"It's broken!" As soon as Zhang Heng lifted the reins of the horse, the war horse jumped up and crossed the corpse pile, he took the lead in breaking into the front line of the Song army, and finally saw the face of the opponent clearly, but seeing that the Song soldiers in front of the battle did not seem to be affected by their attack at all, and the formation was not chaotic at all, he secretly exclaimed.

In Zhang Heng's military career, whether it was the original Jin army, or the later Song army, as well as the enemy army encountered in the just-concluded expedition to Annan, without the protection of the city walls and fortresses, the hundred cavalry of their own side often left the desert before they could fight. Those who can barely form a formation are already considered elite, but there are very few armies that can survive their all-out assault. As for the army that can face multiple attacks on the iron cavalry and still maintain an intact formation, he has not seen it.

However, the infantry army of the Song army in front of him did not have a trench barrier, nor did it have many foot corners and fences as screens, and it not only survived to the present with a thin horse rejection fence, but the entire army that was still immovable in the whole array only existed in the legends of the past, and Zhang Heng had not encountered it. But once he encountered it today, it put his cavalry in a desperate situation, and at this moment he didn't know if he could break through the enemy formation.

"Rush!" Zhang Heng knew that the current situation did not allow him to think too much, so he roared and hung the long knife on the saddle, and drew his big bow to shoot arrows.

......Just when Zhang Heng was about to shoot his first arrow, he saw a flash of fire in front of him, and his years of fighting career made him instinctively feel dangerous, and he hurriedly withdrew his bow and shrunk, and pressed his body tightly on the horse's back, he felt like a gust of wind blowing overhead, sweeping off his helmet, and his face was as if he had been slashed by a knife, although he didn't feel pain, he felt a heat in his neck, and he knew that he was injured.

At the same time, Zhang Heng's eyes saw that the few horsemen around him were not so lucky, they were instantly overturned by the dense projectiles that shot them, and several blood arrows erupted from their bodies, and they didn't even have time to snort before they were finished. The flag bearer, who had been following him, was also hit, and fell before the battle, and flew the flag out, but before the battle flag could hit the ground, a centurion who followed closely followed grabbed him and raised the flag again.

"Kill!" Zhang Heng saw that there were already hundreds of horsemen behind him, and after he reopened his bow and shot the arrow, he was already less than fifty steps away from the enemy, and there was a horse rejection fence not far in front of him, so he simply abandoned the big bow, raised his sword again and shouted.

"Kill!" Hearing the call of the main general, the number of horsemen who followed quickly overtook Zhang Heng's horse, and rushed to the enemy formation first, Pinto spear wanted to pick the rejected horse away.

'Bang, bang, bang......'

A series of explosions overwhelmed the chaotic sound of horse hooves and the low roar of the riders on the battlefield, Zhang Heng saw the soldiers rushing in front of him shaking their bodies and planted them from the horse, but the war horse that lost control still crashed into the rejection horse by inertia, but was pierced by the spikes above, struggling weakly, and its condition was very miserable. Instinctively, he pulled down the reins, and at a slight slowing speed, another soldier rushed up, pushing the rejecting horse through a gap with the power of his spear, and more horses rushed over the railing.

'Bang, bang, bang......'

'Bang, bang, bang......'

Zhang Heng urged the horse to pass through the gap in the horse barn, but the explosion became more and more intensive, he saw the Song soldiers at the front of the Song army array advancing and retreating like puppets, exchanging battle positions, every time the long stick in their hands was raised, accompanied by the explosion and firelight, it would shoot deadly projectiles, and the speed was unavoidable. Looking at the arrows fired by the soldiers of the Southern Army in the face of their own side, they did not cover them at all, and even ignored them, they still mechanically raised their guns to shoot and retreat, and the people behind stepped forward to shoot and retreat, not to mention that there were signs of collapse.

Zhang Heng saw that the soldiers of the Southern Army who were injured by his own side would automatically withdraw from the battle column, and the people behind would automatically fill in without an order, and those who were seriously injured or killed in battle would fall to the ground, and someone would step forward to carry them away quickly, and the vacant seats would be quickly filled, and the whole movement was as smooth as flowing water, there was no superfluous action at all, and there was no soldier to dodge and dodge.

Although it is only a glimpse, as a veteran of the battlefield, he has realized the strict discipline and well-trained military discipline of this southern army, which he has only seen in his life. Not to mention them, even the Mongols' Xue Timid army is probably inferior, and these southern armies are equipped with sharp firearms, and their combat effectiveness is not comparable to those Song armies in the past, but far beyond their own, no wonder Chen Yi did not dare to surrender in a battle. But when the battle came to this point, he also knew that this battle was likely to be his last battle.

