Wei Ming Jizhong stood on a high post stationed on the horse, surrounded by young generals such as Wuzang Anhuan, Wei Muyanping, Nuo Yi Xinghai, Du Luoqing, Dong Mingzhao, and Wu Yi Dage. At this time, Wei Ming Jizhong frowned and looked at the battle situation in front of him. I smiled bitterly in my heart, too much time has passed in peace, and the invincible Great White Gaoguo in the past is now like a toothless tiger, and it has long lost its bravery.

Wei Ming Jizhong is more than 65 years old this year, he was known for his bravery when he was young, and he once added the great war with the Jin State that year, and his prestige in the Western Xia military was quite impressive, and he was respected by the younger generation of soldiers as Wei Ming Linggong.

This time to attack the Southern Song Dynasty, Wei Ming Jizhong was also one of the staunch supporters. In addition to the two reasons of forming a good alliance with the Jin State and taking the opportunity to weaken Ren Dejing's forces, in Wei Ming Jizhong's view, there is another purpose, that is, to restore the combat effectiveness of the Great White High Kingdom in the past.

Jingzong Li Yuanhao may not be as good as Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty and Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, but he can definitely be called an emperor immediately.

However, since Chongzong Li Qianshun succeeded to the throne, the Western Xia implemented Sinology and gradually began to embark on the road of cultural governance, and after Li Renxiao succeeded to the throne, he vigorously promoted Confucianism in the country, strengthened the cultural governance, and blindly obeyed the Jin State to the outside world, and married the Southern Song Dynasty.

Wei Ming Jizhong didn't know what the so-called sage avenue was, but he clearly realized that no matter how rich the country was, if it was not supported by strong force, it would not be peaceful at all, and the Southern Song Dynasty was a ready-made example. Therefore, he has repeatedly advised Li Renxiao to reorganize his armament in case of accidents. On the contrary, it made Li Renxiao unhappy, so that he was dismissed from his post and stayed at home for several years.

It was only later that Ren Dejing's influence in the Western Xia became bigger and bigger, and Li Renxiao was forced to reactivate Wei Ming Jizhong, appointing him as the envoy of the Baojing Army, staying in Jingzhou, and taking charge of Shunzhou, Huaizhou and other places, and handed over the most elite cavalry "Iron Harrier" in Western Xia to Wei Ming Jizhong, hoping to use his prestige in the army to suppress Ren Dejing's anger.

Sure enough, after the recovery of Wei Mingjizhong, the military power was immediately stabilized. So that Li Renxiao has the capital to deal with Ren Dejing until now. And Wei Ming Jizhong has also become Ren Dejing's confidant, but Wei Ming Jizhong himself has quite prestige in the army, and the army is very strict, which also makes Ren Dejing unable to interfere. Although there are not many troops under his jurisdiction, Jingzhou, where he is stationed, is less than 20 miles away from Qingxing Mansion, the capital of Western Xia, and the same inch "Iron Harrier" is the most elite cavalry in Western Xia, so the Ren clan has to be afraid of him for three points.

However, Li Renxiao used Wei Ming Jizhong, just hoping to use his prestige and ability to contain Ren Dejing, and did not have the idea of reorganizing the army from then on, and after Wei Ming Jizhong took office, he also found that Ren's power was too great, and he was above the monarch through the warp, and Ren did not get rid of it, and there was no way to start other things. Therefore, there was no time to persuade the emperor to strengthen the military, and in the past six or seven years, he has been busy fighting openly and secretly with the Ren family.

Two years ago, at the request of the Jin State, the Western Xia sent troops to assist the Jin State in attacking the Southern Song Dynasty, but the leader of the Ren clan was defeated by the Song army, and its prestige fell sharply. While Wei Ming Jizhong was happy, he couldn't help but sigh in his heart, he couldn't imagine that the combat effectiveness of the Western Xia Army was so weak.

After the Jin State once again asked the Western Xia to attack the Southern Song Dynasty, Wei Ming Jizhong thought that this was a great opportunity to revive the armaments of the Western Xia, so he also strongly persuaded Li Renxiao to send troops. And Li Renxiao also wanted to take the opportunity to weaken Ren Dejing's power, so he appointed Wei Ming Jizhong as the commander of the Southern Army of Zhuo Luohe and led the army to attack Lanzhou.

However, Wei Ming Jizhong also knew that the Western Xia army had been peaceful for too long, and he had not experienced a battle formation for a long time, and many soldiers had never seen blood with Ben Lian until now, let alone killed people. Therefore, at the beginning of the year, Wei Ming Jizhong did not dare to mobilize a large army to attack, but assigned a team of thousands of people to take turns to kill the Yellow River and plunder the villages on the border of the Southern Song Dynasty. On the other hand, it is also to test Song Jun's reaction.

A few months later, the two sides won and lost each other, and the Song army's rotational attack on the Western Xia army basically adopted the tactics of Bino Chunjian, rather than sending troops to counterattack, so Wei Ming Jizhong was also quite relieved. After the autumn, Ma Fei was a good time for the Western Xia army, which was dominated by cavalry, to send troops, so Wei Ming Jizhong led an army of 120,000 people, killed the Yellow River, and began to invade Lanzhou.

