The terrain around Lightning Lake is quite interesting, a bit like a basin surrounded by mountains but opening up and down. It was originally centered on Lightning Lake and surrounded by hills, but there were gaps in the northwest and southeast corners.
If Gao Jingshi came here according to the consistent organizational style of the Ming army and brought a large number of infantry, then this terrain would be very suitable for defensive warfare.
Although the circular hills with Lightning Lake as the center and a radius of about seven miles are not dangerous, as long as a defense line is set up on the mountains, the opponent's Chahar cavalry will never be stupid enough to rush uphill to fight - the loss of horsepower is too great, and the cavalry advantage
All lost.
Therefore, the main defense only needs to be placed in the openings on the northwest and southeast, with arrays of bayonets and muskets deployed. In this way, the cavalry will be sent as much as they come.
It was a pity that Gao Pragmatic had no infantry under his command this time. Unless he considered using most of the cavalry as mounted infantry and asked them to abandon their horses and form a formation, this battle could not be fought in this way.
However, abandoning the horses and setting up a formation is actually not feasible, because the opponent has long known that their strategic headquarters is an all-cavalry team. If they abandon the horses and set up a formation, their intentions will be seen through at a glance, and they will not be fooled no matter what - now Gao
Pragmatically, we can basically confirm that there is Burihatu in the opponent's army. Since he is there, it is impossible not to understand such a simple truth.
So, how should this battle be fought when the entire formation is composed of cavalry? Similar to previous experiences, Gao Pragmatic first tried to find predecessors in the few military works he had read and devoured in detail.
——Of course, it may also be the lessons learned by future generations.
The military classics he had read in the past were actually limited, and there were even fewer that specifically discussed cavalry. Now that he was on the grassland, the only thing he could think of was the book "Modern Times" that he had leisurely flipped through a few pages while studying at the party school.
"Cavalry in War", the author is Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny of the Soviet Union - he is generally called Marshal Budyonny in China.
This article titled "Cavalry in Modern Warfare" is the shorthand of a report delivered by Budyonny on March 24, 1930, at the War Research Class of the Communist Academy.
Perhaps because it is just a report, this article is not very in-depth, but Gao Pragmatic feels that this article still has some reference significance for the cavalry that he currently commands with half a foot in the musketry.
of.
Marshal Budyonny, the famous commander-in-chief of the Soviet army, is very famous. He was one of the first five military leaders to be awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935. He was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union three times (1958, 1963, 1968).
He joined the Russian army in 1903, graduated from the Petersburg Cavalry School in 1908, and served as a sergeant in the cavalry for a long time. After the October Revolution, he was demobilized, participated in the establishment of the Soviet regime in his hometown, and created a cavalry unit. In 1918, he led his troops to join the Red Army.
, the unit was successively expanded into a cavalry regiment, brigade, and division.
During the civil war, he successively served as the commander of the cavalry regiment, the commander of the cavalry brigade, the commander of the cavalry division, and the commander of the cavalry corps. In 1919, he became the commander of the famous 1st Cavalry Army. During more than 20 years from 1919 to 1941, the Soviet people expressed their support for the 1st Cavalry Army.
Because of his admiration, he once called a standard military cap of the Red Army the "Budjoni cap".
After the civil war, Budyonny successively served as deputy commander-in-chief of the Red Army in charge of the cavalry, cavalry supervisor, military district commander, and first deputy people's commissar of national defense.
During the Great Patriotic War, he served as a member of the headquarters of the Supreme Command, and briefly served as commander-in-chief of the direction and commander of the front army. In January 1943, he served as commander of the first cavalry. After the war, he also served as deputy minister of agriculture of the Soviet Union in charge of horse breeding.
, and later served as director of cavalry. In 1954, he served as director of the General Inspection Group of the Ministry of National Defense.
All in all, this Duke has been inseparable from the cavalry all his life, so most of his writings are about the cavalry, such as "Operations of the 1st Cavalry Army from January 6 to March 3, 1920" (1923)
; "Cavalry in Modern Warfare" (1930); "Red Cavalry" (1930); "Cavalry Tactical Principles of Combined Arms Corps" (1937); "Cavalry Tactical Principles of Combined Arms Corps" (1938); and
That’s a lot of memoirs.
At least in terms of professional ability, Gao was convinced that Budyonni was much better than him, there was no doubt about it.
"When people evaluate the cavalry as a branch of arms, they usually only point out its mobility and regard this mobility as its basic characteristic. This also leads to an underestimation of its other characteristics, sometimes
This also led to an incomplete use of cavalry.
Sometimes this issue is vulgarized, and some people even say that the cavalry can only "shock" and kill with sabers. However, history has proved, and I emphasize 'historical proof', that that kind of evaluation and attitude towards the cavalry is completely wrong.
