A 600,000-strong army was difficult to centrally command in ancient wars. Even if it was forcibly centralized, it would only lead to frequent catastrophic situations such as command failures. And from the perspective of material supplies, it would be a disaster within a disaster if supplies for a 600,000-strong army were piled up in the same place.
However, even though Gao Pragmatic divided the 600,000-strong army into four groups, his own group was still heavily armed. Even after 50,000 troops are allocated to cover the flanks, it is no joke for 150,000 troops to garrison Daning. This is also a considerable test for Daning City, which can only be rebuilt in a few years.
There were already some troops stationed in Daning City, but Gao Pragmatic brought only about 130,000 troops. From Xifengkou to Daning, this route was traveled by Cao Yun once in the autumn and winter last year. This time, Gao Pragmatic led the army and was also accompanied by Cao Yun. Of course, among the Chinese army, the "Prince Guard" was still flying high. Army Commander Qi's large banner.
Daning City has been making preparations to garrison an army since last year. The city's grain stores are very abundant. Even if there is no additional import later, the grain stores alone are enough to feed an army of 200,000 for two years. In addition, there are also Some cured meats, dried fish, air-dried meats, etc. can be said to be unafraid to persevere.
Twenty years of long-term accumulation and several years of dedicated hoarding gave Gao pragmatism the confidence to dare to mobilize 600,000 troops at a time to fight a huge decisive battle. To a large extent, the military nature of this battle is far less important than the political oath, because the preparations for a war are so complete, the equipment is superior, and the military strength is so disparate that it is almost ten times the decisive battle. There is a possibility of losing, and the only thing to consider is "what kind of victory is needed."
As Qi Jiguang said before, the best way to fight nomads is to use an excellent tactical deception combined with a surprise attack to complete Huo Qubing's style or Li Jing's style of plowing holes and sweeping holes, and try to win the game in one go.
However, for a sworn war to "resuscitate the Ming Dynasty", Gao Pragmatic needed this victory to have more political significance, so that he would continue to strengthen his persuasion to the emperor, making him believe that only a large army to encircle and suppress the Ming Dynasty could fully demonstrate the majesty of the Ming Dynasty.
This obviously brings serious troubles to military command. After all, in the entire history of mankind, there are no examples of directly commanding hundreds of thousands or millions of people on a single battlefield. Because the army cannot be deployed at all, and the consumption of military rations is also a problem, so there is no such thing. It is possible to break away from the supply line and bring five to six hundred thousand or millions of people to fight in one place.
Even at the pinnacle of human large-scale combat, when millions of troops fought on the Soviet-German battlefield during World War II, it was fought on an extremely wide front. It was composed of multiple battles and could not be regarded as a single battlefield.
The Second World War was already a war that occurred when mechanized large-scale production reached a high level, which was absolutely impossible in an agricultural society. It has happened that the manpower input in the entire war has reached hundreds of thousands or millions of people, but it has never happened that the number of pure combatants has reached millions. Even a war involving hundreds of thousands of people would require the efforts of the whole country in the late feudal society. Even in an agricultural society like the Ming Dynasty under a unified and centralized power, its mobilization capacity had its limits.
In fact, ancient warfare was not as complicated as imagined, because the means of communication were very limited. In addition to shouting, looking, and even relying on feet to accurately convey messages.
Therefore, generally speaking, the number of hundreds of thousands of people that can be commanded in a regional battle is very, very high. In terms of ancient productivity and transportation capabilities, there is no way to effectively control the army in a region with more than 200,000. What's more, the increase in frontline commanders equals disunity of opinions and adds a lot of unnecessary surprises. Therefore, sometimes the number of people is a source of confusion.
It is precisely for this reason that when a large-scale war broke out in the Ming Dynasty, the emperor gave the commander Shang Fangjian to ensure that the entire army could unify its thinking and avoid command disorder.
In a battle, the number of people that can be packed in one place is limited, and it cannot be reduced or improved due to national strength and general leadership. Most wars in the cold weapon era were conducted as unit movements with a few thousand people as a unit. If there were more than 10,000 people, it would be an entire army. If it was more than 100,000, it would definitely reach the battle level.
In a regional battle, a commander will command tens of thousands of people, and then they will be divided into several detachments of thousands or more than 10,000 people. Each detachment will be commanded by the commander's direct descendants. In local battles, a few thousand people will be the limit. More people means a bigger battlefield.
For example, a 50,000-man army is divided into eight 5,000-man teams, each responsible to the supreme commander in turn. The commander of the regional campaign assigned these 5,000-man troops according to his understanding of the terrain, and then his own troops were stationed in positions that could support key points in various places at any time.
