The cavalry has obvious advantages over infantry. The armored cavalry with both men and horses strengthens the protection ability of the war horses and can collide with the infantry battle formation head-on, which has an overwhelming advantage. It shows its strong combat power as soon as it appears and is regarded as a weapon by those who are determined to achieve success.

However, the armored cavalry has high requirements. In addition to the high cost of horse armor, it also requires strong war horses. Although steelmaking technology has appeared at this time, it is far from mature. A pair of horse armor weighs as high as more than 100 kilograms (Hanjin). The weight of the knight and horse armor has exceeded the limit that ordinary war horses can bear. Even if they are barely involved in battle, they will not be able to support them for a long time. They must be carefully selected and strong war horses.

So if you want to own an armored cavalry: one is to have money and be able to buy horse armor, and the other is to have a strong war horse. Yuan Shao has both, and has 300 armored cavalry, which is invincible. Sun Ce is not as rich as Yuan Shao, and can even make money by barely squeezing, but he does not have enough war horses, which is well-known. So although there were armored cavalry on the Qingzhou battlefield, Yuan Shao and his subordinates have always doubted whether Sun Ce has more armored cavalry. At this moment, when he heard the word armored cavalry, Shen Pei was as if he was stabbed by a needle, and his heart almost popped out of his throat.

If Sun Ce really has a cavalry, he may have lost three points to win.

Hu Qian also knew that this was a big deal and could not make any mistakes. He looked carefully and said, "It shouldn't be a cavalryman, there is a car behind him."

Shen Pei was speechless. He no longer relied on Hu Qian's judgment, so he called two personal guards and asked them to go to the front of the formation to check. The central army was more than 400 steps away from Sun Ce's position, but was blocked by his front army. He could not see clearly, and he could only see it in front of the formation.

The two personal guards flew on horses and rushed to the front of the formation. They looked up and had just put their hearts hanging in their throats back, and took a breath of air conditioning. They turned their horses' heads at the same time, ran back to the central army, and reported to Shen Pei.

It is indeed not an armored cavalry, but a crossbow, but the ox that pulls the cart is covered with armor, which looks a bit similar to the armored cavalry war horse.

Shen Pei twitched his cheeks and couldn't help but curse him. Although the crossbow cart is also very troublesome, it is much easier to deal with than the armored cavalry. Shen Pei glared at Hu Qian fiercely, calmed his mind, and ordered the powerful crossbowman to prepare for shooting. Even if he was wearing iron armor, the crossbow cart could only get closer. Within a hundred steps, even if there was iron armor, he could not stop the shooting of the powerful crossbow.

Of course, it cannot be said that it is useless. The closer you get, the greater the power of the crossbow cart, especially for powerful crossbows with limited protection. The crossbow cart will be a very threatening existence. However, the gap between the two sides is obvious. He has seven thousand crossbows, which is almost the same as Sun Ce's total strength. Even if Sun Ce has fifty crossbow cars, it cannot make up for this gap. The seven thousand crossbows cannot maintain a consistent pace during attack, and their power is greatly reduced, but there will be no problem with defense.

Shen Pei cheered up and dispatched troops to prepare to face Sun Ce's attack.

Sun Ce stood on the ground and watched the battle flags change in the Shenpai formation. Some infantrymen holding large shields appeared in front of the formation. There were not many people, so they should be preparing to block the crossbow chariot. He sneered secretly. Shenpai hadn't guessed what he wanted to do, and the old man's reaction would always be slower. If Xun Yan was here, could he guess?

The crossbow chariots were dragged one by one to the front of the formation, stopped about a hundred steps away from the front of the Shenpai, turned the front of the car, aimed the rear of the car at the two wing positions of the Shenpai, fixed the crossbow chariot, removed the shaft from the cow's shoulder, and prepared the hook for stringing. The wall of the car was unfolded, and the crossbow chariot was widened more than three times, like a super giant shield. It was shoulder-to-shoulder and fixed with a pin, and soon formed a shield wall.

Under the cover of the sword and shield hands, the strong archer came out and bent over and ran.

