The familiar scene also brought back Wang Yu's memories.
That day at Hulao Pass, in his first collaboration with Baima Yicong, he perfectly defeated Hu Zhen's Xiliang army. At that time, he also used a similar method - mounted archery.
The opponent he faced this time was much stronger than Hu Zhen, so Wang Yu naturally did not dare to treat Qu Yi as a fool and resort to his old tricks to trick the opponent. However, due to the effect of the paper armor, the battle situation was rapidly approaching the Battle of Hulao.
In his previous life, Wang Yu had heard some sayings that the Mongolian cavalry in the Temujin era were unparalleled in cavalry and archery, and relied on this technique to defeat most of the Eurasian continent. Therefore, the Mongols were invincible in the era of cold weapons.
He sneered at this.
The Mongols' rapid rise was partly due to luck, and partly because their army had better equipment and more professional troops. Tactics was only a relatively less important factor.
Facing the European countries before the Renaissance, cavalry and archery tactics were very effective. Europe at that time was extremely poor, and the only people who could afford to wear armor were nobles and knights. The heavily armored knights could not catch up with the Mongolian light cavalry, so they had to temporarily recruit strong men.
The infantry had no combat effectiveness, so it was normal for them to be bullied by the Mongols.
As for the Central Plains, the opponent the Mongols faced was the Southern Song Dynasty, which had a great rise in ethics, different paths in civil and military affairs, and corruption among the people.
Although the wealth of the Southern Song Dynasty was far higher than that of Europe, the military equipment was not much better than that of the Europeans. What was worse than the Europeans was that the nobles of the Central Plains did not even go to the battlefield. Therefore, those who swallowed Liao and destroyed gold
The Mongols had better equipment than the Song army, so it is not surprising that the Southern Song Dynasty was destroyed.
Therefore, those scholars who admire the Mongolian Tatars have been emphasizing that the Han Dynasty did not have stirrups. Without stirrups, real riding and archery warfare could not be carried out. As we all know, in the era of the strong Han Dynasty, the grassland aliens were photographed as having no temper at all.
In the eyes of the Tartar admirers, it was obviously because the grassland people at that time did not know how to ride and shoot, so they lost to the Han people.
In fact, this statement is pure nonsense.
Cavalry archery is not as strong as imagined. The range and power of cavalry bows are not as good as those of infantry strong bows, let alone strong crossbows. In order to give the infantry array enough damage, the light cavalry must be launched quite close to the enemy.
galloping.
Moreover, when the light cavalry launches cavalry shooting, although they do not need to form a dense formation, if they want to inflict sufficient damage to the enemy, they cannot really not form a formation and just run in front of the enemy's formation in twos and threes, allowing the enemy to find them.
The attack target cannot be reached. In fact, mounted archery also relies on the consistency and concentration of attacks, as shown by Baima Yicong.
Arranged in a loose horizontal formation, the first group of cavalry swept half a circle in front of the enemy's formation, and then quickly withdrew. Just as they were out of the enemy's bow and arrow range, the next group of cavalry arrived.
The war horses rushed forward like lightning. About seventy paces away, the direction of the team changed again. Everyone turned their horses' heads, changing from straight charging to diagonal charging, and then from diagonal charging to sweeping. While charging, they bent their bows and fired.
After each person fired almost three arrows, the distance between them and the enemy also changed from seventy steps to fifty steps. Everyone suddenly moved their horses and retreated back like a tide.
Immediately afterwards, there was another group of people, still mainly attacking with feather arrows. Those with poor archery skills were at the back, aiming at the enemy's array; those with superb archery skills were in front, observing the enemy's formation while quickly taking accurate shots.
Hit the enemy's blind spot. During the retreat, some people kept turning around and attacking backwards.
When turning or feinting, the war horse cannot run very fast. Only when launching a sprint, the war horse will let go and run.
This is a complete and mature set of tactics, which includes riding and shooting, feint attacks to attract the enemy's attention, reasonable distribution of the horse's physical strength, mutual cooperation and many other factors. Only when the command reaches a certain level, the skills and tactics of the troops will
Only when the ability reaches a certain level can it be displayed perfectly.
However, even if you perform your best, you still can't get rid of the weakness of bullying the weak and fearing the strong.
Facing an enemy with stable morale and well-trained skills, there is little room for cavalry and archery tactics. As long as the enemy forms a position and shoots at each other, the cavalry can achieve a three to one ratio or even higher with the speed of their horses.
