Chapter 45

One by one, laborers emerged from the tents on both sides of the main road from Weilin Fort to Zhaoan Fort.

They were all conscripted from the surrounding villages.

The rainy season was approaching, and it would be much harder to build roads then. Now, with the dry and arid weather, it was the perfect time to construct the road.

Suddenly, Ye Fudou, who was in charge of the laborers, screamed, "Where are the laborers from Wangjia Fort?"

A laborer cautiously replied, "Report to Ye Fudou, just before dawn, a man on horseback came and said that the Western Xia people attacked Wangjia Fort. All the people from Wangjia Fort have returned to support. They asked me to inform Ye Fudou and take a leave."

"Western Xia people attacking Wangjia Fort? Do you think I'm a fool?" Ye Fudou shouted.

"Yes, he said there were six or seven hundred enemies."

"Even six or seven thousand enemies wouldn't matter. Send people to bring them back," Ye Fudou shouted. He couldn't be blamed for his urgency; there was a time limit for road construction. If it was delayed, the spring flood would come, and the roads would become muddy, making construction impossible. Moreover, as spring deepened, the people would need to focus on spring farming. Cheng Kan, though not as great as Pang Ji and Fan Zhongyan, was still a top minister of the Song Dynasty. He believed that road construction with donations was a good policy and did not want to incite a rebellion.

However, the border residents were wild and cunning, always finding all sorts of strange reasons to refuse or delay work.

He thought it was a false report.

Two soldiers chased after them.

...

Hundreds of arrows flew out from the battlements.

The Western Xia people were in chaos.

They had brought shields, but not many, and they hadn't expected the attack, so they couldn't organize a defense in time.

In a blink, dozens of people fell.

"Retreat, retreat," the leader shouted urgently from behind.

Hundreds of people retreated, but over forty had fallen. Everyone was tense and a bit off target. Otherwise, three to four volleys of arrows would have been enough to bring down a hundred Western Xia soldiers.

The leader's face was grim as he made a judgment in his mind.

He didn't have any brilliant ideas, but he could make simple judgments.

First, the bows and arrows in the hands of these villagers were very sharp, not ordinary mulberry wood bows. Among the forty who fell, two were captured soldiers, and the arrows had pierced through their sturdy armor, killing them.

There weren't many people in the fort, so there wouldn't be only about a hundred bows shooting. With the long fort walls, they could only shoot three to four volleys, but only dozens of his men were injured.

He had made a mistake in this judgment.

But he was right about the next part: they were villagers with little combat experience, and they were nervous facing strong enemies, so their aim was poor.

Inside the fort, Li Sandog's face was also grim. This level of casualties made him very unhappy. After some thought, he said, "Prepare the second plan."

With his words, many elderly, young, and women emerged from the fort. There was no choice; the able-bodied men were insufficient. Wang Wei and the others were on their way back, and even the remaining able-bodied men were assigned to other tasks. They had to let the elderly, young, and women use the mulberry wood bows.

However, the enemy didn't launch an attack but split off over a hundred men to the back of the mountain before attacking the fort again.

Wang Ju was busy, constantly running back and forth.

The able-bodied men felt inexplicably tense, and the women and young people were even more so. Only the elderly, though frail, were experienced and didn't panic.

"You stand here, he stands there," Wang Ju kept saying.

There were many battlements, but they couldn't be chaotic. Each battlement had to have one archer, regardless of the type of archer, and another battlement had to have a spearman. If the enemy wanted to attack the fort, they would have to climb over the wall, and the spearmen could stab and pierce them.

Fortunately, the enemy stopped, giving the fort time to organize. They had also practiced several times before, gaining some experience.

But it wasn't necessarily good news. The enemy stopping wasn't because they weren't attacking; they were waiting for news from the back of the mountain. If they climbed any of the hills, they could attack from both sides, and the fort would be quickly overrun.

"Don't be nervous. Look, we've already taken out dozens of their soldiers. We might be able to wipe them all out. Their armor, weapons, and horses are a huge wealth."

Although most of them were poor, they still had weapons and leather armor. A piece of leather armor, when slightly repaired, could be a warm coat. As for the dozens of more expensive horses, that was another matter.

"Where are the Guiniao people?" someone asked.

"They are outside and will arrive soon to deal a fatal blow to these enemies."

"When will they come?"

"Very soon, they'll be here in a moment. Besides, we still have many plans we haven't used."

Wang Ju organized and comforted, and the tense atmosphere was immediately relieved.

The "big brother" from the Imperial Guard Corps squatted on a tree branch, feeling both amused and exasperated. It seemed that this was the young man he was looking for, and possibly the "high person" Cheng Kan was looking for.

