It was nearly noon on June 26, the fifteenth year of Chongzhen.
In the vast wilderness south of Qinghekou in Gaizhou, soldiers covered the field and flags covered the sky. Twenty thousand-man battalions under the five Ming Army infantry regiments formed two large horizontal lines at the front and back, marching slowly towards the Qing Army's formation at the mouth of the Qinghe River.
The so-called large horizontal team is actually made up of several or more thousands-man camps. The usual combination is to have two rows at the front and back, leaving enough space between the two rows so that the thousand-man square camps in the two rows of large horizontal formations can be replaced with each other. This will allow officers and soldiers from each camp to take turns to rest and fight.
In addition, the offensive and defensive capabilities of the thousand-man phalanx that makes up the Daheng team are quite good. Therefore, this kind of phalanx of thousands of people can also move alone on the battlefield without the brigade.
If the cavalry covering the square formations is more advantageous, these square formations can even form columns to move quickly - columns are very convenient to move, just follow one after another. If the infantry has enough physical strength, or if their load is light, they can even run!
Compared with this kind of small square formation formed into a large horizontal formation, the hollow formation currently deployed by the Qing army is a formation that is difficult to move.
The hollow formation has four sides, and there are a lot of miscellaneous troops inside. If you want to move, you have to cooperate and move together. You must have a very high level of training to be able to move in an orderly manner, otherwise it will fall apart as soon as you move, and it will be over after you fall apart.
Therefore, on the field battlefield, it is really difficult for infantry without cavalry cover to maneuver.
And mobility is combat effectiveness!
Don't think that only cavalry pays attention to mobility. Infantry can just stay in formation... In fact, the mobility of infantry is as important as cavalry, because infantry who cannot maneuver can easily be trapped to death by the enemy's cavalry. Starve to death, thirst to death...
In addition, when the two sides are fighting in formation, the mobility of the infantry is also very important.
Because when the cavalry attacks the infantry formation, they often use wheel fighting to attack a few points. The attacking side attacked in waves, without allowing the beaten infantry to rest, nor allowing other enemy infantry units to take turns on top of them, until these infantry were exhausted and then defeated in one fell swoop.
Therefore, in the era when heavy armored infantry and cavalry are rampant on the battlefield, the heavy armored cavalry's wheel attack will most likely defeat the heavy armored infantry fighting in formation!
Because heavy armored infantry is really a physical job. Strong men in later generations who have participated in full-armor combat all know that a full-armor battle only lasts a few minutes, and only ten or twenty battles a day. No matter how much they fight, they will not be able to bear it. !
And those who play full-armor are all burly men! Go out to the street and pick up a few random people, put on dozens of kilograms of armor, let alone beat them, you can even walk without breathing!
In fact, fully armored infantry was the hardest-working unit in the cold weapon era, much harder than armored heavy cavalry. Because the heavy cavalry can borrow horse power, and the cavalry charges into the formation in one wave, the requirements for endurance are not particularly high.
The stories about riding on horseback and performing Guandao are all fake. No one has the strength.
The heavy armored infantry had no way to take advantage of the situation, so they had to put in a real effort to compete with strength and endurance. When your strength is exhausted, your life is at stake. No matter how strong a person is and how good his endurance is, he cannot cope with the waves of wheel battles.
Therefore, the odds of winning between heavy armored cavalry and heavy armored infantry are actually very high.
As for the dismounted heavy armored infantry played by Batulu in Manchuria, they were at the pinnacle of the cold weapon era, much more advanced than mounted archery and battle formation - mounted archery was highly praised by later generations, but in fact it cannot be pulled on horseback. The bow was too long and too stiff, so the arrows shot were not very powerful, and the accuracy of the arrows when shooting on a bumpy horseback was poor. And how big is the cavalry target? The enemy can shoot people and horses!
The heavy cavalry charge into the formation is often a fatal blow launched after the enemy formation is scattered. If the enemy's formation is strong and not chaotic, the attack will often be ineffective.
Moreover, you don’t need fully armored infantry to withstand the impact of heavy cavalry. Only those who can form a square formation with long spears and face the impact of cavalry without collapsing will generally be able to withstand several rounds of heavy cavalry attacks...
The strategy of approaching the enemy formation on horseback while wearing heavy armor, then dismounting and shooting arrows, and finally getting close to engage in hand-to-hand combat to disrupt the enemy formation and allow other cavalry to attack was the most difficult strategy in the cold weapon era.
