Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 878 Decisive Battle in Sand City ([-])
Two cavalry, with a combined army of nearly [-], actually started a mobile battle. What kind of situation should it be?
This is probably difficult for many people in later generations to imagine, and it may be difficult for them to understand why two cavalry from the same clan would fight like this.

According to common sense, everyone is a Mongolian cavalry, and no one needs to be poor in equestrian skills. The speed of movement should not be much different, and the level of riding and shooting is also the same.

In this case, it is almost meaningless to continue to use the tactic of approaching, shooting and harassing, and the same is true for Mangu's tactics-whether the other party knows what you want to do?If you want to retreat, I will hang in a leisurely manner; if you want to shoot, I will shoot at you.

Therefore, conventional Mongolian cavalry tactics have no effect during the Mongolian cavalry civil war. Only when both sides give up those tricks and charge directly is the decisive means of victory.

But is it really that simple?Of course it's not that simple.

Because there is one of the most critical differences, which lies in the logistical situation of the two sides.

The Mongolian cavalry has always been known for its so-called "expedition without logistics" ability, but this ability is only occasionally mentioned in the literature of later generations. Most people still focus on Mangudai, the Mongols who rule the world, even if there are other mentions. I didn't say much about logistics, as if the Mongols only needed to drink mare's milk for an expedition of [-] miles.

This is a kind of assumption without research.

Even if an ordinary person in future generations is given only mare's milk for a month, he can at most sustain life. How can he maintain high-intensity marches and even battles?

Mongols are also human beings, so naturally it is impossible to live by drinking mare's milk alone. Besides... are all horses are mares, and they are all kept in the lactation stage?

The mare is of course an important source of food, but in fact the Mongols also had logistics.Fried rice, milk tofu, and beef jerky, the traditional Mongolian diet, are all dehydrated and easy-to-preserve foods that can last for several months at the longest.

These foods can be eaten after simple processing. For example, fried rice is rice grains obtained by frying millet rice and then grinding the shell. It can be eaten dry or soaked in hot water;

Milk tofu is a food made by coagulating and fermenting milk, goat milk, horse milk, etc. It is similar to ordinary tofu in shape and can be eaten dry or steamed;

Needless to say, beef jerky can be eaten directly, plus milk, goat milk, milk tea, etc., are all foods that are easy to obtain and can be eaten without spending too much cooking time.

However, it was already 200 years ago to travel thousands of miles with only these foods. In fact, it is very difficult for the Mongols to do this now. Therefore, when Tumen Khan went on an expedition, he also brought a batch of cattle and sheep.

Cattle and sheep can be used for both milk and meat, which is the basic guarantee for the Mongols when they go on an expedition. The main force of the Chahar Ministry will naturally bring a lot of cattle and sheep as supplements.

When the 3000-strong army went out, Tumen Khan brought more than 7 cattle and more than [-] sheep.

Looking at this number alone, it is quite large, but in fact, it is not much to share 6 people. Moreover, it also needs to add more than [-] Xin'ai units that have lost their foundation. This point of logistics is actually somewhat insufficient.

At that time, Tumen Khan's idea was that as long as the batch of cattle and sheep lasted until he joined Xin Ai, it would be almost enough, because the rest could be solved by Xin Ai. Ji and Guihua City can also be properly resolved.

But things went wrong, Xin Ai lost all the tribesmen, and of course all the cattle and sheep. Even his subordinates can't do the two horses that the Mongolian cavalry is used to, and many of them only have one war horse.

Tumen Khan not only failed to leave the logistics burden to Xin Ai, but Xin Ai herself became Tumen's drag. At this time, the task of Tumen Khan's [-] cows and [-] sheep was even heavier. .

Previously, Tumen and Brihatu had discussed to launch an offensive in Shacheng for ten days, but the first wave of exploration began in only six or seven days. One of the reasons was that the logistics were urgent, which forced Tumen Khan to advance After a fight, I hope to take Shacheng as a supplement—since Shacheng is guarded by the Ming army, according to the habits of the Ming army, there must be a large amount of supplies in the city, including stored food.

