As the horse trotted forward, Danba only relied on his body's instinct and the skillful equestrian skills he had developed over many years to control the horse, but his attention was all on the Chu Manzi's cavalry on the opposite side.
At this time, the distance between the cavalry of both sides was less than a kilometer, but it did not mean that Danba needed to run a kilometer to engage the Chu army, because the Chu army was also hedging.
Therefore, the actual combat distance needs to be doubled, which is probably less than 500 meters.
This distance is also the most suitable distance for cavalry to launch a charge. If it is too far, the horse will consume too much physical energy. If it is too close, it will lack response time, and it will also be difficult for the horse to speed up.
A distance of four to five hundred meters was just right for a cavalry charge.
At this time, the cavalry led by Danba listed a traditional formation, divided into a total of five small cavalry squares, showing a cone shape. The cavalry did not use cavalry bows or pistols, but drew their weapons one by one. He took out his machete and prepared to launch a close-range charge.
It's not that they don't want to use riding bows or pistols, but the Chu barbarians on the opposite side don't use muskets. Those damn Chu barbarians are carrying sabers directly on their shoulders.
At a glance, he knew that Chu Manzi on the opposite side was about to rush forward and engage in hand-to-hand combat.
Under such circumstances, if Danba's troops still want to use mounted shooting tactics, they will be beaten directly to collapse.
Mounted archery tactics, especially semi-rotating mounted archery tactics, are very suitable for dealing with infantry, but they are actually very unreliable when used to deal with enemy light cavalry, especially against cavalry that are charging. It is no different from seeking death.
During the Unification War, the Chu army liked to use the pistol cavalry to play half-turn tactics. The parents who were beaten by the Ming army's frontier cavalry didn't even recognize them... When the Ming army's frontier cavalry saw the Chu army's cavalry playing half-turn tactics, they simply didn't recognize it. Instead of trying to reason with you, he just rushes up to you with a saber and engages in hand-to-hand combat with you.
The pistol cavalry appeared briefly in the Chu army and withdrew from history with an extremely disgraceful history.
This is an inherent limitation of tactics, which cannot be changed with the current weapons and equipment technology. Therefore, after the Chu army’s cavalry found that this road was unworkable, they began to go to the other extreme and began to play retro style and directly engage in cold wars. The weapons charged.
After doing this, I found that the effect was quite good, especially when combined with the close formation concept of the infantry. The Chu army's cavalry's dense saber/hollow lance charge was so powerful that traditional cavalry could not stop it at all.
Although Danba has never fought against the large-scale cavalry of the Chu army, his many years of war career have taught him that since the opponent is preparing to charge in formation, his side cannot use half-turn tactics. If he does not take the initiative to retreat now, , then we can only bite the bullet and rush over.
And retreat?
When one's own side has exhausted its supplies, retreating in this desolate desert with not even a few weeds is a dead end.
If it weren't for this, Danba would not have taken the initiative to turn back with the cavalry to fight.
Danba was still counting on winning a battle to rob the Chu army's food, grass and baggage. Even if it failed, he would break through the blockade of the Chu barbarians and escape to the grassland area to the east.
Otherwise, sooner or later it will be a dead end.
So...Damba did not choose to retreat, but ordered his cavalry to switch to cold weapons such as scimitars!
Today, he was going to have a real cavalry confrontation with the Chu barbarians across the way, letting these Chu barbarians know that the Western Region was the territory of their Zhungeer people, and war on horseback was the specialty of their Zhungeer people, not their Chu barbarians. Barbarian farmers can play.
Danba was very determined and trotted over slowly with his cavalry in formation.
The same is true for Colonel Lins, the commander of the 86th Cavalry Regiment.
He took four cavalry sentries, laid out the standard dense charge formation among the Chu army's cavalry, and then advanced at a trot.
In this formation, the space between cavalry and cavalry is very small, and the formation is very dense, just like the line formation of infantry and musketeers, which is also famous for its dense troops.
