Daqin Engineering Corps

Mao Dun thought for a while, then pointed to the map and replied:

"Look, Shanyu, Yunzhong County is more than four hundred miles away from Jiuyuan."

"At the same time, the Qin Army's army is advancing westward...how can we guarantee the supply of crossbow arrows?"

Tou Manchanyu nodded and said:

"what do you mean……"

In fact, there is no need to think about it at all, it is the usual tactic of the Huns: harass and consume their supplies along the way, and win the battle when the Qin army is at the farthest point of supply.

Shen Bing quickly felt this, because on the second day after leaving the city, many Hun cavalry shuttled around, and even had several small conflicts with the cavalry of the Qin army.

The Xiongnu seemed confident, at least to the Qin cavalry.

This may be because they already knew the abilities of the Shenwu Army in the last battle, and knew that the Qin Cavalry Army was not as good as them in cavalry and shooting, so they felt relieved to attack when facing the cavalry army.

As for the Qin infantry, they hid far away.

From the beginning, Shen Bing restrained the cavalry to try not to conflict with the Huns, and once they encountered the Huns, they retreated to the range of the infantry's crossbow arrows for defense.

So the two armies lived in peace.

It was not until the evening that the Huns cavalry swarmed to attack the Qin army.

The Xiongnu cavalry is indeed the king of the prairie. They chose to attack at this time considering the factor of sunlight... The sun was setting, the glare of the sun and the slightly dim background made it impossible for the Qin army to detect the presence of the Xiongnu attacking from the front. How many people only saw arrows flying from the sun with howling noises.

Shen Bing didn't think too much, and immediately ordered the infantry to fight back with a strong crossbow.

After a few waves of crossbow arrows passed, the Huns retreated temporarily.

Returning to attack soon...

So Shen Bing understood that the Huns did this to consume Qin's crossbow arrows.

That is to say, the Xiongnu is trying to supply the Qin army... If the crossbow arrows are consumed like this, they will be almost exhausted when the Qin army arrives in Jiuyuan, and it will be time for the main force of the Huns to dispatch.

So Shen Bing knew that the Huns had fallen for it.

Chapter 333 Harassment

There is a saying that "I am reluctant to let a child catch a wolf." Shen Bing used himself as a bait to draw out the main force of the Huns.

Otherwise, it would be almost impossible to hit the Xiongnu hard with the Huns' guerrilla warfare-like tactics of "dividing the whole into parts and then breaking them into wholes" at any time.

Even Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty had to send a large army to search for the main force of the Huns in the desert, but they often returned without success.

At this time, the Xiongnu could throw themselves into the trap, so why not use it?

At the beginning, the Huns had relatively few harassing attacks.

This is very smart, because they know that when the Qin army is closer to Yunzhong County, the harassing attack does not make much sense.

For example, the main force of the Qin army marched fifty miles a day. Even if the Qin army's crossbow arrows were exhausted at this time, the Qin army could easily get supplements from Yunzhong County.

On the second day, it is more difficult to advance a hundred miles to replenish supplies, and the further forward, the more difficult it is to replenish supplies. The Huns' offensive gradually increased according to this rhythm.

Sometimes even Shen Bing felt that the Xiongnu's harassing attack was very clever. They always attacked the Qin army in teams of two or three hundred cavalry from all directions. The next wave made Qin Jun tired of dealing with it.

The reason why there are two or three hundred riders in a team is because this number will neither be too dense nor too weak.

If it is too dense, the Qin army's infantry will suffer heavy casualties if they come across with crossbow arrows.

If the firepower is too weak, the Qin army can ignore it and just use shields to block or even counterattack with superior cavalry.

Two or three hundred cavalry is just right, and the Xiongnu cavalry always walk very accurately on the edge of the range of the Qin army's crossbow arrows. Once they find that the Qin army is "provoked" and recklessly counterattacks with crossbow arrows, they will quickly retreat to the range outside.

Sometimes Shen Bing wondered why the Hun cavalry could always keep track of the distance between the enemy and ourselves.

At the beginning, Shen Bing also said that this was experience, but Wang Ben's explanation made Shen Bing understand that this is not the case.

Wang Ben said:

"That's because the Huns know the shooting distance of their bows and arrows!"

