Gao Pragmatic had indeed made several preparations, basically taking into account Tumen Khan's possible reaction after learning that he was surrounded by things.
It can be said that whether he chooses to stand firm or escape, or to counterattack in advance, it is all based on highly pragmatic calculations. Among them, the escape is divided into several directions, and the counterattack is also divided into east and west. All these aspects have been arranged in advance by Gao Pragmatism.
Pre-war strategy is different from command before the battle. This kind of calculation is very pragmatic.
However, being comprehensive and being pragmatic still put some emphasis on it. He believed that Tumen Khan was most likely to choose to counterattack, so he made the most preparations for the encirclement of the east and west armies.
In fact, relatively speaking, he was more worried about Tumen Khan's gambler's mentality, so he just went to play Hannaji without saying anything. Although in this way, as long as Hannaji could last for two days, his back-up would definitely be able to Tumen Khan paid a heavy price, but as mentioned just now, the current Han Naji Division is only powerful, and the first hero of his previous defeat of Xin Ai Division, Qatai Jituotuo, is not with him. Once Tumen Khan They beat Hannaji forcefully, but Gao Pragmatic was still a little worried about whether Dacheng Taiji's commanding ability was reliable.
Gao Pingshi's heaviest bet was that after the Tumen heard that the main force of the Western Post was coming out, they did not dare to attack Hannaji if they could be surrounded at any time.
The current Han Naji not only concentrated all the troops that had been deliberately separated with the Antu people's heart, but also conducted a wave of recruitment in the Western Post - the Mongols are the so-called soldiers of all people. In theory, even women and Even half-grown children can go into battle when they are at the end of their rope.
The recruitment of Han Naji was not too harsh this time. Only more than 10,000 people were recruited in total. They were all "veterans" in their forties. They could still fight and had rich experience, just because they all had sons. In the military, generally speaking, they are not easily recruited.
Moreover, Han Naji may be more kind to his tribesmen because of his relatively high degree of Chineseization. Most of these people were left to guard Daban Sheng Town. Only those with three or more sons in the family were brought out to fight. . Therefore, in the end, the West Post could not be regarded as an outpouring of troops, because there were still six to seven thousand veterans guarding the old base of Daban Shengcheng.
Gao Pragmatic's bet was that Tumen would be worried that they would not be able to gain favor by attacking the Western Post in the current situation.
Being unable to gain favor does not necessarily mean that the battle cannot be won, because in the current situation, if the battle is not fast enough, or if the losses after the battle are too great, it is unacceptable to Tumen Khan. His first consideration now is to put it in future generations. To use an analogy with the War of Liberation, it is "attack the weakest miscellaneous army first."
Therefore, the East Route Army should be Tumen’s first target, and the benefits of attacking the East Route Army are obvious:
First of all, the East Route Army looks the best. Their strength was only half that of Tumen Khan's troops, and they lacked unified command. When a dozen Taijis were suddenly violently beaten by Tumen's main force, they might fall apart at any time.
Secondly, after the Eastern Route Army was defeated, the encirclement was broken, and the Tumen were in a strategic situation where they could leave at any time if they wanted, which solved their worries.
Once again, Tumen now desperately needs a victory to boost their military morale. The characteristic of an army is that the more battles it wins, the better the army can fight. On the contrary, if an army continues to suffer defeats, no matter whether they are well-trained but unlucky, as long as they suffer too many defeats, their morale will definitely fall to the bottom, and even those who could have fought will become unable to fight, because My confidence is gone.
Just like at the end of the Ming Dynasty, many Ming troops may not be incapable of fighting, but because they were afraid of being beaten by Hou Jin, they became panicked when they heard that Hou Jin's soldiers had arrived. When they heard that they were "real prisoners" on the other side, they wanted to fight. Walk.
In fact, many Ming troops showed quite good combat effectiveness after surrendering to Houjin. Although there is more than one reason for this, the issue of confidence is definitely one of the important items.
People understand this too, so of course he has to consider it. Moreover, he knew that his decision to attack Shacheng was not supported by his sergeants, and now his tentative attack at the foot of Shacheng City failed again - he knew that the Ming army defended the city well, but Shacheng was harder to fight than imagined. , a tentative attack was beaten to a pulp without even touching the city wall. How can we fight like this? One can imagine the low morale.