"Hey ......" lightning flashed, the death of the rider in front of him, the continuous rain of bullets sheltered by Zhang Heng, made him rush to a place less than twenty steps away from the enemy, and this point was only a short distance from the war horse, he roared and lifted the reins of the war horse, and the war knife slashed down, wanting to use the horsepower to crash into the enemy's defense line, disrupt their formation, and open up a breakthrough.

'Bang, bang, bang...... Zhang Heng knew that he would be able to succeed in another moment, the high-speed galloping war horse was enough to knock the enemy soldiers in front of him to death, the horse's hooves trampled them to death, and his long knife chopped them to death. But the other party hit him with a dense rain of bullets, breaking his last wish.

"Cough, cough, cough cough ......" The injured war horse rushed to a place less than ten steps in front of the enemy formation with the help of inertia and stopped, Zhang Heng looked down at his war horse, this is a good horse that is selected from a thousand miles, although it was seriously injured but did not fall, at this moment the snow-white fur has been dyed blood red, and a few nasal protrusions spew out sticky blood foam. He wanted to pat his horse, but he was unable to lift his arm, the long knife had been broken by the bullet, there was only a knife handle left in his hand, and the two layers of heavy armor on his body had been pierced, but he could still feel the blood draining rapidly, and coughed up two blood spurts from his mouth and nose.

"Uh......" Zhang Heng saw several soldiers pouring out of the opponent's line, raised his bayonet and stabbed it into the neck of the war horse, and the seriously injured war horse fell weakly, throwing him aside, and the other two enemy soldiers stepped forward and stabbed the bayonet into his chest and abdomen with muskets, and did not take him, the captain, in his eyes at all. When the bayonet was raised, he didn't feel pain, but felt that the bullet holes were full of bullet holes and the flag fell down to cover his body, and his eyes were getting darker and darker, and the sound of killing was getting farther and farther away from him......

…………

Seeing the enemy soldiers fall down and the rest of the enemy horses scattered and fled, Zhao Hao breathed a sigh of relief. He can be said to be facing great pressure in this formation, first of all, whether the defenders can withstand the impact of the enemy's cavalry, you must know that looking directly at the galloping war horse does not dodge or dodge, which is no different from Hyundai watching the car crash towards him, unless this person wants to commit suicide, I am afraid that no one will not feel fear, and will instinctively dodge. And to reverse the instinct is not only to rely on the coercive force of military discipline alone, but the performance of the 2nd Brigade today did not disappoint him, they not only stabilized the formation in the face of the enemy, but also withstood the impact.

Another thing that worries Zhao Yu is the problem of weapons, you must know that the current firearms need to rely on gunpowder combustion to generate power, and combustion will inevitably produce heat. However, the ignition point of gunpowder is low, and the heat accumulated by the firearm after continuous firing will ignite the filled gunpowder, which is extremely dangerous.

The new army, on the other hand, was unable to resist the charge of the enemy cavalry due to its slow rate of musket fire against the highly mobile cavalry, which required artillery as supporting firepower. However, due to technical limitations, the thickness of the barrel and barrel had to be increased, which affected the heat dissipation. The musket can also increase the heat dissipation time by firing in turns, but the cannon cannot be fired continuously, but once the artillery support is lost, it is difficult to withstand the impact of the enemy cavalry.

Fortunately, Li Zhen, who was in charge of the front-line command, solved this contradiction by rationally deploying artillery, first using the slow-dissipating Baizi gun and the Benlei cannon as the first round of attack firepower, and then using the rapid-fire cannon with fast heat dissipation and fast rate of fire, so as to win time for the Baizi gun and the Benlei cannon to dissipate heat and reload. At the same time, rockets are used to hit enemy targets, and after discovering the enemy's main attack direction, other artillery pieces are transferred to the frontal battlefield in time to ensure the continuity of firepower, thus laying the foundation for defeating enemy cavalry.

However, this battle also verified the law of historical development, and the role of cavalry will gradually be weakened after the development of firearms, until it withdraws from the stage of war. As far as he knew in his previous life, the Yuan Dynasty was a high-speed period for the development of hot weapons, and now although the Yuan army is not equipped with firearms on a large scale, the primary prototype of artillery has appeared - firearms. And as they discover the increased role of their firearms in warfare, they will certainly invest in research and development and apply them on a large scale on the battlefield.

Therefore, Zhao Yu thought that the days of relying on cavalry to crisscross the battlefield would not be too long, especially when encountering infantry troops mainly equipped with firearms. However, this does not mean that the cavalry will immediately withdraw from the war, in this era when the machinery is still very backward, there is nothing that can replace the war horse to improve the mobility ability, but the form of combat will definitely change, and whoever makes the earliest change will be able to seize the opportunity.

