Next, when Guo Jing took Wang Qiu, Nobi Nobita and Doraemon, they visited several scenic spots in Bianliang, Tokyo, sighed at the tricks of the Song Dynasty monarchs and ministers, and then returned to the "Liukjia Divine Soldiers" " When I arrived at Tianqing Temple, I found many carts parked at the entrance of the temple, with bundles of spears, knives, daggers, crossbows, shields, and even helmets and armors that were very valuable in ancient times piled on them.
Several low-level officials in the Ordnance Supervision were holding brochures and distributing these ordnance and equipment to the "magic soldiers" who had been recruited into the army.
——As the "magic soldiers" of Immortal Guo, it was certainly impossible for the Song Dynasty court to let them fight the Jurchens in battle with their bare hands.
In fact, at this critical moment of life and death in the capital, the Song Dynasty court's generosity in the supply of ordnance had exceeded ordinary people's imagination.
——Classmate Wang Qiu, who has read several ancient Greek historical stories before, still vaguely remembers that when the ancient city of Athens faced the threat of a large-scale invasion by the Persian army and was about to start the famous Battle of Marathon, the citizens of the city bravely searched for it. After cleaning up the entire city of Athens, they could only raise 10,000 infantrymen. It was not that the Athenians at that time were unable to recruit more strong men, but that they really could not find more ordnance and equipment!
However, at this time in Bianliang City, the imperial court, who was in a hurry to seek medical treatment, just made a hasty allocation and produced 10,000 sets of armor staffs for Guo Daxian to waste!
"...A whole 10,000 sets of armor rods were allocated so casually? The court is really generous!"
Wang Qiu couldn't help but be very surprised when he looked at the mountains of new equipment - not only the most basic swords, guns, swords and shields for individual soldiers, but also "trains" for arson, lightweight small trebuchets, and city gate blocking machines. A knife cart (a large wooden board at the front of the cart is filled with blades), a "trench cart" for crossing the moat, almost everything except war horses: but these are just supplying a hastily organized "militia" "That's all!"
If we put it in medieval Europe on the other side of the Eurasian continent at this time, even the king's personal guard would not have so many good properties!
However, the weapons supervisor who escorted this batch of ordnance was very disdainful of Wang Qiu's words, "... I, the Song Dynasty, are rich all over the world and have millions of armors. Although there are never enough war horses, there is never a shortage of weapons. Since the war with the Jin people Since then, from the central government to the local government, military factories in various places have been working day and night, and the imperial arsenal has been piled up with weapons of all kinds. What does a mere 10,000 sets of armor and staff count? "
Wang Qiu continued to ask more carefully, and found out that in the city of Kaifeng alone, there were more than 300,000 sets of armor and staffs accumulated over the years. After moving out of the warehouse, an army of 300,000 people could be raised at any time! At present, there are no less than this number of young and middle-aged men available for recruitment in the city - considering Kaifeng's population of 1.5 million, if all the people are soldiers, it is not difficult to recruit 300,000 strong men.
Such a strong capital, if considered in the Western world currently in the Dark Middle Ages, would probably be a force that could be used to conquer Europe, but here, even their own walled hometowns cannot be defended! Who allowed the Northern Song Dynasty to be peaceful for a long time, but the military affairs had been depleted to the point where "a young boy is only good at singing and dancing; an old man in his seventies does not know how to fight"? !
In this tragic era, the Song Dynasty had the comprehensive national strength and cultural industry of the later United States, and military expenditures accounted for 70% of fiscal revenue, comparable to German fascism. However, the combat effectiveness of the army was only at the level of Italy at best, and the ordinary people lived like Afghans. A normal hard life.
——Looking at these temporarily recruited city idlers, even though they are wearing strong armor, powerful helmets, and holding sharp swords and guns, they still look like they are staggering and staggering. And those so-called gun and stick instructors were also in the posture of street performers. Although their fists and embroidered legs were very beautiful, they were probably useless in actual combat... Wang Qiu finally understood why Bianliang City could not be defended. Lived.
This great city, whose bones have been softened by the songs and dances of the prosperous times, in this cruel war that determines the rise and fall of a civilization, has never been short of food, ordnance, or strong men, but it has lacked the most basic necessities. Courage and conscience!
——This is a city of cowards that makes people lament their misfortune and make them angry!
Just when Wang Qiu and Guo Jing were unanimously desperate for these "Liujia Divine Soldiers", there was a commotion on the streets outside. Wang Qiu looked out from the gate of Tianqing Temple and saw a Forbidden Army soldier in red, riding a low and inferior horse that was not much bigger than a donkey, running wildly through the bustling streets, and he couldn't help but scream. Shout: "...The imperial court has an order! Martial law is imposed in the capital! The Jin soldiers are attacking the city!"
In an instant, the whole city was in panic. Even the "Liukjia Divine Soldiers" who had just received their swords and guns were pale...
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The bleak winter sun shines on the top of Bianliang City, and the biting cold wind howls and rolls dust and grass blades up to the top of the city. The gray sky was as gloomy as the mood of the defenders on the city, and there was a faint smell of death in the air. Groups of jackdaws were flying in the air, chirping. The rough and harsh sound was like a file, ruthlessly raking people's nerves, spreading unspeakable fear every time the wings flapped.