Seeing this scene, Shen Pei understood Sun Ce's intention, sneered, ordered the powerful crossbowman to shoot, and at the same time the infantry stepped forward to fight to prevent the strong archer from forming a position under his nose. The range of the strong bow is not as good as that of the strong crossbow, but the firing speed is fast, and a strong bow can be regarded as three or four powerful crossbows. Sun Ce spent so much effort to treat the strong bow as a strong crossbow to make up for his disadvantage of insufficient troops.

If you are smart, you will be smart, but you will not be able to avoid being petty.

As soon as the war drum sounded, the powerful crossbow soldiers on the left and right wings began to shoot. At the same time, the crossbow chariot also began to roar. A rain of arrows flew into the sky, interspersed with the crossbows shot from the Jizhou crossbow soldiers in the air, and shot towards the positions of the Jizhou army. The range of the crossbow chariot exceeded 200 steps, not only covering the powerful crossbow positions of the Jizhou army, but also extending to the sword, shield and spearmen behind it. Although the power was greatly reduced from two hundred steps away and the shield was not penetrated, the Jizhou army still complained and formed small formations to cover each other.

On the other side, the strong archers of the Jiangdong Army hid behind the shield wall composed of the crossbow chariot, opened the perforation hole, and shot with all their might. The wall of the crossbow chariot was very thick, like a thickened large shield. The powerful crossbow of the Jizhou Army could barely shoot through, but could not hurt the people behind. The strong archers did not have to consider protection at all. They shot with all their hearts. Only a few extremely lucky strong archers were shot by crossbow arrows passing through the perforation hole and were seriously injured immediately.

At the beginning of the two sides, the Jiangdong Army had fifty crossbows and more than a thousand powerful archers, and even had a slight advantage in the range and sturdy crossbows.

Shen Pei saw it and couldn't help but be discouraged, and at the same time he looked at Sun Ce with admiration.

"Shen Gong, Sun Ce has changed his formation." Hu Qian suddenly exclaimed and pointed his hand into the distance.

Hu Qian just mistakenly regarded the bull from the crossbow cart as an armored cavalry, and almost scared Shen Pei to death. At this moment, he exclaimed again, Shen Pei was unwilling to believe it anymore, put his hand on his eyebrows and looked carefully. However, he saw Feng Kai, who had originally rushed to the positions of the two wings of Jiang Qin, who had been fighting against the two wings of the Jizhou army, and rushed to the middle position in front of the Jizhou army. The reason why he had never discovered it was because the crossbow cart formed a shield wall, blocking their sight and ignoring the changes behind the crossbow cart.

At this moment, Feng Kai and Jiang Qin appeared from behind the crossbow, about a hundred steps apart, advancing in unison, pointing directly to the gap between the two wings of the central army in the front.

Shen Pei was puzzled and couldn't figure out what Sun Ce wanted to do. Could it be that they wanted to pass through the gap between the two formations and go straight to the central army? This was ridiculous. Shen Pei laughed secretly while adjusting the formation and sent the central army's positions on both sides of the left and right wings to block it.

Almost at the same time as the Shen Pei ordered, Sun Ce also issued a new order. The sound of the war drums suddenly looked like a storm, one tight and one heavy. Hearing the drums, fifty crossbows chariots adjusted the shooting direction at the same time, pouring dense rain of arrows on the head of the Jizhou army that was changing formations. When the formation was changing, they were not as tight as when they set up the formation. Moreover, these Jizhou infantrymen did not expect the crossbows to shoot so far and crossed the entire front formation. They were not mentally prepared at all. Many people did not even raise their shields and held them loosely in their hands. They were suddenly attacked and were shot to pieces, with a scattered scattered.

Shen Pei didn't expect this. He looked at the few stray arrows shot in front of him, and looked at the positions that were shot in a mess, and was so angry that his whole body was cold. Xun Yan said that Sun Ce's crossbow might be loaded with a ten-stone crossbow with a range of up to 300 steps. He attached great importance to this information. When he saw that the crossbow might approach within 300 steps, he immediately sent someone to intercept it. He never expected that the range of these crossbows was not only 300 steps, but at least 350 steps, and it might even reach 400 steps. He caught him off guard and suffered hundreds of casualties.
Chapter completed!