One Piece of Song Dynasty

Song Qinzong asked himself, since he succeeded to the throne, there has not been a day when he has not been conscientious in planning important affairs of the court. He has never been lazy for a day. Suddenly the figures of the soldiers guarding the city appeared again. They were shivering with cold, their fingers were frozen, and they could hardly hold their weapons. Some even fainted in the snow from the cold.

Song Qinzong took off his shoes and socks, walked out of the hall, and knelt barefoot on the snow. He prayed to heaven to have mercy, stop snowing, and let it become sunny and warm as soon as possible.

The snow is still falling, but it seems to be getting lighter. Song Qinzong felt that the sky seemed to be really sensitive. He returned to the main hall and issued an edict again: We must find a way to deliver more kapok jackets to the soldiers guarding the city, and we must find a way to make the soldiers feel warm.

As a result, there was an endless stream of officials and migrant workers going to the city wall to deliver condolences. They not only brought various items to the soldiers, but also brought the emperor's deep concern for them. The soldiers who defended the city were moved to tears. They all said that they would not be afraid of hardship and tiredness, and would defend the city of Tokyo to the death.

Since King Qin's army was nowhere to be seen, the Song army often sent guards down to the city to challenge the Jin people since the siege, in order to show their courage to fight. Hundreds of people went into battle each time. Although they also obtained many golden heads, they also paid the price of losing more than half. The city guards were the main force defending the city with relatively strong combat effectiveness, but thousands of them had been killed at this time. The rest of the city-defending troops were all temporarily organized militiamen with poor combat effectiveness and discipline.

Since the Jin army attacked the city, its focus has been on the southeastern area of ​​​​the city. Because the city walls in this area are relatively low, the defensive facilities are relatively weak. The Jin people have been filling the Hulong River with firewood, soil and other debris. The south bank of the river has been piled into mountains by them, and they are gradually encroaching on the north bank of the river.

Among them, two towers are closest to the Dragon Guard River and are in the most critical condition. One is the Weizihao city tower, and the other is the Naizihao city tower. Whenever the Jin people moved earth to fill the river and advanced towards the two towers, the Song troops guarding the seven towers next to and nearby rushed to fire arrows and cannon stones. Each time they fired, thousands of arrows and cannon stones were fired. . However, most of them miss the golden man and often give up. At this time, if anyone dares to stand up and stop him, everyone will definitely accuse him of being a spy and kill him together. A large number of people participated in the shooting of the Song Army. After each shooting, everyone asked for rewards. Although the reward officer verbally agreed, he refused to do it, and the soldiers were very dissatisfied.

After the Song army's shooting on the city ended, the Jin people began to fill the river again under the cover of artillery fire, and continued to advance towards the city tower.

Most of the facilities such as the oar towers on the city were destroyed by Jin artillery fire. To repair every pillar and branch, you need to pay generous rewards to recruit craftsmen, because the risk is very high. Some craftsmen were hit by cannons and their heads were shattered shortly after they arrived at the city; some were hit by stray arrows and their entire bodies were pierced through pillars. Now, people are afraid of losing their lives. No matter how generous the reward is, no one is willing to climb the building to carry out construction work. The generals who defended the city had no choice but to force the craftsmen to come to repair it.

At this time, someone suggested that masonry walls could be used instead of building oars. This way the construction is easier and can still play a defensive role. The generals accepted the suggestion.

On November th, the snow stopped and the sky was sunny. Although the cold wind was still biting, Song Qinzong was still in high spirits. He felt that maybe his sincerity really moved the sky. He put on his armor again and went to the city to inspect and condolences to the defenders. He had two ideas when he went to the city this time: first, he wanted to wait until dark, so that his guards could go down to the city to fight with the Jin people, thereby testing the guards, and the victor would be rewarded with silk; second, he wanted to inspect the artillery situation. .

Song Qinzong first came to Dongshui Gate, also known as Tongjin Gate, where the fighting was fierce, to express condolences and appease the soldiers and people who were guarding here day and night. Then he ventured up to the tower. He wanted to personally observe the situation of the Jin army outside the city. Suddenly, he was shocked to find that more than half of the Hulong River outside the city had been filled in by the Jin army. He asked Li Zhuo, the official who guarded the promotion, "What's going on?"

Li Zhuo was originally a member of Zhongshushe, and at this time he served as the promotion officer of the south wall. He ate and lived on the tower every day, but he built the place where he sat and slept as luxurious as the Yange Hotel. He drinks and makes tea with his colleagues here every day, plays the piano or laughs, and gets drunk sometimes. The guards Sun Fu, Wang Zonglio and Prime Minister He Li all knew about this situation. But none of them asked, and the soldiers all sighed with regret. He Qingyuan, the commander of Benbi, once reported to Li Zhuo: "The enemy has built a wooden barrier bridge to cross the river, and the bridge will be completed. Please do like the north wall, use a chariot and crossbow to fire rockets at the cave house under the city, so that the enemy's cave house cannot be hidden. If there are people, then the bridge will not be completed." However, Li Zhuo did not adopt it, causing the Hulong River to be gradually filled up by the Jin army, and was about to be filled into a bridge.

When Liu Yanqing was guarding this gate, he put bundles of rosin in an iron basin, lit them and hung them on the tower, and the fire shone through the outside of the city. At the same time, the defense is strengthened. Once the golden man is found crossing the river, arrows and cannons will be fired. Therefore, the Jin army was never able to reach outside the city. However, after Li Zhuo took charge of guarding the south wall, the defense was weakened. Sometimes there was no fire at night and it was dark outside the city, so the Jin army took the opportunity to fill in the river.

Emperor Qinzong of the Song Dynasty was furious after learning the truth. He immediately ordered Li Zhuo to be removed from his post and ordered Tian Hao to replace him.

At this time, a general came over and reported: "The artillery fired a cannon just now, and it hit a golden gold medal general, probably Wang Ru." After a while, someone else came to report: "The one who was hit was Liu An, the adviser of the Jin people."

Ministers such as He Li, Sun Fu, Wang Zongliu, and other generals who accompanied Song Qinzong during the inspection were very excited and congratulated each other. Emperor Qinzong of the Song Dynasty turned his anger into joy and ordered that the cannon supervisors be rewarded with the official title of martial arts master and a gold belt.

Song Qinzong asked Liu Yanqing: "Liu Shou, what do you think of the situation?"

Liu Yanqing replied: "The ministers who said that the city is unbreakable are all deceiving the imperial court. What happened today is very dangerous." Then, Liu Yanqing said: "The minister only knew how to report victory to your majesty, but had no foresight. The defense will probably win. You can only protect yourself. If you are not victorious, then why not congratulate you?"

When Song Qinzong heard this, he suddenly became melancholy again.

At this moment, a minister hurried over and reported to Song Qinzong: "Your Majesty, the Jin envoy Xiao Qing has entered the city again."

As soon as Song Qinzong heard that the Jin envoy had arrived again, he immediately decided to suspend the inspection and quickly returned to the palace. He ordered Mo Chuan and Gao Shishang to continue to serve as accompanying envoys, and first arranged for Xiao Qing and other gold envoys to be sent to Dutingyi to learn more about their purpose of coming this time.