The individual quality of the prairie cavalry is indeed excellent, and their team fighting ability is not bad, but in the aspect of accepting orders and executing orders, they are more than one level behind the Ming army.
After all, they are herdsmen, soldiers, production units, and combat units. They are not a professional army. They are somewhat amateur in nature. However, their amateur standards are also very strong. Against the declining Central Plains dynasty, It is clear at a glance who is strong and who is weak.
However, the Ming army they faced were purely professional soldiers. They were very professional and well-trained. They were only responsible for fighting, not production.
In this way, the difference between amateur and professional comes to light.
The gap between a truly professional army and an amateur army cannot be bridged by the quality of individual soldiers.
Otherwise, the martial arts leader with unparalleled martial arts skills and the martial arts people could have overthrown the dynasty and become the emperor himself.
But this is obviously impossible. Even if the martial arts people gather together, there is a high probability that they will be beaten by the court's professional army.
Han Jinggui commanded the Ming cavalry to spread out their formation and move forward quickly, intending to deploy the entire formation and complete the general encirclement so that the Kled cavalry could not escape their encirclement and take this opportunity to annihilate the Kled cavalry. After seeing the advantage, Han Jinggui was appetized. Da Zeng can no longer be satisfied with simple victory.
Tuoli was still looking at his cavalry team, which was constantly fighting with the Ming army, and was very anxious.
It wasn't until news of the rapid movements of the cavalry on the left and right flanks of the Ming army reached his ears that he realized something was wrong, and he realized that the Ming army had a big plan.
The Ming army discovered their advantage and wanted to use this method to compress them here, fight them in a decisive battle here, and eliminate them with hand-to-hand combat.
It’s broken, we must take action immediately!
Otherwise, you will face being surrounded by them on both sides!
If you can't beat me in hand-to-hand combat, you will really die here!
Tuoli immediately ordered the cavalry on the left and right wings to maneuver quickly to deal with the outflanking of the Ming army. He used cavalry and shooting tactics against the fast-attacking Ming army to keep a distance from them and try to avoid close combat and avoid being encircled.
However, from the time when his order was conveyed to the time when the Klei cavalry officially began to take action, the Ming army's Zhong Xuemin and Yuan Han's troops had already moved to their left and right flanks and launched a charge against them.
The time required for both parties to accept orders and execute them is not at the same level.
This time difference was effectively used by the Ming army, so the battlefield gap between the two sides widened.
In addition, they have crossbows, doesn’t the Ming army have hand crossbows?
The Ministry of Industry under Su Yonglin's rule integrated a group of the best craftsmen in the country. They had very good skills and often gathered together to discuss technical issues and ordnance transformation issues.
The improvement of cavalry hand crossbows is an important topic. Since the time when Su Yonglin controlled the General Affairs Bureau in Zhongdu, special personnel have been assigned to improve the cavalry hand crossbows. From shooting strength to shooting speed, as well as the issue of replacing arrows, these are all The top priority for improvement.
After a period of improvement, by March of the second year of Hongwu, the latest model of cavalry hand crossbow was completed.
The new cavalry hand crossbow is more sophisticated in design, using higher-quality materials to make the string, and using repeating crossbow technology and customized arrows. It can be fired five times in a row with one load, and the range and shooting power are improved compared to the original one. .
The only problem is that the cost is relatively high, so so far only two batches of production have been completed, and they are only equipped for the border guard cavalry.
During this battle, Su Yonglin searched the internal treasury and prepared 20,000 new-style cavalry hand crossbows for distribution to the Northern Expeditionary Army. Han Jinggui, as if he had found a treasure, equipped them all, had some of the cavalry's shotguns replaced with cannons, and kept shooting with the new hand crossbows.
The good thing about crossbows is that they are easier to use than bows and arrows, the technical threshold is relatively low, and they can develop combat effectiveness faster than archers.
During the battle with the Jin soldiers, the Liberation Army relied on the crossbowmen who quickly formed combat effectiveness to support their appearance.
But the bad thing about crossbows is that they have high production costs and high maintenance costs. The poor dynasty economy cannot afford such heavy losses.
Therefore, this kind of high-end weapons are generally not popular among the army, which also makes it possible that sometimes the army of the Ming Dynasty masters such technology, but cannot field it.
