The crossbowmen of the Qin State have a variety of crossbow machines, with a maximum range of up to 1 km, which is equivalent to the current rifle, and the parts of the two crossbow machines can be interchanged; In addition, the Xiongnu archers were also very powerful, because there were no horse shoeals at that time, and the cavalry was not suitable for close combat, so the bow and arrow were the main weapon.

However, Li Mu had a bow and arrow in his hand that had a longer range than the Qin army's crossbow arrows, but unfortunately there were only a thousand of them, otherwise the war would have been easier.

Meng Yi immediately learned that Zhao Guo had thousands of excellent bows and arrows, and guessed that Li Mu Bacheng used the recruitment of Hu people who were good at riding and archery as soldiers, and through the help of Momen, he secretly created thousands of excellent bows and arrows.

As the commander, Wang Jian naturally did not worry that Zhao Guo's thousands of bows and arrows would change the entire battle situation. The only thing that worried Wang Jian was that the interior of Zhao was dry, and the Qin army's northern route army was far away from the river and it was inconvenient to replenish water. If he was a famous Li Mu, he would definitely not let go of such a good opportunity.

In the era of cold weapons, due to the lack of long-range troops, archers became a pivotal type of troops. In all battlefields at home and abroad, there are archers. Among them, the most famous, the archers are the most stylish. It is none other than the Red Cliff War in China and the Hundred Years' War between Britain and France. The reason why the Mongols were able to dominate Europe, Asia and Africa was mostly due to the invention of the cavalry archer. Due to the speed of the Mongol horses, the shortcomings of the archers were difficult to get close and the lack of defense was compensated for to a certain extent. In this way, the advantages of cavalry over infantry can also be brought into play, if they are all cavalry, cavalry can fight cavalry, and cavalry is difficult to catch up with cavalry. Only a powerful catapult can cause a lot of damage to a relatively stationary mounted fire.

The origin of archers is very early, probably from the large wooden sticks used by people to hunt in ancient times. When the ancients could not catch up with deer and other fast-running animals, they would hit them with wooden sticks, and soon they had special bows and arrows. By the early Neolithic period at the latest, people were able to use bows and arrows. Whether it was used in warfare is unknown, but it is estimated that it has most likely already been used. China's "Battle of Makino" has definitely included archers.

Due to the widespread use of firearms, the role of archers in warfare was greatly reduced. In fact, around the time of the Ming Dynasty in China, the more advanced countries in the world had begun to weaken archers and establish "firearms battalions". With the rise of European colonists after the Renaissance, firearms completely replaced the role of archers. The archers finally withdrew from the stage of history. Give the enemy the first wave of attacks in the war, the effective attack distance is 50 meters, the accurate attack distance is 30 meters, and the diffuse distance is 100~150 meters, and some archers are 1.5 times the range of ordinary archers.

The archer can adjust the distance and strength of the shot through the control of sensation and power.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the level of ancient Chinese bow and arrow production was very mature, and another long-range shooting weapon was derived from the bow and arrow - the crossbow.

In ancient wars, soldiers wore thick iron armor and iron helmets on their heads. In order to shoot through the enemy's iron armor from a great distance, it is necessary to have a bow with strong tension. What is "tension"? It is the amount of power required to draw the bow to the fullest. The ancients fixed the bow with more than 9 catties (1 catty was only 222.73 grams in the Shu Han Dynasty) for 1 force, 10 forces for 1 stone, many famous archers can pull more than 3 stone strong bow, some can even pull 10 stone bow. It takes a lot of effort to pull out such a strong bow, not everyone can do it, and you can't hold on for too long and aim for a long time. As soon as you pull away, you have to shoot the arrow immediately, and it is difficult to organize a salvo. Therefore, bows and arrows on the battlefield are only suitable for killing and wounding enemy troops, and are not suitable for large-scale storms and city defense battles. In order to overcome this limitation, on the basis of the bow, the crossbow was invented. In ancient times, it was said that "the crossbow was born from the bow", and it has always been called "strong bow" and "strong crossbow".

A crossbow is a bow that rests horizontally on the front end of a piece of hard, elongated wood, which is called a "crossbow arm". At the back of the crossbow arm there is a groove in which a hook for hooking and tensioning the string and a trigger for firing a crossbow arrow are installed. In addition, there is an upright light door on it, which is used for aiming.

The principle of firing crossbows and bows is the same, and the characteristic of crossbows is that they do not have to aim while stretching the strings hard, but first buckle the strings, and then calmly aim and see the opportunity to fire, thus greatly improving the hit rate. More advanced is to pull the crossbow apart, and the arrow to the string can also rely not only on the strength of the human arm, but also on the foot or waist. Later, it also developed to the use of a winch device to concentrate the strength of a few people or even dozens of people to wind, which not only increased the range of arrows, but also could fire heavy crossbow arrows.

In the history of our country, the earliest example of using the crossbow to defeat the enemy and winning a great battle was the Battle of Maling during the Warring States period more than 2,300 years ago. The story also starts with Sun Bin and Pang Juan, military strategists during the Warring States period......

Sun Bin and Pang Juan are both from Qi and once studied the art of war together. Later, Pang Juan went to Wei and became the general of King Hui of Wei. This Pang Juan is a very jealous person, although he became a general, he always hated Sun Bin, an old classmate. He thought that Sun Bin was a descendant of the great military strategist Sun Wu, and he studied the art of war harder than himself, and he was very creative. How can such a person in a neighboring country show his ability? The fire burned Pang Juan's heart more and more violently, making him restless. In the end, he devised a drug scheme to trick Sun Bin into Wei State, sentenced him to death (digging out the kneecaps of both legs) on trumped-up charges, and tattooed words on his face and sent him to prison. The State of Qi tried every means to send an envoy to secretly bring Sun Bin back to the State of Qi, and was appointed as a military advisor by King Qi Wei.

