I want to be emperor

Chapter 413 The Way Out for Cavalry

Jinling City, inside the palace.

Luo Zhixue sat on the dragon chair at the top, and a group of generals stood below.

At this time, Xu Zhixian was standing 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 and our troops in various places north of the Yangtze River.

"Our army is in the direction of Jiangbei. The current deployment of troops includes the fourth division, the eighth division, the first guard 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 Yingtianfu in Zhili, we have deployed the first division, the tenth division, the No.11 division, the No.15 division, the No.20 second division, the sixth mortar regiment, the first Army forces such as the Heavy Artillery Regiment, as well as the Second Guards Division."

The deployment of troops of our own troops was basically understood by everyone present, so Xu Zhixian didn't go into too much detail, and quickly turned his words to the latest deployment of the Ming army:

"As for the puppet Ming army, according to our latest intelligence, the enemy's troops are mainly deployed in the Jiangbei area, in Yangzhou and Huai'an along the canal, and Hefei and Fengyang in the hinterland of Jiangbei."

"Among them, Yangzhou is the focus of the Ming army's deployment. According to reliable information, there are at least 5000 Jiangbei New Standard Army and 2-strong guard soldiers deployed there. , this person is good at defending the city, and he blocked our army in Hezhou for several months before!"

"The city of Huai'an in the rear is Yang Sichang, the new Governor of Water Transportation in the Pseudo-Ming Dynasty. He has more than [-] inspectors based on the new standard troops in Shandong and other places under his command. In addition, there are about [-] guards."
"The puppet Ming army in the direction of Hefei and Fengyang is headed by Zhu Dadian. There are about 5000 Fengyang new standard troops deployed in Hefei, at least 8000 soldiers in the guard, and about 3000 Fengyang new troops in the direction of Fengyang. The standard army, guard soldiers with more than 5000 people."

"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 [-] cavalry, which caused us a lot of trouble."

"When the Fourth and Eighth Divisions of our army were fighting in this direction, they were repeatedly attacked by enemy cavalry units. In October last year, a supply battalion of our army escorted a transport regiment to Tianchang, tens of miles northwest of Yangzhou. When the county was transporting supplies, it was attacked by a large number of enemy cavalry, and more than half of the supply battalion was lost, a large number of supplies were looted or destroyed, and the civilians in the transport regiment suffered heavy casualties!"

"In this case, 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."

The cavalry director Wang Xiazi said at this time: "Most of their cavalry are frontier cavalry dispatched from Jiliao, Xuanda, Sanbian and other places. The cavalry brigade may have a certain advantage with better equipment, but this advantage is also very limited."

"As for the cavalry regiments belonging to each division, they can only passively defend against this kind of frontier cavalry, even if the cavalry regiments of the divisions are equipped with quick-firing pistols!"

But at this time, Wang Xiazi raised his tone slightly and said: "But our cavalry unit has specially developed a mixed cavalry tactic. By assigning short-barreled sudden-firing lances to some cavalry infantry, it is possible to cover the assault cavalry for combat. A few times a month achieved good results."

"A few days ago, I received a cavalry combat report from the front line in Hefei. Our side is a mixed cavalry post under the Cavalry Regiment of the Eighth Division. There are more than 230 frontier cavalry."

"This mixed cavalry post of our army performed well."

"Statistics after the war show that our cavalry post killed 23 people and slightly injured 25 people, while the enemy cavalry left more than [-] corpses on the spot, with minor injuries unknown, and seized more than ten good horses."

"In this battle, our musketeer cavalry, with the longer range and greater power of the cavalry, can suppress and attack the enemy cavalry at a longer distance. When the enemy cavalry enters the effective range of the cavalry bow It caused considerable losses to the enemy. When the Musketeers suppressed the enemy cavalry, our assault cavalry resolutely launched a dense formation charge with sabers. They first killed the enemy with pistols and then fought with sabers. The enemy army!"

When Blind Wang said this, he couldn't help but smile on his face!

Equipping the cavalry with short-barreled quick-firing rifles, and at the same time mixing these cavalry equipped with quick-firing rifles with cavalry equipped with sabers and quick-firing pistols, this is what he vigorously supported and developed.

And Wang Xiazi engaged in these mixed cavalry because the performance of the pistol cavalry, which had been placed high hopes on the cavalry before, was not satisfactory.

When they were first equipped with a quick-fire pistol, the cavalry found that although the quick-fire pistol had good lethality, it could replace the riding bow to a certain extent, but the continuous firepower was too poor. Difference.

This also led to a situation: when one's own cavalry shot, although some enemy cavalry were killed, they would be shot into hedgehogs by the enemy's bow and arrow...

What's more, the enemy cavalry will charge over with sabers and cavalry spears, and then they will be defeated.

In the past year, the Chu Army's pistol cavalry has suffered similar failures many times in a row, forcing the Chu Army's cavalry to rethink the role of the pistol cavalry and begin to seek new ways of fighting.

