Under the hill, 1,500 people were divided into three square formations and set up their formations. This is the villagers of Guantian in Lucheng. After the spring, they did not rush to plough the spring, but first pulled out the team and organized this military exercise.
Everyone was wearing winter clothes, holding wooden shields and wooden knives, wooden spears with their tips removed, and arrow feathers without arrows, forming a battle formation. Their enemy was a cavalry consisting of five hundred cavalry. Like these people, they were all new recruits. Fighting against each other, fighting in the wild, there is a winner and loser.
Li Er also stood in the team, his heart was beating very fast. After several months of training, with his excellent archery skills, he became the captain of the crossbow team. However, no matter how much he practiced on weekdays, this was his first time on the battlefield. The battalion officer said that even in the exercise, casualties may occur. If you want to survive, you must fight to the death to find a chance for yourself. They are facing cavalry, can they win
The horn blew. The military exercise has begun.
The two armies did not fight face to face as soon as they came up, but randomly deployed in this position with woods, small hills and large empty fields. This is also the way to test the resilience of the camp officers from both sides of the school. Sun Jiao was extremely calm and did not take any risks. He formed a formation directly beside the hill, and used the hill as a barrier to stop the enemy cavalry from attacking his stomach and back.
With such a formation, as long as the military formation is not chaotic, it can still withstand the five hundred cavalry.
The other party didn't let him wait too long. Soon, the sound of horses' hooves sounded, and hundreds of horses rolled up the smoke and rushed towards the army formation. Sun Jiao ordered loudly, "Archer, prepare!"
As an excellent archer, among the recruits Sun Jiao trained, the proportion of archers was also quite astonishing, there were more than 300 people, reaching one-fifth of the total force. However, because it was a troop, this team was not equipped with crossbows, only longbows. It was quite difficult to shoot three rounds of arrows before the enemy cavalry approached.
Li Er is already on the ropes. Because of his status as a corporal leader, he was at the forefront of the team, with his soldiers beside him. Looking at the fast horse rolling up smoke, cold sweat oozes from his back, and he can't wait to shoot the arrow in his hand immediately. However, the training has long stipulated that one must wait until one hundred and fifty steps before he can shoot arrows.
What is the concept of one hundred and five steps? You can rush to the front in less than three breaths! However, any arrows fired early will destroy morale and cause unnecessary waste. Even during normal drills, there will be someone standing behind them with a whip, and once the arrow is shot early, they will be hit with a whip. So even if his heart was beating like a drum and his palms were sweating, he gritted his teeth and stared at the enemy with wide eyes until the horse crossed the dotted line in his mind.
"Shoot!" A roar echoed in his ears. Li Er also roared out, and at the same time, the arrows in his hand and the arrows in the hands of all the soldiers around him flew out.
At this moment, who remembers those arrow feathers without arrows? They just want to shoot the enemy under the horse with one arrow!
One arrow is fired, and a second arrow is fired. The soldiers used a stepped round shot. After the first row shot the arrows, the second row followed, and then the third row. After the third row is finished, the first row will re-string the bow and shoot another round. If there is no accident, before the enemy cavalry approaches the army, they can shoot three rounds, a total of 900 arrows! This is a number enough to wipe out most of the enemies!
However, the enemy had been prepared for a long time, and the cavalry raised their round shields in front of them. After all, military exercises are not actual combat. As long as the arrows and the white dots on the tip of the gun do not pierce the vital parts such as the face and the chest, it is not considered a death. Therefore, this group of cavalry did not choose to mount and shoot like the Huns did, but put defense first.
This is also Wang Long's cleverness. The recruit's cavalry shooting level is not very good, it is better to directly rush into the formation and tear through the enemy's formation by horsepower. With this idea in mind, the group of cavalrymen rushed forward without any pause!
Such an indomitable charge immediately disrupted the archer's rhythm. Seeing that two rounds have been fired, but not many enemies have been "killed", who can hold their breath and shoot the third round at the critical moment? Sun Jiao knew when he saw it, and shouted loudly, "Raise your spear! Meet the enemy!"
