"General, we can no longer hold it!!!"

Three hours, the war began for only three hours, and the Liao defenders of Yanmen Pass could no longer withstand it. You must know that they took more than five months to seize Yanmen Pass. Unexpectedly, five years after seizing Yanmen Pass, facing the Song army that came to counterattack, he did not even hold on for three months.

"No matter what, you will give me a push. It will take at least five days for the reinforcements to arrive at you."

"Impossible!" Faced with the general's request, the Khitan soldiers were simply crazy. How could they withstand it for five days? The troops in the city were bombarded by the Song army's artillery fire less than five miles away.

If the Song army hadn't wanted to destroy Yanmen Pass and did not use cannons to rush the pass, they might not have been able to withstand even three hours.

...

In the third year after Zhao Weiji ascended the throne, due to the disaster in Shanxi, a new policy was put on the stage of history, and this policy was made by Zhao Weiji for work-for-relief.

In the years since his ascension to the throne, in addition to the continuous establishment of private workshops, the imperial court also invested and built many workshops.

After all, some technologies may not be able to hand over to private individuals. These things must be monopolized by the state. At most, the private individuals can buy them from the state, but they cannot be produced privately.

Among them, the military industry is the top priority. Now the entire military industry in the Song Dynasty is controlled by the state. There is only a big problem that the military industry has always been in a semi-stagnant state because there are no workers.

In order to restore people's livelihood, basically all the workers who can be hired were hired by the people's livelihood industry, and Zhao Weiji of the military industry was not in a hurry to advance.

However, due to the emergence of the victims, this situation changed. Zhao Weiji proposed to the cabinet the method of using labor for relief, and hired all the people who were affected to the disaster to the military industry for production.

The Song Dynasty could also take this opportunity to quickly accumulate military strength and then start a retaliation plan for the Liao Kingdom. After all, there was not an emperor who had cheated like the Song Dynasty.

After the last war, the Liao Kingdom recovered its vitality much slower than the Song Dynasty. If it could equip a well-equipped army with a large number of hot weapons in a short period of time, it would be possible to easily take Yan Yun back while the Liao Kingdom was still weak and even make bigger plans.

So with the advancement of this plan, Zhao Weiji armed a 50,000 troops in two years. Not only did he carry a rifle, but he also had three thousand cannons and sufficient ammunition.

...

"I decided to attack Liao." Just as this army was equipped, Zhao Weiji announced the decision to attack Liao at the court meeting.

Surprisingly, no one objected to the decision to attack Liao this time. It was not because of Zhao Weiji's strength, but that everyone could guess the result of this battle in their hearts.

Five years ago, the Battle of Bianliang shocked the entire Song Dynasty court. It turned out that the war could be fought like this. The final result of that war. Zhao Weiji almost wiped out the Liao army that had besieged Bianjing for five months with more than a hundred rifles and dozens of cannons.

This is something that has never happened in the war against Liao when the Song Dynasty was established. After this war, it was officially announced that a new form of war officially entered the stage of history, that is, artillery war.

Five years ago, such equipment could have defeated the Liao Kingdom. Today, five years later, guns and cannons have armed an army of 50,000 people. No one has ever doubted whether the war will fail. What the ministers are worried about is how to govern it after Yan Yun is taken back.

When the court had no opinions on this battle, the generals to go to the expedition were naturally put on the center of discussion. Since the former first general was already sitting on the dragon throne.

The only ones left are Li Jilong, Li Jiguang and Yang Yanzhao who can be selected. However, the former famous general Li Jilong was first sent by the cabinet to a choice.

It was not because the people in the cabinet did not agree with him, but because Li Jilong was seriously ill at this time and it was difficult to get out of bed, let alone lead troops to fight.

Zhao Weiji had nothing to say about the cabinet's first exclusion of Li Jilong. He himself hoped that Li Jilong would become the main general of this grand event, but Zhao Weiji also knew that Li Jilong would die this year in history.

I originally thought that after I took the throne, the restoration of Li Jilong's military power would stimulate this famous general to live for a period of time than in history.

Unfortunately, Zhao Weiji, who has changed so much history, was unable to change a person's life span. Li Jilong died of illness on the eve of spring today. Zhao Weiji learned from this that his deadline was approaching.

Since Li Jilong was unable to lead troops to the war, only Li Jiguang and Yang Yanzhao were left. Originally, the cabinet ministers were more inclined to Li Jiguang. In addition to his status as a uncle, his brilliant record was also an important weight for his choice.

