The dense sound of the bow strings seemed to have a strange rhythm, which caused countless strange sounds from the arrows.
The rain of arrows from the sky kept falling on both sides. Karakhan's light cavalry fell in waves, and the long-armed spearmen of the Fengtian Army also fell to the ground one after another.
Zhang Zhao shot down a shouting light cavalryman wearing chain mail in the distance with an arrow. Taking advantage of this slightly free moment, he glanced at the front of the stacked formation.
Almost twenty or thirty of the four hundred spearmen fell. The casualties were actually not large, because even those who fell rarely lost their lives directly.
However, this kind of horror of standing and being shot is not something ordinary people can bear. The phalanx of spearmen already feels shaky.
However, Zhang Zhao felt a little more relieved, because the Qingqi of Karakhan who passed around the formation were even worse. They lost at least hundreds of cavalry. The foot bow shooting leather armor was of course much more powerful than the horse bow shooting piercing armor.
"Yin Yaozi, I'll leave this to you, I'm going to the front!"
Zhang Zhao put away his long bow, patted Yin Yaozi on the shoulder and said.
Now Han Shan has been completely trained. Even if he is not around, these soldiers can still display extremely high combat effectiveness. What needs him now is the spearman in front of the stacked formation.
"You can't erect the platoon. There are armored cavalry behind the opposite side. Once the platoon is erected, the enemy cavalry will swarm forward!"
The wild boar carried a horizontal knife and punched and kicked fiercely in the rain of arrows, knocking out the shields of several spearmen who wanted to erect their shields.
The biggest reliance of this spear phalanx against armored cavalry is to use forest-like spearheads to frighten the enemy's armored cavalry's horses. However, if a Peng platoon is set up, it will not be able to frighten the opposing horses.
Of course, this is also because Zhang Zhao's stacked formation to resist the horses is not qualified. If he were qualified to resist the horses, even if the spearmen used Peng platoon, the enemy's armored cavalry would not be able to rush in at once.
"Stand still! The armored knight from the opposite side is coming!" Zhang Zhao quickly ran to Shanzhu'er. His golden armor was extremely conspicuous. As soon as he appeared, the spearmen standing around and being shot seemed to have found their backbone.
, the slightly shaky spear phalanx immediately stabilized.
"Mountain Pig, you did a good job!" Zhang Zhao praised loudly, but he didn't expect that this seemingly stupid Shanzhu actually had some commanding talent.
Shanzhuer grinned, but his face immediately darkened, "My lord, it doesn't look like the armored cavalry on the opposite side are here to charge. Look at their horses, they are not running at all, and their formation is also a little to the left. This is not a charge."
The formation is more like trying to shoot against us!"
"Hmph!" Zhang Zhao also snorted twice, "They don't want to shoot at us, they want to shoot down our phalanx of spears and cause panic.
As long as the spearmen break up, the front line attacks the back line, and then they swarm up, it will be much easier."
The armored cavalry of this era had different fighting methods from the cuirassiers of later generations. The biggest role of cuirassiers of later generations was to rush into formation.
In this era, although the armored cavalry can also charge into battle with their guns, that is only a small part of their role on the battlefield. The most important role of the armored cavalry in this era is actually mounted shooting.
But there is still a difference between mounted archery and that of archers, because both men and horses have to be mounted and shot while running at high speed, and not one person in a hundred can be like that.
Therefore, Cavalry A's mounted shooting is to change the formation from charging forward with the horse's head to tilting the horse's head to the left or right, and then trot and shoot at a constant speed.
During this shooting process, because the armored cavalry did not use soft horse bows, but also used hard bows, it was possible for their collective shooting to collapse the opposing defense forces.
After the opponent's front line collapsed, they would adjust their horses' heads and charge with guns. If the horse power was insufficient, they would even dismount and shoot on foot. After shooting the enemy to collapse, they would then mount their horses and charge with the help of auxiliary soldiers.
"Spread your formation, squat down to reduce the defensive area, and don't move without orders!" Zhang Zhao shouted, and the surrounding officers also shouted to pass on his orders.
Now that we know that the opponent wants to shoot the spear phalanx, there is no need to gather the hedgehogs together. Spreading out a little can reduce the chance of being hit and collapsing.