The distance between the two sides continued to close, and soon, the four 65mm cavalry cannons of the 86th Cavalry Regiment began to fire.
But as expected, these four 65mm artillery bombardments did not achieve too obvious results.
Because Danba on the opposite side is not stupid, he will not walk slowly and let you hit him. After entering the Chu army's artillery range, he has already begun to speed up and let the cavalry enter the running stage.
At the same time, there is no obvious dense formation for you to bombard, but a column, and the formation is relatively loose.
Well, in fact, the formation of traditional cavalry is very loose because it needs to leave space for the cavalry to fight.
Traditional cavalry operations, even charge operations, actually rely more on the prowess of the cavalry itself. After the confrontation, they will basically enter a state of melee.
This point is completely different from the Chu army's cavalry.
After the cavalry of the 86th Cavalry Regiment entered the battlefield, they remained at a trot for a long time. Their speed was not very fast, but their formation was extremely complete.
Even after entering the running stage, because the speed is not increased to the maximum, the speed can even be reduced to a certain extent, and these are all to maintain the dense formation as much as possible.
The Chu army's cavalry battles focused on the unit as a whole and did not pay much attention to individual bravery.
Of course, this is only a relative term. In fact, the personal bravery of cavalrymen who have undergone long-term and intensive training is not far behind.
As the distance between the two sides further narrowed, when the distance between the two sides was only more than a hundred meters, the Chu cavalry, which had been suppressing their speed to maintain their formation, finally entered the final stage of charging.
The Chu cavalry did not deliberately suppress their speed to maintain their formation, but allowed their horses to sprint at their maximum speed.
The Jungar cavalry on the opposite side has to enter the attack stage earlier. As a result, the Jungar cavalry, which was originally in a relatively loose formation, entered the attack stage and no longer maintained its formation. loose.
It seemed that Zhungeer's cavalry were like a large group, sweeping across a large area in front of them, and they seemed to be very powerful.
But this kind of huge momentum is actually not good for cavalry charges... Because the mountains and fields here are full of cavalry, which often means that the formation is not tight enough!
On the other hand, the Chu cavalry on the opposite side still maintained a relatively tight formation even if they let go of their speed during the attack stage.
This difference also led to the fact that when the two sides actually encountered each other, the Chu army's cavalry was like a sharp sword, thrusting straight into the loose array of Junger's cavalry.
This... is also the situation that the Ming army's frontier cavalry and the Eastern captive cavalry encountered when they fought with the Chu army's cavalry.
The troops were obviously about the same strength, and even had more troops on their own side, but they were directly penetrated by the Chu army's cavalry charge, resulting in more casualties.
This is because in a local area, or in the limited area where the two sides actually fight, the Chu cavalry can often gain an absolute advantage in strength.
This is what happened now. After the two sides collided, Danba found that each of the more than ten personal guards around him was besieged by at least two Chu cavalry. Some unlucky ones were even attacked by three or four Chu cavalry at the same time. The siege of the army cavalry.
The other nearby subordinates were in the same situation, and they were all in danger of being besieged.
However, on both sides and in the rear, more Zhungeer cavalry could only watch from the outside. Due to the high-speed sprint, they even turned at a large angle midway to help the besieged friendly forces, and could only watch inside. The friendly forces were besieged by the Chu cavalry.
Especially Danba, who was the most conspicuous on the battlefield. Danba was dressed differently from ordinary Jungar cavalry, as well as the presence of his own soldiers around him, which caused him to be besieged by a large number of Chu cavalry.
Even if the soldiers around him fought tooth and nail to protect him, they could not stop the roaring, seemingly endless Chu cavalry from attacking.
Although these personal guards are all powerful in martial arts, and if they fight alone, it is estimated that no Chu army cavalry can match them, but on the battlefield, especially on such a large-scale battlefield, individual martial arts are actually The effect is very limited.
The Danba guards, who were highly skilled in martial arts, could block and avoid one or two sabers, but they could not avoid three or four sabers.