If it was really him, how could he report to the emperor? Even the prodigy Yang Yi wouldn't be so monstrous.

The enemy moved to the back of the mountain.

They chose the western hill, which was small. However, this made the enemy soldiers frustrated.

The hill wasn't high, but it was very steep.

They didn't know the inside story. When the fort was built, Wang Ju carefully examined the surroundings. He then instructed the villagers to dig behind the two hills and use the soil to build the fort walls. The soil on the hill was somewhat sticky, and whether it was suitable for building walls was unknown, but sticky soil was definitely more cohesive. The dug-out soil formed the walls, and the digging created steep slopes. Although people could still climb them, they would be useful in critical moments.

Now it was useful.

Regardless of the steepness, they had to climb.

Over a hundred people started climbing.

When half of them reached the steep slope, Wang Lao Liu shouted, "Fire!"

A dozen able-bodied men emerged from the bushes, lifting the pre-prepared large rocks and smashing them down. After just three or four smashes, thirty-four Western Xia soldiers were smashed to bloody heads and lay in pools of blood.

This path was blocked. The group supported the injured, crossed the stream, and struggled to retreat.

The leader's face was even grimmer. It was clear that someone had leaked the news of their attack on Wangjia Fort. But this was hard to investigate, as his men were not mercenaries but conscripts, who were civilians in peacetime and soldiers in wartime.

Hundreds of people came from various villages along the border, and these villages often interacted with Song merchants. Who knew how the news had leaked.

If so, they couldn't delay any longer. If the fort joined forces with the soldiers, and he had brought few men, it would be a disaster.

He wasn't Wang Ju and didn't know the big picture.

The situation in Western Xia was a bit chaotic, and the Song Dynasty wasn't much better. Emperor Zhen often fell ill, and which minister had the heart to focus on the northwest? Border stability was a great achievement, and even Cheng Kan would think this way. Because of this, the Zhu and Wang families never thought of seeking help from the soldiers.

With this mindset, he didn't think much and ordered another attack.

This time, he was more cautious. The first forty or fifty soldiers carried shields for protection, and the rest followed in a line.

But his mood was extremely bad. No matter how much they gained after the battle, the matter was serious. Two attacks had cost him dozens of men, and how could he explain this when he returned? Of course, the enmity would be even greater, and if he succeeded in entering the fort, it would be a bloodbath.

The enemy approached again.

Wang Ju saw them take out small ball-like objects, light them, and said in a hurry, "Damn, they brought this thing. Everyone, get down."

He saw the hand grenades, or fire caltrops, for the first time. They were paper balls with a fine iron chain, containing gunpowder and iron caltrops. When lit, the fine iron chain was spun a few times, and the grenade was thrown using the centrifugal force.

At this time, the gunpowder formula was not precise, with a 1:1:1 ratio of charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur, so the explosive power was insufficient. However, the sealing was good, and the explosive force was not great, but the iron caltrops would be propelled out, causing more damage than the initial explosion.

However, it wasn't a decisive weapon.

In fact, later, the Song Dynasty developed primitive landmines, torpedoes, and cannons, which played a certain role, but due to technical limitations, their effectiveness was limited.

Even if the technology improved, it might not have made the Song Dynasty stronger.

The Song Dynasty's weakness wasn't due to outdated weapons; on the contrary, the weapons were advanced. It wasn't due to low morale; in battles like the Battle of Haoshui River, the Battle of Chenjia Valley, and the Battle of Junzi Pavilion, though they lost, they fought with bloody courage, and no one surrendered.

It wasn't due to a lack of numbers; the Song Dynasty had the largest number of soldiers in the cold weapon era.

It wasn't due to a lack of generals; the Song Dynasty had many famous generals, even during the weak period of Emperor Renzong, such as Zhang Kang and Di Qing. Later, even more capable generals like Wang Shao and Zhang Jie emerged.

The people weren't weak either; the martial prowess of the Song people was likely higher than that of the Tang Dynasty. First, life in the Song Dynasty was better than in the Tang Dynasty, and night blindness was rare, leading to frequent night battles in Song history. There were also many martial arts societies in the civilian population.

It might have been a lack of horses, but this wasn't a significant factor. If that were the case, how could Zhu Chongba, a beggar, lead a group of poor people to success? They had no horses, no armor, and no powerful crossbows! In fact, whether they had horses or not wasn't important; what mattered was the system.

Even Wang Ju, from a different time and space, didn't want to deal with military affairs, knowing how much the Song Dynasty's system was a pitfall.

However, due to secrecy, the Song Dynasty never obtained the technology for Western Xia swords, but they did get the technology for these hand grenades.

Wang Ju had heard of them but saw them for the first time.

The fire caltrops were thrown into the fort.

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