Breaking through the long-range fire blockade and approaching the bayonet array, a bloody battle immediately began.
Different from the Mo Dao soldiers, who used their footwork to control the cavalry in the Tang Dynasty, although the bayonet array could also "attack like a wall", it obviously would not be as overbearing as "the enemy would be destroyed, both men and horses would be crushed". The use of the bayonet is not for chopping, but almost exclusively for "stabbing".
But to be honest, although Datang Mo's swordsmen are powerful, they have two serious flaws. The first is that the manufacturing of Mo Dao itself was too "high-precision" at the time. Not only was the output extremely low, but it was also expensive and difficult to equip in large quantities. The second was that the selection of Mo Dao soldiers was also extremely stringent. To say that one in a hundred is the best is putting it mildly. In fact, it may be necessary to select one from a thousand, because Mo Dao soldiers not only need amazing courage, but also need to be extremely strong - weak strength will definitely not be able to break the "man and horse and equipment" effect.
It is precisely because of these two problems that there was no more Mo Dao after the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and Mo Dao soldiers gradually became a legend.
Bayonets do not have such troubles. Although the manufacturing of bayonets is also "high-precision", currently Jinghua can satisfy it, but the use of bayonets is far simpler than that of Mo Dao. The requirements for people are much lower. As long as a person is Qualified soldiers can use it.
However, the bayonet itself is not a very professional cold weapon. It is actually a supporting weapon. Its main function is to make up for the lack of melee combat capabilities of the musketeers.
To a certain extent, it is a modified product of the three-eyed gun, all designed to allow soldiers to project long-range firepower as well as engage in close combat. From the perspective of its cold weapon properties against cavalry, the bayonet formation is actually inferior to the spear formation.
What was the most practical and cost-effective melee weapon in the classical period? There is basically no dispute about this, it is a spear! It's not any other fancy cold weapon, it's just a simple spear. This long-handled cold weapon for assassination, represented by the spear, is called the "king of a hundred weapons."
They are all long-handled weapons. There are differences between spears and ordinary weapons such as spears, spears, and beryllium. Although it is said that the difference between these weapons is due to differences in shape. For example, the difference between spears and guns is the style of the head. The differences between spears and berylliums are in the way the handles are attached, but the most obvious difference between spears and berylliums is in length.
In fact, the spear is better called a spear. The length of a general spear is one to two feet, that is, three to six meters long (however, according to Ichikawa Sadaharu's "Weapon Code", the spear in Chinese history is The longest length of a pole weapon is 5.6 meters, and the longest length of a spear is 8 meters. After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, spears and guns were collectively called spears without distinction).
This length may exceed the imagination of many people. After all, cold weapons up to 6 meters long may not be common in movies and TV series. Is such a long weapon easy to operate?
Don’t even think about it, of course it’s inconvenient. With a 6-meter long gun, you don't have to think about any fancy moves, such as doing a gun dance or something like that. That's just a dream. The way to use this weapon is basically one move, thrusting forward - that's right. , just one move: stab!
Does this trick work? Of course it works!
Even primitive people can recognize the powerful lethality that can be produced by stabbing with cutting-edge weapons. It is precisely for this reason that humans have long invented cold stabbing weapons such as spears (wood or bamboo sharpened). To be honest, melee cold weapons can be roughly divided into three types. One is swords, which use blades to kill; second, spears, which use pointed tips to stab; and third, blunt weapons such as hammers.
Among these weapons, the only one that can be very long is the spear. If the other two are too long, they will basically have no maneuverability, and their lethality will decrease instead of increasing.
Is it useful? Of course it is useful, as the old saying goes: An inch long is an inch strong. The longer the weapon, the greater its range of attack, and this is the case with spears. First of all, the spear is very long, so the attack range is large.
Secondly, the lethality is also very strong. Although it only has a stabbing move, this move is the most lethal move. If you want to hit enemy soldiers with armor defense, stabbing is the most effective. Swords, a weapon that uses chopping as its attack method, encounter extremely high resistance when breaking through armor, and are at an absolute disadvantage against heavily armored enemies. Of course, blunt weapons can also "break armor", but that will face the same problem as the selection of Mo Dao soldiers. You must first have such strongman-level soldiers.
Whether in the ancient East or the West, spears were very popular cold weapons. In the famous phalanxes in the West, the absolute main force among cold weapons was spears. Spearmen were definitely the most effective arms in ancient times. .
Long-handled weapons entered the battlefield. In addition to being used by chariots and cavalry, they were also widely used by infantry. The spearmen in the square formation followed the shield infantry and used the gap between the shields to thrust.