In just ten seconds, more than a dozen personal guards around Danba were killed and injured!
Immediately afterwards, Danba was directly exposed to the sabers of countless Chu army cavalry!
Danba also had strong martial arts skills and excellent reflexes. He immediately avoided three consecutive saber attacks, and even used the scimitar in his backhand to cut one of the Chu army cavalry, injuring him and causing him to fall off his horse.
But... the next second, a cold light appeared in the corner of his eye, and then he felt a pain in his neck. In an instant, he lost all strength and fell from his horse!
Danba, after all, still failed to rush out!
Not only them, most of his subordinates also failed to rush out!
In this tragic cavalry charge, more than 900 cavalrymen under Danba's command, including Danba, suffered more than 300 casualties on the spot.
Others tried to escape, but more than 300 Jungar cavalry who fled eastward failed to escape in the end. They were soon overtaken by the 86th Cavalry Regiment, and then joined forces with the reinforcements of the 8th Cavalry Regiment. The Seventeenth Cavalry Regiment carried out the extermination.
There were more than two hundred Jungar cavalry who fled in panic all the way to the west... But these people actually ended up worse.
Although more than half of the more than 300 Jungar cavalry who fled eastward were killed or injured after being encircled and suppressed, half of them survived as prisoners.
As for the more than two hundred Jungar cavalry who fled to the west... the Chu army once sent cavalry to pursue them. However, as these Jungar cavalry went deep into the desert, the Chu army cavalry stopped chasing and continued to pursue west. The Chu cavalry who went to pursue them were not sure they would be able to come back...
From then on, no one saw more than two hundred Jungar cavalry.
After all, to the west, there is endless desert.
Without any supplies, not even spare war horses, it was impossible for them to walk out of the depths of the desert alive.
This interception battle lasted for more than half a month, but in the end it was a victory. In addition to annihilating the enemy cavalry, a large number of mules and horses were also captured. More than 200 of the finest Central Asian horses were captured. There are more than a thousand Mongolian horses that are generally suitable for riding.
However, these captures and enemy casualties are not important in themselves. What is important is that after this encirclement and suppression operation, the Chu army completely wiped out the Zhungeer cavalry unit that brought great danger to the Chu army's logistics line, allowing Jiayuguan to reach Hami. The logistics transportation line can be safe and sound.
This is the role that the top brass of the Chu Army values more.
Otherwise, the Chu army would not have dispatched the entire 22nd Cavalry Division and the 19th Division to garrison the towns and fortresses along the way represented by Guazhou.
The troops maintaining the logistics line in the rear, in addition to the strength of the Fourth Cavalry Corps itself, there are two divisions behind.
The further north you go, the more troops the Fourth Cavalry Corps has left to guard various parts of the logistics line.
By the time it got closer to the direction of Hami, the logistics transportation troops of the Fourth Cavalry Army were no longer limited to the baggage troops of each division. The Second Infantry Division dispatched the Sixth Infantry Regiment to be responsible for escorting supplies. At the same time, the Fourteenth Cavalry Division also Responsible for the escort and escort of materials.
At the same time, large-scale centralized transportation is also adopted for the transportation of materials. Each transportation involves thousands of carriages at one time, transporting at least thousands of tons of various materials, and is escorted by at least one cavalry regiment and one infantry regiment. .
When the Chu army did this, the speed of their advance was naturally very slow. On average, they could not even walk twenty kilometers in a day. In many cases, they walked for two or three days, and then stationed themselves in a small town to wait for the logistics troops.
However, the Chu army's cautious approach also completely eliminated the possibility of the Jungar people in the Hami direction to continue attacking the logistics line.
Danba's troops never came back, which made Drote Babatur feel very bad!
It's been a month since he left, but not a single bit of news has come back, which makes Zhuote Babatur pessimistic.
Danba's headquarters is probably finished, and the whole army has been wiped out, otherwise it is impossible that not even a little news can be sent back.
