Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 4
"Woooooo-"

At this time, as the sun rose, the horn sounded again on the cathedral.

At the same time as the horn sounded, more than a hundred Hequ horses with a shoulder height of more than four feet were led in front of the military attache's children.

Behind them, a newly arranged cavalry and archery school field appeared, and the next thing the military attache disciples had to do was to mount their horses and shoot on horseback, and use their swords and guns to cut down the straw man on horseback.

These requirements are not difficult to pass for a cavalryman who has been in the army for more than one year. After all, cavalry shooting only requires the use of a [-]-pound low-power bow. It is enough to hit the target at a distance of [-] steps, while the use of swords and guns is enough. It is even easier to hack the thorn grass man.

However, even with such loose standards, Zhu Yuanzhang's mood on the school stage sank to the bottom.

Just because in his sight, many military attache disciples could not even get on the horse skillfully on their own, and even worse, they were knocked off the horse by the bad-tempered military horse when they got into the saddle, and fell off the horse.

Such a scene made it impossible for Zhu Yuanzhang to imagine how these children of military attachés would behave when they took up official positions after the death of their fathers.

You know, the Ming Dynasty is only 27 years old.

In just 27 years, the performance of the military attache’s children has been so bad, what about the next generation?

"If the Tatars come back again, how can we hold on with them..."

Zhu Yuanzhang murmured to himself, very disappointed with the performance of the military attache's children.

However, when he saw Zhu Gaoxu, who was proficiently mounted and already galloping, drawing his bow from left to right, and stabbing left and right with his long and short weapons, his disappointed mood could not help but brighten a bit.

"Fortunately, I still have this guy to save some face for me."

Zhu Yuanzhang stroked his beard. Although there was no smile on his face, Zhu Yunwen next to him could still feel the happiness of his grandfather.

Therefore, he couldn't help but look at Zhu Gaoxu, wondering what he was thinking in his heart.

"How many kilograms of riding bow does that kid Gao Xu use?"

After Zhu Gaoxu's examination was completed, Zhu Yuanzhang asked about Xu Huizu as soon as he handed in the booklet.

Seeing this, Xu Huizu also looked to the side responsible for recording the affairs of the governor. The other party felt the gaze and stepped forward to bow:

"Back to Your Majesty, the riding bow used by Yan's second son, Zi Xu, is a medium-strength eighty-jin bow. All twelve arrows hit the target at fifty paces."

"Well..." Zhu Yuanzhang's reaction was very dull, but his shining eyes still betrayed him.

"Good boy..." Seeing the emperor's satisfied look, Xu Huizu was happy from the bottom of his heart for Zhu Gaoxu's "change of appearance."

An hour later, a booklet recording the riding and shooting achievements of the military attache's children was placed in front of Zhu Yuanzhang.

Out of a thousand military attachés' children, only 170 can ride a horse and gallop, and only 75 can shoot an arrow from horseback and hit the target.

Among them, nearly 15% of the military attachés can only use the smallest [-]-jin riding bow. There are only [-] military attache children who can use more than [-] kilograms. Only Li Ying and Zhu Gaoxu can use more than [-] kilograms.

Here, Li Ying uses a 19-jin low-power bow, while Zhu Gaoxu uses an [-]-jin medium-power bow. But it is worth mentioning that Li Ying is already [-] years old, while Zhu Gaoxu is only fifteen.

If he were of the same age, Zhu Gaoxu might be able to fire a hundred-jin riding bow, but the specifics still depend on the rate of fire.

Mounted shooting by military attachés is no different than infantry shooting. It requires both precision and speed of fire.

It's not that many military attache disciples can't fire stronger riding bows, it's just that they exceed their own capabilities. Once the rate of fire drops, they are useless.

However, Zhu Yuanzhang looked at Zhu Gaoxu's effortless appearance and thought that even so, the eighty-pound riding bow was still not his limit.

But Zhu Gaoxu's personal strength is his own. Overall, the quality of the Ming army's military attache children has dropped drastically.

This situation made Zhu Yuanzhang sigh in his heart. Fortunately, Zhu Gaoxu took the lead again this time, otherwise Zhu Yuanzhang might not be able to stand it anymore.

"Let's move on to the next round."

Zhu Yuanzhang spoke, which surprised Xu Huizu, Zhu Yunwen and others.

In their impression, if the local soldiers and horses performed like this in previous years, the emperor would have walked away long ago. However, he was able to continue today. This made the two of them subconsciously look at Zhu Gaoxu on the school field. "Woooooooo..."

Soon, at Xu Huizu's signal, the horses and riding and shooting equipment were all evacuated with the sound of the horn, and then came a hundred elite Leopard Tao Guards wearing heavy armor.