In addition to using firearms and crossbows, the infantry fought against the cavalry by arranging a tight line and stabbing with dense spears. This was almost the only effective way.
Roughly speaking, in this era of alternating hot and cold weapons, famous armies such as the Great White Pole Soldiers, Swiss Spearmen, and Spanish Grand Formation in history all rely on spears to deal with cavalry. Among them, the Spanish Grand Phalanx also relies on spears. The soldiers protect the musketeers, which is very close to Gaowu Shi's current concept.
The practicality of spears is very strong. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties of China, classical long weapons such as halberds and Ges were basically eliminated. The only long weapons used by army soldiers on a large scale gradually were spears and spears. The same is true in Europe. Since the 14th century, infantrymen have used spears and axes (a cold weapon unique to the Swiss, a combination of a spear and an axe, generally translated as "Swiss halberd" in China), which led to the decline of feudal knights. (Cheap and restrain expensive, expensive ones will inevitably show a trend of decline.)
When hot and cold weapons alternated, musketeers and spearmen were usually used together. At that time, there were already musketeers using matchlocks. Because the muskets fired single shots, they were easily vulnerable to enemy infantry and spearmen between shots. In a cavalry assault, the musketeers who only use their rifle butts as blunt weapons for self-defense are too weak when the enemy attacks. Therefore, the musketeers at that time were often protected by spearmen holding long spears. This was the true core of the Spanish Grand Square.
It was not until the invention of the bayonet that this situation changed. With the bayonet, the musketeers also had powerful melee capabilities and could fight against the enemy's cavalry and infantry alone in close combat. Therefore, some countries began to formulate troops with all musketeers, which greatly increased their combat effectiveness.
Regarding the bayonet, the earliest documented record in China is the blunderbuss knife in He Rubin's "Bing Lu" in 1606. In the West, it first appeared in a peasant dispute in Bayonne, France in the 17th century. At that time, farmers inserted knives into the muzzles of rifles to attack enemies. In the 18th century, the socket bayonet appeared, which was a type that protruded from the right side of the musket barrel. This was because the muskets at that time were front-loading and would not interfere with loading ammunition.
The muskets currently produced by Jinghua are still front-loaded, but they are flint front-loaded and equipped with a paper shell fixed charge. Therefore, the bayonet produced by Gao Pragmatic is also a socket-type bayonet. It uses the stabbing attack of the spear instead of the blunt attack of the three-eyed gun, and combines it with the three-stage attack of the musket to form an alternative Spanish grand square.
The advantage is that the weapons and equipment are more unified, which facilitates logistics support and training. It is in line with the pragmatic and consistent simplified logistics ideas and doubles the efficiency of cultivating individual combat capabilities. The disadvantage is that at the moment when it truly resists the cavalry charging into the formation, its combat effectiveness is reduced. They are inferior to spearmen.
However, when the impact of the charging cavalry is exhausted and the two sides begin to fall into a melee, the bayonet with a more reasonable length is more useful than the spearman.
In short, the biggest feature of the bayonet is that it can be used at both distance and near, and its power is not weak. In other words, it is actually a universal panacea that can do any job.
The 800 Mongolian heavy cavalry who suffered heavy casualties and finally rushed to the bayonet formation, in accordance with Burihatu's pre-battle requirements, suddenly took out a hood and stepped forward when their horses were about 20 steps away from the bayonet formation. Lean, extend your left arm, and put the hood on the horse's head.
This group of elite heavy cavalry overcame the problem of loud noises by using superb equestrian skills to forcibly control the horses. However, the habit of war horses automatically avoiding "bright and sharp" objects was difficult to overcome with equestrian skills, so they temporarily prepared cloth hoods.
Well-trained and excellent cavalry horses can move regardless of sight for a short period of time and rely entirely on the knight's command. Due to economic reasons, the Mongols' heavy cavalry is decreasing day by day, but to another extent, this makes the riders who can be selected into the heavy cavalry more elite and their equestrian skills even better. They obviously have such abilities.
Zhang Wanbang's originally calm face became a little ugly at this time, but he was not afraid. He just took a deep breath, drew his sword and cursed: "Two thousand heavy cavalry for two thousand infantry? Is this old boy Tumen afraid?" I don’t understand arithmetic!” Then he raised his sword and roared: “Brothers, we can’t lose in this battle, we will be granted the title of wife Yinzi today—fuck you!”
This group of people in the bayonet array, whether they were servants or guardsmen, were all greatly defeated by the Mongolian cavalry. They were really high-spirited. In such a situation, no one was timid to fight, and they roared and promised loudly: "Fuck you! "
It was said that it was too late, but soon, the cavalry has arrived. Although the Mongolian heavy cavalry did not use long soldiers and lances, although their charge was not as fierce as that of Western knights, the impact of their horses was still there.