After a long period of actual combat training, the spear formation has also undergone slight changes. In addition to the one-zhang short spear, there are also the eight-zhang spear specially designed to fight against the cavalry. Stand on the shoulders of the shield soldiers before the battle, and when the battle is over, stand up to attack the enemy!
Can such two platoons of spearmen stop the enemy's fast horses? !
With a bang, the cavalry crashed into the army formation, and many knights fell off their horses. Even if there is no gun head, the impact is very amazing, not to mention that there is a white spot in the chest and abdomen, and he is sentenced to be killed in action.
However, seeing this scene, Sun Jiao suddenly widened his eyes! The enemy is deceitful! In the cavalry camp, on the backs of more than 100 horses, sitting not knights, but straw men made of straw! These grass figurines were also wearing military uniforms and were behind the real cavalry, so they couldn't be noticed at all. When it was time to rush into the formation, the horse's feet were revealed.
The frontal enemy is just a bait!
"Flank! Beware of the flank!" Sun Jiao shouted loudly.
Unfortunately, it was too late.
A cavalry rounded the hill and plunged straight into the flank of the formation from the left. The defensive forces all hit the front, which completely disrupted the formation, causing the newly formed new army to collapse.
On the hill, Liang Feng shook his head: "Ming Jin."
At this point, there is really no need to continue. Sun Jiao's command focused on the long-range camp, which was also the best way to defend against the cavalry. The three-stage rapid fire from the archer was hard work. However, the infantry's response was not quick enough, the defense against the enemy was insufficient, and the play style was somewhat rigid. Wang Long gave full play to the mobility of the cavalry, whether it was rushing or setting up an ambush, it was quite good, and it was a good material for cavalry.
But today's battle has more significance.
"Using infantry to defend against cavalry is too much sacrifice." Liang Feng pondered, "Sun Jiao's bow and crossbow array is well used, and the thickness of the array should be increased."
Yi Yan nodded: "If there are three rows of crossbowmen, it will definitely change the situation. However, under the current situation, the crossbow cannot be equipped with the entire army."
The craftsmanship of the crossbow is far more troublesome than that of the hand crossbow, and the cost is more than three times more expensive. Even the Lucheng government office could not provide a large number of soldiers.
Liang Feng frowned: "Infantry versus cavalry, in the end, you still have to rely on bows and crossbows. The spear formation is fine for cavalry less than your own. If the numbers of the two armies are equal, I'm afraid they won't be able to defeat the enemy."
This is also the combat experience that has been played in thousands of years. Just like Li Ling, a famous general in Han Dynasty, 5,000 infantrymen skilled in bowing and crossbow faced 30,000 cavalry soldiers. He just relied on halberdists and shieldmen to resist the horses, and the bowmen and crossbowmen lined up behind to beat the enemy down to the ground. Later, the enemy army increased to 80,000, and Li Ling fought and retreated. After fighting for several days, he killed nearly 10,000 Huns. It was not until the bow and arrow reserve was exhausted that he was defeated and captured.
In the Han Dynasty, each archer carried fifty bows and arrows. According to the ten-day reserve calculation, it is conservatively estimated that more than 2.5 million arrows will be consumed in this battle. In the face of such equipment advantages, even the Xiongnu cavalry in their heyday did not dare to stand up.
Similarly, the Song Dynasty was able to resist the Liao, Jin, and Mongolia for hundreds of years because its armament was beyond the development of ordinary people. Weapons such as the God Arm Bow, the Eight Bull Crossbow, etc., coupled with the use of gunpowder and fortress tactics, made those nomadic dogs bite the hedgehog and have no way of saying anything.
Now that they have this manpower, they must think of some ways to fight against the tens of thousands of Xiongnu soldiers.
After thinking for a moment, Liang Feng said, "Maybe we can make some thunderbolts, use shotguns or other crossbows, and make another defensive line."
In ancient times, the cannon actually refers to the catapult, so the word "stone" is used as a radical. The thunderbolt gun was a catapult offered by Liu Ye, a counselor under Cao Cao during the Three Kingdoms period. It was named after the sound like a thunderbolt. Later, Ma Jun improved it and made a whirlwind cannon, which can be regarded as a great weapon for siege.
