Volume 5: Overlord of the Sea Chapter 555: Countermeasures
Three thousand to ten thousand, and the result was "0:3000"...
If this result happened to someone else, Yan Yan would definitely think that he was instigated by the State of Chu!
"So, that kind of crossbow...the cost of the magazine is so terrifyingly high?" Yan Yan frowned and said.
Because it was Zhang Ren, Yan Yan listened very carefully to his thoughts on the battle.
When Yan Yan heard that Zhang Renyi's initial reconnaissance results showed that there were only 3,000 Chu troops here, he decided to attack. However... after the battle started, he found that these 3,000 troops each had a "crossbow" that seemed to never stop firing. His first reaction was that the Chu State had made such thorough preparations in Badong?
In fact, this idea is not wrong.
Simply speaking of power and performance, the current Qi-boosted crossbow is actually not better than the repeating crossbow!
If the speed of changing arrows in the crossbow is optimized and an "infinite number" of arrows are prepared, a similar effect can actually be achieved, except...
Not to mention that the cost of a repeating crossbow is dozens of times that of a Qi-fired crossbow. In addition, a crossbow arrow is made of a wooden pole, bird feathers, and an arrowhead. Compared to a simple small bullet, it consumes much more manpower and material resources.
More importantly, the difficulty of storing and transporting a few bullets and a magazine is beyond description!
The magazine of the repeating crossbow was even disposable in the early days. Although it can be reloaded multiple times now,... after reloading, it must be used within a short period of time. Otherwise, if it is kept in the wound state for a long time, the mechanism will be damaged faster. In addition, during transportation, sacks of bullets will fall to the ground and you only need to pick them up. However, the crossbow magazine... will be damaged during transportation if the road is bumpy.
In comparison, the Qi crossbow is both cheap and durable!
Only the part that charges the true qi is a little more sophisticated, but you have to know that in close combat, it can be used as a hammer head, and it is not "pretentious" at all.
In addition to the well-prepared spare boxes filled with true qi, the grassroots officers of the Chu State also have true qi and are charging at any time!
However, from a tactical point of view, Yan Yan's imagination that Badong County had thousands of crossbows and "infinite" crossbow boxes was not wrong.
"The State of Chu is so rich? Or... the cost of this crossbow is much lower than the previous repeating crossbow?" Yan Yan said, taking a collected bullet and muttering.
"That should be the case. Otherwise, let alone thousands of crossbows, is it really possible to prepare tens of thousands of crossbow boxes?" Zhang Ren also made this judgment.
“If there are so many quivers that they can shoot continuously, ordinary armies will probably not be their match…” Although Yan Yan is old, his brain is not slow in this regard.
"In fact, if it was just Badong County, I already have a plan in mind. However... if the State of Chu is really so wealthy and powerful, the situation in Hanzhong will probably become even more unclear, and even in the future..." Zhang Ren was quite leisurely and was still worried about the "future".
When Yan Yan heard his words, his face changed, but he forced a smile and said, "Don't bother with justice. No matter what happens in Hanzhong or what will happen in the future, we must first take over Badong County and regain control of Kuimen. As long as we take back Kuimen, even if there are some exquisite things, we can preserve Xichuan... for ten years."
"Yes, I overthink it. Maybe the Chu bandits don't have that many crossbows." Zhang Ren also made a comment to cheer himself up.
only……
If the crossbow was really rare, why didn't people take it to the more important Hanzhong, but instead used it for defense in Badong County?
Is it possible?
But as Yan Yan said, there is no need to think about those things now. We must first take back Badong and reoccupy Kuimen before we are qualified to "close the door".
"The strategy that Gongyi mentioned before..." Yan Yan asked.
Zhang Ren then pulled over a sand table and said, "It can't be considered a strategy, it can only be called a countermeasure! To put it bluntly, just imagine that the enemy has ten or twenty times as many crossbowmen shooting arrows in turn. If you take into account the damage caused by ricochets, the number should be doubled...
In this way, if we fight the enemy with conventional military formations, with our soldiers arranged in dense columns, it will be easy for us to suffer huge casualties in a short period of time.
But the opponent's weakness is that once they get close, they will immediately 'revert to their original form', so we only need to make some small changes to the military formation..."
As Zhang Ren spoke, he arranged the flags of his own army more sparsely on the sand table.
And there aren’t enough flags!
Zhang Ren's so-called "countermeasure" was to replace the dense formation of the army with a sparse formation similar to a variant of the "sparse formation", so as to avoid being shot by the Chu army and maximize their numerical advantage.
This is actually the change that occurred on the battlefield after the breech-loading rifle tactics were perfected. In the West, it is called the skirmish line tactics, while for the East, it is similar to the "sparse formation".
It's just that the sparse formation was previously used as a "strategy to confuse the enemy"...
As for the "future", if the era of cold weapons continues to develop, there will be tactics that go the other way and use sparse infantry and Mo Dao to counter cavalry. However, it seems that there is no chance to continue to deepen the development of cold weapon tactics.
Yan Yan watched Zhang Ren gesticulating and chattering, and was amazed in his heart - Zhang Ren was indeed the "new wave" of Xichuan. He had been defeated badly before, but in the end he was just "caught off guard". Now he had a countermeasure so quickly!
At this moment, both of them subconsciously ignored the fact that this strategy is only useful when there is an absolute advantage in numbers, otherwise there is no way to fight.
If he wants to truly protect himself, he must suggest that the Marquis of Shu develop equivalent weapons immediately after retaking Kuimen and taking advantage of the fact that he can close the gate for a few years!
At this moment, another scout came to report...
"Come in, what's the news?" Yan Yan called out.
"Reporting to the two generals, the Chu bandits' defenders have retreated and have withdrawn their battle line back to the direction of Zhicheng." The scout came in and reported.
Upon hearing this, Yan Yan's face turned unhappy. After letting the scouts retreat, he said to Zhang Ren with regret: "It seems that the generals of the Chu army are not just mindless barbarians. When they saw our large army coming, they retreated."
"Guo Huai... It seems that I underestimated him before! I don't know whether this tactic of digging trenches on the spot was taught by the Privy Council of Chu State or he figured it out on his own, but this is a brand-new tactic after all. Guo Huai was able to master it in actual combat so quickly. He is indeed a rare military talent." Zhang Renyi changed his previous impression.
What Zhang Ren said does make sense. The transition from cold weapons to hot weapons is not as simple as hardware.
Especially the technology of the Chu State, which skipped a generation. If the software, that is, the tactical thinking, did not keep up, and they only used a set of cold weapons to control hot weapons, and only regarded it as a weapon upgrade, I am afraid there would not be such a big improvement.
"Now is not the time to praise him! What if the thief retreats back into the city and defends the city wall..." Yan Yan said worriedly.
However, Zhang Ren interrupted and said, "General Yan, don't worry. If they defend a city, we can just clear the outside of the city and leave most of the troops to trap them to death. The remaining small part will be enough to pacify Badong and Kuimen, which have few defenders...
After all, Badong has only been occupied by the Chu State for a few years. How can the people of Xichuan be loyal to it? If they retreat to the city, what will be left except an empty city? "
Yan Yan hesitated and wanted to speak, but finally nodded and did not refute Zhang Ren's words...
