Shanzhu stood coldly at the throat of the road in the middle of the position, a pair of eyes staring ahead without any emotion, but he knew that this was really a battle with a huge disparity in strength, and his only advantage was to occupy the advantageous position of the peak pass first, and the enemy had not yet noticed the hostility here.

All the troops have been deployed in place, and the main force in the middle position to resist the enemy's attack is, of course, the first, second, and third light infantry brigades, which are silently ambushed in the snow at this time, and their dark clothes should be in great contrast with the snow color of the earth, but fortunately, there are many exposed rocks in this area, and the color is similar to the color of the soldiers' clothing, so it is difficult for the enemy to find this problem until it is close. The 4th and 5th Light Infantry Battalions were deployed in the bushes on both sides of the peak, and they were to meet the approaching rebels with bows and arrows.

Since I fought two battles with the Luope, I have found that the light cavalry and light infantry of the Luope have their own bows and arrows, which can be used to attack in long-range battles, and to fight with conventional weapons in close combat, unlike the Emperor's [***] team, which has a special bow and arrow unit, which of course has something to do with the quality of the nomadic soldiers, who practice mounted archery all year round, and archery has become an indispensable activity in their daily life.

Referring to this characteristic of the Rope, I also improved my troops, adding archery training to the light infantry and light cavalry, and hiring high-caliber instructors from the Motts and Tubu to train my own soldiers. Fortunately, the common people in the northwest region, due to the complex ethnic composition and the influence of the neighboring nomads, are also relatively large, and the young and middle-aged men can more or less do some horseback archery work, so the reform I carried out in my subordinate troops did not encounter much difficulty, and the combat effectiveness of the light cavalry and light infantry was further improved.

However, this was a problem in the light infantry wing, which was dominated by the Gaoyue people, who were naturally strong, but lacked the spirit of the bow and arrow equipment, and no matter how hard the instructors trained, it was never very effective, and I had to abandon this plan.

However, I was also inspired that since the mountain people are not suitable for bows and arrows, mainly because bows and arrows require long-term training and high accuracy requirements, then I only need to equip them with crossbow arrows that are simple and do not need to bother. However, the traditional crossbow arrows are complicated to install and bulky, and they are not suitable for carrying around, so I asked the Economic Development Administration and the War Readiness Administration to jointly reduce and improve the existing crossbow arrows.

After a long period of trial and error, a group of young people from the Economic Development Agency finally came up with a preliminary prototype. I call it a crossbow to distinguish it from the original strong crossbow. The volume of the crossbow is reduced by half compared with the strong crossbow, mainly using the tension of the spring steel sheet and the tension spring as the driving force, but due to the limitation of the volume and the quality of the spring steel sheet, the range distance has also decreased a lot, and there is a lot of decline in accuracy, there are gains and losses, at least they successfully reduced the volume of the crossbow arrow to a satisfactory degree, the production process has also been simplified a lot, and the most important thing is that the installation of the arrow is much more convenient than the original, which greatly shortens the installation interval, which is a great breakthrough.

I praised this group of young people and encouraged them not to limit themselves to what they have achieved so far, but to continue to work hard to achieve even better results. My encouragement greatly aroused the enthusiasm of this group of young people, and one of the leaders said that there is still a lot of room for improvement in the current crossbow, but it will require a certain amount of experimental time, money, and analysis and improvement based on the experience gained in practice, and in time, it will definitely be able to make a better product.

I immediately expressed my strong support for this project, and decided on the spot that the Finance Department would allocate special funds to form a research team to study the project, and the Economic Development Administration and the War Readiness Administration should also give strong support. Because I know very well that in war, when the combat effectiveness is similar, the quality of weapons often plays a role in determining the surname.

In view of the time constraints, I also asked the War Readiness Department to immediately arrange for the production of a batch of crossbows to quickly equip the Gaoyue people in Jinzhou, and this light infantry wing was precisely the first unit to be equipped with crossbows.

In the originally white field, some black spots began to appear at the end of the horizon one after another, because the location of Xifengkou is slightly higher than the geographical location of the surrounding area, especially the plain ahead, the mountain pillar can clearly see the movement of the rebel army.

Slowly, the black shadow changed from less to more, from blur to clear, and the black pressure moved quickly in the direction of Xifengkou.

"It's finally here!" Shanzhu was originally a little nervous and seemed to feel a little relaxed, it was the first time he commanded a battle alone, although the last time it was also very intense, but with the division commander in charge, his pressure was much less, and this time the division commander led the main force was still behind, and it was estimated that it would take two hours to arrive, and he had to hold on for two hours.

What should come always comes, it is better to come early than late, anyway, in the end, we have to face this bloody reality, and Shanzhu knows that the real test is coming soon.

