Eastern Jin Dynasty: My powerful father

Chapter 427: Battle in Hedong (XV)
The tactic of cavalry archery is not unsolvable, and it can be addressed from at least two aspects.

The first is to train a cavalry that is better than the enemy's, which can break through the enemy's melee cavalry head-on and engage in close combat with the archers, and easily kill them.

During the Battle of Langshan, Fu Chang chose to split the elite Di cavalry into two at the critical moment, with one part delaying the Jin army's spear cavalry and the other chasing the Xiongnu archers.

After the Xiongnu cavalry archers were caught up, the Yu army chopped them off like cutting melons and vegetables, and the archers were completely vulnerable.

However, Fu Jian did not have a melee cavalry more elite than the Jinwei Yicong and Baibao Xianbei. He had long recognized the reality that the State of Yu could not compete with the State of Liang at the cavalry level.

After Huan Xi successively captured Hetao and Hexi, his cavalry was only barely comparable to that of the Murong clan in terms of both quantity and quality.

The detachment sent by Murong Jun was only the second-line force of Yan State, and was also unable to compete with the powerful cavalry of Liang State.

Therefore, Fu Jian could only choose the second route, which was farther than the range of the Liang army.

No matter how high the mobility of the archers is, it still takes some time to dismount and shoot on foot.

Leader Liu Yanlou led the Xiongnu archers to a hundred steps away from the Yu army formation. The soldiers skillfully dismounted and took off the bows on their backs, waiting for the order from the Right Wise King to pour arrows into the Yu army formation.

However, as the war drums sounded in the rear of the Yu army, powerful crossbows were set up in the gaps between the shield soldiers.

Liu Yanlou was an outstanding archer and rider, so his eyesight was also very good. After all, if you want to aim at the crosshairs, you have to keep your eyes open.

Crossbows and bows each have their own advantages and disadvantages.

The crossbow has a longer range, greater lethality, a higher hit rate, and lower requirements for the user, but compared to the bow, its slow shooting skills are its fatal weakness.

Generally speaking, unless it is a repeating crossbow, when the range and lethality are similar, the firing rate of a bow is basically three to four times that of a crossbow.

In large-scale military operations, accuracy is not actually important; rate of fire is the most important. When the crossbowmen fire one volley, the archers have already fired three or four rounds. With a large coverage area, the archers will definitely have the advantage.

At the same time, the crossbow is not convenient to use on horseback and is more expensive than a bow.

Therefore, most of Huan Xi's Liang army were equipped with bows, but very few were equipped with crossbows.

However, this does not mean that Liu Yanloutou does not know the power and range of the crossbow.

"Withdraw! Quickly withdraw!"

Liu Yanlou shouted and was the first to mount his horse.

However, the crossbowmen of the Yu army had already shot their arrows, and after the Xiongnu archers retreated more than ten steps, hundreds of corpses were still left behind.

Liu Yanloutou was obviously also aware of the disadvantage of the powerful crossbow: it was difficult to load.

When he was about to approach with his archers, he saw the crossbows in the gaps between the Yu army's shield soldiers retracted, and were replaced by a row of reloaded crossbows ready to fire.

"Damn it! Where did Fu Jian get so many powerful crossbows!"

Liu Yanlou was extremely angry.

Behind the Yu army, Fu Jian stood on a high platform. He could only get a rough idea of ​​the situation on the front line. Although he didn't know how furious Liu Yanlou was, he couldn't help but reveal a smug smile on his face when he saw that the Xiongnu archers were unable to advance or retreat on the battlefield.

In fact, as early as after the Battle of Langshan, Fu Jian and Fu Xiong had been thinking about how to break Huan Xi's cavalry archery tactics.

At first, they took the first path, which was to strengthen cavalry training and build a more powerful melee cavalry.

However, after Huan Xi successively incorporated the elite cavalry of Former Liang and the Xianbei of Hexi, Fu Shi completely gave up the idea of ​​competing with Huan Xi in cavalry, and instead developed long-range forces, pursuing a longer range than that of cavalry archers.

At the time, the State of Yu still occupied the salt pond, so it certainly had the financial resources to build a large-scale crossbow army. But in the two battles last year, the crossbowmen of the State of Yu had no chance against Huan Xi's archers.

In the Battle of Yinchuan, Fu Jian had to withdraw from the battlefield because Fu Huangmei's tens of thousands of elite cavalry were driven away by two thousand Xianbei and he was worried about being attacked from both sides by Deng Xia and Xie Ai.

In the battle of Hedong County, Li Wei was ambushed at the southern foot of Zhongtiao Mountain, defeated and captured, and the State of Yu had no choice but to withdraw its troops in frustration.

The crossbowmen that Fu Jian had put so much effort into creating finally came into play today.

Liu Yanloutou didn't know where Fu Jian got so many crossbowmen, but Huan Xi knew it clearly. Don't forget, he had Wang Yuan lurking beside Li Wei. To Huan Xi, the State of Yu was unilaterally transparent.

At this time, Huan Xi already knew Liu Yanlou's predicament. The cavalry's archery tactics were restrained by the crossbowmen's volley shooting, and there was nothing he could do about it.

There is no strategy that is always successful in this world.

Since the seventh year of Yonghe (351 AD), when Huan Xi sent troops to Hetao, cavalry and archery have been invented for seven years, which is enough time for the State of Yu to find a correct way to deal with this tactic.

Huan Xi sent out Xiongnu archers to lure the enemy and test the strength of the crossbowmen of the Yu army.

"Let the Right Wise King retreat first."

Huan Xi ordered the flag-bearing officer.

The flag-bearing officer received the order, jumped on his horse and rushed straight to where the Hun archers were in the field.

After finding Liu Yanloutou, the flag officer relayed Huan Xi's military order, and Liu Yanloutou breathed a sigh of relief. He was really afraid that Huan Xi would force him to consume the crossbow arrows of the Yu army.

The Xiongnu archers retreated as ordered, and Liu Yan came straight to Huan Xi to apologize:

"My young prince is incompetent and has failed Lord Liang's trust."

Huan Xi said calmly:
"Get up."

When Liu Yan stood up, Huan Xi asked:

"What is the range of the Yu army's crossbows?"

Liu Yanluo thought for a moment and said:

"No less than a hundred and twenty steps."

Huan Xi nodded. This was roughly consistent with the information he got from Wang Yuan.

The Liang army's infantry bows were actually strong bows, at least with greater pulling force than the Yu army's infantry bows, but their range was less than a hundred steps, so the archers basically dismounted at a distance of about a hundred steps.

Now the crossbowmen of the Yu army have a range ten steps farther than ours, which means that we cannot continue to take a defensive stance. Otherwise, the Yu army will maintain a certain distance and can carry out long-range attacks on our side without any pressure.

As expected, after confirming that his own firing range was longer, Fu Jian's formation began to actively press forward, preparing to launch long-range attacks on the Liang army at an appropriate distance.

"Mr. Liang! The enemy is moving!"

Huan Xi saw that the Yu and Yan coalition forces were approaching him in formation, but he did not panic. He said calmly:
"Send the order to Shi Yue, the heavily armored infantry raise their shields and charge forward, advance when they hear the drum, and the rest of the troops follow behind."

The reason why Huan Xi sent Shi Yue's 5,000 heavily armored infantry out of the city to help in the battle was to use them to deal with the crossbowmen of the Yu State. After all, it was difficult for arrows to effectively kill heavily armored infantry holding shields.

(End of this chapter)