Jinling City, inside the palace.
Luo Zhixue sat on the dragon chair at the top, while a group of generals stood below.
At this time, Xu Zhixian stood in front of the wall with a large map of China hanging at the end of the conference room. While pointing at the map with the baton in his hand, he introduced to everyone the current deployment of the enemy's and our troops north of the Yangtze River.
"Our army is currently deployed in the direction of Jiangbei with four main forces: the Fourth Division, the Eighth Division, the First Guards Division, and the First Cavalry Brigade. In addition, there are the First Mortar Regiment and the Fourth Mortar Regiment. , the main fronts are in the direction of Yangzhou and Hefei."
"In the Jiangnan area south of the Yangtze River and in Yingtianfu, Zhili, we have deployed the 1st Division, 10th Division, 11th Division, 15th Division, 22nd Division, 6th Artillery Regiment, 1st Heavy artillery regiment and other army forces, in addition to the Second Guards Division.”
Everyone present basically understood the troop deployment of each of our own units, so Xu Zhixian did not go into too much detail and quickly turned to the latest troop deployment of the Ming army:
"As for the Puppet Ming Army, according to our latest intelligence, the enemy troops in the Jiangbei region are mainly deployed in Yangzhou and Huai'an along the canal, as well as in Hefei and Fengyang in the hinterland of Jiangbei."
"Yangzhou is the focus of the Ming army's defense. According to reliable intelligence, at least 15,000 Jiangbei New Biao Army and more than 20,000 garrison troops have been deployed there. This force was led by Song Zushun, the governor of Jiangbei in the Puppet Ming Dynasty. Commander, this man is good at defending cities, and he once blocked our army in Hezhou for several months!"
"The city of Huai'an in the rear is under the control of Yang Sichang, the new governor of water transportation in the Puppet Ming Dynasty. He has more than 8,000 supervisors under his command who were trained according to the new standard army in Shandong and other places. In addition, there are about 10,000 guardsmen."
"The puppet Ming army in the direction of Hefei and Fengyang is headed by Zhu Dadian. There are about 5,000 Fengyang New Standard Army deployed in Hefei and at least 8,000 guard troops. There are also about 3,000 people in Fengyang direction. The Fengyang New Biao Army has more than 5,000 guardsmen."
"In addition, it is worth noting that there are still a large number of Ming army cavalry active in the Jiangbei area. According to our investigation, the number of these Ming army cavalry is at least five thousand, which has caused us a lot of trouble."
"When the Fourth and Eighth Divisions of our army were fighting in this direction, they were attacked by enemy cavalry units many times. In October last year, a heavy supply battalion of our army escorted a transportation group to Tianchang, dozens of miles northwest of Yangzhou. When the county was transporting supplies, it was attacked by a large number of enemy cavalry. More than half of the transport camp was lost, a large amount of supplies were looted or destroyed, and the civilians in the transport group suffered heavy casualties!"
"In this situation, even if our army has the First Cavalry Brigade to cooperate in operations, it is still passive and the safety of land transportation is worrying."
Cavalry Director Wang Xiazi said at this time: "Most of their cavalry are frontier cavalry dispatched from Jiliao, Xuanda, Sanbian and other places in the north. Their combat effectiveness is not weak. With the same strength, they can really face our first enemy." The cavalry brigade may have a certain advantage with better equipment, but this advantage is also very limited."
"And when the cavalry regiments of each division face this kind of frontier cavalry, even the several divisional cavalry regiments equipped with Suifa pistols can basically only defend passively!"
But at this time, Wang Xiazi raised his tone slightly and said: "But our cavalry unit has specially developed a cavalry hybrid tactic. By equipping some mounted infantry with short-barreled rifles, it covers the charging cavalry in combat. In the past month, Achieved several impressive results."
"I received a cavalry combat report from the Hefei front line a few days ago. Our side is a mixed cavalry post under the cavalry regiment of the 8th Division. It is also equipped with charge cavalry and musketeers, with a strength of 230 cavalry. The enemy is more than 250 frontier cavalry."
"This mixed cavalry post of our army performed well."
"After the war, statistics show that 23 of our cavalry sentries were killed and 25 were slightly injured, while the enemy's cavalry left more than 60 corpses on the spot with unknown minor injuries. In addition, more than ten good horses were captured."
"In this battle, our army's musketry cavalry used the longer range and greater power of their lances to suppress and attack the enemy cavalry from a longer distance. When the enemy cavalry entered the effective range of the cavalry bow, they It caused a lot of losses to the enemy. After the musketeers suppressed the enemy cavalry, our charge cavalry decisively launched a dense formation charge with sabers. They first used pistols to kill the enemy, and then used sabers to fight hand-to-hand, and successfully defeated them. This enemy force!"
When Blind Wang said this, he couldn't help but smile!
Equipping the cavalry with short-barreled Suifa rifles, and at the same time mixing these cavalrymen equipped with Suifa rifles with cavalry equipped with sabers and Suifa pistols, was something he strongly supported and developed.
The reason Wang Xiazi engaged in these mixed cavalry was because the performance of the Suifa Pistol Cavalry, which had been placed high hopes by the cavalry troops, was not ideal.
When they were first equipped with the Suifa pistol, the cavalry troops found that although the Suifa pistol had good lethality and could replace the role of the cavalry bow to a certain extent, its firepower sustainability was too poor, its range was not as good as that of the cavalry bow, and its accuracy was also poor. Difference.
