I am Emperor Shizu of Song

Chapter 161 Stepping on Jin Wuzhu's face, establishing the prestige of Prince Lixiu

Wanyan Zongbi needed a considerable amount of time to prepare for a major offensive.

Xuzhou was a fortified city, and the defending troops were determined to hold it to the death. The city's defenses were also very complete. It would take the Jin army at least half a month just to fill the gaps in the moat and prepare heavy siege equipment.

The Jurchens couldn't possibly use the lives of their own people to fill this gap, so they used the Song soldiers who had previously surrendered to the Jurchens as shields, as well as various early opportunists who had voluntarily surrendered to the Jurchens and become traitors, to transport soil to fill the river.

Some Khitan and Xi soldiers were also conscripted to shoot arrows to suppress the city walls or to supervise the cannon fodder in pushing the siege weapons. In the continuous exchange of fire with the Song army, they also suffered considerable casualties.

Song troops defending cities were generally equipped with catapults, or cannons, which had proven effective when the Jin army attacked Bianjing. However, at that time, there were too many spineless surrenderists in the Bianjing court, and the absurd incident occurred where "Song cannon wielders were punished by their own ministers for sabotaging peace talks because they hit Jin soldiers too accurately." Therefore, some loyal and righteous soldiers in the Bianjing Imperial Guard had no opportunity to use their talents.

But when it came to Yue Fei, and under Zhao Zicheng's command, all these concerns disappeared. They could fight as fiercely as possible, without holding back at all.

Yue Fei showed no mercy, repeatedly suppressing the enemy with his crossbows and firing his artillery at full power. During the Jin army's attempt to fill the river, he inflicted heavy casualties on the Jin soldiers.

During this period, some so-called Jin army strategists, or Han traitors who had previously surrendered to the Jin, wanted to offer advice to help Wanyan Zongbi get out of his predicament, so they came up with some bizarre strategies on a whim.

"Please, Fourth Prince, consider this carefully! Xuzhou has always been difficult to conquer, but back then, Cao Cao, the Emperor Wu of Wei, killed Lü Bu here by flooding Xiapi! Why not divert the Si River to flood it! Can Yue Fei's bravery today surpass that of Lü Bu back then? As long as the city is flooded, no matter how brave he is, he will not escape death when surrounded by thousands of troops!"

Wanyan Zongbi was somewhat shrewd in strategy, but he was unfamiliar with the geography and climate of the south. He was almost misled by this statement at first, wasting a few days of his time.

Fortunately, there were also wise people within the Jin state. Later, when Wanyan Zongbi's chief strategist, Wanyan Xiyin, heard about this, he immediately advised: "When Cao Cao defeated Lü Bu, he flooded the city for more than two months before he saw initial results. That was because he started flooding the city in the rainy autumn season."

It is now the dead of winter, and the water levels of the Si and Yi rivers are quite low. How long will it take for the water to reach the walls of Xuzhou? Moreover, our and the Song people's respective tactics are quite different from those of Cao Cao and Lü Bu.

Lü Bu, a fierce warrior from You and Bing, commanded mostly elite cavalry but lacked naval prowess; his fighting strength would be greatly diminished in the event of a city flooded. Cao Cao's troops were mostly locals from Yan and Yu provinces, so water wouldn't be a problem for them. Today, our Great Jin is the strongest army in the north, renowned for its cavalry and archery, while the Song still maintains a navy in Xuzhou. After the city is flooded, the Si River will widen, potentially giving the Song an advantage to carry out their plans.

Wanyan Xiyin's explanation, with its three clear points, left Wanyan Zongbi speechless. He quickly abandoned the unreliable plan and severely reprimanded the Han Chinese civil official who was just spouting nonsense on paper.

"No wonder you Song people are incompetent. It's one thing to study for official positions, but all the books you read are useless! You've read so many books, but you have no strategy whatsoever and can only spout nonsense!"

Those few useless traitors were also thoroughly scolded, but they couldn't refute him at all.

Wanyan Zongbi is right. There is nothing wrong with the imperial examination system itself, and there is nothing wrong with selecting officials through examinations. In fact, it helps to ensure fairness.

The problem is that after the Song Dynasty, the content of the imperial examinations became increasingly focused on "fairness and stability," and the usefulness or worthlessness of the test results was no longer of concern.

The result is a bunch of pedantic, self-important idiots.

When the world is stable and the main conflict is infighting among ourselves, these kinds of people don't seem problematic. But once a world of great strife arises and "international competition" is faced, their true nature as worthless is exposed.

If you're saying that studying too much makes you incapable of carrying heavy loads or doing martial arts, then so be it. After all, everyone has their own expertise, and those aren't jobs for scholars.

