Chapter 776 Progress
"The enemy has ballistae!"
The Taishan Army infantryman next to the crossbow roared loudly, with fear.
It was a pity that his voice could only be drowned out in this noisy battlefield. Only a few nearby officials heard it and stopped hesitantly.
But what's the use?
The pacers at the back had no idea what was happening in front of them, so they kept moving forward according to the pace. Therefore, by pushing the front from behind, the officials in the front row were forced to move forward.
There was nothing at first, but there was a whistling sound from the sky on the far left, and then a rain of blood broke out on the front line of the Flying Bear Army, covering the stumps and water, and it became a hell on earth.
Arrows pierced through flesh and blood, and there were wails and screams everywhere. Countless Taishan soldiers were stabbed to death on the ground. Everything happened too fast.
The officers of a battalion were all deceived by this. Under such casualties, the battalion collapsed without any accident.
But this was not over. The arrows shot out from the left position were still being fired, with no intention of stopping at all.
However, at this time, the Taishan Army's ballistae also began to fight back.
Unlike Yuan Shao's army which had a stable crossbow position, in order to improve the mobility of its crossbows, Taishan's army installed all its crossbows on tanks and was now marching with the central army of the Flying Bear Army.
In fact, the Taishan Army knew from the beginning that Yuan Shao had counterfeited a batch of ballistae, but because the number of ballistae had always been Yuan's army's secret, the Taishan Army's internal officers there inquired several times but failed to get accurate information.
Therefore, the Taishan Army was looking for the enemy's crossbows at the beginning, but they never found them. Until now, the front army was hit by Yuan Army's crossbows, and the number seemed to be quite large. They were first shocked and then overjoyed, because They thought they had found all Yuan Jun's ballistae.
As a result, the ballista battalion deployed in the center of the Flying Bear Army also began to stop and began to counterattack.
They have about twenty ballistae, almost arranged in a line behind the front line, and about a hundred people help control and service them.
With the roar of the gunner, twenty ballistae fired towards the gentle slope on the left. The enemy had exposed their position and now had to bear their wrath.
The Taishan Army's crossbows have been developed for some time, and as large-scale iron works in Handan and other places were put into production, the Taishan Army had more and more surplus in steel, and even began to install iron sheets on key parts of the crossbows. .
With the support of a rigid structure, it can withstand the rebound force of the crossbow arrows, so the crossbows can be equipped with longer bows, the arrows used become thicker and thicker, and the power of the crossbows also increases. It's even bigger.
Although the Flying Bear Army's crossbows are not many, don't forget that there are reinforcements on his left and right sides. Even Zhang Nan, who was confronting Er Li, mobilized the crossbows of the six armies and turned them all towards the Yuan Army's crossbows. On the battlefield.
So, first there were twenty branches, then eighty branches, and then there was a storm.
At this moment, as these ballistas, which can be called "god arms", were fired, Yuan Jun's ballista position suddenly became panicked.
They were caught off guard by Taishan's army and suffered heavy losses. A large number of ballistae and crossbowmen were destroyed by giant crossbows.
I don't know if Qiao Min's luck is too bad, but his place is the first to bear the brunt.
Three thick spears tore half of his body apart, and Qiao Min died in the battle without even saying a word.
The morale of Yuan Jun's crossbow position was greatly reduced after the general was killed. They abandoned the crossbows and ran towards the rear. Some of them ran towards Wenpin and Li Zheng's positions in a panic.
Among them, Wenpin took them in, but Li Zheng's men shot them mercilessly.
After Qiao Min died in the battle, his lieutenant general took over the command, but looking at his subordinates scattered in all directions, he also chose to leave this place of death.
However, he understood military law after all, and knew that abandoning the formation and leaving would lead to a dead end, so he found a war horse and quickly ran to Wenpin's army on the left.
He wiped a handful of blood on his face, then stumbled to find Wenpin, and cried to the young Jingzhou hero:
"Master Wen, for the sake of the Yuan family, you must help the Ballista Army, otherwise our army will surely perish."
At this time, Wenpin was looking at the Flying Bear Army directly ahead. After the elite warriors got through the initial chaos, they quickly moved forward in formation.
Under the cover of the ballista battalion in the rear, they moved forward step by step with their rifles mounted on the marquees.
Listening to the "removed" ballista general still chattering and crying, Wenpin just asked lightly:
"How can I help?"
The ballista general was overjoyed, hiding his sorrow and said with a smile:
"As long as Lord Wen launches an attack on the Taishan Army ahead, he can cover my men."