This also led to a situation: when one's own cavalry fired, although some enemy cavalry were killed and wounded, they would then be shot into hedgehogs by the enemy's bows and arrows...
What's more, they will be charged by enemy cavalry wielding sabers and cavalry spears, and then be defeated.
In the past year, the Chu Army's pistol cavalry units have suffered similar defeats many times in succession, forcing the Chu Army's cavalry to rethink the role of the pistol cavalry and begin to seek new methods of combat.
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To a certain extent, the poor performance of the pistol cavalry on the Jiangbei front line, which had high hopes, was also one of the reasons why the Chu army repeatedly delayed the launch of the Jiangbei campaign.
Our own pistol cavalry is not powerful enough, and there are not enough traditional mounted archery and charging cavalry. As a result, the Chu cavalry cannot stop the Ming cavalry.
If the Ming army's cavalry cannot be held up, then one's own side will encounter huge threats when marching in the wild and transporting supplies, which will lead to the attack on the baggage troops.
In large-scale battles in the wild, they will fall into passivity. If they are not careful, the army will be defeated miserably.
For this reason, while the Chu army delayed the Jiangbei campaign several times, it also worked hard to find ways to improve the combat effectiveness of the cavalry, or simply find ways to restrain and improve the enemy's cavalry.
There are many methods of restraint, such as assigning more four-wheeled carriages to the baggage troops to resist enemy cavalry attacks.
For example, equip the troops with more lightweight two-and-a-half-pound field guns and shotguns, and even learn from the Ming army to get some artillery carts specially equipped with light turbans to engage in various vehicle formations.
However, these are all temporary solutions rather than the root cause. If we want to truly reverse the Chu army's unfavorable distance in Jiangbei and even the Central Plains in the future, and offset the advantage of the enemy's cavalry, there is only one way, and that is to improve the combat effectiveness of our own cavalry.
On the contemporary battlefield, the only thing that can truly resist the enemy's cavalry is your own cavalry.
After a long period of exploration, the Chu cavalry on the front line gradually figured out a variety of suitable tactics and made improvements after paying a bloody price.
There are many improvements, such as issuing one or even two or three more Suifa pistols to Suifa pistol cavalry.
In this way, after the pistol cavalry rushes forward, they can fire one after another through multiple pistols loaded in advance, firing multiple bullets, forming a firepower network that is several times greater than before.
In addition to the addition of Suifa pistols, certain improvements were also made to the tactics of the pistol cavalry, such as placing more emphasis on hand-to-hand combat with sabers and more emphasis on close formations.
"First Evolution"
Because sometimes the enemy cavalry may not give you the opportunity to use half-turn tactics.
The semi-turn tactic is to rush forward and turn tens of meters away from the enemy's formation, and fire during the turn. After the turn is successful, the enemy retreats and reloads.
After reloading, charge forward and fire, and so on until the enemy is defeated or the enemy's formation is disrupted before charging.
This dull tactic is okay against infantry without long-range firepower, and it's okay against some half-baked cavalry, but it's not very good against elite frontier cavalry.
When many Ming cavalrymen on the opposite side see you using a musket, regardless of whether it is a short musket or a long musket, they will often rush up to shoot a wave of arrows or shoot with a three-eyed blunderbuss. .
It doesn't give you a chance to reload and shoot back and forth at all.
What's more, when they see that the Chu Army's cavalry is just playing with pistols, they feel that you are easy to bully. They even avoid riding and shooting and just rush over in formation... Then the Chu Army's pistol cavalry often collapse.
After all, these pistol cavalry of the Chu army are under the jurisdiction of the divisional cavalry regiment, and the quality of the cavalry in the divisional cavalry regiment is originally half-baked cavalry. Their riding skills are not very good, and their charge combat skills are not good at hand-to-hand combat. Faced with large-scale cavalry, When charging, it would be fine if you countercharge directly from the beginning.
But if you still plan to shoot a wave with a musket first, and then retreat after the attack, it will often collapse directly.
This made the pistol cavalry in the Chu army very embarrassed for a time...
Later, the Chu cavalry made many changes, such as equipping more lightweight two-and-a-half-pound cavalry cannons, sawing off the barrels of the rifles used by the infantry, and assigning some cavalry to them, in order to obtain more pistols and cavalry bows. All have longer range and greater power.
Through the musketry cavalry or cavalry artillery, the enemy's cavalry fire is first suppressed, and then the charge cavalry rushes forward to fight in a dense formation, wielding sabers. During the charge, due to the dense formation, the war horses basically have no room to run around. The cavalry even Both hands can be free.
As a result, these charge cavalry can charge with a knife in one hand and a pistol in the other. After approaching a certain distance, they fire the pistol first. Because the charging speed is fast and the distance is very close, the cavalry cannot have time to deal with it. The pistol performs a retrieval action, so you basically throw away the pistol and engage in hand-to-hand combat with the saber.
In response to this situation, the cavalry troops specially tied these cavalry pistols with ropes. After the cavalry fired, they did not need to worry about it and just let go. Anyway, the pistols were tied with ropes and could not be dropped...
Not to mention, this improvement is quite effective, as was proven in a cavalry battle in December.
Therefore, at the imperial military affairs meeting, Wang Xiazi expressed the position of the cavalry on behalf of the cavalry: "After launching the Jiangbei Campaign, our cavalry is absolutely confident to kill the Ming army cavalry on the opposite side, ensure the logistics security of the army, and ensure the safety of the army's flank formation in the decisive battle."
