yuanhao collapse was that they originally thought that they would at most be defeated and have to retreat, but they did not expect to be directly defeated by one or two thousand people.
Losing so quickly and so miserably is really hard to accept.
But this also indirectly reflects that the Song Dynasty's firearms battalion is indeed powerful. If they did not have muskets, it would obviously be a very irrational thing to fight against the Song Dynasty.
“Huff, huff.”
Li Yuanhao took a few deep breaths, turned his head and asked Yeli Yuqi, "Did the soldiers below see clearly what they are using?"
"It's a long tube with something shooting out of it. I suspect it's a small cannon."
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