Although the first batch of war horses that collided with the bayonet formation almost stumbled and fell to the ground without exception, the huge inertia caused their bodies to roll forward, and even knocked away two or three levels of bayonet rows. The knights on the horse had already expected to do so. Perform a vault roll and then get up to fight.
Vaulting and rolling is an extremely dangerous action, especially for knights wearing heavy armor. Fortunately, the so-called heavy armor of the Mongols is not the full-body armor like in Europe, but leather armor with iron plates on the outside, which can still ensure people's movement. ability. However, the difficulty of vaulting and tumbling on the battlefield is even greater. Only half of the knights who vaulted and tumbled on the wide front stood up alive.
But this wave of impact did have a huge effect, that is, the Mongols suddenly discovered that the bayonet array itself did not have outstanding defensive capabilities against heavy cavalry! Although the first wave of heavy cavalry on the wide front lost almost all their horses, there were only about three hundred people on this front.
In other words, it does not require a particularly strong force to attack the bayonet array blindfolded at close range. The real reason why the Mongolian cavalry was defeated in the previous two wars was that the musketeers and artillery behind the bayonet array were too powerful. The Mongolian cavalry could not even wait to rush to the front of the array before they were already exhausted and lost. The most critical aspect of charging is concentrated impact.
The murderous intent of the Mongolian cavalry then skyrocketed. Whether it was the fallen cavalry who got up to fight again, or the mounted cavalry who rushed into the formation from behind, they all slashed with their swords, intending to kill to vent their anger.
Tumen in the distance also became excited. He raised a monocular that was obviously low-level equipment of the Ming army and was overjoyed. When he saw that the formation was broken, he laughed and patted Burihatu on the shoulder. , said loudly: "Okay, okay, Burihatu, you really have a trick! This bayonet array is so famous, but it turns out to be just a silver-like wax-tipped gun. Just withstand their firearms, rush to the front of the array, and then immediately cover the horses. Eyes, this bayonet array can't stop my Mongolian cavalry at all!"
The surrounding Mongolian generals also laughed and celebrated with each other. The entire Mongolian army rear area was filled with joy, waiting for the light cavalry who continued to charge forward to massacre Zhang Wanbang who had "broken the defense".
Unfortunately, their celebration may have been a little too early. Burihatu, the only one who remained reserved, soon discovered something strange - after the Ming army's bayonet array broke through, the Mongolian heavy cavalry was not able to crush the Ming army infantry. The two armies were fighting in a strange way. together.
Tumen and others reacted a little late. They didn't react until they noticed that Burihatu's expression was still serious. They all looked at the position of Zhang Wanbang's department and realized that something was wrong.
Although the bayonet array of the Ming army was broken, it did not collapse. Instead, even the musketeers turned into bayonet soldiers and began to work together in a small team formation of about ten to encircle and suppress the Mongolian heavy cavalry who were accustomed to fighting alone.
That's right, it's an encirclement and suppression!
Burihatu was the first to call out: "No, this is... the little mandarin duck formation?"
He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't entirely right either. Zhang Wanbang's style of play does come from the "little mandarin duck formation", but Gao Pragmatic has privately called the two types of small mandarin duck formations with more than a dozen people and dozens of people "squad tactics".
This is a tactic that was developed in later generations with an infantry squad or an infantry platoon trained together in small formations. It does not conflict with the large formations of the current era. It just forms many small groups on the battlefield. Conduct combat.
This tactic is too complicated to describe in detail. To put it simply, it is to form a strength advantage in various local battlefields, always maintain one's own strength to fight with more and less, and to encircle and suppress the enemy forces fighting independently as quickly as possible, and finally accumulate small victories into big victories. .
Although the Mongolian heavy cavalry were elite, no matter how elite they were, they could not defeat ten of them. Moreover, they were scimitar cavalry, not spear cavalry. After their impact faded, they also needed to get close to the Ming army to complete the killing. The Ming army used a bayonet. The gun stock and the body of the gun plus the bayonet were much longer than the scimitar. They could cause damage to the Mongolian cavalry earlier. It did not necessarily have to stab people. It was equally effective to stab horses, because even if the horse armor It can protect against arrows and even hacks to a certain extent, but it obviously cannot protect against sharp bayonets.
The Mongolian cavalry, who thought they would be overwhelming, did not expect that after breaking the "myth of bayonet array", what awaited them was not victory, but a more difficult and even less advantageous fight.
Outside the battlefield, the commanders of the two armies, Tumen and Cao Yu, gasped at the same time.
However, their feelings of wonder and shock must be completely different.
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