They stood in front of more than a thousand military attachés holding long sticks and guns.

What they have to do next is to accept the challenge from the military attache's children and defeat them one by one.

Looking at this scene, Zhu Yuanzhang, who had always loved spears, became slightly more interested, and he couldn't help but say to Xu Huizu and Zhu Yunwen on his left:

"In order to expel the Tartars, the first thing that the dynasty paid attention to was the infantry, and among the infantry, the most important thing was the spear."

"The spear is the king of all weapons, and all weapons are defeated when encountering the spear."

"When Li Er was sent by Kuakuo to invade Xuzhou, he stationed his troops in Lingzi Village, so I sent Duke Ying to lead two thousand infantry."

"There are many cavalrymen under Li Er, but Ying Guogong is not afraid at all. He just appeases the soldiers and tells them to lie down and wait for the enemy with their spears."

"When Li's cavalry charged, Ying Guogong also led his troops to charge forward and attack the Beilu cavalry head-on."

"The cavalry of the Northern captives was overwhelmed by our soldiers holding long spears, and only then did our army capture more than [-] horses."

"The most powerful force in Huaibei of the imperial dynasty is not as good as Yan and Zhao Jingqi..."

Zhu Yuanzhang proudly talked about the past achievements of the Ming army's pikemen, and believed that the Ming army's infantry, which mainly used pikes, was more powerful than the elite cavalry of Yanzhao.

His words seemed quite novel to Zhu Yunqi, who didn't know much about soldiers, so he couldn't help but ask: "Grandpa Huang said that the most common soldiers in the country are spears and infantry?"

Zhu Yunwen's words made Zhu Yuanzhang unhappy. He knew that Zhu Yunwen did not understand military preparation, but he did not expect that Zhu Yunwen did not even understand the military system for the Ming army to win against the Yuan army.

He was about to respond, but Xu Huizu next to him saw Zhu Yuanzhang's displeasure, and quickly bowed and explained on Zhu Yuanzhang's behalf:
"My great-grandson is unaware that the northern land is flat and open, which is conducive to mounted warfare. However, during the Northern Expedition in the early days of our country, our army had less than [-] horses, so we had to use fine cavalry to clear the way, and the method of advancing the army later required the Northern Expedition army to cooperate on horseback and foot."

"If the northern captives see the infantry following our cavalry, they should at least retreat and pretend to walk away. When the cavalry leaves the infantry, they will look for and come to encircle and suppress our cavalry."

Xu Huizu's response explained Zhu Yunwen's problem and explained that the Mongolian and Yuan generals in the early Ming Dynasty were not afraid of the Ming army's cavalry.

On the battlefield, if the Ming cavalry breaks away from the infantry, the Meng Yuan cavalry will look for opportunities to annihilate them. Therefore, it is the Ming infantry that really scares Meng Yuan.

His words made Zhu Yuanzhang slightly satisfied, but he was not proud. Instead, he said modestly: "The Huaibei force is a thing of the past. Many soldiers today simply do not dare to lie down with guns and attack the Northern soldiers head-on."

Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head and glanced at the cathedral, where he seemed to be verifying his words.

On the field, Bao Taowei's soldiers used long sticks that were three feet long and mercilessly knocked the military attache's children to the ground one by one.

Not long after, a large group of military attachés' children were lying on the ground, and the cathedral was filled with their wails.

In such a situation, even if occasionally a few people can overthrow Bao Tao Wei's soldiers, they will still suffer a heavy blow.

If it weren't for their armor, these disciples would have been covered in bruises and bruises.

This situation made Zhu Yuanzhang feel very ups and downs. You should know that he loved spears very much. He ordered no fewer than ten spears to be made by the emperor, among which the long ones were six feet long and the short ones were two feet long. Even when he was old and frail, he often practiced them.

Now that he saw that the military attache's children couldn't even defeat ordinary Leopard Tao guards, he couldn't describe the feeling in his heart.

If he hadn't been prepared to see his fourth son come on stage, he would have cursed Xu Huizu and the others.

Therefore, while Zhu Yuanzhang's face was gloomy, he couldn't help but turn his attention to Zhu Gaoxu, who was about to play, hoping that this kid would restore his respect.

Just by his look, Zhu Gaoxu in the crowd instantly trembled and subconsciously raised his head to look at the school platform.

Although he couldn't see Zhu Yuanzhang's expression clearly, Zhu Gaoxu could still feel that his cheap grandfather was looking at him.

　In the new book period, it is very important to catch up on reading, so I hope you can spend a few minutes every day to catch up on it and repay with more after it is released.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)