Shen Bing suddenly realized.

The Huns didn't even know the units of length such as "step" and "li", and they didn't even know what mathematics was. It is said that they didn't even know how to count the year, just watching the grass dry and green for a year.

Almost primitive, they naturally don't have any ranging methods.

But the easiest way to measure distance is with the bow and arrow in the hand, and everyone is very accurate because they know how far they can shoot.

As long as you know this distance, you can roughly calculate the range of the Qin Army's crossbow, and then you can accurately walk on the edge of its range.

It can be said that the Qin army had no way to attack the Huns.

Because they always quickly rushed into the range of the strong crossbow and shot a few arrows and then retreated quickly. Although the Qin crossbow has a long range and has been improved by heavy soldiers to fight while marching, it is still difficult to accurately kill the Huns... Even if Sometimes the route can be grasped, but because the team is small and scattered, there is not much result.

As a result, the number of crossbow arrows decreased by car.

On the other hand, the Xiongnu continued to raid the supply team after the main force, which forced Shen Bing to divide his troops to protect...

Of course, this was pretended by Shen Bing.

Even in order to convince the Huns, Shen Bing sacrificed several teams of supplies from time to time.

Fusu was a little dissatisfied with this, he frowned and protested to Shen Bing:

"General, just waste some supplies."

"Those laborers who can deliver supplies...they are the people of our Great Qin and fight for our army."

"How can we let them die unjustly at the hands of the Huns?"

Shen Bing replied:

"Our military strategy is to preserve our strength and wait for the main force of the Huns."

"If you want to keep your supplies intact, you can only use 'Thunderbolt Fireball'."

"Young master, how do you choose?"

In fact, Shen Bing was helpless.

Because the "thunderbolt fireball" is used as a secret weapon to deal with the main force of the Huns, if it is used easily, it will ruin the plan.

So either don't think about the main force of the Huns, or you have to be ruthless and wait for the Huns to take the bait... You can only choose one of the two.

Anyone with a discerning eye knows that the former should be chosen.

But this is contrary to the principle of "ruling the world with benevolence and righteousness" that Fusu had learned since he was a child, so Fusu could only sigh and stop talking.

Shen Bing added another sentence:

"This is war."

"If you want to explain war with the way of benevolence and righteousness, I am afraid that you will not be able to do so in your whole life."

Fusu nodded silently.

He also gradually understood this truth.

Because if "benevolence and righteousness" are taken seriously, the world can be conquered. What is the reason why the Huns, who specialize in burning, killing and looting, have survived to this day and are still so powerful?

Where did they talk about benevolence, justice and morality?

If you talk about benevolence and righteousness with the Huns, what is the difference between seeking skin with a tiger?

With the facts in front of him, what else can Fusu argue about? !

In addition to the supply team, Shen Bing also showed a lack of crossbow arrows tactically.

To put it simply, it was a strategy of "increasing troops and reducing stoves"... In the first few days, the Qin army shot crossbow arrows vigorously, and the Hun cavalry fought back as soon as they entered the range.

After that, he gradually became conservative, and finally even used shields and cavalry to stop the harassment of the Huns without using crossbows.

In fact, Qin Jun's crossbow arrows are far from enough.

The reason is that Shen Bing asked the soldiers to pay attention to recovering the shot crossbow arrows and even the arrows shot by the Huns along the way... Crossbow arrows are different from bows and arrows. Bows and arrows are made of feathers, which have higher requirements for feathers.

Correct its reason, mainly be that the bow and arrow ballistic curved flight distance in the air is longer and is greatly affected by wind force and air resistance.

If the feathers are not good, it will easily affect the accuracy and range of the arrows. The best arrows should be the carved feather arrows of the Huns, while the countries in the Central Plains mainly use the wild goose feather arrows.

This is also one of the reasons why the Huns rode and shot farther.

Therefore, bows and arrows generally cannot be used after being used... The feathers are fluffy and messy, and even if they can be shot, they are not accurate and have no lethality due to excessive resistance.

The straight trajectory of the crossbow is less affected by the air, and has lower requirements for the arrow feathers, so there are cheap wooden feathers, iron feathers, and even arrow feathers can be fired... as long as a little burr is added to the tail or a short length is wrapped Burlap will do.

