Chapter 315 Carpet Bombing, Directly Attack Shenglong

After the Yongji Pass Ancient Road, there is the Lang Son Ancient Road.

The Lang Son Ancient Road is not long, only less than 20 kilometers, and there are not many bends. It is almost a straight road.

But why did Guo Kui prefer to take a long detour rather than go here during the Song-Yue Xining War?

Because it is located between two mountain ranges, like a line of sky. The Vietnamese army built forts in the middle and occupied the mountains on both sides. Not to mention tens of thousands of people, I am afraid that 200,000 people would not be able to break through.

It is as difficult as the Shu Road.

Therefore, since ancient times, Yongji Pass and Lang Son Road have been the boundary between the Central Plains Dynasty and the Vietnamese Dynasty. Vietnam occupied this natural barrier to avoid the risk of national destruction.

But now. Times have changed, little brother.

In the middle area of ​​the Lang Son Ancient Road, on a mountain with a terrain of about three or four hundred meters, this is already the highest ridge nearby.

A flat area was cleared on the top of the mountain, and all the weeds and trees were cut down. Three or four meters away from the edge of the cliff, rows of large and small gun barrels glowed with a strange silver light in the autumn sun of August.

Almost as soon as the artillery platform was assembled, the gunners only aimed the muzzle at the direction of the Ly Dynasty's Lang Son Pass without much calibration, and Di Qing gave an order to fire at the enemy.

Precision strikes require calibration, and carpet coverage only requires direction.

Moreover, the end of the mountain road is full of Ly Dynasty camps, and there is no need to aim. As long as the direction is right, basically firing at random can hit the Vietnamese army.

Therefore, Di Qing was too lazy to waste time.

He shouted: "Boom!"

"Fire!"

"Fire!"

"Fire!"

"Toot toot toot toot!"

Several messengers shouted loudly.

Then the whistle sounded loudly.

The whole position was filled with the sharp and piercing sound of whistles.

Almost at the moment when the whistle sounded, the members of the artillery crew, whether it was the big cannon or the small cannon, immediately began to act.

Some stuffed shells into the cannon, some poked it in with a plunger, and some took out a flint and lit a small torch they carried with them. In an instant, everyone had finished loading.

The next second, the leader of the cannon crew ignited the fire, and the first to fire were the small steel cannon crew. Their barrels were short and the firing speed was extremely fast. Under normal circumstances, they could fire four or five rounds a minute. Under the maximum output, they could fire ten rounds a minute, which was very terrifying.

"Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang!"

The roar suddenly resounded throughout the world.

White smoke lingered.

The flames burst out from the muzzle.

At this time, on the mountain above the right side of the Liangshan Pass, Guo Shengyi was still watching from the top of the mountain, wanting to see what the Song army, which had been silent for a few days, was doing.

He actually didn't understand why the Song army insisted on not being able to break through their pass?

If he were a Song army, he would definitely choose to take the long route to Beifu. Although they also deployed heavy troops there, there are many forks in the Beifu, some of which can even lead directly to Ruyue River.

If the Song army went that way, there might be a chance. And if they went this way, let alone the Song army with only tens of thousands of people, even if it was a 200,000-strong army, it would be defeated.

I really don't understand why the Song army did this.

But it doesn't matter if I don't understand. Guo Shengyi thinks that since the Song army is so stupid, why not choose this way of hitting the wall?

So he stood on a high platform on the top of the mountain and continued to look, his eyes patrolling the camp of the Song army and the top of the mountain occupied by the enemy.

Huh?

Why did the Song army leave the camp?

Guo Shengyi saw that many people from the Song army outside the pass in the distance rushed out and began to form a battle formation outside the camp.

Are they going to start attacking?

He thought.

But Guo Shengyi did not immediately arrange troops to prepare for defense.

Because the enemy was so far away, it would take at least half an hour to come over, so he was not in a hurry and continued to wait and see.

Huh?

Why do I see white light flashing on the mountain occupied by the Song army?

Guo Shengyi was confused.

Is that a mirror?

He could not understand the situation on the Song army side.

The other side seemed to have no knowledge of military affairs.

Attack the heavily guarded pass.

Camp in places with less water sources.

Install a mirror on the top of the mountain?

What's going on?

Guo Shengyi felt that his mind was full of question marks. Is the general of the Song army on the opposite side a fool?

He didn't know why, so he had to continue watching.

A few seconds later.

A huge sound wave came, and white smoke rose from the distant mountain.

Then, hundreds of black balls drew a brilliant arc in the air and smashed towards the Yue army at the pass.

Huh?

What is that?

Guo Shengyi stared blankly.

Only this thought flashed through his mind.

But after only two or three seconds, Guo Shengyi knew what it was.

