Emperor Zhenzong looked at the gift Yang Peng gave him, and the Eighth Prince also said, "That Yang Peng wants us to open our own business, so that the money we earn can be used in the palace. Then don't look at the face of the Ministry of Finance all day long. They The price of salt given to us is not high. A pound of salt like this is fifty cents. Today’s green salt is sold for one hundred and thirty cents a pound. How can the green salt be as good as Yang Peng’s salt? Officials, what do you think?” Emperor Zhenzong didn't know how happy he was when he thought that such salt could make a lot of money.
Emperor Zhenzong took the soap and looked at it again. The last time I used soap, the old lady gave me a hundred yuan, which was not enough for the imperial concubines to share. In the end, I only got one piece of soap. After using the soap, Emperor Shinshu felt uncomfortable all over when he used the soap. But there was no way to sell it in Tokyo. I almost wanted this soap. I didn't expect that Yang Pengyi would give back so much. Emperor Zhenzong was so happy. Then he took off his yellow robe and put on a piece of Jin Yiwei's clothing. He felt much more comfortable and said to the eunuch next to him, "Make me ten pieces of this style using the yellow robe cloth." Make ten pieces for the emperor's uncle and ask Shang Yijian to do it." The eunuch took the clothes and ran away.
Emperor Zhenzong took the flintlock gun and looked at it again and again, and finally put it back to its original place. Emperor Zhenzong said to the Eighth Prince, "Eighth Uncle, you have the final say in the affairs of the trading house. I have dispatched a few young eunuchs to help you. Deploy another Imperial Guard to transport goods to and from Bianjing and Tianjing New City. I will prepare 50,000 taels of silver for the first batch of goods and arrange for them to set off tomorrow. From now on, all Imperial Guards in the Imperial City will wear these. The colors of the clothing are yellow, red, green, cyan, and black. Such clothing is very atmospheric, not bad, really good-looking."
The Eighth Prince said, "One more thing is that Yang Peng exchanged Yingzhou and Mozhou for the court to replace the martyrs' shrine for the dead people of the Yang family, and a sign that said, civil servants dismounted from sedan chairs, and military generals dismounted from horses, to show their respect for the Yang family. Respect." Emperor Zhenzong said, "Is it true? There is such a good thing, promise him. Two cities, a fool would not agree. Besides, the court has never said anything about the death of old Ling Gong. This time it is just for the Yang family An explanation, eighth uncle, to build an ancestral hall for Yang Qilang alone. This can also comfort Lin Qing'er. After all, Yang Peng is her apprentice. Lin Qing'er only has a son. It is a huge kindness not to ask the Pan family to pay for it this time. Well, the Pan family should thank the Yang family."
On the eighth day of the tenth month of the first year of Xianping, the Khitan army reached the boundary of Dagou in Tianjing New City. At first, Yang Peng just felt that there were more and more Khitan cavalry coming from all directions. The Khitan's scout cavalry were like waves, constantly oppressing Yang Peng's sentries. These rangers are all horse and foot armor who are skilled in riding and shooting, and have considerable combat effectiveness. They seemed to have learned the lessons of the past few days. They were scattered in groups of forty to fifty people in the four fields. One by one, they moved forward to test and suppress the sentries of the vanguard camp, but they did not rush up to fight. They only relied on a little more people. Squeeze the sentinels of Tianjing New City.
The Khitan cavalry was so dense that Yang Peng's sentries were in danger of being surrounded when they went out to fight, so Yang Peng withdrew the sentries and took them into the city. Detecting the surrounding military situation depends entirely on telescopes. By the ninth day of the tenth month of the first year of Xianping, 12,000 Khitan troops had already reached Dagou City. Yang Peng and Duan Zhixian stood on the tower and looked around, only to see batches of Khitan cavalry in gray armor running one mile outside the city, raising patches of dust on the wasteland. Five or six miles to the north of the city, there were densely packed Khitan army tents, which were camped for several miles.
Yang Peng looked through his binoculars and saw that the camps were heavily guarded, with cavalry rushing back and forth. The stationed Khitan soldiers were all dressed in gray armor or military uniforms, and their military discipline and appearance far exceeded the bandits seen in Yanshan County. The camp was very large, with not only the Khitan army inside, but also the people, mules, horses and property that the Khitan army had plundered. I couldn't see clearly through the telescope. I could only vaguely see the civilians who seemed to be tied up from a few tents with open doors. It seems that the Khitan army wanted to take these people to Youzhou to be slaves and provide manpower for the Khitan people's war.