And laymen. Even in the distant historical period, the cavalry never refused to deal with shooting and technical equipment in principle. We have never seen this situation in the history of cavalry. For example, the cavalry of the Skifo people
Mainly known for using bows and arrows."
The Skifo people are the name given to the Sogdians by the Russians in ancient Chinese books, but Gao Pragmatic didn't know much about the Sogdians, so he didn't delve into it when he saw this place.
"If we talk about the era before the Thirty Years' War, then we will see that the cavalry used pistols to shoot more than they used sabers to kill. North American cavalry widely used pistols and explosive tools.
Therefore, we can see that in this or that era, under this or that condition, the cavalry itself neither refused technical equipment nor refused to shoot. In the history of cavalry, neither of these has ever happened.
There were times when the cavalry was lifted to the sky and knocked down to the ground. The "progress" of the cavalry in each era cannot be measured by whether it rejects technical equipment.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! The cavalry will use the technical equipment sent to it, the cavalry will use the technical equipment also owned by other arms, and the cavalry will use modern technical equipment at any time.
In this way, the topic only involves the extent to which technical equipment is adopted and used, how to combine technical equipment with maneuvers and mounted assaults, and how to adapt this method to contemporary combat styles. Therefore, only the combat effectiveness of cavalry is described as '
The saber's killing power is wrong.
The characteristic of cavalry is its ability to combine tremendous rapid maneuverability with devastating cavalry assaults involving extensive use of firepower and auxiliary technical weapons."
These paragraphs appeared earlier in the article, and they are also the parts that impressed Gao pragmatically the most. In the past two or three days since the setback in the night battle, especially since the garrison at Lightning Lake, Gao pragmatically has been thinking about Budyonny.
With these discussions and explanations about the cavalry, he really discovered several key points that he had never paid attention to before, or at least did not pay enough attention to.
According to Budyonny, firearms did not hinder the development of cavalry at least until the early Soviet Union. Even though machine guns were already available at that time, cavalry still had their place to be used. Instead, Budyonny criticized some people for not understanding
Use cavalry - Judging from his early record in the Soviet Union, he is qualified to say such a thing.
As for the middle and late Soviet Union, the cavalry certainly lost its former prestige, but through Budyonny it can be seen that the cavalry was not necessarily completely defeated by the machine guns, but more seemed to be defeated by the armored forces.
Why? From the point of view Budyonny mentions here, what he considers "the characteristic of cavalry" is its ability to combine huge rapid maneuverability with devastating cavalry assaults that include extensive use of firepower and auxiliary technical weapons.
Get up - obviously, the armored troops have all the characteristics he mentioned, and can do better than the cavalry.
Being perfectly replaced and completely surpassed by armored forces is probably the real reason for the disappearance of cavalry.
Of course, at this time, Gao Pragmatic does not have to worry about the disappearance of the cavalry, which will happen at least a few hundred years later. What he cares about is how to bring into play what Budyonny calls "the characteristics of the cavalry."
Among the most memorable words of Gao Pragmatic, Budyonny mentioned that "In the era before the Thirty Years' War, cavalry used pistols to shoot more than they used sabers to kill. North American cavalry widely used pistols and explosive tools." This is a great reminder.
Gao Pragmatic, he also has a secret weapon in his hand - oh, it can't be said to be too secret, because he has actually used it before.
What is it? Explosive weapon: Palm mine - of course, Gao Pragmatic is more accustomed to calling it a grenade.
According to Budyonny's description of the characteristics of cavalry, "huge mobility" must be organically combined with "firepower and auxiliary weapons" and "destructive cavalry assault" in order to fully unleash the power of cavalry in the firearms era.
The firepower and auxiliary weapons here, firepower should refer to the projectile delivery volume of the gun, which Gao Pragmatic cannot go further for the time being. After all, with Jinghua's current technology, the only way to increase the projectile delivery volume is to consider evolving to metal
case bullets, but copper-cased bullets are still technically difficult to produce.
This thing is too professional and probably requires professional processing tools. Gao Pragmatic himself doesn’t understand the processing principles. He can only provide bullet-style ideas for craftsmen to slowly explore, and he may not get any results for decades. Productivity
His development has only reached this point, so naturally he can't force it. Just like he also wants to develop an internal combustion engine, but in an era when he can't even develop a steam engine, how about a woolly internal combustion engine?
However, for the "auxiliary weapons" section, because of the "explosive weapons" mentioned by Bujoni himself as a reminder, Gao Pragmatic quickly thought of palm thunder.
The palm thunder thing itself is the first of its kind in China. It may have been created in the Northern Song Dynasty, because it had basically taken shape by the Southern Song Dynasty. However, due to the gunpowder ratio at that time, there were still some problems, and the purification technology also needed to be improved. In addition, there are many times in this book
As mentioned before, the predecessors liked to add some inexplicable things to gunpowder - such as various poisons and poisonous smoke, so the power of the explosion alone is really limited.
