Most of the courtiers were generals with troops, and only a few were celestial officials. However, in this era, the heavenly officials have more decision-making power, because they can communicate with the heavens, earth, ghosts, and gods, and divinate all things auspicious.

Korea was about to die, and Qin Zhouji once again transported grain along Hedong Road and Henan Road to Jinyang, Yecheng and Zhongmu, and knew that the Qin army would launch a new attack on Zhao next year. Lian Yu once again ran around, but Qi was unimpressed by his panic, after all, the Qin army was only operating within the Qin State, and did not attack the Zhao State. Wei was glad that Qin would attack Zhao again, rather than himself, and the ministers believed that the Qin army would be defeated by Li Mu again.

The Qi people are good at arguing, and the Qin army has not attacked the Zhao realm, so naturally it cannot be regarded as a war and there is no need to panic, but they obviously did not understand, or deliberately ignored an iron law of general warfare: mobilization is a declaration of war. The Qin army had already mobilized against the state of Zhao, that is, declared war on the state of Zhao.

In the Kanto region where black clouds destroyed the city, the Shaobi military camp where the north wind was howling, and the strange sound of the horizontal flute, the convoy that was more than three miles long slowly marched into the martial field under the attention of more than 100 courtiers. Unlike the soldiers of the Zheng Dynasty, these people are not armoured, and this is not a convoy, this is an artillery corps.

Because the infantry is a four-four system, the establishment of artillery can only be a four-four system. The four artillery pieces are a company, the four companies are a battalion, and the division is the smallest strategic unit, so a company of 15-pound guns is specially equipped. In this way, a standard infantry division with twenty guns was much denser than Napoleon, who had two cannons per 1,000 men. The formation of artillery was far from perfect, but this did not prevent the courtiers from making a battle rehearsal.

A ten-pound cannon needs to be pulled by four horses, a fifteen-pound cannon needs to be pulled by six horses, and twenty guns have twenty gun carriages. According to the configuration of 200 rounds of shells for one cannon, a ten-pound cannon requires a four-wheeled carriage to load and fire gunpowder, and a four-wheeled carriage to carry shells. Because the gunpowder was not powerful enough to require a quadruple charge, gunpowder was one-third heavier than a cannonball, which made the fifteen-pound cannon need two four-wheeled wagons to carry and fire gunpowder.

Logistics is the top priority, and in order to better reflect this, the artillery baggage detachment is specially equipped with eight days of horse feed and soldiers' rations. Compared to horse feed, the soldier's ration was negligible. A ten-pound cannon has a gun cart and two ammunition carts, which requires twelve horses; A ten-pound cannon has a gun commander, six gunners, and six drivers, minus five drivers who need to drive, and the remaining eight people need to ride horses, so they need eight horses.

A cannon required twenty horses, a company of eighty, and a battalion of three hundred and twenty. These horses consume at least 3,200 kilograms of feed per day. If the eight days of supply were to be maintained, the amount of four-wheeled carriages that could be loaded in a field state, and the huge consumption of transporting the horses themselves, required a total of one hundred and forty-three wagons and five hundred and seventy-two horses.

The standard weight of a horse in a field state is 250 kilograms, and the total weight of four horses is 1,000 kilograms. Subtracting the 500 kilograms of horse-drawn carriage with its own weight, it can actually only carry 500 kilograms of horse feed. Any means of transport has self-depletion, and the four horses that transport the horse feed consume 40 kilograms of horse feed every day, and 320 kilograms for eight days, and the only thing that can really be used for artillery horses is a pitiful 180 kilograms.

If calculated in this way, then one artillery battalion needs eight hundred and sixty horses, thirty-two horses; A foot division used more than a thousand horses for artillery, amounting to a staggering one thousand and eighty, and thirty infantry divisions needed at least thirty thousand horses. But now the horsefeed wagons displayed before the courtiers consisted of seven in a company and thirty-two in a battalion, instead of one hundred and ninety per division in theory—the horses that pulled the fodder did not eat the fodder on the wagons.

Sparing this, the courtiers saw more than 130 four-wheeled carriages appear in the martial arts, and they still exclaimed: "There are so many horses and ......."

"There are a lot of horses." Seisuke nodded slowly with his stomach straight. He had seen an artillery test and urged to demonstrate it to the courtiers, the purpose of which was of course to make it clear to the courtiers that the Chu army alone could enter Xianyang without the need for the other three kingdoms. "However, the weapon of the thunder god is unstoppable, and you will wait and see."

Cheng Jie's ambition was high, Xiang Yan was silent, and the Yue elders stared at the artillery dragged into the martial field without speaking. At first, they thought it was the manifestation of the god Lei Gong, but later they knew that it was the king's new weapon. Seisuke clamored for a demonstration, but none of them disagreed, and they all waited for this day.

"The King?" At this time, the artillery still belonged to the Yingshi Division, so the public was afraid to ask Xiong Jing for instructions.

"Why are there so few grain trucks? I have heard that a division should be composed of 190 heavy vehicles. Xiong Jing smiled and asked about the baggage, he had to let the courtiers know that artillery is not omnipotent, and that an artillery soldier needs a huge number of horses.

"King Qiyu, our army's grain and straw are mainly transported by water, so there are few heavy trucks." E Zhuo has thick eyebrows and big eyes, not standing in the position of his boss Xiang Yan, but standing in the position of Chengjie's old husbands.

