The rise of the prince

Chapter 683 Iron Cavalry Around Dragon City + Crossbow

"Let the previous battalion down to rest and replace them." Tong Guan had the winning ticket in his hands, and soon, the battalion that besieged Xuanwu Gate slowly withdrew. The wounded and corpses were dragged out, and the next battalion was ready.

"Quick, quick!" The prince was impatient, "Hurry up and get in, everyone will be inside!" As he spoke, he excitedly took a knife from his side and gestured excitedly.

Faintly, dense noises came from the south, but everyone didn't pay much attention to it. Seeing that the great success was in front of them, Tong Guan was so excited that he personally gathered the elite around him.

"Brothers! This is the time to make meritorious deeds, kill!" Tong Guan yelled, and everyone was excited and wanted to rush in.

All the elite under Tong Guan gathered together and began to make a final charge towards Xuanwumen.

"General! Enemy at the south gate, enemy at the south gate!" Someone hurriedly pushed people away and came up.

"Who? How many people." Tong Guan was surprised.

"I don't know, they came in from the south gate!" The visitor panicked.

"Take the rest of the people there and stop them. When the crown prince and I kill the old emperor, they will be the rebels!" Tong Guan said fiercely, "What are you afraid of? I'll stop it!" As he spoke, he turned around and led the people towards the Xuanwu Gate.

The rest of the people organized one after another and went in the opposite direction to intercept the reinforcements.

The prince panicked, and rode beside Tong Guan: "What should they do if they come in?"

With a wave of Tong Guan's hand, the elite under his command began to attack in the direction of Xuanwu Gate.

"I can't get in!" Tong Guan was very self-conscious, "The road is so narrow, and there are so many of us, even if there are dead people blocking the road, they won't be able to get in."

As soon as he finished speaking, Chengnan thought of a loud noise, and the horse under his crotch was startled. He quickly stabilized the horse, and was a little puzzled: "What sound?"

The prince shook his head, the noise continued, and it was getting closer
Tong Guan didn't have time to think, and hurriedly urged the soldiers to attack Xuanwu Gate as soon as possible. The defenders seemed to know that reinforcements were coming, and resisted desperately.

Tong Guan scolded the crossbowmen in the back and said, "Go up and kill them! What are you doing in the back!"

A few soldiers holding crossbows with divine arms dropped their crossbows and rushed forward with their swords drawn.

"I'm getting close to hearing the sound." The prince was a little uneasy, holding the rein tightly.

"No, they can't get through, and more than 1000 people can't block an alley!" Tong Guan said loudly.

"But I heard it!" The prince almost cried out.

"Shut up!" Tong Guan looked at him viciously, his eyes flickering fiercely, like a wolf under the moon.

The prince shut up.
At this moment, a large number of figures were noisy, passing through the corner noisily, retreating towards him, and the passage in the palace was crowded with darkness.

"What are you doing!" Tong Guan was furious, and cut down one person, "Whoever runs away dies!"

But what he didn't expect was that no one paid any attention to him at all, everyone ran back like a ghost, the sound of horseshoes came rumbling, a large number of black shadows followed these people and turned the corner, and there was a large mass of black cavalry under the moonlight.
impossible!How could it be so fast, it is impossible for him to keep people to guard the key points of each checkpoint!Tong Guan stared blankly at the cavalry under the moon, before he had time to say anything, a large number of fire lights suddenly lit up in the opponent's formation, and then the sound became dense.

He didn't realize what happened, the horse under his crotch suddenly fell to the ground with a whine, and he was thrown off the horse. When he said words like "here comes" and "run quickly", his back hurt, probably because he was stepped on a few times in a panic.
Over the past few years, the prestige of the new army has been too great. Thousands of people followed the King of Jin to the south, defeated 10,000+ rebels, and then wiped out the Northern Han rebels in the Taihang Mountains.

In the end, Weizhou, Anding, and Yanshan Mansions were broken, and the emperor of Liao Kingdom was captured. He was full of legends, and the new army was like his commander, King Jin. It seemed that he was no longer a human being, but a god. When the familiar banner was played around the corner under the bright moonlight of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the morale of the rebel army completely collapsed.

As the reinforcements approached, the rebels' offensive became more violent, and what was even more terrible was the strong crossbow in the army, also called the god arm crossbow.

It is the inherited and upgraded version of the Han crossbow. This version can even shoot through the skinned wooden shield, causing a lot of casualties to Wu Desi. The leather armor of ordinary soldiers can't prevent it at all.

In the dark, Li Xingzhou didn't dare to show his head at all, because this was not a joke, the shot on the armor was fine, maybe it was just a skin trauma, if he was unlucky and shot at a place that was not covered by the armor, his life would be lost.

Wu Desi also has such crossbows, there are more than 200 pieces, but they have never been used, because the people in front block the door, and it is easy to accidentally injure their own people.

But every time the rebels were about to rush in, it was these powerful crossbows that saved their lives. More than 100 god-armed crossbows shot at a small goal at the same time, that was no joke.

When the sound of muskets came from outside the door, Li Xingzhou knew that the reinforcements were coming, so he immediately asked everyone to withdraw to avoid being too close and being accidentally injured by muskets.

A large group of rebels fell into a state of two-sided attack, with heavy casualties, but they still persisted. Then a large group of cavalry in black began to appear at the other end of the field of vision. The fire was flickering, and the sound was loud. They began to shoot fiercely, and the rebels were blocked outside the Xuanwu Gate Sandwich biscuits became available on the open space, and morale began to gradually collapse.

