"Training troops in the last battle? Is the news reliable?"

In the imperial palace of Xijinfu City, Yelu Yanxi, who lived like a year, finally learned that Wu Haogu was training troops south of the Jiehe River.

The war is about to go, and your soldiers have just started to train. Isn’t this obvious that you are going to defeat the war?

"Reliable, absolutely reliable!" said Ma Renwang, "Nanjing Road Police Patrolman Zhang Jue dressed up as a merchant, went to Jiehe Market in person, and sneaked into the military camp of the Song people. He found that a large number of soldiers were newly enlisted, and they could not even use spears or bows and arrows. They were just mobs."

A spear is not difficult to learn. It is just to hold it forward, then assassinate or slap according to the command. As for the bow and arrow, after combining the experience of the Battle of Pingxia and the Battle of Anxi, the infantry battalions of the four infantry generals directly under the jurisdiction of the Xuanfu Division of Hebei have all cancelled the configuration of professional archers, but adopted the combination of two spear teams under the first battalion, a sword and shield team and a crossbow team.

Among them, the sword and shield team should choose veterans and new recruits with high martial arts skills as much as possible, while the other three teams mainly use ordinary new recruits. Because the training of bows and arrows is not low, the government soldiers in Hebei are not as good as those in the Northwest government soldiers. Therefore, they simply no longer provide bows and arrows to the infantry of the new army, but use the Jiehe Crossbow, which has a long range and high power, but has a slower firing rate, as the main individual shooting firepower.

However, the new infantry of Wu Haogu's four generals was not afraid of comparing bows and arrows with the Liao people, because the engineer battalions below these four generals were equipped with a crossbow cannon team, with 18 traction balls that could output quite scary firepower.

"Baoxian," Yelu Yanxi turned her attention to Xiao Baoxian, "How did you see the elite cavalry?"

"Your Majesty," Xiao Baoxian replied, "I have seen armored cavalry, and the number of people is only a few thousand. It should be the so-called imperial knights... Those imperial knights have 1,500 acres of manor land on the ground of Cangzhou, south of the Border River, so there are 3,000 people living in Cangzhou on weekdays."

Horseman Wang said: "A knight will not have only one warrior who can be filled with armored cavalry. It should be possible to use 3,000 families to produce 6,000 cavalry.

In addition, Wu Haogu also has a group of officers educated by the so-called Knights Academy, which is said to be very good. There may be thousands of veterans who have been on the battlefield and can be used as backbone."

"It's just over ten thousand elite soldiers!" Yelu Yanxi said to himself, "It seems that it doesn't have to wait until the boundary river is frozen... Horse people look forward to it!"

"I'm here!"

"How much food and grass have you saved now? How long can it be supported?"

"Report to Your Majesty, the summer grain has been collected, which is enough to support this winter." Ma Renwang said, "If you can't get the grain from Liaodong until next spring, Xijinfucheng will be short of food... So it's best to wait until the autumn grain from Liaodong arrives this winter, so that you will be foolproof."

"It's okay," Yelu Yanxi smiled, "There is food for the Song people to eat, but are you afraid of starving the people in Xijin Prefecture City?

And how brave can the Emperor of the Zhao family be? Hearing that my army was heading south into Dingzhou Road, why don’t we ask for peace immediately? At that time, I will increase the annual monies to 3 million yuan a year!"

"His Majesty……"

Ma Renwang wanted to persuade Yelu Yanxi to be cautious in using troops, but Yelu Yanxi waved his hand to stop him. The Emperor of the Great Liao Dynasty said, "Ma Qing, have the personal guards of Nanjing Road gathered together?"

"Report to Your Majesty, you have gathered."

"Okay! Let them take the lead." Yelu Yanxi said to his most trusted brother-in-law Xiao Fengxian, "Fengxian, you will bring another ten thousand iron cavalry and go with the horseman Wang to attack Baozhou in the Song State!"

"I will receive the order!"

Seeing that Yelu Yanxi had made up his mind, Ma Renwang had no choice but to receive the imperial edict with Xiao Fengxian. He thought about it and immediately made another suggestion, so he reported: "I suggest that Your Majesty's army be on the north bank of the river, promote the momentum and attract the attention of the Song army. In this way, the minister and Xiao Shumi can definitely catch the Song people off guard in Baozhou and Dingzhou!"

"Okay!" Yelu Yanxi heard this good idea, "Just do it! I will drive my army south tomorrow and drink from the horse-margin river!"

...

When the news that the Khitan Emperor Yelu Yanxi's army drove out of Xijinfu City came to Jiehe Shang City, Wu Haogu was in Jiehe City and inspecting the deployment situation around the North City.

The Jiehebei City belongs to the Liao Kingdom in theory, but has not achieved much development in the past ten years. The Beicheng Castle is very small in size, with a circumference of less than ten miles. Originally, there was only a semicircular wall, and there was no wall near the Border River. After the relationship between Song and Liao became tense, the city wall was urgently built, thus forming a half-moon-shaped fortress.

On both sides of the fortress, there are also some fortresses scattered, originally wharfs, warehouses, villas of wealthy families, or houses in pastures that temporarily raise livestock.