Now that the logistics line cannot be fought, and the city of Hami is destined to be undefended, Zhuot Babatur is a little confused.
what to do?
It is definitely not possible to defend Hami City. Zhuote Babatur is not deaf to what is going on outside the window. He is very clear that the Eastern Capture Company and the Liaoxi Corridor, a fortress, have an army of more than 100,000 or 200,000 people. Even the guns and cannons could not withstand Chu Manzi's indiscriminate bombardment.
He is in Hami, but he only has 30,000 to 40,000 troops. Although he has some guns, the city of Hami is not a fortress...
It was impossible to block Chu Manzi's indiscriminate bombardment.
It was not easy to attack the logistics line. There was no news from Danba, and Chu Manzi's operation was smooth, and he did not seem to be troubled by logistics at all. This made Zhuot Babatur understand that attacking the logistics line was unreliable.
Go directly out of the city to play the decisive battle?
This risk is also extremely high. The Chu barbarians have too many guns and many cavalry.
In terms of military strength and firepower, the Zhungeers have no advantage, and they will suffer more in a fight.
But in the end, Zhuote Babatur chose to take the initiative to go out of the city to fight!
Trapped in Hami City, once the Chu army completes the siege, they will have no choice but to wait for death.
And if we go out of the city for a decisive battle, the best one can win!
If the situation goes bad, just retreat. Anyway, Zhungeer's senior officials have never said that they must defend Hami. It is normal for nomads to run away if they can't be defeated.
As for the retreat, as long as the livestock, large quantities of grain, grass and other baggage are transported away in advance, and only the combat troops are left, the subsequent retreat will not be very difficult.
After all, the Zhungeers have a lot of cavalry and mules and horses. If they are prepared in advance, it will be easier to escape.
It would be even better if we could attract those Chu barbarians to pursue us when we retreat...
The supply line of thousands of miles from Jiayuguan to Hami is already long enough. If the Chu army had just captured Hami and had not yet stabilized its position, it would have continued to pursue itself in a hurry to the west...
Drote Babatur can wake up from his dreams with a smile!
If Chu Manzi had the courage to do this, it would mean that the supply line would need to be maintained for thousands of kilometers or even longer, and most of the places along the way would be uninhabited areas...
When the time comes, they won't even have to worry about fighting, they can just win.
Of course, Zhuote Babatur also knew that it was unlikely, after all, the Chu army was not stupid.
Now they were walking carefully from Guazhou to Hami. They walked for three days and then rested for two days. It was obvious at first glance that they were going steadily.
Under such circumstances, it would be difficult for them to continue marching westward regardless.
There is a high probability that after occupying the Hami area, they will continue to colonize the Hami area for a few years and use the oasis in the Hami area to solve the problem of food and grass needed by the garrison.
Then they will continue to move westward.
This is also the idea of the top brass of the Da Chu Empire Army!
In this war, the senior officials of the Dachu Empire never thought of wiping out Zhungeer immediately. It was not because they didn't want to, but because the cost was too high and it would seriously interfere with the construction of people's livelihood in the country.
Therefore, this war is a local war, with the main strategic purpose of capturing Hami. It would be better if part of Jungar's main force can be taken advantage of.
It is precisely because of this that the Chu Empire only attacked in the direction of the Hexi Corridor, without involving the western Monan Mongolia and Mobei areas.
If it is a war of annihilation against Jungar, then there will be attacks from multiple directions at the same time, especially from the western Monan and Mobei areas, where as few as hundreds of thousands and as many as two to three hundred thousand enemy troops will be dispatched at the same time. Sweep across.
But that would be too costly.
These are the thoughts of the senior officials of the Dachu Empire. Although Zhuote Babatur is not from Dachu and cannot know the inside information of the senior officials of the Dachu Empire, he can still judge from the specific actions of the Dachu Empire. The current ambitions of the Chu Empire are not too big.
