The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 231 Coward
The third year of Jianyan in the Southern Song Dynasty, the seventh year of Tianhui in the Jin Dynasty, June 1129 AD!

Yanjing.

Yanjing, which is modern-day Beijing, was an important military base of the Jin Dynasty. The Jin Dynasty's right deputy marshal, Talai (Wanyan Chang), led a large army to station here, which enabled him to control the North China region and attack the Song Dynasty at any time.

Like Qin Hui before the Jingkang Incident, Talai was still a staunch advocate of war, who was determined to defeat the Song Dynasty and completely destroy it as soon as possible so that he could drink from the South China Sea.

At this time, he did not know that a year later he would become a ridiculous peace advocate like Qin Hui after the Jingkang Incident.

"Has the new catapult been successfully manufactured?" Talai asked the craftsman kneeling in the hall.

"Success!" The craftsman was actually a Han Chinese, an outstanding craftsman who was captured by the Jin Kingdom during the Jingkang Incident. He had been living a good life in Bianjing City with his wife and children, but he never expected that when the country changed, his wife would be slept with by the Jin people, and he would become a slave of the Jin people. Now he had a knife at his neck, forcing him to make weapons for the Jin people.

He drooped his eyelids and said, "I carefully studied the blueprints General Guwei brought back and spent two months successfully producing it."

Ta La was delighted: "Very good, I will give you five strings of cash."

The craftsman cursed in his heart: Only five strings of cash, I will marry your mother.

Gu Wei, who was sitting next to him, was also delighted: "With this, we don't have to worry about the palace thieves' new catapults anymore. Hehe, this time I'll bring my new catapult and smash the palace thieves to pieces."

Then he suddenly remembered something: "What about firearms? The kind that shoots out lead bullets with a bang. Have you ever successfully imitated them?"

Another artisan, kneeling in the hall, said pitifully, "We did imitate the design and made a firearm. It's very simple, just an iron tube. But there's something wrong with the gunpowder. When our gunpowder is ignited, it smokes with a hiss and burns away. There's no 'bang' sound, and it can't propel the lead bullet."

Gu Wei was furious: "You can't even replicate something this simple? What use are you?"

The craftsman cursed inwardly: "You say it's easy? If you can do it, then do it!"
The craftsman cursed inwardly, but could only say obediently, "I think their gunpowder must have some special ingredients added to it. I've been mixing various materials into the gunpowder and trying to ignite it, but there's been no progress so far."

Gu Wei was curious: "What did you mix in to try it?"

Craftsman: "Bat's wings, mouse's whiskers, wasp's tail sting, heartbreak grass, red spider lily, red crane's crown, seven-step heartbreak powder, half-step smile, cinnabar, lily of the valley, silver powder, catkins, agarwood..."

Gu Wei: "I always feel like something is wrong, but I can't put my finger on it."

The craftsman spread his hands and laughed in his heart: I am just doing this on purpose. Even if the research is successful, you will only reward me with five strings of cash. It would be stupid for me to work hard for you on research.

Gu Wei: "Forget it, it doesn't matter if I don't have firearms. As long as I have the new catapult, I can defeat that palace thief."

He turned around and said to Talan, "Marshal, please give me 10,000 Jurchen warriors to capture the Jiaodong Peninsula during this attack on Song."

Talan shook his head: "I can't give you ten thousand."

Gu Wei: “Ah?”

Talan said, "The most important purpose of this attack on Song is to capture Zhao Gou. Our main force will have to cross the Yangtze River and search the mountains and seas. This will require a large amount of manpower and material resources. We don't have any extra troops to give you to attack the Jiaodong Peninsula."

Guwei pouted and was unhappy, but he had no way to resist because searching the mountains and seas to capture Zhao Gou was the grand strategy of the Jin Dynasty, and it was impossible to destroy the national strategy in order to let Guwei take revenge.

Gu Wei: "Then give me at least 500 Iron Pagodas!"

Talai: "The Iron Pagoda is the most important unit in our army. It would be a waste to use it on the palace thieves."

Gu Wei: "The palace thieves have firearms that can penetrate armor and shatter shields at a distance of ten feet. Only the heavy armor of the Iron Buddha can resist."

Talan: "Don't you have a shield cart to block firearms?" Guwei: "Shield carts are difficult to move and can only be used to shield infantry, not cavalry."

Talan fell into deep thought...

Guwei was right. Shield carts could only cooperate with infantry, but not with cavalry.

Guwei was defeated in the last battle and brought back several corpses of Jin soldiers. They took out lead bullets from the corpses. After seeing the thing, the high-ranking officials of the Jin Dynasty were greatly shocked. It was unbelievable that Haner could actually shoot such a thing ten feet away, and it could penetrate light armor and kill Jurchen warriors.

This thing is really difficult to resist with conventional armor. Only the heavy armor of the Iron Pagoda may be able to block it.

After thinking it over, Talai waved his hand and said, "I can only give you three hundred iron pagodas."

Gu Wei was overjoyed: "That's enough."

In his opinion, the three hundred iron pagodas are invincible in the world!

Talai said, "Don't rush in recklessly just because you have three hundred Iron Pagodas. During the last attack on Song, someone on the Song side had already figured out a way to deal with the Iron Pagodas, causing us some losses. We are currently trying to find a way to control them."

Guwei Daqi: "What can the Song State do?"

Talai: "The Song army began using something called the Divine Arm Bow, which could penetrate the armor of the Iron Buddha at a distance of less than three meters."

Gu Wei was shocked: "Huh?"

Talai: "Fortunately, this thing is extremely expensive, and the Song army has not yet been able to mass-produce it. The Song craftsmen we captured said that the Shenbi bow requires mountain mulberry wood, sandalwood, and copper, and these materials alone are very expensive. As for the arrows used in the Shenbi bow, they are made of birch, and the arrow shaft must be naturally air-dried for at least two years. The feathers must be made of wild goose feathers because they are moderately hard and resistant to deformation. The cost of a single Shenbi bow arrow is 200 coins."

Gu Wei was shocked by the cost: "If the enemy has 500 archers, wouldn't they shoot away 100 strings of cash with one volley?"

Talan said, "Yes, that's why the Song army can't afford it right now, but sooner or later they will sell everything they have to build an army like this. By then, it will be much harder for us to defeat the Song. We must capture Zhao Gou and destroy the Song before the Song has such an army."

Guwei now understood why the top leaders were so eager to capture Zhao Gou and destroy the Song Dynasty.

Gu Wei said, "No matter how good something is, it still needs people to use it. Even with those cowards in the Song State, even if we gave them divine bows and sharp arrows, they would still collapse at the first touch."

Ta Lazy: "That makes sense, hahaha. The Song Kingdom is full of cowards. It's not difficult to deal with them. Even if we give them magic weapons, they are no match for our Jin Kingdom."

Are all the people in Song State cowards?

Really?
At this time, the young general Yue Fei, who had just returned to Kaifeng after suppressing the bandits, received an order from Du Chong, the governor of Tokyo, to abandon Kaifeng Prefecture and evacuate south.

Yue Fei bitterly advised Du Chong: "We cannot give up an inch of the Central Plains. If we take a step forward now, this land will be gone. If we want to take it back in the future, we must sacrifice hundreds of thousands of men."

Du Chong said, "I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it."

Yue Fei had no choice but to lead the guerrillas south.

There is not a single coward in his guerrilla army!

not a single one!

(End of this chapter)