Shen Yuankui defected to the Chu Empire, which suddenly turned the Chu Empire's cavalry strength in the Jiangbei region from a previous disadvantage to an advantage.
Before Shen Yuankui surrendered to Chu, the main cavalry force of the Chu army in the Jiangbei region was the First Cavalry Brigade, which consisted of three cavalry regiments. Each cavalry regiment had four cavalry posts, and each cavalry post had 120 cavalrymen. Cavalry, in addition to a cavalry artillery battalion, with eight two-and-a-half-pound cavalry cannons and four five-pound cavalry cannons.
Except for the 1st Cavalry Brigade, there are cavalry regiments under each division, and the cavalry regiments under each division are much worse.
Even the divisional cavalry regiments under units like the First Division are all half-baked cavalry. Many divisional cavalry were not cavalry at all before, but only knew how to ride horses, and then they were incorporated into the divisional cavalry regiments as cavalry. Training, fighting.
Therefore, the conventional combat effectiveness of these traditional divisional cavalry regiments is very average.
Charge combat on horseback is just average. As for mounted archery...if they had this ability, they would not be incorporated into the cavalry regiments of each division, but would be incorporated into the 1st Cavalry Brigade.
Therefore, most of the time, except for a few elite cavalry regiments of the Chu army who are used as reconnaissance cavalry and occasionally engage in horse-riding battles with enemy cavalry, most of the divisional cavalry regiments are actually used as mounted infantry.
On weekdays, they rely on the short-distance maneuverability brought by war horses to carry out peripheral reconnaissance and security. During battles, they serve as fast mobile infantry to bypass the rear and then dismount to fight on foot.
When necessary, they will also perform some tasks of quickly marching to a certain place.
Generally speaking, the Chu army used most of its divisional cavalry regiments as fast mobile infantry.
The Chu Army has been trying to improve the combat effectiveness of the division's cavalry units. It has successively issued cavalry-specific Suifa pistols. At the end of last year, it began to issue short-barreled cavalry flintlock rifles to some cavalry, and then focused on intensive formation charges to maximize the number of cavalry units. Through changes in formation discipline and equipment, the shortcomings of the division's cavalry's poor riding skills and poor ability to fight on horseback were offset.
This also has effects, the most typical of which is the Eighth Cavalry Regiment, which has been in Hefei and Fengyang for a long time and has frequently fought with the Ming Army cavalry.
This regiment is also the first cavalry unit among the many division-affiliated cavalry regiments to be equipped with Suifa cavalry pistols and also issued Suifa cavalry lances to form musketeers. In actual combat, through the cooperation of musketeers and charge cavalry, several cavalry units were fought. A relatively beautiful cavalry battle.
The Chu Army is currently promoting this combat model in several other divisional cavalry regiments on the Jiangbei front line.
However, this takes time!
The training of cavalry is far more troublesome than that of infantry or even artillery, and it takes longer. So two or three months have passed. At present, the entire Eighth Cavalry Regiment and the First Guards Cavalry Regiment have completely changed their equipment and formed a new cavalry regiment. initial combat effectiveness.
As for the other divisional cavalry regiments, they are still not very good at the moment and can only fumble and train while fighting.
The above is only a question of the overall quality of the cavalry, but for the Chu army, another big problem is the problem of quantity.
The Chu army not only lacked well-trained cavalry with good riding skills, but also lacked high-quality war horses.
Although some southwestern horses can be found in many controlled areas of the Da Chu Empire, these southwestern horses are too short and can be used as service horses, but they cannot be used as cavalry horses.
This has also led to the fact that in the Chu army, there is actually not a shortage of all kinds of mules and horses. After all, the logistics and artillery units are not very picky. Some can be used. Short horses can be used, mules can be used, and even donkeys can be used in large quantities. .
However, the cavalry was in very short supply of horses.
The Chu army's cavalry horses in the past were basically captured, and a few were smuggled in through some shady channels in the northwest and other directions in the past two years. However, overall, they were still far from satisfying the Chu army's needs. The huge cavalry needs horses.
Therefore, many of the divisional cavalry regiments in the Chu army were actually dissatisfied.
A few main units such as the First Guards Division and the First Division can reach full strength, while most other units only have two to three hundred horsemen or even less.
In the Battle of Jiangbei, the Chu army had actually gathered a considerable number of cavalry, but the total number was still inferior to that of the opposing Ming army's cavalry.
The quality is not as good as the quantity. This is the embarrassing fact that the Chu army cavalry was in the Jiangbei area before.
But with Shen Yuankui's surrender, this embarrassing situation was suddenly reversed.
The Chu army's cavalry unit suddenly changed from a disadvantaged side to a superior side.
This also made Luo Zhixue, who was based in Huai'an, nod slightly. It was not in vain that he gave Shen Yuankui such generous treatment, and even allowed Shen Yuankui to continue to lead the cavalry in battle.
This is the effect you want!
As long as the cavalry disadvantage in the Jiangbei area can be reversed and our own cavalry has a small advantage, Luo Zhixue is confident that he can snowball this small advantage and eventually form a huge strategic advantage.