However, this time, Zhao Weiji was unexpectedly involved in the selection of the coach. Since the cabinet system gradually took shape, Zhao Weiji has rarely interfered in the cabinet's policy formulation, and he came forward only when the entire cabinet could not reach a unified opinion.

Unexpectedly, after the cabinet had already come up with a formal opinion, Zhao Weiji intervened. He rejected the cabinet's choice and forcibly appointed Yang Yanzhao as the head coach of the operation.

This made almost everyone unable to understand why, because this battle is basically a situation of victory. In this case, the coach who went to this battle will definitely make unparalleled achievements.

Since that's the case, why did Zhao Weiji take this opportunity away from Li Jiguang? You should know that Li Jiguang has been with him for many years and is still his brother-in-law.

Regarding this question, even Li Jiguang himself could not understand Zhao Weiji's actions. On the night after the appointment was issued, Li Jiguang went to the palace to find Zhao Weiji and wanted to ask what was going on.

However, just one hour after Li Jiguang entered the palace, he left the palace. There was no anger on his face when he left the palace, but instead he looked happy.

Many years later, Li Jiguang's son once asked him what the emperor said had made him such a big change. Li Jiguang said to his son: "At that time, His Majesty only said two words to me. The first sentence was: 'Yanzhao has been suffering for so many years.' The second sentence was: 'Is there only Yan Yun in your eyes?'"

...

So after the candidate for the commander was confirmed, the army set out. After the army set out, Yang Yanzhao did not go north with the easier Daming Prefecture, but set out to Yanmen Pass.

After the Battle of Chanyuan five years ago, although the Liao Kingdom gave up all the land it had obtained before, it did not give up Yanmen Pass. The guardian before Yanmen Pass was exactly Yang Yanzhao.

Before leaving, Zhao Weiji said this to Yang Yanzhao: "You have been holding it in for so many years, and it's time to vent your resentment. Go and take back your things."

It is precisely because of this sentence that Yang Yanzhao chose to march towards Yanmen Pass. As Zhao Weiji said, Yang Yanzhao has really been holding it in for many years.

During Yongxi's Northern Expedition, his father and brother died tragically but were powerless. Later, he could not wait to be used seriously. Even the soldier Li Jiguang of that year was still struggling between the first and second-tier generals when he had become the commander of the side.

Finally, he returned to Yanmen Pass to guard the battle, but at the last moment he failed and was taken down by the Khitans.

It can be said that Yang Yanzhao, who is nearly fifty years old, has never had a stage to prove himself. But now it is different. Zhao Weiji gave him such a stage.

Although this attack on the Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty can be said to have great magical calculations, this does not mean that any cat or dog can lead troops to the expedition.

If this is the case, the cabinet will not have to be very cautious about the candidates for the commander. This proves that once the victory of this war is worth a lot of value.

It is precisely because of this that Yang Yanzhao performed countless deductions on the battle before the army advanced to Yanmen Pass, and listed all the situations he could think of just in case.

However, when he arrived at Yanmen Pass, things were much simpler than he thought. The Liao people rushed out without thinking about anything.

This made all Yang Yanzhao’s previous plans was in vain.

However, because of this, Yang Yanzhao had the idea of ​​preserving the complete surname of Yanmen Pass, and avoided using cannons to directly bombard Yanmen Pass.

This also made the war last for three hours and still not over.

"Does the Liao general in the city still have no intention of surrender?" Seeing that three hours had passed, Yang Yanzhao asked the deputy general like this.

"It seems that there is no." The deputy general shook his head.

"That's it." Yang Yanzhao took out a pocket watch from his arms, looked at the time and gave an order to the deputy general: "Go again and persuade him to surrender again. If he does not abandon the city and surrender in another fifteen minutes, he will bombard the city gate."

After receiving the order, the deputy general found the messenger and issued the order.

Just in the 14th minute after the order was issued, the troops who were ready to fire received news that the Yanmen Pass defenders had abandoned the city and surrendered.

It turned out that although the guards still did not intend to surrender, the soldiers in the city could not withstand such despair. After the last call for persuasion, they made up their minds to open the city to surrender.

However, they did not use mutiny, but informed the guards and asked him to leave quickly and return to the Liao Dynasty to report the news of the Song army's invasion.

After seeing that the soldiers had decided to surrender, the guard stopped insisting. He quickly found a fast horse and left Yanmen Pass from the north to report the news to the Liao Kingdom.

The remaining soldiers opened the city gate just before the time limit given by Yang Yanzhao.
Chapter completed!