Zhang Xie, Fan Wenlan, Juqu and other princes and ministers were summoned to the palace half an hour later.*///*
Hearing Emperor Tianming turn his attention to the sea-locking defense line again, Zhang Xie said: "The sea-locking defense line is as solid as gold soup. The Daoyu Stronghold, Tieshan Stronghold and Zhudao Stronghold are fighting against each other with the navy. Although the Huaidong Navy is strong,
, how can we take advantage?"
The most famous example of fighting against the city in modern times is the Battle of Jiyang at the beginning of Lin Fu's rise to power in Jianghuai. At that time, She Feixiong led more than 4,000 Donghai bandits to attack Jiyang City. At that time, Jiyang except for more than a hundred old broken sword archers
, there were only four hundred guards led by Lin Fu and Gu Wuchen to help.
At that time, Lin Fu and Gu Wuchen could of course hide in Jiyang and wait for help, but they could not stop the East China Sea bandits from plundering and slaughtering the countryside. Lin Fu resolutely formed a formation outside the north city of Jiyang and fought according to the city, using the favorable support of the city wall to fight with the enemy.
After fighting for several days, he finally repulsed the Donghai invaders who were nearly ten times their size, and achieved a record of wiping out more than a thousand enemies. This battle not only greatly increased Gu Wuchen's popularity in Jianghuai, but also was the first demonstration of Lin Fu's outstanding military talent.
Dazzling bloom. After the bloody battle in Jiyang, Lin Fu was able to lead the Jiangdong left army and follow Cheng Yu Qian northward to King Qin.
This example also proves from the side that for soldiers to be brave, fighting according to the city is an effective tactic of using the weak to resist the strong.
The theoretical basis of the sea-locking defense line lies in this: compared with the Huaidong Navy, the Dengzhou Navy is naturally very weak, but as long as there are islands and fortresses to rely on and fight on the islands, defending the Bohai Sea is not a problem.
On other lines of defense, the newly attached troops guarded the outer defense line, and the elites of Beiyan's own tribe gathered on the inner line. However, on the sea-locking defense line, although Ye Jier used Su Tingzhan and others to surrender the Han generals to the naval generals, the defenders could not
The people on the island are all their own children and elite soldiers who are loyal to the Northern Yan royal family, so that they can live and die with the island.
Everyone knows that the mouth of Bohai Sea is Beiyan's weak spot. It is precisely because of this weakness that so many resources have been invested in building a sea-locking defense line. It is hard for Zhang Xie and others to imagine that the Huaidong Army would head against the sea-locking defense line.
"No," Yejier stood proudly and insisted on his own judgment. He held his pale, bloodless palm in the morning light and pressed it on the place where the sea-locking defense line was marked on the wall map. "The sea-locking defense line looks as solid as a rock.
But as long as the Suohai defense line is penetrated, Huaidong's troops can directly cross the Bohai Sea and threaten the heart of Yan. We mistook Huaidong's suspicious tactics and mistakenly thought that its military focus was on the Bian and Si lines, but we ignored the final
The fundamental point is that Donghaihu has the intention of the Northern Expedition and also has the intention of usurping the throne. If he attacks from Xuzhou to the north, his movement will be too slow. He must consider what to do if Emperor Yongxing suddenly dies of illness in the middle of his campaign in Shandong.
…”
Yezier was so determined that if he wanted to draw everyone's attention back to the sea defense line, everyone could not help but calm down and think.
Fan Wenlan frowned and said calmly: "Just as the emperor said, the main force of the Huaidong Army marches north from Xuzhou along the Bian and Si rivers. The most fundamental problem is to attack and plunder city by city, and the pace is inconsistent.
In this process, once Emperor Yongxing died, should Lin Fu leave his army on the battlefield and rush back to Jiangning to usurp the throne and claim the throne first? Or should he withdraw his troops and return to Xuzhou and rush back to Jiangning to usurp the throne?
As the war continues, it seems inappropriate to temporarily suspend the matter of usurping the throne and proclaiming himself emperor..."
Juqu Mengye, Nahe Wugu and other senior ministers also frowned and meditated.
They are all veteran generals who are good at conquering and fighting. They know that once the army is launched, it cannot be stopped at will. Of course, Lin Fu will not be stupid enough to stop suddenly in the middle of the Northern Expedition. In that case, they would laugh even in their dreams in Yanjing City.
Wake up. If the Northern Expedition cannot be stopped at the beginning and troops are sent from Xuzhou and march along Bian and Sibei, the pace of the entire war will not be fast and it will probably last one or two years...
