Just as Count Carlos was about to march out with his sword, a Chinese army had already marched to within half a day's journey of Suero.
This neatly-organized and uniformly-equipped army had more than 2,000 men, including two regiments of soldiers. The soldiers were arranged in two rows, filling the winding muddy road, with no end in sight.
Xiao Chen and Catalina rode two horses from the front of the team to the back. Catalina had sneaked into Suero and surrounding towns to collect intelligence a few months ago. When she returned to the main force today, she met Xiao Chen who was walking at the front of the team. So Xiao Chen accompanied her to find Wang Jiyuan who was at the end of the team.
According to the committee's resolution, in addition to the necessary personnel to guard the River Bay New City and the school, all high-level and master-level warriors and mages who could be mobilized were assigned to the guards to act with the army.
The army that was preparing to capture Suero was led by Wang Jiyuan himself, and was accompanied by high-level masters such as Master Gabriel, Xiao Chen, Roger, Evelyn, and many mid-level masters.
Catalina had never seen a march of such a scale before. Now, seeing a steady stream of soldiers passing by her, she couldn't help but feel a huge sense of oppression.
"How spectacular." She didn't even dare to speak loudly in front of such an army.
Xiao Chen asked: "How is it? You haven't seen our expanded troops yet, right?"
The soldiers in cotton uniforms were at the front of the team, and they made up the largest number of soldiers. The camouflage uniforms brought from the previous world could not keep up with the expansion of the Guards, and now these soldiers were wearing single-color green uniforms produced by local clothing factories. Each of them carried a 02-type air rifle and a carrying gear. The bullets for the rifle were placed in the bullet bag of the carrying gear, and each of them was equipped with two crystal grenades.
"Their weapons seem different from a few months ago," said Katarina.
"This is a Type 02 air rifle. It was finalized before you left, but it was put into service three months ago." Xiao Chen said.
Catalina had used the Type 01 rifle before. She squinted her eyes and looked carefully at the Type 02, and found that it was longer and larger than the Type 01, and the workmanship seemed to be better. Both the black barrel and the wooden buttstock looked delicate and smooth.
Xiao Chen told her that in addition to the improved performance of the 02-type airgun, the magazine was also enlarged, increasing the number of bullets to 5. Therefore, the airgun bullets are no longer scattered, but are designed with a five-bullet magazine. Airgun bullets do not require propellant, so the volume is much smaller than gunpowder bullets, and each soldier can carry more bullets.
In addition to conventional bullets, the weapons research and development department has also developed crystal burst bullets, crystal armor-piercing bullets and crystal shield-breaking bullets. The first two naturally use the power of crystals to improve the combat performance of bullets, while shield-breaking bullets are a special type of bullet. Its main function is to consume the mage's shield through the magic array above. Although it cannot directly penetrate the shield like the magic-breaking arrow, it can also consume the shield much more than ordinary bullets. If you use this kind of bullet to shoot at a mage, you can quickly consume the mage's shield and cause damage to the mage. However, this kind of bullet requires rare magic-forbidden crystals as materials, so it has not been equipped on a large scale, but only equipped to snipers with better marksmanship among soldiers.
"Is that a sniper?" Katerina asked, pointing at a soldier with a longer barrel. In the days of the 01 air rifle, all guns were the same, and there was no such type of soldier.
"That's right. The sniper's air rifle is a specially customized Type 02 modification. Not only does it have a longer barrel and a larger gas tank, it is also equipped with a simple telescope. The details of these guns have been carefully polished by dwarf craftsmen, so the shooting accuracy is much higher." Xiao Chen said.
After the group of soldiers passed by, a group of soldiers who looked very different came over. These people were not wearing cotton military uniforms, but armor over the short cotton coats. They were melee soldiers with fighting spirit.
These soldiers generally have the strength of warrior apprentices, and some have even reached the level of low-level warriors. Most of them wear light armor, equipped with swords, shields or spears, and their style is closer to the warriors of this world. However, they are equipped with a 02-type air pistol and four crystal grenades on their waists, giving people a modern feel, a mix of modern and classical.
"If an ordinary lord had such a troop, it would definitely be his most proud guard. They basically rely on these elite troops to fight, and the ordinary people they recruited don't have much combat power at all." Catalina said, "The opposing empire has the habit of relying on such powerful troops to raid the opponent's commander."
Xiao Chen said: "Our melee troops are not consumables for assault. Their main task is to prevent the enemy's fighting spirit warriors from breaking through our fighters' fire blockade and then killing our artillery and ordinary soldiers."
Catalina nodded. She found that these warriors were well-equipped. Both their armor and weapons were equipped with strengthening magic circles. This was much better than the equipment she had when she was a mercenary.
However, these arrays look quite different from the arrays of magic weapons on the market, and appear much simpler and plainer. But people who understand arrays will find that their structures are more streamlined and effective, with a sense of simplicity.
They are all new magic arrays developed after reorganization of magic words, mathematical simplification of circuits, repeated screening and comparison of various solutions by computer, and a large number of actual tests. Not only are they more cost-effective in terms of materials and performance, but they are also suitable for industrial batch drawing.
Unlike traditional enchantments, which are all done manually by alchemists, Chinese enchantments are all done in enchantment factories. Although enchantment factories are not large-scale manufacturing factories, they have introduced factory production models, such as assembly lines and quality inspections.
Often, an assembly line in an enchanting factory is basically composed of a group of alchemy apprentices. Each magic circle will be disassembled into several structures that can be drawn separately. A skilled alchemy apprentice, with the help of the crystal charging pen invented by the Chinese, can draw a structure with very little mental energy. Generally, he only needs to practice for a few days to master the specific part he is responsible for. After drawing several processes in sequence, five or six alchemy apprentices can complete 90% of the production process of a magic circle, and then the low-level alchemists will integrate and complete the drawing of the finishing part, which will play a finishing touch, and finally be reviewed and revised by the mid-level alchemists. The magic circle that was originally only qualified to be completed by low-level peak alchemists was made in this way, and the speed was several times faster.
Although the effect of this array is not as good as that drawn by an alchemist himself, the speed of equipment production is greatly improved.