Daqin Engineering Corps

Princess Wuyou looked at Shen Bing suspiciously, and then shifted her gaze to the cavalry who was training.

It didn't matter, but Princess Wuyou was taken aback.

It turned out that those Qin cavalry troops were not just riding and shooting, they were still practicing shield riding and spear riding...

Princess Wuyou has been with the soldiers for a long time, so of course she knows that it is basically impossible to use the shield and spear formations for cavalry at this time.

The reason is that riding a shield must hold a shield in one hand and a knife in the other, while riding a spear usually requires two hands to hold the gun to be effective.

It's not that there are no one who can ride a horse with a shield in one hand and a knife in one hand, or a gun in both hands, but they must be soldiers who have practiced martial arts since childhood and are good at riding. It is difficult to find a few out of ten thousand people, and even if they can do it You have to be careful, you will fall off the horse if you don't pay attention.

However, as far as Princess Wuyou could see, all Qin Qi had this skill.

Not only has this skill, but also can easily form a formation and advance and retreat with evidence.

At that moment, Princess Wuyou even thought that she was delusional, or that what she heard before was all lies, but the reality is that Qin Qi has the most exquisite riding skills.

but……

Princess Wuyou looked at Shen Bing with a strange expression on her face, and said:

"How is this possible?"

"I have seen the Shenwu Army before, and I know that its riding skills are not as good as Qiuci."

"Why did you improve so much in such a short period of time?"

Shen Bing didn't answer, but just raised his head towards Ren who was beside him.

Ren understood, and went down to lead a horse, but it was a war horse with a saddle and stirrups.

It turned out that during the period when King Qiuci was busy reforming and centralizing power, Shen Bing had already produced a large number of saddles and stirrups.

These things are difficult to imagine, and it is not difficult to make them.

The saddle is made of wood and covered with fur, which is time-consuming to make. The stirrup is directly formed with new iron at one time.

In addition, Shen Bing also made a horseshoe by the way. Although this thing is just a small piece of iron nailed to the horseshoe, it can play a big role...

One is to enable the horse's hoof to better grip the ground without slipping, so it walks more stably and makes it easier for the rider to maintain balance.

The second is to run faster and farther under the same energy loss of the horse.

The third is to protect the horseshoe so that it is not so easy to crack the horseshoe due to long-distance running.

So in this way, it is not only a matter of improving the combat effectiveness of the cavalry, but also a matter of increasing the marching speed of the cavalry.

Princess Wuyou had never seen a war horse dressed up like this before, and she was taken aback when she saw it, but she was good at equestrian skills and knew the use of the saddle and stirrups after a moment of hesitation, and she couldn't help asking Shen Bing in surprise and joy:

"Can I try?"

Shen Bing replied:

"Of course, but the princess is a daughter of gold, so be careful..."

Before she could finish her sentence, Princess Wuyou got on her horse.

The posture of getting on the horse is still to jump up on the horse's back, and after adjusting the posture, she puts her feet on the stirrups... Princess Wuyou didn't know that she could get on the horse by stepping on the stirrups.

Then Princess Wuyou pulled the rein and rode the horse to gallop towards the open field, letting go of her hands from time to time as if enjoying herself.

It is indeed a treat.

Shen Bing felt it when he made the stirrup.

People who don’t know how to ride a horse can’t feel the pain before. Without a saddle and stirrups, it’s like a bird with its wings bound. It can fly but it can only jump around.

With stirrups and saddles, horse riding is horse riding in the actual sense, and cavalry is also cavalry in the actual sense.

After turning around a few times, Princess Wuyou happily ran back to Shen Bing and shouted:

"General, what are these things? Why have I never heard of them?"

Ren replied:

"The princess has never heard of it."

"These were specially made by the general to conquer the Huns!"

Princess Wuyou said "oh", then jumped off the horse, looked at Shen Bing with incredible eyes and said:

"It seems that the general is not only good at marching and fighting, but also can make many good things."

Ren also said:

"The princess is underestimating the general."

"The general was born as an engineer, and the trebuchets, gunpowder, artillery, etc., all came from the hands of the general."

Princess Wuyou sighed:

"It's really worry-free and ignorant."

Then Princess Wuyou asked again:

"Is the general planning to equip the cavalry of the Western Regions with stirrups and saddles?"

Shen Bing nodded and said:

"Exactly."

"As the princess said before, all countries in the Western Regions may be hesitating, that is, they will rebel against Qin once defeated."

"Shen Bing thinks that the reason for this is that one is afraid of the strength of the Huns and fears that they will be retaliated by them in the future, and the other is that they lack confidence in fighting the Huns on the grassland."

"If you have stirrups and saddles to double your riding skills and combat power, your confidence and morale will also increase."

"If all countries believe that the coalition forces can defeat the Huns, they naturally don't need to worry about being retaliated by them in the future."

"then……"

Princess Wuyou nodded in agreement.

The reason is actually very simple.

The countries in the Western Regions, including the King of Kucha, left themselves a way out because the current situation is still unclear: they believe that the Qin army and the Xiongnu army are quite strong and the outcome is uncertain.

Because the outcome is undecided, the Western Regions should be a grassroots that can fall on both sides at any time.

However, if they generally believe that the Qin army is superior in strength and can win this war, then there is no need to be foolish or at least they should fall to the Qin army's side more.

Stirrups and saddles can do just that.

Although they are just two small things, these two small things mean that the cavalry can completely free their hands.

In this way, even a rookie who has just learned how to ride a horse can compete with the Xiongnu elite.

In particular, swords, shields and long spears can be used...In the past, cavalry could only shoot from horseback, and the archery that came and went with each other actually had a low hit rate.