Looking through the telescope, various flags were fluttering in the Khitan military camp, and Yang Peng didn't know what those flags meant. There were large banners erected every 100 meters in the camp. Yang Peng guessed that this was where the Khitan Army's Southwest Road Recruitment Department and Northwest Road Recruitment Department were located. There is a gold-woven dragon banner flying on the camp in the middle, which is probably where the red light of the northwest road is to recruit Si Yeqi.
When the Khitans arrived on the battlefield, they were not in a hurry to attack the city. Instead, they looked for wood and trees everywhere and began to build chariots. A forest in the north of the city was unlucky and was chopped down completely by the Khitans. In addition to preparing to attack the city, the Khitan people also had another preparation: in the afternoon, three cavalrymen rode out of the Khitan army camp. The three of them slowly bypassed the potholes and traps outside the city, moved away the antlers and horses, and rode all the way to the north city gate, stopping about fifty meters away from the city gate. One of the Han generals shouted in Chinese to the soldiers on the tower:
"Heroes in the city, our Daliao army will be invincible and invincible wherever it comes. Don't take chances and resist rashly, lest you die and the city is destroyed. Surrender now, and our Daliao army will not kill innocent people!" The soldiers in the city pointed their rifles at him and remained silent as death. The general manager was a little frightened, licked his lips and shouted again.
What responded to him was three crisp gunshots. After the gunfire, only three thuds were heard. Three Khitan and Song generals who had surrendered to Tianjing New City were hit by flintlock bullets and fell under their horses, dying. Seeing that the messenger who had passed the message was beaten to death, there was a sudden commotion in the Khitan camp.
Not long after, the camps of the Khitan armies were opened wide, and a hundred Khitan soldiers escorted more than 300 Song civilians and rode out. Riding a mile outside the city wall, these Khitan troops stopped. The people who were escorted out knew that nothing good was going to happen. They all knelt on the ground and began to cry. Their cries were loud and loud. Then some Khitan troops went up to untie a middle-aged man among the common people of the Song Dynasty. The man's hands and feet were released, he looked around, and then ran towards the north gate of Dagou.
He ran less than thirty meters when a Khitan man in vest bent his bow and fired an arrow, hitting the man in the back of the head. The Khitan's arrow was accurate and heavy. The man let out a scream and fell to the ground without making any sound again. The soldiers of Tianjing New City on the city wall gritted their teeth and cursed when they saw the people being killed.
The Khitan soldiers untied the ropes of several young girls aged sixteen or seventeen. When those girls saw the death of the middle-aged man in front of them, they burst into tears as soon as they were untied. Knowing that they were bound to die, they wiped their tears with their hands and walked toward the gate of Dagou City with one foot deep and one foot shallow. The soldiers of the Khitan army waited until they had gone dozens of steps, then caught up with them on horseback and hacked the girls to death one by one from behind.
When the soldiers on the city wall saw this, their eyes were already bloodshot. But the Khitan people were more ferocious behind them. They raised their sabers and began to gallop among the kneeling people of the Song Dynasty. Every few steps they took, they waved their sabers and slashed at the people below. The tied people could not escape and could only be killed by their necks. Blood flew across the empty land north of the city, and screams shook the sky.
The blood of hundreds of people dyed the land red. On the wall of Dagou, the soldiers were heartbroken when they saw this scene. Then one of the soldiers turned around and knelt in front of Yang Peng: "Sir, let's go out and fight the Khitan dogs!" Yang Peng closed his eyes and said lightly: "Don't fall for the Khitan's trick! Let's hold on to the danger!"
The soldiers were filled with hatred and turned to look at Yang Peng speechless. After killing the people of the Song Dynasty, the Khitan people shouted for a while next to the corpses of the people. Seeing that the Song troops on the wall did not rush out, they rode back to the camp. For the rest of the day, the Khitan people did not move much. They just kept cutting down trees around them and seemed to be working on chariots in their tents.
In the morning of the next day, a continuous sound of horns suddenly came from the Khitan camp. The doors of the camp were opened, and soldiers in gray armor rushed out of the camp howling. They did not ride horses, but stood on foot holding swords on both sides of the gate. The golden dragon tapestry was also lifted out. Dozens of generals stood under the tapestry, riding horses and slowly moving towards the city wall. Zhijin Longhu led the entire Khitan army array forward and stopped four miles outside the city wall.
