Chapter 757 Military Review (Part 2)

"Oh, this is a way for our Han tribe to test the results of the soldiers' training. It is called a military review. The most basic condition for all soldiers on review is to obey orders. In other words, they can only do what the general tells them to do. If the general does not give an order, they cannot move at all." Luo Chong explained to Tang Ji while looking at the formation below.

The surrounding visiting group members were all shocked. It was obviously not easy to make tens of thousands of people obey orders. This also further demonstrated the military system of the Han tribe and the advanced nature of the rigorous command system of gold, drums, trumpets, and flags, which allowed the leading general to drive every part of the army.

The scene in front of them undoubtedly confirmed this point. The Han tribe had already obeyed orders, but for Luo Chong, this was far from enough.

After the army stood still for about five minutes, Luo Chong issued a new order again.

"Battle formation exercise."

The guards around him conveyed the order again through flag language. Xue Tu, who was on the shore, responded immediately after seeing it and asked the messenger to wave the flag to start the daily formation exercise.

The orders were enforced, but whether they could be used like an arm would depend on the battle formation.

The army quickly moved, and the troops of each guard station also ran out of the square formation in teams, holding their military flags. They first lined up and circled in front of Luo Chong, and then went to the open space on the other side to start the battle formation.

The uniform red battle robes formed a surging red stream, the forest of spears and halberds shone with a cold white light, the friction of iron armor made a clattering sound, and the heavy footsteps shook the earth and struck the hearts of everyone in the visiting group. Just organizing such a large number of soldiers was beyond their imagination.

However, just when the army changed its formation, Tang Ji also raised a question that she had not figured out before.

"Han leader, you just said that these soldiers all obey the general's orders. Is the general the one who was riding a horse and holding an iron rod just now? But shouldn't the soldiers obey the leader's command? Why should they listen to the general?"

Luo Chong laughed, and before he spoke, Tang Yao on the side took the initiative to explain for her aunt.

"Empress Ji, the generals are the ones who lead the troops to fight in the Han tribe. Each general will lead several thousand soldiers, but these generals all obey the orders of the leader. Luo Chong has so many things to do, it is definitely impossible for him to lead the troops to fight by himself, so he only needs to tell the generals the target, and the generals will find a way to defeat the enemy by themselves."

Luo Chong smiled and nodded, thinking that this little girl had obviously learned a lot when she was in Kaiyuan County before, at least she understood the military system of the Han tribe from the mouths of those herdsmen.

"Tang Yao is right. The standing army of our Han tribe usually has its own garrison mission and is scattered all over the place. If a war breaks out, I will give them temporary combat missions. At that time, the generals of each army will naturally lead the soldiers to complete the mission."

Luo Chong was explaining here, and the visiting group over there suddenly let out a gasp and exclaimed, which immediately attracted the attention of others.

Luo Chong glanced and found that the army on the other side had completed the formation and deployed the most common attack formation, which was the pig-thrust tactical formation that Luo Chong had taught Xue Tu and his men at that time.

The first row of sword and shield soldiers were closely arranged to block the enemy's arrows. The second row of spearmen were behind the shields, extending their weapons from the shield wall. The third row of spearmen placed their unique 7.5-meter-long spears diagonally on the shield wall to block the cavalry's charge. The archers were neatly arranged behind the formation to carry out long-range attacks by projectiles. The last cavalry was arranged on both wings of the formation, which could not only guard the two wings, but also charge after the enemy's formation was in chaos, or use the advantage of mobility to outflank and capture the enemy in one fell swoop.

However, just arranging a formation would not cause such a big reaction from the visiting group. What really surprised them was the simulated attack process of the military formation.

The war drums under the general's flag of the central army kept beating, and the colorful flags flew in turn. The entire military formation also followed the drumbeats and rolled forward neatly.

The drumbeat suddenly changed, and the warriors in the front row immediately smashed their shields on the ground to take a defensive posture, but the crossbowmen in the back row raised their crossbows in unison. At the command of the central army, several guards, together with six or seven thousand crossbowmen, released arrows at the same time. In

an instant, a dense rain of arrows formed in the air, like a black cloud thrown high into the sky, and it shot a full four hundred meters before falling vertically to the target ground. The straw man targets on the opposite side had all turned into hedgehogs.