"Bang bang bang!"

Those black balls fell into the Yue army camp behind the pass and exploded immediately.

Many soldiers of the Li Dynasty were still taking a nap. They only heard a huge roar in their dreams, which scared everyone.

"What's going on?"

"The earth dragon is turning over, the earth dragon is turning over."

"Run, run."

Various Chinese languages ​​were mixed with the local Beijing dialect of Annan Jiaozhi, and even unknown languages.

But all the languages ​​revealed one meaning - panic.

No one knew what happened.

Judging from the sound alone, it was as if there was an earthquake, which made every soldier of the Li Dynasty of Dai Viet full of panic and fear.

Many of them didn't even have time to put on their clothes. They ran out of the camp in a panic. Before they could see what was happening, they felt dust and smoke everywhere, gray fog filled the air, and a strange smell was mixed in the air.

Many people ran out of the camp and looked around, and found that there was no violent shaking under their feet, and it seemed that there was no earthquake. Just as they were wondering, a few seconds later, someone pointed to the sky and said in horror: "What is that?"

Some people looked up and saw a large number of black balls sweeping towards them.

But they didn't have time to react, because the speed of the artillery was very fast. It only took a few seconds to fly to a distance of four or five kilometers. Almost at the moment they saw the black balls, those black balls had already fallen down, and a huge noise broke out again.

"Bang bang bang bang!"

The shrapnel exploded after landing, some tents were blown away, some wooden towers were blown up, and some people were in the center of the explosion, directly torn into pieces, and the blood turned into rain, splashing on everyone.

A Vietnamese soldier stood there blankly. More than ten meters away from him, one of his comrades disappeared, and one leg flew into the air and fell in front of him.

His face was covered with blood. It was not his blood, but the warm feeling touched his skin. The roaring sound in his ears made him lose consciousness for a short time. He could not tell whether it was his own blood or the enemy's blood.

He could not even tell whether he could still control his body.

After a few seconds, he came back to his senses with difficulty, his legs trembling, and then screamed, stumbling, rolling and crawling, and staggering to run back.

While running, he shouted in a trembling voice: "The gods are angry, the gods are angry!"

His shout immediately caused a chain reaction.

"Woo woo woo woo, please don't punish me, please don't punish me, I don't want to fight."

"We offended the country, and the gods are angry."

"Run."

"I don't want to die, I don't want to die! Who will save me, my legs are gone."

They shouted and cried. Everyone prayed for forgiveness from God in Chinese or in the native Beijing dialect of the Li Dynasty.

The Li Dynasty was in the period of development of Vietnamese native culture. Their first national mythology "Lingnan Jiguai Biography" was written at this time. Therefore, the Vietnamese people believed in ghosts and gods very much at this time.

The terrifying power of the artillery made many low-level soldiers think that it was the anger of the gods and punishment, which caused everyone to be terrified at this time.

Some people's legs were weak and they could hardly walk.

Some could still hold on, like crazy, running around.

Others simply rolled their eyes, foamed at the mouth, and fainted directly.

However, no matter how much they prayed to God, it was useless. The sound of explosions continued, and the atmosphere of terror still enveloped them.

Even with more than 200 artillery pieces covering the enemy, not many people could be killed each time, only a few hundred at most, but it almost caused the 50,000-60,000-man army of the Li Dynasty to collapse.

The camp inside the pass was in chaos, and in the smoke, a large number of soldiers fled everywhere, running around like monkeys.

Guo Shengyi on the top of the mountain was so shocked that he couldn't speak.

It was not until two or three minutes later that the Song army's artillery had fired more than ten rounds, and the entire Lang Son Pass was already a mess. He woke up and shouted tremblingly: "Retreat!"

But at this time, the camp was in chaos. Not to mention that the gongs, drums, cymbals, horns, and whistles commonly used in marching and fighting could not be transmitted at all, even the flag signals were completely ineffective.

The entire command system was completely ineffective because of the chaos below without any attack.

The Song army on the opposite ridge was still covering with artillery fire.

This time they used shrapnel shells. The power of shrapnel shells was not satisfactory, but the benefits were obvious. That is, the sound of the explosion is very deterrent, which is very useful for dealing with monkeys who have never seen firearms.

In just 30 minutes, the Song army poured out about 20,000 shells, with each cannon firing two to three times per minute on average. The entire mountain road was almost destroyed, the ground was bumpy, broken trees, dilapidated tents, and scattered equipment were everywhere.

There were also many unlucky bodies lying on the ground in all directions. The lucky ones were only scratched by the iron pieces splashed out by the shells. They were seriously injured and fell to the ground and groaned. The unlucky ones were directly torn into pieces, and their bodies were not human.

