My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 324 Testing
"avoid!"

"Retreat quickly!"

Three days later, south of Gaoque, on the south bank of the river.

As the other side of the river once again received a volley of artillery fire that blocked out the sun and sky, the soldiers of Suiying, who were busy building a pontoon bridge, scrambled to retreat under the command of their respective generals.

So-called retreat, in fact, it just means moving a little further away from the shore, to a position about fifty steps away from the river bank, and leisurely looking at the other side of the river, where the Hun cavalry were standing on horseback and drawing their bows.

——The Huns relied on horseback archery to gain a foothold on the grasslands, but to be honest, the handmade longbows that the Huns equipped on a large scale were actually inferior to the strong bows and crossbows that were equipped by the Han army today, which were uniformly produced by the Shaofu Military Industry Department, both in terms of range and power.

Even on the grassland, if we really compare archery skills, the Huns’ headquarters can’t even rank in the top three!
Whether it is the Loufan tribe, which uses the longbow as its tribal totem and is famous for its archery skills on the grassland, or the Aries tribe, which has a foothold in the grassland with its "back-horse shooting", both are more skilled in "shooting" than the Xiongnu.

As for the Xiongnu headquarters' specialty, it was dismounting and fighting in a melee, that is, hand-to-hand combat.

Compared to the Huns, who were not the best archers among the nomadic people, the Han army's crossbow troops were not actually at a disadvantage.

Compared with the two, the Han army's crossbow troops had more sophisticated weapons and equipment, as well as sufficient training intensity;
The Xiongnu cavalry, on the other hand, could rely on the mobility of their horses to have the advantage of being able to move their shooting points frequently within a short period of time.

But if we ignore the mobility of the cavalry archers and only talk about the range, the Xiongnu cavalry archers are far inferior to the Han army's crossbow units equipped with standard strong bows and crossbows.

At this moment, there is the most intuitive comparison between the Han and Xiongnu in terms of long-range firepower forces.

——On the other side of the river, the Huns, who discovered that the Han army was building a pontoon bridge, finally decided to come out of Gaoque.

After coming out, the Huns were as anxious as ants on a hot pot, firing round after round of volleys at the other side of the river;

Ran and egg.

The bows used by the Xiongnu were mostly made by the bow holder himself, using wood of suitable shape supplemented with cattle, sheep tendons and leather.

The slightly more affluent ones would just be handmade bows made by the carpenters on the grassland who had little experience in making bows.

At most, more than 50 years ago, the Qin Great Wall Corps withdrew its troops, leaving behind the Qin-made bows and crossbows in the Hetao and Munan areas, which were "inherited" by the Huns.

These Qin-made bows and crossbows and their crossbow mechanisms have basically been declared scrapped due to damage to their parts, as the grasslands lack the ability to manufacture parts or repair and maintain weapons and equipment.

It is the Qin bow - a bow that has been used intensively for decades, no matter how fine its quality is, will eventually become 'old'.

Take Gaoque for example: Back then, the Huns obtained tens of thousands of crossbows, tens of thousands of longbows, and countless bows, feathers and arrows left by the Qin Great Wall Legion at Gaoque.

As for fine bronze artifacts such as spears, swords and knives, there are countless of them.

Now, the Xiongnu people claimed to have 'four hundred thousand bows', but they could not gather even a hundred Qin crossbows.

Even if there were dozens of crossbows put together, all of them had parts replaced over and over again. Several broken Qin crossbows were disassembled to make an assembled crossbow.

There are a little more bows - about two or three thousand, but the bowstrings have basically all broken and been replaced, and the bows are mostly deformed.

As for the Hun longbows made with the Huns' own craftsmanship, their range is generally around eighty to ninety steps.

A bow that can reach a hundred steps is considered "extremely sophisticated" on the grassland.

In contrast, the standard bows produced by the Shaofu and equipped by the Han army had an effective range of 100 steps and the power to penetrate three fingers into wood from a hundred steps away as their qualification standards.

Defective products that do not meet this standard will mostly be distributed to local counties to be used as "quasi-weapons" for young and strong people to use during winter training.

Even so, the local counties were not very happy about it. They were afraid that the young and strong men would not be able to practice archery skills well enough, so they would rather pay for the real "qualified bows" out of their own pockets and throw the defective products distributed by the Shaofu into the warehouse to gather dust.

As a result, at this moment, when the Huns in Gaoque walked to the north bank of the river and wanted to draw their bows and shoot at the Han soldiers who were building a pontoon bridge on the south bank from a distance of several dozen steps, nearly half of the bow feathers failed to "reach the shore" and plunged into the river when approaching the south bank, and were then washed away by the rapids.

Even the arrows that managed to "reach the shore" were mostly beyond the effective range. Not only were they weak and powerless, they could only cover a distance of twenty steps on the south bank.

The reason why the soldiers of Suiying hid fifty steps away from the river bank was, firstly, to take the opportunity to rest, and secondly, to avoid unnecessary casualties.