As for how to change, Zhao Yu suddenly thought of a person - Li Tao. He was a famous general in the early Tang Dynasty, born in Gaoping Beizu Shangfang Xu, he joined the Wagang Army in his early years, and later descended to the Tang Dynasty with Li Mi. In his life, he has lived in the three dynasties of Tang Gaozu, Tang Taizong, and Tang Gaozong, and has won the trust and responsibility of the imperial court. He followed Li Shimin to pacify the Quartet, hit Xue Yantuo twice, and pacified the north of the moraine. Later, he broke through the Eastern Turks and Goguryeo, and became one of the main generals of the Tang Dynasty to expand its territory. He is a general and a prime minister, with outstanding merits, and is leaned on by the imperial court as a dry city, one of the twenty-four heroes of Lingyan Pavilion, and is called together with Li Jing, the Duke of Weiguo.

In the fifteenth year of Zhenguan, Li Tao was recruited and transferred to the military department of the court, and he had not yet set off for Beijing, when Xue Yantuo sent his son Dadu to lead 80,000 cavalry to invade the Li Simo tribe in the south. The imperial court ordered Li Tao to be the head of the march of Shuozhou Road, and led 3,000 light cavalry to catch up with Xue Yantuo's cavalry in Qingshan, attacked and broke his army, killed one of the famous kings, and captured more than 50,000 of his leaders and soldiers, which can be described as a great victory. But in this battle, Li Tao was not smooth sailing, and there were quite twists and turns.

Zhao Yu analyzed this battle example, and he found that the troops set up by Dadu were a mobile force on horseback, dismounted as light infantry during the battle, and once the opponent showed signs of collapse, he immediately mounted his horse and acted as an assault cavalry to pursue. It can be seen that it fully realized that infantry archers are superior to cavalry archers in non-motorized combat, and at the same time, it also fully understands the great tactical effect of assault cavalry in the final stage of the battle, and makes full use of the mobility of war horses and the advantages of infantry bows in battle.

After the start of the war, the Tang army used the Turkic elite cavalry as the vanguard to attack the troops set by Dadu first, and was immediately defeated by the light infantry troops set by Dadu, and later encountered the main force of the Tang army, which also defeated them. Li Tao immediately decisively ordered the whole army to dismount, and the cavalry played the role of infantry, "the chief spear rushed forward, and Xue Yantuo was defeated", thus defeating Xue Yantuo's troops and winning the counterattack.

Zhao Yu noticed a detail in it, "Ten thousand arrows are fired, Tang Ma is dead", and he found that the armor equipped by Tang Dynasty soldiers can still resist the opponent's bow and arrow attacks more effectively. Li Tao ordered his cavalry to dismount, in fact, they played the role of hoplites, and became a very good new branch of troops with a balance of mobility and protection.

In Zhao Hao's view, this new class of troops is equivalent to the Agrean troops in the Macedonian system, and it has excellent mobility and attack capabilities. As a target for light infantry, it was much smaller than the cavalry, and its protection was much more effective, because the horse's armor was basically unable to resist the fire of a bow and arrow. In the cavalry charge, the fall of the war horse will cause great confusion to the entire charge, compared with the fall of the infantry in the infantry charge array, the impact on the infantry formation is obviously much smaller, and it fully reflects the advantage of the hoplite over the light infantry.

Now that he thinks about it, Zhao Yu feels that this can be used as a new idea for him to develop cavalry, because he has realized how difficult it is to train an all-round lancer, of course, this 'gun' refers to a musket, not a spear in a cold weapon. First of all, the current musket cannot be fired continuously, and it has to be reloaded after one shot. Loading on horseback with rapid maneuvers and bumps is a technical task, not only to ensure that the ammunition is accurately stuffed into the chamber, but also to ensure that the powder added to the powder pool is not blown away by the wind.

This defect was fatal, resulting in cavalry armed with muskets often having only one chance to shoot, while enemy troops armed with bows and arrows could shoot three or four arrows before the two armies collided. If it is equipped with light artillery, it is completely possible to form a favorable combat force to complete the blocking of the enemy. If it is defeated and retreats, it can quickly get on the horse and pursue, so that it will not form a victory in the battle, but it will not be able to catch up, so that it is difficult to expand the results of the battle.

The sound of the cannon sounded again ...... pulled Zhao Hao, who was in a fugue, back to the battlefield, and he looked forward with his binoculars, but saw that the enemy infantry still launched an attack on their left flank after the cavalry charge failed, and the escort army was once again engaged in battle......