It took a lot of time to send letters to Japan during the war. During this time, other things would naturally not stop, such as the war in southeastern Korea.
When the Japanese army's plan to sneak attack Sichuan failed, and the Kuroda army hoped to return to Japan on the condition of stopping fighting in Korea, the main force of the Japanese army led by Hidemoto Mouri and Hideie Ukita finally bypassed Mashan guarded by Liu Wei and ran eastward.
Liu Wei originally tried to stop him, but after sending troops, he hesitated. It's not that he, a fierce general, suddenly became timid, but the art of war has this saying: Therefore, the method of using troops is: don't face the high hills, don't turn back to the hills, don't pretend to the north, don't attack the sharp soldiers, don't feed the bait soldiers, and don't contain them when they return to the army. ——This is exactly the same as "Don't hold back when you return to the teacher".
The so-called "don't contain the army when it returns" means that if the army wants to return to its home country or its main stronghold, don't contain it. To put it simply, if the enemy is defeated and wants to go home, you should not stop him at this time.
Why? If you stop him on his way home from defeat and block his retreat, the enemy with no way to retreat will fight you tooth and nail. At this time, the enemy is originally defeated, but you are forced to a life-or-death situation. Either way, you will die. The momentum of fighting desperately will be very strong. On the contrary, your morale will be affected, so it will be difficult for you to win.
The most typical example is Cao Cao's expedition to Zhangxiu. Cao Cao led an army to conquer Zhang Xiu, but failed to get off the ground and was about to retreat. At this time, Liu Biao sent troops to help Zhang Xiu, cutting off Cao Cao's food and grass.
Suddenly, Cao Cao was attacked from both sides, so he quietly transported the baggage at night and set up an ambush, waiting for Zhang Xiu to pursue him. The next day, Zhang Xiu came after him and was ambushed by Cao Cao's troops. Zhang Xiu was defeated. After the war, Cao Cao said to Xun Yu: "The thieves tried to stop me from returning to the army and killed me. That's why I know the victory."
However, although "don't stop when you return to the teacher", Liu Wei does not intend to do nothing. The same thing is said in Sun Tzu's Art of War: When returning to the army, do not contain it; when surrounding the army, you must block it; when the enemy is poor, do not force it; this is the way to use troops.
Don't chase the enemy when you are poor, this is useful here - note, it does not mean don't chase after the enemy when you are poor.
Don't push the enemy when you are in a desperate situation, that is to say, when the enemy is in a desperate situation, don't rush to close in, and don't push the enemy to the point of desperation. As the saying goes, "a trapped beast still fights" and "a dog jumps over the wall in a hurry", it really forced him to fight to the death with him and die together. Isn't it worth the loss? This idea is actually consistent with "Don't stop when you return to the teacher".
Therefore, when the enemy enters a desperate situation, you don't have to force him, but you must not not chase him. The so-called "hitting him back" means chasing after the enemy when he retreats, so as to achieve greater results. .
The Mongolian cavalry has dominated the world for hundreds of years. The reason why they can achieve a small defeat when they lose and a big victory when they win. The second half of this "win is a big victory" is because they can use their unparalleled mobility to chase the defeated cavalry. The enemy troops continued to strangle and slowly but surely continued to bleed the enemy troops until they were completely destroyed.
However, Liu Wei's cavalry was very small, and it was difficult to chase the Japanese troops who were eager to escape back to Busan. Therefore, Liu Wei simply betrayed "the Marquis's brother-in-law" Li Rumei and sent a messenger to urgently notify Li Rumei of the Japanese army's movements.
Li Rumei's entire cavalry army was chasing the Japanese army all the way south, harassing and attacking them all the way. However, due to Kuroda Rushui's plan, they accidentally let the Japanese army escape for a period of time, which led to the surprise attack on Sichuan by the Japanese army. Come.
It turned out that Kuroda Rushui had tried so hard to plan this plan, and Li Rumei was unaware that even Gao Pragmatic could understand it. However, this incident made Li Rumei very angry.
This time he went south to fight in Korea again. It was the first time that he led an army alone outside of the command of his father and brother. He also directly took orders from Gao Pragmatic, his uncle who was known to be victorious in every battle. Naturally, he wanted to prove himself.
Who would have known that he, who had always performed well before, would actually fall out of control at the most critical moment, and almost threaten the safety of his uncle-in-law. Is this something Li Ziqing can bear? Therefore, Li Rumei had been holding back her anger for a long time and wanted to vent her anger.
Now that Liu Wei's information has been sent, what else can Li Rumei be polite about? Of course, we immediately sent troops to pursue him.
He was also a general who was familiar with the art of war, and he also knew that when returning to the army, do not contain the troops and do not press against the enemy, so he adopted the most common pursuit style of cavalry chasing infantry, and the specific fighting methods were completely based on the teachings of his father Li Chengliang.
