Qi Jiguang's march was not slow, but it could not be said to be very fast. It was only the speed of ordinary infantry of the Ming army.
But this was not because Qi Jiajun was slacking off, but because Qi Jiguang brought the car camp with him to the battle this time.
Let’s not talk about the chariots of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, but only the Chariot Camp of the Dynasty, which seems to be traced back to Zeng Xian at the earliest.
After Zeng Mian's death, the chariot camp tactics were formally proposed and practiced for the second time. It came from the hands of Yu Dayou, who was transferred to Shanxi at that time. Yu Dayou made many improvements to the chariot camp and improved many details. .
Yu Long and Qi Hu killed people like dirt. Yu Dayou was transferred from northern Xinjiang, and Qi Jiguang was transferred to the north again, and they unanimously set their sights on the car camp.
Personal personality has a great influence on a general's combat style. For example, Ma Fang has a strong personality, so the enemy's cavalry is stronger, the more he has to "use cavalry to control cavalry" - you can do it, I can do it, I can even be better than you. Better.
But Qi Jiguang is different. It can be seen from his style of being an official and a person that he is a person who can assess the situation and does not compete with the general environment or the direction of the wind. He prefers to adapt to local conditions and find ways to solve problems based on existing conditions. .
What are the existing conditions? Regarding the Japanese pirates, he emphasized the role of small-scale elite soldiers and created the Yuanyang Formation. From then on, he was invincible and invincible.
Against Mongolia, it is much more complicated, because the Mongols' innate advantage in cavalry is too huge. No matter how you look at it, the Ming Dynasty can only focus on defense first, and then have the opportunity to focus on offense.
If we want to make an analogy between Mongolia and Ming Dynasty, it is as if Mongolia is a lightweight boxer with high agility, while Daming is a heavyweight boxer with poor agility.
Theoretically speaking, Ming Dynasty could withstand a hundred punches from Mongolia without falling, and as long as he hit Mongolia with one punch, he could beat Mongolia until he could not breathe for ten or eight years.
But the problem is that in fact, Mongolia's flexibility and strength have seriously surpassed the standard, comparable to cheat players. Daming has taken a hundred punches, but he just can't hit the same punch as others.
Daming's physical fitness is there. If Qi Jiguang is the coach, he can't reshape you and strengthen your weaknesses. He can only find ways to continue to strengthen his advantages and strive to make Daming a supermodel in some aspects. For example, give Daming a super model. Wearing a set of heavy armor with spikes, no matter how flexible he is, the Mongolians will not dare to punch easily.
Therefore, there was the matter of overhauling the border defenses and building thousands of hollow enemy towers.
But just like a boxing match, if you want to win, not only do you have to stand still, you also have to knock someone down. Therefore, Qi Jiguang has been thinking about how to defeat the cavalry.
Gao Pragmatic had many private correspondences with him over the years, and he proposed to him a tactical idea called the "Hollow Phalanx".
Qi Jiguang already knew that Gao Pragmatic's mind would often come up with some seemingly nonsense, but actually brilliant ideas. He would always carefully examine his proposals before making any conclusions.
So Qi Jiguang spent more than two years testing the practicality of this "hollow square array" tactic. In the end, he came to the following conclusions:
First of all, this tactic is only suitable for elite troops who are not afraid of death. This troop must have strict military discipline that uses simple bayonets and muskets and does not waver in the face of cavalry charges. Otherwise, it will look a little thin with two weapons.
When it comes to fighting against cavalry in a three-line battle, the psychological pressure alone can cause the average army to collapse.
Secondly, this tactic has very high requirements for firepower. To put it in a more pragmatic way, it has very high requirements for the "volume of bombs dropped per unit". Otherwise, if there is not enough firepower, the soldiers in the hollow square formation will not collapse because of fear of rushing into the formation.
, and cannot cause enough damage to the enemy, thus making them fearful, timid, and afraid to fight.
Finally, this tactic requires you to be on the side with the artillery advantage. Otherwise, if the opponent has the artillery advantage, after several rounds of shelling, the hollow square formation that is passively beaten will be meaningless. Of course, this does not seem to be a big problem. The Mongols
Can we still gain the advantage of artillery? What a joke, it would be the same situation as the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty when it swept the world.
Are there elite soldiers? Yes, but Qi Jiguang has trained for so many years, and the elite soldiers he has basically trained are some of the elites from Jiliao, Xuanda, Shaanxi and other towns. And since Qi Jiguang can only control them during the training period, they will not be able to control them after they return to town.
It will deteriorate quickly, no one can guarantee this.
So in the end, it is still difficult to say how many soldiers can use this hollow square formation tactic. Qi Jiguang can only say that the Qi Army he personally led has the ability to complete the hollow square formation and deploy it well.
As for the issue of firepower, since the advent of the Longqing II musket, the increase in firepower has been obvious. Especially since the firearms produced by Jinghua are of high quality and properly maintained, there is basically no need to worry about explosions and other phenomena within the safe use period. Therefore,
Barely enough.
But because the hollow square formation requires bayonets - when facing cavalry charging into the formation, the gun is held upside down on the ground, and the bayonet tip is tilted forward to form a bayonet forest to intimidate the opponent's horses.
This needs a little explanation: Horses are very smart creatures. They will subconsciously avoid sharp metals like bayonets. Therefore, when the "bayonet forest" appears, the war horses will resist charging towards them.
In the age of cold weapons, a front composed of a firm heavy infantry front could never be easily shaken by heavy cavalry. This is the conclusion of later generations. Not to mention things like Archer Jones's "The Art of Western War", in fact even
They are Mongolian cavalry. They will also form a shield formation for defense in desperate situations. For details, please refer to the Battle of Ain Jaru - of course, this has a premise. The "firm heavy infantry" is definitely not like the large gathering of beggars in the Ming Dynasty.
