When Po Gui said this, Gao Pragmatic understood that in essence, his idea was a kind of differentiated competition. Of course, it could also be said to be misplaced competition.
The Ming Dynasty and Mongolia competed in riding skills. This obviously had an innate disadvantage, and even if it was acquired, this disadvantage would still exist. We are a nation that travels by horse, and everyone can ride a fast horse. Although the Ming Dynasty has a large population, what proportion of people can ride a horse?
Under such circumstances, it would have been very painful for the Ming Dynasty to maintain hundreds of thousands of cavalry for a long time. How could they save more money during the battle? Every one of them is a treasure, so how dare you squander it casually? Therefore, of course, priority must be given to improving resistance, trying not to be eliminated first, and then studying how to defeat the opponent.
According to Pugui's statement, Gao Pragmatic estimated that what he meant was that once the cavalry fought, they would fight the Mongols.
Of course, the "consumption" here is different from the "consumption" in the Mongolian combat thinking. The "consumption" of the Mongols is first to keep their own casualties small, and then even if the opponent's casualties are not large, as long as they are significantly greater than their own.
The reason is related to the force technique of Tuoduo's sword technique. The Mongols will not tire themselves out when riding on horseback, so they can afford it. So what if I only knock out dozens of you with one oblique cut? If I hit you ten or twenty times without rest, what do you say at this time?
The rather expensive solution is very realistic: My Ming Dynasty now has a range advantage due to the advancement of firearms. Although your slash is fast, it is enough to shoot a hail of arrows before taking high damage. But if our cavalry are already half equipped, then the damage of your arrows will be greatly reduced. Usually only the unlucky ones will be shot to death directly in this situation.
On the contrary, because Mongolia was blocked by the Ming Dynasty's economy, its productivity dropped extremely seriously, and it has degraded to the point where iron smelting is almost impossible. Before the war, there were only a few small blacksmith shops in Chahar. They relied on the blacksmiths plundered from the Ming Dynasty in the early years to do some work. It was completely a luxury to manufacture all kinds of iron armor on a large scale.
Coupled with the advancement of Ming military firearms, the armor-piercing ability within the effective range has been greatly improved. In many cases, the difference between wearing armor and not wearing armor is not obvious.
Therefore, Ye Bushou of the border army and Fusi of Jinyiwei North Town have both warned that the armor preparation rate of Chahar cavalry may have dropped significantly, and some of the original iron armor pieces on the armor have been recast. Sabers, stirrups, horseshoes, arrowheads, etc. They judged from this that the Chahar cavalry in the "future" war would completely turn into leather armored cavalry or even unarmored cavalry.
One goes down and the other goes up, things change. As a Ming army general with Mongolian origin, Pogui naturally has a deep understanding of Mongolian tactics, and in turn has an accurate judgment on how to restrain them.
If you want to guerrilla, I will let you guerrilla, but as long as you dare to enter my effective shooting range, I will be able to hit you with arrows and projectiles.
If you want to spend it hard, I will spend it with you, but let's see who among us can't afford it. Man said that if you beat me one to one, my Ming Dynasty will definitely make a profit. Even if you are unfortunate enough to only beat me two to one, my Ming Dynasty will still be worthy of your Chahar!
What is the most troublesome thing for the Mongols now? Productivity? No, their biggest problem is insufficient population!
Chahar knew that this year he would be beaten by the Ming Dynasty and a bunch of helpers, but he still insisted on not really engaging in "women and children are soldiers". Why is this?
Because an army of more than 60,000 is already Chahar's limit. If other people are recruited into the army, there will be no one left to herd sheep. Don't forget that when the battle is over and you haven't died in the battle, you look back and find that you can only starve to death. That's really... This time, how can it be so miserable?
However, Xu Long obviously did not agree with his idea. Although Xu Long did not dare to make any mistakes in his words and attitude in front of Gao Jinglue, when Pogui said this, he couldn't help but said: "Poyourong, your method can indeed guarantee that you will not lose, but if you really follow this Do it, but never expect a big victory.”
Po Gui was about to retort, but Gao Pingshi reached out to him and suppressed his words. Instead, he turned to Xu Long and smiled and said, "If Xu Yourong has any opinions, just tell him and listen."
Seeing that Gao Pragmatic showed no signs of favoritism, Xu Long felt a little relieved and quickly bowed and said: "Yes, Jingtai."
He cleared his throat and added: "If we only talk about remaining undefeated against the Chahar cavalry, then the imperial court does not need cavalry at all! Now the infantry has both bayonet hollow phalanxes and chariot hollow phalanxes (compiled and trained by Qi Jiguang) ), even if the army went out to fight with the Chahar cavalry, it is expected that the Tumen would not dare to try the power of the hollow phalanx again.
