Daqin Engineering Corps

That is to say, when the battle situation is favorable, the Xiongnu will surround them like a pack of wolves from all directions to grab some benefits, for fear that all valuable things will be snatched up by others.

If the battle situation is unfavorable, they will scatter and flee in all directions with a "hula".

Of course, this situation will be much better since Mao Dun Shanyu succeeded to the throne.

From this point of view, there is still a big difference between the Huns cavalry and the Mongolian cavalry.

The Mongolian cavalry also "fight if they can beat it, and disperse if they can't beat it."

"Scatter" is used here instead of "flee" because the Mongolian cavalry has developed this "flee" into a tactic, which is a commanded and orderly "flee".

The Mongolian army despises cowards without courage, and the military orders are very strict. Whether to fight or retreat is under the order of the commander, so it is not appropriate to use "flee", and it should be "scatter".

The Xiongnu cavalry army has not yet reached that level, and its command relies more on self-consciousness, tacit understanding, and animal instinct sensitivity.

The disadvantage of this command mode is that the control and restraint of soldiers is not very strong.

For example, now, when being bombarded by the Qin army's artillery, his instinctive reaction is to escape on horseback.

The soldiers didn't know the situation, but Er Siwei knew it.

He stood on the top of the city and shouted:

"Loulan has been besieged on all sides, and we have no choice but to stick to one side."

"All officers and men obey the order, and those who take half a step back will be killed without mercy!"

After being shouted by Er Siwei, the rioting of the soldiers gradually calmed down... They knew that Mr. Wan was right, the four gates of the city were blocked by the Qin army, and they had nowhere to escape.

The commander rushed to the top of the city, and ran to Er Siwei while avoiding the debris thrown up by the shells on the city wall, and shouted:

"Master Wan, if this continues, Loulan City will be captured by the Qin army."

"Contact the cavalry outside the city to break through, I'm afraid I'm going to die here!"

There is some truth in what the commander said.

Because the Xiongnu deployed four thousand cavalry outside the city.

Although these cavalry were divided into left and right wings, as long as Eswei pulled them closer with a horn and then issued an order with a bull horn, he could command them to concentrate their forces to cooperate with the city to attack one place to support the soldiers in the city to break through.

But Er Siwei looked at the formation of the Qin army outside the city, shook his head and said:

"Qin Jun had expected that our army would break through!"

"At this time, there are horse-rejection guns and horse pits everywhere outside the city. It is a combination of inside and outside...how can our army break through smoothly?"

The situation outside the city was indeed as Er Siwei said, there were already obstacles set up by the Qin army for the cavalry everywhere.

As mentioned before, the advantage of cavalry over infantry is that the battlefield is uncertain and cavalry has the right to choose the battlefield and whether to fight because of its speed advantage, so the right time and place are always on the cavalry side.

However, it was different when the Huns cavalry were used to defend the city.

Defending the city means that the battlefield has been decided, so the advantage of infantry is more obvious.

Because infantry has many ways to make cavalry unable to ride horses...

The horse trap is the cheapest but takes a long time.

Refusal carbine is the most expensive but takes very little time.

The cost and time-consuming of tripping ropes are somewhere in between.

With the joint deployment of the three, within an hour, there are traps targeting cavalry everywhere outside the small city of Loulan.

In addition, the gate of Loulan City is too small and only two horses can be dispatched at a time...

So let alone the Xiongnu in the city breaking through, even the four thousand cavalry outside the city can hardly play a role.

The commander glanced at the direction of the artillery that was still roaring, and said worriedly:

"But Mr. Wan, if this goes on..."

Er Siwei thought for a while, then replied:

"It's okay."

"After the Qin army blasted down the city wall with iron cannons, they must send people to attack the city."

"I just need to hold the gap!"

As Er Siwei spoke, he immediately commanded his subordinates to set up the formation.

Er Siwei believed that the Qin army had a weakness in attacking the city in this way: its concentrated artillery attacking a city wall meant that it would definitely attack from a gap after the city wall collapsed.

Therefore, the Xiongnu knew in advance where the Qin army's attacking side was located and could arrange it in advance.

It can also be seen that Er Siwei still learned some offensive and defensive essentials.

He first divided thousands of troops into three parts and concentrated them on the three sides of the gap, with swords and shields in front and archers in the back.

Then place the trebuchet in the rear.

Once the Qin army attacked through the gap, the Xiongnu attacked with bows, arrows and catapults.

Because the area was not open enough, Er Siwei even urgently demolished a tent and wooden house.

The commander-in-chief said with some concern:

"Master Wan, but Qin Jun's iron cannon..."

Er Siwei knew what the commander meant.

Even if the Xiongnu arranged it like this, if the iron balls hit them one by one, the copper and iron walls would be smashed by it.

Er Siwei said in relief:

"It's okay."

"The iron balls brought by the Qin army from afar must not be many, and there are not many left to destroy the city wall."

"not to mention……"

"The iron ball may be a sharp weapon for siege, but it may not be as good as a trebuchet for combat."

That's right.

