From Chief to Ball

Chen Jian asked the team to rest first, and he and E Yue took some riders to see the battlefield. I have to say that the Xirong people made a very wise choice, making use of their strengths and avoiding their weaknesses.

They have a large number of people, and they don't need ambushes or tricks. As long as Xia Cheng and their army formation can be attacked into a war of attrition, it will be the biggest advantage for the Xirong people, and they can minimize uncertainties.

A few days ago, when Sirius led the scouts to scout, I'm afraid these Xirong people have realized the terrible battlefield mobility of cavalry.

On an open battlefield, in order to guard against the maneuvering of the cavalry, it is necessary to reserve a large number of troops behind the side for preparation, and the number of troops piled up on the front line will be reduced.

Unless the cavalry is eliminated, any good-minded leader of the side reserve team will not use it easily, but eliminating these cavalry requires cavalry, and they do not have it.

So they chose such a terrain decisive battle. The swamp in the west ensured that the cavalry could not maneuver in a large area and could only attack from the front; the rocky mountain in the east also ensured that there would be no ambushes attacking from the woods.

In this way, the two sides can only attack the front, competing for numbers and fighting will. The hatred of the Xirong people is also a kind of will.

Originally, Chen Jian's plan was to let the wolf belt lead the cavalry to deter the opponent, so that the Xirong people could not put all the troops on the front line, so that the number of people on the contact surface between the two sides would be about the same. People can only fight the battle ahead as a refueling tactic, and dare not use those reserves to guard against cavalry.

Relying on the rapid mobility of the cavalry, 200 cavalry is enough to pry the infantry of 700 on the opposite side from participating in the frontal assault, and these 700 cannot be a temporary army that will disperse as soon as they rush.Put a bunch of improvised troops with weak wills to fight to guard the flanks and rear, and it's easy to have a big rout.

It's a pity that the Xirong people cleverly resolved Chen Jian's plan by choosing the battlefield. Chen Jian stood on the stone and looked at the Xirong people's army formation, shaking his head secretly.

The Xirong people divided the army into nine parties, with about 500 people in each party, which was exactly 500 people.

The front of the entire battlefield is about 500 paces wide, because there is no need to worry about the cavalry going around, and the Xirong people concentrate their troops on the front line.

There are two armies on the east side of the mountain, about a thousand people.The two sides in the middle are also thousands of people.The main force is concentrated in the west, and the banners and flags of the Xirong leaders can be seen from a distance near the swamp.

The army formation is fairly neat, it is indeed not the kind of chaotic cave tribe, and the weapons are also considered complete. Although there is no bronze, stone tools can also arm the army.There were spears, spears, stone axes, wooden shields, bows and arrows and other weapons. There was a faint sound of horns, and the Xirong soldiers shouted in unison.

E Yue watched for a while and said: "It seems that the Xirong people are planning to break through us from the west?"

"It should be that they have a large number of people. The people in the east and the middle seem to them to be able to withstand our impact. It is already noon. If it hits the afternoon and the sun sets, if they can break through from the west and encircle the east, When we face the sun, there will always be some impact."

Chen Jian looked at it for a while and said: "When we send troops from the two cities, we can't do our own thing. Chief Eyue leads your people close to the hillside to guard our east side, but you must advance and retreat with the sound of our drums."

There are not many enemies in the east, E Yue secretly said: "Is Ji Xia planning to rely on the thousand people in Xiacheng to fight against the thousands of people on the opposite side?"

He didn't know what Chen Jian was going to do, but this proposal was not bad for him. He also knew that it was impossible for two people to fight each other in this battle. Chen Jian's proposal was obviously reasonable and even Xia Cheng shared a lot of pressure. This convinced him, so he nodded and said, "Don't worry, Jixia, you and I swore in front of our ancestors that we will never retreat early. But Xiacheng can fight well, and has bronze weapons, so we can only rely on you to defeat the enemy." There are no bronze weapons in E City, but there are hundreds of warriors, I will definitely guard your left wing, and follow your drums to advance and retreat."

After the agreement was made, Chen Jian sent a few people who could understand the meaning of Xiacheng's drums to Eyue's side, and people from the two cities began to organize their teams.

The soldiers threw down the food and baggage they carried, put on their armor, and prepared their weapons.

The 800 people in Echeng were on the left side of Chen Jian. Chen Jian placed the shock army composed of Xinjun and Linong in the center.The rest of Xiacheng's army was concentrated in the west near the swamp.

While the soldiers in Echeng were still discussing the number of people on the opposite side, the new army who was very close to them was already preparing to line up with the sound of drums, neatly and unanimously.

As the drums sounded, the corporal leaders checked the weapons and armor of their comrades-in-arms one after another, and the archers checked whether their bowstrings were tight and whether the number of feather arrows was missing.

Although the Xiacheng army near the swamp is not a new army, most of them are Chinese people who train in their spare time. The weapons are also bronze, and they are neatly arranged.

Although there were still some voices in the city of E, the army was well-organized. Even without bronze weapons, it was still a very powerful tribal army in this era.

It is very tacit to maintain the same level with Xiacheng's army, but with the beating of war drums and bone flutes, the gap between the two sides gradually becomes apparent.