-

To a certain extent, the poor performance of the pistol cavalry, which had high hopes, on the Jiangbei front was also one of the reasons why the Chu army repeatedly delayed the launch of the Jiangbei Campaign.

Our own pistol cavalry is not strong enough, and there are not enough traditional cavalry and assault cavalry. As a result, the Chu army's cavalry cannot stop the Ming army's cavalry.

If you can't support the cavalry of the Ming army, then your side will be greatly threatened when marching in the field and transporting supplies, which will lead to attacks on the supply troops.

In large-scale battles in the wild, they will fall into a passive state, and if they are not careful, the army will be defeated.

For this reason, while the Chu army delayed the Jiangbei battle several times, it has also been trying to find ways to improve the combat effectiveness of the cavalry, or simply find ways to restrain the enemy cavalry and improve it.

There are many restraint methods, such as assigning more four-wheeled carriages to the supply troops to resist the attack of enemy cavalry.

For example, equip the troops with more portable two-and-a-half-pound field guns and shotguns, and even learn from the Ming army to get some artillery vehicles specially equipped with light tunics, and engage in various vehicle formations.

But these are all symptoms, not the root cause. There is only one way to really reverse the unfavorable distance occupied by the Chu army in Jiangbei and even the Central Plains in the future, and offset the advantage of the enemy's cavalry, and that is to improve the combat effectiveness of their own cavalry.

On the contemporary battlefield, only one's own cavalry can truly resist the enemy's cavalry.

After a long period of exploration, the cavalry of the Chu Army on the front line paid a bloody price before gradually finding out a variety of suitable tactics and making improvements.

There are many improvements, for example, one or even two or three more pistols are issued to the pistol cavalry.

In this way, after the pistol cavalry rushed up, they could fire one after another through multiple pistols loaded in advance, firing multiple bullets, forming a firepower network several times larger than before.

In addition to the addition of pistols, certain improvements have been made to the tactics of the pistol cavalry, such as more emphasis on saber assault hand-to-hand combat, and more emphasis on dense formations.

Because sometimes the enemy cavalry may not give you the opportunity to use semi-round tactics.

The semi-round tactic is to rush up and turn tens of meters in front of the enemy's formation, and fire during the turn, and then retreat after the turn is successful to reload.

After loading, rush up and fire, and so on, until the enemy is defeated, or the enemy's formation is disrupted, and the charge is launched.

This kind of rigid tactic is okay against infantry without long-range firepower, and it can also deal with some half-baked cavalry, but it is not very good against elite frontier cavalry.

Many cavalrymen of the Ming army on the opposite side see that you are using a musket, regardless of whether it is a short musket or a long musket, they often rush up to shoot a wave of arrows or shoot with a three-eyed blunderbuss, and then directly wave their sabers or spears and three-eyed blunderbuss. up.

It doesn't give you a chance to reload and shoot back and forth at all.

What's more, when they saw that your Chu army cavalry was just playing with pistols, they thought you were a bully, and they rushed over without even riding and shooting... Then the Chu army's pistol cavalry were often defeated.

After all, the pistol cavalry of the Chu army are all under the jurisdiction of the divisional cavalry regiment, and the cavalry quality of the divisional cavalry regiment is half-baked cavalry. When charging, it would be fine if you countercharge directly from the beginning.

But if you still plan to hit a wave with a musket first, and then retreat after the fight, you will often collapse directly.

The pistol cavalry in the Chu army was once very embarrassed...

Later, the cavalry of the Chu army made many changes. For example, they were equipped with more lightweight cavalry guns of two and a half catties. Both have a longer range and greater power.

Through musket cavalry or cavalry artillery, first suppress the enemy's cavalry and shooting, and then let the assault cavalry charge up to fight in a dense formation, wielding sabers. During the charge, because of the dense formation, the horses basically have no room to run around. You can have your hands free.

As a result, these charging cavalry can charge with a knife in one hand and a pistol in the other, and fire the pistol first after getting close to a certain distance, because the speed of the charge is fast and the distance is very close, and the cavalry cannot have time to deal with it. The pistol performs a recovery action, so basically throw away the pistol directly and use the saber to fight hand-to-hand.

In response to this situation, the cavalry troops also specially tied these cavalry pistols with ropes. After the cavalrymen fired their guns, they didn’t have to worry about it, just let go. Anyway, the pistols couldn’t fall off because they were tied with ropes…

Not to mention, this improvement is quite effective, as proved in a cavalry battle in December.

Therefore, at the Imperial Military Affairs Conference, Wang Xiazi expressed his position on behalf of the cavalry: "After launching the Jiangbei Campaign, our cavalry is absolutely confident to kill the Ming cavalry on the opposite side, to ensure the logistics security of the army, and to ensure the safety of the flank formation of the army during the decisive battle."

(End of this chapter)