Wenpin nodded, and then said to this person:
"Okay, you go back first, I will cover you right now."
This ballista general was originally going to stay here to escape the attack of the enemy's ballistae. How could he still be willing to go back? He immediately smiled:
"Nothing, I will coordinate with Commander Wen here. My subordinates will command the ballista formation over there."
Wenpin burst out laughing, and then said to this person:
"I told you to go back to your position, can't you hear me? I don't want to say it a third time."
Seeing Wenpin's eyes becoming more and more dangerous, the ballista trembled in his heart, nodded quickly, and was about to leave on horseback.
He had already thought about it in his mind. He would bypass Wenpin's position from behind and go to Liao Heng and Fan Chun of the Central Guard Army.
Both they and the ballista general came from Yingchuan, so they could naturally protect him. However, don't expect this civil servant to be a good one. I'm afraid you will have to bear the responsibility for the loss of the ballista array.
But the ballista general didn't know that behind him, Wenpin was waving to the guard beside him, and then the guard handed him a bow.
Then without hesitation, Wenpin bent his bow and fired an arrow at the back of the ballista commander.
When the string moves, the ballista will fall to the ground, and I will never know why until my death.
After casually killing the ballista general, Wenpin watched the Taishan Army in front getting closer and closer, and said to his left and right:
"Let the euphorbia soldiers in the front line release their halberds, line up, and press forward."
Immediately, there was a drumbeat from the diplomat side, and then I heard the leading officers in front shouting:
"Let go, line up, move forward."
After that, Wenpin issued another military order:
"Let the two battalions on the left and right behind the slope get ready and look at my flag."
This was a command. After receiving it, the soldiers rushed to the rear.
The soldiers galloped along the horse track between the military formations and quickly crossed the gentle slope.
As soon as they finished climbing the slope, they saw Nanyang sergeants everywhere on the grass behind the slope. They were lying on the grass in horizontal formation and resting.
Behind this group of infantry officers, there was a group of cavalry. Like the infantry, they were lying on the ground and tied their horses to temporary stakes.
When this soldier appeared on the back slope, he immediately attracted the attention of the officials here. They understood that the Chinese army had an order.
The composition of Wenpin's army is relatively simple. In addition to tribes from various families, they are almost all Shanliao members from Xiong'er Mountain, Waifang Mountain, and Funiu Mountain.
Over the years, while Yuan Shao was attacking cities and conquering the Central Plains, Yuan Shu's development was not smooth. This is partly because Nanyang is full of wealthy families and is too difficult to govern, and partly because Yuan Shu is really not good at military strategy and has no generals.
Therefore, he suffered frequent setbacks in the war against Jingzhou, and his strength was never expanded. But later, when Yuan Shao began to recruit mountain troops from the Tongbai Mountain and Dabie Mountains, Yuan Shu was inspired. After all, he also had the Qinling Mountains next to Nanyang.
After that, he spent his energy on the mountains to the west, working hard in the mountains for several years, and finally built up this elite army in Wenpin's hands.
At this moment, the soldiers quickly found the general here. After expressing Wenpin's order, they turned back.
Soon after he left, the Nanyang soldiers behind the slope received the order and began to gather one after another to support the front slope at any time.
At this time, on Wenpin's side, as the two parties began to fight with Bu Shu and Euphorbia, his vision was already a little blurred.
The dust on the battlefield ahead was thick, and heat and blood were steaming under this sweltering world. Only the occasional wind blew away a little bit of the heat and dust, allowing Wenpin to see clearly what was happening ahead.
Flags kept falling, and people kept being sent down. Just seeing these, Wenpin understood how intense the war was.
At this moment, Wenpin was still a little grateful to those of Yuan Shaojun's crossbow army.
They are really good people. They blocked the enemy's crossbows for themselves. If these people had not taken the initiative to fire and exposed their positions, the stormy crossbows would have hit their front troops.
He turned his head and glanced at the ballista position not far away. At this moment, there were already many broken spears there, and there were no survivors at all.
Wenpin had heard of the ballistae. He knew that his lord had many tricks on Yuan Shao's side, and he kept poaching Yuan Shao's corners. He had always been successful in the past, but he failed once in the matter of the ballistae.
At first, Yuan Shu heard that Yuan Shao had imitated the sharp weapons of the Taishan Army. It was said that an arrow shot could penetrate the three armors, so Yuan Shu was tempted and kept trying to poach Yuan Shao's craftsmen. He also wanted to steal a few and imitate them.
But Yuan Shao took this very seriously and locked almost all the craftsmen in the workshop without any communication with the outside world.
