how to spell?
Han Jinggui looked at Xin Qiji and laughed.
He felt that Xin Qiji really regarded the Kelie tribe and the Qiyan tribe as life and death enemies.
But according to his research on the two tribes during this period, these two tribes are not the life and death enemies of the Ming Dynasty at all.
"Actually, our army does not need to be too nervous. It seems that it has encountered a too strong enemy. The prairie cavalry is limited to a relative lack of iron products and a low armor rate. It is far inferior to our Ming cavalry. The quality of its standard weapons may not be good. In terms of weapons and The armor is no better than that of the Ming army.
Therefore, the grassland cavalry will definitely be at a disadvantage in a head-to-head confrontation with our Ming army. If we fight head-to-head, our Ming army will definitely have the upper hand. It is impossible for the cavalry of Kled and Qiyan to surpass the Ming in this regard.
Regarding the issue of crossbows, many barbarian tribes on the grassland can only make ordinary longbows. For the cavalry hand crossbows that I have improved by the craftsmen, they have short range and weak strength, and they will not be the opponent of my Ming cavalry in crossbow shooting. .
On the issue of war horses, they do have an advantage. Each person has three or four horses. Most of them are three horses. Our cavalry does not have such conditions yet. It only has two horses, and the traveling speed is slightly slower. However, the war horses themselves are no different. I I also looked for Wang Gu’s war horses and compared them with our Chao war horses. There was not much difference.
In terms of logistics and food, they have dried meat and dairy products, and our cavalry also has dried meat and dairy products. They can support their wars by fighting, and our army can also support their wars by fighting, and we will not lose to them. Compare these main factors. , I can't find a reason why we will lose. "
Xin Qiji shook his head and said with a serious face: "Soldiers, the place of life and death, the way of survival, must be observed. You still haven't said anything."
"The gap in riding skills between the Ming cavalry and the prairie barbarian cavalry."
Han Jinggui said, "Actually, I have also considered that the prairie barbarians have grown up on horses since childhood and are proficient in riding skills, but they are not comparable to our cavalry. However, with the blessing of saddles, stirrups, bridles and other horse equipment , cavalry training is no longer so difficult.
With the big racecourse and the carefully selected cavalry, their meals were as good as ours and they were full of energy. They could spend the whole day in the racecourse, and their riding skills improved very quickly.
Generally, recruits can start tactical training after three to five months of intensive training at the racecourse. Tactical training takes a little longer. After mastery is completed, what is needed is no longer training, but actual combat. "
Xin Qiji nodded, very satisfied with the Ming Dynasty's cavalry training system.
After a while, he thought of another thing.
"His Majesty ordered that the army's war horses be fully covered with iron horseshoes. Have you done so?"
Han Jinggui walked to his horse, raised the horse's hoof, pointed to the horseshoe under the horse's hoof and said with a smile: "It's already nailed. Your Majesty gave the order. We will go all out. We are ready. By the way, this thing is still good." It’s really useful.”
Xin Qiji stepped forward and bent over to take a closer look, then nodded slowly to express his satisfaction.
Also after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Su Yonglin ordered the Ministry of Industry to start making iron horseshoes. It didn't take long for craftsmen from the Ministry of Industry to master the technology of nailing horseshoes, and conducted experiments on a batch of war horse hooves, proving the feasibility of iron horseshoes.
From then on, the iron horseshoe became popular among the Ming cavalry army.
Horseshoes are actually quite interesting, because horseshoes have already appeared in the Roman Empire as early as BC. The Romans used iron horseshoes very early and relatively commonly.
Later, the iron horse palm spread eastward along with war and trade, to the Western Regions of China, and then spread from the Western Regions to the northern grassland region, and then to the Liaodong region.
Traces of iron horseshoe have been found in the countries in the Western Regions, the northern grasslands and local governments in Liaodong such as Goguryeo, and the entire transmission context is still very clear.
But the spread of horseshoe interestingly avoided the Central Plains and Jiangnan regions. It did not become popular in the Central Plains for more than a thousand years.
It is not that the Central Plains Dynasty had never seen the Iron Horse Palm. They knew about its existence and recorded it in books. However, until the Song Dynasty, Song Dynasty officials had not realized the wonderful use of this thing, or there were no people with power to promote it. As for the Central Plains Dynasty, although they knew about the existence of this thing, they only regarded it as a curiosity and did not popularize it for use in the army.
