Chapter 12 Si Tu Lian’s Worries

For the twelve years he had served as the Minister of Works for the Northern Liao, Si Tu Lian had spent more than half of his time imitating and learning from Dongping’s advanced technologies and experiences. However, the more he tried to catch up, the further the gap seemed to grow. The technologies that Dongping was now employing in both military and civilian fields were beyond the comprehension of the craftsmen employed by the Northern Liao Ministry of Works, even when they managed to obtain finished products or components through spies. The telegraph was a prime example. They had sacrificed three spies to break into a telegraph station, disassembled a telegraph machine and other equipment, and then spent a great deal of effort transporting the items back, only to have the craftsmen stare blankly at the coils, metal sheets, and wooden frames, unable to make heads or tails of them. It seemed that the telegraph machine wasn’t the key; the wind turbines that provided power, the wires connecting the telegraph machines, and the four-way switches were the crucial components. But obtaining those from Dongping again was far from easy. Although the Telegraph Bureau's services were now open to the public, the security at each node was extremely strict. Dongping was already a militarily strong country with a strong martial spirit, and now, all institutions, including those in Yunzhou, favored hiring veterans. Those with good minds and a solid foundation in reading and writing could naturally handle various jobs, while the strong and powerful were often stationed at various branch institutions to be responsible for security work.

Si Tu Lian had completely given up on the telegraph. He had started as a technical official whom no one in the Northern Liao respected, and had climbed step by step to his current position. He was already sixty-five years old, but fortunately, his past as a stonemason had given him a solid physical foundation, and he could still handle the heavy workload. Moreover, he sometimes had to thank Dongping. It was the rise of Dongping's craftsmen and technologies that had led to a significant increase in the status of technical officials in various countries. The upper echelons of various countries were counting on them to imitate and produce things that even the artisans at the Ye Family Workshops no longer considered technically challenging, or at least to find ways to counter them. But how easy was that?

Si Tu Lian had developed the Northern Liao's first-generation air defense system, which consisted of a combination of various equipment, mainly three types of ordnance: crossbow cannons, balloons, and rockets.

The Northern Liao had figured out the principles of Dongping's hot air airships, but they lacked the technical capability to build airships that could be maneuvered effectively. However, manned and unmanned tethered hot air balloons were not a problem. Manned and unmanned balloons could fill the entire sky, blocking the enemy's airships' routes, and the rapid ascent and descent of some small balloons could even serve to attack the airships. Considering that airships needed to fly relatively low in order to carry out precise ground attacks, tethered balloons could at least prevent Dongping's airship fleet from accurately dropping fire oil bombs on important targets. In the manned balloons, elite crossbowmen wielded heavy crossbows, trying to shoot at the airships from as close range as possible. Regardless of the accuracy of shooting while floating, it could at least serve as a deterrent, right?

It was a great achievement that the Northern Liao was able to figure out crossbow cannons and put them into mass production. Si Tu Lian favored crossbow cannons because their carriages were small, easy to deploy, and could be fired at high angles. The most exaggerated high-angle crossbow cannon that his team of craftsmen had created could fire vertically, and the carriage could rotate 360 degrees, manually. Naturally, the firing height was not very high, but using relatively light, long-barreled projectiles with stabilizing fins, it could reach a height of about four hundred to five hundred feet. Now, some of these crossbow cannons had been deployed on the walls of Yanjing, the capital of the Northern Liao, mainly for training soldiers to operate them. This thing was really too different from the style of flat-shooting crossbow cannons.

If Ye Tao saw the rockets that Si Tu Lian had created, he would probably exclaim in admiration. This was an original creation made without any technical support. Although the Ye Family Workshop also had similar things, the systems were completely different. Si Tu Lian had created a twelve-barreled rocket launcher that could fire rockets with small fire oil warheads densely up to seven hundred feet high. It was just that the dispersion of the projectiles was too large, and multiple sets of rockets had to be launched together to effectively cover a patch of sky. But there was another problem: the arrowheads of the rockets were triggered, and once they missed, the damage they caused when they fell was equally huge.

After these things were created, Si Tu Lian had conducted three demonstrations for the Western Route Army, the Eastern Route Army, and the Northern Liao royal family. The results were remarkable, eliciting a chorus of praise. He, this Minister who had never been very popular, actually received generous rewards. In the imperial edict, the phrase "the morale of the court and the public was greatly boosted" was used, which was an extremely high evaluation. The announcement also excited the court, and officials at all levels received some rewards. The old craftsmen and artisans who presided over the development were also transformed into honored guests. Previously, the Northern Liao had heard about the bombing and night attacks suffered by Xiling and felt fear in their hearts. Dongping and Xiling were still only confronting each other, but they had already taken action against the Northern Liao. What would they do if Dongping played such a trick? Originally, dealing with this threat was still only under consideration, but now, with the Western Route Army's complete failure in the first round of engagement, it had advanced more than two hundred miles toward the Northern Liao and firmly established itself on the front line of the Central Army. The land that had already been occupied by Dongping, whether in terms of public support or basic production, had been completely integrated into Dongping's system, and the Northern Liao was no longer able to take it back. And the opponent was now closer to them. Suddenly, protecting the skies over Yanjing seemed to have become an extremely important matter.

