Father can be an enemy country

Chapter 1093: Far or near

The winter morning light is warm and genial, shining golden light on the Lancang River.

On the banks of the Lancang River and outside Dingbian City, there was also a large area of ​​golden light shining. It was the Lucchuan Army with bronze helmets and bronze shields. They came from all over the mountains and plains amidst the powerful and rhythmic sound of elephant foot drums.

Their destination was the low Dingbian Tucheng.

The Tucheng was in a state of solemn killing, and the soldiers of the Ming army looked silently at the enemy soldiers who were getting closer and closer.

Although the enemy was outnumbered and the low city walls did not make people feel at ease, the soldiers of the Ming army were not nervous. Their tranquility was just the high level of concentration developed from years of battlefield confrontation. Because on a dangerous battlefield, being distracted can kill you. Only soldiers who stay focused can survive.

The Luchuan Army approached the city without any hindrance, and saw a deep trench blocking their way.

Several passages had been filled in this trench by Peng Mailang's army. However, after Hu Quan arrived, he took advantage of the ten days when the enemy troops temporarily retreated to not only clear the trench again, but also dig it deeper and wider.

The Lucchuan Army was also well prepared. The soldiers holding shields in their right hands were carrying sacks of sand on their left shoulders.

The first row of soldiers lined up to the edge of the trench, threw down the sandbags on their shoulders, and prepared to move to the two wings to make room for the tin soldiers behind to fill the trench.

The tin assassin screamed and fell into the pit.

According to the standards set by Boss Zhu, the "far range" requirement requires officers to have a shooting range of 160 steps and the soldiers to reach 120 steps; while the "near range" requirement is fifty steps, that is, fifty steps Must hit inside.

So the feather arrows fired by the Ming army at the top of the city seemed to have eyes, and they bit fiercely at the thighs of the enemy soldiers at the edge of the trench!
~~
Boss Zhu may be the emperor who paid the most attention to military training in history. He not only established two assessment requirements for infantry archery: "reaching far and hitting the target at close range", he also conducted strict assessments every year.

The other is precision strike, which requires effective shooting at the enemy. This is 'close to hit'.

Because on the battlefield, shooters in the organic army mainly have two ways to attack the enemy. One is to shoot in a covered manner without aiming. This is the purpose of the "far reach" assessment.

But the main function of the chiming dysprosium was to signal—the archers fired!

"Aim for the legs and shoot!" the officers loudly reminded their sergeants while loosening their bowstrings.

In fact, there is no need to remind them at all, the sergeants already have regulations. They were not in a daze for such a long time, but were carefully observing the enemy. They had long discovered that the brass round shield held by the Luchuan soldiers was the size of a pot lid, and it was a wok for small stir-fries, not a big pot of rice. The kind used.

However, at this moment, a shot from the top of the city suddenly shot out. The long arrow whizzed with a sharp whistle and hit the thigh of a Lucchuan soldier in the front row...

Therefore, the shield of the Lucchuan soldier cannot block the lower body if it blocks the upper body, and cannot block the upper body if it blocks the lower body... Of course, in actual combat, no soldier would ignore his torso and head and only use a shield to protect his lower body. Even if he's wearing half-armor.

And these are only Boss Zhu's basic requirements for officers and soldiers. All officers and soldiers must meet the standards, otherwise they will be fined and demoted in the first year, and in the second year they will be directly dismissed and sent to serve as soldiers in the frontiers where the conditions are the most difficult.

Just like when a person is being beaten, he will habitually protect his head first. This is the so-called "looking at the head but not the buttocks". But this is human instinct and is difficult to overcome unless you undergo special training.

Therefore, the shooting skills of the Ming army officers and soldiers, especially the imperial guardsmen, are generally higher than the minimum standard. These Yunnan Dusi's standing troops were formerly Boss Zhu's Emperor's Forbidden Army. Not to mention that all of them could penetrate Yang Yang at a hundred steps, but like now, it is still easy to shoot through the enemy's thigh at fifty or sixty steps away...

I saw feathered arrows shooting down from the city head like locusts, and the Lucchuan soldiers below the city fell into the ditch screaming like dumplings.

A look of fear appeared on the faces of the Luchuan soldiers. They did not expect that these Han people were more accurate in archery than the Mongols... But they were also an invincible army of glory in the past and would not collapse easily. What's more, there is Dao Silang and his supervising team behind him.

So the soldiers in the front fell down in pieces like cutting wheat, but the soldiers in the back still carried the long-eyed bows and arrows of the Ming army and continued to fill the holes.

~~
On the opposite hillside, seeing that the pit-filling troops suffered heavy losses but were not making smooth progress, Dao Silang ordered in a deep voice: "Prepare the javelin!"

He wanted to use his trump card to suppress the Ming army at the top of the city and cover his subordinates in filling holes.

He had used this skill suddenly when attacking Yongchang City and Zheji Village before, and the effect was always immediate.

The messenger used the Dai people's musical instrument "筚" to blow the agreed signal.

His javelin soldiers had been lying in ambush behind the leading trench-filling troops. When they heard the penetrating sound, they all raised their javelins that had been in their hands for a long time.

The javelin used by the Lucchuan soldiers was only two feet long and shaped like a featherless arrow. The body of the arrowhead is long and slender, and the end of the arrowhead is particularly thin, making it difficult for those who are not skilled in this technique to use it effectively. This saves them from having to worry about the tragic scene of throwing the javelin out and then being thrown back by the enemy.

But once you master this kind of javelin, you can throw it far beyond the distance of ordinary javelin, and its armor-breaking ability is extremely strong.

In the battle of Yongchang, Wang Zhen and his officers and soldiers suffered heavy losses due to the intensive projection of javelins. They suffered heavy casualties and were directly blinded...

When thousands of Lucchuan soldiers threw javelins at the same time, the sharp sound that broke through the air instantly drowned out the sound of arrows fired by the defenders at the top of the city.

"It's a javelin!" Hu Quan, who had been watching the enemy with vigilance, immediately saw a large number of enemy soldiers suddenly raising javelins. He immediately shouted a warning and shouted: "Set up the sign!"

Upon hearing the order, the Ming army soldiers on the top of the city immediately erected huge shields without thinking.

This large shield used for city defense is called a standing shield. Each side is five feet high and three feet wide. It is made of hardwood and covered with double layers of rawhide. In the Song Dynasty, it was mainly used to defend against enemy slings.

Hu Quan used them to resist javelins, which was really a bit overkill.

But the effect was great - the constant sound of sharp weapons being hammered into the wood was heard, and javelins were inserted into the wooden signs that stood abruptly at the top of the city.

In the blink of an eye, those big wooden signs were shot into hedgehogs, but no javelin could penetrate them.

Naturally, the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty hiding behind the sign were basically uninjured.

Moreover, there are crossbars behind those standing signs. There are rotating shafts on the crossbars and three-foot-long wooden sticks attached to the bottom, which can be supported on the city wall.

The officers and soldiers of the Ming army could then continue to shoot at the city under the cover of the erection board to prevent the Luchuan army from filling the pit.

This time it was changed to cover shooting at the enemy's harpooneer camp, using the "reach from afar" technique.

ps. I'm sorry, once the rhythm is disrupted, it really takes a few days to recover. I will update it first, and I will post the next two updates later. I'll recover as soon as possible.

(End of this chapter)