Shield carts were pushed out of the camp one after another. Those shield carts are six or seven meters long, two or three meters wide, and about two meters high. The shield carts are covered with a thick layer of wooden boards, and the front is also covered with wet quilts. Ordinary bows, arrows, and muskets cannot shoot them. wear. There are eight or nine wooden wheels installed under the shield cart, and there are more than twenty horse-armored infantry standing inside to push the shield cart. The Tatars built nearly a hundred shield carts! The distance between each shield vehicle was only four or five meters, and they filled the entire front of the battlefield.
The Khitan army used three hundred soldiers as one recruiting envoy. Each recruiting envoy consisted of about ten of the most elite military households, about forty elite vests, and fifty infantry. The remaining two hundred soldiers were all wearing cotton armor or armor. Unarmored followers and auxiliaries. At this time, each shield cart was followed by more than twenty followers and auxiliary soldiers pushing wheelbarrows. They were preparing to use earth and rocks to fill the potholes and traps outside the city wall.
Behind the followers and auxiliaries were more than 300 elite Xijun soldiers wearing iron armor, the so-called elite Xijun soldiers. They have red tassels on their helmets and flaming flags on their backs. They hold bows and arrows behind them, ready to support key points at any time and shoot all escaping soldiers.
Yang Peng used a telescope to observe the elites of the Xi Army and found that there were some generals wearing thick armor among the elites of the Xi Army. These generals wore feathers on their heads and had flying tiger flags measuring two feet square on their backs. They were probably the elites of the Xi Army. leader. An elite of the Xi Army and his bodyguards rode on horseback and stood two miles outside the city wall to serve as the frontline command of the siege. The guard behind him was holding a large banner, which was very conspicuous.
The shield chariot left the camp gate and pressed towards the north wall of Dagou. The defense preparations for all the walls in Dagou were similar, so the Khitan army simply attacked the north wall directly. Yang Peng had long known that the Khitans could build chariots, and at this time he had gathered sixty-two powerful crossbows on the north city wall. The strong crossbow rests on the specially designed crenels and can shoot down the city. Together with the forty crossbows on the north wall turret, there are now sixty-six crossbows on the north wall.
Four miles, three miles, two miles, one mile, and the Khitan's shield chariots gradually entered the range of the strong crossbows. Yang Peng sent an order: "Riflemen, don't shoot. Wait for the crossbow to stop in front of the pothole before firing!" The Khitan shield truck continued to move forward and arrived in front of the pothole more than 100 meters away from the city wall. The Khitan army was not attacked all the way while pushing the shield cart. They thought there were no strong crossbows in Dagou City and were very happy.
They didn't know how powerful Dagou was, and thought that this seemingly rich city was within easy reach. The shield cart stopped in front of the pothole. The followers and auxiliary soldiers behind the shield cart pushed the wheelbarrow up and began to fill the potholes outside the city. Yang Peng shouted: "The crossbows are shooting in turn!" The horn sounded on the city wall, and the swans chirped. Twenty strong crossbows aimed at the shield chariot 150 meters away, spitting out long arrows.
A huge whooshing sound sounded, and the soldiers on the wall couldn't help but cover their ears. Black smoke suddenly spurted out from the crossbow. The long arrows were like streaks of lightning, flying towards the shield car not far away at a speed invisible to the naked eye. The twelve powerful crossbows hit their targets and made one-meter-large holes in the shield carts. The wood fragments smashed by the long arrows flew everywhere, more deadly than stray bullets. In an instant, the three or four Khitans in the front row of the shield car lost their combat effectiveness.
Although the Khitan people's vests and infantry were wearing armor, their necks and faces were unprotected. If a flying piece of wood penetrated their neck, they would die immediately. In the rain of flying wood chips, many Khitan soldiers had their necks cut open. There were also several Khitan people whose glasses were cut by sawdust and immediately became blind. Even if he was lucky enough not to be injured critically, but just had a piece of wood inserted into his face, he would have suffered heavy bleeding and lost his fighting ability.