Mongolia and the Ming Dynasty have been at war for two hundred years. Not to mention the upper echelons of both sides, even ordinary soldiers are very aware of the advantages and disadvantages of both sides. Tens of thousands of cavalry came to fight against a city firmly defended by the Ming army. Political considerations originally outweighed military considerations. Now that his actions have failed, there will definitely be complaints from below.
But Tumen also had troubles that he couldn't tell. How did he know that after he came to Shacheng, it was not Han Naji but the Ming army who defended the city? Originally, he thought that if Han Naji was to defend the city, the Mongols had been far away from the city protection for almost two hundred years, and their level of protection should be very limited...
Therefore, while morale was just beginning to fall, he had to win a victory quickly to reverse it.
The highly pragmatic person who "predicts things like a god" has always been "predicts people like a god". He can basically analyze Tumen's thoughts, so he is 70% sure that Tumen will attack the East Route Army. Therefore, in the East Route Army A big meal was prepared for Tumen.
The number one feast is the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Route Army - Chatai Jituotuo!
Qataiji and his 6,000 direct descendants are all in the East Route Army. In addition, the East Route Army also has 10,000 great khan guards sent by Zhongjin Hatun, and another more than 10,000 people are a group of soldiers. The soldiers and horses sent by the auspicious people.
In a sense, the Great Khan's Guards, the direct descendants of the more than 20,000 direct descendants of the year, have almost concentrated 80% of their strength in the current Eastern Route Army, and were ordered by Gao Pangshi in the name of the plenipotentiary imperial envoy Chatterjee was designated commander-in-chief, and Jongkin Hatun subsequently reconfirmed this in the name of regent.
There should be no doubt about the combat effectiveness of the main force of the direct line. In the past few decades, in real head-to-head battles, this Great Khan's guard army has very few records of defeat. It almost walked sideways in Mongolia, fighting Wu Liangha and Wala. , playing Qinghai, they are the core main force.
He rarely encountered opponents in the Ming Dynasty. The only general in the Ming army who actually defeated this army was Ma Fang. At that time, Anda had to retreat.
The other people who have withstood the frontal attack of this army can be counted on one hand, including Ma Fu, Ma Gui's second brother, who died young.
Chatterji's prestige among the Great Khan's escorts was unrivaled by anyone except Anda himself. With Gao Pragmatic, the all-powerful imperial envoy, and the justly named Regent Zhongjin Hatun endorsing him, there was no problem in commanding this army. , the so-called "no unified command" is completely nonsense.
And this is just the first dish. In addition, they also have two supporting armies.
The reinforcements along the way were a cavalry group that followed them fifty miles forward, totaling 12,000 people. The leader was Ma Gui's nephew and the commander-in-chief of Dushi Fort, Ma Chengxun. The main cavalry force left by Ma Fang.
This cavalry was built under Ma Fang's idea of "using cavalry to control cavalry". Except for the part that was abolished after Ma Fang became an official (the Ming army made the west Huaidong system, it was believed that the Xuanda front line did not need as many cavalry as when Ma Fang was there. After the abolition, the reinforcements were assigned to Li Chengliang), and now they are basically transferred to Ma Chengxun to fight this battle.
Another line of reinforcements quietly set out from Zhangjiakou, commanded by Zhang Bingzhong, the commander of Shun Sheng Weiguang who was stationed at Xuanfu South Road. This was also an acquaintance. Gao Pingzhen had known him in the past when he was discussing military affairs in Datong before I paid tribute. He was especially impressed by his son Zhang Wanbang.
The number of Zhang Shenjiang's troops is not large, only 6,000, but they have a trump card - the first batch of Wanli Type 1 bayonet style muskets that were just sent to Xuanda not long ago, because their troops want to support Monan. battle, so he got a full facelift.
Although I have only practiced bayonet for half a month, the training effect is pretty good because the essentials of bayonet written by Qi Jiguang are distributed with the gun.
As mentioned before, Qi Jiguang had long known the style of bayonet-style muskets from Gao Pingshi, so he studied the usage of bayonets in military formations early and wrote "The Essentials of Bayonets". The essence of the bayonet is consistent with Qi Jiguang's usual training ideas. The moves are very simple. There are less than ten moves in total, and there are only five moves when facing the enemy head-on, so it is not difficult to practice.
This route army set off early and quietly walked along the border of the Ming Dynasty, intending to suddenly appear at the meeting point of Tumen and Qataiji and test the "step to defeat the cavalry" tactic.
At midnight, Tumen Khan "quietly" broke out of camp and marched towards the expected weak enemy "Tumut East Road Rebels"...