In other words, in ancient times, fighting in groups was important, and the roads were narrow. Otherwise, in the era of hot weapons, the soldiers would be scattered and would not gather together, and carpet bombing would not have much effect.

But it would be good if this tactic could be used successfully once, which would have laid the foundation for the victory of the entire battlefield.

As Liangshan Pass was washed by 260 artillery pieces and the mountain road was in a mess, Di Qing finally issued an order to stop shooting.

The Song army's artillery positions were almost submerged in white smoke, and the mountain ridge was almost turned into a palace in the sky. In such a clear and sunny weather, visibility became very low.

"All troops attack!"

Di Qing stood on a high place and could only vaguely see the completely collapsed Li Dynasty positions through the smoke that was slightly thinned by the wind, so he issued a military order.

Immediately, a messenger walked to the edge of the cliff and waved a flag towards the bottom of the mountain.

Since the top of the mountain is about four or five hundred meters away from the bottom of the mountain, ordinary gongs, drums, horns and other things are difficult to pass on, and basically all flags are used.

Di Qing's deputy generals led the team down the mountain. In addition to the two commanders of the firearms army, there was also Zhang Yu as his deputy military commander, as well as local generals such as the governor of Guangxi South Road and the commander of Yongzhou.

Zhang Yu led the musket team and the wing army to hold the front. When he saw Di Qing sent a signal on the top of the mountain, he shouted: "The enemy has been defeated, brothers, kill!"

"Kill!"

The morale of the Song army was immediately high.

This battle was too easy to fight. The enemy had collapsed before the close combat began. The credit was like picking up for nothing.

The vast Song army rushed towards the direction of Langshan Pass like a tide.

When Zhang Yu arrived at Langshan Pass, there were almost no living people inside the pass, only a tragic scene.

The result of the carpet-like coverage of more than 20,000 shrapnel bombs was that the ground was full of craters, fresh soil was splashed, and the originally lush forests on both sides of the road were almost destroyed.

There were corpses, wood chips, earth pits, and broken tents and weapons of the Vietnamese army everywhere. The wall outside the pass was intact, but inside the pass was already a mess. Under the attack of artillery, the Li Dynasty was defeated.

Zhang Yu was also shocked to see all this while standing on the pass.

This was actually the first time that artillery was used on a large scale on the battlefield. In the past, there were only a few artillery pieces, or they were only used for deterrence. The artillery positions composed of hundreds of cannons were so terrifying, which also shocked veterans like him who had experienced the Song-Xia and Song-Liao wars.

More than 200 cannons were so terrifying, but the court had deployed tens of thousands of them on the borders of Song-Liao and Song-Xia. If the Xixia and Liao armies came again, they would probably be blown to pieces this time.

Even Zhang Yu was shocked, not to mention the local Xiang army and those minority soldiers.

Everyone was shocked and looked at all this in fear.

Zhang Yu quickly came to his senses and shouted, "Pass the order, don't be stunned, chase the enemy for 300 miles and take their capital, Thang Long Prefecture!"

"Yes!"

The surrounding deputy generals also responded in a hurry.

Then the Song army, which had been prepared for a long time, marched in a mighty force, too lazy to clean up the battlefield, and directly crossed the Lang Son Pass to pursue the defeated Yue army.

It was not until this time that Di Qing went down the mountain. The main force went to chase people, and he, the main general, was still behind.

He went down the mountain with Nong Zhigao. After ordering the artillery groups to wait for the barrels to cool down and dismantling the cannons to go down the mountain and return to the camp, he and Nong Zhigao entered the Lang Son Pass together.

The situation in Guanzhong also surprised Di Qing. The artillery formation was really terrible.

Nong Zhigao was even more trembling, constantly muttering to himself: "This is the power of heaven in the upper country, this is the power of heaven in the upper country."

As he said this, he suddenly became proud unconsciously, and muttered to himself: "I am the heavenly official of the upper country, I am the heavenly official of the upper country. The court gave me the Tongzhi of Yongzhou, and I am a member of the court."

At this moment, he was glad that while fighting against the Li Dynasty, he always maintained his loyalty to the Song Dynasty and kept submitting to the court.

Otherwise, if he followed Li Yuanhao and established himself as king, he would probably die without knowing how to die.

"Tongzhi, this place is handed over to you."

Di Qing glanced around, and then instructed: "You let the civilians clean up the battlefield and bury or burn the corpses. If you don't care, it will cause an epidemic. Then bring the artillery and the rear military supplies, and I will lead the troops to charge first."

"Yes, yes, yes."

This time, Nong Zhigao no longer dared to question any of Di Qing's orders, and quickly agreed.

After giving the order, Di Qing, with his personal guards, began to chase the large army in front. He planned to go straight to Thang Long and destroy the Li Dynasty with lightning speed!