The key point is that they can't even do things as well as the barbarians who have little education, like strategizing. That's just too much to ask. Shouldn't that be the specialty of scholars?
After rebuking those useless bookworms and traitors, Wanyan Zongbi had no choice but to continue with the original rhythm, organizing a frontal assault without any fancy moves.

After several more days of preparation, the final offensive could finally begin.

Batch after batch of heavy siege ladders were pushed forward by countless cannon fodder soldiers, supervised by the Jurchen elites who had caused Arubu's death that day—Wanyan Zongbi was not stupid. His harsh words that day were ultimately just to enforce military law, so that the cavalry would not actually be allowed to charge directly into the front line. It was already good enough that they could serve as the front-line supervisory team.

Of course, the Jurchen cavalry were not as "only capable of mounted combat and not foot combat" as many later readers might think. Those heavily armored Iron Pagoda soldiers could dismount and go up the city walls to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Moreover, these soldiers were generally very strong, and some could even wear double layers of iron armor for foot combat.

This is similar to the situation when the Qing army fought against the Ming army in later generations. The Eight Banners warriors in the Qing army often wore two sets of cloth-covered iron armor to fight, making them look like iron men.

As the siege ladders and battering rams advanced, logs, stones, and crossbow bolts rained down from the city walls as if they were free.

From time to time, cannon fodder soldiers pushing the ladders were shot down and crushed to death, their heads bleeding and brains splattering, creating a gruesome scene. However, the armored soldiers supervising the battle, and even the structure of the ladder carts themselves, remained largely unaffected, slowly and steadily advancing forward.

When Wanyan Zongbi's generals saw this, they all praised him for his thorough and steady deployment, noting that he had built such a sturdy siege ladder that it remained unmoved despite the frenzied impact of rolling logs and rocks.

However, some strategists felt that the previous preparations had been somewhat sluggish, and that the siege ladders were too heavy-duty. They believed that if they had been made lighter, they could have pushed them faster and spent fewer days and resources.

To this short-sighted view, Wanyan Zongbi rebuked him directly: "What do you short-sighted fools know! The Song people's firearms have become formidable in the last two years! I have already seen that this Zhao Zicheng has long harbored rebellious intentions!"
Have you all forgotten that at the beginning of the year, when he went to the Jin camp to assassinate my second brother, during the final breakout, he not only had several divine weapons that shot lead bullets with fire, but also a weapon that was far more powerful than the common thunderbolts of the Song people?

If he hadn't used those few bombs to scatter the armored spearmen blocking the camp gate, could they have even broken through? At the beginning of the month, when crossing the Si River, Arubu was killed by Yue Fei. The soldiers who reported back said that Yue Fei had again used that miraculous weapon that fired lead bullets. Since he had lead bullet firearms, he must also have those much more powerful thunderclap bombs! If the siege ladders aren't made sturdier and thicker, how can they withstand the Song army's firearms!

Wanyan Zongbi's words immediately convinced all the doubters in the army. Everyone was of one mind and bowed down in unison to congratulate him, saying, "The Fourth Prince is wise. We are far inferior to him!"

There were indeed some knowledgeable people in the Jin army, quite a few of them. Zhao Zicheng said that grenades were used during the breakout. Although Wanyan Zongbi did not witness it directly, he was in the camp that day and heard the grenade explosion. He later rushed to the scene of the explosion and saw the horrific scene of the Jin soldiers killed by the explosion. Of course, he could roughly estimate the power of the Song grenades.

Unfortunately, he did not witness the actual grenade, and almost none of the Jin soldiers noticed what it looked like; all those who witnessed it were killed in the explosion. Therefore, Wanyan Zongbi could not estimate the grenade's true size.

Perhaps in his mind, the Song people could only make the thunderbolt that big. Maybe when breaking out in mobile warfare, they would bring a smaller one, but even if it was big, there was still a limit, and the cost of gunpowder must have been very high.

……

On the walls of Xuzhou, Yue Fei did not immediately reveal the power of the new bombs. He continued to use rolling logs, stones, and crossbows to kill the enemy, just to wear down the Jin soldiers for a while longer and prevent them from being scared away immediately.

Although Yue Fei had never studied economics and was unaware of economic concepts such as "loss aversion" and "sunk cost," his basic understanding of military strategy taught him that "the more losses the enemy incurs, the less willing they will be to give up." He knew that if he inflicted too much damage on Wanyan Zongbi, Wanyan might simply flee.