——If you get hit by the Huns' weak bows and arrows, and get a scratch or something, and then get an infection and suppuration, it will be troublesome.

But this situation did not last long.

After another round of volleys from the Xiongnu, the Han army's crossbow troops finally assembled...

"Enter!"

Following the command flag, the middle-level generals shouted at the top of their lungs, directing the archers and crossbow phalanxes to move forward quickly.

Line up on the river bank, draw your bows and fire a volley!
Different from the Xiongnu archers who were "out of reach" - the Han army's bows and crossbows fired at almost all of them reached the other side of the river and covered an area within fifty steps of the north bank!

For a moment, there was wailing everywhere on the north bank, and people and horses fell to the ground.

The Huns, who were already extremely anxious because the Han soldiers were building a pontoon bridge, were frightened by this round of volleys from the Han army and retreated in a hurry. In the blink of an eye, most of them had retreated into Gaoque.

There were no Huns on the other side of the river shooting arrows, so the soldiers of Suiying immediately stepped forward again and continued to work on building the pontoon bridge in an orderly manner.

One hundred and fifty steps away from the river bank, Luan Bu stood on a three-meter-high platform rising from the ground, and nodded slowly with a look of neither joy nor sadness.

"Just fight."

"When the Huns released their arrows, they would wait for an opportunity to fire back with a volley."

"——Send a message to Suiyang: There is no need to build the floating bridge too quickly. Build it as slowly as possible within a reasonable range."

"Besides, no matter what, we must never really build a floating bridge."

"When the first snow of winter comes at the beginning of the year, this battle will be a complete success."

As soon as Luan Bu gave an order, a team of personal soldiers immediately took the order and spread Luan Bu's military order to every corner of Suiying and the crossbow unit.

Behind Luan Bu, Han Tuidang and Liu Fei looked at each other with a smile, and then looked around provocatively - at the rest of the people who had previously thought that attacking Gaoque was "extremely stupid".

Who says that when you attack Gaoque, you have to really hit it?

Isn't a feint attack also a fight?
Just like at this moment, the soldiers of the Han army in Suiying were slowly and even somewhat "reluctantly" building the pontoon bridge;

The Huns on the other side of the river were harassing them with projectiles, and the Han army's crossbow troops were so annoyed that they only came out to fight back symbolically.

And then just drag it out!
Judging from the Xiongnu's frightened posture, most of Gaoque's attention was probably focused on the Han soldiers who were planning to "capture Gaoque".

Next, it is time for the military officials, who are not sure whether they are in Gaoque or not, to make a decision.

"Military minister, you can probably see that my army has no intention - nor the ability to truly capture Gaoque."

"But as long as my army 'attacks' Gaoque for one day, Junchen will not dare to divert too much attention to places other than Gaoque." "As long as this stalemate can last until winter, then this battle will be considered a success."

"As for what will happen after the spring..."

Thinking of this, Luan Bu slowly turned around and looked at the city wall a few miles behind him, where the outline of the city wall could be vaguely seen.

After a long time, a rare and relaxed smile finally appeared on Luan Bu's meticulous face.

——The feint attack on Gaoque was undoubtedly a brilliant move made by the Northern Front Army in this battle.

Prior to this, the Northern Front Army occupied the Hetao area and had been waiting for the main force of the Shanyu Ting to come back for support to take action, but it never came.

As time went on, not only the generals, but even the lowly soldiers began to have doubts in their hearts.

Could it be that the main force of the Shanyu Court is plotting something big?

Just like my army openly "made an appointment" with the Huns to fight" Mayi, but was actually secretly plotting to seize Hetao?

As a result, a feeling of uneasiness once swept across most of the Northern Front Army.

At that time, Luan Bu, Han Tuidang and other generals could not even think of ways to stabilize the morale of the army - even they themselves were worried.

The Xiongnu army was almost entirely composed of cavalry, and in terms of mobility, it was far superior to the Han army, which was mainly composed of infantry.

Once the Huns learn from the Han Dynasty and make a feint to the east and attack in the west, or openly repair the plank road while secretly attacking Chencang, the Han Dynasty may not be able to react!

If any part of the wall was torn open by the Xiongnu in a surprise attack, then this battle would not be about who owned Hetao.

Rather, the question is how much damage the Han Dynasty will suffer in this war of invasion by the Huns.

This worry made Luan Bu unable to sleep or eat for several days, fearing that one day when he woke up, he would receive a letter for help from somewhere along the wall.

Fortunately, the proposals made by Liu Fei and Han Tuidang basically completely solved this hidden danger.

——Feint an attack on Gaoque!
Just like Luan Bu, Han Tuidang, and even the emperor and his ministers of the Han Dynasty, they had judged before the war: Gaoque was not something that the Han Dynasty could covet in the next one or two battles.

Gaoque was so important to the Xiongnu that Junchen himself was willing to go to the battle in person and wield a sword to defend the city - even if a Chanyu died on the wall of Gaoque Pass, he would still defend the city.

