Horse hooves trampled and the ground shook.
The training horse camp completed the change of formation during the fast march of the war horses. Three thousand cavalry teams spread out in a horizontal formation, with the general commander on the left of each unit in front and the general commander on the right behind. Then the general on the left speeded up in the moving formation and passed the general. The officer reaches the front of the formation.
And during this process, Zuo Bai, the three commanders of Zuo General, led the cavalry to the front, changed the horses from brisk walking to cantering, and formed the first collision formation with 360 cavalry.
Each horseman was four steps apart on the left and right, spread out four miles wide to cover the valley, and rushed towards the enemy cavalry under the leadership of three hundred generals.
After that, most of them still continued to walk fast, and the large army formation did not lose touch with the small army formation. They just launched the second, third, fourth and fifth collision army formation in sequence.
This scene made General Zhang Hongye, who was intercepting in front of the army formation, panic: It's too fast!
Zhang Hongye is a general in Yansui Town. He has been in the army for ten years and has experienced countless battles. However, the overall reaction of the cavalry team in front of him was too fast.
The official army had two thousand generals and two cavalrymen from the guerrilla generals in front of the formation. They launched the attack eight hundred steps away from the enemy. On the one hand, it was due to the shelling falling behind them, and on the other hand, the enemy cavalry were still sitting on the ground. move.
When the 600-step enemy cavalry began to shout and swear, Zhang Hongye only felt scornful. It can be said that the most elite Biao battalion in Ningxia has been annihilated, and it can be said that all the veterans in Guyuan have been dispersed. But who can say that the frontier troops in Yansui are not frontier troops?
Due to the changes in the movements of the enemy's cavalry, the galloping speed of the army's cavalry is also slowing down. This is a very formal operation. When the distance is far away, advance at full speed, and slowly slow down as the distance approaches, ensuring that in the last fifteen steps Slow down to half your top speed for distance.
This is the best speed for charging. The spear still has absolute lethality. At the same time, after stabbing the enemy, it has enough reaction time to pull it out, and the saber can hit the opponent.
The most important thing is that if the enemy's situation is unfavorable or the enemy's formation cannot be broken, the last fifteen steps can still give the cavalry an opportunity to bypass and try again.
Zhang Hongye believed that not only his cavalry was trained in this way, but also the opponent's cavalry.
He was not afraid of head-on confrontation. The Ming army had an astonishingly high winning rate in small-scale field battles with less than 3,000 men, and was never afraid of any opponent.
What alarmed Zhang Hongye was that the enemy cavalry started to move late, but their speed was fast. They seemed to wait for them to slow down just in time, then spread out and rushed forward in a swarm, giving him no time to change his order.
In the moment of panic, he could only hear two types of horseshoes. The sound of his own horses' hooves changed from the initial 'ta, da', da, da' to three, and then to four.
However, the number of horse hooves belonging to the enemy is changing from four to two. The enemy is speeding up and they are slowing down.
Zhang Hongye's eyes were splitting, and he had no time to wave his flag. He reined in his horse and shouted heartbreakingly: "Li Fuming! Tang Tong! They will not look back!"
All the officers and soldiers knew that the cavalry soldiers in front of them would not look back.
They didn't know how Liu Chengzong trained these fools who only knew how to advance and rush, but the cavalry commanders on the front line of the official army reined in their horses and turned around. This made the marshal's horse soldiers become more determined and continued to rush forward at a fixed pace.
War is never won by courage alone, otherwise the winner of Saarhu would be the juniper that can still fight for a day after being divided into four parts.
On top of courage, tactics, situation, and skills determine the mentality of soldiers when they display courage.
Every cavalryman in the training horse camp can be an officer. Everyone knows what the enemy's mentality will be like when facing their collision, and they also know what they will do.
Because three years of study was too long, they first learned the Ming Army's cavalry tactics, and then learned the tactics against the Ming Army's cavalry.
Yang Yao laughed in front of the battle: "They are scared!"
The real impact only occurred on the left wing of the Marshal's cavalry.
Opposite them was Dong Xueli, the 100th general in front of the battle, who was affiliated with the guerrilla general Tang Tong. The entire army of officers and soldiers advanced to the left and retreated to the right. Dong Xueli's department was on the far right, and further to the right was the mountain wall, making it impossible to turn around.
There was no way to avoid it, so we could only keep the same four-step distance and bravely collide with the Marshal's cavalry.
At the moment of the collision, countless spears pierced through the armor like piercing tissue paper, and each body fell heavily under the horse, like a broken sack.
The left-wing general manager of the Marshal's Mansion Cavalry is called Feng Dakui. He was born as a horseman. He first joined the peasant army of Shangtianhou. Later he became a top student in Zhuantianmao. When he arrived in Xining, he was already the general manager of Yuzi Camp.
When the choice between Xining Guard Baihu and Training Horse Camp Sergeant was presented to him, he believed that his talents were insufficient and chose the latter.