Therefore, he did not expect too much that the Chu army would continue to advance westward immediately after capturing Hami.
But although the possibility is very small, what if Chu Manzi's generals faint...
Therefore, Drote Babatur has some hope for this.
Of course, the more important thing is to protect yourself!
Therefore, after deciding not to stick to Hami, Zhuote Babatur began to take action. He ordered the large amounts of grain, gold and silver property, livestock, and even the local population stored in Hami to be moved westward.
There are only more than 30,000 garrison troops left in Hami City, and most of these troops are cavalry. A small number of infantry and artillery also carry a large number of mules and horses.
Moreover, the food baggage carried was not much.
It's all about being able to retreat smoothly when it's time to retreat.
On August 29, the 14th year of Chengshun, after a long journey, the main force of the Fourth Cavalry Army finally arrived in Hami.
The Chu army came so slowly that Zhuote Babatur was a little impatient with the wait... because he had already ordered the transfer of supplies and people before, and there was not much food and grass left in Hami City.
If the Chu army delays for another ten days and a half...then Zhuote Babatur will have to consider retreating first.
You can't wait for the Chu army to arrive in Hami with an empty stomach.
After the Chu army arrived successfully, Zhuote Babatur breathed a sigh of relief, and then sent a large number of scouts out, and at the same time ordered the troops to prepare to go out of the city to fight.
Well, by the way, finalize the retreat plan.
In this battle, fight if you can, and retreat if you can't. This is the plan that Zhuote Babatur has already finalized, and most of the senior generals in the army also know this plan.
After all, you have to prepare in advance so that there will be no chaos during the subsequent retreat.
On August 30, Zhuote Babatur led all 30,000 troops out of the city to face the Chu Army's Fourth Cavalry Corps.
This battle, although seemingly large in scale, was actually not tragic and even felt like a child's play.
The two sides set up their positions early in the morning, but Zhungeer began to retreat in an orderly manner at around 11 o'clock in the morning.
The reason is naturally because after fighting a few tentative battles in the past few hours in the morning, any chance of luck in the Zhungeer people's minds was completely wiped out.
At 8:30 in the morning, Zhungeer took the lead in sending out cavalry to attack the Chu army's artillery position... but was intercepted by the Chu army's cavalry and intensively shelled by the artillery troops.
More than two thousand Zhungeer cavalry attacked, hundreds of them were killed or wounded on the spot and fled in embarrassment.
Subsequently, an infantry phalanx of more than a thousand people on the Jungar side was intensively attacked by the Chu army's line troops on the left wing.
The Jungar's infantry array composed of matchlocks and spearmen was no match for the Chu army's line infantry using flintlock guns, not to mention that the Chu army's infantry was supported by a large number of artillery.
The two sides only fought for a few minutes before Junger's infantry phalanx collapsed.
After failing in both battles, Drote Babatur decisively gave the order to retreat!
Although the scale of these two battles was not large, they allowed Zhuote Babatour to see the powerful combat effectiveness of the Chu army.
The cavalry is fine. In fact, the gap between the two sides is not particularly big, but the gap between artillery and infantry is enough to make people despair.
The Chu army's continuous intensive bombardment was enough to deal a devastating blow to Zhungeer's dense array!
Although the Jungar people also had twenty or thirty artillery pieces, they were vulnerable to the powerful artillery of the Chu army.
The contrast between the infantry was even greater. Those Chu barbarians didn't know why, but the firepower of their line infantry was extremely dense. After several rounds of volleys, the infantry formation composed of Zhungeer's arquebusiers and spearmen could no longer hold up. .
Just by looking at these two battles, Zhuote Babatur knew that this battle was hopeless, and if he continued to fight forcefully, the entire army might be destroyed.
Therefore, he simply ordered a retreat.
In order to cover the retreat of the main force, he ordered more than 4,000 surrendered troops from the Yarkand Khanate to attack the Chu army before the main force retreated.