After Gao pragmatically started his own private military industry, he naturally abandoned this path that has been proven to be purely deviant by history, and focused exclusively on improving the explosive capability. In fact, the insufficient explosive power only allowed the craftsmen to consider increasing the lethality of the explosion fragments. Therefore,
A new type of Jinghua grenade was developed.
Jinghua grenades were first equipped to Gao Pingshi's own armed servants, including the two major garrison armies of Thang Long and Golden Port at that time. However, since the two garrison armies had ended large-scale wars at that time, the grenades did not have much chance to perform.
.
One of the more famous applications was actually in the Battle of Yunnan and Burma. The troops who used grenades were under Liu Wei's command. In the ambush battle where they defeated the White Elephant Wang Mangyingli head-on for the first time in the entire Battle of Yunnan and Burma.
, the most outstanding application of firearms is land mines, followed by palm mines.
However, the land mines played a huge role at the beginning of the battle, but the palm mines played a role in the battle after Liu Wei defeated the Burmese Wang Shu Mangzhuo in a hand-to-hand challenge. Relatively speaking, the role of the land mines in that ambush battle was outweighed.
Paying more attention to it, although the palm mine performed well, it was overshadowed by the mines.
Later, Gao Pragmatic himself also used land mines and palm mines to play a role in quelling the Northwest Rebellion, but the performance of land mines was also more brilliant and eye-catching.
However, Burihatu is a person who is both capable of learning and very cautious. If he hopes to lead troops to mine formations with one move that will be popular all over the world, I am afraid that the chance of success is too slim. In view of these reasons, Gao is pragmatic.
I decided to change my mind this time and mainly consider making the grenade work.
When considering hand grenades, in addition to Budyonny's discussion reminding Gao of pragmatism, there are also some aspects that came to mind when he recently reflected on the reform of the Ming Army's cavalry.
At this time, the Ming army's cavalry was half-equipped, and its speed and endurance must have lagged behind Chahar's light armor or even unarmored cavalry. However, the defensive capabilities must have been greatly improved.
This means that if the Chahar cavalry wants to cause more effective damage to the Ming army cavalry, it must be closer to the Ming army than before. Otherwise, long-distance shooting and projectiles will be just a scratch. It is difficult for both sides to fight for a whole day.
How much loss did the Ming cavalry bring?
If the Chahar people have plenty of time and are not in a hurry, they can really grind it slowly. Just like their ancestors, they grind it bit by bit until they are fully equipped cavalry, half-equipped cavalry loses their temper, and the morale of the troops is constantly suffering.
If it is damaged, sooner or later there will be a moment of collapse.
However, Gao Pragmatic had previously speculated that the Chahar-Mongolian army did not have such conditions. They were actually more pressed for time than himself. Therefore, whether it was the main force of Tumen or the force of Burihatu who came this time,
In the final analysis, diversionary feints are limited by the important factor of time, which cannot be delayed. The results must be seen early.
Of course, the best result for this result is to directly defeat the Economic Strategy Headquarters, but I am afraid that Burihatu himself does not dare to expect too much. The second best result is to defeat the Strategy Headquarters through this battle - no matter what aspect it is, as long as it is afraid.
It is considered qualified if it can delay the momentum of the strategy headquarters to take the lead in attacking Guihua City.
In this case, Burihatu will definitely not be able to delay it anymore after it has been delayed for two or three days. It must effectively repel the Jinglue headquarters and attract some other Ming troops to go for reinforcements. In other words, Burihatu
Tu had to take the initiative to attack, and this was the opportunity to use grenades.
Burihatu is a smart man. Gao Jingshi felt that if he simply gave up the terrain advantage to fight him on the ground, he might suspect fraud, so Gao Jingshi deliberately sent 5,000 people to quietly ambush in the crater on the west side of Lightning Lake.
On the back, he led the main force out of the northwest valley mouth and lined up to wait.
Buyan Huangtaiji and Buyan Hatu learned from the army that Gao Pragmatic's formation was dispatched, and they went out of the northwest valley mouth to form an array outside the valley. Buyantaiji was overjoyed when he heard this and said: "Gao Rixin was worried that we would catch turtles in a jar in the valley.
, I actually took the initiative to come out, it was God who helped me, I can expect this victory!"
Burihatu felt it was unreasonable, and after a moment's thought, he immediately ordered: "Send an order to send three white-tasseled guards to the west of the lake to have a look. Pay special attention to whether there is an ambush of elite Ming troops in the shade of the mountain."
Although Buyantaiji did not expect this at first, when Buyantaiji said this, he actually reacted. As soon as the messenger left, he immediately asked: "The ruler is worried about the elite soldiers being ambushed by the Ming army after the battle."
Break into our army’s flank?”
Burihatu simply replied: "I just don't believe that Gao Rixin will honestly confront us without any other treacherous tricks."
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