As soon as he finished speaking, the moving Karakhan Cavalry had already reached about seventy paces. Sure enough, they either accelerated or slowed down their horses.
All the armored cavalrymen took out their bows and arrows, and the arrows rained down from the sky like locusts at the command of an armored cavalry officer on the opposite side.
Before them, the hard archers at the front of the stacked formation also collectively aimed in the direction of the armored cavalry on the opposite side, and the arrow rain from both sides arrived almost at the same time.
Screams rang out one after another around Zhang Zhao. Bows and arrows were actually an important way to break armor in the cold weapon era, but this method was relatively expensive and the general army could not afford it.
However, the armored cavalry dispatched on the opposite side were obviously the Ghulam Guards' armored cavalry of Saktu. With Karakhan's national strength, it was still possible to supply hundreds of people with armor-piercing arrows.
A large number of arrows were thrown around Zhang Zhao, and one of them even hit his Vajra Mask directly.
With a clanking sound, Zhang Zhao's nose became sore, tears fell down, and his nose bones were almost broken. Who told him to dress so coolly? The golden armor was simply the best target.
I, Lord Zhang, received a severe blow and quickly lowered my head, not daring to look around.
But after a while, Zhang Zhao felt waves of severe pain coming from his body, as if countless burly men were beating him with their fists. He could even feel many arrows piercing the damaged armor leaves.
After getting in, the cold feeling of the arrow made him panic.
Now he finally understood why many armies collapsed under such a level of fire, because this kind of fear of waiting for death was simply not something that humans could resist.
Crying sounds were accompanied by chaotic footsteps, and many spearmen left their positions and ran back.
"Kill without mercy! Kill without mercy!" The ordinary archers behind the hard archer formation and the Yueqi on both sides roared loudly according to Zhang Zhao's advance arrangements.
Liu Zaisheng personally carried the Mo Dao and chopped down a escaping one to the ground. Monk Huitong on the other side was even more ruthless. Although these spearmen were all followers of the Three Teachings selected by him, he was not merciless in killing them.
He deliberately kicked the three escaping spearmen over and nailed them to the ground with their spears, because this way they would not die immediately, and the shrill howls could deter other escapees.
"Everyone returns to the formation, and bygones are bygones within ten breaths!"
Zhang Zhao started to drink. At this time, the pressure on his body suddenly relaxed, because the armored knight on the opposite side had suffered heavy casualties under the fire of the strong archers on his side.
Cavalry shooting while moving is more difficult than shooting on foot, and the speed is also slower. In addition, the bows and arrows of the two sides are very different, and the armored cavalry on the opposite side will soon be unable to hold it.
This is inevitable. You must know that Khotan absorbed the essence of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty and prospered. At this time, the Khotan oasis could raise silkworms and weave cloth. The textile and iron smelting industries were completely unmatched by the Kara Khanate.
If a swarm of swarms came up and used their numerical superiority to fight hand-to-hand, it would be hard to say, but if they were to stand and shoot at each other and compete with the quality of their bows and arrows, the Karakhanids would never be their opponents.
The arrows fired by the armored cavalry from the opposite side became increasingly rare, and Zhang Zhao even started to pull out the arrows stuck in the Mingguang armor when he had time. Now, I, Grand Duke Zhang, am like a hedgehog, and his body is probably covered in bruises.
Zhang Zhao, who felt distressed and had to repair his armor, curled his lips in disdain, "What the hell are the Gulam Guards? It sounds like that, but in actual combat, they turned out to be so rubbish, with more than 3,000 cavalry dispatched."
Not even a single frontal impact.
"Kukukuku!" The sound of neat footsteps came, and the horned crossbowmen from the rear array came forward.
‘Bang!’ More than three hundred horn bows and crossbows shot out at the same time. This was not a powerful bow from Badou, but a powerful crossbow close to three stones.
Immediately, the hundreds of armored cavalry and the light cavalry that circled back immediately turned on their backs. From a distance of seventy steps, three stone crossbows were fired. You can't carry any armor, and the war horses can be killed in one hit.
Life.
The panicked people screamed and their horses neighed, and the Karakhan cavalry, who had been shot to death, fled in all directions like termites that had been knocked over an ant nest under a single volley from the three hundred-horned crossbowmen.
This chapter has been completed!