The eldest son of the red mansion

Chapter 183 Confrontation
Unknowingly, Jia Ke quietly formed two sets of systems among his subordinates, one was the regular troops under his command in Xuanhua and Kaiping towns.Although these people are loyal to him, there are still some constraints from the court.The other set is completely his, the Manchu Eight Banners established by himself, this army is completely under the orders of Jia Ke, and Jia Ke can use them to attack anywhere.

These two systems form Jia Ke's two treasured swords. These two treasured swords are not only unified, but also belong to each other.This makes them both one and the other.

In the next few days, in order to verify his judgment of their combat effectiveness, Jia Ke held several confrontations between the Manchu Eight Banners and the regular army.The two sides fought a simulated war on the grassland where you came and went.

All used in war, wooden lime-covered bows and arrows, long spears and wooden knives.This can not only reduce unnecessary casualties, but also show the combat effectiveness of both sides.

The result of the war was that the Manchu Eight Banners, brainwashed by Jia Ke, had won consecutive victories. They now regard it as an honor to be killed by Jia Ke.

In addition, the current Manchu Eight Banners are equipped with paper armor like the troops in Kaiping Town. With the same weapons, the Tatars have gained a decisive advantage in their physical fitness in the cold northern regions.

Moreover, they fight fiercely without fear of death. In addition, they are now well-equipped. When facing the regular army of Kaiping Town, if they cannot break through from the front, they will attack from both sides continuously, and even outflank the rear. Once the cavalry in Kaiping Town If they cannot stop them, then the slow-moving Macedonian phalanx will face raindrops of arrows from the Manchu Eight Banners. Even wearing paper armor, they will not be able to persist for a long time.In the end, the Manchu Eight Banners suffered heavy losses and the regular army in Kaiping Town was defeated.

This has never happened in the previous wars with the Tatars. The Tatars had not undergone systematic training and their ability to withstand casualties was very poor. coax away.And the Manchus who have been trained and brainwashed by Jia Ke, even if they suffer [-]% to [-]% casualties, they can still charge forward without fear of death.

The main problem of the regular army in Kaiping Town is that the cavalry cannot compete with the Manchu Eight Banners, and the number is small.Although these cavalrymen have been carefully trained by Jia Ke, they are far behind the Tatars in riding skills, and their bodies are not as strong as the Tatars. Therefore, if they face the Tatars with poor equipment, they can still win , but against Manchus with the same equipment as them, they will be at an absolute disadvantage.

After Jia Ke saw this situation, he felt that the Manchu Eight Banners could not have such a big advantage over the regular army, otherwise the power in his army would be out of balance, so he improved the bows and arrows of the regular army.

The previous ordinary bows and arrows were replaced with powerful English longbows. Longbows are generally about 1.5 meters long. The back of each bow is bent from a complete piece of wood. A good bow is made of yew wood, which is hard and elastic.The effective shooting range of these longbows reached 300 meters.Longbowmen can release high-parabolic arrows to attack the upper part of the enemy.The weakness of war horses is the attack from above. Most of the war horses have no armor, so once they are injured, they will become difficult to control.Even at the limit distance of 300 meters, the cone arrow can still penetrate ordinary mail.These improved English longbows are so powerful that they cannot be resisted by the current paper armor at all, so at least to a certain extent, the combat effectiveness of both sides has returned to the same starting line.

This improvement effectively suppressed the attacks of the prairie cavalry and could cause huge casualties to the prairie cavalry.Even if the Manchu Eight Banners are equipped with excellent paper armor, they will suffer heavy losses if they want to pass through these arrow rains.

But these longbows also have a fatal weakness, that is, because the pulling force is too strong, and the longbow is particularly huge, it puts a huge test on the physical strength of the archer.But it also has a huge advantage, the bow body is a single wood, the craft is relatively much simpler, and it is very convenient to make and replenish.Unlike the traditional Chinese bow and arrow, although it has a huge advantage in flat shooting, its production process is too complicated.Moreover, there is a huge gap between the longest range and the power of the English longbow.

After the regular army in Kaiping Town is equipped with the English longbow, it can shoot 1-300 arrows at the enemy 10 meters away within 20 minute. Such a powerful and dense arrow rain is enough to cause huge casualties to any army.But this kind of attack cannot last long, but for the short time of the cavalry charge, firing ten or twenty arrows per minute is enough.

After successive failures, the Eight Banners of Manchuria also found a way to relatively restrain the English longbow, which is to move rapidly around the periphery.

Then look for the weakness of the regular army in Kaiping Town, avoid the front of the English longbow, and use the shortcoming of the slow speed of the English longbow to continuously dodge and quickly approach.

Then, he took advantage of the superiority of the Central Plains bows and arrows in a straight line to the excellent English longbows, and his excellent riding skills, and shot arrows continuously while approaching non-stop.

That's also because of the English longbow, although the bow and arrow fly farther and are more powerful.But the flying speed of the arrows it releases is far behind that of the Central Plains bows and arrows.Only by moving quickly and flexibly can the troops effectively avoid the blow of the English longbow.