So even though the Jurchen vanguard was rushing forward one after another, Yue Fei chose to personally lead the team to block the breach. He wielded a double-hooked iron spear, whirling it up and down and sweeping it left and right. The soldiers around him also used long-handled battle axes to chop and hack fiercely. Even if Jurchen armored soldiers rushed up, they were quickly cut down.

Those who weren't killed on the spot had their armor plates torn apart by the heavy axes, and were then propelled off the city walls by the immense force. The extra weight and inertia from the iron armor ensured that anyone falling would surely die.

The Song Dynasty's imperial guards had already phased out the Han Dynasty's horse-slaying sword and the Tang Dynasty's long-handled broadsword, but they hadn't developed corresponding, newer, powerful long-range slashing weapons to counter cavalry. This might be because Song soldiers were generally physically weaker and unable to wield heavy long weapons, relying instead on spears and other thrusting weapons to deal with cavalry. Against heavily armored cavalry, spears and lances were insufficient, which is the main reason why Yue Fei developed the use of iron staffs, long-handled axes, and hook-and-sickle spears to counter the Iron Pagoda (a type of cavalry unit), a stopgap measure devised by the Song people in emergency wartime situations.

In this life, Yue Fei encountered the Jin army's armored soldiers again. Since restoring the Tang Mo Dao was too troublesome, he adapted to the situation and created a combination of hook-and-sickle spear and long-handled axe, just like the original inertia of history.

Moreover, although long-handled axes are somewhat bulky, they are easy to switch production to, and the axe blades can also be made from high-quality water-forged steel. Even if one finds that using too much high-quality steel in the axe is problematic, the steel-clad method can be used; these are not issues.

Zhao Zicheng had been farming in Goryeo for many years and also owned metallurgical and forging factories in Jiangdong and Denglai. He could easily mass-produce high-quality forged steel long-handled axes for Yue Fei, and he could produce as many as he wanted.

At this moment, these long-handled heavy weapons, which had been effective against the Jin soldiers in their armor, were finally ready to be used to their full potential.

Under Yue Fei's leadership, even if a small number of the Jurchen's elite armored troops managed to break through the ranks of cannon fodder, they could not gain a foothold and instead resorted to piecemeal tactics.

The Song army's crossbows and rolling logs and stones relentlessly wounded the Jin soldiers, turning the Jin's outer cannon fodder units into a meat grinder, causing increasingly heavy losses. Seeing that morale was about to plummet, Wanyan Zongbi finally gritted his teeth and decided to launch a full-scale assault on the city, deploying an all-armored force composed entirely of Jurchen and Xi people.

Thousands of Jurchen elite infantrymen, armed with their best armor, began to line up and form ranks a few hundred paces from the walls of Xuzhou. Several renowned warriors, known for their bravery, personally supervised the battle. As the fighting ahead reached its climax, Wanyan Zongbi gave the order, and these elite Jin infantrymen charged forward with a thunderous roar.

Seeing that the Jin army's heavily armored troops had been committed to the attack, Wang Gui and Yue Fan became restless. Taking advantage of Yue Fei's personal supervision of the battle and the repulsion of a wave of enemy soldiers scaling the city walls, Yue Fan hurriedly advised, "Fifth Brother, quickly have Lei Shou throw thunderbolts down from the city walls!"

Yue Fei squinted and stared intently into the distance for a while, then raised his hand: "No rush! Wait until the vanguard of this group charges up the city wall and engages our army in battle, then throw grenades to blow up their ladders! Cut off their rear!"

"See that? The Jurchens are pressing forward with the Meng'an banners. In this kind of desperate battle, even if the Jurchen generals don't lead the charge themselves, they at least have to fight alongside the vanguard. Let's see if any of the Jurchens have particularly well-equipped armor; let a few get onto the city walls before using the blasting!"

After listening to his brother's analysis, Yue Fan calmed down a bit and said he would definitely wait for the right opportunity before taking action.

After a brief pause, the bloody battle on the city walls resumed its fierce fighting. The elite armored Jurchen troops quickly charged forward.

Yue Fei deliberately chose a point that seemed relatively easy to breach, personally overseeing the operation and instructing his soldiers to fight and retreat in an orderly manner. He intentionally left an opening, allowing hundreds of Jurchen soldiers to rush in through this breach and occupy a fortified position.

With Yue Fei personally overseeing the situation, the situation is absolutely under control. Moreover, his four thousand veteran soldiers, who had fought against Goguryeo and Japan, are highly coordinated and united, which is why they were able to fight so well.

If it were the local troops of Jingdong Road who had only been in command for a few months and were still in the adjustment period, Yue Fei would never have dared to do such a thing.

