Daqin Engineering Corps

So one thousand infantry were at the east gate, and two thousand cavalry were at the north gate and south gate respectively.

The east gate is the closest to the Xiongnu outside the city, while the north and south gates are slightly further away.

But because the cavalry was faster, they just joined together as one army when they attacked to meet the enemy.

After making these preparations, Shen Bing waited.

Zhiren reports:

"The enemy broke through the city defense..."

Shen Bing also gave an order:

"Go to battle!"

Chapter 3 Anti-Siege

It is not surprising that Shen Bing would have guessed that the Xiongnu would carry out an interspersed siege.

Before that, he had learned a lot about the tactics of the Huns from Wang Bo and Lei Hui.

He discovered that the tactics of the Huns actually didn't have so many miscellaneous tricks, such as what formation, what 36 tactics...

When the Xiongnu believed that they were weaker than the enemy, they would use the maneuverability of the cavalry to fight against the enemy dynamically, just like the Heijia army did against the Chu cavalry before.

When it is believed that the strength is greater than that of the enemy and that it is sure to win, it will intersperse and divide the enemy and encircle and wipe them out.

Therefore, the moment Shen Bing determined that the Xiongnu underestimated the enemy, he knew that the Xiongnu might use surprise soldiers to intersperse inside the defense line of the city to fight a siege war.

At this time, the Qin army's city wall was also suitable for the Xiongnu to divide and encircle.

The reason is that the construction of the Walled City has not yet been completed.

If the walled city is built, it should place arrow towers, archery towers, even trebuchets, bed crossbows, etc. on high places.

Moreover, there are horse pits, bridle ropes or traps everywhere between the walled cities.

At this time, if the enemy cavalry wanted to pass through the two cities, they had to peel off a layer of skin.

But at this time, all of this is incomplete, especially in Jiazhai, where only a wooden fence has been erected around the periphery.

At this time, the Huns cavalry could almost come and go freely.

That being the case, why didn't the Huns cavalry intersperse into the line of defense to pinch the Qin army?

If you only rode horses and shot arrows in circles outside the city wall, how many arrows would it take and how long would it take to defeat the five thousand Qin army?

But if it is interspersed with the defense line of the Walled City, it will be different.

The outer side of the city wall, that is, the side facing the enemy, is more complete. The inner side has not been built because there are not many threats, and even the wooden fence has not been erected.

So the Huns cavalry could take advantage of the gap and break into the city.

Among them, the Huns cavalry also has an amazing operation:

They would gallop past with a lasso, and then throw it on the fence of the city wall... Then with the power of a dozen horses, the fence would be pulled down, and the Qin army among them would be exposed to their arrows.

This is unimaginable to the Central Plains Cavalry Army: it is quite good to be able to maintain balance on a galloping horse, and the Huns Cavalry Army can also wield a lasso, and then they can accurately hit the target...

In fact, this is a matter of practice makes perfect.

The Huns have lived on horseback since they were young, and they have been riding horses, grazing and playing with lasso ropes since they were sensible. It is not uncommon for them to do this after decades of playing.

It was Zuo Xianwang Maodun who led this strange army to break into the defense line of the Qin army's stronghold.

He has always maintained a cautious mentality, so he did not go too deep into the defense line, but attacked the northernmost Jiazhai after passing the defense line.

Then Mao Dun immediately realized that something was wrong.

As soon as the fence of the walled city was pulled down, what Mao Dun saw was not the enemies fleeing in a panic, but the army that was ready in formation.

The front row of these troops propped up long poles, and rags were hung on the long poles, which made it difficult for Modu to even see their appearance. Arrows would even be blocked by these cloth strips or change their direction. .

What Mao Dun didn't know was that these long poles were the unique "wolf whisks" of the Daliang Army.

However, there are few bamboos in the northern grasslands, so the "wolf whisk" cannot be supplemented here... When the bamboo leaves are gone, they can only be replaced with rags and hemp ropes.

Then, Qin Jun even took the initiative to push down the wooden fence, and then rows of powerful crossbow arrows were shot out of the city.