This is because the ownership of Gaoque can basically determine the ownership of Munan.

The Xiongnu had already lost the Hetao area, and had already lost a piece of paradise outside the Great Wall, the south of the Yangtze River.
If the southern part of the wall is lost again, the Xiongnu Empire will have no choice but to squeeze into the bitter and cold land of the northern part of the wall. Not to mention whether it can continue to exist as an "empire", even its rule over the nomadic people will most likely collapse.

The various tribes on the grassland may split up again and establish their own territories;
The Xiongnu Chanyu court might also be split into several parts, just like in history, with Chanyus in the southeast, northwest, northeast and southwest.

When the word "Chanyu" became a wholesale commodity on the grassland, the nomadic people of the grassland would not be able to pose any threat to the Han Dynasty or the other Chinese in the short term.

The Han people knew this very well, and the Xiongnu people must have known it too!
Therefore, any action taken by the Han Dynasty against Gaoque would definitely attract the full attention of the Xiongnu Chanyu court and even the entire grassland - at least the Munan area!

Therefore, Luan Bu's feint attack on Gaoque seemed to be a waste of time and energy despite knowing that it was impossible to succeed, but in fact, it forced the Huns' attention back to Gaoque and the Hetao-Munan front line.

I can’t defeat Gaoque;

You also know that I can’t beat it;
But do you dare to bet?
Do you dare to bet that I will never be able to capture Gaoque, and instead invest most of my troops and energy into other places that I can't guess or imagine?

Don’t forget;

Before this war, you held an attitude of "absolutely impossible" towards my seizure of Hetao.

Do you really dare to bet with me again after losing Hetao?

Do you dare to bet that after I take over Hetao, I will not be able to go further north and seize the barrier of your Munan: Gaoque, and then bring the entire Munan under the firepower coverage of my Han family?

Obviously, the Huns didn't dare.

Not to mention now, even Junchen Chanyu, who is said to be of 'average appearance' - his father, Laoshang and Maodun, the two Chanyus, would probably not dare to do so.

Therefore, after the formal feint attack on Gaoque began, Luan Bu could finally come to the conclusion with peace of mind: no matter whether the main force of Junchen's Chanyu Court was at Gaoque before or not, at this moment, they must be either posing on the other side of Gaoque or on the way to Gaoque.

As for what the old thief Junchen was planning before, it doesn’t matter anymore.

Because no matter what Junchen wanted to do before, at the moment, he would definitely not be able to turn that idea that might exist or might not exist into reality.

The only thing Junchen had to do now was to ensure the safety of Gaoque and block the Han army's troops south of Gaoque and outside Munan.
As for the rest - whether it was to avenge the defeat in the battle at the beginning of this year, or to retake Hetao, it was no longer something that Junchen should consider...

"Shuofang County, this is settled."

"I wonder who your majesty will appoint as the first governor of Shuofang County..."

The string that had been tense in his heart finally loosened, and Luan Bu finally had the energy to start daydreaming about all sorts of things.

For example: the first governor of Shuofang County will face huge threats and challenges, and must face the challenges alone.

Judging from the current situation, the Han Dynasty took advantage of this battle to recapture Hetao and set up Shuofang County;
In the future, Shuofang County will face strategic pressure from two directions: Hexi in the west and Munan in the north.

Although there are large rivers in both directions to serve as buffers, or natural barriers, considering that the future governor of Shuofang will not only be a military general but also need to take into account the development, construction, and people's livelihood of the Hetao region, this issue becomes somewhat complicated.

——If the Han family wants to gain a firm foothold in Hetao and completely digest Hetao, they must make Hetao a place that can truly produce income for the Han family, rather than a place of frequent battles that requires the Han family to continue to invest heavily and station heavy troops but cannot bring actual benefits to the Han family.

This means that the future governor of Shuofang must have a certain degree of understanding and even practical experience in horse affairs, especially horse breeding for war.

Such officials, who are good at raising horses, are quite scarce professionals, not only in the Han Dynasty, but also among the nomadic people on the grasslands.

Add to that people's livelihood, internal governance, military literacy, strategic vision, etc. - taking all aspects into consideration, extremely stringent conditions are put forward for the future governor of Shuofang.

That is, you have to know how to raise horses, and you have to know how to raise horses at a low cost;

He not only needs to know military affairs and be able to lead troops in battle, but also needs to be able to avoid war as much as possible for the Hetao region and Shuofang County.

In addition, one must know about punishments, officialdom, and how to govern a region;
At the same time, one must not violate taboos and arouse suspicion from the emperor in Chang'an, who is thousands of miles away.

It is no exaggeration to say that if there really is such a person in the current Han Dynasty, then even if this person is not one of the three highest officials of the current dynasty, he will definitely be a potential three highest officials in the future!
Sending such a person to the frontier, to Henan to be the governor of Shuofang...

"In Shuofang, perhaps the military and political affairs will no longer be divided between the governor and the commander."

"I just don't know what your majesty is planning..."

(End of this chapter)