But this was not over yet. The crossbowmen quickly fired the second round of arrows, and then the third and fourth rounds of

black arrow rain were shot at the target position like a tide. Such a dense arrow attack, and such a long range, almost shocked the visiting group. Looking at the straw man and the ground in the distance that were already full of arrows, the few people from the fishing tribe were even more surprised and dumbfounded, silently comparing them with the bamboo bows and bamboo arrows of the Xin tribe in their hearts.

The bamboo bow of the Xin tribe combines the technical characteristics of the grassland short bow, and its elasticity is relatively large. They use three bamboo pieces of different lengths that are polished and tied together in different directions, which can greatly increase the elasticity of the bow. In addition, the bamboo arrows are all hollow light arrows, so the range of projectiles is not short, and can reach a range of nearly 300 meters. However,

the metallurgical ability of the Xin tribe is limited, and it cannot afford so many metal arrows, so bamboo arrows equipped with bronze arrows can only account for a small number, and most of them are bone or stone clusters. But even if the bamboo arrows equipped with bronze arrows are projected to a distance of 300 meters, they basically have no lethality. If it is a target in ordinary clothes, it is better, but if it is a target wearing armor.

No, let alone the terrifyingly high defense of the Han tribe's iron armor, even the leather armor of the nomadic tribe and the bamboo armor of the Xin tribe are estimated to be difficult to penetrate.

After all, hollow bamboo arrows can only be regarded as light arrows. There is not much difference between arrows and bullets. The degree of lethality is all related to potential energy. When the speed is equal, the greater the mass of the bullet, the greater the potential energy. The same is true for arrows. In comparison, the arrows made of solid wooden thorns of the Han tribe are more lethal. Coupled with the cast iron arrowheads, it will be easy to penetrate low-protection targets such as leather armor.

Moreover, cast iron is brittle. If the arrow hits a person's bone within 200 meters, it will explode directly in the person's body and break into a lot of iron slag, causing secondary damage to the target, with a very high mortality rate.

With this comparison, Jiao Shi and the Tang tribe suddenly had confidence in this war. The Han tribe had such a powerful long-range weapon, and every soldier was wearing iron armor. Even if such an army was pulled over to fight against the army led by Xin in a round-by-round battle, the Han tribe would definitely win.

With such an army as an ally, perhaps their cooperation with the Han tribe would be much safer, but they still couldn't agree to the Han tribe so hastily. If they had to let their tribe send troops, they should at least equip all the warriors of their tribe with iron armor. This would more or less increase the survival rate on the battlefield and prevent too much loss of the young and strong men of their tribe.

At this time, Jiao Shi had only read the beginning and had made up his mind.

On the other side, the simulated attack continued. After five rounds of arrows were fired, the army formation changed again. The originally horizontally arranged army quickly turned into tactical columns under the command of war drums and military flags.

The so-called tactical column, that is, the charge formation of the Han tribe, is also a multi-service tactical assault squad designed by Luo Chong based on the mandarin duck formation. The large squad usually consists of two sword and shield soldiers, two short spear soldiers, two halberd soldiers, two long spear soldiers, one archer and one crossbowman.

During combat, the shield soldiers are responsible for frontal defense, and the long spear soldiers hold a 7.5-meter-long spear to attract the enemy's attention and harass. The weapons of the halberd soldiers and short spear soldiers are also 3.5 meters long. They guard the two sides of the shield soldiers respectively and take the main killing task. When the enemy's attention is attracted, they suddenly stab a fatal blow.

You have to know that knives are really not lethal. In the past, people often said that stabbing and cutting can kill or wound. Knives, which are mainly used for slashing, may cut the enemy's skin and flesh, or cut off his limbs, but the probability of direct death is still a bit low. However, it is different if you are stabbed by a spear. As long as you stab the human body, no matter where you are stabbed, you will be finished, because the torso is full of internal organs and all vital parts.

Of course, this is not the same in the primitive era, because in the era when medical technology was basically zero, even if you were cut by a knife, it is estimated that even if you did not die at that time, you would not survive for more than a week.