All large buildings or buildings that can enter and exit waterways by relying on boundary rivers have been renovated in and out of water. In the past few months, they have been transformed into fortresses that can be relied on for defense.

Such fortresses not only exist in the northern half of Jiehe Shangshi City, but also in the south of Jiehe River, and hundreds of them.

Although no heavy troops are deployed in every fortress, nor can they be deployed. If the Khitans really want to fight one by one, they are afraid that they will not win even if they die.

In addition, the equipment Dumeijian of Jiehe Shipyard has also designed a counterweight stone generator that can be operated with less manpower. It is also working hard to produce, and some of them have been placed in several slightly larger forts on the north bank of Jiehe River.

However, in Wu Haogu's view, the most reliable weapon in Jiehe Commercial City in the garrison war is the Jiehe Crossbow!

A worker from Jiehe Market, dressed in paper armor and leather helmet, can stand on the city wall and fight with a Jiehe Crossbow, and may shoot the most brave Khitan warrior to death.

In history, even if the Song Dynasty was on the verge of destruction, it did not produce a large number of crossbows, which were the easiest to master, and the powerful long-range shooting completely armed the people, which was definitely a big mistake.

Wu Haogu would not make such mistakes. After taking charge of Jiehe Shang City, he encouraged the public to learn and master bows and arrows through various prize-winning archery competitions; on the other hand, he continued to improve the design of crossbows, and relied on the handicraft systems of Jiehe Shang City and JD Shang City to establish a strong military industry, among which Jiehe Crossbow Machine is the star product of Jiehe Military Industry.

The latest generation of Jiehe Crossbow not only has a butt stock and sight-catching, but also a pedal ring that helps to tread and a characteristic belt (the belt has a hook that can hook the crossbow string and use waist force to tread the crossbow together with arm force).

In addition, in the selection of crossbow arm raw materials, expensive buffalo horns and stubborn sheep horns were abandoned, and relatively cheap wood was used, and the path of cheap and mass production was started.

Of course, the crossbows equipped with cavalry are still on a small scale and high-quality route. Jiehe Market, which is produced by private crossbow workshops, not only has large military factories such as Xuanfusi Weapon Room, but also many private workshops that produce horse sluts, crossbows, horn bows, swords, axes, and various blunt weapons. Because Jiehe Market has a large demand in its surrounding area, most of them have prosperous business and many good craftsmen.

Oh, most of these good weapons craftsmen who produce weapons come from the 40-year-old Duyuan and Zuoyuan in Hebei, and some of them simply come from the Longyan Tieshan or Xijinfucheng in the Liao Dynasty. In short, the best weapons craftsmen in Hebei are all working or starting businesses in Jiehe Market!

Just as Wu Haogu climbed the Beikaimen Tower in the Beicheng City of Jiehe Shang City to observe the surrounding terrain, Brother Zhao Zhong took the document transferred from the intelligence room from a military opportunity, took a look and his face became solemn.

"Shisan Xuan, I just received the news that Yelu Yanxi has gone south!"

"Going south? Now?" Wu Haogu was stunned. "What do he want to do? Is he rushing into Hebei City in the Realm?"

"It must be a rush to the North City," Zhou Gao, the head of the Navy Room of the General Military Computer Room, interrupted, "There are 12 water smuggling ships on the water of the Jiehe River. As long as the Jiehe River does not freeze, the Khitans will definitely not be able to cross the river."

The water-wheeled tower ship is a kind of inland tower ship driven by water-wheels and hard sails. The draft is shallow, the bottom of the ship is flat, and the superstructure is tall, so it cannot withstand the wind and waves on the sea. However, in the Jiehe River, Juma River, Sanggan River, and Sorghum River, these 12 water-wheeled tower ships are like giants. The ship is also equipped with Baniu Crossbow and the torsional stone generator introduced by Yuki Yi. This complex stone generator is not very powerful, but because it can be made relatively small, it is suitable for installation on the ship and can be used to fire gunpowder bullets or hot iron balls. It is definitely not a monster that the Khitan navy can deal with.

"They can't fight in Beicheng either." Brother Zhao Zhong shook his head, "Do you want to kill a city with blood? This is not the Khitan's way of fighting."

"That's a bluff!" Ma Zheng thought.

"I want to make a name for myself?" Wu Haogu asked.

"It's possible!" Ma Zheng said, "Along the border of Hebei, the one that is more reliable in defending now is the Jiehe River along the Juma River. There may be a bit hanging elsewhere!"

"There are four or five hundred miles from Jumahe to Zhendingfu Road!" Zhao Zhongge smiled, "How can we guard it everywhere? The regiment training in various places has not yet been pulled up, so how many soldiers are there in total?"

"What should I do?" Wu Haogu thought for a while and asked, "Do you want to send cavalry?"

Brother Zhao Zhong smiled and asked back, "Shuai Xuan, are you really willing to spend it?"

Wu Haogu had two cavalry generals, and four light cavalry battalions, including 12,000 cavalry auxiliary soldiers. The number of people was finally collected, but it was really useful, but only six or seven thousand cavalry, and the rest needed strict training.

If you take it out and spell it now, it may ruin a large number of cavalry officers and soldiers who have finally gotten together.
Chapter completed!