Luo Zhixue was satisfied with this, but Zhu Dadian in Fengyang City was about to vomit blood.
"This damn Shen Yuankui. He usually doesn't obey orders and makes his own decisions. Now he dares to surrender to a thief. How brave he is!" After Zhu Dadian learned that Shen Yuankui had surrendered to a thief, he was extremely angry and directly faced other people. The subordinates started to curse loudly.
Immediately afterwards, they sent people quickly north to pass the news back to the capital, so that the capital would arrest the Shen family members.
The traitors who openly led their troops to rebel were far more despicable than those officials who surrendered.
In the past year, the Ming court had suffered a series of defeats on the front line, and it was inevitable that a large number of civil and military officials would surrender. However, it was impossible for the Ming court to kill all the families of these surrendered officials.
After all, if we really want to kill, there will be many people who need to be killed...
So we began to deal with them selectively. Some of the bad ones naturally wanted to confiscate their families and exterminate their families, such as Song Zushun. The governor openly surrendered to the thieves. As soon as he surrendered, he wrote a letter of allegiance, and then criticized Ming Ming. All kinds of shady stories in the court... The Ming court will naturally deal with it seriously. It has already ordered the confiscation of the Song family. Unfortunately, it was a step too late. The direct family records of the Song family have disappeared.
For some civil and military officials whose nature is not so bad, such as those who were helplessly captured after a defeat, or who surrendered after being trapped in a tight siege to save the lives of soldiers and civilians, they often chose to turn a blind eye.
The reason why such changes occurred in Mingting was because many people wanted to leave a way out for themselves!
How should I put it, no one can guarantee whether he will surrender in the future...
Seeing that the Chu thieves are getting stronger and stronger, occupying more and more places, and now they have launched a massive Northern Expedition, successively capturing the two strategic locations of Yangzhou and Huai'an, and they are likely to swallow up the entire Jiangbei. Posture.
And what will Chu Thief do next?
All fools know that they will continue to go north and capture Shandong, Henan, North Zhili and other areas. But can the Ming court stop the Chu army's Northern Expedition?
Many people actually have no idea.
Even if many high-ranking officials in the court dare not say it, there are still many people who are pessimistic about it.
Perhaps, some of them thought that if the Chu thieves really attacked Jinling City, they would have to imitate many of their colleagues in Jinling City who turned to Chu.
When the Chu army attacked Jinling City, many ministers and ministers who accompanied the capital eventually surrendered to Chu...
Today, the right minister of the Ministry of Rites and Education in the Chu Empire is Cai Sichong, the former Minister of Rites of Nanjing in the Ming Dynasty!
This person is just one of them. In addition to him, there are a large number of people who have secretly worked for the Chu Empire even when they surrendered, or even before they surrendered. For example, Li Yuankui, the big boss behind Fenghe Trading Company, this person is not only In the past few years, he had only helped the Chu Empire purchase various strategic materials. During the Battle of Jinling City, he directly led people to rebel in the city, and then opened the city gate to welcome the Chu army into the city.
After the Chu army entered the city, Li Yuankui was first appointed as the Zuo Shilang of the Ministry of Trade. In February this year, the Minister of Trade, who was still alive and kicking, suddenly "begged for bones" on the grounds of being seriously ill. After Emperor Luo Zhixue directly approved it without making any effort to retain him, Li Yuankui became the Minister of Trade. He was officially promoted to Minister of Trade.
He was the first person to hold the high position of minister among many people who surrendered to the Ming Dynasty.
There are even more middle- and low-level officials. You can tell from the fact that last winter in the Chu Empire, the Ming Dynasty even launched a large-scale rectification campaign to target a group of Ming court officials who had unruly thoughts and demoted officials. In fact, the Chu Empire In the court, there were quite a few people who had been demoted in the Ming Dynasty.
And since so many people can surrender to Chu, it makes no sense that I can’t, right?
There is not a single person who has similar thoughts in Youzhou City today. Even the senior officials in high positions may have this kind of thoughts.
Under such circumstances, they naturally would not let Chongzhen do what they did in the past. When they saw someone on the front line surrendering, they would immediately confiscate their homes and exterminate their clans.
Don't go too far in this matter, otherwise how will you face those colleagues who surrendered first after you surrender?
Zhu Dadian could actually guess some of this, so he couldn't guarantee how the court would deal with Shen Yuankui's family records after the impeachment memorial was sent.
And considering the current situation, impeachment of Shen Yuankuna is only a trivial matter. What's more important is that nearly 20,000 Chu thieves have already advanced along the Huaihe River towards Fengyang, and are now only a few miles away from Fengyang City.
In addition, after Shen Yuankui surrendered to the thieves, the other two frontier cavalry seemed to be affected.
When Zhu Dadian sent someone to pass the order and asked them to cooperate with him to block the Chu bandit's vanguard force, the person sent there couldn't even see their leader...
Zhu Dadian was worried that they would not only disobey orders, but also worry that they would turn around and surrender.
Zhu Dadian was right to worry. The remaining two Ming army frontier cavalry were really considering whether to surrender to Chu...