Because he could write, he was promoted to a captain; he brought out a few hard-trained soldiers and was promoted to a team leader; when Liu Chengzong was recruiting troops for the southern expedition, there was a shortage of officers in the camp, and he finally returned to the position of General Manager Bai. .
It’s been two years now.
Feng Dakui charged forward, holding spears in both arms to pierce the officers and soldiers passing by on the left side. Pushing his right arm forward, his left arm retracted, and he pulled the spear out of the enemy's body backwards. The spears handed out by the second row had already When he reached his eyes, he used the tail of his spear to push it away.
At the same time, he held the spear upside down and hit the second cavalryman on the head with his tail.
With a thud, the sharp spear tail pierced through the helmet. He may not have killed the enemy because the tail grip took off the helmet, but it was enough to provide an opportunity for the soldiers behind to assassinate him.
He said to himself in his heart, second one!
In the cavalry command code of the Marshal's Office, the requirement for the cavalry commander to kill three people when he collides with the enemy's cavalry is to kill three people for the entire cavalry.
Because they often say in training that in a duel between two hundred cavalry, only six people can decide the outcome.
Only three of the one hundred cavalry were heroes who could focus on taking the enemy's head regardless of defense during the charge. The remaining seven were just followers who only blocked to save their lives.
As for the remaining ninety people, they are all idiots without courage or brains. They rely on the bravery and cowardice of others to decide their own lives and deaths.
If others rush to kill bravely, they will follow suit and stab the corpse with two knives, showing no honor; if others flee cowardly, they will not be able to escape and will be crushed into a pulp, with their livers and brains smeared on the ground.
So Yang Yao's theory is that he only needs to kill three opponents who dare to fight to win the cavalry battle.
This logic of not being a fool has been instilled for a long time and has become the consensus of the training horse camp. The enemy's left wing and the center army all retreated, which further strengthened the understanding of the horse camp sergeants.
When Feng Dakui broke through the two-layer cavalry barrier with his spear and shoulder strap, it suddenly became clear that the enemy's cavalry backup troops had turned to flee. The left wing and center troops dispersed their formations while being pursued, and people rushed to escape towards the main formation.
He galloped slowly for more than twenty steps, took back his spear and raised it, gave the order to the sergeant to regroup, turned his horse's head and looked towards the center of the battlefield.
Several ownerless horses neighed mournfully next to the corpses, and a few horses that had no nostalgia for their old owners fled in all directions. There were even a few stupid horses that refused to let their owners fall off their horses and regrouped with the enemy.
Feng Dakui did not count the sergeants again, but just took a cursory glance and found that the width of his own formation had not shrunk too much. The enemy's cavalry was more powerful than them, but the width was much narrower.
Caodian was not lying. No matter whether we were the enemy or ourselves, there were not that many brave men who were not afraid of death. More people just deflected the enemy's spears during the confrontation, but there were obviously more heroes in the Marshal's Mansion.
This greatly strengthened Feng Dakui's belief, and at the same time made more soldiers brave: Although the enemy was outnumbered, they had more useless fools.
He laughed loudly: "It seems that the enemy's heroes are all here with us. They are timid and continue to collide in two rows!"
There was almost no change in the horizontal formation. Only two cavalry soldiers whose long poles were broken in the collision retreated to the second row four steps apart, holding waist knives in preparation for the collision.
Although Dong Xueli deflected his opponent's spear during the confrontation, he was far less determined than Feng Dakui because his cavalry suffered a few casualties and fell into a dilemma of being attacked from both sides.
Behind him was Feng Dakui's reorganized cavalry, and in front of him was the second batch of Bai Zong under Yang Yao's command who continued to run towards them.
And all his backup troops had turned back, but the cowardly ones returned to the army and fled, leaving the brave ones with no choice but to fall deep into the enemy's lines.
With no time to regroup or count the casualties, Dong Xueli hurriedly turned his horse back, not daring to continue deeper into the enemy formation. He gave the order to charge back towards the main formation while his subordinates roared in pain as they were dislocated.
Even though there was only Feng Dakui's group in front of them to stop them, they were still beaten to pieces. People hung their spears on their arms in panic. Few people took out their swords and invariably chose to take out their bows and arrows.
They no longer dared to collide with the stunned young men in front of them, and nearly a hundred riders turned to the left, trying to escape from the flank around Feng Dakui.
But they can't escape.
Although the soldiers rushed their horses frantically, the horses charged and galloped for hundreds of steps, but were unable to regain their original speed. During the pursuit and interception, not only could they not return to their own formation, but they were getting farther and farther away from the infantry formations to the east.
Yang Yao was still pressing the troops and walking quickly. The horse camp army formation slowly pressed on the enemy troops who turned around and fled to their own formation. They were scrambling to escape to the infantry formations. The infantrymen who had just formed formations were trying to put them in. In the formation, several gaps were opened again.
The Chinese army of General Zhang Hongye ran back the fastest and in the most orderly manner. The entire army formation was divided into several groups and entered the formation in an orderly manner, with almost no casualties.
Tang Tong was not slow in running. Although two hundred generals were left outside, the other teams under his command did not suffer too many casualties.
