Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1357
After breaking through the long-range fire blockade and approaching the bayonet formation, a bloody battle began immediately.

Unlike the Mo Dao Bing, the big killer weapon in the Tang Dynasty, which "controls cavalry with steps", although the bayonet formation can also "go in like a wall", it obviously does not have the overbearing "the enemy that should be, the people and horses are all broken".The use of the bayonet is not based on chopping and chopping, it is almost only specialized in "stabbing".

But to be honest, although Datang Mo Daobing is strong, it has two serious flaws.One is that the manufacture of Mo Dao itself was too "high-tech" at the time, not only the output was extremely low, but also the price was expensive, and it was difficult to equip it in large quantities; In fact, it may be necessary to choose one out of a thousand, because Mo Dao Bing not only needs amazing courage, but also needs to be extremely strong-the effect of "shattering people and horses" will definitely not be able to be cut with little strength.

It is precisely because of these two problems that there is no Mo Dao after the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and Mo Dao Bing has gradually become a legend.

The bayonet does not have such a problem. Although the manufacture of the bayonet is also "high-tech", Jinghua can satisfy it at present, but the use of the bayonet is far simpler than that of the Modao. The requirements for people are much lower. Qualified soldiers can use it.

However, the bayonet itself is not a very professional cold weapon, it is actually a supporting weapon, its main function is to make up for the lack of close combat ability of musketeers.

To some extent, it is an alienated product of a three-eyed gun, all designed to allow soldiers to perform long-range firepower projection and close combat.From the perspective of dealing with cavalry only from its cold weapon attributes, the bayonet formation is actually not as good as the spear formation.

What is the most practical and cost-effective melee cold weapon in the classical period?This is basically not controversial, it is a spear!It's not any other fancy cold weapon, or a simple spear.This kind of long-handled assassination cold weapon represented by the spear is called "the king of a hundred soldiers".

They are all long-handled weapons. There are still differences between spears and general guns, lances, beryllium and other weapons. Although it is said that the difference between these weapons is the difference in style. However, the most obvious difference between spears and beryllium is in length.

In fact, it is better to call a long-handled spear a long-handled spear. The length of a general long-handled spear is one to two feet, that is, three to six meters long. The polearms weighed by a long-handled weapon have a length of up to 5.6 meters, and the polearms weighed by a gun have a length of up to 8 meters.

This length may exceed the imagination of many people. After all, a 6-meter-long cold weapon may not be common in film and television dramas.Is it convenient to operate such a long weapon?
Don't even think about it, of course it's inconvenient.With a 6-meter long gun, you don’t have to think about any fancy moves. For example, dancing with a gun or something is purely a dream. The way to use this weapon is basically one move, stabbing forward—that’s right. , Just such a trick: stab!
Does this trick work?Of course it works!
Even primitive people can realize the powerful lethality that cutting-edge weapons can produce. It is precisely because of this that humans invented spears, such cold weapons for stabbing (wooden and bamboo sharpened) very early.To be honest, melee cold weapons can be roughly divided into three types, one is swords that use blades to kill; the other is spears that use sharp points to stab wounds;

Among these weapons, the only one that can be made very long is the spear. If the other two are made too long, there is basically no operability, and the lethality will not increase but decrease.

Is it useful for a long time?Of course it is useful, as the old saying goes: An inch is long and an inch is strong.The longer the weapon, the greater its range, and this is the case with spears.First of all, the spear is very long, so the attack range is large.

Secondly, the lethality is also very strong. Although it is only a stabbing move, this move is the most lethal move. If you want to attack enemy soldiers with armor defense, stabbing is the most effective.Swords, a weapon that uses slashing as its attack method, encounter particularly high resistance when piercing armor, and are at an absolute disadvantage against heavily armored enemies.Of course, blunt weapons can also "break armor", but that is the same problem as the selection of Mo Dao soldiers. You must first have this kind of Hercules-level soldiers.

Whether in the ancient East or the West, spears are very popular cold weapons. The famous phalanx in the West, the absolute main force of cold weapons are spears, and spearmen were definitely the most effective arms in ancient times. .

When polearms entered the battlefield, they were not only used by chariots and cavalry, but were also widely used by infantry. The spearmen in the phalanx followed the shielded infantry and used the gap between the shields to stab.

Infantry against cavalry, in addition to using firearms and crossbows, it is almost the only effective way to form a tight line and assassinate with dense spears.

