Taking advantage of the fact that the three princes were unconscious, the new army advanced for another twenty miles without stopping, and used the same method to end two walled forts in succession. When the sky in the east turned white, all the new army chariots and horses entered the walled fort to rest, and Shatuo City was already vividly visible.

Compared with Liangzhou City, Shatuo City can only be said to be a larger walled fort, or called Tuweizi. In the past, it was a granary for the Xixia people, and after the loss of Liangzhou City, the border between the two countries moved north, and it was only in the area of Lingbo Mountain and Shatuo City that it was changed into a border military fortress, stationed with more than 5,000 defenders of the Ying Li Military Division.

After Shatuo City, less than a hundred miles to the east is the location of the Western Xia Yingli Military Division, this military division is newly established, the original Zhuo Luo and the Southern Military Division, Xishou Baotai Military Division were disabled, simply join forces together, change the name to go to bad luck.

Since the armistice between the two countries, this area has been relatively calm, and the defenders of the Great Song Qinfeng Road on the opposite side are busy building walled forts in the border area, and they do not plan to continue to advance eastward.

Most of the Ying Li military divisions are new recruits, and they are not too afraid of the Song army on Qin Feng Road, but they are afraid of those Huangzhou troops behind Qin Feng Road, so they are also very cautious and try not to provoke border disputes.

The two sides have lived in peace for two years, and it seems that they have forgotten about the war a little. The Western Xia Emperor Li Yuanhao was right, he would rather be an enemy of the Song State than a friend of the Liao State. The people of the Song Kingdom are relatively mild, and they only know how to resist when they are in a hurry, and they usually lack aggression, so they are very good neighbors.

But they forgot that there was once a hungry wolf in sheep's clothing, more ruthless than the steppe wolf. Now this hungry wolf actually took advantage of the snow and the harsh winter to run out unconventionally, and successfully hid nearby. The shepherds of the steppes understand what happens if a hungry wolf gets too close to the flock.

For a whole day, except for Jiang Erlang's special forces disguised as Western Xia rangers and pretending to be vigilant around the walled forts, the new troops shrank in the two enemy walled forts and kept silent. In fact, Jiang Erlang didn't need to send people to guard, no one went out at all in this kind of ghost weather, and Shatuo City in the distance was like dead.

But as soon as it was dark, the new army immediately moved, divided into four squads from the northwest and slowly approached Shatuo City, half a mile away from the city before stopping, sending more than ten squads, each carrying a siege crossbow and a large wooden box.

"Everyone be careful, don't kill yourself before the enemy is hurt. This thing is a flame from hell, and whoever touches it is unlucky! ”

Hong Tao still hid at the end of the line with his four children, but he repeatedly told each herald that the big wooden box should be handled with care, and no sparks should be touched.

This siege is different from the past, even if it is attacked, it cannot be occupied, so Hong Tao chose a destructive play, and by the way, he also experimented with his newly invented weapon, arrow grenade!

Ammonium nitrate is synthesized and used for civilian use, so can it be used in the military? Hong Tao felt that he could try it, so he specially developed several ways to use it, and the ammonium nitrate was wrapped in wax paper into a cylinder and tied to the siege crossbow pole to launch one of them.

It is not very difficult for a siege crossbow to carry such a small paper tube, as long as it finds a good center of gravity and does not affect the range, how can it be thrown three hundred meters away.

There is a medicine twist behind the paper tube, which is connected to a black powder stick inside. This is the initiation device of the paper tube, the ammonium oil mixed with diesel fuel and paraffin is very stable, and even a little too stable, if you don't pick up the sledgehammer and chisel hard, there is no reaction at all, and the ordinary medicine twist can not be detonated, you can only use a big firecracker as a fuse.

The effect of the explosion was very satisfying, and the power of a cartridge thinner than a pickaxe exceeded that of a cast-iron thunderbolt with a larger charge.

If it weren't for the fact that it was not certain whether the ammonium nitrate and iron would be corrosive or cause a reaction in contact, Hong Tao would have planned to replace the thunderbolt with an ammonium oil charge. The trumpeter ones are thrown with siege crossbows, and the larger ones are hurled with trebuchets. If this one goes down, the shells that can't withstand the 155 cannons are about the same as the 80 guns.

In the middle of the night, he was suddenly awakened by a string of explosions, and the earth was even trembling, this is how the Western Xia defenders in Shatuo City felt. No one knew what was going on in the dark lights, and as soon as they walked out of the barracks, someone was knocked down by horses scurrying around.