When Li Chengliang engaged in pursuit battles, especially when cavalry was chasing infantry, he usually used fine cavalry to approach quickly. When he was at a distance, he would first shoot arrows, and when he got close, he would forcefully charge and kill, and then quickly divide into two wings to maneuver, that is, return to the main formation.
At the same time, another team of elite cavalry from behind came forward again and continued to fight according to this pattern. After beating the two wings, they circled back to the main formation. This cycle repeats, and according to the number of cavalry on the side, it is decided to divide it into several cavalry groups to perform such tactical actions.
There is no doubt that this is a pursuit wheel battle. The purpose is not only to kill the enemy's effective forces, but also to cause panic to the enemy - the rear army is constantly harvested by the enemy's cavalry, round after round, the front army and the middle army are No matter how determined you are, your morale will collapse sooner or later.
This style of play can be regarded as the Liaodong version of the Mongolian cavalry pursuit battle. It mainly adds the element of forced charge into the formation, because the Mongolian cavalry will not charge into the formation until the end of the strangulation, and often only shoots arrows in countless waves in the front.
The reason why the Liaodong cavalry chose to join the charge is naturally because the Li family's cavalry is well-equipped. The opponents they faced in the past, whether they were Jurchen tribes or Mongolian cavalry, were inferior to them in terms of defensive equipment. The advantages are very obvious.
What about facing the Japanese army now? In fact, it's almost the same, and it also has the advantage.
Except for samurai, the Japanese soldiers often did not have armor. Even if they did, they were mostly bamboo armor or even armless bamboo armor. They were not worthy of being killed by the Liaodong cavalry. However, the Japanese army is quite different from the Jurchens and Mongols. The main difference is that the Japanese army has an iron artillery team, which is also a matchlock team.
This kind of army with muskets can pose a threat to the Liaodong cavalry. Although the shooting and reloading speed of the Japanese iron artillery has lagged far behind the Ming army, at least it can at least fire a round of volley before the Liaodong cavalry rushes forward. shoot.
A round of salvo can also cause some damage. If you are facing the Mongolian cavalry that has refused to kill more people because of its huge population disadvantage in the past many years, in fact, such a threat of damage may make the Mongolian cavalry voluntarily give up the front. Charge into battle.
However, for the Ming Army cavalry, especially the elite Li Jiajun cavalry, this was not a problem.
First of all, here are the advantages of defensive equipment. Half-armored cavalry still have good protection against the lead shot bullets at this time. If the hit part is relatively "positive", it may even only cause impact damage instead of penetration damage. Most are not fatal. Occasionally, if the attack is not so "right", and because the location is most likely not a critical point, it will not cause death.
Of course, if you are particularly unlucky and hit the eyeball, throat, etc., you will probably not be able to survive, but... the probability is obviously very low.
The second is the advantage of pensions. Since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty's military system, servants have acted as the actual main force. Not only is the phenomenon of military pay and benefits very serious, but there is also a huge disparity in pensions.
Unlike the guardsmen who wanted to run away when faced with a slight disadvantage in the battlefield situation because of low pay and pensions, the servants' will to fight was relatively firm.
They were rewarded heavily for their meritorious service, and generous benefits were given to those who died or were disabled in battle. It was equivalent to gambling, and if you win, it goes to you, but if you lose, the banker gets away with it. This obviously makes many people not afraid of sacrifice.
After all, this is the era of feudal monarchy, and human life has a price. When the price is high enough, some people are willing to sell their lives and safety in exchange for something they think is more important, such as decades of comfort for a family of young and old. What's more, as mentioned above, when the equipment advantage is great, it is actually quite difficult for a well-trained sergeant to die in battle.
Precisely because he knew his own advantages, Li Rumei moved very quickly and caught up with the main force of the Japanese army the next day.
In fact, when Li Rumei got the order to go south to pursue the Japanese army, she was not worried about a decisive battle with the Japanese army. He believes that there are two situations in this matter, one is whether he is willing to fight in a decisive battle, and the other is whether he can win in a decisive battle.
Whether they are willing to fight a decisive battle or not, the initiative does not lie in the hands of the Japanese army. The composition of the Japanese army was complex. Generally speaking, its mobility was average. The only advantage was that Japanese soldiers in this era were more able to endure hardships and could grit their teeth and persist in rapid marches for a long time.
However, even so, the Japanese army could not force Li Rumei's nearly 30,000 cavalry to fight in a decisive battle. If Li Rumei is willing, this decisive battle can be fought, but if not, then it will definitely not happen.
Whether Li Rumei can win or not is the main reason why Li Rumei is unwilling to fight a decisive battle with the Japanese army. He felt that it would be difficult to decide the outcome with just about 30,000 cavalrymen in a decisive battle with the Japanese army.
The reason is not complicated. This cavalry has no artillery. The cavalry itself may not be enough to form an advantage like "30,000 people can kill 90,000 people".
It turned out that the two magic weapons used by the Ming army to defeat the Japanese army were artillery and cavalry. Although muskets also had advantages, at least they were not to the extent that "no one has it but I have it". Now that I am lame, I am obviously not that confident if I think about one versus three.
