Ordinary days always pass so slowly. It was already the fifth day, and Su Dingfang continued to train his army outside the city, attracting many people from Gaochang to watch. They had never seen this kind of training method before.
In their impression, if they want to kill the enemy, they must have strong ability in horseback combat. However, they have been watching here for three days, and the Tang Dynasty army seems to have never trained in horseback combat. We have never seen the way they train.
The first thing they trained on was the installation and movement of crossbows. Now the Tang army had entered a new level. They had long since gotten rid of the previous scenes of fighting with swords. Many wars even ended without the two sides meeting each other. This was all thanks to the artillery.
Many people from Gaochang were watching from a distance. They didn't understand what these Tang soldiers were doing. They were taking so many crossbows, installing and disassembling them, and then putting them on carriages and running away. Didn't they use up all their strength?
Lord Zhao has also been watching these days. Although he is a minister of the Tang Dynasty, he doesn't know much about the Tang Dynasty's army. After watching these days, he basically understood that Su Dingfang was training the speed of these artillery pieces.
The situation on the battlefield changes rapidly, and it is impossible for you to always fire in one place, so when you receive orders from above, you must change the artillery position as quickly as possible.
The second is grenade throwing. Veterans are very clear about it. They can use the least amount of effort to throw it the farthest and even control where it is thrown. However, new recruits do not have such ability. There are 800 new recruits in the team who came from Chang'an City, so this training program is mainly for them.
The objects used in training are also specially made and their weight is almost the same as that of real grenades. Only in this way can the real throwing distance be simulated.
Of course, there will be live-fire training. Every three days, the troops will conduct live-fire training. This is also what Li Xiang required. If all training objects are used, the soldiers may not be able to smell the smoke of gunpowder on the battlefield and may not be able to experience the situation. Only when they smell the smoke of gunpowder on the battlefield will they know that they are not far from the battlefield.
During the live-fire training, the people and ministers of Gaochang were dumbfounded. How could a brick-sized thing have such a powerful explosion? And so much black smoke? If it were to fight against our army, only five or six hundred of these things would be enough to wipe out thousands of our cavalry.
Su Dingfang didn't care about their experience. This was also a way to enhance the country's prestige. Wadahan and the border soldiers had seen it a long time ago, but the people here had never seen it, so Su Dingfang didn't mind performing it for them again.
When the crossbows were firing, all the officials here came out. The Tang army could attack targets several miles away very accurately, and with multiple attacks. A scenario appeared in their minds. If our tens of thousands of cavalry attacked the Tang army camp, according to their two attack methods, half of our people would be dead before they even reached the camp gate.
After seeing this, the ministers of Gaochang State began to have other thoughts. If the Tang people proposed stationing soldiers again, would we still refuse in the same way? What if we angered them? Despite the smiles on their faces, they said that the people of the Tang Dynasty could change their minds faster than turning the pages of a book.
The king of Gaochang was the most frightened. He was a man of little ability. When he saw the Tang army training on the city gate tower, his left hand began to tremble with fear. If he had not held his sleeve tightly, others would have seen it.
How powerful the Tang Dynasty is, they used to hear others say, but today they finally saw the facts, so for them, they have to reconsider their relationship with the Tang Dynasty, especially in terms of words, and they must not act according to their own temperament as before. Don’t look at the fact that there are only 5,000 troops here. If they really attack the capital, it will be like what Wadahan said, and it will only take half a month at most.
After returning to the palace, the high-ranking officials of Gaochang Kingdom were still thinking about the scene just now. The souls of many people had not returned to their bodies yet, and they kept thinking about the explosion outside the city. They all began to associate themselves, fortunately the explosion had nothing to do with them now, no wonder Xueyantuo was destroyed.
If the Tang Dynasty used such weapons to attack us, let alone our small Gaochang Kingdom, even the dozen or so countries in the Western Regions would be defeated. I'm afraid they would all be swept away by the Tang Dynasty.
"Hasn't there been any news from the General?"
The king of Gaochang slammed the table and asked everyone to put their souls back into their bodies. The explosion just now scared them out of their souls, and now everyone was thinking about how to establish good relations with the Tang Dynasty envoy.
"In reply to your Majesty, no."
A general below said honestly that they had been out for nearly half a month, but they still hadn't found the enemy's whereabouts. The Xueyantuo people seemed to have disappeared in the past few days. They no longer robbed other tribes because when they robbed other tribes, their whereabouts would inevitably be exposed. They also knew that Gaochang Kingdom was going to wipe them out, and no one knew where they had been hiding in the past few days.
"What position has the general reached?"
The king of Gaochang was a little annoyed. He looked at where his troops were and thought about giving remote commands to kill the Xueyantuo people as soon as possible, so that the army could come back earlier and he could feel a little comforted.
"Why is the progress so slow?"
When his men marked the location on the map, the king was immediately dissatisfied. It was only 350 miles from the capital. Hadn't they searched for the past few days? You have to know that Gaochang's army was different from that of the Tang Dynasty. They were all cavalry and could march at least hundreds of miles a day.
This was the advantage of nomadic peoples. Even if the Tang soldiers were equipped with war horses, they wouldn't be able to move so fast without special training. Nomadic peoples were born and raised on horseback, so they could do everything on horseback. Their marching speed shouldn't be so slow. There was only one reason for their current slowness: the general was afraid of death...