Crossbowmen require less courage than hand-to-hand combatants, but archers are far more difficult to train than soldiers.

The training of archers involves two aspects, on the one hand, strength and physical strength, without strength, you can't pull a hard bow, if you can't pull a hard bow, you can't shoot arrows far, and you can't shoot many arrows without physical strength.

On the other hand, it is the quasi-head, people who have been in contact with bows and arrows know that this thing is difficult to get started, Chen Xian likes to dance with guns and sticks when he was very young, when he was in elementary school, an uncle in the village made a simple bow and arrow out of bamboo, he played for half a year, or he couldn't even shoot the telephone pole ten meters away, but he played the same long-shot slingshot, half a year, ten meters away from the broken wine bottle, almost nine out of ten shots.

Therefore, it is difficult for a person who is not physically strong to become an archer, and even if he is physically strong, it takes two or three years of hard training in the cold and summer to become a qualified archer.

Every time Flying Tiger Village recruits new minions, it will select the strongest ones from them and train them as crossbowmen, and the rest will be used as cannon fodder.

Therefore, this qualified archer is more valuable than hand-to-hand combat.

Compared to bows, crossbows are much easier to master, and as long as a person has enough strength, it only takes a few months to become a qualified crossbowman.

However, crossbows, especially strong crossbows that can break through iron armor, are very expensive, and the most famous of them is a treasure, worth dozens of times, and there is no market.

In the cottage, most of the people who can become crossbowmen are the relatives of the leaders.

This three-eyed musketeer can be refined in more than a month, and it is as easy to master as a crossbow, and it doesn't take too much effort to operate a three-eyed muskete, and any cannon fodder can be competent.

What's more, the three-eyed musket cast is cheap, and the cost of one is only a few hundred yuan, which is much stronger than a strong crossbow that is often more than a dozen times.

With this price, Liu Erzu has to use this three-eyed musket.

An ordinary war bow, the whole process will take three years, even the worst eight-bucket bow battle bow, you have to buy seven or eight dollars.

Even if Peng Yibin complained about Chen Xian's profiteers, the forged three-eyed musket was too expensive, but it was actually much cheaper than the bow.

The price of four or five hundred wen is not even a fraction for a bow and crossbow.

What are you afraid of if you are not powerful? Can't deal with the iron float equipped with people and horses, and can't you deal with the kidnappers and horses without armor?

Although he thought so in his heart, Liu Erzu was still not at ease, and sent his henchmen to pretend to be a businessman from Xintai, find Huo Yi's business name as a guide, and go to Xinzhuangzi to investigate.

Liu Erzu is a cautious person by nature and likes to look ahead and backward in doing things, but this person has another advantage, that is, once he makes up his mind, he will fight the lion and the rabbit, and he will do his best, and he is the kind of person who either does not do it, or must do his best.

This time, Liu Erzu also planned to take the opportunity to start an accident and fish in troubled waters, but it was because he couldn't make up his mind for a long time, and finally news came from the south that the Northern Expedition of the Song Kingdom failed, allowing Liu Erzu to escape a catastrophe.

If Liu Erzu is as decisive as Yang Anguo, I am afraid that the end will be worrying, he is different from Yang Anguo, Yang Anguo is a landlord and a strong landlord, and he has an intricate relationship between the local and the court, but he Liu Erzu is a thief in the green forest, once he rebels, I am afraid that it will attract the wrath of the court thunder, and no one will speak for him.

After the spies who pretended to be caravans returned and brought back first-hand information that confirmed Huo Yi and Peng Yibin's statements, Liu Erzu made up his mind to take the new Zhuangzi.

Once he made up his mind, Liu Erzu's character traits and methods were immediately reflected.

He first ordered four battalions of soldiers to be drawn from his brothers, among them, he himself sent one battalion, the second Huo Yi, the third Hao Ding, and the fourth Peng Yibin each sent one battalion.

The military titles such as battalion and capital were actually inherited from the military system of the Song Dynasty.

The army of the Song Dynasty was divided into four levels from top to bottom, with one hundred people, one battalion and five battalions, one army and five battalions, and one compartment and five armies.

Among the military units of the Song Army, the battalion was the smallest unit that could act independently, which can be seen from the name of the head officer of the battalion called "Commander".

The Yang and Bai families in Dongzhuangzi regarded "Du" as an independent military unit, which was actually a helpless move because the army was too small.

Although the Jin Dynasty mainly implemented the Jurchen Meng'an Moke tribal military system, the Jin army had a large number of Han troops included in the Liao and Song dynasties.

The Meng'an Moke system is a tribal military system that integrates military and civilian forces, and is not suitable for the Han army, so these Han army units inherited the Song army military system in its entirety.

Some large-scale Han landlords or bandits in the Jin State naturally used the Song military system.

Liu Erzu transferred four battalions, that is, 2,000 people.

Two thousand soldiers is definitely a big deal, in addition to the Jin Imperial Court, I am afraid that only Liu Erzu, Yang Anguo and a few other green forest tycoons and local tycoons can handle it on the Shandong Road.

Liu Erzu asked the brothers below to send out dozens of horses, and they had enough four hundred elite horses, plus Shi Qing's 1,003 eyes, a total of 3,400 troops.

After gathering troops, Liu Erzu did not rush to send troops, but put these different infantry horses together for training.

After nearly two months of familiarization and training, Liu Erzu chose an auspicious day in early autumn and left Damoku with the team.

Liu Erzu divided the team into six shares, with five or six hundred people per share, avoiding official roads and going one after another.

The six teams first rested in a village of the Huo family for one night, and the next day they split up and joined into one after entering the Yiyuan Plain.

When this army passed by Tangjiazhuang and Xizhuangzi, it scared the chickens and dogs of these two Zhuangzi.

When Chen Xian got the news of this army, this army had already passed through Tangjiazhuang, and it was less than forty miles away from Xinzhuangzi.

This is also thanks to a sentry set up by Chen Xian.

The shape of the Yiyuan Plain is slightly like a pig's kidney, and there is a bottleneck in the middle, which is very narrow, and the narrowest part is only two or three miles wide. Chen Xian set up a sentry post on the top of the mountain in the narrowest place, on the north side, and sent one squad of people at a time to take turns to keep watch.

There is a beacon tower in the outpost, and Chen Xian stipulates that if a foreign army passes through this place and the number exceeds 1,000, it is necessary to light the beacon fire, and if the number exceeds 2,000, it will light two beacon fires, and 3,000 will light three beacons...... There were a total of five beacon towers around the outpost.

If five beacon fires were ignited at once, Chen Xian would probably have to consider running away.

Although five beacon flames did not rise this time, three beacon flames were enough for Chen Xian's scalp to tingle.

In addition to this outpost, Chen Xian also arranged a sentry post on the hillside north of Xiangshuizhuang and on the hillside on the east side, where the field of vision was wide.

Any army with more than a hundred men in number, once it passes through the mountain pass in the middle of Yiyuan, cannot avoid the sight of these two outposts.

Seeing the beacon smoke, Chen Xian immediately took corresponding actions in accordance with the emergency plan he formulated.

Today, Chen Xian is very superstitious about some modern concepts, including the emergency plan he often hears.

Based on his current situation, Chen Xian envisioned various possible scenarios, and then formulated a series of countermeasures, and according to these measures, targeted training was carried out for the soldiers and civilians under his hands.

A large number of enemy troops are coming, of course, in Chen Xian's plan.