He pretended to be calm and said, "Do you think I will believe it, Mr. Fan?"
"If you don't believe me, the Liao army can come and give it a try. The Song Dynasty never fights an unprepared battle. We have prepared a lot for the Liao Kingdom. I hope your Excellency will like it."
Fan Zhongyan replied.
Liu Liufu rolled his eyes. He thought Fan Zhongyan might be bluffing him. If he was so confident, why would he keep boasting about his cannons that could fire several miles away, his stock of millions of grenades, and his preparation of many other things?
As the saying goes, the more one lacks something, the more he will show off it. Therefore, Liu Liufu felt that it was very likely that Fan Zhongyan was deliberately intimidating the Liao Kingdom in the hope that it would submit.
So after thinking it over again and again, he said to Fan Zhongyan, "Sir, what do you think, General Jinglüe, is the way to end this war?"
Fan Zhongyan said, "First, return the ten counties south of the Laishui River to the Song Dynasty. Second, the Song Dynasty will cancel its annual tribute. Third, the Liao and Song will sign a non-aggression pact. Fourth, the Song and Liao will use the Laishui River as the boundary, and both sides will withdraw their troops. From now on, no thieves or fugitives who cross the border will be allowed to shelter. All border cities of the two dynasties will remain as normal, and no new city gods will be built."
"Impossible, absolutely impossible!"
Liu Liufu immediately screamed, "Since Song wants to negotiate, why is it so insincere? These treaties were established in previous generations. How can they be changed?"
Fan Zhongyan said coldly, "Who told you that the Song Dynasty wants peace? Did we mobilize so many troops to negotiate with you? And weren't you the first to break the intergenerational alliance? Now you are blaming us? Are you allowed to arbitrarily demand Song territory, but we are not allowed to take back our Han homeland?"
He emphasized the phrase "you Liao people," vaguely mocking Liu Liufu, a Han Chinese, for being enslaved by the Khitan people. Although the Liao claimed to be the orthodox Chinese, the Yelu family was ultimately Khitan. The Song, striving for legitimacy, naturally had to clearly define this distinction.
"Then it seems that the Minister of State is determined to fight?"
Liu Liufu asked.
"Then let's have a fight."
Fan Zhongyan said calmly, "It depends on whether your Liao Kingdom is stronger or my Song Dynasty is stronger!"
"see a visitor out!"
He picked up his teacup and spoke in a resounding tone.
Liu Liufu and Yelu Renxian looked at each other. Obviously, they did not expect Fan Zhongyan to be so tough, so they had to stand up, bow reluctantly, and leave the Song camp.
After they left, Wang Deyong turned his head and looked at Lao Fan and said, "Sir, it looks like we have to fight this battle."
"The Liao people are too arrogant. They clearly cannot defeat us, yet they still want benefits."
Fan Zhongyan took a sip of tea, placed the cup on the table beside him, and said, "Our request is not excessive. Why should the great Song Dynasty pay money to other countries every year? This is unreasonable in itself."
Wang Deyong laughed and said, "Giving them three hundred thousand strings of cash every year is a lot, but people are like that. They're always greedy and never satisfied. They want more. I'm afraid the Liao Kingdom isn't just after the ten counties south of the Guan River this time. I'm afraid they're coming for gunpowder and more benefits."
"Um."
Fan Zhongyan nodded slightly: "If we don't teach them a lesson, they won't realize that the world has changed."
Wang Deyong said with some concern, "But do we have enough grenade reserves? We've been fighting in the northwest for so long, and now we're fighting the Liao Kingdom. I'm afraid we've already used up a lot of them. And these grenades are really not powerful enough to kill heavily armored soldiers."
In the two battles, the Song State consumed hundreds of thousands of grenades. Even if there were not as many as a million, there were still 500,000 or 600,000 grenades, which were thrown away as if they were free.
The main reason is that the power of grenades is actually not that great.
You should know that even in later generations, the grenades made by our army in the border areas were very weak. They would often cause casualties to one or two Japanese invaders at most, or even fail to kill anyone. At most, they would injure the enemy, and the injuries were not serious, but mostly minor.
Not to mention the hand grenades of the Song Dynasty. Even after purification and granulation, black powder is still black powder after all, with limited power, not as powerful as chemical gunpowder.
Therefore, it is very difficult to kill a Xixia or Liao soldier wearing armor.
The main reason is that the explosive impact and sound it caused would make the soldiers and horses feel frightened, thus causing riots. After a few rounds of grenades, the morale of the Western Xia and Liao soldiers dropped. This became the key to the victory of the Song Dynasty, and it does not mean that this thing is really powerful.
Therefore, the Song Dynasty had used a lot of hand grenades in the battle with Li Yuanhao last year. This year, when fighting the Liao Dynasty again, Wang Deyong was worried that their reserves were insufficient, and he was also a little worried about what would happen if the Liao Dynasty found a way to restrain them.
Once the Song army's grenades become ineffective, the war will probably return to the starting point.
However, Fan Zhongyan just smiled and said, "Do you know how long we have been preparing for this war?"
"how long?"
Although Wang Deyong was the deputy envoy of the Privy Council, the Firearms Bureau was not under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council, so he did not know either.
Fan Zhongyan held up two fingers: "Two years."
Two years?
Wang Deyong opened his eyes wide and asked, "Have they been stockpiling it for two years?"
"good."
Fan Zhongyan nodded. "The Song Dynasty has a rich production of saltpeter, but not enough sulfur. We have to buy it from Japan. We have been secretly purchasing large quantities of sulfur from Japan for two years. In just one year, we have purchased a million kilograms of sulfur. To this day, the Bianliang Firearms Factory warehouse is piled high with sulfur."
Wang Deyong said in surprise, "Then our grenades will be endless, right?"
"No, there are still more than 400,000."
Fan Zhongyan rolled his eyes and said, "It's only enough for this one battle."
Wang Deyong was shocked and asked, "Why?"
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