The advantage of artillery is that it is powerful and has a long range, but the iron ball is only as big as a bowl, and the probability of hitting people is much smaller than that of larger stones.

And the human body is very fragile, being hit by an iron ball is dead, and being hit by a stone is also dead, so the role of the iron ball has no advantage when fighting people.

But this is just Er Siwei's misunderstanding.

In fact, iron balls also have advantages against infantry phalanxes:

Rocks falling from the sky can hit as many or as few, but after the iron ball hits the ground, it will be smashed into water and continue to move forward, so it is possible to knock down more pawns and cause greater casualties.

The real downside of artillery is that... there are too many people to operate it, 50 people are needed for one artillery.

If you use the same number of people, you can operate five trebuchets.

So the real comparison is between one cannon and five trebuchets, and the firing speed is even slower. The trebuchets have already fired ten stone projectiles in the time it takes to shoot one shell... This compares with the artillery.

Er Siwei made a mistake and thought wrong but did the right thing.

However, even doing it right means nothing.

Chapter 422 Witchcraft

So artillery... to be precise, artillery that fires solid bullets is a powerful weapon in siege, but it is not enough in combat.

When attacking a city, it can hardly consider the problem of slow rate of fire.

After firing a round of shells, clean the barrel slowly, and even wait for a while to let the gun cool down, and then reload, load, and fuze...

But if you are charging against the enemy on the battlefield, 1000 people manipulating [-] cannons will definitely not be able to stop [-] infantry charging with spears.

This is also one of the reasons why the seemingly advanced artillery in modern Burgundy was defeated time and time again by the backward Swiss spearmen and halberds.

Of course, there is another factor in this:

The Principality of Burgundy believed that artillery would be the master of future warfare, so the soldiers' training time and focus were spent on artillery operation.

So it is conceivable what will happen when Burgundy's artillerymen meet the Swiss soldiers in armor holding long spears and rapiers.

Shen Bing unhurriedly commanded the artillerymen to fire shells towards the city wall row by row, and then watched those shells embed into the city wall with huge kinetic energy.

Some of the shells bounced off, perhaps by accident hitting shells embedded in the wall.

The city wall was "eroded" little by little, mainly in the middle and lower parts... This is the result of Shen Bing's order to lower the muzzle.

The reason is obvious, the middle and lower part is the key point of the city wall, as long as the lower part is destroyed, the entire city wall will collapse, and vice versa if the upper part is destroyed.

The shells came one after another, and the Xiongnu soldiers could only stand on the city wall and watch from a distance, helpless, helpless, and more importantly, panic.

Shen Bing could understand this reaction. It is human nature to be afraid of unfamiliar and unfamiliar things.

In fact, not to mention the Huns, even the soldiers of the Qin army on both sides of the artillery and the Pu Lei army in the rear were shocked... Although they had seen artillery during the march, the artillery was wrapped in the cannon coat at that time , they always thought it was a supply.

Among them, the Pu Lei Army is particularly shocking... The Pu Lei Army has lived in the Western Regions for a long time and is still in a relatively primitive state. They can barely understand things like "Thunderbolt Fireball".

However, it took him a long time to explain "Thunderbolt Fireball", and they had seen it before when they were fighting the Yuezhi, so they got used to it.

But now this cannon, this kind of cannon that can shoot iron balls hundreds of steps away and into the city wall... that is completely beyond their imagination.

So much so that Jiang even made a special trip to ask Shen Bing:

"General, what is that thing that has such power?"

Shen Bing replied:

"That's a cannon, Captain!"

"I have not been able to show it to the public just because I am worried about leaking the secret."

Jiang repeated to himself:

"artillery?"

Then he laughed again:

"My people still say it's witchcraft."

Shen Bing replied:

"Just tell them it's witchcraft."

"As long as they believe that our army is invincible!"

Shen Bing knew that even witchcraft would be difficult.

Because even the more educated Qin Jun can hardly believe that there is such a thing in the world, let alone the Pu Leijun who is like a savage.

At this time, after another burst of artillery fire, the city wall collapsed, revealing rows of Xiongnu soldiers holding leather shields in the city.

Qin Jun cheered, and after a burst of shouts, his morale was greatly shaken.

It was a different story on the side of the Huns.

Er Siwei stood on the temporary podium behind and looked at Qin Jun nervously.

At this time, he hoped that the Qin army could charge, so that he could have a good fight with the Qin army, and it would not be like now that only the Qin army fought and the Huns had no power to fight back.

However, Qin Jun did not charge, and was still playing with the artillery.

The commander looked nervously at Er Siwei above, and called out:

"Master Wan..."

Er Siwei gritted his teeth and replied:

"hold fast!"

"The Qin army doesn't have many iron bullets, and it's hard to hit the city wall!"

And that seems to be the case.

The city wall did not completely collapse, but a "V"-shaped gap was cracked.

If the artillery fires as usual, perhaps less than half of the iron bullets can pass through the gap.

However, Er Siwei immediately discovered that Qin Jun seemed to be adjusting the muzzle...

Then there was a loud bang, and the iron ball crossed the city wall and entered Loulan City.