Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1906 Returning to Japan ([-]) Pursuing the Japanese Army
It takes a lot of time to send letters to Japan during the war. Naturally, other things will not stand still during this time period. For example, the war in southeastern Korea is one of them.

When the Japanese army's plan to attack Sacheon failed, and the Kuroda army hoped to return to Japan on the condition of stopping the war in Korea, the main force of the Japanese army led by Mori Hidemoto and Ukita Hideka finally bypassed Mashan guarded by Liu Ting and rushed eastward.

Liu Ting originally tried to stop him, but he hesitated after sending troops.It's not that he, a fierce general, suddenly became timid, but the art of war has a saying: Therefore, in the law of war, don't face high hills, don't turn your back on hills, don't follow the false north, don't attack sharp soldiers, don't eat bait soldiers, and don't hold back when returning to the teacher. ——Here happens to be on the "return to the teacher do not hold back" article.

The so-called "don't stop when returning to the army" means that the army that wants to return to the country or the main stronghold should not be stopped.To put it simply, if the enemy army is defeated and wants to go home, you should not stop him at this time.

Why?If you stop him on his way home from defeat and block his retreat, the enemy army who has no retreat will fight you desperately.At this time, the enemy army was originally defeated, but was forced to a life-and-death juncture by you. They would die anyway, and the momentum of a desperate fight will be very strong. On the contrary, your morale will be affected, so it will be difficult for you to win.

The most typical example is Cao Cao's expedition to Zhangxiu.Cao Cao led a large army to attack Zhang Xiu, but his army was unfavorable, and he was about to retreat. At this time, Liu Biao sent troops to help Zhang Xiu, cutting off Cao Cao's food and grass.

All of a sudden, Cao Cao was attacked by the enemy, so at night, he quietly transported the baggage, and set up an ambush, waiting for Zhang Xiu to chase him.On the second day, Zhang Xiu really came after him, but was attacked by Cao Cao's ambush, and Zhang Xiu was defeated.After the war, Cao Cao said to Xun Yu: "The bandits stopped me from returning to my teacher and died with me. That's why I know victory."

However, although "returning to the teacher, don't hold back", Liu Ting does not intend to do nothing.It is also said in Sun Tzu's Art of War: "Don't stop the army when you return, don't block the army if you surround it, don't force the poor, this is the way to use troops."

Don't chase the poor, it's useful here-note, it's not that the poor don't chase.

Don't be oppressed by the poor, that is, when the enemy has reached a desperate situation, don't rush to approach, and don't drive the enemy into a corner.The so-called "a trapped beast is still fighting", "a dog jumps over the wall in a hurry", really makes him fight to the death with you, and we will die together. Isn't this not worth the gain?This line of thinking is actually consistent with "return to the teacher and don't stop".

Therefore, when the enemy is in a desperate situation, you don't need to force him, but you must not stop chasing him. The so-called "hitting him lazy and returning" means chasing after him when the enemy retreats, so as to obtain greater results. .

The Mongolian cavalry has been in the world for hundreds of years. The reason why they can achieve small defeats when they lose, and big victories when they win. The army continued to strangle, slowly but steadily continued to bleed the enemy until it was completely wiped out.

However, there were very few cavalry in Liu Ting's headquarters, and it was a little difficult to chase the Japanese army who was eager to flee back to Busan. Therefore, Liu Ting simply sold "Hou Ye's brother-in-law" Li Rumei's face, and sent a messenger to inform Li Rumei of the Japanese army's movement urgently.

Li Rumei's entire army of cavalry was originally chasing the Japanese army all the way southward, and they also harassed and attacked them all the way. However, under Kuroda Rushui's strategy, the Japanese army was accidentally thrown off for a while, resulting in the surprise attack of the Japanese army on Sacheon. Come.

Originally, Kuroda Rushui tried his best to plan this plan, Li Rumei didn't notice it for a while, in fact, even high-level pragmatism could understand it, but this incident made Li Rumei very angry.

This time he went south to fight in North Korea again. It was the first time that he led the army alone outside the command of his father and brother. He also directly took orders from Gao Yushi, the uncle who was known as invincible. Naturally, he hoped to prove himself.

Who knew that he, who had been performing well before, unexpectedly lost his chain at the most critical moment, and almost threatened the safety of his uncle because of this, how could he, Li Ziqing, bear it?So Li Rumei had long held back her anger and wanted to vent her anger.

Now that Liu Ting's information has been delivered, why is Li Rumei so polite?Of course, send troops to chase immediately.

He is also a general who is familiar with military books, and he also knows that returning to the army should not be suppressed, and the poor should not be forced, so he adopted the most common trailing pursuit of cavalry chasing infantry, and the specific fighting method was completely in accordance with his father Li Chengliang's teaching.