Roughly in the current era of alternating hot and cold weapons, famous armies such as the Dabaiba soldiers, the Swiss spearmen, and the Spanish phalanx in history all rely on spears to deal with cavalry, and the Spanish phalanx also needs to rely on spears. The pawns protect the musketeers, which is very close to Gao Wuzhen's current set of ideas.

The practicability of spears is very strong. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties of China, classical long weapons such as halberds and Ge were basically eliminated, and the long weapons used by army soldiers on a large scale gradually became only spears.The same is true in Europe. Since the 14th century, infantry have used spears and axes (a unique cold weapon for the Swiss, a combination of spears and axes, generally translated into "Swiss halberds" in China), which led to the decline of feudal knights. (Cheap overpowers expensive, expensive ones are bound to decline.)
When hot and cold weapons are alternated, musketeers and spearmen are usually used together. At that time, there was already a team of spearmen using arquebuses, and because the muskets were single-shot, they were easily affected by enemy infantry and spearmen between shooting and shooting. The cavalry's assault, the musketeer who only had the butt as a blunt weapon for self-defense during the enemy's assault was too weak.Therefore, the musketeers at that time were often protected by spearmen holding long guns, which was the real core of the Spanish phalanx.

It was not until the invention of the bayonet that this situation changed.With the bayonet, musketeers also had strong melee capabilities, and could fight against enemy cavalry and infantry alone in melee. As a result, some countries began to prepare troops with all musketeers, which greatly improved their combat power.

Regarding the bayonet, the earliest documented record in China is the blunderbuss knife in He Rubin's "Binglu" in 1606, while the Western first appeared in a peasant dispute in Bayonne, France in the 17th century.At that time, farmers inserted knives into the muzzles of rifles to attack the enemy.In the eighteenth century, the socket bayonet appeared, which was protruding from the right side of the musket barrel. This was because the musket at that time was front-loading and would not interfere when loading ammunition.

The muskets currently produced by Jinghua are still front-loaded, but they are only flintlock front-loaded and equipped with paper shell fixed charges, so the bayonets produced by Gao Pragmatic are also socket-type bayonets.It uses the thrusting attack of the spear instead of the blunt attack of the three-eyed blunderbuss, and cooperates with the three-stage attack of the musket to form an alternative Spanish large phalanx.

The advantage is that the weapons and equipment are more unified, which is convenient for logistics support and training. It is in line with the high-practical and consistent simplified logistics thinking, which doubles the efficiency of individual combat ability training; It is not as good as the spearman.

However, when the impact force of the cavalry was exhausted and the two sides began to fall into a melee, the bayonet with a more reasonable length was more useful than the spearman.

In short, the biggest feature of the bayonet is that it can be used from far or near, and its power is not weak.In other words, it is actually a panacea that can do anything.

The [-] Mongolian heavy cavalry who had suffered huge casualties and finally rushed to the front of the bayonet formation, according to Brihatu's request before the battle, when the horses approached the bayonet formation about [-] steps away, they all suddenly took out a hood and stepped forward. He leaned forward, stretched his left arm, and put the hood on the horse's head.

The problem of loud noises was overcome by these elite heavy cavalry by controlling their horses forcibly with superb equestrian skills, but the habit of war horses automatically avoiding "bright and sharp" objects was not easy to overcome by equestrian skills, so they temporarily prepared cloth hoods.

A well-trained and excellent cavalry horse can ignore the line of sight for a short period of time and only follow the order of the knight to drive.Due to economic reasons, the number of Mongolian heavy cavalry is decreasing day by day, but this makes the cavalry who can be selected into the heavy cavalry more elite and better at horsemanship to another extent. They obviously have such ability.

Zhang Wanbang's originally calm face turned ugly at this time, but he showed no fear. He just took a deep breath, drew out his saber and cursed: "Two thousand heavy cavalry for my two thousand infantry? This old boy Tumen is afraid." You don’t know how to do arithmetic!” Then he raised his knife and shouted angrily, “Brothers, we can’t lose this battle, and Yin Zi, the wife of Feng, is here right now—fuck it!”

The group of people in the bayonet formation, no servants or soldiers of the guards, were all greatly superior to the Mongolian cavalry, and their spirits were indeed high. In such a situation, none of them was timid to fight, and they roared and promised: "Damn it! "

It's too late to say it, and the iron cavalry has come to the present.Although the Mongolian heavy cavalry did not use long lances, although their charge was not as fierce as that of Western knights, the impact of the horses was still there.

