The land of Youyan made a bloody killing in the vast corner outside the branch city.

In this battle, Tanshihuai must be quickly decided, and will not leave the Han army a chance to establish a camp and fight steadily. The reason why he was so eager to seek a decisive battle was to take advantage of the Han army's unstable foothold in one fell swoop to force it to fight in the field, so that the chance of victory would be greater.

Therefore, Tan Shihuai only left 2,000 cavalry guards around him, and the remaining 18,000 cavalry were all dispatched, and he had to chisel through the current Han army formation in a battle to eliminate the Han army to the greatest extent. Otherwise, when he led the army to take away the looted goods and grain, the Han army followed and pursued, how could he be good? The Han army only needs to keep an eye on the goods and food, and the mobility of his iron cavalry will be lost, so the Han army must be dealt with first, unless he does not need those trophies, which is undoubtedly impossible.

In the strong crossbowmen array, all the crossbowmen stared ahead, waiting for the captain's order. They all use the crossbow, compared with the tension of the arm crossbow, the tension is small, the waist crossbow is not practical, the crossbow is undoubtedly the most suitable for the battlefield.

The crossbows of the Han Dynasty included both the most basic arm tension crossbow, the kick tension crossbow that used the power of the arms, feet and knees to open the bow at the same time, and the bed crossbow with a twisted shaft and a long range but poor accuracy. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a kind of crossbow that had never been seen before - the waist crossbow.

The way of winding the waist crossbow is different from that of the arm tension crossbow and the tension crossbow, when winding, the crossbowman needs to sit on the ground, the soles of both hands and feet on the crossbow on both sides of the crossbow arm, and use the rope tied to the waist to connect the crossbow string and the waist to stretch the bow. This uses the strength of the crossbowman's waist and legs to open the crossbow, and then hangs the string on the teeth of the crossbow. The waist trigger crossbow is to require the crossbowman to use all his strength to open the crossbow. Therefore, the waist induction crossbow bow has stronger tension, longer range, and greater lethality.

However, at the same time, the disadvantage of requiring the crossbowman to exhaust the strength of the whole body is also very obvious in actual combat, and the weak can only open the crossbow once, or it is difficult to open the crossbow, which is undoubtedly fatal in actual combat. After all, a soldier with a crossbow can't use other weapons at the same time, and if he can't fire a strong crossbow continuously, the effect is not great, so that later the weak will use the stumbling, and the strong will use the waist, so unless it is a person with great strength and courage to be ordinary, few crossbowmen will choose to use the waist crossbow.

The mid-lane cavalry led by Que Ju was much faster than the left and right wings, and he was obviously at a distance from them, but he had no intention of stopping. The cavalry broke the formation and sprinted in a short period of time, and if it stopped at this time, it would undoubtedly be a move to self-destruct the Great Wall.

On the right side of the Han crossbowmen's troops, the Han crossbow captain looked ahead, looking at the Xianbei iron cavalry rushing ahead, and he calculated whether the cavalry had entered the best range of the crossbows, while giving them the most powerful blow.

The crossbow is also a bow, and the crossbow machine below three stones can fire rapid fire in close combat, the power is huge, and the range is far away from the bow and arrow, but its best range should be shorter than the bow, and due to the crossbow itself, the material, size and length of the crossbow arrow, the armor-piercing penetration, lethality is not as good as the strong bow and feather arrow, but the advantage is that it is simple to start, no shooting skills are required, and the common people are easy to master its use. The strong crossbow soldiers of the Han army all make more than six stone strong crossbows, and their huge pulling force is immeasurable for the penetrating, destructive and lethal power caused by the enemy troops, especially in the head-on decisive battle between the two armies, the strong crossbow is undoubtedly a sharp weapon for killing people.

"Arrow!"

The crossbowman Sima of the Han army slashed down the sword raised in his hand fiercely, and shouted loudly, a thousand crossbowmen who had been waiting for a long time immediately pulled the crossbow machine, and a thousand strong crossbows that had long been ready to shoot their long-hidden sharp fangs into the sky continuously, only to see the continuous crossbow bolts pouring down like raindrops.

"Shuttle! Shuttle! Shuttle ......"

"Whew! Shout! Whew......"