However, exchanging cavalry and infantry in this way is a loss in itself.
Economically speaking, the cost of raising a cavalry is at least five times that of an infantryman; and the training cycle of a cavalry is also much longer than that of an infantryman; coupled with the factors of war horses, it is indeed useless for mounted archers to fight in formations.
How much room for play.
Exceptions for special circumstances.
What is a special situation? That is, the cavalry wears armor and has strong long-range defense, so the power of cavalry archery can be perfectly exerted. Under normal circumstances, the leather armor worn by the cavalry can only protect against stray arrows, while the iron armor can only protect against stray arrows.
If so, firstly, the cost is too high and cannot be purchased; secondly, it is impossible for an iron horse equipped with man and horse to run back and forth like this.
Wang Yu's sudden invention of paper armor changed everything.
In terms of image, the rather bloated Youzhou cavalry look like heavy cavalry, but in fact, the thick armor made of paper tendons and silk is not very heavy, weighing about thirty kilograms, which is
For a horse from the eastern grasslands, it is not a big burden.
Moreover, in terms of defending against long-range attacks, paper armor also has similar performance to iron armor. From a certain perspective, paper armor's performance is even better than iron armor, because in addition to blocking arrows, paper armor can also act as a buffer.
This is especially obvious when facing a powerful crossbow.
If a crossbow bolt flying at high speed hits the body, even if the armor is passed through to resist its penetration, the impact brought by the huge kinetic energy will not be easy to bear.
The moment he was hit by the arrow, the injured area felt as if he had been hit by a sledgehammer. It would make you breathless. If you were unlucky, you might be pushed off your horse by the impact.
Paper armor does not have this problem. Because most of the impact carried by the arrow is consumed in the process of penetrating the paper armor, and only one-tenth of the impact is transmitted to people and horses. As long as the arrow
The strength is not enough to completely penetrate the thick paper and cloth, so the paper armor provides better protection for the cavalry.
As for turning the armor into gold, it was Wang Yu's plan based on the characteristics of the white horse's obedience.
Whether it is a white horse or golden armor, these pure and shiny colors can create a very strong visual effect, causing considerable stimulation to the senses of both the enemy and ourselves.
This is the same reason that later countries are keen on holding military parades. It doesn’t matter whether the new weapons and military appearances displayed are useless or not, as long as you see tens of millions of people lined up in neat queues and uniformly dressed
When the military uniforms and polished weapons are displayed in rows, it is enough to boost the morale of one's own side and suppress the morale of the enemy.
Wang Yu didn't know what Gongsun Zan's mood was when he founded Baima Yicong, but he had this idea in mind when he created the golden paper armor.
Now it seems that the effect is very good.
Under the double blow of the incredible golden armor and the massive casualties caused by mounted fire, the Jizhou Army fell into complete passivity.
The massive and continuous volleys could no longer be organized, and the counterattacks carried out by a few warriors under the command of the generals also achieved very little results.
The best way to deal with high-speed moving cavalry is to cover fire. Experienced officers can predict the movements of the cavalry, and then launch a salvo of more than a thousand people to completely turn an area into a death zone. Such an attack will not be effective against light cavalry.
Cavalry is the most effective.
There was no shortage of experienced officers in the Jizhou army, but several counterattacks failed to work, and very few enemy troops fell. On the contrary, our own archers suffered targeted retaliation from the enemy, resulting in heavy casualties.
The thunderous sound of horse hooves, the enemy's war horns soaring into the sky, the screams of the companions around him as they died tragically, and the occasional wails of the injured.
All kinds of unfavorable factors came together, and the morale of the army became increasingly low. The soldiers would rather hold their heads and huddle behind their shields than listen to the officers' orders, pick up their bows and crossbows, and carry out unnecessary counterattacks.
Even though they were at the front of the array, they could clearly see that the enemy's armor was not really golden armor. When arrows were shot, they would not make a clear and loud metal collision sound, but a muffled sound of 'pop, pop';
Although they also knew that the enemy was not really invulnerable, under the first few rounds of large-scale coverage shooting, people fell off their horses from time to time;
Although they knew very well that if the enemy continued to fight like this, the battle would be lost...
