When we were in the history class of junior high school, when we talked about the Spring and Autumn Warring States Period, we introduced the "Great Wall of Qin", that is to say, the Xiongnu in the north began to invade the south before Qin Shi Huang did not unify China, because after the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, it was the era of chasing deer in the Central Plains, all the princely states were fighting, and there was no strength to completely annihilate the Xiongnu in the south, the Qin, Zhao, Wei, and Yan kingdoms in the north... In order to resist the invasion of the Xiongnu, the princely states began to build their own great walls along the border.
The Xiongnu are nomadic peoples, unlike our Central Plains farming peoples, we have settled down: planting, breeding, textile... and other handicrafts, and gave birth to advanced civilizations, and then appeared bronze smelting, casting bronze, weaving, pottery, lacquerware... Wait, these advanced civilization achievements and advanced productive forces, and the Xiongnu are just grazing life by grass, the aforementioned Central Plains civilization has appeared things they can not produce, but in the exchange with the Central Plains farming civilization, found including grain, cloth... After including these valuable items, probably due to the unequal exchange value, they began to plunder south... In this way, from the Warring States period, they have constantly attacked the Central Plains.
After the First Emperor destroyed the Six Kingdoms and unified China, the first object of conquest was the Xiongnu! There are two purposes, the first is to solve the problem of long-term attacks on the northern border and lack of tranquility. Second: The Xiongnu occupied the Hetao Plain, where the gentle flow of the Yellow River was very suitable for agricultural irrigation and was a potential granary! Therefore, the First Emperor Xiongcai immediately sent the general Meng Tian to command 300,000 troops to attack the Xiongnu in the north.
After the arrival of General Meng Tian outside Saiwai, the first thing was to strengthen the city, raise the Great Wall of Qin and strengthen it, in addition to recuperating and storing sharpness, but also stepping up the training of soldiers, building weapons, and increasing the reserve of combat materials.
The soldiers and horses did not move the grain and grass first, and the war was fought with logistics! This is the ancient military experts in our country have long summed up the main conditions for winning the war, the "Qin Straight Road" in the picture is the Highway of the Qin Dynasty, it took more than a month to transport grain from Xianyang to the front line, and 30 to 40% of the grain transported in the process of transportation was eaten by the convoy transporting grain, the consumption was very large, in order to quickly transport grain to the front line to increase war reserves, the First Emperor ordered the mobilization of 200,000 migrant workers to build 800 miles of "straight road" and a large number of supporting stations from the nine counties of Xianyang ... With the "straight road", a large number of convoys can reach the front line in just 10 days, which greatly saves time and food consumption on the road.
The construction standard of the "Qin Straight Road" is very high, even in some places such as Yulin, Shaanxi Province, you can still see the ruins of the "Qin Road", and the passage of time has not buried it in the long river of history.
Generally speaking, compared with the cavalry of the central plains and the nomadic people, there is a big gap in mobility and impact, mainly because the number of horses in the central plains is very small, and the horse is still a tool of agricultural production, on the contrary, the northern ethnic groups are mainly grazing in the steppe, and the number of horses is much higher than that of the central plains, so the cavalry of the northern ethnic groups has always been a headache for the infantry in the central plains!
So, how did the 300,000 infantry led by Meng Tian defeat the 300,000 Hun cavalry? This is mainly because the weapons and equipment of the Qin army are greatly advanced than those of the Xiongnu! At that time, the Qin army was equipped with the most advanced long-range equipment, namely crossbow machines and crossbow arrows.
This bronze mechanical object is the core component of the crossbow, which is composed of: fuselage (linkage), wangshan (aiming), suspension knife (trigger), which is equivalent to the combination of modern firearms aiming, mechanical control, and trigger linkage.
Schematic diagram of the Qin crossbow, the right is the bronze mechanical device mentioned earlier, the specific way of use is: first hook the crossbow string to the groove of the wangshan and the tooth, and at the same time hook the heart and the suspension knife to tighten the bondage crossbow string, and keep the state to be catapulted and then a crossbow arrow above the crossbow arm, aim at the target with "Wangshan", when the Xiongnu cavalry enters the range after deducting the suspension knife, the crossbow string will pop the crossbow arrow, because the elasticity of the crossbow string is very good, the crossbow arrow can be fired to a distance of 150 meters.
This is the arrow of the Qin Dynasty crossbow excavated in the Qinling Terracotta Warriors and Horses Pit, made of bronze, the appearance is very simple and triangular, not the strange shape mentioned in the commentary, each side has an arc line, after projection calculation, the arc of the Qin crossbow arrow is similar to the bullet head of a modern pistol, and the edge is very sharp The cutting effect is very good, and it can still pierce the thick animal skin armor after firing 150 meters! Lethality works very well in the era of cold weapons, even if it was not shot at that time, but a deep wound can also cause infection and even tetanus, which was certain to die more than 2,000 years ago! On the contrary, the Xiongnu did not have bronze smelting technology, and the arrows could only be ground with wolf teeth or bull horns, and the range and lethal power were far lower than those of the Qin crossbow arrows.
Compared with the bow, the crossbow can be accurately aimed for a long time due to the mechanical device that controls the bow string, and it will not be gradually depleted with the arm strength like the bow, and the range and accuracy will also be greatly reduced.
The Huns also had bows and arrows, but only no crossbows, because the bronze mechanism was "high-tech" for them, which was too complicated! There is no way to copy, only the use of bows, but the problem is that in the process of riding up and down, it is difficult to aim, only a knight with a very high level of equestrianism can achieve accuracy.
Because, in the duel between bow and crossbow, the bow is defeated! After several decisive battles between the Mengtian army and the Xiongnu cavalry, the Xiongnu army used a large number of arrows to shoot a large number of Xiongnu horses and riders, so that the Xiongnu retreated to the desert for 800 miles to avoid fighting with the Mengtian army, and the problem of nomadic raids since the Warring States was temporarily resolved (the Han Dynasty completely drove the Xiongnu out of the desert north) And the Hetao Plain was also returned to China.
In short, the defeat of the Xiongnu cavalry by the Mengtian army was a battle of preparation! Logistical support first, hoarding grain, making crossbows... Carry out combat readiness material reserves, carry out targeted environmental adaptation training for troops, form a generation gap with the Xiongnu in terms of weapons and equipment, weapons and equipment are standardized and standardized production, 300,000 Qin troops are elite divisions that participated in the annihilation of the Six Kingdoms, and the organizational ability and tactical tactics of the troops are superior to those of the Xiongnu! Therefore, the Qin infantry was able to defeat the Xiongnu cavalry.
In the history of our country, before the army went out on the expedition, it was necessary to carry out "temple calculation", and temple calculation was not to engage in "counting" and "helping luans" in the temple... This kind of feudal superstitious activity, but above the temple, the monarch and the subject must repeatedly discuss and study the purpose of the expedition and the results of the war before deciding whether to send troops, and all aspects of the conquest must be considered thoroughly, which is a reasonable explanation of the "temple calculation", otherwise why did so many military works appear in ancient China? These are the results of temple calculations.