Due to the shortage of troops, the first and second regiments of the third division of the first army were assigned the blocking task outside the east gate of the Song army, and the third regiment was reinforced to the first division as the main attack. However, judging from past experience, if the Yuan army broke through, it could only attack from the city gate, and the strength could not be deployed. And after the third division accepted the blocking mission, it also urgently built fortifications outside the city.

Since Zhao Yu formed a new army and fully replaced firearms, he has regarded the construction of fortifications as a compulsory training project, which is a skill that every infantry soldier must master. Out of secrecy, the order to siege the city was given only last night, and it was only this morning that the time was very tight, so it was impossible to build a complete defense system, but simple fortifications were built in a short time.

The whole fortification consisted of three lines of defense, the first of which was to build a line of defense fifty paces from the moat, that is, outside the effective range of the bow and arrow, with a combination of foothills and horses; Fifty paces after the first line of defense, a second line of defense was built, trenches five feet deep and five feet wide were dug, and batteries were built; The structure of the third line of defense is similar to that of the second line of defense, and the two lines of defense are connected by communication trenches to form a semi-arc line of defense line with a depth of 200 steps.

Although the entire defense line is not tight in Zhao Yu's opinion, the layout is reasonable, and there is no problem with the firepower configuration, but there is still a problem. However, he quickly saw the reason, according to the way of engagement in this era, the two armies were lined up, and the chariots and horses were clearly set out before they moved, and this time the Yuan army broke through from the city to the outside, and the usual way of engagement was not applicable.

In the ancient way of building cities, each wall of a large city should open one gate, two small gates, and some also have a number of secret gates to kill the enemy soldiers besieging the city. However, the main function of the city gate is to repel the enemy, so the city gate will not be opened very large, and the small city gate cannot even be passed through on horseback. Yangzhou City is a state city, but the main gate can only be ridden in parallel, and the small gate can only be passed by a single horse.

The Yuan army broke through this time to open the way with heavy cavalry, and could only use columns to go out of the city gate, and the width of the drawbridge on the moat was not allowed. And the two armies were too close to each other to line up at all. Therefore, as soon as you go out of the city gate and cross the suspension bridge, you will face the enemy army, and you will have to rush hard in front of you with a mountain of swords and a sea of fire. On the Song side, because most of the artillery was transferred to Beicheng to assist in the siege, the troops that acted as a blocker were only small artillery belonging to the battalion and the capital, and the firepower was weak. In addition, the enemy changed the previous horizontal formation to attack in columns, the killing surface of the muskets narrowed, and the distance between the two sides was close, although it caused some casualties to the Yuan army, it still did not stop them, allowing them to break through the first line of defense.

Zhao Yu also knew that there was another important reason that the heavy armored cavalry of the enemy's vanguard this time were all wearing iron armor, which reduced the lethality of the musket and made it difficult to cause fatal damage to the horses. So someone must be going to say, the poem Saint Du Fu's "Former Out of the Plug" is familiar to everyone, who doesn't know that there is "a bow to be strong, and an arrow to be long." Shoot the man first and shoot the horse first, and capture the thief and capture the king first".

If you think that the bow and arrow can cause damage to the war horse, can't a musket that is much more powerful than it do? Or is the content of this rare poem about a battlefield scene real? To be honest, in his previous life, Zhao Yu also questioned this like many people, at least there was no shot of shooting horses in film and television dramas, but some people said that the director was hindered by the cost factor. But some people also said that 'shooting people first shoot horses' is actually a rumor, the ancients did not shoot horses in war, and even listed one, two or three reasons.

Some people think that the power of the bow and crossbow used in modern society is not inferior to the power of ancient times, and although there are many restrictions on their use in China, they are much more relaxed abroad and can be used for hunting. There was a video of hunting deer with bows and arrows, and it was a very small deer, and it was pierced with an arrow, but the prey did not die immediately, and the hunter chased for hundreds of meters before seeing the carcass of the deer. And in Northern Europe, Russia, and Canada, there are a lot of huge moose that are close to hatchbacks. If you want to shoot these big guys with arrows, of course you can, but you want to stop shooting these big guys on the spot? It's not safe to change to a large shotgun to shoot a single bullet, so it's better to wash and sleep with a bow and crossbow.

So, did the ancients shoot horses or not when they fought wars? Based on what Zhao Yu saw on the battlefield after he came to this world, the answer is shooting! But it's hard to want a rain of arrows to go down and a big wave of horses hula to the ground. First, the horse runs very fast and is not easy to shoot; Second, the horse's vitality is very strong, and even if it is really fatally injured after being hit by an arrow, it can still lead the knight forward for a long time, leaving the knight with plenty of time to react. Thirdly, it is easy to protect immediately. People walk upright and are sensitive to the protective area of their armor. Horses, on the other hand, walk on all fours and can easily cover their whole body in armor.

If the purpose is to defend against arrows, the horse can effectively defend against those arrows with insufficient kinetic energy. Taking a step back, even if the war horse does not wear anything, the threat of arrows to the war horse is limited. If you don't believe it, you can see the sassy dew purple of the six horses of Zhaoling, which was hit by seven or eight arrows, and some of the arrows were also fatal, but it could still carry Tang Taizong to charge into battle, and he fell to the ground and died until the end.

