Daqin Engineering Corps

Without further ado, Shen Bing appointed Jiang as the instructor and asked him to teach the whole army riding and shooting skills.

In private, Shen Bing asked Jiang how he did it.

Jiang touched his head and thought for a long time before answering:

"Actually, there is no secret."

"Just know where the horse landed, lean in that direction..."

He grew up on horseback and got used to these things, so he didn't think it was strange, everyone knew it in their place, so he couldn't tell the reason if he summed up his experience.

But Shen Bing understood:

It is impossible to maintain balance purely by clamping the horse's body with both feet. Instead, it is necessary to judge the landing point and position of the horse in advance and prepare in advance. Only in this way can it be possible to free your hands without stirrups and saddles.

Wei Wei was a little puzzled by this:

"Lieutenant, what's wrong with cavalry crossbows?"

"If you are fighting against the enemy, crossbows and bows have their own advantages..."

What Wei Xi said is correct, bows and crossbows do have their own advantages and disadvantages.

The bow is characterized by a fast rate of fire, and the crossbow is characterized by a long range.

However, the range of crossbows is far limited to the strong crossbows used on land. They can be opened with the help of leg strength and waist strength, so the range is greater and more powerful.

The arm tension crossbow used on horseback also relies on the tension of the arm to open the string, so the range and power are not stronger than the bow.

If there is any advantage to the arm crossbow, it is that it can be kept ready for a long time.

This is not a problem at first, because the cavalry of all the countries in the Central Plains do this, you are weak and I am weak, everyone is the same.

but……

Shen Bing said to Wei Wei:

"One day, if our army is facing the Huns cavalry..."

"The Hun cavalry rode and shot like katana."

"Which Captain Zuo thinks wins and who loses?"

Wei Wei was speechless.

Because the answer is obvious, the range and power of the crossbow are not stronger than that of the bow and arrow, but the speed of fire is much slower... The crossbow can shoot three arrows with one arrow, and even five arrows for those with excellent archery skills.

Then all the cavalry you have to fight against are the cavalry... how can the cavalry of the Central Plains be their opponents?

Therefore, in this era, most countries in the Central Plains fought against the Huns with infantry against cavalry, that is, infantry against Huns cavalry.

The reason why the Huns cavalry lost to the enemy was that their tactics were not flexible enough, and on the other hand, the cavalry was indeed not suitable for directly fighting the infantry face to face.

However, the infantry could not catch up with the Huns' cavalry, so the so-called "big victory" was actually mostly just "drive away"... The Huns felt that the mobile warfare had just begun, and the Central Plains infantry could not catch up behind, and declared victory after occupying the ground.

This is actually the difference in the definition of "victory" between farming peoples and nomadic peoples:

Nomads do not fight for territory. For them, the vast grasslands are the same everywhere, so victory should be that they killed the warriors of the enemy country and robbed the enemy's women and food.

However, the farming nation is based on the land, and it is a victory to capture the enemy's cities and occupy the land.

That's why there are many battles in the Central Plains, and the countries in the Central Plains shouted a big victory, but the Xiongnu didn't know what they had lost. Next year, after the enemy retreats, they will find time to plunder?

In the end, the countries in the Central Plains actually had only one way to resist the Huns, and that was to build the Great Wall.

If there is anyone who can defeat the Xiongnu head-on, it is Li Mu who rides against the horse.

The northern land where Li Mu was stationed, that is, the Hetao area, did not have the Great Wall at this time, but it was able to defend it. After Meng Tian regained Hetao, he could only build the Great Wall to stop the Huns.

28 years later, Liu Bang, who had just won the world, didn't understand this truth. He thought that the Xiongnu could be defeated by riding with a rifle, so he sent an army of 32 to conquer Loufan...

Needless to say what the result was, after the siege of Baideng, the Central Plains in turn had to pay tribute to the Huns every year.

Later generations generally believe that Liu Banggang won the world and the national power is not strong, so he lost this way.

But Shen Bing felt that the lack of national strength was only one aspect, and more importantly, it was doomed to fail with the ability to fight against cavalry...

It is okay for the infantry to have strong backup at the border to drive away the Hun cavalry. Once the lone army goes deep, it will inevitably face an unsolvable tactical problem: how to guarantee the long logistics supply line?

At that time, the Huns cavalry will use their mobility to attack the supply line so that the supplies cannot be transported to the infantry who have penetrated into the enemy's territory. Wouldn't the infantry be starved to death?

Therefore, if you really want to defeat the Xiongnu, you have to develop cavalry to overcome cavalry.

That's what Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty did, so there are famous generals such as Wei Qing and Huo Qubing.

Only then did Wei Wei understand Shen Bing's foresight, and he stopped objecting after he answered.

Chapter 165 Money

In terms of riding training, Shen Bing discovered that a large part of the reason why the Central Plains cavalry could not ride and shoot was due to inertia.

To put it simply, most soldiers only want to be able to ride horses and march, and they will not think about further improving their riding skills to reach the level of riding and archery.

This has something to do with the fact that infantry is more important in this era, even cavalry often dismount and fight on foot after arriving at their destination.

This is also the reason why Wei Wei was puzzled by Shen Bing's request to ride and shoot.

Shen Bing's requirements are very simple: craftsmen must at least be able to ride horses and soldiers must be able to ride and shoot, otherwise they will be expelled from the navy.

You must know that these are prisoners of the Wei army, and the fate of being expelled from the navy is to go back to be prisoners.

If they were lucky, they would one day be sent to serve as slaves or be incorporated into the army of dead soldiers to fight against the Chu army.

No matter what kind of result it is, it is far from the treatment and chance of being promoted to the rank of a navy soldier.

So after hearing this order, everyone practiced riding and shooting hard.