These ominous black ghosts would fall to the ground from time to time, pick up a few pieces of flesh and blood, and flutter into the sky again. Just where the jackdaw fell, countless swords, spears, arrows and stones were scattered on the ground. Hundreds of mutilated corpses were lying on the city bricks. The once warm blood had solidified and turned black, but the corpses emerging from the wounds The stench and the burnt aroma produced by the boiling oil pouring on the flesh are still mixed in the wind and continue to spread in all directions.
A short but fierce city attack and defense battle had just ended here at Dongshui Gate.
Although the imperial capital of Bianliang had a magnificent city wall that had been continuously built for hundreds of years, the defenders had an excellent location to fortify the city. However, under the trebuchet bombardment and rain of arrows from the Jin soldiers, the defenders of the city still suffered heavy casualties. There were even more people than the Jin army attacking the city wall!
One of the leading generals in the battle to defend the city of Bianliang, Zhang Shuye, the general manager of Nandao and the signing Privy Council member who had just led 30,000 reinforcements into the capital, was wearing a light paper armor and patrolling the city with a group of followers, his face was extremely gloomy.
——Zhang Shuye didn't pay much attention to the tragic situation inside and outside the city wall. Although he was born as a civil servant, he has always been leading troops. When he was the prefect of Haizhou, Song Jiang rose up in Heshuo and raided more than ten states, defeating the officers and soldiers. Zhang Shuye recruited thousands of daredevils and set up an ambush to defeat Song Jiang. Later, he led a team of elites to sneak attack on Song Jiang's camp by boat, and burned the boats in Song Jiang's water village. Only then did Song Jiang, who was in dire straits, accept the recruitment - this was also the prototype of the story of the long historical novel "Water Margin".
However, the current war situation facing Bianliang is much more critical than when he wiped out the Songjiang gang.
——The Jin army that has been attacking the city wall for the past few days, although it has just suffered another setback in attacking the city and was repulsed by the defenders with flying stone crossbows, it still looks arrogant and high in fighting spirit; while the Song Dynasty imperial army guarding the city, although with the help of high-powered weapons, The thick city wall and the various defensive equipment successfully repelled the Jin army's massive attack on the city, but they were frightened out of their wits by the bloodshed and numerous casualties on the battlefield, and their morale was so low that it was impossible to watch!
Recalling the battle just now, Zhang Shuye, a rare outstanding general in the Song Dynasty during the Jingkang period, couldn't help but let out a wry smile at the corner of his mouth.
——The Jin army just dispatched only 300 archers, and successfully protected hundreds of engineers who rushed to the city to dig. The Song imperial army at the top of the city did not dare to go out of the city to expel this small group of enemies. He dared to use a powerful crossbow, a powerful crossbow, rocks and boiling oil, and desperately dropped the city to stop the attack. However, the sharp archers of the Jin Army also tried their best to protect them. They shot down hundreds of reckless defenders with bows and arrows under the wall, scaring many people from showing their heads
In the end, despite repelling the Jin's tentative attack, they overturned the engineers digging the earth. However, the defenders in the city still fully exposed their weakness - they almost did not dare to shoot arrows from behind the battlements. Even though the crossbows deployed at the top of Bianliang City were very powerful, the accuracy of the archers was extremely poor, and their power was not fully demonstrated. One point comes. But the Jin army attacking the city was fearless and fearless, and they rushed until they were exhausted.
——For the Jurchens, there is nothing to be reluctant to lose some lives in the siege battle. Anyway, the Jurchen warriors of their own tribe did not participate in the war, and those who died were basically the latest Liao Kingdom who abandoned the Song Dynasty and joined the Jin Dynasty in Yanyun. When the Han people surrendered, there was no need for the Jurchens to feel sorry for these unscrupulous slaves with three surnames. As long as we search the Han areas in Yanyun and Hebei, we will have as much cannon fodder as possible for attacking the city.
In this way, in order to stop the Jin soldiers, the defenders had no choice but to throw rocks and oil at the bottom of the city for free, causing the rocks to pile up to two feet high at the base of the wall. The gurgling hot oil formed a stream, which was a waste of money. The limited defensive supplies failed to cause many casualties to the enemy.
But, for Song Jun, what can they do? The Imperial Army of the Song Dynasty were such a bunch of courageous, incompetent and useless cowards!
Although the Northern Song Dynasty had 800,000 off-duty professional forbidden troops, and its national defense power seemed to be unprecedentedly strong, the problem was that the forbidden troops in the Northern Song Dynasty were not a real army, but a refugee shelter. Whenever there was a major disaster such as floods or droughts, in order to prevent the refugees from rebelling, the imperial court would recruit all the strong men in the affected areas into the Forbidden Army so that they could be paid as soldiers. eliminate****.
——As for those old, young, women and children, even if they have nothing to eat, they will not be able to rebel...
