Chapter 147 - The Triple-bow Acruballistas
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Levs
3PM, Shanhai Town meeting hall.
Ouyang Shuo had called for a Shanhai Town military administration meeting. Those that joined the meeting were directors Fan Zhongyan, Tian Wenjing, Cui Yingyu, Ge Hongliang, military unit general General Shi, cavalry unit major Lin Yi, Beihai navy fleet commander Pei Donglai, Shanhai Town city protection unit major Zhao Sihu, and Clerk Bai Nanpu will be in charge of the notes.
Before the meeting started, Ouyang Shuo had already let Bai Nanpu inform the people in the meeting that the main issue of the meeting was on how they would face the raider's city attack on the 5th month 20th day, to ensure that Shanhai Town could upgrade smoothly.
Before discussing the specific strategies, Ouyang Shuo had firstly paid attention to the environment in Shanhai Town.
After the Qingming Operation, the nomadic tribes temporarily didn't have any movement, be it Khan Mengke from the Tian Qi tribe or Dariachi from the Tian Feng tribe, they were all people who were politically experienced, before they had investigated things clearly, they wouldn't make any moves.
The only change was that the Tian Feng tribe took control of the destroyed Tian Lian tribe's pasture. As for such a bandit like act, the Tian Qi tribe sent out a warning for them to return it but did not make any actual movement.
On the side of Beihai Town, as the second navy unit was built, the Beihai navy fleet had been preliminarily formed.
Pei Donglai gave up the role of the navy unit major role and became the commander of the Beihai navy fleet. The original navy unit first captain Zhang Zhoufeng became the first unit major. The second captain Zhang Youfang became the second unit major. The original 3rd squadron captain Zhang Lihai was not Pei Donglai's assistant.
Based on Ouyang Shuo's plan, the future Beihai navy fleet had a military organization. The two navy units were only twenty percent of a full Organization.
The pirate "Black Shark" from Moon Island, ever since he visited the area around Beihai Town and faced a nail, he had never done any further operations. Ouyang Shuo guessed that before he understands the strength of Beihai Town, he wouldn't dare to attack again.
Based on Pei Donglai's reaction, although Black Shark didn't make a large scale move, but in the outer area of Beihai Town, one could still see ships monitoring and scouting, they were probably his scouting ships. The pirates cared a lot about their face so this time when Blackbeard came but was forced to retreat, he had to get back his dignity and pride.
Pei Donglai didn't defend passively but instead made use of scouting operations and confirmed the location of Moon Island. There was even a time when he used the Mengchong warship to launch a sneak attack against the scout ship and from the captive prisoner, he gained information about Black Shark.
Pei Donglai was actually super confident and said that it's okay if he doesn't come, but if Black Shark came, he would definitely not be able to return. If it wasn't that they were lacking manpower, Pei Donglai would even want to attack Moon Island.
With the outside threats all temporary neutralized, Ouyang Shuo had even more confidence to face the upcoming raider city attack.
The reason why Ouyang Shuo was so confident to be able to defend was because of his greatest trump card, the bed crossbow built by the Bow and Crossbow Division after taking a look at the Song Dynasty bow and crossbow making manual.
Bei Song’s heavy bed crossbow had developed till he could put 3 composite bows combined on a frame, it was called “triple-bow acruballistas”, the arrow was the “wooden stick iron feather”, called “1 spear 3 sword arrow”, the arrow that was shot was as big as a spear, the 3 feathers were like 3 swords, flying up to 1500 metres. It was the weapon with the furthest range during the cold weapons era.
Apart from firing a solo giant arrow, the acruballistas could also fire dozens of small arrows at once, known as the frosty crow arrows. When attacking a city, it could also projectile stepping arrows which the invading warriors could use to climb the city walls. Hence, one could say that the acruballistas was the ultimate weapon for both attack and defence, the pinnacle of Song Dynasty bow and crossbow technology.
This weapon of mass killing, its difficulty to make was obvious. Till date, since the creation of the Bow and Crossbow Division, it had been 1.5 months, such a long time and they only made 2 of the triple-bow acruballistas. Apart from that, they also made 4 ordinary acruballistas.
The aiming and shooting of the bed crossbow must be controlled by a professional, huge strength must be used to pull the giant axe head shaped trigger. The soldiers that used the acruballistas was a specific type in the military, know as the “acruballistas crossbowman”.
Since the establishment of the Bow and Arrow Division, the Military Affairs Department had secretly selected and trained acruballistas crossbowmen, a total of 500 people. This 500 men were tasked with the 2 triple-bow acruballistas and the 4 ordinary acruballistas.
