Daqin Engineering Corps

Ying Zheng hesitated and said:

"But General Beidi only has more than [-] troops, I'm afraid..."

Liz replied:

"Your Majesty Mingjian."

"Last time in the battle of Yunzhongcheng, the general of the Northland defeated tens of thousands of Xiongnu with just a few thousand people."

"Now there are more than [-] people in Yunzhong County."

"If the general of the North recruits troops from the people and defends the city with them, and then raids Jiuyuan with elites..."

"Recovering Jiuyuan is not difficult."

Of course Zhao Gao understood Li Si's thoughts, and also echoed:

"My lord, it is said that the Xiongnu are good at cavalry outside the city but not good at attacking and defending, while the general of the Northland is good at both attacking and defending."

"Furthermore, our army's crops are mature and there is sufficient food and grass. At this time, taking Jiuyuan will surely win the battle."

"If Jiuyuan goes down, the Xiongnu will lose their foundation to go south in the future, and Yanmen County will no longer suffer from the Xiongnu."

This is correct, if Jiuyuan is included in the territory of Daqin, the base of the Xiongnu can only be pushed north to west, at least a few hundred miles away from Yanmen County, so it will be much more difficult to plunder.

Ying Zheng was right after thinking about it.

Moreover, after inquiring, it was found that there were no more than [-] Huns stationed in Jiuyuan, and more importantly, the Huns did not repair the damaged city walls and gates... The gates were burned when Shen Bing withdrew from Jiuyuan.

Ying Zheng didn't know the Xiongnu's tactics at all, so he took it for granted that the countries in the Central Plains were defending cities and fighting, so he thought what Li Si and Zhao Gao said were reasonable, and sent the next order to Shen Bing.

Shen Bing was stunned when he saw the order to send troops to Jiuyuan.

Yunzhong County is [-] kilometers away from Jiuyuan, which is not a distance that can be piled up there by "step by step"!

But Ying Zheng's order had to be obeyed, so the whole plan was disrupted.

What's more serious is...the Xiongnu only had 3000 people in Jiuyuan County.

Jiuyuan County may indeed have only 3000 people, but the Huns cavalry are running around and looting everywhere. Once they find that the Qin army is marching to Jiuyuan, they will come from all directions for reinforcements.

So the enemy will soon become [-] or more.

Shen Bing immediately summoned Wang Ben, Wei Wei and others to discuss countermeasures.

But the discussion and discussion are futile.

The difficulty does not come from defending the city, nor from the strength of the troops.

During this period of time, Yunzhong County recruited [-] recruits and trained them day and night. After a period of training, they can be used to defend the city... After all, the Xiongnu cavalry is also a rookie in attacking the city. Take it down.

The difficulty lies in the fact that the northern army going out of the city to attack Jiuyuan will inevitably expose the supply line to the Huns cavalry.

two hundred kilometers...

If the cavalry is strong enough, it is no problem to use cavalry to protect this supply line.

The problem is that the Shenwu army is not strong enough at this time.

Chapter 328 Thunderbolt Fireball

If there is any way to protect the supply line under the current conditions, it is to add [-] cavalry to [-] infantry as before.

But in this way, the cost of protecting the supply line is too high. Each team has 3000 people, and the infantry speed is [-] miles per day. At least seven teams must be set up for a [-]-kilometer supply line to ensure that they can reach the target within a day for reinforcements.

Each team has [-] people, and seven teams have more than [-] people.

The total number of troops under Shen Bing is only [-]... which means that they can't even protect the supply line, let alone attack.

The cavalry can travel hundreds of miles a day, and it takes one day to reach the target for reinforcements for a distance of [-] kilometers. It only needs to set up three protection points in the middle, which can save a lot of troops.

So there is no problem for the cavalry to complete this task, and it must be completed by the cavalry.

The problem was that the cavalry was no match for the Hun cavalry.

If there is any benefit in Ying Zheng's order to attack Jiuyuan, it is that it can provide Shen Bing with all kinds of ores he needs...