Li Chengliang fought in pursuit battles, especially when cavalry was chasing infantry. In those days, he usually approached quickly with fine cavalry. When he was at a long distance, he shot arrows first.

At the same time, another fine cavalry from the rear stepped forward again, fighting according to this pattern as usual, and returned to the main formation after the two wings circled.This cycle goes on and on, according to the number of cavalry on the side to decide how many cavalry to carry out such tactical actions.

There is no doubt that this is a chasing wheel battle, the purpose is not only to kill the enemy's vital forces, but also to cause panic to the enemy-the rear army is constantly being harvested by the enemy cavalry, round after round, the front army and the middle army No matter how determined your will is, sooner or later your morale will collapse.

This style of play can be regarded as the Liaodong version of the Mongolian cavalry pursuit battle. The main reason is that there is an extra item of forced charge, because the Mongolian cavalry will not charge until the end of the strangulation, and often the countless waves ahead are just archery.

The reason why the Liaodong cavalry chose to join the charge was naturally because the Li family’s family cavalry was well-equipped. The opponents they faced in the past, whether it was the Jurchen ministries or the Mongolian cavalry, were inferior to them in terms of defensive equipment. The advantage is very obvious.

Now facing the Japanese army?In fact, it is almost the same, and it also has an advantage.

Except for the samurai, ordinary Japanese soldiers often had no armor, and even if they had, most of them were just bamboo armor, or even armless bamboo armor, which was not suitable for Liaodong cavalry to kill.However, the Japanese army is quite different from the Jurchen and Mongolian troops. The main difference is that the Japanese army has an iron artillery team, that is, an arquebus team.

This kind of army with muskets can pose a threat to the Liaodong cavalry. Although the shooting and loading speed of the Japanese iron cannons is far behind that of the Ming army, no matter how you say it, it can at least make a round of cavalry before the Liaodong cavalry rushes to the front. shoot.

A round of volley can also cause some damage. If you are facing the Mongolian cavalry who refused to kill more people because of the huge population disadvantage in the past many years, in fact, such a threat of killing may already make the Mongolian cavalry voluntarily give up the front. Charge.

However, for the cavalry of the Ming army, especially the elite Ding cavalry of the Li family army, this is not a big deal.

First of all, the advantage of defensive equipment is here. The half-mounted cavalry still has a good protective effect against the lead pellet bullets at this time. If the hit is relatively "positive", it may even only cause impact damage instead of penetrating damage. Most are not fatal.Occasionally, the ones who are not so "positive", and because the position is probably not the key, are also not fatal.

Of course, if you are particularly unlucky and hit the eyes, throat, etc., you probably won't be able to survive, but... the probability is obviously very low.

The second is the advantage of pensions. Since the beginning of Ming Dynasty's military system, servants acted as the actual main force. Not only the military pay and benefits are very serious, but the pensions are also very different.

Unlike the guard soldiers who wanted to escape when faced with a slight disadvantage on the battlefield because of their low treatment and pensions, the servants had a relatively firm will to fight.

They are rewarded for their meritorious deeds, and they are rewarded with generous stipends for those who died in battle. It is equivalent to gambling when you win and the banker is exempt. This obviously makes many people not afraid of sacrifice.

After all, in the era of feudal monarchy, human life has a price. When the price is high enough, some people are willing to sell their life safety in exchange for what they consider more important, such as the comfort of a family for decades.What's more, as mentioned above, when the equipment advantage is great, it is actually quite difficult for a well-trained sergeant to die in battle.

It was precisely because she knew her own advantage that Li Rumei moved very quickly this time, and caught up with the main force of the Japanese army the next day.

In fact, when Li Rumei was ordered to go south to pursue the Japanese army, she was not worried about a decisive battle with the Japanese army.He believes that there are two situations in this matter, one is whether he is willing to fight the decisive battle, and the other is whether the decisive battle can be won.

Whether they are willing to fight a decisive battle, the initiative is not in the hands of the Japanese army.The composition of the Japanese army was complex. Generally speaking, its mobility was relatively average. The only advantage was that Japanese soldiers in this era were more able to endure hardships, and they could grit their teeth and persist in rapid marches for a long time.

However, even so, it is impossible for the Japanese army to force Li Rumei's nearly [-] cavalry to a decisive battle.If Li Rumei is willing, this decisive battle can be fought, if not, then it will definitely not be fought.

Whether they can win or not is the main reason why Li Rumei is unwilling to fight the Japanese army.He felt that it was a bit difficult to decide whether he would go to a decisive battle with the Japanese army with about [-] cavalry alone.

The reason is not complicated. This cavalry has no artillery, and the cavalry alone may not be enough to form the advantage of "[-] against [-]".

Originally, the two magic weapons for the Ming army to defeat the Japanese army were artillery and iron cavalry. Although muskets also had advantages, at least they did not reach the level of "I have what no one else has".Now that I have a lame leg, it is obviously not so sure to think about hitting three.