The fact that Emperor Yongxing was terminally ill was confirmed by various sources and could not be an illusion. In the past, Yanjing judged that Lin Fu could only choose between the Northern Expedition and usurping the throne to become emperor. This was the basis for this.
Thinking about it from another angle, if Lin Fu wanted to balance the Northern Expedition and usurping the throne and proclaiming himself emperor, then breaking through the coastal defense line would be a good choice.
The Huaidong Army took the sea route and stormed the sea-locking defense line. The biggest advantage was that it could advance and retreat freely——
Once Emperor Yongxing died unexpectedly and the Jinghai Navy failed to break through the Suohai Defense Line, there was no need to worry about the Dengzhou Navy being able to pursue the retreat. At worst, they would have to retreat to Haizhou. Lin Fu would rush to Jiangning to usurp the throne and proclaim himself emperor.
It leaves too many sequelae.
If Emperor Yongxing dies when the Jinghai Navy breaks through the Suohai defense line, Lin Fu can still rely on his powerful navy to defend the Bohai Port strongholds such as Huangcheng Island and Miaoshan Island, and return to Jiangning to usurp the throne and proclaim himself emperor later.
Later, they continued to attack Jinhai and other Yanji hinterlands from the mouth of Bohai Sea.
If the Yongxing Emperor died when the Jinghai Division penetrated the Suohai Defense Line and the Huaidong Horse Infantry Army landed from Jinhai and other places and penetrated into the hinterland of Yanji - at this time, the recapture of Yanjing was in sight, Lin Fu's reputation would inevitably rise.
It has reached an unprecedented height. Even if there is no rush to go back and proclaim the emperor, even if Emperor Yongxing is kept secret and does not mourn, others will not dare to play with him at this time!
From this perspective, the Huaidong Army does have the strategic possibility of storming the sea-locking defense line.
Of course, despite this judgment, the adjustment of the entire strategy is not easy; more importantly, the biggest question in everyone's mind: How should the Huaidong Army attack the sea-locking defense line? Under the current tactical conditions,
It is not an exaggeration to say that the Suohai Defense Line is impregnable. How could the Huaidong Army think of storming the Suohai Defense Line?
Fan Wenlan asked suspiciously: "Could it be that someone from Dengzhou infiltrated sand into Huaidong?"
Ye Jier looked at Zhang Xie, Meng Ye, Wu Gu and other veterans. If they couldn't attack by force, they would corrode from within. Huaidong had played this trick once or twice.
During the Jin'an War, Huaidong first secretly planned to surrender the Song family as an internal response, expelling the She family from Eastern Fujian in one fell swoop; during the Yuanzhou War, Huaidong secretly planned to surrender Zhou Zhizheng as an internal response - the Battle of Jingxiang suffered a severe setback, the biggest
To put it bluntly, the only variable was that the Prime Minister had already surrendered to Huaidong, but Luo Xiancheng, She Wenzhuang and other scheming people were not aware of it in advance.
It is not impossible for Huaidong to repeat its old plan at the sea-locking defense line.
After the Battle of Jingxiang, many of the officials who surrendered to the Han Dynasty were unsettled and their loyalty to the Northern Yan was not strong enough.
However, at this time, a thorough review of the Suohai defense line and the surrendered Han officials in Dengzhou will inevitably frustrate the morale of the military. Before the insider is found, they will be in trouble.
"The supervisor of the West Temple is in Dengzhou. As long as he informs Tong Huacheng and Nahe and Xiongqi, it is enough. If Yanjing sends a serious veteran to carry out the investigation secretly, there may not be any problem.
"If there are no problems with the generals on the sea defense line, the envoys who go to Dengzhou can also inspect the sea defense line on behalf of the emperor to see if there are any other loopholes..." Zhang Xie said.
"Fan Wenlan, just wait for me to make this trip." Ye Ji'er said. With his body, it is not suitable to leave the capital at this time. Besides, if he leaves the capital for Dengzhou, the noise will be too great, which will alarm the morale of the army.
It does not have the effect of stabilizing people's hearts.
Fan Wenlan had just responded to the order when a minister came in and reported: "The general master craftsman Wu Mancheng would like to see you..."
"Master Wu came over with a big bamboo pole that looked like it was burnt. The chief guard of Wenyuan Pavilion wanted to stop him. Mr. Wu yelled and cursed, saying that it was the treasure that the emperor wanted to see, and he would not let the chief guard of Wenyuan Pavilion touch it.
one time."
