Chapter 136: Exhausted
The reason why King Yan made this judgment. It was because of his judgment of the battlefield situation. In this battle, two thousand Ming cavalry met a thousand Tatar team. This is the result. On the one hand, there are many Ming troops and few Tatars. The greater number defeated the less, and then the Ming army struck the first wave with crossbows and muskets. Let the Tartar formation break, then the armor. Not really invulnerable though. But it also makes the enemy very troubled. Finally, there are these two thousand fine cavalry, which are not ordinary cavalry, they can be called the best of the best.
But in King Yan's view, the armor was too restrained against the Mongolian scimitar, which was the most important reason for so few casualties.
In fact, the scimitar itself is also used to break armor.
The scimitar is heavy, and the wound on the armor is deeper than that of an ordinary knife. It is also a long sword, and the scimitar does more damage to the armor. Of course, this is only for leather armor, which is ordinary light armor. It has almost no effect on heavy armor, and the Ming Dynasty's current armor. In fact, it is black technology.
Full-body steel armor, although very thin. It only weighs a dozen pounds, but its defense is not weak. The armor of ordinary soldiers still has some omissions. For example, there are no nails in the armpits and other corners. Even so, the defensive power is no longer inferior to that of ordinary heavy armor, and it is a presence that is difficult to deal with with a scimitar.
The only weapons that can deal with this kind of armor are blunt weapons, iron whips, hammers, flails and other heavy weapons.
I don’t understand why Ping An said this.
King Yan said: "Why does General Ping say this?"
Ping An said: "Your Highness, today's situation is not the same as once or twice. The Tatars have known it for a long time. But they have never responded. In my opinion, it is not unwilling, but it is impossible. On the battlefield, he is a hammer and stick general. Invincible. It can be seen that since ancient times, everyone has known that the heavier the weapon, the better. But His Highness is also a martial arts practitioner. How heavy is your spear?"
King Yan understood it as soon as he heard it. His spear weighs just over ten pounds. It's not that he can't pick up heavier weapons, but he needs to be able to use them freely on the battlefield. Not an easy task. Not to mention, a big battle will last for who knows how long. Heavier weapons will be used, which will take a long time. People may not be able to bear it.
King Yan said: "I understand, such talents are hard to find."
Ping An said: "Not only that, this scimitar." Ping An took a scimitar from among the weapons captured on one side and said: "It only weighs three to five kilograms, and it is already damaged like this. Put it in the imperial army It has been replaced in the middle of the year. It can be seen that the Tatars are extremely short of iron weapons nowadays. To use heavy weapons, the extra iron material is not a little bit."
In King Yan's heart, he suddenly thought of He Xilai.
When did he start ignoring the cost of cold weapons and not taking the extra ten or twenty pounds of heavy weapons seriously. Is it because of He Xi’s original reforms?
In wars between two countries, sometimes the outcome is not decided on the battlefield.
This time, the Tatars are just getting back on their feet. From a basic point of view. Lost a long time ago.
In fact, in terms of absolute quantity, the Tatars have actually obtained much more iron in recent years than in the same period in history. After all, the price of iron in the Ming Dynasty has been declining for several years. During this period, iron money will be withdrawn from the market. the reason is simple. Iron is worthless. There are fewer people using the iron money.
Beware of depreciation.
Under such circumstances, many people naturally smuggled iron weapons into the grassland.
Although the Ming army tried hard to blockade it. But the border defense line between Ming Dynasty and the grassland was too long. There are too many loopholes. It is possible to suppress this situation, but it is too difficult to prohibit it. Totally impossible. But the Tatars have a little extra quota. The steady growth in steel consumption per capita of the Ming army is not at all of the same order of magnitude.
Qiu Fu said: "Your Highness has put everything in order."
The rectification Qiu Fu mentioned was to cut off the heads of the Tatars and find a place to bury them. Then mark it, burn your body, and take away the ashes. As for the Tatar corpses, forget about them.
The reason for beheading the Tatars. Not born cruel. But to leave evidence. Every Tatar's head is money, and there is a silver reward. The soldiers of the Ming Dynasty all had their own land in the guards. The court did not provide any salary, only rations and rewards.
