Chapter Forty-Four: The Javelin

  Xiao Tianjian visits the wounded every day, checks their injuries, and comforts them to recover from their wounds. This behavior makes several wounded men extremely grateful, especially the new recruits who are so moved that they burst into tears and vow to devote themselves to Xiao Tianjian from now on. They know better than anyone else that they have encountered a kind-hearted person like Xiao Tianjian. If it weren't for Xiao Tianjian's victory, even if they stayed in Guzhuang with Sha Erbao, as soon as they were injured, they would become useless and Sha Erbao would not treat them so well. He might even let people carry them out of the village and leave them to fend for themselves, waiting for wild dogs to drag them away and devour them. How could they have imagined that someone would change their dressings every day, feed them well, and visit them regularly?

  So, just by Xiao Tianjian's attitude towards these new partners who were injured, he moved all of Sha Er Bao's former subordinates, and their minds became even more determined to follow Xiao Tianjian.

  Days are still passing one by one, Xiao Tianjian is busy like a wheel hub, running around all day, either staring at his subordinates to practice, or going to see the leather craftsman process cowhide, or taking people to run in the back mountain to make trouble.

  By the end of April, the weather had thoroughly warmed up, and Xiao Tianjian also ended his mysterious drumming. On this day, when the training started in the morning, he brought several auxiliary soldiers carrying a large bundle of things to the temporary school field.

  Everyone took a look and only then did they discover that what Xiao Tianjian had sent over was a large bundle of spears, each one about the length of an average person's height.

  Each spear shaft was made from local mountain wood, which is dense and heavy with a relatively high hardness. Each spearhead also had an iron tip that was sharp but used very little material. Compared to the long spears they used, these were much shorter and looked very crude, like disposable goods.

  Before long, Jing Tong brought a few people to carry a bundle of wooden sticks to the field and placed them in front of Xiao Tianjian. After paying their respects, they retreated to the side of the school field and quickly set up several straw men on the side of the school field.

  Everyone took a look at this bundle of things, and it turned out to be a bunch of long wooden sticks, about four meters in length, more than one meter longer than the gun handles they were using. No one knew what Xiao Tianjian was going to do with these things.

  "Gentlemen, you may be wondering what I brought all this stuff for today! And some of you have already figured it out, I've been very busy every day, but few people know what I'm busy with! So, today I'll give you an answer!"

  "First of all, let's talk about this bundle of short guns! These are not short guns, but javelins. In general, they are not for you to use in close combat with people, but rather to be thrown out and used! Everyone take a look!"

  Xiao Tianjian walked to the front of the bundle of short spears, began to speak to everyone, and while speaking, he bent down to untie the grass rope that bound the spears. He casually grabbed one, turned around, twisted his waist, took two or three steps, and suddenly threw out this spear.

  He raised his arm high, with a powerful force in his sleeve, and after he threw it out with all his might, the javelin flew swiftly through the air, drawing a beautiful arc. With a "thud", the javelin pierced through a straw man thirty paces away, pinning itself to the ground several steps behind the straw man, its shaft still quivering.

  Everyone couldn't help but take a breath of cool air, thinking to themselves "Wow, the strength used to throw that discus is quite considerable! It's actually been thrown out so far! And if this thing were to stab someone, it would definitely not end well!"

  Xiao Tianjian was very satisfied with his demonstration this time. The distance of thirty steps was no longer close, and he still accurately hit the human-shaped target. This accuracy is indeed not bad! After throwing the javelin, Xiao Tianjian turned around and said to his subordinates on the scene: "Everyone has seen it, this thing is used in this way. From today on, each of you will add one more item to your training, which is throwing this kind of javelin! The requirement is that you must throw at least twenty steps away and accurately hit the straw man target!

  That's why I'm having you practice this, it's because in the last battle at Guzhuang, everyone saw that we didn't have any archers, which was a big disadvantage. Now, I don't expect you to become master marksmen or anything, but practicing this is much simpler than practicing archery. Compared to bows and arrows, this thing has much more power, our enemies will be in trouble as soon as they encounter it! It may seem like the distance is a bit short, but if you practice well, our power will be much greater than the enemy's bows and arrows!

  Of course, there is also the bundle of wooden sticks on the ground. In fact, they are new gun handles. From today on, you all need to switch to this type of handle. The reason is simple: our long guns must be longer than those of our opponents. This way, when facing off against opponents with long guns, we can gain the upper hand! Stand in an unbeatable position! Last time at Gǔ Zhuāng, one of our brothers died under the opponent's long gun. Now your guns are even longer, and the opponents holding guns will be unable to cope with you!