Having said that, Li Rumei's biggest worry before was not whether he could beat me, because he was a cavalryman. If the battle situation was not good, he could withdraw from the battle at any time and just run away. Can the Japanese army still chase me? ?
Gao Pragmatic had calculated before that the most elite infantry could actually catch up with the cavalry within a certain period of time, but there was a big problem here, that is, the cavalry could turn back and attack at any time. But as an infantryman, the biggest problem is whether you can complete the formation when the cavalry turns back to fight.
In this era when musketeers can only perform line-up and kill tactics, there is a high probability that they will not be able to complete line tactics. Therefore, generally speaking, it is still inconvenient for infantry to chase cavalry. A complete change in this situation may only have to wait for the arrival of the machine gun era, and it cannot even be the early machine guns - they are too heavy. It will have to be installed on a large scale by machine gun units that can be decentralized to squad tactics after weight reduction.
So, what was Li Rumei worried about before that made him just harass and attack all the way? What he worried about was battle damage.
Cavalry is inherently expensive, and servant cavalry is especially ridiculously expensive: a war horse originally cost more than 20 taels of silver, but now the price has dropped a bit in recent years (because Eastern Mongolia was directly recovered and Mongolia essentially became an economic colony). Still need sixteen to eighteen taels.
Staff training is also expensive. The cost of training cavalry for the Mongols can be regarded as zero, but the final cost of a qualified Han cavalry is thirty or forty taels of silver. This does not include the time cost. Otherwise, if you include the food and drink during several years of training, Supply, the training cost of this cavalry may be fifty taels.
How should I put it? The Han cavalry of this era is like the air force pilots of later generations. It is really not just someone who can be used as a pilot. They must spend a lot of money to train them.
Last but not least, Li Rumei did not dare to let the Li family's cavalry suffer any more big losses. Needless to say, Li Rusong's losses in the battle at Bi Tie Pavilion didn't seem big, but they almost shook the foundation of the Li family army.
Of course, most of the Li family's troops under Li Rumei's command are not direct descendants of the Li family, but there are still a thousand direct descendants among them, and these thousand cavalry are still direct descendants of Li Rumei himself.
This is not all. The remaining thousands of Li family collateral cavalry cannot suffer serious losses easily, otherwise it may cause a crisis of trust and make various collateral generals (Li Cheng, Liang Jiading or subordinates with other surnames) suspect that the main family is "cutting down the vassal". This in turn affects the internal unity of the Li Jiajun and weakens the overall strength.
As for the Xuanda cavalry under his command, it was certainly impossible for Li Rumei to regard them as more important than his direct line and collateral lines. However, after all, Ma Gui is a highly pragmatic and direct general. If people trust the Xuan cavalry to him, he cannot ignore it and lose it in vain, otherwise he will obviously not be able to explain it.
Therefore, Li Rumei knew that although he was unlikely to win this battle, there were still many things to pay attention to. Of course, as long as he is not going to fight the Japanese army forcefully, it doesn't matter how ferocious the pursuit is.
Since the Japanese army is "returning", as long as you don't pretend to wipe them all out, you can't force them to fight to the death. What's more, the composition of the Japanese army is complex, and they all have their own plans when facing pursuit, and they often cannot exert their due strength - this has been confirmed by him in previous pursuits.
After catching up with the Japanese army, the situation turned out to be exactly as Li Rumei expected. During the first wave of pursuit, the Japanese army used Nabeshima Naoshige's troops to block the rear. As a result, the Ming army was in the "gathering power" stage, and the fourth regiment of Nabeshima Naoshige, which was not a "complete body", suffered heavy losses (his son Nabeshima Katsushige has not yet returned to the establishment) and almost collapsed on the spot.
As a last resort, the Japanese army quickly sent Konishi Governor's Second Corps to fight in place of the Fourth Corps. However, the Ming army seemed to be getting ready to fight. The Liaodong cavalry retreated and was replaced by the Xuanda cavalry.
There is already a competitive relationship between the Xuanda Cavalry and the Liaodong Cavalry, and this will not be significantly improved by the upper-level alliance. Therefore, when the Xuan cavalry saw that the Liaodong cavalry was performing well, they were naturally not to be outdone, and charged and fought fiercely.
This is really a pain for Governor Konishi. He and his regiment were originally the regiment of the Japanese army that was most feared by the Ming army. When they saw the Ming army cavalry, their courage was weakened by three points, and now they are angered by the Xuan Da Jingqi. The fierce attack in this style soon became unsustainable. Not only was it retreating steadily, but it was even on the verge of collapse.
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Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "Cao Mianzi", "That Blue Light" and "soviet2003" for their monthly support, thank you!
ps: I remember I posted it last night, but it wasn’t until I turned on my phone at noon that I realized I hadn’t posted it, which was embarrassing. This chapter is from yesterday, yesterday...
