The shooting pole can be said to be another kind of trebuchet, but the throwing distance is very different.
This era was actually not suitable for mounting trebuchets on ships for water warfare.
There are two reasons: first, maybe there is no space.
It's easy to understand that the accuracy of the trebuchet is insufficient even on land. The new trebuchet can hit three times out of ten, which is good.
If this trebuchet is moved to a warship...
The warship will fluctuate with the water surface, so the trebuchet will also sway left and right along with the hull.
There is a saying that "a slight miss can make a thousand miles". The most taboo thing about long-range things is that the bottom plate is unstable. Even if it is just a little bit off and a hundred steps away, it will still be far away from the target.
So if the trebuchet is moved to the ship, hitting the target will purely depend on luck.
As for lack of space... Small warships were commonly used in this era, and this warship couldn't even accommodate a trebuchet, let alone carry stone bombs.
If you insist on loading a trebuchet, it is not impossible, such as two warships joined together, or making the warship larger and joining several more warships.
But then a series of problems will arise:
How many stone bullets are enough?
How many people are needed to operate the boat?
How many cavaliers are needed?
Plus arrows and other supplies... Is this boat suitable for river navigation?
Can the speed keep up with other warships?
How to resupply the stone bullets if they are used up?
And then I managed to do it with so much sacrifice. The trebuchet still missed nine out of ten times. Even if it was lucky, it would hit an enemy ship with twenty-five people... It would be easier to knock it over with a boat.
.
But that's okay.
The trebuchet, which requires both space and unfocused stone bullets, is not suitable, but this "shooting rod" is suitable...
The advantage of the shooting pole is that it can be used repeatedly: after shooting, several soldiers will pull the stone up high to prepare for the next time.
Just like now, when Chu Shui's army fled, chariots and chariots caught up from behind.
Both armies were moving down the river, and the wheeled warships had the speed advantage and could easily catch up with the Chu army's warships.
Then there was no need to shoot arrows at all. He leaned forward and struck hard with the pole. A warship capsized with a burst of screams, and then he caught up with another one, and then another one...
In Shen Bing's eyes, this was as easy as a fly swatting a mosquito, while all the Chu army could do besides shooting arrows was try their best to avoid it.
However, evasion requires speed. If the Chu army's warships are not fast enough, they can watch the Qin army's warships approach and then huge rocks fall from the sky...
In the end, there was no way to escape, so some warships simply stopped and dropped their bows and arrows, removed their shields, and surrendered.
A black-armored army moved forward to receive the prisoners.
The former army bypassed these warships and pursued them non-stop. After chasing for a quarter of an hour, another batch of warships came up along the waterway.
These warships were the two thousand naval troops sent by Xiang Yan for reinforcements.
The leader of this naval force was Liang Jin, the military commander under Xiang Yan's control. When he saw the Chu army retreating from a distance, he ordered his subordinates to raise a flag to notify Zhang Yao's troops to join forces and fight again.
However, Zhang Yao kept calling flags to withdraw troops.
Liang Jin frowned and cursed:
"Why is Vice-General Zhang so miserable? He was defeated in such an embarrassing manner in just one stick of incense!"
"As for the reinforcements, our army is superior to the enemy's army. Why should we be afraid of what he will do?"
After thinking about it, he ignored Zhang Yao's order, held his head high and shouted majestically to the surroundings:
"The whole army is listening to the order and getting ready to meet the enemy!"
"Wait until I kill all the Qin barbarians and then I will be rewarded for my meritorious service!"
The men responded with a roar and got ready, arrows were strung and swords were unsheathed, and the oarsmen rowed hard to speed up and rush forward.
However, being handsome lasts only three seconds...
Soon the fleet arrived in front of Liang Shu.
Only then did Liang Shu clearly see the Qin warships that he was chasing and fighting. The Chu warships that were close to them were either sunk or overturned. The river was full of corpses of Chu soldiers.
Liang Shu was shocked:
"What is that? Actually..."
Before he could finish speaking, Zhang Yao, who was running towards the river, shouted at him:
"Withdraw the troops, withdraw the troops!"
"The Qin army is powerful and we are no match for it!"
Liang Ming hesitated for a moment.
The reason why he hesitated was because he had just ordered preparations for war, and he also made bold promises to kill the Qin army.
Wouldn't it be a loss of face to withdraw the troops immediately before the war has begun?
But he only hesitated for a moment. Finally, he thought that life was more important than face after all, so he hurriedly shouted:
"Withdraw the troops, withdraw the troops with gold!"
However, withdrawing the troops at this time was not the right choice. As soon as Liang Shu's fleet turned around, they were all lying across the river. Then Zhang Yao's fleet went down the river again and was eager to escape at a very fast speed. At that moment, the two fleets of warships
One ship crashed into another.
Suddenly, screams and wailings were heard, and many warships were crowded into a pile and swirling in the river. They were knocked over and countless others were sunk.
Many navy soldiers fell into the river and screamed for help, but they were wearing heavy bronze armor and only had time to splash in the water a few times before disappearing.
At this time, Shen Bing led the warships to charge forward again, only to beat the Chu Shui Army, who howled like ghosts and howled like wolves, and blood flowed into the river.
Since the battlefield was out of Xiang Yan's sight, he didn't know much about the situation.
He just looked at the pieces of warship wreckage floating upstream from time to time and couldn't help but frown... Xiang Yan recognized from the flag fragments on the warships that they were Chu army warships.
Xiang Yan was puzzled:
Shouldn't two armies fighting each other suffer casualties?
Why are there wrecks of Chu army warships all the way down?
Just when he was wondering, the Chu Shui army who had been killed in a mess had appeared in Xiang Yan's sight down the river.
Looking from a distance, Xiang Yan saw that the Qin army's battle flags were in good order but the Chu army was in chaos. He secretly thought something was wrong and hurriedly ordered the withdrawal of troops.
But by this time it was already too late to withdraw the troops.
The main force of the Chu navy that was heading towards Qiancheng was in a similar situation to what Li Yan's troops had encountered before. They were fighting happily with Li Yan's navy, and they did not withdraw at the first sign of withdrawal.
Before they had time to respond, the black-armored army had already taken advantage of the situation, and there was another burst of flying bows and arrows, and fierce attacks with poles...
After the war, military commander Chen Duan said that the thousand pioneers he led had all fired their arrows. After that, they relied entirely on shooting poles to kill the enemy. Some warships even had their poles damaged, so they had to board the Chu warships to retrieve arrows.
Fight again...
This has never happened in the history of water warfare in the Warring States Period. Without arrows, you can actually kill the enemy ship to get the arrows?
On the one hand, this shows that the Chu army has been beaten to the point of losing all morale; on the other hand, the Qin army is so aggressive that it can even be said that it is so arrogant that it does not take the enemy seriously.
Even Wei Wei sighed to Shen Bing when he saw this scene:
"I have never seen anything like this in my decades of leading troops."
"The weak soldiers in the past have now become tigers and wolves."
"I can't even believe that they just abandoned their soldiers."
"Alas! With this battle, the old soldier will have no regrets in his life."
Shen Bing only smiled.
If you are satisfied with just such a battle, then Wei Wei's appetite is too small.