So it was not until the Yuan and Ming Dynasties that the iron horseshoe really began to be popularized in the Central Plains army.
Therefore, the Central Plains dynasty has been troubled by the high price of war horses and the extremely high damage rate of horse hooves after the war.
It's not like they haven't thought of ways, such as using grass and leather to make horse shoes, but the results are very average, and they have never taken the initiative to point out the technical points of the iron horse shoe, which is very regrettable.
But it should not be said that the main enemies of the Central Plains Dynasty during peacetime often came from the northern grasslands. People in the northern grasslands knew the existence and role of the iron horseshoe earlier than the people in the Central Plains.
However, although people on the grasslands knew about the iron horseshoe earlier than people in the Central Plains, they were unable to popularize the iron horseshoe due to limitations in their own iron smelting capabilities and economic strength, and were unable to give full play to the advantages of the iron horseshoe.
Even iron pots had to be imported and plundered from the Central Plains. They really didn't have the excess iron to shoe horses on a large scale. Besides, they had three horses, four horses and five horses each, so they lacked everything except horses.
Maybe even if they mastered the iron horseshoe technology, they didn't find it very useful.
They only need to pile up the number of war horses to compete with the powerful military power of the Central Plains Dynasty.
This can be regarded as some kind of wonderful historical balance.
However, now, Su Yonglin took the initiative to break this balance, using the strong iron smelting strength of the Ming Dynasty to fully shoe the war horses currently in service in the Ming Dynasty. At this moment, it came into play.
As a border guard general, Han Jinggui liked this iron horseshoe very much.
"In the past, the wear and tear on the horses' hooves was really serious. Many war horses could no longer run after running for a while, and were almost useless. But after the horseshoes were nailed on, not only were they not worn much, the horses had no difficulty running. , what a wonderful thing.”
"Of course it's a good thing, but it's quite troublesome to make it from scratch. I heard that the earliest craftsmen didn't know the strength when they shoed the war horses. The horses kicked and injured several people. They were all seriously injured and they almost couldn't be saved. , and only later did he figure out how to nail horseshoes."
"Is there such a thing?"
As soon as Xin Qiji mentioned this, Han Jinggui looked frightened: "If you give this tall horse a kick, he will definitely be crippled..."
"Fortunately, no one died, and I have mastered this technique."
Xin Qiji bent down and touched the horse's legs: "With these iron horseshoes, you don't have to worry about the horse's hooves being worn out so much that the war horse can no longer ride. The barbarians on the grassland know about the iron horseshoes, but they can't nail so many. In this regard, It's not as good as my Ming Dynasty. By then, we can maneuver at high speed and catch them off guard!"
Han Jinggui nodded.
In the past, when there were no horseshoes, cavalrymen still had to be careful when using their horses. They would run for a while and rest for a while, and never dare to let the horses run too hard.
When encountering some relatively hard terrain, you should try to avoid it and don't dare to run away for fear that your hooves will be worn and you will be separated from your horse.
When people and horses get along for a long time, they can also develop emotions.
Now it's better. Even if the ground is hard, you are not afraid. You can run without planning a route or worrying about wear and tear. You can just use your powerful horsepower until the horse's energy is exhausted and it can no longer run.
This advantage will definitely play its role.
Xin Qiji also went to the Wanggu tribe before the army arrived, and met with Wuge, the leader of the Wanggu tribe. Wuge learned that the man in front of him was the military chief of the Ming Dynasty and a big boss. He immediately became nervous. "It's delicious." Treat Xin Qiji to a very high standard.
They were also worried that Xin Qiji would not be used to eating mutton with a strong smell of mutton, so they took out the spices that Su Yonglin had given to Wuge as a reward. They put in a lot of salt and asked the best cooks to cook the mutton and entertain Xin Qiji.
Xin Qiji laughed and ate the delicious stewed mutton and roasted mutton. He felt that it was full of flavor and had no bad smell as expected, so he ate a lot. His whole body felt warm and comfortable after eating, and he felt that he had endless energy.
It seems that life on the grassland is not that bad, and the lives of the leaders of these grassland tribes are not as poor as they imagined.
There is still a lot of oil and water on them.