At this time, there may be a large number of roads and the strategic task is to defend rather than attack, so it is possible that all eight 5,000-man troops will go out to defend vertically to avoid the enemy's outflanking; it is also possible that the terrain is narrow and the troops cannot be deployed, and one channel can only A team of 5,000 people or two can be placed, and the rest must be separated by a certain distance to provide buffer space.
Since it is basically impossible to convey orders in a timely and accurate manner after the war begins, most of the time, the orders are predicted in advance. The commander will explain his understanding of the battle situation and strategic needs to the direct generals, and it is obviously impossible for the commander to All terrains are inspected personally, so the battlefield ahead depends on the execution ability of frontline generals.
For example, the expected situation on the Eastern Front is to defend, while the Western Front is to attack. The commander's initial order is as follows, and provides minimum standards for reducing losses and for retreating or stopping the attack if the battle is unfavorable. Then the frontline generals will not be stupid. not to fight to the death, but to execute the commander's strategic needs.
At this time, the main test is the local commander's control over the front line. Unless there are special circumstances or accidents, in most cases the messenger will not be of much use, because it is indeed difficult to transmit orders in real time. Assuming that it is necessary to attack and defeat or to defend, we will make an explanation before the war begins, and basically we will not use the so-called command system to dispatch the troops after the battle begins.
Of course, it is okay to let the reserve team provide tactical support, but if the commander observes or cannot judge the situation on the front line, he still has to rely on the frontline troops to seek rescue through messengers. In this way, the delay in the order will be reduced. This often results in respective changes on the front lines.
This is the overall picture of a local regional battle, which is composed of a large number of frontline battlefields, and the entire war is an overall picture composed of a large number of regional battles. There is usually one party that will be the main force, but it will not be too densely gathered in one area. The commanders of multiple battlefields are responsible to the highest military leader.
The general logic and pattern are similar to the command system of regional commanders and frontline generals. Even before the war started, military leaders had briefed the commanders sent out and explained their strategic thinking and needs. Of course, there were also some who had not briefed them but were suddenly involved because they were attacked. This kind of In this case, one can only rely on the judgment of the frontline generals, either to fight to the death and wait for reinforcements, or to meet in a narrow road and the brave will win, but repel the enemy and even win a complete victory, or else they can only be defeated and retreat.
Assuming a battle, there may be three local battlefields in three directions that make up the entire battle. There is no way to quickly support or connect each other, and each area deploys 50,000 or even more than 100,000 troops. So before the war begins, the top military leader can usually only inform the local commander of the military strategic needs he wants, and then everything is handed over to the general to take charge and implement it.
To put it simply, most of the time they rely on improvisation. Military leaders who really have the power to make decisions have no skills at all, and their command is very limited. Local commanders and frontline generals can only rely on the general strategic deployment of previous military leaders and combine them with the actual situation on the frontline to make decisions based on their decisions.
If the results on the front line are generally good for the war, then the war has a greater chance of winning. To put it bluntly, it's that simple.
Assume that the two sides' forces are deployed against each other. If one of the local battles fails, it means that the other party has more troops to deploy for attack, similar to playing Gwent [Note: Did I expose something? ].
There are also many examples of people who hope to concentrate their military superiority and use more to defeat fewer. Taizu of the Red Dynasty is the best at this. However, this is easier said than done. In the history of human wars for thousands of years, there are still many situations where the enemy was defeated with more enemies and was counterattacked.
Why can we lose even if we beat more and less? There are actually many reasons, but many of them are because the battlefield cannot accommodate so many people. No matter how many people a party has, there is only so much that can surround and contact the enemy on the battlefield. The land and roads can only bear the number of people. For example, if a narrow terrain can pass two thousand people at a time, even if you have one hundred thousand The human strength is also helpless. This is the root cause of the importance of important places such as Tongguan and Shanhaiguan.
This kind of situation also depends on morale. Once the morale of the front line collapses and the elite troops in front are defeated by the enemy's elite counterattack, the morale of the crooked melons and split dates behind is very low, and the possibility of collapse at the first touch is very high, triggering a chain effect like Fei There is no difference in the water war. It is not uncommon in history for the military power to appear to be at its peak, but the main force to collapse in an instant and even the regime to fall.
Including the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when mobilization capabilities were strongest, the military system reached a very high level in responding to war needs, but the nature of war remained unchanged.
In addition to the mutual level being basically equal to each other and the equal consumption of frontline military conditions, there is also a method of looking for opportunities to attack, bypassing military key points and attacking the enemy before the enemy's defense and strategy have been launched. Bai Qi's attack on Wei is a good example. In this case, we don't pay too much attention to the command system, but only rely on the commander's ability and the quality of the army to quickly achieve the goal of the war.
