"Does the cavalry guard still need to be on both sides of the spear phalanx, or is it just something like a supervisory team?" Liu Baiyu looked at the two guys riding big donkeys on both sides of the spear phalanx, and he didn't know what they represented.

Who is the character in the spear phalanx? I asked in confusion.

"Of course, it is necessary to supervise the discipline of the battle team... but generally speaking, the flanks of the spear phalanx must be protected by mounted infantry..."

Huang Dali's eloquent talk made Liu Baiyu realize that he had taken a lot of things for granted about the spear phalanx. The spear phalanx was always a problem for the defense of the wings and rear [in fact, this is a problem for any phalanx], especially the one he was most afraid of.

If the impact cavalry breaks in, the phalanx may collapse directly, so it must be protected by other arms to give the pike phalanx time to react. Otherwise, it requires the pike phalanx to have their guns raised for a long time, which is beyond human capabilities.

Physical range. Generally speaking, the flanks of the pike phalanx need mounted infantry as the barrier and protection of the pike phalanx, to buy time for the pike phalanx soldiers to raise their guns and form a formation.

In fact, it is the front of the pike phalanx, which also needs to be rotated to resist the harassment of cavalry and prepare for attacks. The pike phalanx in the late Ming Dynasty is nothing new, and the pike phalanx of the Ming army has not been replaced. However, its pike soldiers raised their guns to defend and attack.

Its firearms are all of the same type. There is replacement but no concept of reserve troops to fill the time. When the opponent's cavalry is not charging, they are densely raised together. When they are exhausted, the first row retreats randomly and the second row raises their guns.

Replacement, because there is no formation practice, it often takes a few minutes to form a team, and a few minutes is enough for the cavalry to rush in several times!

The famous General Qi Jiguang generally responded to the impact of enemy cavalry in the north by requiring the spearmen in the front row to raise their guns and form a sparse square formation. They also needed to rotate with the second row or even the third row. Only those who faced the impact of heavy cavalry

Only then did a dense square formation form a confrontation.

Even so, the pike phalanx cannot cope with the cavalry alone without the support of crossbow archers and musketeers, because the cavalry must raise their guns in front of the pike phalanx as long as they are within sprint distance. Is this a waste of physical strength?

, you can test it with a bamboo pole. If you keep holding the gun position for thirty minutes, your back will hurt. So when facing the cavalry, the pike phalanx is actually just the shield of the crossbow archer and musketeer, and the pike phalanx is the crossbow archer and musketeer.

The soldiers must shoot at each other to suppress the opponent's firepower.

In the late Ming Dynasty, there was another one, which was to suppress the opponent's artillery bombardment. Taking the famous bloody battle of Hunhe River as an example, the Ming army (mainly 4,000 Sichuan Baigan soldiers and 3,000 Zhejiang soldiers (Qi Jiajun))

More than 7,000 people, 4,000 white pole soldiers as the spearmen of the spear phalanx, and Qi Jiajun as the musketeers, faced the siege of tens of thousands of Eight Banners elites. The end was a tragic victory for Houjin, and the Ming army killed more than 10,000 people

Sichuan soldiers are all strong and capable of fighting. They are equipped with sharp swords and broadswords unique to the ethnic minorities in eastern Sichuan and sharp long-handled bamboo spears. They wear iron armor and a layer of thick cotton. The principle is similar to today's composite armor and general light weapons.

And light arrows cannot break armor at all. The musketeers of Qi Jiajun are trained strictly according to Qi Jiguang's standards. They can skillfully use muskets to cover three stages of firepower, and they can blow the miraculous Eight Banners Elite, the pure white flag of the Qing Army.

Both the Hezhenghuang Banner and the Zhenghuang Banner suffered disastrous defeats. If the Nurha Red Army had not been so disciplined and almost cruel, the Eight Banners might even have collapsed.

At the critical moment when the two sides were evenly matched, Li Yongfang, the former Fushun surrender of the Ming Dynasty who had surrendered to the Jin Dynasty, used the large pier in Shenyang City to recruit the defeated Ming army soldiers as artillerymen with thousands of gold, and bombarded the Sichuan soldiers who were fighting bravely and bloodyly from a high position. After all, this was Artillery has little effect against skirmishers, but it is surprisingly lethal against dense phalanxes of spears. [And what many people don’t know is that even if they are not killed by artillery shells, the huge explosion of bombs will stun or stun nearby people. Losing hearing] finally broke the formation, and Nurhachi won the bloody battle.

All in all, some people take it for granted that they can defeat the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty with the Macedonian spear phalanx of pure cold weapons a thousand years ago. That is definitely too broad of a mind. In fact, if it were not for the absolute advantage of long-range firepower, Even the modern phalanx of Qi Jiguang's era could not resist the Qing Dynasty's artillery and cavalry offensive. You must know that in the world's military history, artillery and cavalry were still the sharpest tactics during the Napoleonic period. Crossbow archers and musketeers were the main firepower output, and long guns The pike phalanx that used soldiers as a barrier was replaced by a pure musket formation that lined up to kill. Some YY novels believe that the modern pike phalanx combined with crossbowmen and musketeers can resist the tactics of artillery and cavalry. This can only mean that the opponent is too stupid. , Nurhaci did not learn the artillery and cavalry offensive at all, or the protagonist of the novel has a stronger military ability than Napoleon, otherwise there is no other explanation.