This is done to increase the drag on the tail as it travels through the air.

With greater tail resistance, it is possible to maintain the flying posture with the arrow pointing forward without rolling in the air.

Therefore, crossbow arrows can be completely reused, and even the arrows shot by the Huns are collected for simple processing, such as cutting them into the size of crossbow arrows and adding some resistance to the tail, and they can be used as crossbow arrows immediately.

Of course, there will be some quality problems in this kind of modification, especially the bronze arrowheads used by the Huns are more brittle and easy to break after being used once, but it is better than nothing. It is most suitable as a spare crossbow, especially for the harassing attacks of the Huns.

So on the surface, it seems that the Qin army's crossbows are not enough to succeed, but in fact the Qin army's crossbows are still very sufficient, at least it is not a problem to fight a big battle with the main force of the Huns.

Chapter 334 Wai Three Jue One

The main force of the Huns appeared on the sixth day of the Qin army's march.

This timing is very appropriate.

The sixth day means that the Qin army is far enough away from the supply base... a distance of [-] kilometers.

At this distance, it is difficult for the Qin army's supplies to arrive safely.

At the same time, the Qin army did not reach Jiuyuan.

If the Qin army reaches Jiuyuan, it can use its last bit of energy to occupy Jiuyuan and rely on it to implement defense.

Although the Xiongnu can still surround Jiuyuan at this time, it is not so easy to defeat the Qin army.

He was the first to discover the enemy's situation and walked ahead. He saw that the Xiongnu had changed from a team of two or three hundred cavalry to five hundred cavalry, so he understood that the Xiongnu had changed their tactics and wanted to formally attack... Each team of five hundred cavalry was meant to increase troops density in order to attack the enemy with arrows, while two or three hundred cavalry are more flexible and easier to retreat.

So Jiang immediately ordered the troops to stop advancing and wait for the main force.

Fortunately, he was familiar with the tactics of the Huns and made the right choice.

Waiting in front is the [-] cavalry army led by Zuo Xianwang Maodun himself, and the [-] cavalry army led by You Xianwang is divided into two groups to outflank the flanks and the rear.

In this way, [-] Xiongnu cavalry surrounded Ji's [-] Qin army.

On the other hand, Touman Shanyu personally led the Huns' [-] main force to attack the [-] main force led by Shen Bing.

So as long as the battle starts, the Qin army will be divided into two parts that cannot be contacted with each other.

Although the Qin army with the "thunderbolt fireball" may not be defeated under such an offensive, the disparity between [-] and [-] troops is too great, and the number of supply crossbows and "thunderbolt fireballs" far away from the main force is not large, and may eventually cause casualties heavy.

The Huns had no choice but to take the initiative to attack, but they could not cut off the connection between Shen Bing and Jiang.

When Shen Bing led the main force to meet Ji's vanguard, he saw the Xiongnu encircling the grassland from the other side in pieces. Except for the south, there are other directions... The south is the Yellow River, and the Qin army has been following along. The Yellow River advances to prevent being besieged by the Huns.

The Xiongnu formation seemed very chaotic, but they advanced and retreated in an orderly manner. When they got close, they made various shouts to deter the Qin army.

Shen Bing noticed that the northern part of the Huns' encirclement was obviously weaker, and only a few thousand cavalry teams wandered there.

Chang Ce immediately reminded:

"General, this is the tactics of the Huns."

"Let the timid think that there is a chance of survival and escape, so they don't want to fight!"

"I must not fall for the trick!"

Shen Bing nodded to express his understanding.

In fact, Shen Bing is more aware of this aspect than Ji. This is the tactic of "surrounding three corners" commonly used by Mongolian cavalry.

Open a hole in the encirclement to allow the enemy to escape in an unfavorable direction.

The enemy has been fleeing and the Mongolian cavalry has been chasing it, chasing it like chasing and molesting its prey.

Because Mongolia has faster cavalry, but the enemy is mostly slow infantry, so no matter how you run, you can't escape the palm of the Mongolian cavalry.

It wasn't until they were too tired to run that the Mongolian cavalry rushed forward and won the battle.