If it’s just crossbow arrows, it’s fine, there are several feet long iron crossbow arrows flying out like a python with a whistling sound, nailing the entire war horse to the ground on the spot...

Mouton was immediately dumbfounded.

Afterwards, Mao Dun immediately knew the power of this iron crossbow... If it was just for killing the enemy, this iron crossbow did not have much advantage over ordinary crossbows.

Because a guy as big as an iron crossbow kills one or two enemies, and sometimes shoots in the air, a small crossbow can also kill an enemy.

Then why waste so much iron with iron crossbow bolts?

The reason is that the iron crossbow bolt nailed to the ground becomes an obstacle, an obstacle that is difficult for a war horse to cross, especially if a war horse is shot down.

So a row of iron crossbow arrows shot out, and immediately the Huns cavalry ran out smoothly.

After thinking about it, Mouton ordered to the guards:

"Let the sound beep, please help!"

The personal guard responded, and shot three cymbals into the air...

Mingdi is a communication arrow commonly used by the Xiongnu. It is to add a hollow whistle to the back half of the arrow, and it will make a unique whistling sound when it is shot into the air.

It is said to be "communication arrows" because not all the arrows used by the Huns are Mingdi.

After adding a whistle, it is difficult to make it out of balance. The Huns will add whistles to every arrow when they are full and have nothing to do.

However, the response was two beeps... Two beeps meant that reinforcements were difficult.

Mao Dun was a little strange. On the outskirts, King Youxian led [-] cavalry to attack. How could it be difficult to reinforce?

After sending out a few people to investigate, it turned out that the outer cavalry was also attacked.

It was none other than the [-] infantry and [-] cavalry led by Wang Ben who attacked the outer Huns cavalry.

Shen Bing's idea is very simple, his target is the Hun cavalry who broke through the defense line of the city.

It is easy for these cavalry to come in, but it is difficult to get out.

But in order to trap these intruding Hun cavalry, it is necessary to disrupt the [-] cavalry attacking from the outside.

So Shen Bing carried out the division of labor:

More than [-] soldiers in the five fortresses used the fortifications and terrain to trap the enemies who broke into the line of defense, while the army led by Wang Ben was responsible for repelling the peripheral enemies.

The former is relatively easier, because the two have about the same strength, with more than [-] enemy and us.

However, the Qin army has the advantages of a city wall and a bed crossbow, and on the other side is the Yellow River with no way to retreat. It is not difficult to trap the enemy.

The latter is difficult, with [-] troops repelling more than [-] cavalry.

But it's actually not that difficult.

Because what Shen Bing wanted was to repel rather than defeat.

Repelling means keeping it away from the Walled City so that the Walled City will not be attacked by the Huns from both sides.

And Qin Jun has a crossbow with a much longer range and a faster rate of fire in his hand, especially the bed crossbow...

As Mao Dun thought, the point of the bed crossbow is not to injure the enemy, but to become an obstacle to the cavalry.

The more than [-] Xiongnu cavalry in the periphery can only attack the city wall by riding their horses in circles, and it is not easy to use any other direction.

Wang Ben's 3000 men and horses only need to use crossbows and bed crossbows to block the source of the Huns' cavalry circles, and they can force the Huns back.

Therefore, its main force is actually [-] infantry, and the [-] cavalry are only covering its wings on the left and right.

As soon as the thousand pawns came into range, they pointed their crossbows at the enemy.

Following Wang Ben's order, the crossbow arrows "swish" and shot at the Huns cavalry who were circling.

How could the crude leather armor of the Huns be able to block the sharp iron arrows, and pieces fell off the horses in pieces.

What is even more powerful is the bed crossbow... not many in number, only ten for a thousand pawns.

But ten bed crossbows fired ten iron crossbow arrows at a time and nailed them to the ground. It was like erecting a fence, which immediately disrupted the formation of the Xiongnu cavalry.

Chapter 3 and Seven

If it were the Qin army in the past, these thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry would go out of the city to face more than ten thousand Huns, not only would they not be able to successfully force the Huns back, but they would be in danger.

At the beginning, the Qin army might be able to disrupt the rhythm of the Xiongnu's attack on the city.