Su Yonglin didn't have such troubles. He spent a lot of money on the military and scientific research. No matter what high-end weapons, he would solve technical problems for me, find ways to reduce costs, and then mass-produce and install them for me!
Don’t tell us how awesome new discoveries or new technologies are, I’ll just ask you two questions.
Can it be mass produced?
Can we field an army?
So at this moment, the Ming army cavalry using the new hand crossbows really made the Klei cavalry who were good at riding and shooting realize that science and technology are the primary productive force.
Sharp arrows rained down, which was not something strange to the prairie cavalry.
But the continuous rain of arrows one after another is very confusing.
How on earth did they complete the launch so quickly in such a short period of time?
The prairie cavalry couldn't figure it out, and they didn't have time to figure it out. They were too late, and there wasn't enough time for them to think.
Raindrops of arrows hit the Ming cavalry five times when they charged, while the Kled cavalry fired only once.
The qualitative change caused by the quantitative change caused the unarmored Kled Cavalry to fall from their horses one after another. The dense arrows dealt a huge blow to the Kled Cavalry. They were hit by arrows and fell from their horses in droves, either dead or injured. , but the blow to the Ming army was quite limited.
It is true that in such a fierce confrontation, being hit by an arrow and falling from the horse is equivalent to death. If you are not thrown to death, you can easily be trampled to death by the war horse. However, in comparison, the death situation of the Kled cavalry is far more terrifying than that of the Ming army.
Tuoli suddenly felt that he could not understand the battle situation.
What's happening here?
The battle situation he expected was not like this. He wanted to give full play to the technical advantages of the prairie cavalry, first distance them, and then take advantage of the Han people to pursue them and shoot them with turning around and riding and shooting tactics that the Han people would never master.
Most of the cavalry under his command have been practicing riding and shooting since they were young. Many of them not only have the skills of running and shooting, but also master the unique skills of shooting from left to right and turning around to shoot.
He believed that the cavalry of the Ming Army was definitely not as powerful as them in cavalry and shooting. Their strength was in hand-to-hand combat, and they must have wanted to pursue and fight them.
So his tactic was to fly a kite, and the Ming cavalry chased them with grunts. His cavalry ran lightly in front, and then turned around and shot them off guard with an arrow.
Using such tactics to exhaust the physical strength of the Ming army's cavalry, when the time comes, a massive counterattack can defeat the Ming army in one fell swoop and win the victory.
However, the current situation was not at all what he thought.
Not only were the Ming cavalry not inferior in speed and riding skills, they also had hand-to-hand combat capabilities. Not only that, they also had very good riding and shooting abilities, and could even... shoot continuously in a short period of time?
What kind of magic is this?
Being caught off guard by the Ming army's crossbows, a large number of Klei cavalry fell off their horses and died. The queue became chaotic and could not guarantee speed and formation. They were pursued by the Ming army cavalry on horseback.
Now, it's a new round of fighting.
The main force of the Ming army's central army pressed forward under the command of Han Jinggui, and launched a large-scale close combat with the Kled melee troops who had previously tried to retreat but failed, entangling them so tightly that they could not escape. There were also hand-held troops on the outside. The shooting cavalry with crossbows maneuvered at high speed, knocking the people shot by Kled's mounted archers off their backs.
Both sides were suppressed, and there was a faint tendency for the entire army to be surrounded by the Ming army from the outside. This made Tuoli completely lose his normal mentality, and he began to panic.
Why is this happening?
The war situation had not developed according to his imagination from the beginning, and it completely exceeded all his expectations before the war.
She began to think about what to do, how to save the situation. He tried to send his brave generals to lead an elite cavalry team to attack the Ming army, trying to defeat the Ming army with counterattack, and use absolute bravery to turn the tide of the battle.
However, his efforts were in vain and meaningless. The Ming army showed no signs of failure at all. Instead, it entangled his reserve team, struggling hard, chasing behind them and forcing them to fight, with overwhelming fighting spirit.礴, the killing was brutal.
The battle situation had progressed to this point. Tuoli was shocked to find that he had lost control of the battle situation. There were no other available troops around him except the personal guards. They all pressed forward to fight the Ming army.
He has no means to turn the tide of the war.