However, the difficulty for the army to leave the fortress is not that the battle must be won, but that it is difficult to stay for a long time. Po Yourong, let me ask you, if Daning was recaptured through Taiwan a few years ago, if Tuo Tuo had not led the army to protect Daning's southern grain route, would Daning City be able to garrison nearly 20,000 troops?
There are neither fields nor border walls around Daning. Our officers and soldiers are stationed in Daning, so they can't make a living by herding, right? There are more than three hundred miles from Xifengkou to Daning, all of which are mountains, forests and grasslands in the north of Saibei. If the cavalry fails, Daning city will be cut off at some point, and it will have to give up just like it did more than a hundred years ago..."
Pogui couldn't help but interrupt: "That's why I say that not only must there be cavalry, but they must also be able to remain undefeated first."
"Young Rong, don't worry, I've only said half of what I said." Xu Long continued: "My court has already spent a lot of money to control Daning. If we want to destroy the residual Yuan and drive Chahar completely out of the left-wing grassland, If they can only continue to build cities and advance one by one, how many fortified cities do you think the court will have to build before they can finally form a combined force and force Chahar to retreat?"
This point is indeed crucial, and even after listening to it, Pogui was speechless. After hearing these words, Gao Pangshi couldn't help but nod in his mind, and thought to himself: If the defense line is drawn out by continuous city construction, and even the defense line will gradually expand until the Chahar people are forced out of the left-wing grassland... then the project will be complicated. I’m afraid it won’t be possible within twenty years.
Moreover, this idea made Gao Pragmatic feel like Sun Chengzong's fortress strategy was advanced, which was unnecessary. There were prerequisites for Sun Chengzong's fortress strategy at that time, and it was largely forced by the situation.
What's the situation? At that time, the Ming army was no longer a match for Hou Jin in field battles. As long as they were dragged out to fight in the field, they would defeat you at every turn.
Under such circumstances, it would be useless to fight in the field. If the waste continues, the last bit of fighting power will be squandered, and the military morale will only become more uncontrollable. So at that time, it was very good to be able to rely on the fortified city to hold the line of defense.
And people like Sun Chengzong, who used the country's productivity advantages to build cities by force and stealth, then advanced from fortress to fortress and regained lost ground, were already among the very few who could persist in counterattacking and forging ahead under the most difficult conditions.
It’s easy to add icing on the cake, but difficult to provide help when it’s time. As the saying goes, "Turn the tide before it falls, and support the building before it collapses." It is easy to say it, but how difficult it is to do it!
However, after twenty years of reforms by the Practical School, the current situation of the Ming Dynasty is very different from that of the Ming Dynasty when Sun Chengzong was the governor of Ji Liao. Not to mention that the main combat methods of the Chahar people are essentially different from those of Houjin, but the performance of the two sides in field battles is also completely different.
The current Ming Dynasty is not afraid of fighting with the Chahar people in the field. Even in the minds of Gao Pragmatic and many generals, they wish that Chahar could concentrate their forces to fight a decisive battle with the Ming Dynasty, so that the world can be settled in one battle. This kind of thinking is completely opposite to the Ming army after losing Liaodong in the original history, and the strategic pattern reflected is naturally completely opposite.
I can't defeat them in the field, and I want to regain the lost ground, so I have to rely on my superiority in national strength to advance from fortress to fortress. Although this would cost a lot of money and take a long time, there is no other way. Otherwise, there is no chance at all.
I can fight in the field. The purpose is to drive you out of a prairie. Building a castle is obviously too stupid. I definitely hope that I can find a way to defeat the enemy in one battle, preferably a total annihilation, and then it will be over.
When Gao Pingshi heard this, he fully understood the contradiction between Pogui and Xu Long. They seemed to be fighting over tactics, but in fact they were fighting over strategy.
Pogui didn't think that the Ming Dynasty had a chance to settle the matter in a battle, because the Chahar people had discovered their own disadvantages, and simply ignored these disadvantages and began to continue to strengthen their advantages. Their purpose is to insist on "not being able to fight and outrun", but they always insist on "fighting" with Ming Dynasty. Their fundamental intention is to strategically compete with Ming Dynasty.
Although your Ming Dynasty is strong, you can't always pile hundreds of thousands of troops on the grassland to consume me. No matter how I run away, as long as you retreat, I will come back to see if I can make you angry to death.
As a Han general, Xu Long knew better how to analyze the court's—or simply be pragmatic—arrangement in recent years. Before Gao Situ became the Minister of Household Affairs, he was busy promoting various ways to increase revenue for the court, and greatly expanded the Ming Dynasty's field cavalry from less than 100,000 to almost double today.