Chen Jian rigidly stipulated that Xiacheng's soldiers need to advance according to the beat of the drums. After more than a year of training, Xiacheng's army has been able to do [-] to [-] steps a whole team and still maintain order.

E Yue was also restraining his own clansmen, but seeing the orderly pace of Xia Cheng's army, he began to feel a little envious.

A neat pace is not just for viewing, even if you fight with stones, if you can achieve even after twenty steps, you can be regarded as a strong army.

"No wonder Strider praised Xiacheng's army. It's really different. It seems that I was right. If the battle was fought on flat ground, even if the Acropolis hadn't been ambushed by the Xirong people, those soldiers who had fought for many years were still there. I'm afraid they wouldn't be able to defeat them." Xiacheng. As for us, I’m afraid the gap is even further... but in two years, Xiacheng can be like this, what if it’s ten or twenty years later?”

Apart from envy, E Yue was also a little curious, because he was curious that the sackcloth and bark on the carriage along the way were finally lifted.

He saw Chen Jian distributing some pottery gourds or pottery balls to some tall and mighty soldiers. A gray-black thread protruded from the outside of those pottery balls or stone balls.

A few people beside them were carrying a long hemp rope, and those hemp ropes were burning slowly.It is not strange that hemp rope can burn. What is strange is that these hemp ropes burn extremely slowly, but they are not extinguished.

At the end there are a few carriages, or not carriages, only a pair of wheels, with a pine log across it, the pine wood seems to be installed, but it seems to be discarded after one use, because there are still many such wheels on the carriage behind. of pine.

The outside of the pine is covered with a layer of copper, and a round hole has been dug in the heart of the pine, which is very thin compared to the whole pine.

Copper is not used much, but the entire wooden hoop is tightly stitched, and there are two people behind it carrying the same pine, which seems to be ready to be replaced at any time.

The people behind took out some gravel wrapped in sackcloth and some black powder from the carriage. These black powders were all quantitative, and it seemed that there were not many of them.

E Yue watched curiously as the new soldiers in Xiacheng filled the round holes in the pine wood with black powder, and then filled them with gravel.

On the last carriage, there were several pots of charcoal fire, and the charcoal inside was glowing red.

In addition to the charcoal in the pottery pot, there were also a few slender pieces of what Xia Cheng called iron, with a hook at one end, which burned bright red in the brazier.

And there is a small hole at the end of the pine wood, and those red-hot iron hooks seem to fit right in.

E Yue was very sure that some of them were pine wood, not bronze; moreover, he guessed that the pine wood would be replaced once it was used up, otherwise only a few sets of wheels were prepared, but there were many more pine wood; he could even guess that these red-hot The iron hooks are inserted into the small holes at the end of the pine logs.

But... what the hell are these things?

Is it for war?

Chapter 90 Crushing Victory

If those pine logs were cannons, Chen Jian would blush a little.

To be precise, this is a large disposable shotgun with a range of sixty paces, which can also be regarded as a cannon.

There are many examples of cannons made of wood in previous lives. The Liuhe cannons of the Ming Dynasty were made of wood and iron hoops. The lychee cannons of the Agrarian Revolution era, and the Anti-Japanese League took down Xiabin County. Many of them used this simple cannon.

Naturally, it is impossible for the power of a single cannon to erode tens of miles, and at most it can affect a fan that is more than ten meters wide fifty or sixty steps away.

In the era of the Agrarian Revolution in Chen Jian's previous life, this kind of cannon could destroy the opponent with one cannon, but if it was used during the Seven Years War, it might be captured and burned directly as firewood, because there is no value.

This is the huge gap between the guards of the servants and the organizational strength of the real army.

In the era of real gunpowder line soldiers, line infantry can endure the roar of artillery fire, the despair of solid bullets directly smashing their comrades around them, and there are countless ways to make this ridiculous wooden cannon useless. Role: cavalry shock, fast column maneuver, artillery fire and so on.

However, this ridiculous wooden cannon is not ridiculous in Chen Jian's current era.Just as the German army used chlorine gas for the first time in World War I and drifted slowly to the positions of the British and French allied forces, people of later generations would find it ridiculous after reading it: Are the British and French allied forces stupid?If you see green, don't you just wear a gas mask?

Thinking of it this way, it is inevitable that there is some meaning why not eat minced meat.

In this era when a firecracker battle is regarded as a god coming down to earth, these ridiculous disposable pine cannons are the source of Chen Jian's confidence in this battle.

Bows and arrows, spears, and chariots can all kill people, but the Xirong people have seen a lot and will not panic.As for the wooden cannon and Tao Lei, it was the huge impact of lightning, thunder and instant death, which would easily cause them to collapse.

These pine guns are all made of the best pine wood without boils. After the hanging wires are sawn vertically, the gun chambers are dug out inside, and after merging, they are glued with copper hoops and fish maw glue.

In order to prevent bombing, these pine guns are disposable, the copper hoop can be recycled, and the wood is discarded directly.

The fixed amount of gunpowder is not much stuffed, and the shells are also made of crushed stones. The red-hot iron hook is stretched in to ignite the gunpowder, and the crushed stones are ejected.