But the Xiongnu will soon turn their targets to the three thousand Qin troops who left the city, and then they will divide into several teams to surround them and shoot arrows at the Qin army in circles from several directions.

Although Qin Jun is equipped with shields, most of the shields are round shields with poor protection.

The strongest protection should be the Roman square shield, which is not only large in size, but also can be spliced ​​into a tortoise shell formation to prevent the enemy's bow and cavalry from functioning.

But even this simple use of shield defense cannot gain an advantage against bow cavalry.

The Roman Empire thought it was possible, and Crassus led tens of thousands of troops to expedition to Parthia.

The Parthian army is a more flexible bow cavalry. Their strategy to deal with the Roman army armed to the teeth is to lure the enemy into deep...

Rome is mostly infantry, and the supply will be stretched after entering the enemy's territory.

When facing the Parthian archer, although the large square shield can perfectly block the arrows, but at the same time it also makes him unable to maneuver... The tortoise shell will loosen as soon as he moves around. loopholes.

As a result, the Roman army was almost wiped out in this battle, and Crassus also died in a foreign land because of his arrogance and underestimation of the enemy.

Therefore, the truly effective way of defending bow cavalry should not emphasize defense one-sidedly, but should have both offense and defense and even maneuver.

One-sided emphasis on defense like the Roman army means handing over all the initiative to the enemy...Give yourself the entire immobile tortoise shell, and the enemy can easily walk around the periphery, including delivering supplies, etc. Apart from hiding in the tortoise Nothing can be done in the shell, isn't that just waiting to die?

Therefore, there is always a lot of speculation on the modern Internet. What will happen if the most powerful Rome in the West collides with the Han Dynasty in the heyday of the East?

Two different civilizations, different tactics, different styles, who will win?

There is really no suspense about this.

The Roman army may have been offensive strategically, but tactically it was passive defensive, whether by siege or march.

However, the Han army has paid great attention to cavalry since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. They even used cavalry to defeat the mighty Huns, making them "no royal court in Mobei".

Coupled with the Han army's familiarity with the "Sun Tzu's Art of War" and the like, if the two armies collide... it is not difficult to imagine that the Roman army will face the situation of "cannot fight and escape".

Especially the heavy equipment of the Roman army, if they were molested a few times by the Han army, they would be exhausted to death.

Shen Bing knew the truth of this very well, so he could have equipped a square shield like Rome and learned to form a tortoise shell formation, and he could even use a much lighter rattan shield as a support.

But Shen Bing didn't do that.

In the Han Dynasty, Li Ling led [-] infantry and was surrounded by [-] Xiongnu. Why can he still fight and walk hundreds of miles, kill tens of thousands of enemies, and finally be captured because of exhaustion of arrows?

It is because they have the initiative.

If you form a tortoise shell formation like the Roman army, how can you fight and walk hundreds of miles?

How can you kill tens of thousands of enemies?

The initiative of Li Ling's army was definitely not achieved by using shields to form a tortoise shell formation, but by shooting with crossbows, which had a much longer range than bows and arrows.

Because the range of the crossbow is farther than that of the bow and arrow, especially the range of the small pull bow and arrow on horseback...

This cannot be avoided.

Although the Xiongnu were skilled in riding and shooting, the instability of the horse's back and down plate determined that the pulling force of their bows and arrows was not as good as that of heavy bows and arrows on the ground.

The Qin crossbow is propped open by pedaling with waist strength, and its shooting range is dozens of steps farther than that of bows and arrows.

If in the past, the Qin army had to sit on the ground and kick the crossbow, this would also make it lose mobility and give up the initiative, and the reaction would be slower and it would really increase the bullet surface...

Especially at the moment when the crossbow was fired, the whole person was almost completely stretched facing the sky.

At this time, if the Xiongnu shoot a barrage of arrows... that is so sour, and they will hit a few arrows casually.

But after Shen Bing improved the crossbow, all these shortcomings disappeared, and he could shoot while walking, so he had the initiative.

The Xiongnu surrounded them from this side, and shot them back under a rain of arrows.

The Xiongnu surrounded him from there again, and another rain of arrows taught him to be a man.