Regardless of whether civil or military generals entered the palace, they had to use armor-breaking blades. Wu Mancheng was holding a big bamboo pole, so he naturally had to be stopped by the guards.
"Is the flame scene made into a real thing?" Fan Wenlan asked suspiciously.
At this time, three months had passed since Tong Huacheng presented the Fire Crossbow and Wu Mancheng trial-produced the flame-breathing scene.
Ye Jier told his ministers: "Let Wu Mancheng bring the things in."
The shìchen said in a dilemma: "Master Wu wants the emperor to go to Zuoyuan, where the place is more open."
Nahe Wugu shouted in a calm voice: "This Wu Mancheng, does he still know what it means that the sky is high and the earth is high? He can send the emperor?"
Ye Jier was not annoyed and said: "Since Wu Mancheng has made a real thing, we will go to Zuoyuan to have a look. If we are not satisfied, it will not be too late to scold him again..." He asked Shichen to take Wu Mancheng to Zuoyuan, and he and Zhang
Xie, Fan Wenlan, Meng Ye, Wu Gu and other veterans also rushed to Zuoyuan to join Wu Mancheng.
The Royal Huā Garden is divided into two gardens, the left and right, which were originally one. Although Ye Jier said that his health has not been good these years, the martial arts is still there, so he separated the Royal Huā Garden into a section and created a school ground that can be used for martial arts in the palace, which is called
Zuoyuan.
Ye Jier arrived at Zuoyuan a little later, where Wu Mancheng was already waiting.
Wu Mancheng's beard and brows were not burning anymore, but he had just returned from the fire. When he saw Ye Ji'er coming over, he knelt down with the workers who were going to be the chief craftsmen to say hello. There were several bamboo poles of different thicknesses placed at their feet.
, the shape is almost the same as the ancient picture of the flame-spraying drama presented by Wu Mancheng some time ago, except that the surrounding areas are covered with several layers of copper hoops.
Ye Ji'er sat down under the brocade tent and said to Wu Mancheng: "Tong Huacheng also reported a secret some time ago, saying that the Huaidong Fuhuo Crossbow has a body like a giant tube. It seems that it is indeed a new weapon imitating the flame-spraying show.
However, I still don’t know exactly how to operate it, so you can try to show me..."
"The commotion is quite big, so the emperor needs to be mentally prepared," Wu Mancheng said.
Ye Ji'er smiled, don't think he is very ill at this time, but he was also proficient in bows and swords in his early years, and there was blood and blood on the battlefield. What scene and movement have you not experienced? Ye Ji'er waved his hand and asked Wu Mancheng to stop talking nonsense.
Quickly perform the exercise, he also summoned the ministers to discuss the matter of locking the sea defense line in detail.
Wu Mancheng was afraid of an accident, so he asked his guards to guard him in front of Emperor Tianming. Emperor Tianming impatiently asked the guards to get out of the way and not block him from watching Wu Mancheng's trial scene of spraying flames.
The commanding officer picked up a flame tube as thick as a baby's arm, filled a large bag of powdered fire pills through the opening, connected it with a yào twister from the opening, pointed the flame outward, and lit the yào with a flint.
Twister - Ye Ji'er watched the sparks on the twister of the yào snake go into the mouth of the tube in the blink of an eye. Just as everyone was thinking that there should be five-color smoke spraying out of the mouth of the tube, it exploded with a "chi" sound.
, the mouth of the nozzle suddenly spurted out fire and white smoke. After the white smoke dissipated, the vegetation outside the flame mouth was blown to pieces, and it was a mess...
No one expected that there would be such a big movement, and they were all shocked.
Ye Jier suppressed the shock in his heart, pressed the long table covered with brocade silk, and asked Wu Mancheng: "Can this thing hurt someone?"
"Please put up a big target twenty steps away and try again," Wu Mancheng said.
Ye Jier ordered all the guards to comply with the instructions. Zuoyuan was originally used for martial arts, and all the bows and targets were in place. Wu Mancheng also asked the workers to make another nozzle tube, fill the yào and twist the yào, and then fill in a handful of stone pellets.
Twenty steps away, a leather puppet target about the height of a person was lit and fired.
When the guards brought the leather puppet target that had been beaten beyond recognition by Ishimaru, the faces of Ye Jier and the princes and ministers all changed. Fan Wenlan was stunned for a long time, recovered from the shock, and said: "Where is this?"
The flame-breathing show is obviously a flame-breathing crossbow! Huaidong calls it the "Fire Crossbow", which is indeed appropriate. One crossbow fires ten arrows. Although it can kill twenty or thirty steps, it can be approached very suddenly and launched.