Originally, Wenpin still had expectations for Yuan Shao's crossbow, but now? Hey, forget it, they are good people after all.
But soon, the fighting on the front line interrupted Wenpin's thinking, because the enemy's ballistae began to fire again.
……
At this time, on the Taishan Army's side and behind the Leopard Tao Army, a large number of ballistae were constantly turning.
A pale-faced general shouted over there without any regard for his image:
"Hurry up, transfer everyone to the southeast, and attack the Nanyang soldiers first."
This man was the Sixth Army's crossbow general Qianzhao appointed by Zhang Nan. He was leading the other five armies, nearly a hundred ballista chariots, and other ordnance to move to the east of Bao Tao's army.
Their direction was Wenpin's Nanyang soldiers.
The firing of a crossbow is different from that of a crossbow. The arrow path of the former is almost fixed. In the current battlefield environment, the only choice is to shoot flatly.
The ballistae are generally arranged in the middle and rear of the team, so in order not to accidentally damage the friendly troops in front, these ballistae almost always change their parking positions and fire diagonally.
But now, in order to support the friendly forces on the right, Zhang Nan's Sixth Army, which was only confronting Er Li, began to place ballistas and a special weapon on the side of Guo Mo's army.
At this time, Qian Zhao arrived at the right side of Bao Tao's army with Xiao Qianren's technical troops. Then when he saw that friendly troops had come into contact with enemy troops, he immediately shouted:
"The ballista battalion first arranged the vehicle formation, all facing the Nanyang Army diagonally."
Then, Qianzhao gave another loud order:
"First pull up the stone cart and launch it at the enemy on the slope."
The trebuchet mentioned by Qianzhao is not the heavily equipped trebuchet used by the Taishan Army in the past, but a field trebuchet.
This mechanical device can launch stones weighing ten to fifteen kilograms, all of which are uniformly ground and used as ammunition. Unlike the trebuchet, which is powered by gravity, the power of this trebuchet is torque. With the torque provided by the giant crossbow, coupled with the winch and slide, these stone projectiles can be launched in a straight line like a crossbow arrow.
It's just that because the launch trajectory of the stone car is a parabola, it can shoot farther, and it can also bypass the target in front and directly damage the enemy in the rear.
At this moment, twenty stone-fired vehicles were adjusted first, and then they started firing under the roar of the vehicle gunner before they had time to calibrate.
Twenty stone bullets quickly disappeared into the sky, and then nothing happened.
For a huge battlefield, these stone bullets are just small sticks stirring up the sea, not making waves.
But soon, more and more stone-firing vehicles were adjusted one after another, and at a rate of ten rounds per moment, they fired intensively towards the Nanyang soldiers' position in the southwest.
Gradually, Nanyang soldiers began to realize that something was wrong.
No one knew where the stones came from, and began to hit him intensively. These stones, which were slightly larger than fists, exerted great damage under the huge kinetic energy.
Regardless of whether you are wearing armor or not, as long as you are rubbed by this stone, your bones will be broken immediately, and if you are hit directly, you will die immediately.
Originally, the Nanyang soldiers here were waiting behind the infantrymen, ready to step forward to support them at any time, but they were suddenly hit by a stone and suffered heavy losses.
At this time, the Wenpin main formation deployed on the slope also suffered a huge blow.
In order to obtain a higher view of the battlefield, Wenpin's chariot was placed on the slope, so it was directly exposed to the cover of the Taishan Army's stone-firing chariot.
Someone dies almost every moment, and this kind of death is so scary. Those who were hit on the head by these stones had their brains splattered all over the place. No martial artist of this era had ever seen such a tragic scene.
As a result, military morale suddenly fell to the bottom.
And not only that, a stone bullet accidentally hit the pole of Wenpin's big banner, and then with a burst of "squeaking", the pole broke directly.
At this time, Wenpin shouted in the car:
"Quickly, stand up the big banner!"
Seeing the soldiers scurrying about in the stone bullets, Wen Pin was so angry that he jumped off the chariot and wanted to help Dazhu up by himself.
And just as he jumped off the chariot, a stone bullet directly penetrated the chariot, splashing countless sawdust.
At this time, without Wenpin's need to say anything, the surrounding guards directly held him up and withdrew to the back of the slope.
Can't stay here any longer.
They couldn't figure out where these stone bullets came from. Just as they couldn't figure out the moral progress of the Taishan Army, they couldn't figure out the technological progress of the Taishan Army.
It can be said that Taishan Army and each family are already two different species.