Therefore, if the ancient archers hoped to "shoot the man before the horse" to stop the knight's attack, these archers must have suffered heavy casualties. But it doesn't mean that the cavalry is invincible, and if you want to kill the knight with a bow and arrow on the frontal battlefield, it depends on whether your tools are suitable, specifically whether you have a cluster of alien arrows for fighting horses. Therefore, although it is true that the proverb that shoots people first and shoots horses on the battlefield, the proverbs that can be transmitted on the battlefield also have their specific backgrounds and circumstances, and it is obviously unreasonable to blindly use a proverb to apply all situations.

In the same way, although the power of muskets is greater than that of bows and arrows, and can cause fatal damage to people and horses after piercing iron armor, it also has the disadvantages of slow rate of fire and low accuracy, and it cannot be much different from the power of modern bullets. And Zhao Yu also knew that the musket did not become the ultimate weapon to restrain the cavalry at the beginning of the war, and it was not until the repeating weapons such as the Makqin heavy machine gun were used on the battlefield that it became the cavalry terminator.

Therefore, Zhao Yu was aware of the existence of disadvantages at the beginning of the full equipping of the army with muskets, but at this time, he was unable to 'invent' repeating weapons due to materials and technology. In order to make up for the shortcomings of insufficient firepower, he could only use artillery as a supplement, and for this reason he spared no effort to develop artillery on a large scale, not only the army, division, brigade, regiment, and battalion were equipped with various types of light and heavy artillery, but also formed several independent artillery brigades.

However, at present, the divisional artillery of the third division was strengthened to the first division besieging the city, as long as the artillery belonging to the subordinate and battalion and the mortars belonging to the capital belonged to it, these were all light artillery, and the power was much smaller than that of the heavy and medium artillery. In addition, the enemy used columns to charge into formation, and the scattered artillery could not fire at the enemy, and they were caught by surprise by the enemy, allowing them to break through the first line of defense.

"Jin Nan, you immediately lead the team to establish another line of defense immediately after the defense line!" After Zhao Yu saw the situation, he immediately ordered Jin Nan, the commander of the Guardian Baggage Regiment who came with him to reinforce.

"Your Majesty...... Be! Jin Nan hesitated, he thought that the most important thing at the moment should not be to close the gap and strengthen the defense line? But the little emperor asked them to rebuild the defense line in the rear, which made him very puzzled, and he also felt a little blushing, thinking that His Majesty was worried that the combat effectiveness of their baggage regiment would not be able to make them hide behind the formation, but he hesitated and obeyed the order.

"Tan Fei, order the three divisions to concentrate all their artillery on the trenches to cut off the enemy's breakthrough route; Order the whole army to retreat to the third line of defense and hold on until the baggage regiment re-establishes the defensive line! Zhao Yu then said to Tan Fei beside him.

"Yes!" Tan Fei was also suspicious of the little emperor's order, but he did not hesitate to convey the order.

"The cavalry regiment obeys the order and follows me to attack!" After Zhao Yu gave two orders in a row, he drew his saber from the side of the saddle bridge and pointed forward and said in a loud voice.

"Your Majesty......" Tan Fei was taken aback when he heard the order, but before he could shout, he saw the little emperor knock his heel on the horse's belly, and the war horse ran out. He hurriedly beckoned the guard battalion to follow, and the cavalry of the brigade pointed by the imperial banner then adjusted their formation and killed the enemy cavalry who broke through.

Of course, Zhao Yu knew what the consequences would be once the enemy forces in the city broke through, and his allocation of troops was not to make way for the enemy army, nor was it because he had no confidence in the combat effectiveness of the Protector Baggage Regiment. Rather, he understood that the two armies were no more than a hundred paces apart, and the enemy's cavalry was very fast, and they rushed to the front of the position in a dozen breaths, and the musketeers could only fight one round at most. In the case of equal troops, if you are riding on foot, you will definitely suffer the loss, and if you adjust the strength, there will inevitably be vacancies in other positions, how can the follow-up enemy cavalry give up this opportunity, and then will take advantage of the weakness to enter, resulting in the collapse of the entire defense line.

The defense line was lost and the enemy broke through, but they lacked cavalry, so they could only watch the enemy cavalry march away, so Zhao Hao's first consideration was how to prevent the enemy from breaking through. Now the enemy has broken through the first line of defense and is approaching the second line of defense. He knew that even if he resisted desperately and made huge sacrifices, it would be difficult to hold the second line of defense, so he might as well give up the second line of defense, strengthen the defense in depth, and rebuild the defense line in the rear.

Although the baggage regiment of the protection army is a logistics establishment, it is by no means a weak chicken, and they are all elite soldiers selected from various armies, and they have seen blood in battle. Even if they are incorporated into the Protective Army's Baggage Regiment, they do not have to give up military training, but they must still receive strict military training while managing the baggage, and their strength is not inferior to other troops, and they are not inferior to the Forbidden Army in terms of combat effectiveness, or even stronger than them. However, it also takes time to adjust the defensive line, which can only be used to intercept the enemy forces that break through with cavalry, so as to buy time to rebuild the defensive line......