The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 408 Archer
Peng Qi reported to Li Heng that his attempt to recruit Niu Gao had failed.

Li Heng didn't take it seriously and continued leading his army north.

His plan for this northern expedition was merely to fight casually and plunder grain; he didn't care at all about trivial matters like whether Niu Gao surrendered to him. As for things like the Northern Song seizing generals from the Southern Song, he was completely indifferent, and he didn't consider himself a loyal subject of the Southern Song.

Li Heng himself did not expect that with a casual swing of his hammer to the north, in the first month of 1133 AD, he flattened the Ying Shun army, forced the puppet Qi military commander Lan He to surrender, and then defeated the puppet Qi army again in Changge County.

The news took flight and reached Lin'an.

Zhao Gou looked at him and said, "Huh? Li Heng is so strong? Let him fight as he pleases, he might actually be able to recapture Tokyo. Anyway, this warlord is out of control, and it's definitely not going to work to send someone to tell him not to fight. We might as well praise him and see how he performs."

Therefore, the Southern Song court issued several letters of commendation and rewarded Li Heng handsomely...

Although Li Heng was a warlord, he was still happy to receive praise from the imperial court. In a moment of impulsiveness, he continued north and decided to attack Kaifeng.

Meanwhile, the various armies of the Northern Song Dynasty were not idle either.

Guan Sheng and Yu Fanwen easily captured Qingzhou, and then they stopped rushing forward and focused on building passes and fortifications in Qingzhou, erecting cement fortresses everywhere.

After Zhang Yong and Zhang Dashu captured Yanzhou, they also immediately stopped and began building defensive fortifications.

Suzhou, which was also captured by Ma Sheng and Zhang Wei, was also desperately trying to improve its internal affairs.

This is the unified measure currently being taken by the Northern Song army: as soon as a place is captured, it is immediately treated as a "borderline" and managed steadily. In the direction of the Jin state, a large number of passes and fortresses are built, forming a dense array of defensive fortresses that, together with the city walls, create a jagged effect, leaving no room for the Jin cavalry to carry out tactical infiltration.

The Northern Song Dynasty had to ensure that once it conquered a place, it could hold it firmly, making it difficult for the Jin Dynasty to retake it.

Haozhou, Qiao County.

Since Yue Wenxuan and Gong Erniangzi are both here, the supplies in this place do not need to be "transported" but can be "airdropped" by Yue Wenxuan. Therefore, the reconstruction of Haozhou is the fastest and most convenient of the four armies.

Niu Gao sat on the city wall, watching the Northern Song soldiers carry a large amount of grain out of a grove of trees not far from the city. His expression was quite interesting. He really wanted to ask, "When did you bring the grain into that grove of trees?"

I barely managed to hold it in!
As a newly surrendered general, he was quite self-aware and did not delve into the secrets of the Northern Song Dynasty, lest he make a fool of himself.

Just then, Yue Wenxuan walked up from behind and waved to him: "Hello, General Niu."

Niu Gao quickly bowed and said, "Young Master Yue!"

Yue Wenxuan said, "I heard that General Niu is skilled in archery, and most of his troops are 'archer soldiers'."

Niu Gao nodded: "This humble general is a military officer who started as an archer, so most of my old brothers are also archers."

Yue Wenxuan smiled: "Archers are excellent. Our army is in dire need of outstanding archers."

Niu Gao: "I have heard that the Northern Song Dynasty mainly uses long-range firearms, so how could it lack excellent archers?"

Yue Wenxuan: "General, you may not know this, but our soldiers are basically firing blindly with our long-range firearms. They don't aim at all; they just raise the weapons, hold them horizontally forward, fire randomly, and then take turns. Our army only has a very few excellent archers, who are called 'skirmishers.' They don't enter the main force's formation; they stay outside the formation and freely fire at the enemy."

Hearing this, Niu Gao was a little confused and didn't quite understand. So Yue Wenxuan took him to the military camp and let him see the training of the Northern Song army firsthand.

Niu Gao then understood that the ordinary arquebusiers of the Northern Song Dynasty were all firing haphazardly in formation. They basically didn't aim; they just fired straight ahead and then retreated.

This is somewhat like an archer's projectile shot. Basically, they don't aim; they just shoot in a general direction, estimate a rough distance, and then leave it to fate to see if their arrow can travel a large arc and knock down the enemy.

Yue Wenxuan handed a rifled musket to Niu Gao: "This is the musket used by elite archers. It is much more accurate than the muskets of ordinary musketeers. It can hit targets from a hundred paces away, but... it requires a certain level of archery skill."

Niu Gao understood now: "So, ordinary muskets are easy to learn, and soldiers can pick them up and use them. But there are very few archers who can use this kind of musket? The Northern Song Dynasty is currently lacking such people?"

Yue Wenxuan nodded: "Therefore, it is truly a blessing for the Northern Song Dynasty that the General has joined us. Why not let the General's excellent archers try out this kind of musket and see if they can use it?"

This piqued Niu Gao's interest.

After Yue Wenxuan gave him a brief explanation of how to use a rifled gun, he picked up the musket and tried aiming it...

Archers have one common advantage: excellent eyesight.

Niu Gao was no exception. His eyes could see farther and more clearly than ordinary people's eyes, and he was much more sensitive to things like distance and wind direction. After missing two shots, his third shot hit the tree trunk accurately fifty meters away.

After letting him play with it for a while, the eleventh shot hit the tree trunk 100 meters away.

Holding the rifled musket, Niu Gao was overjoyed: "This thing is amazing! It can make a big hole in a tree from nearly a hundred paces away. And I didn't have to exert any effort at all. If you were to draw a bow and shoot an arrow, you would need a very stiff bow to make a big hole in a tree from a hundred paces away. Ordinary archers simply cannot draw it."

Yue Wenxuan nodded and smiled: "That's right. The biggest advantage of this thing is that it saves effort, but the downside is that it's slow to load."

Niu Gao had already discovered that it took him two or three incense sticks' worth of time to fire those eleven shots. If it were an arrow, he could fire eleven arrows in the blink of an eye.

However, its merits outweigh its flaws!
Niu Gao said, “I am naturally strong, so drawing a hard bow is not difficult for me, and I can even fire multiple arrows in quick succession. But my men don’t have that ability. If they use a hard bow, their arms will become sore after shooting a few arrows, and they will be too weak to draw the bow again. But if they use this kind of firearm, although they can fire slower, they can fire all day without exhausting the strength in their arms.”

Yue Wenxuan smiled and said, "Now that the general has discovered its benefits, I hope that the general's old subordinates can become an excellent skirmish unit."

Niu Gao said, "Hehe, leave it to me!"

Just as the two were talking, a loud "bang" suddenly rang out from the side of the training ground, followed by the startled neighing of a horse.

Niu Gao turned his head and asked, "What's wrong? I heard the sound of warhorses being startled."

Yue Wenxuan laughed and said, "Don't worry, that's General Yizhangqing doing desensitization training."

Niu Gao asked in surprise, "Desensitization training? What does that mean?"

Yue Wenxuan: "In order to prevent the warhorses from being startled by the sound of muskets on the battlefield, we would fire muskets near their ears beforehand to get them used to the sound, so that we could train 'horse musketeers'."

(End of this chapter)