Jiuyuan is the modern Baotou, which is known as the "Prairie Steel City" and is rich in various metal and non-metal mineral deposits.

There has been no news about the prospecting on Bo's side, I'm afraid they didn't find the mine.

If you can win Jiuyuan... knowing that there is a mine there, it will be much easier for Bo and others to search for it.

At that time, Shen Bing would not need to rely on ore from outside the Northland, which would be self-sufficient like food, which was the basis for dealing with Zhao Gao and Li Si.

After thinking for a long time, Shen Bing finally made up his mind and said to Ren:

"Send a letter to Meng Liang, ordering him to buy saltpeter and sulfur from everywhere immediately, the more the better!"

To be precise, it should be xiaoshi... In ancient times, "saltpeter" was called "xiaoshi", and folks used it as a medicinal material, thinking that it could cure more than ten kinds of diseases, which is why alchemists added "xiaoshi" to alchemy.

Ren responded and went to deliver the order.

Fusu was dumbfounded when he heard this, and asked:

"Disinfected stone? What is the use of the general in need of dissolved stone?"

Shen did not elaborate, just echoed:

"Young Master will know when the time comes!"

This can't be explained, because there is no such thing as gunpowder in this world, and the explanation can't be explained. You can only understand it by seeing it with your own eyes.

In fact, it cannot be said that there is no gunpowder at this time. In fact, alchemists in my country discovered gunpowder during the Spring and Autumn Period. However, alchemists generally believe that the explosion of gunpowder furnaces is a failure of alchemy...they will only feel disappointed and frustrated by the by-products of this failure. , did not realize that this by-product is actually much more precious and practical than their so-called elixir.

Therefore, although gunpowder exists, it has not been paid attention to and naturally there will be no records. It was not "officially" invented until the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

Shen Bing has always maintained a cautious attitude towards this.

The reason is like prudently inventing the saddle and stirrup.

Saddles and stirrups were more beneficial to the cavalry of the Huns, but gunpowder flourished in the West.

If counted from the Spring and Autumn Period, gunpowder appeared in China and spread to the West at least seven or 800 years earlier. However, China’s use of gunpowder has remained at a very primitive stage, while the West has already used standard muskets and artillery...

If gunpowder comes out too early, does it mean that the West will also rise earlier?

Shen Bing dare not easily invent something that has a major impact on history and the world, and even turns cold weapons into hot weapons for war.

At this time, the Northern Army was unable to deal with the Huns cavalry, so Shen Bing had no choice but to consider making them out.

The production of gunpowder is actually very simple. Its main body is hydrazine, supplemented by sulfur and charcoal powder.

The power is determined by the optimal ratio and purity of the hydrazine.

This is like the ratio of copper and tin in bronze ware. If you don't know the exact ratio, you can only try again and again.

Modern black powder is basically three-quarters of hydrazine.

Shen Bing deliberately reduced the proportion of hydrating stone to one-half in order to deceive others or to maintain a technological advantage by "gradually upgrading".

Even Shen Bing pretended to come up with three formulas:

One is more than ten kinds of raw materials, such as sulfur, nest yellow, hydrazine, maru, bamboo rut, clear oil, etc. Some of them are combustibles added by Shen Bing casually.

On the one hand, the reason is that there is no need for too powerful gunpowder at this time, and on the other hand, it is trying to confuse the stealers, so that they cannot determine which are the most important and most powerful ingredients.

The second is to add dry lacquer, tung oil, and turpentine.

The third is to add crotons, pangi and so on.

It goes without saying what their functions are, the first is mainly explosion, the second is combustion, and the third is poisonous smoke.

Of course, Shen Bing consciously did not use deadly poison, otherwise he would have added arsenic to it.

But whether to use deadly poison or not doesn't seem to make any difference... Is there a big difference between killing an enemy after being stunned and directly poisoning him to death?

After the gunpowder was made, Shen Bing tried it again. He took a handful of it and kept it far away, and lighted it with an open flame... With a "chi", it burned violently and then turned into a puff of green smoke.