The horse ring was blown up, where did the war horse hear such a loud movement, the only thought of the naturally timid animal at this time was to run, where there was a road, everything encountered on the way would be knocked away.

It took three waves of bombardment in the city to react, this is not thunder at all, it is likely to be thrown in from outside the city, the enemy attack!

Then it was chaotic, the soldiers could not find the generals, they could not call the soldiers, and no one knew where the next thunder would sound. It would be accompanied by a large orange-red fireball, and there would be no armor left within a few meters of it, and it would blow up.

"I'll go, I can really bear it, I won't go out to fight like this! Come on, concentrate on the city gate, and blow up the city wall first! ”

Hong Tao thought of everything, the only thing he didn't expect the ancients to be so slow to react to the bomb, and thought that the defenders in the city just didn't plan to come out, so they had to be the same old and break through the wall to attack.

The walls and gates of Shatuo City really couldn't withstand the destruction of high explosives, and only a wave of arrows and grenades really became earth walls, and they fell down in an uproar.

At this time, Hong Tao took advantage of the fire of the explosion to realize that he had made a mistake in command, not because people didn't want to come out, but because they were lining up behind the city gate. I managed to get enough of a group of people, but the city gate collapsed and scattered.

"Volley, use up all the grenades as fast as you can!" There was chaos in the city, and if you wanted to come out, you had to choose other city gates. Hong Tao didn't want to wait, so he just threw it into the city.

The explosion effect and the destruction effect have been seen, and none of the more than 200 crossbow arrows can be brought back. Although they know that they are stable, they are still afraid day and night when they always carry a bunch of explosives in the convoy.

After half an hour of bombing, all the grenades were fired, and an effective counterattack was still not organized in Shatuo City. Just after the team was assembled, two explosive mines suddenly fell, and a large area was lying down with a continuous shock, and the team dispersed again.

Even if the officers were in a hurry, they didn't dare to go out of the city with an unassembled team to face the battle, and there was another thing that made the generals helpless, who did they go out to fight? How many people are there? Where are they?

So far, I haven't even figured out where the enemy is, and in the middle of the night, I can't see my fingers, and the streets are full of horses galloping, and it is not easy to get the soldiers together.

"Throw fire oil bombs and withdraw ......" did not wait for the enemy to leave the city, Hong Tao did not want to consume it any longer. This place is too close to Yingli City, and the cavalry of dozens of miles will arrive in half a day, and it will be very dangerous in case it is surrounded by heavy enemy troops.

The soldiers of the New Army, who had been in ambush for more than an hour, got up from the snow one after another, packed up their moisture-proof mats, and lined up on the sleigh. More than a dozen siege crossbows were quickly disassembled into two parts after firing two rounds of fire and oil bombs, loaded onto the sleigh, and headed for the way they came.

This time Hong Tao miscalculated again, he originally planned to use fire oil bombs to cause chaos to the defenders, but he didn't expect to help others. As several fires lit up, the Western Xia defenders became more easily recognizable, and the speed of assembly began to pick up. The soldiers in the city spotted the moving new army by the light of the fire in the city, and for a time the trumpets sounded.

"Oh, the official didn't come out when he was waiting for you, and he shouted as soon as he left. Tell me, scatter all the thistles, this is not our territory, don't give it to them! ”

If it weren't for the Western Xia army in Yingli City, which was dozens of miles away, Hong Tao really wanted to turn back and try the actual combat effect of the reverse pulley crossbow. Half of the 2,000 new troops were equipped with new crossbows, and the other half still used the original steel plate crossbows, and the combat power was easy to compare.

Hundreds of sleigh box cars slowly turned into six columns under the command of Li, and the box cars loaded with thistles changed to the end of the line in turn, scattering as they went.

With snow cover, this thing is even more insidious, and you don't want to see a single one, but it must hurt to step on the hooves. As long as the Western Xia cavalry followed, it is estimated that many men and horses would have to be thrown down in these miles.

But after running for more than two hours, there was no figure behind him, I don't know if the Xixia people didn't chase it, or if they were frightened by the thistle. At this time, the sky was also bright, and Hong Tao didn't have any curses, so he simply ordered to go back to Liangzhou. This trip was a bit of a loss, not a single prisoner was caught, and only three walled forts and half of Shatuo City of the Tanguts were destroyed.