Only the guerrilla general Li Fuming did not have the determination to charge forward, nor the decisiveness to run away. As a result, most of the troops were hit by several hundred generals from the Ma camp in turns during the retreat.
The military formation was knocked to pieces, and even he was stabbed and became the trophy of Yang Chengzuqian's headquarters.
Yang Yao saw the enemy's cavalry being driven back to their own formation with overwhelming force during the advance. He reined in his horses with great ambition and stopped his subordinates from thinking of continuing to attack the formation to expand their results.
The cavalry army can attack the cavalry army, but it cannot attack the formations and vehicle camps for the time being. The enemy's will needs to be further attacked.
Three trumpet sounds were heard from the horse camp to order the troops to return, and the right general of the three thousand headquarters of our own side moved his troops to the left.
The left headquarters that went out to fight did not retreat immediately. Only the six hundred headquarters that had fought with the enemy earlier reorganized and stood at the end of the previous right headquarters.
The remaining nine hundred generals had a clear division of labor, and the six hundred generals led their troops to quickly clean the battlefield and bring back wounded soldiers from both sides, enemy corpses and trophies.
It only takes three hundred generals and their troops to wait quietly with their spears in hand, and they can strangle the four-mile-wide river valley. When the enemy's first attack was frustrated, the cavalry did not dare to attack again.
When they returned to the team, the sound of drums came from Hexi Fort behind them, followed by the artillery firing a second high-angle bombardment. The artillery shells once again flew over the battlefield and hit the enemy's infantry formations randomly.
This kind of high-angle bombardment is not accurate like a flat shot within 400 steps. It cannot blast a path of blood or eject to crush the ground formation. It can only hit a certain range. Even if it falls and hits the enemy, one shot will only hit the enemy. It can kill one or two people.
But it had a great impact on the morale of the officers and soldiers.
At the moment when the army's infantry formation was most suitable for artillery fire on the horsemen, the artillery fire could not be fired because the cavalry blocked the firing range. When the cavalry entered the formation, there were only scattered horsemen in the center of the battlefield cleaning the battlefield and taking away the corpses. The enemy's horses Most of them were already standing a mile away.
When the shells fell into the infantry formation, they heard the roaring laughter of the enemy's cavalry in the distance.
Watching our own cavalry flee under the impact of the enemy's uniform horizontal formation, they collided with each other in panic. Those who fought bravely were sent away by the fleeing friendly forces, those who hesitated and dared to fight were killed because they were isolated and helpless, but those who fled immediately were able to He hid back in the formation safe and sound, and even allowed himself to be laughed at.
Which officer and soldier wouldn't want to be on the opposite side at this time?
Which enemy soldier would not feel proud that our army is invincible in the world?
The pride of the officers and soldiers of the three towns who moved to fight against the northern Shaanxi rebels disappeared in the laughter that echoed through the valley during the military training camp.
Seeing his own cavalry choose to avoid during the collision, and then being attacked by the enemy's cavalry while avoiding, You Shilu, who had already become a sick man, cursed angrily on the mountain, and asked his nephew to help him down the mountain, and found the way back. Zhang Hongye, who was kneeling down to report, kicked him hard.
"Commander, it's not that the general is incompetent, they are watching us and fighting!"
"Fucking fart!" Before You Shilu could speak, He Huchen scolded: "He fights with us and doesn't keep an eye on us?"
General Zhang Hongye didn't dare to talk back. He only dared to say that our Yulin commander kicked me. Why do you, the commander-in-chief of Ningxia, talk so much? Why don't you let Ningxia's cavalry go into battle first?
Do you believe that the cavalry in Yansui Town can be reduced to half if the cavalry in Yansui Town is forced to retreat?
He ignored He Huchen and only clasped his fists at You Shilu and said: "Commander, what my subordinates mean is that they calculate the speed of our cavalry and gallop when they are at their slowest. They know the tactics of warfare, and they do it on purpose!"
You Shilu was furious. He knew very well how much impact the setback in the first battle would have on the morale of the army. He frowned and said: "Inform the whole army that Zhang Hongye retreated without authorization. He will first be dismissed from the post of general. He will be punished for his merits." ... If you dare to retreat again, I will kill you and sacrifice the flag!"
He whispered a few words to He Huchen and Yang Qi, and the three of them agreed to withdraw from the artillery range first, reorganize the army, and advance again.
The commanders of the three towns were confused. They didn't know Yang Yao's theory. They were just curious about how Liu Chengzong turned the entire cavalry army into a fool who dared to collide head-on.
But they all realized from the ability shown by the training camp that the war to suppress Xining might be much more difficult than they imagined. Maybe He Huchen's worries were not unnecessary, but the situation was more complicated than he worried.
The unfavorable first battle cast a haze on the hearts of the three of them. They did not dare to count on all the sick soldiers in Gansu Town on the North Road. They could only place their hope on the Lintao Army on the South Road, hoping that some good news would come from there that would boost the morale of the army. .