Although the first batch of war horses that hit the bayonet array stumbled and fell to the ground almost without exception, their huge inertia caused their bodies to roll forward, and even knocked into two or three layers of bayonet rows. Do a vault roll and get up to fight.

Vaulting is an extremely dangerous action, especially for knights wearing heavy armor. Fortunately, the so-called heavy armor of the Mongols is not full-body armor like in Europe, but leather armor with iron plates, which can still guarantee people's activities. ability.However, it was even more difficult to roll over on the vault on the battlefield. Only half of the knights who rolled over on the vault on the wide front were left alive to stand up.

But this wave of impact did have a huge effect, that is, the Mongols suddenly discovered that the bayonet array itself is not outstanding in defense against heavy cavalry!Although the heavy cavalry on the first broad front lost almost all their horses, there were only about 300 men on this front.

In other words, it does not require a particularly strong force to cover the horse's eyes at close range and attack the bayonet formation.The reason why the Mongolian cavalry was defeated in the previous two wars was that the musketeers and artillery behind the bayonet array were too powerful. The most critical concentrated impact of rushing.

The murderous intent of the Mongolian cavalry soared accordingly. Whether it was the fallen cavalry who got up to fight again, or the mounted cavalry who rushed into the formation from behind, they swung their knives and slashed, intending to vent their anger by killing.

The Tumen in the distance also became excited, holding up a monocular that was obviously low-level equipment of the Ming army and looked overjoyed. When he saw that the formation was broken, he laughed and patted Brihatu on the shoulder vigorously. , loudly said: "Okay, Burihatu, you really have a set! This bayonet array is so famous, it turns out it is just a silver-like wax-headed gun, as long as it withstands their firearms, rush to the front of the array and immediately cover the horses Eyes, this bayonet array can't stop my Mongolian cavalry at all!"

The surrounding generals of the Mongolian army also laughed and cheered each other. The entire Mongolian army's rear was full of joy, waiting for the light cavalry who continued to rush forward to massacre Zhang Wanbang who had already "broken the defense".

Unfortunately, their celebration may have been too early.Burhatu, who was the only one who remained reserved, soon discovered something strange—after the Ming army's bayonet array was broken, the Mongolian heavy cavalry could not crush the Ming army's infantry, and the two armies fought strangely. together.

Tumen and the others reacted a bit later, and they realized that Brihatu's expression was still serious, and they all looked towards Zhang Wanbang's position, only to realize that something was wrong.

Although the bayonet formation of the Ming army was broken, it did not collapse. On the contrary, even the musketeers turned into bayonet soldiers, and began to divide and cooperate with about ten small teams to encircle and suppress the Mongolian heavy cavalry who were accustomed to fighting alone.

That's right, it's encirclement and suppression!
Brihatu was the first to call out: "No, this is... the little mandarin duck array?"

He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't quite right either.This style of play of Zhang Wanbang's department is indeed derived from the "little mandarin duck formation", but Gao Yushi has always called the two small mandarin duck formations with dozens of people and dozens of people as "squad platoon tactics" in private.

This is a tactic based on the strength of an infantry squad or an infantry platoon in the future, based on the cooperation of small formations. It does not conflict with the large formations of the current era, but forms many small groups on the large battlefield. to fight.

This kind of tactic is too complicated to describe in detail. Simply put, it is to form a force advantage in each local battlefield, and always maintain that one's own side fights more and fights less, and encircles and suppresses the enemy forces fighting on their own at the fastest speed, and finally accumulates small victories into big victories .

Although the Mongolian heavy cavalry were elite, no matter how elite they were, they couldn't hit ten at a time. What's more, they were scimitar cavalry, not spear cavalry. After their impact subsided, they also needed to get close to the Ming army to complete the beheading.The Ming army used bayonets, and the gun stock and the body of the bayonet were longer than the scimitar, which could cause damage to the Mongolian cavalry earlier - it was not necessary to stab people, stabbing horses was also effective, because even if the horse armor It can resist arrows, and even slash to a certain extent, but obviously it cannot resist sharp bayonet stabs.

The Mongolian cavalry, who thought they were going to be invincible, did not expect that after breaking the "bayonet formation myth", what awaited them was not victory, but a more difficult or even less dominant fight.

Outside the battlefield, Tumen and Cao Yu, the commanders of the two armies, gasped at the same time.

However, their feelings of wonder and shock must be completely different.
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(End of this chapter)