When Shuerhaqi's troops with black flags appeared near the Ming army camp, the entire Ming army pointed at this poor army. They also laughed at Shuerhaqi himself, who was the only one wearing full armor. Commenting with a smile.
Shuerhaqi knew what they were laughing at. He felt a little aggrieved, but he could not admit that in front of the current Ming army, his subordinates were indeed only being laughed at.
Not only did all members of this 20,000-strong Ming army wear armor, but half of them were servants, all wearing "cold iron armor" made of "fine steel." This armor is a type of armor made by the Shenyang Branch of Wang's Arsenal. The main material used is leather and iron sheets. The iron sheets are specially provided by Jinghua Iron and Steel Works. It is called "fine steel" to the outside world, but it is actually a Plant gray cast iron.
Generally speaking, it is difficult to miniaturize gray cast iron in this era, but Jinghua can now do it. Therefore, small pieces of gray cast iron have become one of the special products of the Ming Dynasty army and are often used as armor and other items.
The main reason why gray cast iron is chosen as the main material of the armor is that it is relatively low-cost, can be produced in large quantities, and has good wear resistance and plasticity.
As for the hardness, it is of course not as good as real steel. However, Jinghua’s real steel production is also limited and cannot be used to equip ordinary soldiers, including servants. Of course, the more important thing is that the Ming army does not have the financial strength.
But even the armor with gray cast iron on the outside is completely sufficient in this era. After all, firearms are a major trend. The main function of armor is actually to protect against bows and arrows. When encountering strong blows with blunt weapons or the Ming army's own muskets such as Wanli Type 1 and Wanli Type 2, in fact, no armor has much meaning. It can penetrate equally within its killing range.
As for artillery, not to mention, even though Jinghua has still not been able to produce real explosive shells for so many years, the lethality of solid shells... is like the description of the golden cudgel in Journey to the West. It hurts when it is rubbed and touched. Just die, how can we talk about defense.
Another feature of these gray cast iron armors is their color. Gray cast iron, as the name suggests, is darker gray, so that these armors look like the legendary "cold iron armor" from a distance.
When a large group of soldiers wearing this kind of armor gather together, they will give people a strong sense of oppression, like a black wave, making people uncontrollably feel an unmatched fear.
In addition to the 10,000 servants wearing "cold iron treasure armor", the remaining Ming army was no ordinary beggar soldiers. They also wore complete cotton armor.
We can’t just take the name literally here, especially don’t think that cotton armor “just sounds like garbage”. In fact, as an exotic cash crop, cotton was introduced to China in the Song Dynasty. However, it was limited by textile technology and was not popular among the people at first. At the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, Huang Daopo improved the spinning wheel, and the cotton textile industry began to rise, and cotton armor was born in response to the situation.
After Jinghua developed a copycat but enhanced version of the Jenny spinning machine, the level and even quality of cotton armor actually improved a lot.
Before being "improved", cotton armor already had the characteristics of being light and warm, cost-effective, thick, and resistant. It had good defense against early gunpowder projectiles and was widely used in the Yuan and Ming dynasties.
At this time, the cotton armor was mostly made of seven kilograms of cotton. It was sewn with cloth like a jacket, and the arms were pressed firmly with feet to ensure that it was not fat and swollen, and then dried in the sun for use. As for the characteristics of this kind of armor, it is "not heavy in rain, not rotten by mildew, and not seriously damaged by bullets."
After Jinghua improved the equipment, it is no longer necessary to "kick it firmly" to make cotton armor. Instead, it is pressed by a machine. The quality is better and more stable. The only "shortcoming" is that in the past, seven kilograms of cotton were used to make cotton armor. Now, The weight was increased to eight and a half kilograms, and of course the price went up a bit.
The cotton armor is "sewn with cloth". In the past, the cloth was relatively ordinary, but now it has improved, and it is sewn with canvas specially supplied by Jinghua Shipyard - to a certain extent, the remaining 10,000 Ming The army has already put on the "denim armor" in advance, but the color is not dyed blue due to cost issues, and it is still a primary color close to white.
Black and white, this is the feeling of this Ming army.
Shuerhaqi's headquarters said there were five hundred, but in fact there were nearly six hundred, counted as two Niulu, which was his personal soldier headquarters. Nurhachi began to build an army in the twelfth year of Wanli. According to his clan's tradition, the black flag was used as the banner.
After defeating Nikan Wailan, Nurhachi reorganized a little. Although he certainly hadn't created the Eight Banners yet, he also created the "Niu Lu" according to the fierce restraint of the Jurchens in the early days, with three hundred people per Niu Lu, directly Belongs to him and Shuerhaqi.
