If it were the previous Qin army, these 1,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry troops would go out of the city to face more than 10,000 Xiongnu. Not only would they not be able to successfully drive back the Xiongnu, but they would also be in danger.
At the beginning, the Qin army might be able to disrupt the Xiongnu's attack on the city.
But the Xiongnu would soon turn their target to the three thousand Qin troops leaving the city, and then they would divide into several groups to surround them and shoot arrows in circles at the Qin troops from several directions.
Although the Qin army was equipped with shields, most of them were round shields with poor protection.
The strongest protective shield should be the large square shield of Rome. Not only is it large in area, it can also be spliced into a tortoise shell formation to render the enemy's archers unable to function.
But even in this way, simply using shields to defend against horse archers cannot gain an advantage.
The Roman Empire thought it was possible, so Crassus led tens of thousands of troops to an expedition to Parthia.
The Parthian army was more flexible with horse archers. Their strategy for dealing with the Roman army, which was armed to the teeth, was to lure the enemy deeper...
Most of Rome's troops were infantry, and supplies would be stretched as they penetrated deeper into enemy territory.
When facing the Parthian archers, although its large square shield could perfectly block the arrows, it also made it unable to maneuver... As soon as it moved around, the turtle shell formation would loosen, and once it loosened, there would be casualties. If there were casualties, new turtle shell formations would appear.
loopholes.
As a result, the Roman army was almost completely wiped out in this battle, and Crassus also died in a foreign country because of his arrogance and underestimation of the enemy.
Therefore, a truly effective way to defend against horse archers should not emphasize defense one-sidedly, but should be both offensive and defensive and even require mobility.
One-sided emphasis on defense like the Roman army means handing all the initiative into the hands of the enemy... giving yourself an entire immobile turtle shell, the enemy can easily walk around the perimeter, including transporting supplies, etc., and there is no other way than hiding in the turtle
If you can't do anything in the shell, then don't you just wait to die?
Therefore, there are always a lot of speculations on the modern Internet. What would happen if Rome, the most powerful in the West, collided with the Han Dynasty in its heyday in the East?
Two different civilizations, different tactics, different styles, who loses and who wins?
There is actually no suspense about this.
The Roman army may have been offensive strategically, but tactically it was passive defensive, whether it was siege cities or marching.
Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Han army has attached great importance to cavalry. They even used cavalry to defeat the powerful Xiongnu, leaving "no royal court in Mobei".
Coupled with the fact that the Han army was familiar with the "Art of War" and the like, if the two armies collided... it is not difficult to imagine that the Roman army would be faced with a situation of "cannot fight and cannot escape".
Especially the heavy equipment of the Roman army, I am afraid that it will be exhausted after being teased a few times by the Han army.
Shen Bing knew the truth of this, so he could have equipped a square shield like the Romans and learned to form a tortoise shell formation, and he could even have used a much lighter rattan shield as a support.
But Shen Bing didn't do that.
In the Han Dynasty, Li Ling led 5,000 infantry and was surrounded by 30,000 Xiongnu. Why was he still able to fight and walk hundreds of miles, killing tens of thousands of enemies and finally being captured because he ran out of arrows?
It's because they have the initiative.
If they formed a tortoise-shell formation like the Roman army, how could they fight and travel hundreds of miles?
How to kill tens of thousands of enemies?
Li Lingjun's initiative was definitely not achieved by using shields to form a turtle shell formation, but by shooting crossbows, which had a much longer range than bows and arrows.
Because the crossbow has a longer range than a bow and arrow, especially a bow and arrow with a small draw force on horseback...
This cannot be avoided.
Although the Huns were highly skilled in horseback riding and archery, the instability of the lower body on horseback determined that the pulling power of their bows and arrows was not as good as that of heavy bows and arrows on the ground.
The Qin Nu is pushed with the feet and supported by the waist, and its range is dozens of steps farther than the bow and arrow.
If in the past, the Qin army had to sit on the ground and fire their crossbows, this would also cause them to lose their mobility and give up the initiative. In addition, the reaction would be slower and the surface area for bullets would be increased...
Especially at the moment when the crossbow is fired, the whole person is almost completely stretched out facing the sky.
At this time, if the Xiongnu shoots a volley of arrows at them... it will be so sour, and they will hit a few arrows at any time.
But after Shen Bing improved the crossbow, all these shortcomings disappeared, and he could shoot while walking, so he had the initiative.
The Xiongnu surrounded them from here, and shot them back with a hail of arrows.
The Huns surrounded him again from the other side and rained arrows on him to teach him how to behave.
If sometimes you are unable to react quickly and cannot cope with it...this is a common thing on the battlefield, especially against the Huns who come and go like the wind.
As mentioned before, the Xiongnu will cooperate in fighting like a wolf county hunting.
For example, if the front attracts the Qin army's firepower, the left, right and rear suddenly launch attacks at the same time.
If the Central Plains countries implemented this tactic, they would need to use flags to command, while the Xiongnu relied entirely on instinct or "telepathy."
At this time, the Qin army was often unable to react in time and could not push back enemies from four directions at the same time. Therefore, the Qin army suffered heavy casualties when arrows rained from all directions.
But the army led by Wang Ben was a mixture of infantry and cavalry, with a combination of distance and distance, and a combination of speed and slowness.
Infantry has a long range, but is slow.
Cavalry has a short range, but is fast.
In normal times, in head-to-head encounters, we would use infantry and powerful crossbows to fight against the enemy. If we were unable to react in time, we would use cavalry to fight to keep the Huns out of range.
The Shenwu Army was no ordinary cavalry army, especially the cavalry army led by Yan. Even their horses were equipped with vine armor for protection.
They hardly have to worry about their own safety and can shoot arrows at their enemies.
If there is anything to worry about, it is that your riding skills are not good enough and you may fall off your horse during battle.
This situation does happen, and there are quite a lot of it. After a battle, dozens of people fell off their horses and were injured.
This situation rarely happened when fighting against the Chu army before. The reason is that the Huns are highly skilled in riding and are very fast. If the Shenwu army wants to catch up with them and fight them, they have to speed up, so the probability of falling off the horse increases exponentially. .
But even so, the Shenwu Army still let the Huns see the power of rattan armor.
The Xiongnu's arrows shot at the Shenwu Army were bounced off as if they were shot at an iron wall. The rider was unscathed, even if it hit the head, the face was no exception... The rattan armor has a mask.
However, the Qin army used new and sharper iron arrows, and wherever they hit, the Xiongnu fell without hesitation.
In fact, this is just a small point. The main function of the Shenwu Army is not to injure the enemy but to serve as a moving shield to block the front so that the Xiongnu cannot approach the Qin army's infantry.
Then after the infantry reacted, Wang Ben's flag was raised, and the Shenwu Army distanced itself from the enemy cavalry. Then the infantry flew another batch of crossbow arrows, and the crossbow arrows were also mixed with arrows that could scare the Huns. The iron crossbow arrow that broke the liver and gallbladder...
The Xiongnu had never seen such a fighting style. After several charges, they not only failed to push back the three thousand Qin troops, but suffered heavy casualties and corpses littered the fields.
So of course it was no longer possible to attack the city's defense line, let alone rescue Maodun.