A few years later, the Wei army attacked Zhao on a large scale, and the commander was Pang Juan, who was a small country, how could it withstand the offensive of the Wei army, so he had to ask Qi for help. The state of Qi immediately sent reinforcements with Tian Ji as the general and Sun Bin as the military advisor. Before the war, Sun Bin had already formulated a battle plan, allowing the Qi army to march towards Wei and make it look like they were going to attack Wei. After Pang Juan got the information, he hurriedly gave up his plan to attack Zhao and led his army to turn around and return to China to resist the attack of the Qi army. By the time they arrived at Wei, the Qi army had already headed west.

Pang Juan refused to give up, and kept chasing. Pang Juan was very arrogant, he didn't take the Qi army in his eyes at all, and vowed to use this opportunity to eliminate the Qi army and Sun Bin together. Sun Bin took advantage of Pang Juan's arrogant ambition to design, making the appearance of the Qi army fleeing in the wilderness, leaving 100,000 stove pits on the first day, 50,000 stove pits the next day, and only 30,000 stove pits on the third day.

Pang Juan chased for 3 days, and saw fewer and fewer stove pits every day, and couldn't help laughing, and said: "I knew that the Qi army was made of cotton, and it was vulnerable." See! Before I even beat them, most of them were dead! Hahaha......"

The sergeant next to him asked puzzledly: "How can the general see that most of the Qi army is dead?" ”

Pang Juan pointed to the stove pits and said, "Look, these are 30,000 stove pits, do you remember how many were on the first day?" ”

The sergeant said, "One hundred thousand." ”

Pang Juan said: "The Qi army has one stove pit per person to cook, and it has decreased by 70,000 in three days, isn't there 70,000 fewer people to eat?" I see that these 70,000 people are either dead or have fled. You're right? ”

The sergeants shouted in unison, "Yes! What a wise general! ”

Listening to the sound of praise, Pang Juan became more and more carried away. He immediately sent some of his soldiers back to the battalion, and he himself led his elite troops to chase after the Qi army day and night.

In the morning, Tanma reported the information that Pang Juan continued to chase to Tian Ji and Sun Bin.

Sun Bin sneered and sighed: "Pang Juan, Pang Juan!" I studied military books and tactics with you, and we could have learned from each other's strengths and weaknesses and made progress together. But you slew them all again and again. Since you're going to put me to death, let's try! ”

Tian Ji asked: "Strategist, Ma Ling is almost here, how do you plan to arrange it next?" ”

Sun Bin said: "The order for the rapid march must arrive at Maling before noon to seize the dangerous terrain!" Get the crossbowmen ready. ”

Near noon, the Qi army arrived at Maling. Maling is in the southwest of Fan County, Henan Province today, there is a canyon between the mountains, this is the only way to go forward, the cliffs on both sides are thousands of feet, the ancient trees are towering to the sky, and the terrain is extremely precipitous.

Sun Bin said to Tian Ji: "You are a master of archery, these 10,000 crossbowmen please lead you personally, and you are not allowed to make a little noise behind the stone crevices and trees on the mountain." Wei Jun will definitely be here in the middle of the night today. As soon as you see the fire, shoot the arrows together! ”

Tian Ji immediately gave an order to the crossbowmen, and each found a favorable terrain to hide. These 10,000 crossbowmen are all stick boys who are usually selected, all of them are sharpshooters, and since they use crossbows, they are even more handy. When they heard that there was going to be a big battle, it was their crossbowmen who wiped their hands one by one, wiping and repairing the crossbows and arrows again and again, just waiting for the fire to shine in the night.

Sun Bin put all the arrangements at a halt and ordered a sergeant to find a big tree in the middle of the canyon that could be built by a few talented people, cut off a large strip of bark, and burst out a white trunk. Sun Bin wrote eight big characters on it with thick ink: "Pang Juan died under this tree."

Sure enough, as Sun Bin expected, the Wei army came to Maling in the middle of the night. The team marched rapidly to the canyon, and Pang Juan had just walked under the tree on horseback, and saw that the trunk of the tree was glowing white in the moonlight, and there were a few words faintly on it. He asked the sergeant to bring flint stones, and to light them and draw them to the tree. Before Pang Juan could finish reading those words, he suddenly shot 10,000 arrows at the Wei army from the rocks and trees on both sides. Suddenly, the unprepared Wei soldiers ran around like headless flies in the fierce rain of arrows, and countless people were shot to death and trampled to death.

The shouts of the Qi army and the wails of the Wei army echoed in the valley.

Pang Juan watched and listened, suddenly felt dizzy, and leaned weakly under the big tree. He knew that his defeat was assured, and he no longer had the ability to fight and bring the dead back to life. So he drew his sword and killed himself.

The Qi army took advantage of the victory to kill the Wei army and captured the crown prince Shen of Wei, triumphantly. Since then, Sun Bin has become famous all over the world, and the military books he wrote have been passed on to future generations. The crossbow is also a weapon that is increasingly powerful in warfare.

Looking at it this way, although the crossbow arrow has a long range, it has a low rate of fire. Bows and arrows have a fast rate of fire, but the range is often not high. Except, of course, very few good bows and arrows!

To get back to the point, the Qin army outside Fanwu City is suffering from the torture of Zhao Guofei's cavalry! It's just painful!