In an instant, the rain of arrows in the sky passed the shield soldiers and spearmen in front of them, and plunged into the surging Xianbei cavalry. At this time, there is no need to care about the crossbow machine in the projectile when the crossbow is not as accurate and far away as the flat shot, because the Xianbei cavalry that came densely on the opposite side is a dense array of live targets at this time, whether it is a horse or a cavalry, as long as it is unfortunately hit by the crossbow arrow, it will definitely be knocked down by the huge power of the heavy arrow, as well as the inertia of the cavalry charging forward, countless cavalry were nailed to the horse, and finally annihilated in the rolling Xianbei army, trampled into mud by the Xianbei cavalry surging in the rear.

Is this the power of the crossbow?

Located in the rear of the Han army, Fu Quan looked at the Xianbei cavalry that fell in front of him, sluggish and inexplicable, and couldn't help but secretly accompany the wisdom of the ancients.

After a round of arrow rain, these elite Han soldiers immediately quickly changed their crossbow boxes. However, no matter how skilled they were, it took too much time to launch the crossbow after changing their outfits, and it was only after ten breaths that the second round of arrow rain began, and the Xianbei cavalry had already advanced a lot of distance at this time, and at this speed, it was believed that at most a few rounds could reach the front of the battle.

This is the most essential difference between the bow and the crossbow on the battlefield, the crossbow has a low rate of fire, a crossbowman shoots an arrow, and another ordinary archer, it is said that two or three rounds of arrows rain down, for long-range troops who need to use dense firepower to cause enemy killing, crossbowmen are undoubtedly chicken. However, the crossbow's great penetration, lethality, and destructive power on the battlefield, as well as its range far greater than that of the hard bow, made him an indispensable part of the battlefield.

Of course, their speed is one in a hundred, and it is really difficult to compare with the lack of contact between ordinary people. Since the Eastern Han Dynasty dismissed the world's material officials, strong crossbows of more than three stones have long been hidden in the central arsenal and local county guard arsenals, and other counties only have crossbow machines below three stones, so unless the elite of the Han army selected like them practiced day and night, there were very few people who made good use of strong crossbows.

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Answering the question of several book friends raised by a pirated reader, on the question of whether the local county town has a strong crossbow, I think that the Eastern Han Dynasty will not have more than three stones of strong crossbows in the arsenal of ordinary counties except for the dangerous fortress and the large county administration, as for why, on the one hand, because the Eastern Han Dynasty used Hu to govern Hu The policy was improper, and the Xianbei rose after the Northern Xiongnu, and the Eastern Han Dynasty lost more and won less, so for this kind of high-tech strong crossbow like the "horse crossbow pass" in the early Western Han Dynasty, circulation is prohibited, and the local arsenal is strictly controlled, on the other hand, It was also after weakening the military armament of the county, the place was empty, and it was afraid that these things would fall into the hands of Xiaoxiao and cause turmoil.

Of course, it is not excluded that the weight of the crossbow is heavy, the structure is complex, the technical content and manufacturing cost are relatively high, and the mass manufacturing needs to have the corresponding economic strength and technical strength, and the people's livelihood in the early Eastern Han Dynasty was depressed, the national strength was not good, and the world's material officials were abolished, in order to reduce military expenditure, it is also possible to restrict the development of crossbow soldiers.

In the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty: The Biography of Chen Qiu", it is said that when Chen Qiu was serving as the Taishou of Lingling and defending against the rebellion of the thieves, "he learned that the officials were old and weak, and they defended the city together, with a big wood as a bow and a feather spear as an arrow, and they shot more than 1,000 steps from a distance, killing and injuring everyone." ”

It can be seen from here that a county guard, when guarding the city, he actually had to make a bed crossbow to defend the city, the text is obvious, "put a string on the thick wood to make a bow, and put a spear with feathers to make an arrow", can it be said that after the Eastern Han Dynasty, the local county arsenal strong crossbow is rare, otherwise what is a county Taishou must be temporarily manufactured? I think so, probably only the Central Army and the Border Army Corps will be equipped.

Liucheng is only a small county town of tens of thousands of people, in my imagination will not be equipped, the border county may only be equipped with a strong crossbow, but it is not much, after all, in the foreign war of the Eastern Han Dynasty, although the proportion of bows and crossbows is more, but most of them are archers, because archers are cheap, fast rate of fire, crossbowmen can only be used as auxiliary troops, this is my idea, although you give comments, but don't be like the pirated reader who has no fan value, half a sentence is not far from the dirty words.