Shuerhaqi usually has the command of seven Niulu, two of which are his personal soldiers, which is the one he brought today.
In fact, these two Niulu were basically equipped with cotton armor before, and the armor wearing rate has reached 70%. However, Nurhachi refused to "show strength" in front of the Ming army. He wanted to "show weakness", so Shuerhaqi took away their cotton armor before coming here, and only he wore one pair.
Such a shabby appearance really made the Ming army laugh at him, but Shuerhaqi knew that his elder brother's goal had been achieved, and although he was a little unhappy, he was also a little relieved.
After the two Niu Lu were placed in the corner of the military camp, Shuerhaqi was invited into the big tent. According to Nurhachi's instructions, he respectfully met the Ming army coach Cao Yu, Ma Chengxun, and Qi Jin. , Zhang Wanbang, Pu Yuanyi, Cao Jian and others also explained the reason for Jianzhou's dispatch of troops based on their "collusion" beforehand.
These nonsense are meaningless. Cao Yun is fully aware of Nurhachi's intention after reading Gao Pragmatic's letter, but since Gao Situ does not intend to touch them now, Cao Yun will not be embarrassed.
"I know very well what your two brothers mean, so you don't need to explain this." Cao Yu said calmly: "You are willing to come and serve in my army in person, which shows your respect. I still appreciate it very much. Come here. , reward Shuerhaqi with a set of cold iron armor."
Shulhaqi was surprised and happy. He quickly stepped forward, thanked him profusely, and said a lot of flattery. These "cold iron armors" are not only valuable, but the key is that they are priceless but have no market. Everyone knows that Jurchens cannot be made by man, so once someone wears it, it will lead to an investigation by the Ming army. As a result, it will become a good product that cannot be bought with money.
But it was different when Cao Yan gave him a pair. It was reasonable and legal, and it would be even more honorable to wear it back - even my elder brother didn't have it!
Just such a pair of treasure armor made Shuerhaqi feel that this trip was worth it, and that he had spent a long time fighting in front of his elder brother.
Cao Yu was very satisfied with Shuerhaqi's performance, showed a smile, looked at him kindly and said: "Since you know how to be loyal and obedient, you have worked very hard here, and the troops in this battle are huge, and I don't think I can use them." You, then you can just follow me and watch, it can be regarded as my care for you."
When Shulhaqi heard this, he was even more overjoyed and thanked him again and again.
Originally, Nurhachi sent him here this time with impure intentions. One is to let his most trusted brother see what the Ming army's attitude is towards them, and the other is to show loyalty and buy peace by sending troops.
Nurhachi did not expect that Cao Yan would take care of Shuerhaqi like this. He accepted the cotton armors of Shuerhaqi's two personal guards Niulu because he did not want to lose too much material. At this time, he was away from "Thirteen Armors" Not long after "raising troops", Nurhachi was very short of military supplies and was very cautious in using them.
As for whether the lack of cotton armor will lead to defeat, which will also lead to heavy losses, Nurhaci also cares about this: the Mongols are mainly good at shooting. They usually do not engage in charge formations in front of the Ming army, and arrows The injuries are generally not fatal.
Nurhachi believes that the Jianzhou warriors are very strong, and now that it is winter, the chance of death from fever (actually infection) is very low. Besides, once you are injured, you can easily retreat, so even if you see some blood, not many people may die.
This little abacus was calculated very shrewdly, but who knew it didn't work. Cao Yu's style of sending troops this time was very different from Li Chengliang's. He actually did not treat his servants as cannon fodder, but instead protected them. It was really strange.
But Shuerhaqi didn't know that this was actually not Cao Yun's idea, but Gao Yimin's suggestion.
The reason why Gao Yimin made such a suggestion was that he had been interviewed by Gao Pragmatic before coming to Liaodong, and had been given advice by Gao Pragmatic.
One of the "advantages" is "treat Nurhachi and Shuerhaqi separately."
According to Gao Pragmatically, no matter how much brothers Nurhachi and Shuerhaqi behave now, they are still two people. As long as the Ming Dynasty is always better to Shuerhaqi, at the critical moment, Shuerhaqi will There will definitely be a dissatisfaction with Nurhaci.
You know, although Nurhachi and Shuerhaqi have different priorities, Shuerhaqi is not much weaker than Nurhaci. This situation where the gap between strength and weakness is extremely small can easily change with some seemingly inconspicuous changes, not to mention that the strength of Ming's support is completely different? This is not an "inconspicuous change". In the long run, there will definitely be a rift between Shuerhaqi and Nurhachi.
Although Cao Yan didn't know the key, he didn't care about it. After all, the five hundred Jianzhou soldiers without armor were of little use in his eyes. There were not many with them, but there were not many without them.