Muskets are no better than bows and crossbows. Bows and crossbows are difficult to shoot through armor, plate armor and other armors at close range. Many times, they can be killed by shooting at parts that cannot be armored. But it doesn't matter what kind of armor you are.

But the straw that broke the camel's back in the end was the banner of the new army. When the banner of the new army passed the corner and arrived at the front of the formation, the rebels began to panic, shouting that the new army was coming, and gradually some people began to lose Kneel down and surrender.

After all, the deterrent power of the new army is too great.

Many Wu Desi soldiers cheered and cheered together, and cried while laughing.
Li Xingzhou also had the courage to lose his strength. He stepped on the stinky blood under his feet and went to see Ji Chunsheng, who was seriously injured. De Gong and He Zhao were looking after him. It's almost imperceptible.

He stared blankly at his hand before putting down the blood-stained god arm crossbow. Without these two hundred crossbows, they would not have been able to hold on to the reinforcements. He was committed to the development of firearm technology, but it was not the one who saved him at the critical moment. firearm
The crossbow is an important masterpiece of ancient Chinese military science and technology. However, China is a country that values ​​humanity. Subconsciously, it believes that man will conquer the sky, so it is believed that human strategy is more important than technology.But some spirits are the opposite. They think that technology can solve everything, so they don't pay attention to long-term strategy.

This kind of subconsciousness is difficult to change, so even if modern people talk about what ancient crossbows are powerful, many people will talk about Liannu, Zhuge Liannu, etc., because the cultural confidence carried by the "black technology Liannu" The meaning is more important than the technical meaning.

But what is interesting is that because of interest, some scholars from country m devoted themselves to restoring all kinds of crossbows in the world, and even made documentaries, relying on strict historical research and scientific analysis.

As a result, he was surprised to find that the so-called continuous crossbow can indeed be fired semi-automatically, and its firing speed is faster than many ancient crossbows, but its power is only at the toy level, and it cannot penetrate any armor at all, nor can it achieve practical significance, let alone equip the army. Unless the leader is a fool.

At the same time, he believes that from the perspective of physics, it is impossible for the Liannu to achieve great power. He also earnestly carried out a series of calculations and reasoning to prove his point of view.

On the contrary, it is other normal crossbows in China, such as the military standard crossbow drawings recorded in military classics, as well as unearthed military equipment crossbows, those that have not been blown to the sky, such as Han army crossbows, Song Shenarm crossbows, etc.

The power and range are far greater than the European crossbows of the same period, and they are far smaller than the European crossbows in size and weight.

Because after the crossbow is loaded, the string will tightly hold the fixed protrusion. At this time, because the tension is too large, manpower cannot be pulled. European crossbows use the principle of simple levers to add a long iron lever behind the crossbow. Achieve firing.

This also makes it impossible to pull the crossbow string too far, because the greater the force accumulated by the crossbow arm and crossbow string, the longer the lever trigger at the rear must be to obtain the same huge force to fire the crossbow.

To put it simply, if the European crossbow is 1 meter long, its string can only be pulled back about 0.3 meters, otherwise it will not be possible to pull the trigger, and a one-meter crossbow is already a heavy crossbow.

But Chinese craftsmen found a solution as early as the Han crossbow, and designed a structure similar to the trigger of later generations of firearms. That is to say, if the Chinese crossbow is 1 meter long, its string can be pulled back 0.9 meters, because the craftsman's ingenuity Design, pulling the trigger is a breeze.

It is enough to imagine how much difference the kinetic energy accumulated by the crossbow will be due to the difference. The difference in power is self-evident for a draw distance of 0.3 meters and a draw distance of 0.9 meters.

It is not difficult to imagine that if the power is the same, the Han crossbow and the god arm crossbow will be many times lighter than the European crossbows of the same period.But it is a pity that what people talk about is the Liannu, and what is blown to the sky is also the Liannu, Zhuge Liannu and other things that lack practical demonstration.

So at that time, the scholars of country m called the Liannu a "delicate toy", and the well-behaved military Chinese crossbow was a world-leading design.

This sentence is very pertinent. When the Han army defeated the Huns, the history books recorded the strength of the crossbow.

But slowly, under the influence of scholars, farmers, businessmen and commerce, the country of the Central Plains believed in people more, and believed in people's strategies more, and did not believe in the power of foreign things, did not believe in technology, and gradually lost the leading crossbows of Qin and Han. There is no world-leading technology like the sea-going ship that competes with it.

By the Ming Dynasty, because of this far-reaching influence, it had become very "awkward", or distorted. On the one hand, it paid attention to the development of firearms. design and more.

But on the other hand, the processing technology and material technology are far behind. The quality of the iron is not good, the barrel cannot be made well, the air leakage is serious, the chamber is often exploded, and the power accuracy is not enough.

The imperial court also showed an attitude of not paying attention to it in general. To put it bluntly, until now they still hoped that relying on "people's schemes" to make up for the shortage of these foreign things, and using human strengths to make up for the shortage of foreign things. This way of thinking is "we It is the inevitable disadvantages brought about by the core values ​​of destiny.

It's a pity that people's strategy failed to make up for the shortcomings of technology, but it became more and more serious. It's like a very deep wooden barrel, but there is one. The plank is very short, and it can't hold much water at all.
(End of this chapter)