Chapter 346 Liaoxia Makes a Feint to the East and Attacks in the West

The north wind blew across the prairie, gently blowing past Yelu Zongzhen and Li Yuanhao, lifting the corners of their clothes and cloaks.

It was dusk at this time, the sun was high in the distance, the setting sun was shining on the sunset, and the gorgeous clouds of fire hung in half of the sky at dusk. There were wild geese that seemed to have returned from the south for the winter, passing like black spots in the distant sky.

Under the setting sun, the two masters of Xixia and Liao were sitting cross-legged, eating dried beef and mutton, drinking goat milk wine produced in Liao, and talking about what was happening in the southern Song.

Li Yuanhao was still playing with the wine glass in his hand, and raised his head to ask Yelu Zongzhen: "Your Majesty, where do you think this person is from?"

"I heard that Song has sailed overseas many times, I'm afraid he is from a distant country."

Yelu Zongzhen said.

"Well, I think so too."

Li Yuanhao frowned and said, "It's just that I have met many foreigners, but I found that they are different from the Han people."

"I haven't heard whether Zhao Jun is a Han Chinese, or maybe he is from another country."

Yelu Zongzhen said, "Besides, since the pre-Qin period, it has been rumored that there are elixirs of immortality overseas, which has attracted many people to go to sea. It is normal for some Han people to drift overseas."

"That's true, but are overseas countries so powerful?"

Li Yuanhao was still very surprised.

"Who knows?"

Yelu Zongzhen shrugged, "At least the Song State has been going to sea, maybe it has something to do with this."

None of them thought that Zhao Jun came from the future.

After all, this was beyond their cognition. They would rather believe that Zhao Jun was a god who came to earth, and they would never think that Zhao Jun came from a thousand years later.

"It's a pity that we didn't pay too much attention to this man at the beginning. Otherwise, we could have sent assassins to kill him when he was touring the world, and it wouldn't have made me and Your Majesty so worried today."

Li Yuanhao shook his head. When Zhao Jun was touring the world, it might have been the best time to kill him, but now forget it. It is extremely difficult to assassinate Zhao Jun in Bianliang City.

It is said that when he travels, he is not only protected by hundreds of guards on the left and right, but also by a large number of secret agents who follow him and hide nearby disguised as civilians.

Once there is any action, there will be thousands of guards in an instant. In addition, the Imperial City Division and the left and right two wings will rush to help as soon as possible.

It can be said that if you want to assassinate Zhao Jun in Bianliang, you must have tens of thousands of troops. Otherwise, it is unrealistic for a few assassins to get close to Zhao Jun or go to his house in the middle of the night.

"Forget it, whether it is because of him that Song became so powerful or not, the most urgent thing now is to think about how to deal with Song."

Yelu Zongzhen didn't want to talk too much about this topic.

But Li Yuanhao said: "Your Majesty, I think this matter is worth considering. Your Majesty, think about it, if Zhao Jun comes from overseas, there are powerful equipment overseas, if we can also go to sea..."

"Do you want me to organize an ocean-going fleet as well?"

Yelu Zongzhen frowned even deeper.

"Yes, with the strength of Liao, maybe it can be done, if we can find someone like Zhao Jun"

"I'm afraid this won't work."

"Why?"

Li Yuanhao was puzzled. Their Xixia was inland, let alone the sea, there were not even a few large lakes, so it was unrealistic to organize a fleet to go to sea.

So he could only count on Yelu Zongzhen, after all, Liao also had a huge and long coastline.

But Yelu Zongzhen said: "Since seven or eight years ago, the Song people's fleet has been rampant in the Bohai Sea. I have also formed a fleet, but after going out to sea, there has been no news."

He raised his head and sighed.

The maritime trade between the Song Dynasty and Goryeo and Japan was very successful. The sulfur of the Liao Kingdom was all bought from Japan by Song merchants and then resold to them, and they had to bear high costs for this.

How could Yelu Zongzhen not be jealous of this trade profit?

Even if it was not for making money, just trading directly with Japan, so that those Song middlemen could not make a profit, it would also save a lot of defense expenses.

But now Yelu Zongzhen found that he was naive. The Song people had already established a powerful force on the ocean. Whether it was military or civilian forces, the Liao Kingdom could not compete.

The ship technology alone was far inferior to others. The Song Dynasty could build huge sea ships with more than 30 or 40 cannons on board, while the Liao Kingdom's sea ships were much smaller and the cannons were not as powerful as them.

So the fleet that Yelu Zongzhen had tried so hard to build tried to cross the Bohai Sea and the East China Sea to Japan, but it eventually disappeared at sea, and not even a single message was sent back.

This made him realize that the fleet he had built was likely to be destroyed by the Song State.

However, there was no long-distance communication capability in this era, so he didn't know whether it was destroyed by the Song State.