After these armies are recruited and formed, in order to save money, they are often raised like pigs without training at all and have no combat effectiveness at all. As a result, the size of the Forbidden Army continued to expand, but its combat effectiveness continued to decline. By the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the number of the Forbidden Army alone exceeded 800,000, and together with the Xiang Army, there were as many as 1.4 million...According to a person's military salary of 50 Guan for one year, even if he did nothing, just To feed 800,000 imperial troops, it would cost 40 million yuan every year. If we had put it in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, when the finances were miserable, the imperial court would have gone bankrupt several times!
Although the Northern Song Dynasty court was more lavish than Emperor Chongzhen in the late Ming Dynasty, it still maintained so many soldiers who did not know how to fight and only lived for free. It’s also a bit overwhelming. The civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty thought that these forbidden troops could not feed themselves in vain, and they must be allowed to create some economic benefits. So the imperial troops were allowed to work as craftsmen, footmen, and waiters... In short, the troops were allowed to do business and do odd jobs, so as to be as self-reliant as possible and reduce the financial burden on the court.
In later generations, only the Eighth Route Army successfully accomplished something like this in the anti-Japanese base areas. But the pampered scholar-bureaucrats of the Song Dynasty were not the political commissars of the Eighth Route Army who took the lead in sacrifice and dedication. They did not have the appeal to organize everyone's voluntary labor, nor did they have the power to turn decay into magic. An army has been turned into a labor force by them, and it does not have the level of ideological consciousness of the Eighth Route Army in the Anti-Japanese War. How can it have any combat effectiveness?
In short, the "large-scale production movement" is not something that the feudal dynasty can play with. If it insists on doing this, either the army will lose its combat effectiveness, or it will lose its capital...or worse, The army lost both its combat effectiveness and its capital...
Especially in Bianliang's Forbidden Army, father and son have succeeded each other for hundreds of years, and most of the officers are inherited from their families. There had been no war for a hundred years, and in the prosperous city of Tokyo, the Song Dynasty court issued as much as 50 yuan of military pay to the Imperial Guards every year. The average monthly material money is 500 Wen, the monthly grain is two stones and five buckets, the spring and winter clothes are 6 pieces of silk and 12 taels of cotton, the clothing money is 3,000 Wen, and the southern suburbs are rewarded once every three years, with an average of 15 strings per person. If a soldier of the Forbidden Army survives to be discharged from the army, or is discharged from the army due to injury, he will still have money to settle down and return home. Although it's not much, the old ones are enough for you to spend the rest of your life, and the young ones are enough for you to find a wife and start a family. For the military, such comprehensive and generous economic treatment is unprecedented not only in China, but also in the world.
Think about it, these Imperial Guards have never had to fight for generations, but they are stationed in the most prosperous place in the world. They enjoy a lot of entertainment and have generous military pay. The result is naturally a group of old soldiers who are like Eight Banners disciples! There is no iron-blooded evil spirit of the army!
It can be said that among the millions of troops in the Northern Song Dynasty, the only ones who could really fight were the tens of thousands of Western troops who fought with Xixia in northern Shaanxi all year round...
Unfortunately, the few tens of thousands of elite Western troops had already been lost in a series of battles, leaving only a bunch of useless losers.
Especially in the current Bianliang City, even the useless Imperial Forbidden Army only has 30,000 soldiers. The rest of the defenders are simply temporary recruits from the street, including many monks who were forcibly brought from monasteries and Taoist temples. Taoist priests, no matter how you look at them, seem to have insufficient success and more than enough failure. Previously, before Zhang Shuye led the reinforcements to attack Bianliang, it was clear that these Jin men were already transporting rocks and felling wood under the city in preparation for attacking the city, but they actually stayed on the city wall and watched without any harassment at all. Just let the enemy build a siege position and fill in the moat.
Not only that, these guys are also making noises about payment every day. Anyway, in one sentence - if you don't pay, who will help you fight with Zhao Guan's family? !
It wasn't until the Jin people began to officially attack the city and the flames of war were burning on their own heads that this group of people saw that the situation was not good, so they began to fight with spirit... and then as expected, they fought to the extreme - relying on such a group of people from society It is simply a fantasy that a ragtag group of idle people can repel the golden soldiers.
But Zhang Shuye is also a clever woman who can't make a meal without rice. At present, there are only so many troops that can be mobilized in the capital. The 30,000 soldiers and horses he has raised from the southern states and counties are not much better than the capital's forbidden army in terms of quality... The army of King Qin from all directions was dismissed by the peace ministers without authorization, leaving no hope for reinforcements. The most terrible thing was that the whole court was still undecided about whether to fight or to fight. How should such a war be fought?
Fortunately, it is winter now and the water level of the Yellow River is low. The Qin people's water attack strategy of attacking the main beams of Wei State in the past cannot be implemented. It would be even more unimaginable if the Jin people had been in a stalemate with the imperial masters on the outskirts of Bianjing until the water level rose and the spring flood broke out, and then broke the Yellow River embankment and flooded Bianliang... It would be even more unimaginable. Is God really going to destroy the Song Dynasty? Zhang Shuye couldn't help but lament in despair.