Yuan Fei had no choice but to sing a promise and retreat. Wang Wenzuo called Master Shen and others to the back camp. Sangqiu was already waiting with dozens of Sanhan auxiliary soldiers. Wang Wenzuo cleared his throat and said to everyone: "Sun Tzu said: Fighting without teaching is called killing, which means that if you don't teach the soldiers how to fight in peacetime, and rush them to the battlefield when the battle comes, it is no different from killing. You were all farmers in the past. , but farmers also have their own fighting methods. Today I will let Sancho practice it for you to see!" At this point, he waved to Sancho and said with a smile: "Sancho, just do what you did yesterday. Do it again as I taught you, and move slowly so that everyone can see it more clearly!"
"Yes, Master!" Sancho responded, came to the weapon rack, picked up a crossbow, stepped on the iron ring with his foot, bent down and hooked the crossbow string with the iron hook on his belt, and stood up with force. He then fully loaded the crossbow, then pulled out a crossbow bolt and inserted it into the chute. He aimed at the target about thirty steps away and pulled the trigger. He only heard a soft sound and hit the target.
"Well, even a farmer can learn this after practicing for a day or two!" Wang Wenzuo said with a smile.
"Sanlang, you are a bit fooling me!" Gu Cihang said with a smile. He was also from Jiangnan, so he had a good sword and shield, and his temper was as out of control as Master Shen: "You, a domestic slave, use an iron fork to rape you every time you go hunting. With a crossbow in front of your horse, deer and wild boars have been shot to death. Isn’t it a piece of cake for him to shoot a target at thirty paces? I can’t count!”
"Okay, let's change it!" Wang Wenzuo casually called another Sanhan man out. Under Sancho's guidance, the man cocked the crossbow, aimed and fired it. Although he didn't hit the target, he still hit the target. Then several more people came up, some hit and some missed, but the misses were not far away. It was obvious that they could hit with a little training. Shen Faseng and others are not surprised. They all come from generations of military families. They know that although bows and crossbows are the same, the difficulty of using them is very different. A good archer who can go into battle to kill the enemy must not only be tall and have long arms, but also It still requires years and months of hard training; but the crossbowman is much simpler. Even a woman and a child can kill the enemy behind the low wall of the city after practicing for half a day. It's just that the crossbow is expensive to build, and its firing speed is much slower than that of the archer, and its use is far less flexible than that of the archer.
"Okay, let's change it to the same one!"
Sancho responded, put the crossbow back to its original position, called a few more people, took the weapon from the weapon rack, and waved it according to the order. This time their movements were much more skillful and neat, but the weapon was weird. It was very large, consisting of a wooden pole about one and a half meters long and a two-foot-long iron-clad short stick, connected with an iron chain in the middle. The men swung it from top to bottom, making a whining sound and smashing it to the ground. The snow and mud splashed everywhere, and the force was so heavy that even wearing iron armor couldn't bear the impact.
"Hey, isn't this a farmer's rotary hammer for threshing wheat?" Shen Fanseng asked in surprise.
Wang Wenzuo smiled, but did not answer, and asked Sancho to change again. I saw those few people picking up a strange weapon to practice again, but it was a long-handled scythe. Those few people were extremely skilled in hook-cutting and horizontal chiseling.
In this way, Wang Wenzuo asked the three Han people to practice four or five weapons. Except for the crossbow at the beginning, they were all farm equipment, including iron-headed clubs, flails, long-handled sickles, two-handed axes, etc. These three Han people are very familiar with it. They don't look like they are fighting in battle, but like they are working in their own fields. They don't look like new recruits.
"Sanlang!" Liu An coughed and said with some embarrassment: "If you just want to use these people to fight against the Baekje people, I advise you to forget it! Don't look at the excitement here, it won't work in battle. Otherwise, why would we have to work hard to practice the long spear? Can't we all just fight with hoes? "
"Fifth brother, don't be anxious. I just practiced the weapons, and I haven't practiced the formations yet. I'll talk about it later!" Wang Wenzuo smiled and waved his hand. Sancho directed the people to push two carts over, and first used the iron The chain connected the cart in series, and then a thick wooden board was erected on one side. The crossbowmen and flailmen boarded the cart, while the rest hid behind the cart in case anyone came. The crossbowmen and flailmen stood condescendingly, while the rest either slashed with scythes or threw stones and javelins at the enemy. Whenever someone crossed the iron chain, the people behind the cart swarmed up and knocked him down. At this time, the onlookers also saw the door. Although these farmers did not know how to fight in formation, they could still shoot with crossbows while hiding behind carts. And if the enemy attacks a large vehicle, neither shield nor helmet can stop the heavy flail blow from above; and if the enemy rushes in through the gap in the large workshop, the cavalry will lose speed and impact, and the infantry formation will be blocked by iron chains. The car was cut into pieces and fell into a melee. This is equivalent to equalizing the disadvantage of farmers who do not know how to form formations, and spears are useless in melee, that is, the enemies rushing in can only use swords to deal with two-handed axes, flails, and scythes, and the outcome is uncertain.
"Sanlang, you only see new recruits from Sanhan in this formation, where are we placed?" Shen Faseng asked.
"When fighting, the large chariots form a hollow circular formation. Our troops are placed in the circular formation, and the cavalry is either placed in the circular formation, or placed somewhere behind the side of the circular formation, preferably in the woods!"
"Yes, it's best to back the river or occupy a high place to form an array!"
"Yes, wait until the enemy cannot attack for a long time, then the cavalry will come out from behind and attack from both inside and outside. We will definitely win!"
All those present were veterans, and they immediately saw the beauty of Wang Wenzuo's formation. The formation of vehicles was used as an anvil to attract the enemy to attack, while the cavalry was used as a hammer to launch a fierce attack from behind or from the flanks, killing those who dared to attack. Enemies crushed.
"Sanlang, there are indeed many advantages to your formation!" Liu An looked much better at this time: "But have you ever thought about it, this formation can only be defended but not attacked. If the enemy does not come to attack you, Don’t you just have to sit back and wait to be beaten?”
Before Wang Wenzuo could speak, Cui Hongdu on the side had already laughed and said: "Liu Wu, you are joking again. The hundreds of newly recruited rabble can only hold back and are just laughing. Aren't you making things difficult for Saburo?"
"Everyone!" Wang Wenzuo turned around and pointed to a watchtower not far away: "Have you forgotten these 'scorpions'? With this, is there any need to be afraid that the enemy will not attack?"
School field, early morning.
The oldest among them is already twenty-six or seven, and one is even close to thirty, but most of them are young, under twenty.
Wang Wenzuo stood on the wooden platform and watched them waving shields and sticks, panting, groaning and cursing. The sound of the wooden sticks hitting each other echoed through the school grounds, and from time to time, howls of being beaten could be heard. Yuan Fei walked around the crowd with long strides, his nose was red from the cold, and he was mumbling something. Wang Wenzuo had never seen his expression so stern before. "No!" He kept chanting, "Harder, no, faster!"