In addition to dangerous sawdust and wood blocks, the long arrow itself is also very lethal. The long arrow crashed into the shield cart, shattering the body blocking it, bouncing on the ground, and directly took away one or two lives. A powerful crossbow hit the shield cart. The arrows of the strong crossbow were even more powerful. When they hit the shield cart, they directly smashed the entire front row of the shield cart. More wood fragments were thrown out, and the five or six Khitan soldiers at the front of the shield cart were killed or killed. Wounded, he withdrew from the battle. The heavy shells crashed into the shield car, smashing all the flesh that was blocking him into pulp, smashing the pulp into pieces, smashing the first body, then rushing back to smash the second body, and bounced on the ground, hitting continuously. It stopped after breaking through three or four layers of Khitan soldier's body.
The shield carts hit by the long arrows were filled with blood and flesh, and the shrill screams of countless Khitan soldiers could be heard from inside, as if those shield carts had turned into various Asura hells. Although a few long arrows missed the target, they hit the ground and hit the auxiliary soldiers behind the shield car, killing a dozen unlucky auxiliary soldiers. With one salvo, more than 80 Khitan soldiers under the city wall lost their combat effectiveness, and these soldiers were basically all elite infantry and vests. The Khitan generals under the golden dragon banner suddenly became commotion. Yang Peng looked over with his binoculars and saw the Khitan generals gathered together and discussing, seeming very sad about the sacrifice of the warriors in front of them.
But the slaughter had just begun. Another horn sounded on the city wall, and another twenty-two powerful crossbows fired wildly at the shield chariot parked 150 meters away. This time the eleven long arrows hit the target. The long arrow hit the shield cart, and the shield cart seemed to bloom, with countless pieces of wood flying out at the impact point. These densely flying wooden blocks were as fast as knives, harvesting the lives of the elite Khitan soldiers in the shield car.
Once the neck is cut, life will be lost immediately. Even if you are lucky enough not to be cut on the neck or head by the wood chips, but if you are just cut by these wood pieces on your hands and legs, it will still be a massive bleeding. These broken pieces of wood penetrated into the body and were difficult to remove. Once the wound was pulled, the wood pieces continued to cut into the flesh, causing greater trauma than the wound.
What's more, the long arrow itself has powerful destructive power. The powerful crossbow arrow pierced the bodies of one or two layers of soldiers before stopping on the ground. The long arrows of the Eighteenth Army were like an unrivaled god of death, smashing through all obstacles in his way and smashing the bodies of the Khitan soldiers on the third and fourth floors of the shield car into a pulp of blood and flesh.
Before the auxiliary soldiers of the Khitan army poured a load of dirt into the pit, the elite soldiers in the shield car had already suffered two head-on attacks. More than 160 Khitan soldiers were killed or injured and lost their combat effectiveness. And the third volley came immediately. Another hundred and twenty-two strong crossbows fired in unison, and in the thick black mist the strong crossbows fired long arrows towards the shield chariot a hundred steps away.
How can a shield car have a defensive role in front of a strong crossbow? It is simply a weapon that amplifies the power of long arrows! The long arrows pierced the wet quilts and the two-inch-thick wooden boards, smashing the defensive boards into flying pieces of wood. The wooden block penetrated the head, face and neck of the infantry and vest, stabbing these Khitan soldiers who had killed countless people to the ground. The long bouncing arrows frightened the Khitan troops in the back row. As soon as there was a whooshing sound, they ran away from the shield car and stood outside the shield car.
Yang Peng raised his telescope and looked under the golden dragon tapestry. He saw that dozens of Khitan leaders could no longer stand and gathered at the big leader in the middle to say something. The big leader in the middle was probably Ye Qi Hongguang. He said nothing and seemed to be still thinking about the situation on the battlefield. After three volleys were fired, Yang Peng's crossbow soldiers began to push the crossbow cart back to its original position and clean the arrow chambers. The battlefield became quiet for a while. The horsemen and infantrymen operating the shield carts saw that the crossbows at the top of the city no longer sounded, and they hid back in the shield carts one by one.
The followers and auxiliary soldiers behind the shield truck took the time to load the carts with soil, hoping to fill up the potholes and trenches at the level of 150 meters above ground. The Khitan soldiers did not know the level of powerful crossbows on the city wall, and thought that Yang Peng's soldiers would need a long time to reload their arrows. They imagined that they could fill in the holes during this gap. However, after only a minute, their illusions were shattered. The auxiliary soldiers have not filled one-tenth of the hole, but the crossbows on the city wall have already been loaded with long arrows and started the second round of shooting.