A strong man who can use this kind of tactics is basically the king of soldiers in the cold weapon era!
However, these Manchurian kings, like other Manchurian and Mongolian cavalry, are now restrained by Zhu Youjian's "foreign horse soldiers", "straw horse soldiers" and "turtle dove gun soldiers", and simply retracted into their own hollows. The phalanx cannot come out.
The cavalry of the Qing Dynasty were all reduced to turtles, so the initiative on the battlefield at Qinghekou was completely in Zhu Youjian's hands.
They saw twenty square camps forming two large horizontal columns. Under the cover of more than 10,000 cavalry on both wings, they slowly approached. They did not stop advancing until they were 3 miles away from the Qing army's formation.
After the Ming army's brigade stopped advancing, the 12 artillery batteries (belonging to four field artillery battalions) that originally followed the two large horizontal columns did not stop advancing, but divided into two parts. One part headed towards the right wing of the Ming army. Movement, part of which moved to the left wing of the Ming army.
Nine of these 12 artillery batteries are light artillery batteries, and each company is equipped with six 3-pound guns. The remaining three companies are equipped with 6-pound cannons, 12-pound cannons and 24-pound cannons respectively, and the number is also 6 in each company.
Now 6 of the 9 light artillery batteries were quickly moved to the left wing of the Ming army and pushed in front of the Ming army's frontline large horizontal group (there is a large void between the battalion squares that make up the large horizontal group, which can allow artillery vehicles to pass) , and then began to fire on the right wing of the Qing army!
Thirty-six 3-pound cannons were lined up two and a half miles away in front of the Qing army's formation, and then they began to fire fiercely, which soon produced the effects of shaking the earth and the mountains and filling the air with smoke.
However, because Dorgon had previously asked people to build an earthen wall in front of his own formation, and after the Ming army fired artillery, he ordered the infantry under bombardment to squat down to avoid the artillery fire, so the Ming army attacked the Qing army's right wing. The effect of the bombardment was not very good. Not many Qing troops were overthrown, but their morale was a bit low and their formation was slightly chaotic...
At the same time, the other three light artillery batteries, a 6-pound artillery battery, and a 12-pound artillery battery of the Ming Army were already in place - their destination was to cover the right flanks of the two large horizontal formations of the Ming Army. The front of the 4th Regiment Cavalry. Among them, the muzzles of 18 3-pound cannons were aimed at the gap between the Qing army's formation and the Qing army's left-wing civil fort, and did not fire.
Six 6-pound cannons with a relatively long range began to bombard the left wing of the Qing army, and six 12-pound cannons aimed at the earthen fortress on the left wing of the Qing army and fired fiercely.
For a moment, the battlefield was filled with smoke and flames!
The left and right wings of the Qing army, as well as the earthen forts covering the left wing, were all bombarded.
"This is going to..."
Standing in the center of the Qing army's formation, behind a barrier built with sandbags, Dorgon saw smoke rising from both wings of the Ming army, and immediately knew that his wings were being bombarded!
"Brother Fourteen, they want to flank us on three sides!" Duduo, who was following him, immediately knew what was going on. "Although we have many people, the front we have is relatively narrow. Although there are few Southern soldiers, they are Because the horizontal line is relatively thin and can be stretched very long, it can sandwich us from three sides..."
"The earthen fort on our left wing was also bombarded!" Daishan's son Shuotuo was more courageous than the Dorgon brothers. He was not afraid of being hit by the Ming army's black artillery. He did not dismount and stood up in the stirrups. , so from a distance I saw that the earthen fortress on my left wing was being bombarded.
"Uncle Fourteenth, the Ming army must want to capture this earthen fort!" Dai Shan looked at the direction of his son Yue Tuo's finger and said, "If this earthen fort is lost... will the Ming army try to cross the river to capture it?" Our way out?"
"No, they have fewer people, and it will be easier to defeat them if they divide the troops." Dorgon gritted his teeth, "And they can't be lost... The people guarding the fortress are Sun Degong's Han troops! And they are also ambushing behind the fortress. The elite troops with yellow flags led by Ao Bai!"
"Then let's..." Hauge took the question and looked at Dorgon.
Dorgon gritted his teeth, "Just wait...it will be almost dark when it gets dark! Zhu Youjian knows that there is a fire in the backyard, so it is time to retreat. Then we will launch a night attack!"