It's just that the Ming army's defensive capabilities were too strong, and the artillery fire was too violent.

Tumen Khan, who was frustrated in his attack on Shacheng, faced the danger of a pincer attack from east and west. Under Brihatu's suggestion, he chose the strategy of breaking through the Eastern Route Army first. Under the city of Shacheng, Han Naji, who came from the west, was cheaper in the end.

However, the speed of cattle and sheep was obviously not as fast as that of war horses, so Tumen Khan had to divide his troops, forming a situation of about [-] cavalry main force in front, and [-] cavalry escorting and protecting the cattle and sheep behind.

On the other hand, Qiataiji is different. To the south is Daming, and with the guarantee of the highly pragmatic Jinghua, he can safely leave the cattle and sheep in the various horse market branches of the Jinghua Trading Company at the border—because horses and cattle need to be traded. For the sheep trade, Jinghua has large horse farms in these places, and it is not a problem to put some cattle and sheep.

Why did Gao Yushi choose the battlefield on the southern front?Better logistical support capability is also one of the important reasons.

Under such a situation, how can one not see Tumen Khan's disadvantages with Chataiji's rich combat experience?

It is the unified law of military affairs in the world to use one's own strengths to attack the other's weaknesses. Therefore, Chataiji did not choose to fight against Tumen Khan, who has nearly twice his strength, but chooses to let him fight. I personally went out and led a small number of elites to hold Tumen Khan back. At the same time, I sent Qingbadu, Daerhan Ruobulang and others to lead the [-] Khan guards to go around and go straight to the back of Tumen Khan. The cattle and sheep brought by their sweat.

Tumen were not fools either, the opponent's strength was obviously less than [-], but the Chinese army unfurled the banner of Chataiji's chief general, which almost made it clear that the opponent still had the main force performing other tasks.

There are only two possibilities for other tasks. One is to plan to suddenly break out from the flank when he and Chataiji are fighting inextricably, trying to defeat him directly.But he felt that the opponent should not be so confident that half of the troops wanted to play this hand with him.After all, the main reason why he was unable to defeat Chataiji in front of him for a while was that the terrain was inconvenient to spread out.

As mentioned before, the terrain here is the intersection line of mountains and grasslands, and Chataiji's offensive is launched along the intersection line, which means that the front of Tumen Khan is only half as wide as usual.Although he could choose to take a detour to the left, it would also be possible to force Chataiji into the mountains to the south.

"No entry into the forest" is one of the cavalry's marching rules, but if Chataiji chose to enter the mountain to avoid the Tumen's edge, there would be no problem at all. The cavalry on the mountain must be inconvenient to operate, and it is difficult to give full play to the advantage of having a large number of troops.

Of course they don't want to fight this kind of bad battle.

Since they refused to outflank from the left, they could only fight Chataiji under half the width of the frontal battlefield. On this battlefield that is not conducive to the deployment of troops, although Tumen can take the initiative by relying on their superiority in strength, It seems that he is playing against Chataiji, but it is reasonable to be unable to take it down for a while.

At this time, Tumen had to consider the whereabouts of the other [-] cavalry. Since these people are unlikely to attack his main force from the flanks, they can only attack the cattle and sheep in the rear. up.

Although not very worried, Tumen had no choice but to divide their troops to rescue the "logistics force" in the rear.

After thinking about it, he simply sent Xin Ai over there—Xin Ai had more than ten thousand troops, plus there were already five thousand cavalry in the rear to escort the cattle and sheep. They think it's not a big problem.
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Thanks to the book friend "Reinforcement 913" for the support of the monthly ticket, thank you!The previous chapter was supposed to be "Decisive Battle in Sand City ([-])", but I missed it when I posted it...

(End of this chapter)