In order to break up the enemy, in addition to these servants who were sent to die as cannon fodder, he mobilized more than 3,000 cavalry to make a roundabout raid to attract the attention of the Chu army.
Of course, these three thousand cavalry are not his direct descendants, but the troops of the Heshuote branch who submitted to Junger.
While ordering more than 7,000 people to attack, he also ordered the remaining 20,000 main troops to retreat. In particular, more than 5,000 people from his direct lineage were the first to withdraw from the battlefield.
However, even though Zhuote Babatur had made many arrangements in advance, a lot of problems still arose during the actual retreat.
First of all, as soon as Zhungeer's main force retreated, it immediately triggered a backlash from the cannon fodder troops who were sent to die to contain the Chu army...
You're about to run away, and you're asking me to die?
Then the Chu army also responded quickly. Army Lieutenant General Liao Hongpo immediately ordered a counterattack. More than 10,000 cavalry and tens of thousands of infantry launched a counterattack at the same time, which was extremely large in scale.
As a result, the orderly retreat originally planned by Zhungeer quickly turned into a panic escape.
That is to say, they prepared very well and prepared a large number of mules and horses. At the same time, most of them were cavalry, so even if the scene was a bit chaotic, their escape speed was still not slow.
Even if the Chu army has a lot of cavalry, it is not easy to chase Zhungeer's troops who are riding horses and trying to escape.
The two sides chased and fled until the evening of the same day, before the Chu army retreated and returned.
Although this battle was a bit of a fool's errand, the Chu army achieved a lot, killing at least 3,000 enemy soldiers and capturing more than 5,000 people.
Most of these prisoners were the cannon fodder troops sent by Zhuot Babatur to die to contain the Chu army. When people saw that Zhuote Babatur had given up on them, they only offered symbolic resistance in the face of the Chu army's counterattack. Soon, He simply surrendered.
This includes more than 3,000 cavalrymen who originally belonged to the Heshuote Department!
In addition, the Chu army also captured a large number of mules and horses.
As for Hami City, because it was voluntarily abandoned by the Jungar people, they accepted it directly without a fight. Unfortunately, the Hami City accepted by the Chu army was already a pure empty city.
Not to mention food and supplies, there was not even a human figure. Zhuote Babatur had already sent away all the people and supplies.
However, even an empty city can give the Chu army a valuable foothold. The surrounding oases are enough for the Chu Empire to carry out large-scale military reclamation here. By then, the local grain and grass production will be enough to maintain tens of thousands of troops.
The Chu army gained a lot, which naturally meant that someone on the Zhungeer side was going to be unhappy.
Zhuot Babatur was very unhappy. He had already underestimated the Chu army's combat effectiveness, but he didn't expect that he still underestimated them!
More importantly, he found that he had seriously overestimated the fighting power of his own people, especially the fighting will of those collateral cannon fodders!
They are all a bunch of trash!
They had promised to retreat in an orderly manner, but when it came time to retreat, they suddenly turned into a huge rout!
The final loss far exceeded the estimate!
He did not know the specific number of people who were killed, captured, missing and escaped, but Drout Babatur only gathered about 17,000 people after the war.
And he had 30,000 troops before the war.
This means that about 13,000 people were lost.
As for why the Chu army only killed and wounded 3,000 people and captured more than 5,000 people, the total number was only more than 8,000 people; but Zhungeer lost about 13,000 people.
Because there are still three to four thousand people who are either deserters or missing and lost and have not been gathered by Drote Babatur.
Who knows where they went!
But the good news is that not a single one of the more than 5,000 direct troops who belong to Zhuote Babatur's headquarters is left, and all of them have evacuated completely and in an organized manner.
However, this good news made many senior generals under Zhuote Babatur, especially senior generals from other tribes, have opinions!
If you, Zhuote Babatur, hadn't taken your direct descendants away immediately, how could we have collapsed so quickly.
He had said so nicely before the war, but when things turned out badly, he was the first to lead people away. It would be unreasonable for him not to collapse.
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