Si Tu Lian, however, became increasingly worried. Although the Ministry of Works had created these things, the difficulty of producing them in large quantities was too high. Production capacity was low, and the cost was prohibitively high. Even just arming Yanjing would cost at least a million taels of silver. For the Northern Liao, that amount of money would be more effective if it were spent elsewhere than on arming the skies over Yanjing.

Zhang Ci, the Minister of Revenue, had similar thoughts to Si Tu Lian. The Northern Liao's economy was now in dire straits. This time, when the emergency military situation of Bi Wenxin's army being annihilated in the northeast arrived, the entire north had gradually discovered traces of the Dongping army passing through. Combined with the harassment of the coast by the Dongping navy, it was not difficult to determine that an army with considerable combat power had moved to the rear of the Northern Liao in the northeast. The court was now mobilizing a large army, wanting to solve the problems in the rear before reopening the battle in Yunzhou on the front. But how easy was that? The Northern Liao had mobilized 140,000 troops, mostly from the Eastern Route Army and the Imperial Guards, but the supplies of food and other materials had not yet been fully mobilized. The Northern Liao originally lacked food more than Dongping, and had fallen behind Dongping in various strategies for several years, and had destroyed its own production by clearing the fields, so the food and silver in the Ministry of Revenue and local treasuries were quite insufficient. The Western Route Army was willing to allocate a portion from their war reserves to deal with the problems in the rear, but the problem was that the cost of this long-distance transportation was not small. In the future, food would have to be transferred from other places to repay the Western Route Army, so that they could fight to the death with the Yunzhou army. This back and forth was too uneconomical. Therefore, Zhang Ci also firmly stood on the side of opposing the establishment of an air defense system in Yanjing. In his opinion, a million taels of silver, even if it were all used to pay military salaries and purchase food from wealthy families who still had food reserves, would be more effective.

When the two Ministers who had a profound impact on Yanjing's air defense plan submitted memorials of opposition, the situation in the court immediately became chaotic. On the other side were the Prime Minister, the Grand Tutor, and the General of Chariots and Cavalry, who had powerful influence in the capital. After three full days of disputes, the Emperor finally decided to allocate 250,000 taels of silver for the preparation and expansion of the air defense plan, and to further develop new devices to reduce production costs. Sixty-five taels of silver were allocated for the military expenses of this northeast operation. Twenty taels of silver were allocated to the Western Route Army to build a second line of fortresses, and 450,000 taels of silver were allocated to the Eastern Route Army to strengthen war preparations. This was a win-win situation, but the Northern Liao's Ministry of Revenue's warehouse was still emptied. After making such a large allocation, Zhang Ci had less than two million taels of silver left to use. What Zhang Ci was worried about was not this, but that this dispute in the court had allowed many people to see the faces of some people who only cared about themselves but put the overall situation of the Northern Liao aside. This division finally broke apart the original unity in the court. Thinking of the unpleasant waves that would inevitably arise afterwards, Zhang Ci couldn't help but sigh. It was Si Tu Lian, that fellow, who actually didn't support the air defense plan, which made Zhang Ci feel extremely favorable towards him. To say that this plan passed, the Ministry of Works would benefit the most. Even if he himself didn't make money from it, the influence of the Ministry of Works would be greatly enhanced. But he actually let go of such an opportunity.

As Zhang Ci was lying on his desk once again calculating the expenses during this period in detail, looking for where he could save some silver, Housekeeper Zhang came up,

"Master, someone outside is looking for you." Housekeeper Zhang steadily held a pot of hot tea in his hand. After he filled Zhang Ci's cup, he said, "It's a young man, very generous. He stuffed twenty taels of silver to Little Song. He's waiting outside, saying he can solve some small troubles for you. Little Song couldn't figure out the other party's origin, so he asked me to chat with him. That young man does seem to have some background, and he speaks very properly. Are you ready to see him, Master?"

"Oh?" Zhang Ci said with a wry smile, "I have too many troubles on my hands, who knows... I don't have anything to do now either. Alas, without money in hand, I can't do anything, so I have nothing to do. Let's meet him... Anyway, those who come to me at this time are just those people and those things, right?"