Yue Fan's cooperation was also excellent. As Yue Fei's younger brother, he may have lacked strategic vision, but he was absolutely thorough in carrying out his brother's orders without any hesitation.

Seeing that the Jin soldiers were completely stuck, Yue Fei's elite soldiers finally lit the fuse of the extra-large thunderbolt and then pushed it off the city wall with great force!
Wanyan Zongbi miscalculated. The grenade he heard about in the Jin camp that day was only the size of a melon. But the behemoth that was violently pushed down the city wall today was at least a bit bigger than a basketball, capable of holding more than ten jin of refined black powder, and with its grooved iron casing, it weighed more than thirty jin.

Its power was at least seven or eight times greater than what Wanyan Zongbi had heard that day.

"boom!"

"Boom! Boom!"

The giant iron ball fell seven or eight steps outside the city and then exploded violently. The attacking Jurchens were completely stunned by the blast, and most of them didn't even have time to be stunned for long. In less than a second, they were either torn in the middle by the flying iron fragments or had their arms and legs severed by the fragments.

In an instant, blood and flesh flew everywhere, brains splattered, and many more soldiers suffered internal organ damage from the blast pressure of the gunpowder explosion.

Anyone within three steps of the blast point, even if not hit by shrapnel, would have their internal organs shattered and die instantly.

Even if the internal organs are not shattered, there will definitely be lacerations and severe internal bleeding within five or six steps. Although you won't die on the spot, whether you can survive the rest of the time depends on fate. There was no surgical technology in this era, and even minor internal bleeding might not be able to be stopped by a doctor.

Zhao Zicheng explained that the reason he didn't add more explosive charge when overseeing the production of this heavy defensive mine wasn't due to technical issues, but purely out of fear of accidental damage. A mine weighing over thirty jin (approximately 15 catties), combined with the height of the city wall, could, upon landing, land at least seven or eight steps, or even more than ten steps, away from the wall. This level of power wouldn't be enough to damage the wall.

If more explosives are loaded, the range of the projectiles pushed off the wall will be shorter, perhaps landing in just three or four steps. With increased power, it may accidentally injure friendly troops on the city wall, or cause some damage to the city wall, leading to the peeling off of bricks or rammed earth.

Therefore, a charge of around ten pounds is the most economical. It won't damage the city walls, but it's more than enough to deal with heavy wooden siege weapons.

Even if you used a tree trunk as thick as a person's embrace to build the pillars of the ladder, it would definitely break if it were hit by this kind of bomb at close range.

Faced with the intense explosive firepower, the Jin army's assault force was completely disoriented. Those who survived and hadn't yet charged forward all abandoned their weapons and shields and fled as fast as they could.

As for the comrades who fell into the city after the siege ladders were blown up, and the comrades who were still fighting on the walls, who cares about them?

One of the Jin soldiers, Meng'an, was just moments before gloating, thinking, "Yue Fei is nothing special. I actually managed to break through such a large gap. At least a hundred elite armored soldiers have already established a foothold on the city wall. Xuzhou City is definitely ours this time."

The next moment, he was shocked to find that his retreat was cut off. Several ladders behind him had been blown up and destroyed, and the soldiers already on the city wall were all stunned. In particular, some of the desperate soldiers actually threw down their weapons and knelt down to surrender.

Such a move was almost unheard of among the elite armored troops of the Jurchen people.

The Jin soldier Meng An was furious and almost stepped out to kill the few cowards who had surrendered, but he had no time to do so. Yue Fei's pressure had already made it impossible for the Jin soldiers to breathe.

Yue Fei personally led the elite Song army to charge forward. Not all the Jin soldiers, who were already trapped in a desperate struggle, dared to fight back. After Yue Fei broke through their lines and killed the Jin soldier Meng'an with a single spear thrust, the remaining fifty or sixty Jin soldiers in armor actually surrendered in public.

After all, no one has the courage to confront gunpowder explosive weapons of unknown power; this is not something that can be solved by bravery and military law alone.

After beheading Meng'an, Yue Fei had someone bring a flagpole and hoist the helmet into the air, then forced the surrendered soldiers to shout along with the Song army's taunters.

"Wanyan Zongbi! My king has decreed that anyone below the rank of Daifu will be promoted three ranks for killing a Meng'an. Anyone above the rank of Daifu will be promoted one rank for killing a Meng'an! Your grandfather-in-law is here! Quickly send more heads to help your grandfather get promoted! If you all die under the walls of Xuzhou, your grandfather can become Grand Commandant this year!"

Seeing this scene from afar and hearing the Song people's curses, Wanyan Zongbi was filled with rage and almost fell off his horse in anger.

(End of this chapter)