Of course, hard training does not mean blind training.

Shen Bing had a few conversations with Yu, and learned about every key point of riding and shooting in detail, and even the attention that Jiang himself didn't realize was dissected step by step.

Based on these, Shen Bing divides the training into two steps:

One is to let go of the horse.

The second is to shoot arrows on horseback.

The former is the basis of the latter, and it is only possible to bend the bow and take the arrow when riding with both hands free.

The latter is the key and difficult point, it not only requires bending the bow and nocking the arrow but also being able to hit it.

Let go of horseback riding is to practice riding on horseback, which requires overcoming psychological fear and adapting to using your legs to maintain balance.

Of course, there is a process: the horse advances slowly at the beginning, and then slowly speeds up after adapting.

When shooting arrows, use a seesaw to simulate the slope on the horse's back.

This may not be as realistic as on horseback, but it can reduce the casualties caused by training in series and also reduce the psychological pressure of soldiers.

Combine them into one after you've done both.

Compared with riding and shooting, the training of water combat is much simpler:

In terms of combat, bows and arrows are still practiced... There are many people who like to use crossbows, but Shen Bing strictly orders all to use arrows.

Compared with horseback, crossbows can indeed be used in water warfare, because you can use your feet and waist to open a crossbow on a boat.

The problem is that water battles are more about the warships of both sides passing by and shooting at each other... There are also cases of frontal shooting, but it is relatively rare, because the warships of both the enemy and us have shields on the front.

This means that water battles usually take place when the distance between the enemy and the enemy is relatively close, so the advantage of the long range of the crossbow is difficult to play, but the high rate of fire of the bow is very useful.

On the other hand, Shen Bing considered one point:

This is a troop that can ride and shoot as well as fight in water.

If they used bows and arrows as cavalry, and changed to crossbows in water battles... wouldn't that mean that each of them had to carry two kinds of equipment, bow and crossbow, and two kinds of arrows?

This will obviously cause confusion and inconvenience of equipment and supplies.

So don't think too much, just use the bow uniformly.

Commanding is similar to infantry combat, that is, beating drums to march forward, ringing gold and withdrawing troops, and then playing various banners and forming different formations.

This is not what Shen Bing is worried about. Training is strict requirements, and then practice makes perfect and habits become natural. If you practice more, you will, including swimming. It is right to practice breaststroke and freestyle with all the movements standardized.

Shen Bing was still worried about the armor.

He asked several engineering divisions, whether they were defense divisions or blade divisions, none of them knew how to make armor.

To be exact, they don't make rattan armor... This should have been a blade master's problem.

Blade Master Gongshi is called Qiang, the one who Cang asked him to make a saw and then wanted to join the navy.

It is said that he was really born because his father owed others debts and couldn't pay them back.

In this era, you can't be an old man who owes debts. If you fail to pay the defendant, you may be sold into slavery.

But at this time, his father discovered a formula that could make the bronze sword sharper and more durable...

This is related to the method of making bronze swords.

Copper itself is very soft, and it will become hard when tin is added, but if too much tin is added, it will become brittle and easy to break.

This is what is said in "Lu Shi Qin Qiu" "Gold is soft, tin is soft, and the combination of two softness is rigid".

In fact, the ancients used practice to find out the best ratio in making bronze wares, the most important of which was the ratio of bronze swords.

The proportion of bronze swords in Qin Dynasty is generally 66.6% copper and 33.3% tin.

But in fact, this is a formula with insufficient tin purity. Modern metallurgical knowledge believes that the tin content should not exceed 20%, otherwise it will be useless.

Therefore, in ancient times, goldsmiths were always uncertain about the ratio because of the impurity of the raw materials. The folks had all kinds of strange methods of casting swords, and it is said that there were people offering sacrifices to furnaces.

If a goldsmith uses a certain ratio or method to forge a few good swords, then he will be lucky.

The father who owed it was one of the lucky goldsmiths, so he paid off the debt.

That's why Qiang became a master and became a blade master craftsman, otherwise he should go to hard labor with his father to pay off the debt at this moment.

Shen Bing handed the sketch of rattan armor to Qiao.

I was intimidated after looking at the sketch:

"Captain, such a set of armor is not something that subordinates can make..."

"It's too difficult to make."

He obviously thought it was a bronze armor.

It is indeed beyond his scope to make the bronze armor into this shape.

In addition, the armor of the Qin army is still a uniform standard, and it is impossible to change the shape for the 3000 sailors.

Shen Bing explained:

"This armor is made of red rattan."

After hearing the words, he said "Oh". Although he was a little puzzled and didn't know what the rattan armor could do, he replied after looking at the sketch:

"If it is made of red vines, it will be much less difficult."

"However... it is not subordinate."

"The lieutenant should go find the folk craftsman who weaves baskets."

Shen Bing felt that what he said was reasonable, so he immediately asked the guards to find a craftsman.

After Ren left for half an hour, he brought back the two old men, who were only trembling and pale from fright.

Shen Bing thought that Ren was mistreating them, but after asking, he realized it was a misunderstanding...

These artists were originally from Wei, while Shen Bing and his party were from Qin Jun.

Although Daliang was already in the land of Qin at this time, they hadn't changed their minds yet. They only thought that being caught in the Qin army camp this time would be a disaster, so when they saw Shen Bing, they kowtowed and begged for mercy.

I don't want Shen Bing but just let them weave rattan armor.

The two old men gathered their minds together, and after carefully reading the sketch, they both confidently answered that they could make it up.

It's just that if the quantity is too large, labor will be required.

Of course they need wages. If they don’t need wages and let them work day and night, wouldn’t they starve to death?

Let me ask again, it takes about ten days to compile a full set of armor. If it is calculated at ten qian per day, the wages for a set of armor are [-] qian.