It’s all in the longevity!
Yanyun, just when the Song Dynasty was undergoing high-level political changes, the war in the northeast also entered a white-hot stage.
Di Qing, the Deputy Privy Councilor and Chief of the Navy of the Song Dynasty, led a large army into the heart of the Liao Kingdom like a sharp knife, cutting off the center of the Liao Kingdom.
In just two days, the Song army fought five consecutive battles and repelled the Liao army that attempted to retake Yuguan.
After gaining a foothold in Yuguan, Di Qing moved a large number of artillery and ammunition from the ship and completely blocked Yuguan and the banks of the Yuli River, preventing any Liao cavalry from passing through.
Under such circumstances, the news quickly reached the ears of the Liao Emperor Yelu Zongzhen.
In mid-October, Yelu Zongzhen was in a confrontation with the Song army. Although the two sides had not yet officially started a large-scale war, the reconnaissance scouts of both sides had already fought each other early on.
But unfortunately, it was basically the Song army that was suppressing the Liao army.
After all, the Youyan area is part of the North China Plain, and a large area is a vast plain. When the scouts on both sides saw it from afar, the Song army immediately started shooting with their guns.
By the time the Liao army charged from a hundred paces away and reached the Song army, most of the soldiers had already been shot dead. Even in close combat, they couldn't gain any advantage - the enemy had short muskets and bayonets, so how could they conduct reconnaissance missions?
There's no way to do it.
Therefore, the Liao army's scouts could not even appear in the wild. Once the two sides met in the wild, it was basically a situation where the Song army scouts chased and killed the Liao army scouts. This was simply unimaginable in the past.
Unless the main force of the Liao army comes out, but in that case the main force of the Song army will definitely come.
Judging from the current situation, the Liao people are not brave enough to try a direct field battle with the Song army for the time being, which has led to the continuous shrinking of the outer reconnaissance line.
In the end, the Song army even went so far as to compress the entire reconnaissance line into the city. The scouts in the city could not go out and would be shot if they went out.
If there were no artillery on the city, the Song army would not dare to get too close, and the Liao army would probably have been wiped out long ago.
If this continues, the Liao army will be in big trouble.
Morale was low and the army was demoralized. If the Song army surrounded the city and cut off its food supply, even if the city had sufficient food, the siege could last for three to five years, and the Liao Dynasty would probably collapse completely.
At this moment, in the imperial palace of Xijin Prefecture, there were many officials below.
Yelu Zongzhen walked back and forth in the hall with his hands behind his back and a very unhappy look on his face.
He found that he seemed to have underestimated the combat effectiveness of the Song army from the very beginning. In the past, the Song army only used grenades in field battles.
But now there are more advanced weapons.
Moreover, it was not the firearm that appeared during the war with Western Xia.
During the Western Xia invasion of Qingtang, muskets appeared, and Yelu Zongzhen obtained some muskets through special channels.
Craftsmen from the Liao Dynasty studied and imitated many of them, restoring the Song Dynasty firearms on a one-to-one basis.
They found that although these muskets had long-range shooting capabilities, their firing rate and accuracy were extremely poor.
In order to complete the fire coverage, a large number of gunners need to be assembled and arranged into a combined formation. Once the cavalry rushes into the formation from the rear or both wings, they will be completely finished.
The Xixia people were defeated by the Song army's muskets because the Song army launched a surprise attack from the rear, and the Liweiyuan cannon, which was a small steel cannon, bombarded the Xixia people's rear formation, which caused a large number of war horses to lose control and the rear formation to become chaotic, resulting in a crushing defeat.
In fact, after the incident, Li Yuanhao made statistics and found that very few Xixia cavalrymen were actually killed by guns. Most of them were either thrown off or trampled to death by frightened war horses, or killed by artillery.
So based on these materials, Yelu Zongzhen believed that although muskets were indeed powerful in field battles, and the Liao Kingdom was limited by materials and it was difficult to imitate them on a large scale without steel, those muskets were not completely capable of suppressing the Liao cavalry.
As long as the main force pretended to attack and the two wings launched a surprise attack, the Liao army could kill the Song army's musket team without leaving a single piece of armor.
However, although he thought so, the reality was cruel.
In the largest recent conflict between the Song and Liao dynasties, a charge team of more than 800 Liao cavalry scouts encountered more than 200 Song soldiers in the wild. They were defeated by the enemy's hail of bullets, suffering heavy casualties, and the casualty ratio was very high.
Even though these Liao cavalry had cleverly chosen to go around from the two wings, even if they got close, they still had short-barreled muskets specifically designed for close-range attacks.
Basically, when more than 800 people get close to you, it is considered a lot if there are still dozens of people left.
This made Yelu Zongzhen realize that either Li Yuanhao had deceived him and deliberately reduced the proportion of casualties from muskets, or the Song people's firearms had been updated again and were more powerful than before.
Considering that Li Yuanhao's actions would harm others and himself, and would only cause Liao and Xia to become divided and eventually be annexed by the Song Dynasty, Yelu Zongzhen believed that the latter possibility was the most likely.
"well"
Yelu Zongzhen sighed deeply and said, "I never expected that the Song people's firearms would become more and more powerful. In the past, their muskets had a slow firing rate and poor accuracy, so we might have had countermeasures, but now..."
"Your Majesty, there's no need to panic. This time, they were just careless. If we had more people and attacked faster from the side, they might not have had time to react."
"Yes, at present, there are only a few hundred people. This kind of musket may only have such an effect, but if tens of thousands of people rushed forward, the people in front held shields and rushed to the front with their lives, they might be able to fight to the death with them."
"Haven't you tried wielding a shield on horseback? Even if the Song people's muskets couldn't penetrate the thick iron shield, the terrifying force could easily push a person off their horse. Even the most skilled horsemen wouldn't be able to use it. How could a person possess such strength?"
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