It's a bit funny to say that the so-called "Western Regions" war horse that Hu Shangjin presented to the governor of Liangzhou was not the tall horse from the far west as Zhang Xi mentioned. In fact, the horse did not come from the Western Regions at all, but from Youzhou.
To be more precise, it is a kind of horse that comes from the extremely cold land north of Youzhou.
Hu Shang did not understand the relationship between the Han Dynasty and Cao Wei at all. He felt that since they were not the same country, if the war horses from the area north of Youzhou were passed off as war horses from the Western Regions, these Han people would not be able to recognize them.
But Zhao Yun is from Hebei and has been engaged in cavalry in his early years. How could he have no idea about local war horses?
The extremely cold land north of Youzhou also produces war horses. Zhao Yun has heard of this, but the war horses produced here are not as explosive as the war horses produced in the grasslands in the south or west of Youzhou. At most, they are cold-resistant and can carry heavy loads. There are some advantages.
Considering the combat environment near Youzhou, when dealing with Youzhou and Bingzhou grassland cavalry, this kind of war horse is definitely not as popular as the war horses produced in southern Youzhou. After all, in terms of explosive power, sometimes it will determine the victory of a battle. burden.
But now, Zhao Yun feels that it might suit his needs.
It's hard to find a perfect war horse. If it only loses a little explosive power, but can have good weight-bearing and endurance, it is still an option.
Heavy cavalry is not originally about extreme speed, but about heavy defense and impact.
Another thing, Zhao Yun seems to have found some ideas through the difference between these war horses from northern Youzhou and the local Liangzhou war horses.
Heavy cavalry is actually a unit with obvious advantages and disadvantages.
Heavy cavalry has stronger assault capabilities and can easily defeat light cavalry or rangers in a head-on confrontation. However, heavy cavalry is slow. If light cavalry and rangers discover heavy cavalry in advance, they will not be able to get close to heavy cavalry. If you have the chance, you can completely rely on roaming cavalry and shoot to kill the heavy cavalry bit by bit.
Even if you put armor on the horse, at most it will improve the continuous combat capability of the heavy cavalry. If you can't get close, there is still nothing you can do against the rangers or light cavalry.
Without him, the speed is really impossible to catch up with.
But now, Zhao Yun seems to have figured out that the solution to the shortcomings of heavy cavalry may lie in the difference between Liangzhou war horses and Youzhou war horses.
In this way, through various relationships and methods, Zhao Yun tried to smuggle this Youzhou war horse from the area north of Youzhou. On the other hand, Zhao Yun also began to accumulate and train bit by bit, and figured out Developed a complete cavalry combat system of its own.
There are only 10,000 cavalry, of which there are only 3,000 heavy cavalry.
There is no way, there is not enough money. Liangzhou has more places to spend money than Yongzhou, and the local security is also unstable. The iron tools and ordnance needed to form the cavalry have to be transported from southern Yizhou. It is not that easy here. Mined iron ore.
Let's put it this way, in order to determine the size of this cavalry regiment, Zhao Yun had no idea how many times he had quarreled with Xu Miao, and finally he reluctantly got the money and food from Xu Miao's mouth to form 10,000 cavalry.
Now, it is Zhao Yun's first battle with this 10,000 cavalry legion, and it is also Zhao Yun's first battle to test his cavalry combat concept in actual combat. Zhao Yun must show his appearance.
His opponent was the 13,000 Cao Wei Cavalry Corps led by Niu Jin.
The cavalry regiments on Cao Wei's side are also very funny to say, they are basically light cavalry.
There are also some stories here.
In the history of Cao Wei, there was once a heavily armored cavalry unit with great military exploits - the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry.
Since its establishment, the achievements of the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry are well known to the world. Whether it is beheading Tadun in the White Wolf Mountain Formation, running three hundred miles a day and night to pursue Liu Bei, or defeating Ma Chao at Tongguan, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry are always at the most critical moment. time to engage in the most difficult battle.
Except for chasing Liu Bei, all other battles achieved the ultimate strategic goal, which can be said to be outstanding achievements.
But this heavy cavalry unit was disbanded after Cao Cao's death.
Of course, to put it nicely, it was Cao Pi who ordered the expansion of the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, but as they expanded, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry disappeared and became a light cavalry regiment.
There are many reasons for this.
On the one hand, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry was simply too unruly.
The Tiger and Leopard Cavalry itself is a unit formed by Cao Cao. Strictly speaking, it should be Cao Cao's personal guard unit. The soldiers of this unit are all officers at the level of a hundred-man general within the ordinary Cao army.
Apart from Cao Cao, the recorded commanders of this army are only Cao Cao, Cao Chun, Cao Xiu, and Cao Zhen, all proper generals of the Cao clan.
This resulted in this unit being Cao Cao's personal guards and only obeying Cao Cao's orders.
After Cao Cao's death, Cao Pi succeeded to the throne and naturally inherited the command of this army.