Nazhi faced the large-scale attack of the Western Xia, but the Song army all retreated into the city to defend, which made Wei Ming Jizhong a big headache, because the siege ability of the Western Xia army has not been strong, as early as the time of Jingzong Li Yuanhao, although the Western Xia army repeatedly defeated the Song army in field battles, but when the Song army retreated into the city to defend, it was helpless. Even if you take a city, you often have to pay a great price. Li Yuanhao's son, Yizong Li Liliang was shot by the Song army's strong crossbow when he attacked Dashun City, and a few months later, he was seriously injured and died.

And after nearly forty years of peace, the combat effectiveness of the Western Xia army has been greatly reduced, and in the field battle, it may be possible to rely on the cavalry army for a while, but after entering the siege war, the Western Xia army still has no way. It took a lot of effort to capture a small Jingyu Pass, and in the face of Lanzhou City, which was far more than the Jingyu Pass in terms of city walls and troops, the Western Xia army was even more helpless, and attacked for several days in a row, dismantling thousands of troops, but it seemed that there was no trace of capturing Lanzhou.

Today's siege battle seems to be in vain.

At this time, the drums were beating one after another, and the Western Xia army was still struggling to climb to the head of the city, and the Western Xia army under the city also followed one team after another to the city wall. The bowstring on the head of the city sounded loudly, and the locust-like feathered arrows shot down from the city wall, sweeping towards the Western Xia army like a storm. Constantly people fall from arrows and never get up again. And the Western Xia soldiers who attacked the city wall were constantly beaten down by the condescending Song army, and fell to the city wall like fallen leaves.

However, no one dared to take half a step back, because everyone knew that the name of the army was extremely strict, and the more than 100 bloody human heads that were now placed in front of the battle also reminded the soldiers of what was the fate of retreating from the battle.

The roar of the feather arrow clearly reached the high post, and the miserable screams also reached the high post clearly. Blood stained the earth, and the corpses of the soldiers were covered all over the ground, and by the edge of the wall, the bodies were piled up three or four feet high. Several generals of the Western Xia Army had never experienced such a scene as Tsuji, and some of them couldn't bear to watch it anymore.

At this time, Wei Mu Yanping, who was beside Wei Ming Jizhong, said softly: "Ling Gong, our losses are too great if we continue to attack like this, according to the last general, we will collect our troops today, right?" ”

Wei Ming Jizhong glanced at him, then looked back at a group of heavy armored cavalry behind Gao Gang, which was the famous "Iron Harrier" in the Western Xia army.

"Iron Harrier" is a cavalry unit formed by Jingzong Li Yuanhao back then, and it is also the most elite cavalry unit in Western Xia. The whole team was equipped with the best quality war horses and the best armor, and the total number of people was 3,000 people, divided into ten teams.

Although the "Iron Harrier" has only 3,000 people in terms of establishment, in fact, each "Iron Harrier" must also be equipped with three servants and two spare war horses, which is actually a huge army with a scale of more than 10,000 people. Those who can serve as "Iron Harriers" are not only carefully selected elite soldiers, but also only the children of nobles of the major clans of the party can be appointed, so their loyalty is absolutely reliable.

In terms of heavy armor, the "Iron Harrier" is more than the "Iron Float", the armor of the knight and the horse is connected as a whole, all equipped with thick armor, the weight of a full set of armor can reach 400 catties, and the knight and the horse need to be supported in service. And even if the knight is shot, as long as the horse is alive, the knight will not fall off the horse.

Because of this, the "Iron Harrier" must use a horse with a horseback of more than five feet and five inches, otherwise it will not be able to afford heavy armor at all, and only the Western Xia, which has a rich production of good horses, can form such a cavalry army, even if it is the Great Liao in the past and the Dajin today, there are no such conditions.

At the same time, there is also a weapon fixed to the armor of the warhorse, which will cause damage to the enemy as the horse runs. The impact force is extremely strong when charging at full speed on the battlefield, so the combat effectiveness is extremely strong, and it played a very important role in the previous Western Xia's war against the Song Dynasty.

This time, Wei Ming Jizhong sent troops to attack the Southern Song Dynasty, bringing 1,500 "iron harriers", and the other half stayed in Xingqing Mansion to protect the emperor. Previously plundered the border of the Southern Song Dynasty, all the cavalry dispatched, Wei Ming Jizhong planned to fight a few tough battles with the Southern Song Dynasty this time, and used the "Iron Harrier" to impact the Song army's formation, but the Song army has been holding on to the battle, so far, the "Iron Harrier" has not been useful.

After hearing Wei Mu Yanping's words, Wei Ming Jizhong had no choice but to sigh lightly and said, "Collect the army." ”

Yang Changpeng, Cao Xun, Zhang Wenzhu and others watched the Western Xia army slowly retreat, leaving only hundreds of miscellaneous servants cleaning up the corpses on the battlefield. Although the post-war scene was bleak, several of them, including Zhang Wenzhu, were used to it, and they didn't feel anything. Although the casualties of the Song army were not large, there were also some corpses of Song soldiers who fell outside the battle, so Yang Changpeng also opened the city gate and released soldiers to carry back the corpses of Song soldiers.

Zhang Wenzhu suddenly asked, "When will Second Brother Yang come to Lanzhou?"

Yang Changpeng said: "It's the end of August now, and there is probably more than a month to go." ”

Cao Xun looked outside the city and muttered, "Western Xia soldiers, you still have more than a month to go, enjoy this last time." ”