So the army set off again and headed towards Gutuozi Mountain. This time they only walked more than twenty miles, and they reported that they had encountered Mongolian scouts without stopping at night. Those who stayed overnight said that these Mongolian scouts were "cowardly" and did not approach them when they saw them. Instead, they just drew their horses and left.
When Cao Yu heard this, he asked his generals what they thought about this.
Zhang Wanbang was the most direct, saying: "Commander, General Yimo, we don't care what they plan to do. The bare mountains on the left and right are not very suitable for cavalry deployment. The Mongols have no advantage over us. Let's just drive the army over. , If they feel that their teeth are good, then they can come and chew them. It will be the easiest thing to understand them once."
If anyone else said this, Cao Yan would probably scold him directly, but Zhang Wanbang was a little different. This guy's two biggest achievements were both using bayonet formations to challenge the Mongolian cavalry, and both of them were won by head-to-head and defeating the Mongolian cavalry's charge even though his own strength was far inferior to that of the Mongolian cavalry.
So although these words sound like big words, when they come from Zhang Wanbang's mouth, they are not easy to refute.
Although it is difficult to refute, Cao Yu knew that the bayonet array must be prepared first to defeat the cavalry charge. Now if we just drive the army over, what if we are ambushed again like we did in Chang'an Fort? It's hard to say whether the bayonet array can be successfully deployed.
Who knew that at this moment, besides Zhang Wanbang, who was "not afraid of death", Qi Jin also had a very tough style under his command. He said simply: "The general seconded the proposal."
Well, with two thousand Qi family troops in hand, Qi Jin is indeed not afraid of charging into the formation. The speed of Qi Jiajun's formation can basically be said to be unparalleled in the Ming Dynasty, and the Yuanyang formation has various variations of large and small formations. They are not even afraid of sneak attacks. Even if they are attacked, they can directly form small Yuanyang formations according to small formations. Against the enemy.
When Cao Yan saw something was wrong, he had no choice but to look at Ma Chengxun.
Ma Chengxun is the highest-ranking general here except Cao Yu himself. As the Kaiyuan general, he is indeed more "steady" than Zhang Wanbang and Qi Jin, so he said: "The final general thought... as long as he sent more detective horses , it doesn’t matter if the army marches in.”
Cao Yu was immediately stunned.
Okay, I brought a group of people to fight, and they all had the heart of a bear and the courage of a leopard?
After thinking about it, Cao Yan also discovered that Ma Chengxun's words even contained personal information: send more detective horses?
In the absence of Li Chengliang and Ma Dong, the most elite part of the Liaodong cavalry is probably the Ma family army who was born in Xuanda, not to mention Ma Chengxun also brought his Ma family elite soldiers.
Dabing are actually "Tatar soldiers", 70% of whom are Mongolians. Most of them are wandering knights who failed in the battles between small Mongolian tribes. If they want to survive, they can only rely on superb equestrian skills and fearless combat. in exchange. The rest are both Hui and Han, but they all have the same characteristics: excellent equestrian skills, outstanding martial arts, and fearlessness of death.
If you send more scouting horses, wouldn't that just give credit to the Ma family army?
It's really a bunch of militants who all ask the same question: I'll just do it!
Fortunately, Gao Yimin, who was Cao Yun's "staff" at this time, coughed lightly and interjected: "You generals are commendable for their bravery. The Ming Dynasty has such strong generals, why should we be afraid of mere Tumen? However, in this battle, our army will So the key to coming here is to protect Ye He and the Beiguan trade route. Therefore, no matter how we fight, we must first ensure that Ye He is not lost."
When Cao Yu heard this, he was overjoyed and said hurriedly: "Yes, yes, our first goal is to ensure that Ye He is not destroyed, and now Ye He has lost the west city, and only the east city is struggling to support it. In this way, our army still has to think of a way first Only after we have solved the siege of Dongcheng can we make other plans."
Zhang Wanbang smiled and said: "What's so difficult about this? Marshal, as the saying goes, 'One force can defeat ten guilds'. In this situation, we can rescue Ye He by attacking the East City, and we can also rescue Ye He by attacking the West City. That's it." Let’s see which side the commander wants to attack first.”
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Thanks to book friends "Cao Mianzi" and "Jie Xi" for their support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "CosifanTutte", "Xuanyouming", "milan123", "Lao Xi of Altay", and "Frost Treasure Vase" for their monthly support, thank you!
PS: Another month has passed before I know it. The temperature here has dropped sharply this week. It is known as "thirty minus twenty". Winter has entered directly, and the speed of typing has slowed down a lot because of cold hands. I'm just wondering, why is it so cold here but there's no heating?