This is definitely not for grinding beans with the Mongols on the grassland, it can only be for the decisive battle and the elimination of Chahar.
However, there were many things that Xu Long did not expect at the beginning. He didn't expect that Chahar would be willing to abandon Chahanhot as soon as the war started, and he didn't expect that Chahar would not fight the Ming army at all and would only run.
Although Xu Long objected to Pogui's idea before the war as being impractical and too protracted, postwar developments also had a severe impact on his own ideas. If Chahar really insists on not fighting at all, then even if the Ming army maintains light armor, or even no armor at all, it may be true as Pogui said, and it will still be unable to catch up.
Now the source of the dispute between the two parties has been found, but the ball actually went to Gao Pragmatic. This conflict cannot be resolved by Pogui and Xu Long. In the end, only Gao's pragmatic opinions are decisive.
Being highly pragmatic is also a headache. Things did not develop as he expected, and he underestimated the decisiveness of Tumen or Burihatu.
He always felt that the situation he was facing now was a bit like Napoleon who sent troops to Tsarist Russia. He clearly entered Moscow unimpeded. He thought that victory had been achieved, but suddenly found that this was not the case at all. His biggest enemy is actually not the Russians, but the Russian cold.
The winter in Saibei is actually very cold. Gao Pragmatic knew this from his previous life.
At that time, he went to a province in the northeasternmost part of the Red Dynasty to investigate and learn the experience of branding agricultural products, and happened to meet a Northeastern man who had been doing business in Moscow for more than 20 years. The elder brother was very good at chatting. During the chat, he said something that made Gao Pragmatic unbelievable at the time: "Actually, our place is colder than Moscow."
After they parted, Gao Pragmatic checked it with disbelief and found that the eldest brother was really not just talking nonsense. According to ordinary people's inertial thinking, for the Northern Hemisphere, the higher the latitude, the closer it is to the North Pole, the lower the average temperature, and the colder the climate.
For example, Harbin is located at about 45° north latitude, while Moscow is at 55° north latitude. The difference between the two is as much as 10°. It should be expected that Moscow will be much colder, but this is actually not the case.
Moscow has a mild temperate continental humid climate. In winter, it is affected by westerly warm and humid airflow and is characterized by heavy snowfall. The average temperature in January is -10.2°C; while Harbin has a mid-temperate continental monsoon climate and often experiences cold weather in winter. Due to the invasion of air (even cold wave), the average temperature in January is only -18.3℃, which is much colder than Moscow.
From this, Gao Pragmatic thought of Mongolia, and then thought of another thing: Napoleon and Hitler both defeated Moscow. However, Mongolia did not seem to encounter much trouble during the Western Expedition because Moscow was very cold. The Golden Horde founded by Batu, also known as Jochi Uluth, ruled Russia for a full 225 years (another 238 years, mainly because of different calculation methods), only to decline due to frequent civil strife. .
So the question is, are Mongolians not afraid of the cold at all, or is it just that Moscow is not very cold for Mongolians?
Are Mongolians afraid of the cold? Of course Gao Pragmatic knows that Mongolians are also afraid of the cold. If they weren't afraid of the cold, would Tumote be obedient to him for the various living necessities provided by the Ming Dynasty?
It can be seen that "Moscow is cold" to some extent was amplified by the military defeats of Napoleon and Hitler, so that when people think of "very cold", they think of Moscow, but the fact is that it is actually very cold outside the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty.
Since the Mongolian grasslands are at least as cold as Moscow, it is obviously impossible for the Ming Dynasty to station a large army on the grasslands for the "New Year's Eve". Even if the Chahar people wandered around without attacking, the Ming army would have to retreat southward into the Great Wall until the end of autumn at most.
By then, the most likely places to retain troops would be Daning and Chahanhot. According to reports, the low rammed earth wall in Chahanhot is not very reliable. If troops are to be garrisoned, they may have to be renovated.
If this is the case, once the Ming Dynasty retreats, Chahar is very likely to come back, which means that this spring's war with 600,000 troops was completely in vain.
"No, the previous tactics can no longer be implemented stupidly. We must change our thinking, otherwise I will have to repeat the mistakes of Chengzu's Five Expeditions in Mobei, which seemed mighty and domineering, but the results were mediocre.
However, Chengzu was Chengzu, and his insistence on conquering the Yuan Dynasty was more out of political considerations, while I really wanted to prevent the Ming Dynasty from causing trouble. He may not care whether he can really destroy the Yuan, but I must destroy the remaining Yuan! "
Thinking of this, Gao Pragmatic secretly made up his mind: If it doesn't work, can I, Gao, be qualified to be a bait?
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