Moreover, this kind of pike phalanx is not like some YY novels. As long as the crossbow archers and musketeers are used to output firepower and the pikemen are used as shields, facing cavalry harassment during the march is even more problematic. Mounted infantry must be used to protect them. At the same time, the mounted infantry is still the main means of early warning and pursuit of the spear phalanx. Otherwise, even if the spear phalanx defeats the opponent, there is no strong pursuit force. If it encounters the peasant army, it will not be a big problem. If it encounters the strictly disciplined army, It was possible for the Manchus and Qing dynasties to assemble near the battlefield and then go into battle. [In fact, during the bloody battle of Hunhe River, Nurhachi regrouped and attacked again more than once. This was the result of the Qi Army's mounted infantry suffering too heavy losses and being unable to pursue them, and cold weapons In the era, most of the casualties on the battlefield were a small number, mainly the pursuit of defeated troops. Some people mistakenly believe that the spear phalanx does not require a large number of cavalry. They are confusing cavalry and mounted infantry. reason.

In addition to both riding horses, cavalry and mounted infantry can also be used as pursuit troops to chase down the opponent's cavalry. Storytellers and general military illiterates also think that the two are the same thing, but in fact...the two are very different. !

Facing a strict pike phalanx, the attack methods of cavalry and mounted infantry can be seen. For example, the impact cavalry rushes into the formation under the cover of artillery or heavy archers, and the archers use riding bows to harass. The Manchu and Qing Dynasties The mounted infantry dismounts and uses heavy bows to harass, or the infantry directly attacks in conjunction with the heavy bow harassment.

In fact, to put it bluntly, cavalry horses are more of a weapon and mounted infantry horses are more of a means of transportation. When cavalry and mounted infantry meet, the latter basically have no professional horse fighting skills and are no match for the cavalry on horseback, and even if The mounted infantry dismounts to fight. These half-baked infantry are no match for the cavalry. If no other arms join the battlefield, then the cavalry fighting the mounted infantry is essentially the same as fighting the infantry. The only thing better than the infantry is that the mounted infantry has mounts. If they are scattered and scattered If they escape, it's really hard to annihilate them all.

In fact, in the Central Plains, in addition to the powerful cavalry organized by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, even Taizu of the Ming Dynasty basically had horse infantry under his command. The horse infantry was different and had no ability to fight independently. It was unable to undertake the task of pursuing alone on the vast grasslands. , relying on the support of farming areas to defeat the Mongolian Yuan is still possible, but Zhu Yuanzhang did not have the confidence to defeat the remaining forces of the Mongolian Yuan in the cavalry battle in Mobei.

In fact, from the first month to November of the fifth year of Hongwu (1372), Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang launched his second expedition against the Northern Yuan Dynasty. Xu Da's main middle route army was defeated, Li Wenzhong's east route army had similar gains and losses, and only Feng Sheng's west route army was defeated. The road army won. This was the helplessness of not having a large-scale real cavalry. Later, the Northern Yuan Dynasty was defeated not so much militarily but economically. After losing the Central Plains, there was no interest to appease the grassland ministries. As a result, the economy collapsed and the political system collapsed. Collapse, eventually leading to a total military collapse. To put it bluntly, it is just relying on strong national power to kill the enemy. There is no way around it. After all, the war area on the grasslands is not much smaller than that of the Central Plains, but the key points are much fewer. The Mongolian cavalry was broken into pieces and used guerrilla tactics of hit and run, and then hit again. There was nothing the cavalry could do if they did not have enough ability to fight alone.

So, why didn’t the Central Plains dynasty form a powerful cavalry force? In fact, there are two points. One is that it is a waste of money. These horses are easy to get, but good war horses are rare. After all, is this animal selectively bred? Whether it is a rabbit or a horse, First of all, you have to have a question of quantity before you can talk about whether the selection is good. Except for a few selected war horses, other horses that have been bred are really no better as cart-pulling horses than big donkeys that are not squeamish or picky about food. Go [After all, most ancient war horses are actually descendants of Mongolian horses. Are these Mongolian horses capable in all aspects? They are cuter than the short-footed horses in the south. They are good at dismounting. Compared with other horses, they can only smile. ]

And selecting a good horse and training a good horse are not the same thing. Even modern horse breeding requires a lot of land for horse training. If it were not for private horse breeding on the prairie, it would be a matter for the rich. Ancient horse training The flat land was people's ration fields. Considering the tragic food production in ancient times, it is not an exaggeration to raise horses. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to raise horses. In fact, it was not difficult to gather a cavalry force in the early dynasty. This is due to the low population density in the early dynasty. Inseparable.

The second is that it is actually of little use. In the struggle for hegemony in the Central Plains, there are too many strategic points, and the terrain is not as flat as on the grassland. Compared with the cavalry that can form an army alone and the mounted infantry that requires the cooperation of infantry, there is actually not much advantage. Moreover, the Han people If you want to train cavalry to be proficient in equestrian skills, it will take four or five years. It is too slow to form an army. It is not much more useful than mounted infantry.
Chapter completed!