Both the Ming and Mongolian sides claimed to have achieved a great victory at Yehe River, but whether it was a great victory or not depends on the strategic goals of both sides. To a certain extent, both sides' strategic goals were indeed achieved.
The purpose of the Ming army's dispatch of troops this time was to save Yehe and stabilize Beiguan. This purpose was obviously achieved after the victory at Yehehe. After the main force of the Mongolian army retreated, when Cao Yu led his troops to Xicheng, hundreds of Mongolian defenders in Xicheng were retreating, and Cao Yu successfully took over Xicheng.
The purpose of the Mongolian army's eastward invasion was relatively more complicated. In other words, their purpose was very flexible from the beginning and could be divided into several levels. Of course, directly seizing Beiguan was the best goal, but when the Ming army directly sent 20,000 elite troops, Burihatu knew that this goal would be difficult to achieve.
Even so, Burihatu is not in a hurry. He can also disrupt Liaodong and use the chaos in Beiguan to stir up internal competition among the Jurchens to distract Ming Dynasty. As for what role Mongolia plays in this, it is naturally the fisherman, and he is a very active fisherman. If both the snipe and the clam want to stop, Mongolia will add fuel to the fire. In this way, Ming Dynasty will have to take action sooner or later.
Taking action would mean a waste of power. Regardless of manpower, material resources, financial resources or time, Ming had to pay something. This would relieve the pressure and delay time for Mongolia.
Therefore, according to this idea, the Mongols actually could have avoided even the Battle of Yehe River. However, Burihatu always felt that since Gao Pragmatic fought the Battle of Monan, the strategic situation of the Ming and Mongolia had been reversed. It used to be that the Mongols took the initiative to continue harassing the border and the Ming Dynasty passively defended, but now the Ming Dynasty began to cultivate its energy. He gathered strength and formulated the national policy of "Eastern Control" with the intention of conquering Mongolia in one fell swoop.
This kind of offensive and defensive reversal happened to the Ming Dynasty, which had been founded for more than 200 years, and Burihatu could not tolerate it. Even if the Ming army occasionally engaged in burning wasteland in the past, it was just to set fire to the fortress and then leave. How long did it dare to set the goal of destroying Mongolia?
Therefore, Burihatu has a strong sense of crisis. He is keenly aware that the changes in the Ming Dynasty come from Gao Pragmatism. The improvement of the Ming army's combat effectiveness in recent years, regardless of tactics and armaments, is closely related to Gao Pragmatism. Not to mention that he himself has He became the "best literary commander in the world" in the Ming Dynasty.
What the enemy agrees with is what we oppose, and what the enemy wants to insist on is what we want to defeat. The Ming army wanted to recharge its batteries, and Burihatu wanted to make the Ming Dynasty uneasy. All the plans were ultimately for this purpose.
When Ye He's strength has been hit, when Hada's weakness is exposed to everyone, when Nurhaci's greed is noticed by everyone...Burihatu's strategy has actually been completed for the most part.
But this time, Burihatu was reluctant to stop immediately. The reason was that he found that the Ming army's fighting will had exceeded his original estimate and had to be restrained.
Where did this come from? It was discovered from the Ming army's unyielding performance when they encountered Ye Hedong City.
In the past, the Ming army rarely took the initiative to engage in a decisive field battle with the main force of the Mongolian cavalry, but this time Cao Yu made a move to forcefully attack the main force of the Mongolian army under Yehedong City. This meant that the Ming army ——At least the elite of the Ming army are completely unafraid of the main Mongolian force and are confident that they can fight decisively with the main Mongolian army in the field.
Such confidence is what the Mongols are most worried about. The Ming Dynasty is crushing Mongolia in all aspects of manpower, material and financial resources. Once its millions of troops no longer fear the Mongolian cavalry and dare to engage in head-on combat with the Mongolian cavalry, what will happen to Mongolia in the future? Peace of mind?
As for the source of this confidence, after thinking about it, Brihattus felt that the most likely possibility was that Gao Pragmatic's three major victories were all based on footwork.
Although the reason why Gao Pragmatic's three victories are remarkable is that his plans always put the Mongolian cavalry into the dilemma of having to fight with them, and he was able to form a local advantage, or encircle or ambush, so the results were amazing. But Burihatu had to ask, why couldn't the Ming army do this before Gao Pragmatism?
The reason is not complicated. Even if you let the Ming army surround the Mongolian cavalry, you couldn't really block it. As long as the Mongols really faced a desperate situation, they would just charge out.
Only when Gao Jingshi took charge of the army, the Ming army not only saw a significant increase in firepower, but also came up with a set of methods specifically designed to deal with cavalry, which is the so-called bayonet array.