More than two miles were too close, and after a while, the rebellious army formed in a loose formation swarmed in. As the distance got closer, the soldiers who had already received the order had already taken their positions and entered the ambush area, and the whole pass seemed to be no different from usual, except for the noisy noise of the rebel soldiers.

A chaotic army is a chaotic army, Shanzhu snorted from his nose, neither the necessary reconnaissance troops were sent, and the formation of the marching troops was disorganized, without any psychological preparation, and the regular army could not be so absurd even if it marched within its own territory, but in terms of numbers, it greatly exceeded its own troops, and the speed of march was not slow.

The vanguard soon entered the ambush circle, Shanzhu felt a little regretful in his heart, the enemy's team was too long, and his ambush circle was limited by the number of troops, but it could only be so large, otherwise it could completely defeat this group of chaotic troops in one fell swoop, according to the current situation, only to eat his forward first, but he could use the attack to cause the enemy's chaos to make some fuss, Shanzhu gradually formed a bold plan in his heart.

As the banners of the bannermen changed from rising to rapidly waving downward, the commanders of the various brigades burst out with a long-suppressed roar from their chests: "Release!"

The soldiers who were lying in ambush suddenly rose from the snow and aimed their crossbows in front of them and shot them out. According to the rules of ordinary training, the first row shoots, the second row prepares, the third row prepares, and the three groups of soldiers take turns to stand up and fire, retreat, load the arrow, and then move forward and shoot.

Wave after wave of arrows rained down on the unprepared rebel soldiers like a flash flood, and the results can be imagined by virtue of their condescending geographical position, in order to be prepared for the unprepared.

The overwhelming array of arrows struck head-on, and the vast majority of the rebel soldiers died before they could even react to what was going on. A small number of soldiers with high vigilance surnames, flexible brains, and quick reactions knew that something was wrong when their heads suddenly rose in the snow in front of them, and some rolled on the ground on the spot, and some simply hid behind their comrades-in-arms, letting the bodies of their comrades-in-arms be used as their shields.

The originally white snow was immediately soaked in crimson blood, and the screams and wails of the wounded in the field rose one after another, and the soldiers of the rebel army had never been hit so badly, and they were completely stunned by this head-on blow, and many people threw down their weapons and turned around and ran backwards, some of them were immediately shot into a honeycomb by the second and third waves of arrows, and some soldiers did not even dare to raise their heads, and shrank behind their shields and shivered, and the whole field completely turned into a bloody Shura field.

Standing on a high place to observe, the mountain pillar was not carried away by this expected victory, he found that although the rebel army was disrupted, it was only the front, and the Chinese army had begun to organize defense, and it seemed that he still underestimated the combat effectiveness of the rebel army. At this time, the enemy must not be allowed to organize an effective counterattack, otherwise the enemy, who is several times his own, will definitely use the superiority in strength to reverse the outcome of this battle.

He quickly made a bold decision that had been brewing in his heart for a long time, "The 2nd, 3rd, 45th Brigade will follow me to pursue the enemy, and the 1st Brigade will be on standby!"

As soon as the words fell, the mountain pillar waved the huge steel fork in his hand and took the lead in rushing out of the trench, and under the leadership of the officer, the soldiers were like tigers descending from the mountain, setting off a whirlwind, roaring like thunder, and rushing towards the dazed and chaotic soldiers. The soldiers of the rebel army, who had just recovered from the rain of arrows, could no longer resist the charge of the condescending troops, and they turned their heads and fled towards their rear. This is what Shanzhu wants, he led the troops to chase and kill the backward rebel soldiers, while controlling the speed of pursuit, so that the rebels always felt the pressure of pursuit, just like that, chasing and fleeing, to a torrent of U-turn from slow to fast to the main force of the rear army of the chaotic army.

When the front army was dazed by the first blow, the commanders of the rear army, Du Buke and Yan Tong, had not yet reacted, but they immediately understood that they had been ambushed, and the cautious Yan Tong did not rush to give orders to the front army and the Chinese army, but first ordered the main rear army to immediately form a battle formation and distance itself from the Chinese army.

But the other party did not give him much time, when the enemy army crushed the front army like a bamboo, and directly disrupted the position of the Chinese army, he knew that the situation was inviolable, after all, he knew that compared with the regular army, whether it was the combat effectiveness of individual soldiers or the overall organization and morale, it could not be the same, let alone in this situation.

When Dubock was still scolding two officers who had escaped from the battle in a row, he decisively ordered the formation of an overseer to separate the middle army from the rear army, and asked the overseer to drive the Chinese army, which had not yet completely collapsed, to delay the enemy's attack as much as possible, and on the other hand, to order the main rear army to maintain formation and retreat at a uniform speed. This was an excellent result, and Shanzhu's plan to use surprise to defeat the rebels in one fell swoop was not completely successful.

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