This startled Fusu, Wang Ben and others.

Fusu said in surprise:

"General, what is this?"

Shen Bing replied:

"gunpowder."

Fusu, Wang Ben and the others looked at each other, looking at Shen Bing as if he knew gunpowder for a long time, but they had never heard of it or seen it.

After a while, Wei Wei asked:

"General, what is the use of this thing?"

Shen Bing stood up, clapped his hands and replied:

"Make weapons, weapons that restrain the cavalry of the Huns!"

Wang Ben and others were even more confused when they heard this. Can this thing be used to make weapons?

The first thing Shen Bing made with gunpowder was "thunderbolt fireball".

This thing appeared in the Song Dynasty, and it is recorded in the "Wu Jing Zong Yao":

It is made of a bamboo tube about one and a half inches thick, wrapped with gunpowder, broken porcelain pieces, iron pieces, etc. to make a spherical shape.Each end of the ball leaves about an inch long pipe head, one end is used as a handle, and the other end is filled with primer and powder twist.When it is cast, it sounds like a thunderbolt and rolls like a fireball, so it is called "thunderbolt fireball".

What Shen Bing put in was iron caltrops... Yunzhong County has been able to produce iron in large quantities, and iron caltrops can also be produced in large quantities. If iron pieces or broken porcelain pieces are used, it will not only be more troublesome, but also have the problem of insufficient lethality.

Another improvement is that the "thunderbolt fireball" is double-headed, while Shen Bing's is single-headed.

To put it simply, Shen Bing made it more like a modern "grenade"... "Thunderbolt Fireball" handle and fuze are on different sides, so there is more space, inconvenient ignition, and throwing is not far away.

The production is also very simple. First pull the fuze, mix a dozen pieces of caltrops with gunpowder, wrap the handle of the bamboo tube with sackcloth and tie it tightly, and a primitive grenade is made.

Shen Bing tried to use it, and the fuze was thrown out at one point. Hearing a "boom", the two straw figures were blown up into the sky in an instant, and there were also exploded barbed wire "swish" flying around. .

This scene only frightened Fusu and the others to look pale but excited, and it took a long time before they let out a burst of cheers.

Chapter 329 Chariot

After cheering for a while, Wang Ben calmed down. He looked at "Thunderbolt Fireball" and asked:

"General, if this object can only be thrown for twenty or thirty steps, how can it threaten the Hun cavalry?"

Wang Ben got to the point.

The Huns cavalry fired their arrows more than a hundred paces away, and it was rare for them to be within dozens of paces of the Qin army, let alone twenty or thirty paces.

If this is the case, wouldn't the "thunderbolt fireball" only blow itself up?

Or is it just to make some noise to scare people?

But Shen Bing will make it, of course it will not be just like this.

Shen Bing replied:

"First of all, when we retreat, the Hun cavalry will not chase too closely."

The reason does not require too much explanation. When the Qin army retreated, it only needed to throw a few "thunderbolt fireballs" back...the Huns who were chasing after them would be blown over.

In this way, there is basically no situation of "hit and can't fight and escape", at least you can still escape if you want to.

Shen Bing then added:

"What's more, we still have three bows and bed crossbows!"

Wang Ben and the others couldn't help but "oh", they all understood, and nodded in praise.

The answer is obvious, throwing by hand can only throw [-] or [-] steps, but this is not the case for the three-bow bed crossbow... Combining the three-bow bed crossbow and the "thunderbolt fireball", it is a proper grenade Launcher, isn't it a trivial matter to blow up the Hun cavalry a hundred paces away?

But it is easier said than done but not as simple as imagined.

The first is the issue of ignition.

In ancient times, there was no such thing as carrying a lighter with you in modern times.

Or make the "thunderbolt fireball" into a string-drawn style like the modern one...

Shen Bing really wanted to do the same, and the ignition device of the grenade was not complicated, but it was very difficult to mass-produce it in Qin Shi, where productivity was still very low, so he had to put it aside for the time being.