The term "bayonet formation" itself comes from the Ming Dynasty itself. This extremely deceptive name even Burihatu was fooled into thinking that the key to the Ming army's foot control and cavalry was the bayonet itself. At that time, Burihatu also couldn't understand. What the bayonet could do, spearmen in the past could also do or even do better. Why did the Ming army abandon the spear formation and use the bayonet formation?
Many years ago, Burihatu believed that the number of spearmen in the Ming army was declining because the Ming army did not dare to fight hand-to-hand. They were so cowardly that they only dared to shoot with blunderbuss and other firearms from a distance. Once the Mongolian cavalry rushes towards them, they will immediately disperse. Any formation will collapse for thousands of miles. Only a few elite troops can establish a strong formation and fight a tough battle.
However, there are always too few elites in some cases, such as the Qi Jiajun, Ma Jiajun, Li Jiajun, Ma Jiajun and other old rivals of the Mongols. Except for Li Chengliang's Li Jiajun, none of them can exceed tens of thousands. With this small amount of troops, the emergency situation is not enough, but it will be difficult to turn the tide. Therefore, it is naturally impossible for the Ming army to achieve any real victory at this time.
After the Gengshu Revolution, the first war that the Ming Dynasty achieved that could truly be called a great victory was the Battle of Monan that Burihatu personally witnessed.
Gao Pragmatic also began to be regarded as a "Wen Shuai" after this war - although the Annan War was also very large-scale, it was impossible for mainstream people in the Ming Dynasty to regard Annan as an opponent of Mongolia's level, so the Annan War was The internal quality of the Ming Dynasty is slightly lacking.
In this battle in Monan, Gao Pragmatic's performance was perfect, but as some people within the Ming Dynasty also noticed, Burihatu also knew that the real main force in this battle was Tumut rather than the Ming Dynasty itself. Gao Pragmatic actually used superb political means to use the powerful Tumut cavalry to crown him victorious.
Even if ordinary people discover this, they will only think that Gao's pragmatic methods are great and can "use barbarians to control barbarians", but Burihatu discovered another important point.
It's not that Gao Pragmatic insisted on showing superb political methods, but he clearly understood that the Ming army could not win the Battle of Monan with its own strength at that time!
Without a hearty victory, the vast majority of the Ming army, which could not be said to be elite, simply did not have the courage to stand alone against tens of thousands of Mongolian cavalry. If they really wanted to force them to the grasslands and fight with the Mongolian cavalry in a decisive battle, they would be burned unless they were defeated. It's so fragrant, let alone a great victory?
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic carefully selected and designed the "bayonet formation" at a location that was both important and not particularly grand. This led to Zhang Wanbang and his son's victory over Xin Ai in the battle.
This battle, therefore, unsurprisingly became the focus of the Ming army's propaganda - all other battles were fought by Tumote, and it is not convenient to brag about it.
Since then, the "bayonet array" has become famous and has become the trump card of the Ming Dynasty to control cavalry with foot. Everyone in the Ming Dynasty believed that the magical power of the bayonet array could contain or even kill the fierce power of the Mongolian cavalry for many years.
At this time, the Ming Dynasty was like the European powers of the twentieth century, possessing the right to speak. The Ming Dynasty promoted it so vigorously, and not long after there was another battle in southern Liaoning, even the Mongols themselves believed Gao Pragmatic, thinking that the bayonet formation was indeed extremely powerful. The Mongolian cavalry encountered the most powerful force in history. opponent.
Then came the Northwest Rebellion. Boshu Ketu, a daredevil, was not a pragmatic opponent of Gao. He was so calculated by Gao that he crashed into the encirclement and was tricked by the bayonet array - this is According to Ming Dynasty, Burihatu has now guessed that the real meritorious service in that siege battle was definitely not the bayonet, but the firearm.
After three major victories, the bayonet array became famous far and wide, and the Mongols changed their colors when they heard about it. Although Cao Yu had never commanded a bayonet formation, he had a bayonet formation available under his command, so he was not afraid of fighting with the Mongolian cavalry in the field, and he prepared to repel the Mongols under the Dongcheng City.
Although Burihatu had doubts about the power of the bayonet array, he was unwilling to fight under the Dongcheng City because the Ming army also had many elite cavalry at that time, and the Yehe cavalry in the Dongcheng City could also go out to fight at any time. The battlefield was chosen here. The Mongol army was at a disadvantage. Once the offensive bayonet array gets into trouble and the Ming cavalry and Yehe cavalry launch an offensive from the flanks, the Mongols may suffer another major defeat.
Therefore, Burihatu chose to retreat directly to avoid fighting. But Burihatu was definitely not willing to retreat. He had to find a way to personally test the depth of the bayonet formation. Otherwise, how could he make a correct decision when dealing with the Ming army in the future?
Whether it was to move Ma Chengxun away from the mountain, or to choose Zhang Wanbang's troops on the southern front instead of attacking the weak enemy on the northern front, these were all special arrangements made by Burihatu to "test" the quality of the bayonet array.