Therefore, these heads are very important to the soldiers.
It is inconvenient to carry it now, and we cannot let the Tatars take the body away. Their money is gone. Naturally, the head must be chopped off. Hide it and dig it out after the war. Send it to the Ministry of War for reward.
If it is not inconvenient, we will even marinate it with lime first. This is a standard process.
King Yan got up, put on his armor, and mounted his horse. At this moment, everyone in King Yan's army is one person and several horses. The only thing the Tatars have that is better than the Ming army is the number of horses per capita. Even the number of war horses in the entire Ming Dynasty is now close to one million. There are even more war horses than the Tatar royal court.
This is also thanks to the emergence of Qingzhu Law. The cost of raising horses has been reduced a lot. It exceeded the original number of more than 700,000 horses.
But the Ming army had more soldiers, scattered to nine sides, and to more than 300 Ming guard posts, and a million soldiers was not too much.
King Yan fought several victorious battles, and the most captured items were war horses.
King Yan said: "Let's go, I want to see who Tuoin Timur is. He dares to despise me like this."
Although King Yan said so. But he also knows the importance. If he breaks into the Tatars' lair directly and fights with the Tatars, thousands of people will never be his opponent. But Tamerlane divided his army widely. This gave King Yan an opportunity. He just needs to defeat them one by one.
Of course, it's easier said than done. It's hard to do. This requires being able to end the battle in a short time and withdraw before the Tatar reinforcements arrive. There are also coquettish moves and hide-and-seek with the Tatars.
Unfortunately, King Yan's military literacy was able to do this.
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"Pa." Tuoyin Timur was furious and said, "What did you say?"
The Mongolian general Qiqi Aai below said: "We guess that the Ming army behind has probably entered Kaiyuan City, so we can't find it."
Tuoyin Timur sneered and said, "Do you believe this?"
Tamerlane had been stranded on the north bank of the Daqing River for three days.
He has been very anxious lately.
There is no other reason. Military strategists prefer to gather and disperse as usual.
This sentence shows that gathering and dispersing are as usual. It is not easy to achieve. Otherwise, so many people would fall for it.
Tamerlane imitated Mongolia's previous tactics and suffered a lot. That is, his middle and lower-level officers are far inferior to those when Mongolia was founded. It was easy for the army to spread out, but it was not easy to gather the troops together.
There are many places where Tamerlane can no longer control.
This also allowed King Yan to take advantage of the opportunity and annihilate three thousand-man troops with one look.
This is certainly because King Yan has good commanding ability and all the generals under his command are very strong. But there are also reasons for the Mongols' poor command and slow operation.
Tamerlane could tolerate these things, but he couldn't bear the things before him.
He didn't know that the people following him were the troops of King Yan. I just know that the soldiers and horses of Changchun Guard should be there. This group of soldiers and horses hid in Tibet and made sneak attacks many times. It can be seen that this general has an idea. He is from Changchun Guard. When he arrives at Hehai Guard, that is, in Kaiyuan City, who will command whom?
Such a thing would not be done if there were no logistical problems.
Of course, the above is just speculation from Timur. But the reason why Tamerlane was angry was explained below.
Now the three guards left behind by Tuoin Timur have a total of more than 10,000 Ming troops. Because of Timur's character, how could he not monitor them and not wait for them to send out troops? Tuoyin Timur was the last to know. Changchun Guard is the farthest. Even if there is information, it cannot be transmitted. Kaiyuan City is the closest.
Tuoyin Timur had already arranged manpower to monitor day and night, and there were even his people in Kaiyuan City. Although he didn't have a high status and couldn't do things like dedicating the city, it was still easy to see if there were any troops entering or leaving the city.
Therefore, he knew very well that Kaiyuan City did not accept troops from outside.
These officers are telling lies with their eyes open.
For a moment, Tamerlane had a feeling of generals in front of him. Pull them all out and kill them. Let's set an example and see if they still dare to fool around like this. But the idea of decoupling Timur only occurred for a moment. He was then held down.