Guard soldiers.
Therefore, Qi Jiguang has been waiting for Gao Pragmatic to come up with the bayonet he proposed ten years ago, as well as the new musket that can be used with the bayonet, because only with these two weapons, the hollow square array will not be an empty talk.
However, Qi Jiguang could not wait idlely, so he began to think about the reasonable idea of how to apply the "hollow square array" tactic without bayonets.
As a result, an improved version of the car camp appeared.
"In the past, the enemy's cavalry clashed with tens of thousands, and the force was overwhelming. Our army's formation was not yet determined, and we often tried to break through, taking advantage of the situation to ravage until no one was left alive. If the enemy wanted to fight, our army had to fight; if the enemy did not want to fight, I could only watch with my eyes.
That's it. Whenever the power is on the other side, the enemy often changes to the guest. Our army is afraid of weakness, is overwhelmed with energy, and cannot control the power." - Qi Jiguang's "Records of Military Training, Volume 6, Cha Ying Jie 1".
"If the enemy wants to fight, our army has to fight; if the enemy doesn't want to fight, I can only watch with my eyes." This sentence perfectly presents the most embarrassing part of the Ming Dynasty when facing the Mongolian cavalry.
Qi Jiguang's main consideration in organizing and training the chariot camp was that the battlefield environment in the north was very unfavorable for the Ming army. In particular, the vast desert northern battlefield was suitable for large-scale motorized horse battles. The Ming Dynasty, a farming society, was not good at riding and shooting, and was not good at horseback riding.
The formations were far inferior to those of the Mongols. Although the Ming Dynasty had a large number of infantry available, its mobility was too poor and was far inferior to the Mongolians' rapid maneuverability.
This is very similar to what happened to the Japanese pirates in the south. The Japanese pirates also used boats on the sea to maneuver quickly, leaving the slow Ming Dynasty infantry unable to resist and having nowhere to resist. They were often beaten to death by the high-speed maneuvering Japanese pirates.
.
But unlike the Japanese pirates in the south who were unorganized and fought in small groups with stragglers, the Mongolian army was an elite force of a large group with clever tactics, which was far beyond the capabilities of the Japanese pirates who fought indiscriminately.
The established camps of the Qi Army organized and trained by Qi Jiguang in the south can effectively prevent Japanese pirates from attacking the camps, but they cannot prevent large-scale horse warfare assaults in the north. The established camps are the basis for the Qi Army's battle and defense. Once the main camp is
If you get kicked, there will be no chance of winning this battle.
In order to cope with this severe battlefield situation, Qi Jiguang referred to the combat experience and resources of the northern frontier army, and based on the highly pragmatic "unit bomb delivery" idea as the core, he added the rules of the original Qi family army's established camp formations to compile a new concept
The car camp is here to correspond.
(Note: In the military books written by Qi Jiguang, the most mentioned ones are the chariot camp and the transport camp. It can be seen that Qi Jiguang attached great importance to the tactical application of the chariot camp, which is the horse, infantry and other units that serve as the main force in the field battle.
Strong support and backing. In other words, Chaoying cannot guarantee that its side will "win", but it can guarantee that its side will "not be defeated".)
Generally speaking, the chariot camp is combined with the main combat battalions such as horse and infantry to form a mixed camp, with the chariot camp as the core of the camp's combat and defense.
However, the car camp itself is designed to be an offensive and defensive unit. An independent car contains two teams of regular and special troops, as well as two powerful Jinghua imitation French cannons as fire support backing, which is sufficient in terms of combat capabilities.
Tactically independent combat missions.
At the same time, according to different tasks, horses, troops and other small main combat units can be flexibly added as additional offensive and defensive equipment for the vehicle camp.
In the past, the car companies during Yu Dayou's period were relatively biased towards heavy-duty and large-scale "cars". One type was a side car, which was one with a guard plate installed on the left or right side of the vehicle.
It is a side carriage; if there are guards on both sides, it is called a chariot.
After Qi Jiguang created the car camp, he felt that the sidecars were too large and bulky. Although they were good for escort and defense, their mobility was seriously insufficient, which was lacking in the use of tactics. In order to make up for this shortcoming, Qi Jiguang built a car camp among the old-fashioned cars.
In addition, a light vehicle camp was also established.
This newly made light vehicle is useful for traveling far and passing through dangerous passes. It is sometimes used. There are 216 vehicles in each battalion, fifty-four vehicles per side. Each carriage has a captain, who is the captain; and a helmsman, who is the fireman.
Soldiers. The first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth are all gunners, the seventh and eighth are all archers, the ninth and ten are all wolf spearmen. This is a team.
But even for a light vehicle battalion, this is not the era of internal combustion engines after all. There is no engine available, so the traveling speed can only be maintained at the same speed as ordinary infantry.
However, Qi Jiguang is not worried about this problem. He has two purposes in this battle. One is to complete the instructions given by Gao Pragmatic through the emperor's hand and destabilize the Chahar Department. If Li Chengliang and his son can complete it smoothly, the Taining Department will
Both the Duoyan tribe and the Duoyan tribe will be greatly weakened, and Qi Jiguang only needs time to let Chang'ang know about the defeat of Su Bahai and Dong Hu. It's hard to say whether he dares to defend Daning.
If he didn't dare, he would have no choice but to run away, and if he left, he would go to Tumen to cry. Then Ji Liao's mission would be completed, and they must have seriously disrupted Tumen's plans.
It would be better if Chang'ang still dared to defend Daning. Qi Jiguang just happened to test the power and effectiveness of the car camp in Saibei.