In the absence of evidence, even if someone was sent to question the Song State, the Song State only needed to reply that the risk at sea was high and the entire fleet might be destroyed in the event of wind and waves, and he would have nothing to say.

Therefore, Yelu Zongzhen suffered a dumb loss in this matter, and he never built a fleet again since then.

"I'm afraid it was someone sent by the Song State to harm us."

Li Yuanhao said immediately.

"I don't think so, but there is no evidence."

Yelu Zongzhen said helplessly.

"The Song people are really insidious. In this way, they have firmly controlled the sea, and there is no place for us to stay."

Li Yuanhao then said: "But does this also prove that there are not only countless gold and silver treasures overseas, but also powerful people like Zhao Jun?"

"Maybe, but the Song Dynasty has completely controlled the ocean, and I can't do anything about it."

Yelü Zongzhen didn't want to admit the failure of the Liao Dynasty at sea, but he couldn't really agree to Li Yuanhao to send people out to sea, even if he pretended to agree.

After all, if Li Yuanhao pinned all his hopes on him going out to sea to find a strange man like Zhao Jun, then Li Yuanhao would most likely no longer join forces with him to go to war directly with the Song Dynasty, and fantasize about having someone like Zhao Jun to help them become stronger every day.

But Yelu Zongzhen knew that he couldn't do it, so they could only die slowly, and in the end the Song Dynasty would become stronger and stronger, more and more terrifying, and then easily destroy their Liao Dynasty.

So Yelu Zongzhen could only reject Li Yuanhao and make him completely lose interest in overseas, so that they could focus their main energy on dealing with the Song Dynasty.

"Okay, let's not talk about this anymore, let's talk about business first."

Yelu Zongzhen said angrily: "You also know that if it goes on like this, Song will only become stronger. Although we are also getting stronger, you should also understand how big the gap is between our national strength and Song."

"Yes, although our national strength has also changed, it is just a little bit of leftovers from Song. How can it be compared with them?"

Li Yuanhao also sighed: "I once sent people to secretly check the camps on the border of Song. I don't know how many cannons they have in their camps. The number of cannons in the dozens of military camps outside the border alone is The number is more than that of our Great Xia, not to mention the cities behind them. "

"It is the same in Hebei. I have also deployed a lot of artillery in Yanyun, but the number is far less than that of the Song Dynasty. Especially their muskets, which can be regarded as a weapon for field battles. They can kill people from a hundred feet away, and even ordinary armor can't resist them. "

Yelu Zongzhen said: "I heard that their muskets are getting more and more powerful now, and the muskets I imitated."

"Your Majesty imitated the muskets?"

Li Yuanhao's eyes lit up. This thing made him suffer a lot in the last battle. If the Liao Kingdom could imitate it, he wouldn't have to be afraid of fighting with the Song Dynasty in the field.

However, Yelu Zongzhen's words disappointed him.

He heard Yelu Zongzhen sighed: "The muskets I imitated are not a little bit worse than the muskets of the Song people. Not only are they slow to load, but they are also easy to explode. They are not as good as swords and guns. "

This is normal.

Because what Yelu Zongzhen didn't know was that muskets were not only a technology, but also a product brought about by the progress of materials science.

Before the Industrial Revolution, due to insufficient steel production, firearms could only be made of wrought iron.

However, wrought iron is far less durable than steel. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the rate of bursting of artillery and muskets was so high that soldiers in the Ming and Qing Dynasties would rather use cold weapons than these things.

Since the British Industrial Revolution, the West has had mature steelmaking technology, and the production of steel has greatly increased. The raw materials used to make muskets and artillery have become much more reliable and strong, and the bursting rate has naturally decreased, driving the development of muskets and artillery technology.

It can be said that many scientific and technological products are actually changed by changes in materials. The same gun, even if the internal structure and external shape are exactly the same, is made of plastic and steel.

So this is why it is said that materials science can change the world. If the nanomaterials developed by Wang Miao in "The Three-Body Problem" can really be realized, perhaps the space elevator in the future is not a dream.

The Liao Kingdom and the Western Xia did not have the steelmaking method provided by Zhao Jun, so naturally there was no steel. Compared with the muskets and artillery made of steel in the Song Dynasty, they were more than one level lower.

Therefore, Zhao Jun never concealed the gunpowder count, and even sold the complete gunpowder formula. Because only in this way would Liao and Xixia buy a large amount of sulfur from Song, and indirectly contribute to the economic development of the Song Dynasty.

"Alas."

Li Yuanhao also sighed.

"The musket is probably not as good as the Song Dynasty, but the artillery will not be much worse."

Yelu Zongzhen said in a deep voice: "If we can gather together and attack Song by surprise, maybe we can defeat them."