Ouyang Shuo specially named this group of men as the God Machine camp. The God Machine camp was a special unit in the Ming Dynasty that was in charge of firearms. The triple-bow acruballistas was like the big cannon out of firearms, from this, one could see the wishes he had on this force.
The major that the Military Affairs Department chose for the God Machine camp was called Wang Yuanfeng, 26 years old, he was a basic rank general. Based on combat power, Wang Yuanfeng probably couldn’t even compare to rank 7 elite soldier, but his familiarity with the bed crossbow was what no one could compare with. Not only did he know everything about the structure of the acruballistas, his specialty: precision, also made him the perfect choice to lead.
Name: Wang Yuanfeng (Silver rank)
Identity: Shanhai Town God Machine Camp Major
Identity: Basic General
Loyalty: 85
Command: 40
Force: 25
Intelligence: 20
Politics: 25
Specialty: Precision (raise the precision of weapon instruments by 50%)
Cultivation Technique: No
Equipment: Tang Sword, Leather Armor
Evaluation: Good at using various weapon instruments, especially bed crossbow and large sized weapon instruments
Only relying on the acruballistas and the God Machine Camp would definitely not stop the raider city invasion.
Based on the information revealed by players in the last life, the invading raiders numbered around 6 thousand men. Their type will depend on the environment, there may be raiders, bandits, mountain bandits or water bandits, everything was possible. Based on the environment around Shanhai Town, it should be a combination of raiders and water bandits.
All the army men in Shanhai Town, counting the God Machine unit and the Langshan protection unit in, they only totaled 5 thousand men. However he couldn’t move the protection unit as they still had to protect against attacks from the mountain barbarians. He also couldn’t move the entire Beihai navy fleet and needed to at least leave a unit, if not, Black Shark’s scouting ship may find something amiss and might launch an attack.
At Friendship Village, the cavalry unit could temporarily be moved back to the main town, but the city protection unit had to be left in the town, if not, the town would be there for the taking. Ouyang Shuo didn't have the confidence that he could deceive Dariachi that old fox. After moving the cavalry unit, Dariachi would definitely send men to investigate, if the city didn't have any protecting troops, he would not miss such an opportunity.
Qiushui Town’s city protection unit could be moved back to the main town to participate in the defence. He haven’t found any threat on the east side, he could relax as it was just for one day. On the side of the mountain barbarians, ever since the Ji Feng tribe was destroyed, peace was regained and there were no unusual situations occurring.
Counting everything except the God Machine unit, the total number was just 3000 men, only half of the attacking force. This was also after reinforcing the units after the 300 men died during the Battle of Zhuolu.
In the Battle of Zhuolu, Shanhai town lost 100 cavalry, 150 sword shield soldiers and 50 archers. It was easy to solve the problem with the cavalry, directly class changing from the backup unit.
As for sword shield soldiers and bowmen, it was very difficult, they had to choose from the mountain barbarian tribe. To train one archer who did not know the basics was impossible, hence he could only select from the hunters in the mountain barbarian tribes.
Helplessly, Ouyang Shuo could only take the advice of Ge Hongliang and directly move 200 men from the Shanlang protection unit and reinforce the dead squadrons. He then moved 200 men from the various tribes to the Shanlang protection unit. With this, he ensured the battle strength of the units and also didn’t need to worry about the Shanlang Protection unit.
The worst thing was that the Beihai Navy fleet could only battle in water regions, the cavalry weren’t suitable to defend the city, and could only act as a mobile strategic reserve force. Hence, those that could really participate in the city defence were the two infantry units and the two city defence units, a total of 2 thousand men.
Out of the 2 thousand men defending the city, there were only 700 archers, they were certainly in a disadvantage.
Based on the strength of Shanhai Town, to organise the troops was highly difficult and they were pushing it. One could see the difficulty of upgrading to a grade 1 city. In the last life, many lords didn’t dare apply even when they met the requirements, only after preparing well did they send the system application.
Under such circumstances, to expand the army in a snap was impossible.
The ratio between residents and military personnel had exceeded the 10% by a large margin and was already at 20%. If the military were to be expanded, it would have a destructive effect on the economy and finance. Most importantly, enlisting the strong and active youths was squeezing up the labor force of the territory. This would be the same as destroying the various growing industries.
Hence, when the military affairs director Ge Hongliang had suggested military expansion, Fan Zhongyan and Cui Yingyu resolutely declined.
Ouyang Shuo carried the attitude of losing now win later and rejected the suggestion.
One reason was the number of military personnel was too little. If one expanded the military, the standards would drop. Ouyang Shuo couldn’t accept the elite troops under his charge to fail him.
Second was that even if he expanded the military, the new soldiers were rookies and didn’t have any experience. Facing such a bloody battle like defending the city, it was hard to tell what kind of performance they will have.