However, using this thing in the field is something that no one has thought of.
Yi Yan shook his head: "I'm afraid it won't work. The accuracy of the thunderbolt cannon is worrying, not to mention the need for multiple people to drag the rope and pull the tip to load the stone. It's too labor-intensive."
This sentence made Liang Feng startled: "Drag the rope?"
"Thunderbolt cannon needs to hold rocks as bullets, and on the other side, it is natural to rely on people to pull the tip together to make the rocks pop out." Seeing that Liang Feng didn't understand, Yi Yan explained the structure of the catapult in detail.
After hearing what Yiyan said, Liang Feng realized that the catapults in ancient China were all driven by manpower. While throwing the stone bullets, the rope hangs down, and Qingzhuang pulls at the same time, relying on this force to let the stone bullets shoot out. Ordinary single-tipped catapults have to be pulled by forty people. If a large catapult is replaced, hundreds of people are required to launch it. Not to mention the labor-intensive, it is simply not accurate. Therefore, it can only be used when the target of siege is very large and cannot be moved.
This is a film and television drama that misunderstood me! Liang Feng couldn't help but smile. In ancient war movies, they were all mechanical trebuchets. Once the mechanism was turned on, the fireballs flew into the enemy city. Where has there been a human-driven one? However, this also explains why when Meng Yuan attacked the Southern Song Dynasty, the Huihui artillery used would make the Song army stunned and unable to resist. I am afraid that the counterweight mechanical catapults from the West were passed down at that time, and their attack power was far greater than that of human-powered catapults.
But knowing the crux of the problem can solve the problem. There are a lot of skilled craftsmen under him, and there are two direct disciples of the great mathematician Liu Hui. Can he still build a mechanical trebuchet that can raise and lower the scale to ensure accuracy? In the final analysis, it is just a matter of arm and moment. It is enough to train a group of shooters who can calibrate the range and form a "cannon" barracks.
"I will let people improve the Thunderbolt Cannon and make it small and not dragged by manpower. The range is about 300 steps. At that time, the Thunderbolt Cannon and the Crossbow can be used as the first and second lines of defense, followed by the archers. With such consumption, we will have confidence in defending against the Huns' cavalry." Liang Feng finally decided.
This is also no way. It was only after he had an in-depth understanding of the metal manufacturing level of this era that Liang Feng discovered that making gunpowder today is simply whimsical. Not to mention the lack of iron and copper, there is no way to make the inner wall of the gun barrel smooth. Any modern creation does not fall out of thin air, but requires a variety of different industrial systems to function at the same time. And crossing this gap is by no means a snap.
Today, he can indeed be ahead of the times, but at most one step or two. And this one step and two steps add up to a lot, only then can the scale of victory be dragged to fall on his side.
"If there is a magic weapon with a range of 300 paces, the subordinates will definitely make the enemy cavalry unable to get close!" Yi Yan had no doubts about Liang Feng's words. The lord is unrivaled in his ingenious craftsmanship! He said he could do it, he would do it. During a night attack, it can produce a meteor falling camp, not to mention a mere gun truck.
Facing Yi Yan's unconditional trust, Liang Feng couldn't help but smile and said, "This is the best."
At this time, the battalion officers of the two armies climbed the hill in unison. Wang Long's face was bright, while Sun Jiao was indignant, obviously unwilling to lose.
Seeing the expressions of the two, Liang Feng put on a stern face: "In this battle, each has its own pros and cons. One person will submit a battle report. After analyzing the battle cases, we will integrate new strategic ideas. Yiyan, these two new armies, I'll give it to you."
These words immediately calmed the two of them down. Seeing the frost-faced boss who took a step forward, he couldn't help but secretly complained and felt pity for each other.
At the foot of the mountain, nurses from the ambulance camp have entered the scene to treat the wounded soldiers. The horse neighed, the smoke drifted, and it was a busy scene.
The author has something to say: Liang Shao: Haha, I have never seen a catapult pulled by people (indifferent face