The archers and crossbowmen of the tactical squad basically do not directly participate in the battle. They are responsible for the alert task in the squad to prevent the enemy from attacking from other directions when the squad is fighting head-on.

At the same time, the two are also responsible for solving some valuable targets at a long distance. The archer uses a recurve compound bow, which has the advantage of fast shooting speed, but the range and accuracy are not as good as the crossbow, so it can only be responsible for medium and short-range sudden enemy situations. The crossbowman uses a standard crossbow, which is a bit slow in stringing and loading arrows, but has a long range and high accuracy, so it is used to be responsible for long-range sudden enemy situations and can hunt some high-value targets, such as commanders at all levels of the enemy.

All personnel have their own positions, and such tactical teams can also achieve both offense and defense, which is suitable for melee on a large battlefield. If it is a small-scale conflict, or in a narrow terrain such as a forest, the tactical team can also be divided into two. Each tactical group is led by a shield soldier, and the configurations of spears, halberds, spears and bows are halved to form a five-person group. If it is more streamlined, the crossbowman is removed and a group of three or four people can also fight.

The tactical team is flexible and changeable, and multiple arms cooperate. Such a combination can often play a greater advantage when put together.

But the visiting group obviously couldn't see so many mysteries directly from their positions. They only saw that after the original horizontal formation turned into a tactical column, twenty carriages ran out from the gaps of those columns. Each carriage was towed by four horses in a two-by-two arrangement. After being pulled to the front of the formation, they stopped neatly. Then a group of soldiers surrounding this strange car also led the horses to the side in an instant, leaving only the strange-looking four-wheeled car in place.

"Han leader, what is that?" Tang Ji carefully looked at it with a telescope for a while, but she couldn't see it. Tang Yao had seen that thing on the wall of Kaiyuan County, but it seemed a little different. However, Tang Yao knew that it was a long-range weapon, but she had never seen the specific method of use.

So after Tang Ji asked, she also looked at Luo Chong with curiosity.

"This thing is called a cannon. It is a long-range heavy weapon newly equipped by our Han tribe. It is mainly used to destroy the enemy's morale and formation, because no one can block a blow from such a weapon. In addition, its unique firing method often scares the enemy into collapse without hitting anyone."

Luo Chong introduced it to the visiting group with a confident smile in an unquestionable tone, especially Tang Ji and Tang Yao, as well as several people from the fishing tribe on the other side. The very affirmative tone made them subconsciously believe Luo Chong's introduction even if they thought Luo Chong was bragging.

However, at this time, the twenty field guns in front of the formation were all lined up in a row. The gunners skillfully separated the gun carriage and the ammunition carriage, and then carried out the preparations for aiming, cleaning the chamber and loading the gunpowder. Only then did Xue Tu send out the flag signal again, asking Luo Chong when to fire.

Luo Chong reminded the visiting group members around him, "Everyone, the next step is to test-fire this weapon. When it is fired, there will be a thunderous sound. Please be careful and don't be scared."

The visiting group members were confused. If they had just said that it was just a long-range heavy weapon, they could understand that it was almost a weapon like an enlarged bow and arrow, or a weapon that could throw large stones. But what did the thunderous sound mean? Could it be that this thing also had a sound attack blessing when it was fired?

However, before they could think about it, after reminding them, Luo Chong gave the instructions to the guards beside him to fire the guns. The guards also waved the flag of affirmation, and then they heard a series of thunderous noises in front of the army. Even though the review ship they were on was several hundred meters away from the army, the sound was still so shocking, as if thunder exploded in their ears.

Boom boom boom boom

In the telescopes of the visiting group, they saw a row of large silver-gray iron pipes in front of the battle array. After the gunner pulled a thin rope, they continuously ejected large amounts of white smoke and dazzling flames. Then the entire gun carriage suddenly exploded backwards. When they looked in the direction of the target, they saw that the straw targets that had been shot into hedgehogs were suddenly swept down by invisible things.

The target area was in a mess. The flying shells bounced twice on the ground, smashed two large holes in succession, and finally smashed into the soil. The long range, terrifying power, and the terrifying thunderous sound were far more shocking than the previous rounds of large-scale rain of arrows.

(End of this chapter)