The smoke has dissipated, and the crossbowmen can take aim calmly - another one hundred and twenty-two long arrows break through the air and shoot towards the hundred shield vehicles parked in front of the pothole. Pieces of sawdust were flying, and more than a dozen shield vehicles were hit. Screams came from the broken shield vehicles. These hit shield vehicles were instantly covered with blood and flesh, and the front half of the shield vehicle was sprayed with a layer of blood and dyed red. Blood spurted out from the wounds cut by the wood chips and the broken flesh from the cannonballs, flowing from under the shield truck to the outside of the shield truck.
When had the Khitan soldiers ever seen such a powerful crossbow? Seeing each of the warriors being killed by long arrows in the shield cart, they no longer had the will to fight, so they turned around and tried to escape. The elites of the Xi Army behind the horse armor and infantry did not allow them to escape. The elite soldiers of the Xi Army roamed behind the line and shot arrows. The arrows penetrated directly into the vital points, killing those horse armor and infantry who escaped from the shield chariot on the battlefield. The horse-armed infantry found that there was no way to survive if they retreated, so they had to get back into the shield car.
As soon as the shocked Khitan soldiers returned to the shield cart, another hundred and twenty-two long arrows flew, and the long arrows knocked away thirteen more shield carts. The shield cars were like cans opened with iron pliers, they were broken open without any temper. In just one or two minutes, the city's powerful crossbows fired five volleys, and more than sixty shield carts were blown apart. The dancing wood fragments and ferocious long arrows slaughtered the horse armor and infantry in the shield cart, leaving more than four hundred Khitan soldiers dead or injured and withdrawing from the battle.
If the Khitan soldiers were still very confident that they could easily capture Dagou City when they massacred the people of the Song Dynasty, now these Khitan people have lost their confidence in winning. How come there are so many powerful crossbows in this small city? How many bodies of warriors will be laid under the city wall if this city is captured? Finally, the Khitan leader Ye Qi Hongguang realized the fierceness of the crossbows on the city wall, no longer forced the horse and infantry to stick to the shield chariot, and paid gold to withdraw his troops. Hearing the horn sound of withdrawing troops, the Khitan elites who were stuck in the shield car were relieved, and they all fled to the rear, retreating from the front like a tide.
The sixth volley of crossbows was aimed at the fleeing Khitan soldiers. One hundred and twenty-two long arrows whizzed towards the moving targets. When the Khitan soldiers heard the sound of shooting on the city wall, they ran around with their heads in their hands, fearing that they would be touched by arrows. One hundred and twenty-two long arrows fell on the ground, bounced up again, and bounced forward on the ground, drawing one hundred and twenty-two straight lines of death among the fleeing Khitan troops. Although the results of this salvo were not as great as those of the bombing of the shield car, the 122 long arrows also killed more than 130 Khitan soldiers.
After two rounds of six shots, more than 500 Khitan soldiers were killed, and more than 100 were seriously injured and left on the battlefield, resulting in heavy losses. The Khitan soldiers who had withdrawn from the shield car hid in the camp and no longer dared to approach the city wall easily. The gold-woven dragon tapestry entered the camp along with the retreating Khitan army, and led the entire Khitan army back to the camp. In the next half day, the Khitan army did not send any soldiers to attack Dagou City except for ranger scouts. The first stop was successful, and Dagou City was filled with joy.
Under the threat of powerful crossbows, one hundred soldiers of the Selected Frontier Regiment went out of the city to clean up the battlefield before dark - cutting off the heads of Khitan soldiers and applying wounds to those seriously injured. These soldiers hated the ferocious Khitan soldiers, and they were very excited when they killed the Khitan soldiers with one last blow, stabbing them with howling swordsmanship.
After obtaining more than 600 Khitan army heads, Yang Peng had these heads salted and placed in front of the city gate for public display. These heads made the atmosphere in the city much more relaxed. The people began to believe that the disciple soldiers in Tianjing New City could defend the city, and the fear of being besieged by the Khitan army's soldiers subsided a lot. The people have been working together for a month, but now there are deer antlers and horses everywhere under the city wall, and it is not easy for the Khitans to get close to the city wall. The city wall was piled with rolling stones and wood, and gold juice was burned there. If the Khitans wanted to climb the city wall, they would pile it with corpses. The people all knew that Dagou was a fortified city at this time and was not easy to capture.
If you want to know what happens next, let’s look at the breakdown in the next chapter.