At this time, if you use a sword and shield to attack the enemy archer, and the horse is faster because of the horseshoe, how can the archer be an opponent?

All the cavalry soldiers of the Western Regions grew up on horseback, so of course they knew the reason for this.

Immediately, the direction of people's hearts is different.

Chapter 465 Training

In the next ten days, cavalry from various countries in the Western Regions rushed to Gushi from all directions.

There are many kinds of country names, such as Ruoqiang, Qiemo, Wulei, Pishan, Xiyezihe, and Duandu...

There are tens of thousands of troops.

Shen Bing asked these soldiers to be registered one by one and split the Shenwu Army into arrangements.

The total force is about the same as what Shen Bing estimated. There are more than [-] troops including the Kucha cavalry.

What Shen Bing didn't expect was that these soldiers were not all old, weak and disabled soldiers as Shen Bing thought before, but most of them were elite.

After thinking about it, Shen Bing knew the reason...

This was influenced or intimidated by King Kucha.

From the perspective of the King of Kucha, he certainly hoped that the countries in the Western Regions would be as weak as possible, and it would be best if the countries and the Huns fought so hard that only his Kucha family would be left to grow.

So he repeatedly forced and deceived the countries in the Western Regions to send their elites to Gushi and hand them over to the Qin army.

The king of Kucha has this energy, and the surrounding small countries even the princes are in Kucha as hostages. At this time, the Qin army is backing him and the artillery is in charge... How dare the small surrounding countries refuse to follow.

However, Shen Bing couldn't understand the fact that the prince was in Kucha as a hostage.

This is obviously not in the interests of Qin Jun.

First of all, if Kucha is a vassal state of Qin, how can it coerce its prince as a hostage?

Secondly, with the prince as a hostage in Kucha, wouldn't it be easy to form a party for selfish purposes and command other countries?

Therefore, Shen Bing will definitely abolish this point in the future, and the method is also simple, that is, like the previous strategy, support small and weak countries and suppress strong ones.

And this powerful country is of course Kucha.

Then a regional balance in favor of Qin would be formed.

But of course not now.

At this time, Qiuci's control over the surrounding small countries is still beneficial to the Qin army. For example, now, it saves the Qin army from lobbying one by one... If the 36 countries come down one by one, and they still have a language barrier, I am afraid that they will have to leave Shen Bing was stunned.

Shen Bing's arrangement for the cavalry army of the Western Regions was as mentioned before, splitting the Shenwu army into generals from various countries.

This general is at the level of a hundred generals, that is to say, there are one hundred generals and one deputy for every hundred people, that is, two people command a hundred Western Region cavalry.

Adding five hundred masters, two to five hundred masters, deputy generals, etc., more than [-] people will be controlled by more than a thousand Shenwu troops.

The Yuezhi cavalry who arrived later were also organized in the same way.

As Shen Bing guessed, most of these cavalrymen from the Western Regions originally looked down on the Qin cavalry army, even the Shenwu army was no exception.

However, when hundreds of generals, five hundred masters and other soldiers of the Shenwu army appeared in front of them majesticly riding horses with saddles and stirrups, they were immediately convinced... The main thing is the stirrups, there are stirrups and no stirrups. Stirrups are almost the difference between a veteran player and a rookie, even the best cavalry in the Western Regions is no exception.

Then Shen Bing issued a military order:

"Anyone who has excellent training results will receive a set of saddles and stirrups and become a member of the coalition."

"Otherwise, return to the country of origin."

For a while, the cavalry in the Western Regions cheered and cheered. Everyone who was gearing up hoped to perform well and get a set of saddles and stirrups.

This is not surprising at all.

Because these harnesses are like giving a cavalry a pair of wings to make it really a cavalry...

What is it like to be able to completely free your hands on horseback?

The western cavalry, who grew up on horseback, haven't tried it yet?

After decades of practicing riding and archery, he was overtaken by the Qin army just because he lacked such a set of harness... How can it not make people feel itchy?

It's like a martial idiot suddenly discovering a secret book of martial arts, or like an alcoholic seeing a jar of good wine... the more immersed in this way, the more difficult it is to resist its temptation.

So the next training was easy. Even if the Qin army did not understand the language between the Western Regions and even the Yuezhi, they would try their best to figure out, memorize, and discuss.

The training subjects are not riding and archery.

In fact, Shen Bing thinks that they don't need to train cavalry and archery... It is meaningless to train cavalry and archery at this time.

It takes years of practice to achieve small success in riding and archery, but of course, with saddles and stirrups, this time can be shortened to a few months, and temporary cramping will basically not work.

What's more, the Western Regions and the Yuezhi cavalry didn't need to practice riding and shooting at all. If they wanted to practice, they just needed to get used to the feeling that they could free their hands to ride and shoot after having stirrups.

The training subjects are mainly to listen to various orders, flags, and drum formations... What the Western Regions and Yuezhi cavalry need is restraint, rules, and coordination.

At the beginning, group training was conducted in units of hundreds of people.

The training at this stage is to understand the commands, understand the flags and make corresponding adjustments according to the flags.

This stage is actually the most difficult. The reason is that the Qin army does not understand the language of the Western Regions and the Yuezhi cavalry army. Many things have to be explained for a while before they can be explained clearly.

Even after practicing left to right for a few days, I didn't understand it. I just yelled at the hundreds of generals of the Shenwu Army, and almost beat them up.

This is actually the difference between farming peoples and nomadic peoples.

The nomadic people are open and open everywhere, in a state where the sky is high and the birds are flying and the sea is wide and the fish are leaping. Why do ordinary people recognize left and right?

Only the aristocrats learn the etiquette of the Central Plains, and they only learn half of it: the Central Plains respects the right, while the nomads generally respect the left.