But the problem is, Cao Pi faintly discovered that Hubaoqi didn't seem to particularly approve of his attitude. Neither Cao Zhen nor Cao Xiu, whom he appointed, could control the army as completely as Cao Chun.
In addition, if Cao Pi wants to usurp the throne and become emperor, he must upgrade the specifications of his personal guards. Naturally, he needs to upgrade the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry to the Su Guard Cavalry, and then he must expand his army.
Then Cao Pi played a political trick, causing a strange incident in which the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry disappeared while massively expanding the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry.
On the other hand, even for Cao Wei, it is not easy to maintain a heavy cavalry force of up to 10,000 people.
The heavy cavalry unit consumes the most money and food, not to mention that the ordinary soldiers in the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry are all at the level of 100-man general, so their treatment must be higher than that of ordinary elites.
This amount of money spent on food is not a small amount.
When Cao Cao first started to form the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, there were not many in number, probably only one or two thousand people. Even in the 13th year of Jian'an, when Cao Cao sent troops to pursue Liu Bei, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry only had about 5,000 people. , but by the 20th year of Jian'an, the strength of the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry numbered tens of thousands.
Once the cavalry unit reaches tens of thousands, even light cavalry will be extremely expensive, let alone heavy cavalry units.
Compared to maintaining a tiger and leopard cavalry of tens of thousands, Cao Pi would definitely prefer to form a light cavalry force of 50,000. The expenses of both sides are similar.
Finally, and the most critical point. From a national level, the significance of the existence of heavy cavalry is actually not great.
This has a lot to do with the changes in cavalry tactics in this era and the shortcomings of heavy cavalry.
In previous cavalry tactics, cavalry appeared as an auxiliary unit of infantry. When the battlefield was stalemate, cavalry was used to fight, trying to break the deadlock on the battlefield, defeat and hunt down the infantry. This was the greatest use of cavalry.
At this time, the heavy cavalry took into account both the impact power and the obvious speed advantage over the infantry, so they could naturally achieve the greatest results.
But the heavy cavalry also has a shortcoming, that is, it is not fast enough. When encountering light cavalry or rangers, facing the enemy's mounted fire, it is easy to be unable to keep up with the speed and end up being guerrilla to death.
On the contrary, light cavalry does not have such shortcomings. Compared with infantry, light cavalry also has a speed advantage, its impact is not weak, and its maintenance cost is much lower than that of heavy cavalry.
Rather than retaining a force of tens of thousands of heavy cavalry, considering the maintenance cost of the country, it is better to equip a large number of light cavalry.
Anyway, several horse-producing areas at that time were under the control of the Wei Dynasty. The locals in Jiangdong were okay at sailing and fighting, but when it came to cavalry, I'm afraid they had never even seen horse hair.
As for Liu Bei, who later occupied Yizhou, there were some horses in Nanzhong, but the horses in Nanzhong were short, with excellent endurance but insufficient explosive power. They were okay for transporting grain and grass, but for fighting, they were completely crushed by the Wei cavalry.
Even though Ji Han later occupied Liangzhou and had a horse-producing land, Cao Wei still didn't care too much.
After all, the Liangzhou cavalry is famous for its rangers, but today's cavalry combat ideas are based on light cavalry tactics. The rangers are tough on the light cavalry head-on. They do not have much advantage in speed and are slightly insufficient in defense. In a head-on confrontation, the rangers will The cavalry will definitely not be able to defeat the light cavalry.
Moreover, even if the Shu thieves occupy Liangzhou and have cavalry, the size of the Shu thieves will not be able to maintain a large cavalry force. The number of cavalry will definitely be inferior to that of the Wei Dynasty. There is nothing to worry about.
On the battlefield of the Han Dynasty, the main force of the duel was still infantry. What the heavy cavalry could do, the light cavalry could also do. What the heavy cavalry could not do, the light cavalry could also do.
Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that Cao Wei gave up maintaining the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry and adopted the method of army expansion, expanding the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry from 10,000 to 50,000 and changing it to light cavalry.
Now, the 13,000 light cavalry led by Niu Jin finally encountered the Liangzhou Cavalry Corps led by Zhao Yun near Dali County.
Moreover, both sides unanimously launched a charge towards the other side's cavalry regiment.
One is to achieve results and develop new ideas for using cavalry.
The other one...well, Niu Jin really didn't take Zhao Yun seriously.
A mere bodyguard has achieved a high position by virtue of his early years of serving as the master's guard, so what else can he do?
It's not like Niu Jin has never seen such a character, such as Xu Chu, who was the former Su Wei Emperor Taizu Wu. And what happened to this Su Wei who didn't know his own importance and led the army personally? Niu Jin followed General Cao Ren in Fancheng and saw Clear as day.
Outside Dali City is where you, Zhao Yun, are buried! ! !
(End of chapter)
