The Huns were still martial, and when they were children, they would ride on the backs of sheep, hold small bows and arrows, and practice shooting birds in the sky and voles on the ground. When you grow up, you can shoot foxes and rabbits. When he reaches adulthood, he steps on a horse and becomes a good cavalryman.

They don't know how to build houses, live in felt tents, live in the form of tribes, live in the form of water and grass, graze in peacetime, and enlist in the army in wartime, which can be described as "all the people are soldiers".

During the Qin Dynasty, the weapons used by the Xiongnu were mainly bows and arrows, and it should be pointed out that most of the materials of their arrow clusters were animal bones, and a small amount were iron or bronze. In addition to bows and arrows, there were also a small number of iron or bronze swords, heavy hammers and short spears. Compared with the weapons of the soldiers of the Qin Dynasty, the gap is still very large.

In terms of armor, because the Xiongnu had almost no smelting technology at that time, only a very small number of leaders would wear armor, and ordinary soldiers mostly used bone armor and wooden armor to protect their bodies. In this regard, there is also a big gap with the soldiers of the Qin Dynasty.

Then why did the Qin Dynasty soldiers, who had more advanced weapons and armor, still suffer defeat at the hands of the Xiongnu cavalry?

From a strategic point of view, the war between the Xiongnu and the Qin Dynasty was a typical clash of nomadic and agrarian civilizations. The Qin Dynasty army needed a solid rear to provide logistical support such as grain, grass, weapons, and reinforcements. The longer the front, the weaker these supplies will be. Once the rear route is cut off and cannot be restored in a short time, the army will quickly lose its combat effectiveness.

And the Huns, as a "nation on horseback", brought a large piece of air-dried beef and water bags, and they did not need to think about logistics. Even if you run out of water and food, just shoot a bird or a rabbit with a bow. Taking a step back, even if the battle is defeated, the most it is to drive your livestock to the next place where there is water and grass.

The tactics of the Huns are even more simple and crude, they make full use of the speed advantage of the cavalry, flank attack, more copying, fight if you can, run if you can't fight, this is how you consume it, there will be no decisive battle. The Qin Dynasty army couldn't find an opponent if they wanted to fight, and they finally found it, but they couldn't catch up, and watched the enemy flee.

After a long and difficult trek, Meng Tian's army finally reached the border region of the northern Qin Dynasty. He did not reveal his strength, but hid the army. Just sent a lot of spies to find out the movements of the Huns. At the same time, he also ordered the local soldiers and civilians to continue to fortify the walls and clear the wilderness, stick to the city, so that the Xiongnu could not plunder anything.

After a long time, the soldiers of the Qin Dynasty complained that there was no war to fight, and the middle-level officers also said that if they did not fight all the time, they would seriously weaken their morale. However, Meng Tian and Meng Xingyuan still did not blindly start a war, and were still patiently waiting for the best time to catch their prey like a wolf.

Ah Feng proposed several times that she could go to the Xiongnu camp on a certain night and kill the leader of the other party lightly and skillfully. Capture the thief and capture the king, and disintegrate the enemy.

Meng Xingyuan never agreed, he said: "Don't say that you killed a Hun officer, even if you killed a Shan Yu, there will be another Shan Yu who will stand up and continue to be our enemy." What we have to do is to teach the soldiers of the Qin Dynasty how to fight the Xiongnu and how to win the battle against the Xiongnu. It is better to teach a man to fish than to teach him to fish. ”

Finally, one morning, several spies came back to report that a force of about 3,000 Hun cavalry had broken away from the large army and was slowly approaching, and it seemed that they should have come out to plunder supplies. Meng Tian was overjoyed, and immediately sent dozens of soldiers, disguised as herding herdsmen, to drive hundreds of cattle and sheep out of the camp to meet the Hun cavalry.

The Xiongnu team really hadn't grabbed food and supplies for many days, so they had to send a team out to look for food. When they suddenly saw the fat pigs and sheep in front of them, they couldn't believe their eyes. Before the leader could give the order, they excitedly urged the horses to gallop, and the pigs and sheep had already turned into large pieces of roast meat in their eyes.