Are there any problems with Cao Yan and Gao Yimin's tactics? Actually no. They just never expected that under Burihatu's series of methods, the purpose was not to defend the West City, nor was it even to severely damage or defeat the Ming army. Burihatu just wanted to try the true power of the bayonet array and understand its tactical characteristics so that he could have a basis to think about how to crack it.
As for Burihatu’s repeated talk of breaking the myth of the bayonet array, it is actually nothing more than wartime propaganda. Of course it's best if it can be broken, but it's actually within his acceptance range if it can't be broken.
The outcome of this battle is still acceptable to Burihatu. Although nearly two thousand people died in the battle (the Ming army beheaded more than 1,600 people, and most of the remaining people died of their injuries after being rescued), and the elite heavy cavalry suffered heavy losses, Burihatu still believed that this battle was very important. value.
No matter how great the loss is, can it be greater than Monan? In the Battle of Monan, Chahar's main force alone suffered tens of thousands of losses, but this time it was less than two thousand. What's the big deal? Compared with the harvest, Burihatu is completely satisfied, and it is enough to give an explanation to Tumen.
After listening to the detailed battle report and Burihatu's analysis and explanation, Tumen also felt that although the loss of these two thousand people was not small, it was completely worth it. At least he now understood that the really powerful part of the bayonet array was not it. It can restrain the cavalry in itself, but it can combine the hot and cold weapons of the Ming army to form a new tactical system.
Different from this tactical system, which closely cooperated with the various weapons of the Ming army in the past - this was the magic weapon of the Qi family army - the bayonet array was characterized by doing the opposite, and it appeared to simplify combat.
According to the past tactics of the Qi family army, including the Yuanyang Formation, the characteristics were "each has its own division", that is, the fire gunman was only responsible for firing the gun, the wolf gunman was only responsible for blocking the enemy, etc.
Is this tactic effective? Of course it works, otherwise Qi Jiguang's victorious victory in every battle is because he cheated?
But the problem is that once a certain part is missing, the mandarin duck formation will be somewhat incomplete and its effectiveness will be greatly reduced. This is one of the reasons why Qi Jiguang always insists on fighting with few or even zero casualties. It's not that his thinking has advanced to the 21st century, it's that he knows that casualties have a great impact on his tactical system.
Gao Pragmatic's thinking seems to be completely different. He first strongly emphasized the use of firearms. The proportion of musketeers increased day by day under Gao Pragmatic's insistence, so much so that the subordinates of Gao Pragmatic's direct generals like Zhang Wanbang were even completely firearms- -In addition to artillery, the combat troops are musketeers. The only one who fights with pure cold weapons is Zhang Wanbang himself.
Everyone knows that musketeers cannot fight in close combat. Does Gao Pragmatic do this to give up on close combat? No, he came up with bayonets and worked hard to support the bayonet array, deliberately allowing his three major victories to be attributed to the bayonet array.
Why is this so? Burihatu now understands: No matter how powerful the firearm is, it cannot represent the blood bravery of the Ming army, and blood bravery will always be the soul of an army.
The Mongols looked down upon the Ming army that did not dare to fight hand-to-hand. But once the Ming army dared to fight hand-to-hand, the Mongols, including Burihatu himself, immediately felt a huge threat.
This is the transformation brought about by blood bravery.
Gao pragmatic did not promote how powerful his cannons were, nor how powerful his muskets were, but he promoted his bayonet array. The reason was that he wanted to use this to arouse the bloody courage of the Ming army, so that the Ming army dared to fight hand-to-hand and dare to face any strong force. enemy.
As long as his goal is achieved, the Ming army will become a force integrating long-range and close combat. If any army wanted to fight the Ming army, it would have to be hit by cannons from a long distance, then by muskets, and finally by bayonets. Just think about how terrible this difficulty is.
The most shocking thing about Burihatu is that such an army that combines long-range attack and close combat has actually existed before, that is, the Mongolian army after conquering Central Asia!
There are returning cannons in the distance, horse bows in the middle, and scimitars near!
The Mongol army at that time is now long dead. Even if they are still there, Burihatu knows that he cannot deal with the army that Gao pragmatically hopes to build.
In terms of distance, Jinghua's artillery has no rival in northern Xinjiang; in terms of distance, the effective killing distance of muskets has exceeded that of bows and arrows, and its power is much greater; in terms of close combat, the scimitar has lost the charge kinetic energy of the horse and is no longer as powerful as the bayonet. excellent.
Tumen looked at Burihatu who looked worried, hesitated again and again, and couldn't help asking: "Is there any solution?"
Burihatu slowly came back to his senses and shook his head slightly: "Not yet." Then he seemed unable to bear to look at the disappointed eyes of the great Khan, sighed, and added: "Let's see if the things left in Xicheng can be recovered. It worked.”
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