However, the soldiers were still unwilling to stand up and fight back, sacrificing their own lives for a tenth, or even a few tenths, of the slim hope of killing the enemy.
Comrades fell in droves, but the enemy was tireless and unhurt. Nothing could damage morale more than this. In other words, Qu Yi's ability to train troops was pretty good. If it had been a ragtag group like the Yellow Turban Army, he would have collapsed long ago.
here we go.
However, no matter how talented Qu Yi is, he cannot train all 30,000 troops to be the first to die in such a short period of time. If this situation continues, sooner or later, collapse will happen.
"Gongming, if you were Qu Yi, how would you respond?" Seeing Qu Yi's flag wavering desperately, repeatedly conveying the same message, but the front line was becoming increasingly weak, Wang Yu knew that the most critical moment of this battle was
It's coming.
"If you don't retreat, you will advance!" Xu Huang's answer was very characteristic of his personal style.
"If we retreat decisively after discovering the disadvantages at the beginning of the battle, our army will not be able to pursue a large-scale pursuit, and this battle will be just a small setback. When we study and understand the reality of the paper armor in the future, it will not be too late to plan a decisive battle. But at that time
, Qu Yi has already missed it. Now, the enemy's morale has been lost and they are only holding on with one breath. Once they hear the order to retreat, it will inevitably turn into a rout..."
Even a retreat can be divided into two types: a retreat that maintains order and a rout.
Although the former is a defeat, the loss is usually not too great; the latter is a precursor to the destruction of the entire army. Especially retreating in front of an army like Youzhou Qingqi will only bring disaster to oneself.
"So, he can only move forward and rely on close combat to counterattack."
After thinking for a while, Xu Huang added: "Looking at his magnanimity in the Battle of Guangchuan, he should have the courage to fight back, but with those celebrities joining the army, the Jizhou Army may not be able to make a decision quickly. The speed at which they made a decision
The slower we go, the greater our army's hope of victory."
Wang Yu nodded. If he were to change places, he would make the same choice.
If you can't defeat it from a distance, you can only pin your hopes on melee combat.
Counterattack can compress the battlefield space, making it impossible for light cavalry to run around and shoot. Against infantry, cavalry archers can fight while retreating, but with this style of play, the latter may not be able to gain much benefit, if they are too obsessed with fighting.
, and may even run out of horsepower and be defeated by the opponent.
It is true that horses can run faster than humans, but their endurance is not necessarily stronger than humans. You must know that in mounted archery tactics, cavalry need to sprint repeatedly. Although they can rest their horsepower through rotation, the consumed horsepower cannot be recovered quickly.
What's more, there are not only Youzhou Qingqi on the battlefield, but also more than 10,000 infantry. It is impossible for the cavalry to just run away and leave their comrades on the battlefield.
However, making this decision is not easy.
Paper armor has as many weaknesses as advantages, and its performance in close combat is not much better than leather armor. But people who see it for the first time may not be able to see it, especially Wang Yu who made a gold armor with bad intentions.
gimmick.
With their eyes dazzled by golden light and being devastated by the rain of arrows in the sky, how many people can think calmly and see the essence through phenomena?
Even if the general has this vision and courage, can the soldiers of Jizhou, whose morale has dropped to the bottom, completely carry out the general's orders?
Even if Qu Yi eliminates these unfavorable factors and seizes the opportunity, can he resist the backhand he has laid?
While he was talking, the flag that Jizhou raised his flag finally changed.
"Woooo...woooo!" The desolate horn sound revealed a tragic emotion;
"Dong dong dong dong!" The earth-shattering sound of war drums became one continuous sound without any gaps, and a passionate fighting spirit was about to come out!
"Get up!" Those who can serve as front-row shield bearers are the most daring warriors in the army. When they hear the horns and drums urging battle, these strong men pull up the big oars from the ground without hesitation.
He held it steadily in front of him.
They have long been fed up with this situation where they can only be beaten and cannot fight back. Now, the horn of counterattack has finally sounded, and they can finally use the shields in their hands to clear the way for the army!
"Forward!" The courage of the shield bearers inspired some soldiers. Seeing that the troops were ready, the generals of the front army did not hesitate to order forward. The shield wall moved slowly, and more than half of the spearmen followed closely behind them.
They are sword and shield soldiers of similar proportions.
Most of the crossbowmen stood there stupidly, until they discovered that the shields above their heads and in front of them were missing, and then they screamed in panic.
