The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 196 I Understand Its Fighting Style

Yue Wenxuan controlled Lu Bu and monitored the Jin army from a distance to ensure that they did not split up and fight everywhere.

As long as Guwei sent out a small group of scouts, he would rush up to intercept them.

As a result, the Jin army did not divide its troops!
The scouts didn't go far, but kept close to the army, guarding against close-range ambushes. They didn't venture far away. The Jin army was confident that as long as the enemy wasn't hiding in a corner, waiting to hit them on the head with a wrench, they wouldn't be afraid.

Maintaining two formations of 500 in front and 1500 in the back, the Jin army soon arrived at the city of Jiaoshui.

As soon as he arrived at the city, Guwei felt that this county had no intention of surrendering.

Under the county wall, chevaux de frise were placed everywhere, densely packed, covering a large area below the city. Apart from a straight road leading to the city gate, there was hardly a flat piece of land around. The open space between the chevaux de frise was also strewn with caltrops.
The caltrops are also known as "horse spikes" and are an ancient Chinese anti-cavalry weapon. They can injure horse hooves and affect the movements of cavalry.

The Jin army's main force was cavalry, so they had seen this weapon before. Many fortified cities used caltrops when defending against the Jin army.

Gu Wei pointed his whip at Jiaoshui County and laughed heartily, "Han'er is up to his tricks again! Every time we reach a city, we see barricades and caltrops, more than we've ever seen from Song soldiers. Hahahaha."

The cavalrymen under his command also laughed.

The more chevaux de frise and caltrops there were, the more it showed that "the enemy did not dare to fight in the wild." This gave the Jin cavalry a lot of freedom. They could plunder the countryside at will and use their specialty, the "locking the city method," to attack the city.

The so-called city-locking method is to leave the strong city there without attacking, but to take advantage of the fact that the Song army dared not leave the city, use high-speed cavalry units to attack the towns around the city, capture all non-military cities, and "blockade" the strong military cities, leaving them isolated and helpless.

If this happens, the solid city will collapse from within.

Even if the chief officer is unwilling to surrender, his subordinates will want to surrender, and then persuade or force the chief officer to surrender.

Even if the officials did not want to surrender, there would be gentry and common people who, for fear of being traitors, would open the city gates and welcome the Jin army into the city.

Gu Wei laughed and said, "Since Jiaoshui County has made itself look like this, let's not attack this city for now. Let's disperse and take all the surrounding..."

Before he could finish his sentence, he suddenly heard the rumbling sound of drums.

The city gate of Jiaoshui County was actually opened, and then two strange wooden carts drove out from the city gate.

Gu Wei: "Huh? The enemy has left the city? Want to fight us in the wild?"

The gate of the county town was not wide, and the two wooden carts had already blocked the gate. So when the two carts came out side by side, it was like a moving wall being pushed out from the gate. After coming out a little distance, the two wooden carts stopped moving, and two more carts came out of the gate and stood side by side with the previous two, making four wooden carts side by side.

This time, the movable wooden wall became very wide.

The passage formed by chevaux de frise and caltrops was tightly blocked by a wooden wall made up of four wooden carts.

Gu Wei's head was full of questions: "Chariot? Chariot? Chariot? It's already the seventh year of the Dutianhui (1129 AD), and we can still see chariots?"

"General, those Song people seem to want to fight us with chariots."

A golden general said.

Gu Wei: "I can see that! But this is too funny, isn't it? You want to fight us with just a door panel cart? My cavalry can easily circle around and reach the side of the door panel..."

Before he could finish his words, he suddenly remembered something. The Song army had placed barricades and caltrops everywhere outside the city, leaving only a passage in the middle, so his cavalry could not get around their flank.

Gu Wei: "Tsk! Han'er is just trying to be clever. I can also throw arrows and make them fly over these wooden boards."

His cavalrymen also laughed: "That's right, the Han people are useless. A few arrows can make their entire army collapse." "Okay!" Gu Wei said, "Let's go and fight them and see what's so great about their strange chariots."

A troop of cavalry responded...

The number of people did not need to be large, because the rebels in the city obviously did not send many people to fight. They only deployed four chariots, which blocked the passage made by the barricades and caltrops. To the naked eye, there would be no more than two hundred people following the chariots.

The Jin cavalry did not send out many more, just two hundred of them, and with a shout, they rushed towards the chariots.

The chariots stopped at the edge of the barricades and caltrops to ensure that they would not be outflanked.

At this moment, the Golden Cavalry arrived...

The cavalrymen drew their bows and arrows on horseback and shot arrows diagonally above the wooden board.

The arrow flew up, passed over the wooden board, and fell down, landing on the rebels behind the board.

But then several people holding rattan shields jumped out from the rebel soldiers behind the chariot formation and raised their shields to the sky. The soldiers next to them who had no shields in their hands hid beside the shield holders. Several people hid under a rattan shield, just like a scumbag holding an umbrella for several beauties at the same time.

The arrows falling from the sky hit the rattan shields, making a thump thump sound.

The rebels were left virtually unscathed.

Gu Wei: "Oh, the other party has such an arrangement."

He didn't know that at the same time, the eight musketeers assigned to the four tanks were shouting to the tank commander, "Captain, can we open fire?"

The driver said, "Don't worry! General Zhang and Inspector Wu from the north and south routes haven't arrived yet. We're just playing with the Jin army here to wait for them to arrive. The bird guns can't be used for the time being."

The bird gun soldier was anxious: "Oh, what a trouble!"

The commander said, "Isn't there a crossbow on board for you? Try shooting it for fun."

The bird gun soldiers had no choice but to pick up their crossbows in frustration...

Whatever! I can use a crossbow too.

They placed crossbows on the firing ports of the chariots.

The shooting port is prepared for bird guns. It is very small and inconvenient to use with a crossbow. It can only be said to be barely usable, and the shooting trajectory is also limited by the hole. That's all, just make do with it.

A musketeer pulled the trigger of his crossbow. With a buzzing sound, a crossbow arrow flew out from the shooting port, without even touching a hair of the Jin cavalry.

The Jin cavalrymen on the opposite side laughed heartily: "You actually fought back with a broken crossbow."

Gu Wei saw this scene from a distance and thought: This is how the chariot is used. The heavy wooden boards are used to resist the arrows and charges of our cavalry, but they dig holes in the boards and use crossbows to fight back.

Great idea!

But it was of no use. With the training level of the Song army, the crossbow arrows shot from a small hole had no accuracy at all.

Gu Wei: "Don't be afraid of this strange car. I already know how it fights."

(End of this chapter)