  "Class leaders, step forward and receive the javelins and handles for your class. Immediately start replacing the handles, and today we will begin adding javelin training! For training purposes, do not use javelins with iron heads; use only all-wooden javelins!"

  The head of each class immediately stepped out, walked to the front of Xiao Tianjian, took the guns and spears on the ground, hugged them back and distributed them to their subordinates, and they all started busy.

  Changing the gun barrel is not a difficult task, everyone will do it, some people's gun head can't be pulled out, with the help of others, they quickly put on new gun barrels.

  Xiao Tianjian has been busy with this matter these days. He has been thinking about how to improve the long-range combat capabilities of his men, so that they have stronger attacking power.

  He had originally thought of letting these guys learn from him, each person carrying one or two short axes on their waist, throwing them out to attack the enemy when the time came. However, controlling flying axes was not as easy as it seemed. Xiao Tianjian prided himself on being a master of the flying axe, but even he often couldn't guarantee that the axe head would hit its target, and many times had to rely on brute force to injure the enemy. It was even more impossible for his subordinates to learn this skill from him.

  After a good while of searching his mind, Xiao Tianjian suddenly remembered that he had seen an article about Ma Chao's Xiliang infantry tactics in some post, which used halberds to defeat Cao Cao.

  The Western Liang infantry was not good at bows and crossbows, but they were skilled in using throwing javelins, possibly influenced by the Roman army's pilum. Their combat power was quite strong at that time, similar to Xiao Tianjian's situation, where his men were also not good at bows and crossbows. To have a certain medium-to-long-range attack capability, only this kind of javelin could be chosen.

  That's when he suddenly had an idea and started arranging for his subordinates to prepare spears, although this seemed like a historical regression, but at the moment he had no other choice. He would have liked to arm all his subordinates with AK47s, but that was impossible! At the very least, he wanted to equip them with muskets from this era, but such things were now just pie in the sky, something to be longed for but impossible to attain.

  So be it if we're going to turn back the wheels of history! If it can give our subordinates a bit more attacking power, then let's do it; this is also an emergency plan after all!

  However, after doing so, his team became somewhat incongruous. In terms of tactics and training concepts, he used the methods of modern armies in later generations, but the equipment directly retreated to the Han Dynasty, and even the quality of the equipment was far inferior to that of the Han Dynasty army, which made Xiao Tianjian quite depressed.

  As for the length of the spear, he also went through repeated practice. His later generations did not learn well and could not remember the length of the spear handle, so they had to use a clumsy method to find a few followers who were free to run in the back mountain to practice with spears of various lengths, and finally settled on the current four-meter length.

  In this era, there were all sorts of long guns, both long and short, with different shapes and forms. The longest one was the anti-cavalry gun. Although the length of the anti-cavalry gun was sufficient, it was too thick and heavy, making it extremely cumbersome for soldiers to wield and stab. It was a nightmare to hold onto, let alone use effectively. If the gun was too long, it wouldn't work either. The key was to ensure that soldiers could use it with ease. After repeated experimentation, he finally settled on this length. With an ordinary soldier holding it, they could still effectively complete the stabbing motion. Any longer and it would be impractical; any shorter and it would lose its advantage.

  Fortunately, the materials for these two things are easy to solve. In this mountain where they hid, Xiao Tianjian let Shi Rang walk through it and found a dense white wax tree forest. Possibly due to lack of water and the density of the forest, the trunks of these white wax trees grew straight and had few branches. The age of the trees was all above five or six years, and their slow growth made the texture of these white wax trees very dense, which is just the best material for making long gun handles. After cutting down a batch and bringing them back, they were handed over to the carpenter to peel off the bark and make some adjustments, and they became quite good gun handles.

  Although Xiao Tianjian vaguely remembered a better way to make gun stocks, which was divided into three layers inside and out, both oil-soaked and woven, and had to be dried in the shade, after being made, it would not break even if cut with a knife, and its toughness was more than enough. However, that method took too long to work and time, almost as difficult as making a composite bow, and even compared to making firearms, it wasn't much different. With his current situation, he couldn't even think about it.

  The problem of spears is even easier to solve. Find some hard mountain miscellaneous wood, simply whittle it, and let Li Shouchu bring a few people to forge some rough iron spearheads. After installing them, they are ready for use. Moreover, there is another advantage: after throwing them out, these rough iron spearheads are easy to break off, so as not to be picked up by the enemy and thrown back, which would be giving them weapons and causing trouble for oneself. They are completely disposable, and during training, not even iron spearheads need to be installed, saving money and effort!

  Second update