The casualty ratio of the crossbowmen may not be the highest, but their morale is definitely hit the hardest because they have been fighting in vain and hopelessly.
Initially, the Jizhou Army's counterattack was very chaotic, which was directly reflected in their array.
However, the situation soon improved. Qu Yi ignored the chaos of one part of the army advancing and another part hesitating. He did not send out the supervising team to suppress it, but divided his troops according to the trend. The general's flag followed the advance of the front army, and ordered the deputy general,
Join the army to reorganize the rear army.
Watching the evolution of the battle situation, Wang Yu's mood was quite complicated.
Xu Huang's judgment was accurate. There should be dissent in the command level of the Jizhou Army. Perhaps it was because of these dissent that Qu Yi failed to seize the best opportunity to counterattack. After the dispute was fruitless, he took advantage of the situation.
In order to do this, he divided the army into two, and personally led the soldiers who dared to fight as the vanguard, leaving the lieutenants who interfered with his judgment to wait and see.
If the battle ahead is favorable, these losers may follow them soon; if it is unfavorable, they will have time to escape with Qu Yi blocking them. It must be said that Qu Yi is quite decisive, and the choices he makes are helpless.
The wisest judgment among them is worthy of the rank of a general.
It's a pity... Wang Yu sighed.
He faced the wrong opponent at the wrong time, with the wrong group of companions.
I also have a general on my side!
Needless to say, Gongsun Zan is a veteran and famous general of the Han Dynasty. Xu Huang is also a famous general who is on his own. In history, he was a famous general who defeated Guan Yu at his peak!
"Where is Gongming?" Wang Yu asked about his origin.
"Xu Huang is here!"
"Lead your troops and defeat the enemy in front of me with me!" Wang Yu has no plans to rush into the battle today. The stage of Longzuo belongs to both Gongsun Zan and Xu Huang.
"Here!" Amidst the clanging sound of the armor, Xu Huang responded with clasped fists and strode off the high platform. His majestic figure soon disappeared into the sea of people.
Not long after, the flag of the former army was raised. On the flag, which was as bright as blood, there was a big word "Xu" in it, which was very powerful. The horns and war drums sounded in unison, and the sound of war trumpets became louder and louder.
"Indestructible..." The shield bearer stood up with his shield drawn, giving up the front row position to his companions behind him. What replaced them was a group of monsters wrapped in iron armor, with five-foot sharp blades in their hands.
It's shocking.
"All attacks are invincible!" Five hundred sharp blades were raised high, like the opening and closing teeth of a wild beast. It was one of the highest achievements of weapons in the Han Dynasty - the horse-killing sword! The blades reflected the sun, and the bright light formed a continuous
Got a piece.
"Drive straight in..." Xu Huang stood at the front, raising his ax and pointing forward. Behind him, thousands of strong men holding long-handled axes formed a dense formation of fish scales.
This army created by Xu Huang is a purely heavily armored force. Their tactics are to attack, attack, and attack again! What protects them is not the shield, but the armor on their bodies and their fierce attack power!
This unit had Xu Huang's personal imprint from the very beginning. Together with Yu Jin's Royal Forest Army, they attacked and defended, forming the offensive and defensive poles of the Qingzhou Army's infantry and Wang Yu's right-hand man.
Precisely because of his great trust in Xu Huang and this unit, Wang Yu rarely stood aside during the fierce battle. In fact, if the position was not taken into consideration, Wang Yu really was not willing to miss what was about to happen.
A duel.
Xu Huang's Xiefeng Battalion was formerly Bai Bo's elite Yellow Turban Army. Every time they went to the battlefield, they would fall into a state of fanaticism, fearing neither life nor death, and were extremely powerful. Qu Yi's Xiandeng Battalion had the same characteristics.
The collision of these two famous generals will of course bring out amazing brilliance.
Of course, the situation was very unfavorable for Qu Yi. Xu Huang's troops had undergone training for more than half a year, and their training level was far higher than that of Qu Yi's army. More importantly, before this collision, Qu Yi's troops had
It's already a mess.
so……
"Invincible!" Xu Huang's big ax fell heavily, and when five thousand Qingzhou elites marched forward, Wang Yu had already foreseen the final outcome of this battle, because this battle was unfair from the beginning. (To be continued. Please search Piaotian Literature, the novels will be better and updated faster!)