Although the English Longbow has various shortcomings, his appearance has brought the two armies into balance.In the next few exercises, there was no one-sided situation.Even if one side wins, the opponent's attack will cause huge casualties.

Time passed slowly in the non-stop training of the troops. Summer is coming to an end soon, and autumn is coming again.This heralds the start of the Tatar invasion this year.

And Jia Ke now has enough soldiers and food, whether it is a Manchu or a regular army in Kaiping Town.Looking at the world, it can be called an elite.The biggest difference between them and other troops is that they can withstand, far exceeding the casualty ratio of other troops.Just one can increase the odds of winning for Jia Ke's troops.

The Tatars have tasted a huge sweetness in the invasion of the Central Plains for several years.Although in Kaiping Town, Jia Ke lost some troops in the direction of guarding, but overall, they still gained a lot.All the tribes have received a lot of supplies due to several trips to the south, and the population of the tribes has decreased very limited in the past few years.This made the hands of various tribes become enthusiastic about going south.

Now it has become a consensus on the grasslands to invade the Central Plains every autumn, because they found that no one in the Central Plains Dynasty was their opponent except Jia Ke.

Jia Ke sent a memorial to the court at the end of summer.The general idea is: if the Tatars invade again this year, and the two directions of Xuanhua and Kaiping are relatively peaceful, I hope the court will allow him to lead the cavalry into the grassland, and use his own way to treat him. plunder.In order to achieve the purpose of besieging Wei and saving Zhao.

Jia Ke did not expect that his memorial would cause an uproar in the court.

The three academicians who went to the study room were arguing because of Jia Ke's memorial.

University scholar Li Lu admired Jia Ke's opinion very much. It can play the role of besieging Wei and saving Zhao, and can wipe out a large number of Tatars, but there is vitality, so why not do it?
However, Yan Mu, a senior scholar, believes that such a hasty attack will result in heavy losses if the battle is defeated. Moreover, the grassland tribes live in grasslands and their whereabouts are unknown.It is better to let Jia Ke's elite soldiers wait for rescue in all directions at any time.

Finally, there is Pan Yong, a great scholar. This old man is completely like that of those who know about it. He said that the king inside and the sage outside have never had the Central Plains Celestial Dynasty. Both Lu and Yan Mu sneered, everyone didn't know how this Pan Yong climbed up, but now he dressed himself up as a gentleman, it was just a cover-up, there was nothing he could do about it.

The three college students were almost divided into two factions. Only the scholar Li Lu firmly agreed with Jia Ke's method. No matter what the reason was for the other two university students?One premise is that they disagree with Jia Ke sending troops. In fact, the two of them are still afraid. In the war against the Tatars over the years, except for Jia Ke, no one else has ever won.They were afraid that Jia Ke would also fail, and they threw away the last fig leaf of the Central Plains Celestial Dynasty.

In the end, the three of them really couldn't decide the result, so they could only sum up their opinions and ask for a holy order.

After receiving Jia Ke's memorial and the three people's instructions, the emperor also fell into a dilemma.He has been passively beaten all these years, and he has hated the Tartars to the bone. Of course, he is happy if someone wants to go out and beat the Tartars.But what the other two college students said is also reasonable. If Jia Ke fails again, the loss of troops will be next.The main reason is how people in the world will view the Central Plains Celestial Dynasty.

The emperor took Jia Ke's memorial, read it over and over carefully, put it down after reading it, and then picked up the memorial again. He felt very deeply about the above sentence.That is: the enemy can go to us, and we can go to it.

The emperor was very touched by this sentence. Among the many generals in his court, none had the courage of Jia Ke, not to mention going deep into the grasslands to defeat the Tatars, even fighting the enemy under the city.

After reading Jia Ke's memorial again, the emperor clenched his fist and slammed down on the imperial case.Finally, he picked up the vermilion pen and wrote a sentence on Jia Ke's memorial: You must attack at your own discretion, with self-preservation as the first priority.

After writing this sentence, the emperor thought about it for a while, and added another sentence: If it succeeds, I will not hesitate to reward you as a marquis.

After the emperor approved this sentence, he felt a lot more happy, and then he sent the paper out quickly by himself.Let Jia Ke prepare early.

It was already autumn when Jia Ke received the emperor's reply.Jia Ke thought that the Tatars would attack everywhere soon.

Jia Ke looked at the two lines on the memorial: "You must attack at your own discretion, with self-preservation as the first. If you succeed, I will not hesitate to reward you as a marquis." My heart seemed to be on fire. It would be a lie to say that he was not excited. I am happy because I can get the opportunity to be a marquis.I am also happy for them to go to the grassland to rob this time.This time, if going north to the grassland can succeed, it will establish Jia Ke's position in the imperial court and make him a famous general in the world.

But Jia Ke believed that this Northern Expedition had a high chance of success.The Tatars have repeatedly invaded the south, and have never considered the safety of their homeland. This time, if they go by themselves, they will definitely return with a rewarding experience.Now is the time to wait. When all the Tatars invade the south and get tripped everywhere, that is the time to attack the grassland by themselves.

(End of this chapter)