Having said that, Li Rumei's biggest worry before was not whether he could fight well, because he was a cavalry soldier. If the battle situation was not good, he could withdraw from the battle at any time, and it was over if he ran. Your Japanese army can still chase me. ?

Gao Yushi has calculated before that the most elite infantry can actually catch up with the cavalry within a certain period of time, but there is a big problem here, that is, the cavalry can turn back to fight a wave at any time.But as an infantry, whether you can complete the formation when the cavalry turns back to fight a wave has become the biggest problem.

In this era when musketeers can only execute the tactics of queuing and shooting, there is a high probability that they will not be able to complete the line tactical array, so generally speaking, it is still inconvenient for infantry to chase cavalry.The complete change of this situation, I am afraid, can only wait for the arrival of the machine gun era, and it cannot even be the early machine guns-it is too heavy, and it must be deployed on a large scale in machine gun units that can be distributed to squad platoon tactics after weight reduction.

So, what was Li Rumei worried about before, making him just harass and attack all the way?What he worries about is battle damage.

The cavalry is inherently expensive, and the family cavalry is especially expensive: a war horse originally cost more than twenty taels of silver, but now the price has dropped a bit in the past few years (because Eastern Mongolia has been directly recovered, and Western Mongolia has essentially become an economic colony). Still need 16 taels to 18 taels.

Staff training is also expensive.The cost of training Mongolian cavalry can be regarded as zero, but for a qualified Han Chinese cavalry, the final cost of various expenses is 40 taels of silver. , The training cost of this cavalry may be as high as 50 taels.

How should I put it, the Han cavalry of this era is like the air force pilots of later generations. It is really not something that can be used by just looking for someone, and it must be trained at a high price.

Last but not least, Li Rumei didn't dare to let Li Jiajun's Ding cavalry suffer another big loss.Needless to say, Li Rusong's losses in the Battle of the Biju Pavilion may not seem large, but they almost shook the foundation of the Li family's army.

Of course, most of the Li family troops under Li Rumei's command are not direct descendants of the Li family, but there are still a thousand descendants among them, and these thousand cavalry are still Li Rumei's direct descendants.

This is not all, the remaining thousands of collateral cavalry of the Li family cannot easily suffer serious losses, otherwise it may cause a crisis of trust, making various collateral generals (Li Chengliang's family background or subordinates with foreign surnames) suspect that the main family is "cutting the vassal", In turn, the alienation from morality affects the internal unity of the Li family army and weakens the overall strength.

As for the Xuanda cavalry under her command, of course it was impossible for Li Rumei to regard them as more important than her own lineage and collateral lineage.However, after all, Ma Gui is a highly pragmatic direct line general, and if the Xuanda cavalry were entrusted to him with confidence, he could not take it seriously and damage it in vain, otherwise obviously he would not be able to explain it.

Therefore, Li Rumei knew that although he was unlikely to win this battle, there were still many things to pay attention to.Of course, as long as you don't go to a decisive battle with the Japanese army, it doesn't matter how fierce the pursuit is.

Since the Japanese army is "returning to the division", as long as they don't put on an appearance that they want to wipe them out, it is impossible to force them to fight to the death.What's more, the composition of the Japanese army is complex, and they have their own plans when facing the pursuit, and they often fail to exert their due strength-this point has been confirmed in the previous pursuit.

After catching up with the Japanese army, the situation was as expected by Li Rumei.During the first round of pursuit, the Japanese army blocked Naoshima's troops from the rear. As a result, the Ming army was at the stage of "going all-in" and the Fourth Army of Naoshima Naoshima, who was not "complete", suffered heavy losses (his son The Nabeshima Katsushige Department has not yet returned to the organizational system), and almost collapsed on the spot.

As a last resort, the Japanese army hastened to send the Second Army of Konishi to replace the Fourth Army, but the Ming army seemed to be fighting vigorously, and the Liaodong cavalry retreated to replace the Xuanda cavalry.

There is already a competitive relationship between the Xuanda cavalry and the Liaodong cavalry, and this will not be significantly improved because of the upper-level alliance.Therefore, the Xuanda cavalry saw that the Liaodong cavalry performed well, so they were naturally not to be outdone, and went up to charge and fight.

This is a pain for Chief Xiaoxi, he and his legion were originally the most feared legion in the Japanese army by the Ming army. When they saw the Ming army cavalry, their courage was three points weaker, and now they were pissed off by Xuan Dajing cavalry The onslaught of the attack will soon be unable to sustain, not only retreating steadily, but even on the verge of collapse.
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PS: I remember I sent it last night, but I didn't find it until I turned on my phone at noon, which is embarrassing.This chapter is from yesterday, yesterday's...

(End of this chapter)