Wei Lai, who said it would be less powerful than a crossbow?"
Naturally, Wu Mancheng would not simply follow the ancient books and imitate the flame-breathing drama. Since the Huaidong Army was rumored to have a fire-breathing crossbow, Wu Mancheng naturally followed the direction of the anti-personnel crossbow to study the flame-breathing pill and the flame-breathing drama, huāsan
It took several months to create these "flame-breathing crossbows" that were no less lethal than ordinary hunting crossbows.
After watching the demonstration, Ye Ji'er and all the princes and ministers can understand that even if there is a difference between the flames created by the Huaidong Army, they should be more refined and more powerful.
The flame-breathing crossbow that Wu Mancheng spent three months tinkering with could kill a leather-armored soldier within twenty steps. The Huaidong Army had been secretly building the fire-breathing crossbow for at least three years. How powerful would it be?
A shot of fifty steps can kill an armored soldier, a hundred steps of shooting can kill an armored soldier, or can it reach the point of firing a crossbow and shooting a soldier of armor in two hundred steps?
Although Ye Ji'er and others tried their best to use their imagination, they were limited by their habitual thinking, so they only compared the fire-laying crossbow with the traditional arm-opening crossbow and kick-opening crossbow.
Ye Jier asked Wu Mancheng to bring a flamethrowing crossbow that had been tested in the demonstration. He saw that the mouth of the tube was burnt and black, with a strong smell of sulfur and burning. Although the outside of the bamboo tube was tightly covered with copper rings, the gun
The flame crossbow did not crack as a whole, but the inner bamboo tube could not withstand such a violent explosion and had cracked. Apparently, the flame crossbow was useless after being used once...
"Is the barrel made of copper and iron, so it can be used repeatedly? If it is filled with more medicine, it will be more powerful?" Ye Zier is also a well-informed person, and he immediately asked the key point.
Wu Mancheng nodded and said: "It stands to reason, but the general will not have enough manpower for a while..."
Nahe Wugu said: "Then quickly mobilize people from all over the city and make five or six thousand troops. I think this is more effective than holding a crossbow. Especially when defending the city, if the enemy troops climb up to the top of the city, a crossbow will shine.
Spray in the face, and you will hit the target with every shot..." Nahe Wugu is also a veteran. He saw the range of the flame-breathing crossbow, but the spray shot was only one piece. This is used to defend city fortresses and has much stronger advantages than ordinary crossbows.
Wu Mancheng smiled bitterly and said: "Mr. Wu Gu, it is easy to hoop a few copper circles with bamboo pipes, but it is not easy to cast copper pipes and iron pipes - another Fuhuo Dan requires saltpeter. Nitrate can be used.
There are yào and yào shops for sale, but the whole yào saltpeter in Yanjing is collected, which is only about four to five hundred kilograms, and we have used it in the past three months. If we follow the old method to collect saltpeter, a place as big as Yanjing
A city can only harvest one or two thousand catties a year, but two thousand catties of medicine can reach the sky..."
Fan Wenlan saw that the crossbow had just been made. Each crossbow contained two or three liang of ammunition. It could be equipped with two thousand kilograms of Volcanic Fire Pills in a year. Five thousand flame-breathing crossbows could only be fired twice a year. What was the point?
In comparison, Shosakusi uses as many as four to five million arrow clusters to make traditional crossbows every year; no matter how powerful the flame-breathing crossbow is, it cannot fundamentally change the status of traditional crossbows on the battlefield.
Furthermore, the cast copper iron chamber tube can be used repeatedly, but it is easy to say but not necessarily easy to make. So what if a real sample is captured from the battlefield?
The iron-framed ships built by Huaidong were all dismantled and placed in Tieshan Shipyard. The structure did not look complicated at all, but the builders and the iron yard repeatedly melted and cast iron materials, but they could not make it up to standard.
The ships are made of iron bones.
Fan Wenlan admonished: "In my humble opinion, instead of rushing to build a flame-breathing crossbow at this time, it is more important to make all the generals familiar with the characteristics of the flame-breathing crossbow and be prepared for it. The flame-breathing crossbow has its own advantages.
It has its own shortcomings. As long as we have the skills to deal with them and the methods to deal with them, we don’t care how the Huaidong Army can rely on them."
Ye Ji'er was right when he thought about it, and ordered Wu Mancheng: "The general will quickly make more flame-breathing crossbows and send the engineering officers to the various armies to practice shooting. The generals must be aware of their behavior so that they will not be suddenly surprised during the battle."