At the same time, this also reflects a problem, that is, the mobilization of the army requires mobilization. If it is too late to mobilize the troops, it is likely to be raided by someone with poor intelligence and time lag. The early integration of soldiers and farmers, and later the recruitment and military household system, were all designed to facilitate the rapid mobilization of large amounts of manpower.
Most places in feudal dynasties had their own military structure. Taking the Southern and Northern Dynasties as an example, there were central troops such as government soldiers. If there was external defense or war, they would start to mobilize peasants from the hinterland who had similar military backgrounds to farm during peacetime and wartime. To fight a war, an army can be gathered quickly.
In fact, in most cases, wars involving hundreds of thousands of people are mostly made up of tens of thousands or more than 10,000 pure combatants, distributed in large numbers throughout various regions of the country. Generally, in the later stage of the decisive battle, hundreds of thousands of units will be concentrated in strategic locations. The main forces of both sides will seek breakthrough points to decide the outcome.
All in all, Gao Wuchen's current situation is that he is nominally the supreme military leader of Meng Yuan Jinglue, but the actual army under his command is only the 150,000 people in Daning City. It is difficult to control the 50,000 people not far from the flank in real time, not to mention the Ming and Mongolian Allied Forces on the western front, the Xuanfu Taiyuan Allied Forces and the Liaodong Army on the eastern front.
Different from those "combat conjectures" widely reported in the capital's newspapers, Gao Pragmatic's tasks for the other three army generals are more flexible, and there are no simple "mission regulations". The generals have a very high degree of autonomy.
The commander of the Ming-Mongolian coalition forces composed of Datong, Tumote, and Ordos was the highly pragmatic and hard-core direct descendant of Datong, the general commander Ma Gui. The order he received was to "go north to Outer Khalkha and fight on camera."
This is really simple and broad, and it doesn't even look like a combat mission at all, because this order doesn't even have a mission goal. Where to fight, how to fight, and how to fight, there is no explanation in the order, it is all up to Ma Gui's own judgment.
As for the Xuanfu and Taiyuan coalition forces, the main general is still from the Ma family, and is the general of Xuanfu, Ma Chengen. At first, the uncles and nephews Ma Gui and Ma Chengen were the commander-in-chief of Datong and the other the commander-in-chief of Xuanfu, which caused discussion in the court. Many people think that the two towns of Xuanda and Dazhou have 250,000 soldiers, and it is very dangerous to hand them all over to the Ma family.
However, Gao Pragmatic suppressed these noises. On the one hand, he expressed his belief in the Ma family's loyalty, and on the other hand, he also cleared up the doubts of the emperor and some colleagues: Xuanda has many generals, many of whom have much deeper foundations than the Ma family, so the actual situation of the Ma family It does not have the prestige of "one call and a hundred responses".
In addition, although the "Ma Family General" is now famous, the "Ma Family Army" has been "divided up" by many children in the family. As a result, their family's direct lineage in Xuanda Second Town is relatively limited, with a total of only a little over 30,000. If we really want to talk about threats, they are not even as good as Li Rusong from Liaodong.
Li Rusong had 40,000 cavalry in his own family alone, and there were even more generals affiliated with the Li family army, and each of them had numerous retainers. This can be seen from the fact that Li Rusong sent 60,000 troops this time, 50,000 of which were servant-level elites. The entire Ma family doesn't know if they can gather 50,000 people, and they are scattered all over the place, so if the Li family is not a threat, the Ma family is certainly not a threat.
The order Ma Chengen accepted was also very general: "After leading the troops to ensure the safety of Tumut, they can march eastward to find the enemy." There was also no clear combat goal, and he did not even explain what the criteria for "ensuring the safety of Tumut" were. It was all up to Ma Chengen. Well judge for yourself.
Uncle and nephew Erma "judge on their own," but what about Liaodong? The leader of Liaodong is of course Li Rusong, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong. The orders he received were more interesting than Erma. Gao pragmatic wrote him a letter, which said: "Li has been in Liaodong for a long time, and has fought with Chahar for dozens of times, and his achievements are difficult to make again. In this battle, the Liaodong war guards prioritized, advanced and retreated, and all relied on brothers. Self-determination, pragmatism and not remote control.”
Li Rusong was originally worried that he might be greatly suppressed in this battle - after all, the governor of Liaodong was from the Practical School, and the deputy commander-in-chief was also from the Practical School. It would be difficult for him and the commander-in-chief to be caught in the middle. Unexpectedly, Gao was so pragmatic and generous that he actually handed over full power to him. At that time, after Li Rusong read the letter, he was silent for a long time and sighed.
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