"Your Majesty, are you planning to fight a decisive battle with Song?"

Li Yuanhao asked.

"Yes."

Yelu Zongzhen nodded slightly, closed his eyes, and sighed to the sky: "If possible, who would want to bet on this unpredictable national destiny?"

If there is no full-scale war, the gap between the two sides will become larger and larger, especially when the railway of Song Dynasty is built to the border between Songxia and Song Liao, that is basically when Xixia and Liao are completely finished.

Once the Song Dynasty wants to go to war with them, hundreds of thousands of troops and supplies that can supply the army will be transported in a day or two.

And their troops are still coming from behind, and the supplies will take a long time to be escorted.

Unless they concentrate most of the country's troops on the border.

But what should they do in the country in that case?

You should know that the Liao Kingdom often suffers from the pressure of uprisings of other ethnic groups within the country due to its vast territory. Not to mention the Jurchens, there are the Mengwu people on the grassland, the Bohai people in the northeast, the Jinwu people in the northwest, and so on.

There are more than 100 ethnic groups in the country, and thousands of tribes, big and small. Many people are dissatisfied with the rule of the Liao Kingdom, and there are many ethnic minorities who want to overthrow their rule.

Therefore, Yelu Zongzhen has no way to concentrate a large number of troops on the border between Song and Liao, and even if a full-scale war breaks out, he has to keep some troops in the country.

This makes Yelu Zongzhen very uncomfortable.

But this is also helpless. The larger the territory, the stronger the country seems to be, but at the same time, it has to pay the price of a vast territory.

Li Yuanhao naturally has the same troubles.

Although there are not as many tribes in Xixia as in Liao, there are many other ethnic groups.

There are not only tribes such as Dangxiang, Uighur, and Tubo, but also Han people in the Western Regions. Once Xixia’s troops cannot suppress them, they will definitely be counterattacked.

Therefore, the two can be said to be in the same boat.

At this moment, hearing what Yelu Zongzhen said, Li Yuanhao felt the same way and said, "Yes, if we drag it on, we will be doomed."

"This time we are meeting here to agree on a common rule of advance and retreat. How to attack, how to attack, we must discuss a countermeasure, otherwise I will not come here in person."

Yelu Zongzhen said.

Li Yuanhao said, "I do have a solution."

"Oh?"

Yelu Zongzhen said, "Tell me about it."

"The Song people are strong, but they don't take the initiative to attack us."

Li Yuanhao said, "When I attacked Qingtang, the Song army had already won a great victory, and my country was empty, but they didn't take advantage of the situation. This shows that they themselves are not sure of destroying us."

"Yeah."

Yelu Zongzhen nodded slightly. At that time, the Liao Kingdom was also defeated by the Song army, but Fan Zhongyan only recovered Zhuozhou, but did not take advantage of the victory to take down the entire Yanyun. Perhaps the Song Kingdom is only strong on the surface at present, and in fact, it is still a little weak against Liaoxia.

"Therefore, I think they will definitely not go to war with us now. I even suspect that they should wait until the national strength is stronger before sending troops to destroy us. Now is our last chance."

Li Yuanhao said.

This is their own thinking. They think that the Song Dynasty did not dare to attack them because they were not sure of destroying them, but they didn't know that Zhao Jun deliberately kept them for other plans.

But this is also normal.

The ancients had certain limitations in their thinking. They didn't know what a dumping ground for goods or a country producing raw materials was.

If they knew, they would probably regard it as a great shame.

"But if we take the initiative to attack, we will still have to hit the hard nail on the border of Song State."

Yelu Zongzhen said.

"So I learned the lesson of attacking Qingtang. I didn't attack Song State directly, but made a feint to the east and attacked in the west."

"Oh? How to make a feint to the east and attack in the west?"

"I think that the Song Dynasty must abide by the treaty signed with Qingtang and Goryeo, otherwise how can it convince the people?"

Li Yuanhao said: "Look at the last war between me and Qingtang. Their main forces in the northwest have been dispatched, and they must keep Qingtang. If we attack Qingtang and Goryeo at the same time, Song State will definitely come to help, especially Goryeo. Song State will definitely send troops from the sea."

"Hmm."

Yelu Zongzhen nodded after a slight hesitation.

Li Yuanhao took the opportunity to continue: "We are bluffing. On the surface, we are attacking Qingtang and Goryeo, but in fact, we are stationing troops on the border. Once their troops on our border are transferred away, their steam train has not been built yet, and the troops from Kaifeng cannot come in a short time, we can directly attack their Shaanxi and Hebei roads. We only need to seize their supplies on the border and take their muskets and artillery. We may be able to fight their Kaifeng Imperial Army."

"Hmm"

Yelü Zongzhen narrowed his eyes.

This strategy.

It seems interesting.