Since the earliest establishment of the army in the seventh year of the Apocalypse, coupled with the various captures and even prisoner transformation in the previous battles, by the autumn of the third year of the Apocalypse, the number of strong archers in each division of the volunteer army who can effectively shoot one stone, two or three bows has reached about 8,000 people, although the number is only about one-fifth of the total strength of the volunteer army, it is the first team comparable to the elite archers of the Manchu army since the fall of the two Song Dynasty. Of course, the super level strong archers above the level of one stone and five bucket bows are still inferior to the Manchu army. After all, after a few years of serious training, it may be possible to pull a person with a certain strength to the point where he can shoot two bows with one stone, but Zaiqiang is facing a serious bottleneck of lack of training since childhood. In order to be able to make up for this gap, on the one hand, in the construction of the archery team, they spared no effort in the construction of arrowheads, prepared a lot of armor-piercing giant arrows that looked like small javelins, and specially prepared many steel arrows with a diameter.

In addition to playing a certain role in the early days of facing a strong enemy, the quenched arrows later found that there were many problems in meeting the needs of large-scale operations, and gradually stagnated or abandoned. However, at this time, especially after seizing the entire south, the source and preparation of poisons were much more convenient than before, and after Xiao Xuan once again thought of enhancing the after-effect of armor piercing in this way.

It's just that after some battles, some archers in the army feel that when they can use the bow with one stone and two buckets on the battlefield, they are completely "excessive" in terms of power, and many times, those archers who have greatly improved their level often prefer to use a five-bucket or seven-bucket hunting bow to shoot more accurately when they have a lot of spare power, or to suppress the opponent with a series of arrows.

And Xiao Xuan asked the officers of these archers to come to the training ground temporarily opened up in Hangzhou City to try some Western plate armor equipped by the mysterious team captured in the Battle of Qingyuan, which made many people understand why Xiao Xuan asked that in the coming year, the archery level of the entire team should be further improved, and generally equipped with those big arrows that looked like small javelins about eight taels. Because only by doing so by all means, not only using super-heavy arrows but also working on arrows, and exerting strength with a compound longbow with about one stone, two or three buckets, can there be hope that the army with such protective measures can be effectively killed and dealt blows at an effective combat distance.

"Those Westerners, are they really so strong?" Hearing Xiao Xuan say that this kind of armor used to be a common equipment in the Taixi countries, the expressions of many archery officers gradually became solemn.

Xiao Xuan said: "A hundred years ago or decades ago, this kind of plate armor may have been popular among the Taixi people. However, because this kind of plate armor is often a heavy arquebus that cannot be used in actual combat, it is gradually eliminated in actual combat. Therefore, in this era, full-body armor in the Western range was rare. Most of them, like the Ming army in the past, only had helmets or at most cuirass, but no limb protection, which may have saved a lot of trouble. However, no one can guarantee that in the course of our army's conquest, more and more steel plate armor will not be re-armed, so our army must also be lenient to the enemy to the greatest extent in terms of training standards... ”

In this way, in the winter of Chongzhen's third year, the 8,000-person archery team in the volunteer division also started intensive training, and it was already a little difficult to go further in terms of strength. Shooting accurately has become the most important breakthrough direction for improving combat effectiveness. Unlike craftsmen in the processing of metals and even guns, there are still many artists who know how to make bows and arrows after the establishment of the world, and the cost is mainly the cost of materials, and the real processing does not cost many man-hours. However, the training density of 8,000 people practicing a strong bow every two or three days on average also made the concentrated archers feel a heavy burden, that is, Xiao Xuan obtained a lot of silver wealth through a large amount of plundering of Jiangnan, and only under the task arrangement of this intensity could barely ensure the pass rate of bow and arrow manufacturing, and even barely be able to keep up with the training progress.

On average, hundreds of strong bow live shots per day are not based on shooting directly at the dead target as before, but according to the situation that may be encountered in actual combat, projectile is the main attack method. Gradually, the officers and men of the archery team began to get used to this kind of projectile shooting at a limit distance of about 100 meters, and even shooting with heavy arrows at a distance of about 30 or 50 paces.

In the actual combat exercise, the super-heavy arrows of about eight taels also gradually reminded its value. Just like a small javelin, sometimes it can kill an opponent even if it can't penetrate the shield. It will also cause great inconvenience to those who advance with a shield in attack, and it will be difficult to use that shield effectively in melee combat.

Of course, in the preparation for the expedition against the West, there are other political issues that undoubtedly arise at this time: whether to carry out the conquest of foreign countries in the name of leftist ideals such as "liberation" or in the name of "exterminating reactionary nations" and "the whole world is not the king's land". At the beginning, this made Xiao Xuan a little hesitant. However, when Xiao Xuan remembered the series of purposes for his reform in China, and even some things in Europe in the 19th century, he began to have an answer in his heart.

If the domestic elite can easily reap enough benefits from foreign colonization, how much incentive is there to upgrade technology and industrial level and even improve management? The disease of internal colonization is a disease, but the disease of external colonization is not a disease? From this point of view, at best, he can only seek a very small number of slave exceptions in order to satisfy the selfish needs of a few top ruling classes, and he cannot really turn Europe in this era into India in the era of the British Empire, or even more. At the very least, Europe at this time should have been the Korean Peninsula during the Japanese occupation.

Thinking of these, how to carry out political mobilization within the Datong Society and even within the revolutionary army system, Xiao Xuan gradually had some spectrum at this time. He also began to spend some effort to find the logic and essence of political mobilization for expeditionary operations. Xiao Xuan's biggest concern is, of course, that he sings about internationalism like the problems committed by the Soviet Union before World War II, and still has to return to nationalism itself in the end. Movies like The Internationale and "If War Breaks Out Tomorrow" became a laughing stock. Therefore, there is no doubt that we must be cautious about how to define a reactionary nation. In order to avoid using one lie to cover up another, to a large extent, Xiao Xuan could only focus on one of the purposes of the war, "telling the truth".

(End of chapter)