"Shang Ruo Qin army also has a war boat, which is several times that of me, cutting off my grain route, what if?" Xiong Jing continued to pick thorns.

"The king, the minister thinks that the Qin people are also capable of doing it." E Zhuo replied, "The Qin people are not good at building ships, only good at raising horses, if there was no help from my Chu people in the past, they would have no big wings and no big boats." The new big wing has the help of our Chu craftsmen, and it can be built. ”

E Zhuo replied without a drop of water, Xiong Jing did not say anything more, just nodded to signal the demonstration to begin.

Artillery is a technical branch of the armed forces, and since it is a technical armed force, the method of operation must be clear and clear, and there must not be the slightest mistake. While the courtiers were watching, the artillerymen did not dismount, but waited for orders. Xiong Jing signaled to start, and the artillery general Gong Ji gave the order, and Wu Kong, the artillery captain who was the actual commander, gave the first order: "The whole battalion dismounts." ”

"Dismount the whole battalion!" The artillery batteries repeated his orders, and everyone dismounted, except for the driver of the car.

"Take Company A as the benchmark and launch a horizontal team." In accordance with the immature drill code, Wukong ordered the artillery to enter the battlefield.

"Take Company A as the benchmark and launch a horizontal team." The order was also repeated loudly by the companies, and the guns entered the imaginary battlefield at fifteen-meter intervals (which is also the interval between the spear formations of each pawn), and lined up in a horizontal line.

"Artillery columns!" Wu Kong said again, because a horizontal formation with a width of 300 meters had been launched, in addition to shouting, the flag bearer beside him also raised the signal flag of the artillery column.

The artillery had only two states, the column and the put column. When the column is connected, the artillery is connected to the front vehicle, and when the column is placed, only the gun carriage can be fired. The order to release the column was repeated not only by the company commanders, but also by the artillery commanders. According to the code, the position of the gun, the position of the front car, the position of the powder car, the position of the shell car, and even the position of the gun commander and the six gunners were customized.

However, at this time, Wukong's order was temporarily suspended, and the martial arts field was full of the voices of the artillery commanders.

"Assemble the cannons!" Perhaps because he was deaf after hearing too much cannon sound, the voice of the cannon commander was several times louder than that of Wukong. Six gunners faced the muzzles of the guns in three rows. After looking at it and reporting the number, the gun commander ordered: "Put the column forward - off the shelf!" ”

"Put it forward, take it off the shelf!" The six gunners repeated the command of the gunner, while turning the gun carriage in the established position. Because the muzzle of the cannon is facing backwards when it is towed, the cannon now needs to be turned 180 degrees so that the muzzle is facing forward. After the removal of the rack, the gunners are in their respective positions, with two gunners behind the gun, and the gun commander holding the quadrant and four other gunners in front of the gun.

"The king once said that it would take two years for artillery to be available, but now it is only two months." From entry to removal, the performance of the artillery was clear-eyed, Xiang Yan sighed and whispered beside Xiong Jing, not knowing whether to complain or praise.

"They?" Xiong Jing was unmoved, and only said, "This is an old pawn three years ago, if it is a new pawn......

In the era of believing in ghosts and gods, the new artillery who was being recruited was estimated to be scared when they heard the sound of cannons. Xiong Jing nodded so far, and did not talk to Xiang Yan about artillery training.

"Live ammunition, one shot per kilometer in the whole battalion!" The smoothbore cannon is not a crossbow, and it is completely normal for a dispersion of about 10 meters in the vertical direction and about 5 meters in the horizontal direction in the effective range of fire, and it does not need to be adjusted to fire again.

"Live ammunition, one shot per kilometer in the whole battalion!" The commanders of each artillery conveyed the order to open fire, and at this time the whole artillery squad began to be busy:

Gunner No. 1 inserts a soaked cotton brush into the chamber to extinguish any sparks that may have not been extinguished in the chamber and remove the ashes that have not burned; The second gunner, who was actually a gunpowder man, was already waiting on one side with a standard medicine bag wrapped in silk, and as soon as the cotton brush of the first gunner was bored, he stuffed the medicine bag into it; The No. 3 gunner was the shellman, and as soon as the medicine bag entered the barrel, a solid shell weighing ten pounds was stuffed into it; Gunner No. 4 held the ramrod and pushed the shell and the pack into the bottom of the chamber.

Commander No. 5 had been spinning the high and low machine under the barrel, and according to the firing table, he had to adjust the angle to four degrees to reach a range of one thousand meters. At the same time, the No. 6 gunner quickly poked the silk powder bag with an iron cone and poured in the gunpowder.

"Ready——! Gunner No. 5 finally turned to the right angle and signaled to the gunner that he could open fire.

"Put!" The artillery commander took Lu Lijing and looked at the kilometer in front of him, and shouted to let go.

"Boom——、boom——、boom——、......" Twenty guns opened fire almost at the same time, and the sound of artillery was incessant. Although they were far away, the sound of the cannon still startled the courtiers, some of them trembled, their faces turned pale instantly, and some of them knelt down and bowed down.

At this time, twenty shells hit one by one, then bounced high on solid ground, and then hit the ground again and bounced again. There were no targets, no flocks of sheep, and everyone could only see the 20 shells that were harmless to humans and animals farther and farther away, and finally rolled down where no one could see.

"How can I use the power of heaven and earth?" Great Elder Song, who had just gotten up, watched the artillery fire for the first time, and his face was full of horror.