The shepherds were also desperately driving their livestock to flee, and when the Hun cavalry was approaching, they gave up the sheep and pigs, whipped the horses under their crotches, and fled for their lives.

The Huns happily caught their prey, thinking that they could finally feast on it today.

After packing up the booty, they found that in front of them, at some point, rows of "trolleys" the size of yurts appeared, and there were hard thorns on them, like a huge hedgehog.

Today, the commander who led the troops out was a Hun commander, and he muttered in his heart, "What is this?", and then reflexively ordered the arrows to be released. The Huns' cavalry immediately took up their bows and shot arrows, and a rain of arrows fell on the strange object opposite.

However, the carriage was sealed, and all the soldiers pushing the cart hid under the carriage, and this wave of arrows did not cause any harm to the Qin army.

The commander was furious and ordered a centurion with a small squad of cavalry to "test" it. The cavalry of this squad rushed over while shooting arrows, and when they were dozens of paces away, they suddenly shot a rain of arrows from the "hedgehog", and most of them were shot down at once.

A dozen lucky Hun soldiers finally crossed the corpses of their comrades and rushed to the "hedgehog", and before they could see what it was, they were killed with spears by the soldiers who had just been hiding under the carriage. It turned out that several spears were fixed to the inside of the handle of the chariot, which could be easily removed when needed.

A hundred cavalrymen were wiped out in this way, and the face of the commander of the Huns changed greatly, and he shouted: "Retreat, retreat quickly!" The Hun cavalry, which came and went like the wind, immediately turned their horses and retreated along the road from which they came, although they were not in a panic.

However, before the horses could go far, they had to stop, for the road and the wings were at some point covered with a layer of metal, and the nails glittered with cold light stretched up to the sky for hundreds of paces. This is a stumbling horse nail that Meng Tian took advantage of the Huns' inattention just now and sent a fast horse to spread.

The commander frowned, and said in his heart: "What is this? Why have you never seen it before?" At this time, the infantry of the Qin Dynasty pressed up and began to release arrows, and the cluster of arrows that covered the sky and the sun shot into the crowded Hun cavalry. For a time, the screams of the Hun soldiers rang out, and they suffered a big loss.

"Rush, rush for me!" the commander commanded through gritted teeth. It has always been their own arrows to shoot others, but today it is the turn of others to shoot themselves, and the Hun soldiers who were frightened by the rain of arrows hurriedly urged their horses and rushed into the dense tripping horse nails.

However, before he had run a few steps, the horse was pierced through the horse's paw and fell screaming. The knight on the horse was either crushed to death by the warhorse or pierced through the body by sharp nails.

"Rush back and break through from the front. "This commander still has some military command ability. He saw that if he blindly broke through and did not break through this "thistle", his soldiers and horses would all be sacrificed. He quickly found a breakthrough - the position of the soldiers of the Qin Dynasty. Although positional warfare was the most unwilling and unskilled way of warfare for the Hun cavalry, he had no other choice.

The fierce Hun cavalry turned their horses' heads again, faced the dense rain of arrows of the Qin army, and embarked on the road of charging. They didn't shoot arrows to fight back, but just lowered their bodies, hid their bodies behind the horse's head as much as possible, and constantly urged the war horse under the crotch.

These cavalrymen no longer held in their hands the bows and arrows they once boasted of, but their own short knives or spears. They weren't good at using melee weapons, but they had no other choice - if they didn't rush out, they would die, and if they did, they might have a chance to survive.

The Qin army stopped the offensive and retreated while shooting arrows, and soon all retreated behind the chariots.

The Hun soldiers were constantly being hit by arrows, people were constantly falling from their horses, and screams were constantly coming from their side...... The fierce cavalrymen were still gritting their teeth and charging. They knew that only by rushing through the positions of the Qin Dynasty army would they have a chance to live.