Another reason why the Three-Eyed Gun may be superior to the Bird Gun in the eyes of the Ming Army on the Northern Frontier is that the influence is more far-reaching, and the reason is more hidden, which even involves the tactical level.

But after Jiang Yuyan figured it out, he found that this reason was not difficult to explain, to put it bluntly, it was related to the deep use of firearms in the Ming army.

If the shallow use of firearms is the level of selection of firearms, that is, the selection of the appropriate firearm between the three-eyed firearm and the bird's gun, then the deep use of firearms is the situation under which firearms are used, by whom firearms, and in what way these firearms are used.

If we use the ideas of modern warfare, we will often enter into a self-righteous misunderstanding, that is, the weapon of the rifle, which is a type of rifle, is used by the infantry and used in battlefields such as the battle for strongholds where the infantry can play a role.

But back in the middle of the fifteenth century, there were no less important wars than infantry on the battlefield.

Up to now, these existents were tanks, armored vehicles, and airplanes, while in the Ming dynasty of the fifteenth century, these existences were basically one thing: cavalry.

In the era of mixed use of hot and cold weapons, and in the time period when cold weapons have not completely withdrawn from the stage of history, cavalry is a combat force that cannot be ignored on the battlefield, and it is often the most elite existence.

At the beginning of its birth, the Ming Dynasty defeated perhaps the most powerful force in the history of human civilization, the Yuan Dynasty. And the greatest military force that the Yuan Dynasty, and the Mongol forces he represented, was proud of cavalry, the most well-known great tactic, called cavalry.

At the beginning of its establishment, the Ming Dynasty also had a great army, which once went north to expedition to the desert and fought against the overlord of the grassland, and in the process, the Ming army must have learned important tactics in the northern battlefield.

They also learned the tactics of mounted archery and cavalry, but improved them according to their best firearms, and thus went astray, that is, the cavalry shooting of muskets.

Fundamentally, the way the muskets were fired was contrary to the flexibility of the cavalry, or rather, to the form in which the war was organized. In the era of muskets, the sensitivity of muskets was not emphasized, but the focus was on the organization and effect of firepower, the so-called fire suppression, which did not value your flexibility.

In other words, you don't need to be flexible at all, only if you can suppress or even annihilate a large area of enemies through the fire of muskets, then it doesn't matter if you are flexible or not. On the other hand, an army that is heavily equipped with muskets and uses firearms as its main mode of battle no longer has the ability to change the tide of battle or establish victory even if it has the flexibility to achieve the target effect of firepower.

Firearms themselves are a transformative weapon, which completely changes the war situation in the traditional cold weapon age, giving the stronghold with firepower superiority unparalleled battlefield control, even if the enemy's cavalry has excellent flexibility and mobility, it will never be able to break through the defense line or fortress of the mastered firepower to suppress the side.

Therefore, the firepower of firearms will eventually change the combat form of the cold weapon era, firearms are a weapon in the long history of human civilization, but this weapon is fundamentally different from all previous weapons, and the use of gunpowder will create a new era.

And in the new era of war, the cavalry, which was once dominant, will enter the dust of history.

The Ming Dynasty did not understand this, and in the end, due to the accumulation of various reasons for these reasons, there were serious mistakes in military strategy, which eventually led to the defeat of the Ming Dynasty. Although it is not the most important reason, and may not even be the direct cause, its influence cannot be ignored or avoided.

What is even more tragic is that the later Qing Dynasty also did not understand this, and still regarded the cavalry, which should have gradually moved to the background in front of the representative "firepower" of the new era, as an important reliance, and in the end, it may represent its hundreds of years of faith and glory on the battlefield, from the cavalry of the monk to the final defeat.

It was a force that could represent the concept of "cavalry" to the greatest extent in that era, which was the obsession and romance of thousands of years in the history of ancient human civilization and warfare, but it was also a misunderstanding and mistake in the land of China for hundreds of years.

Back in the beginning, when the mistake was born, the Ming army regarded the musket as a substitute for the bow and arrow, completely unaware that these were two different concepts. This is the limitation of history, and it is too difficult for people living in a thoroughly agrarian civilization to understand the essence of industry, and it is impossible to imagine that in future wars, there will no longer be a need for close-quarters combat, and it is impossible to imagine that the war will unfold between two positions, and until the winner is decided, both sides may not be able to see the faces of the other soldier.

Thus, the musket was regarded as a weapon of the cavalry, not as the main weapon of the infantry, or rather, not as the main weapon of the infantry. This is because the Ming army did have a history of installing a large number of firearms, but they did not realize the real role of muskets.

In later wars, the Ming army did not develop a tactical system of infantry phalanxes or fire positions, but continued to use firearms as a substitute for bows and arrows, a kind of countless traditional cold long-range weapons, in the case that it was not a cold weapon at all.

In some fragments of history, many times, the Ming army was very close to the true meaning of the firecracker, which is also the truth of the hot weapon age, close to these truths are some famous generals who are remembered by history, just like Mu Ying in Pingding Yunnan, Zhu Yuanzhang's righteous son, he created the "three-stage attack" tactics, and even developed more complex infantry fire tactics on the basis of the "three-stage attack".

But helplessly, these moments of truth that are close to the answer, close to the hot weapon age, are fleeting like meteors in the night sky, which is black with no end in sight, left to this era that is covered by history, the Ming Dynasty.

What a mockery, in the name of Ming, but the darkness that came and destroyed fate. All the sparks of chance died silently in the collision of inspirations, leaving behind a grand tragedy and the beginning of what could be called absurd more than 200 years of social experimentation.

When Jiang Yuxuan looks at this period of history, he can't help but think of several other ancient civilizations in the world, and think of the legends that accompanied the rise and fall of those ancient civilizations, such as the pyramids, the Tower of Babel, the Great Flood, the nuclear explosion of Mohenjo Daro, and the mythical stories like legends, which are bizarre and absurd but faintly reveal the end of reality.

The end of the Ming Dynasty also made Jiang Yu feel the kind of seemingly absurd, but hidden special feeling, people in this land, constantly light the fire candle in the dark night, trying to illuminate their hope, so that the day "bright" comes, but just like there is always an invisible wind blowing to extinguish the fire candle, the heaven and earth return to the darkness again and again, and there is no bright day.

In the end, the result in history was that the cavalry completely dominated the use of muskets, and for the sake of temporary ease of use, the advantages of the bird guns in accuracy and power were abandoned, and among the infantry, the musket only stayed at the point of long-range weapons, and did not become the main battle weapon to replace all other weapons, and the musket tactics of the infantry were not born, but only stayed at the basic level of use.

Since there is no effect of fire tactics, the advantage of the bird gun is not so obvious compared to other firearms, and with the casual use of firearms, it will increase the results of this poor effect, and finally form a vicious circle, resulting in even the musket becoming something that is not taken seriously.

Because the effect of firearms is poor, although this is because of the backwardness of tactics, but the Ming army is naturally not aware of this, on the contrary, they attribute the reason to the firearms themselves, believing that these small weapons limited to personal ordinary use do not have enough power, so in order to pursue power, artillery has become the mainstream of firearms development.

And this pursuit of artillery, and unfortunately let the Ming army fall into a deeper trap, back to the reason, the Ming army put too much expectation of the power of firearms on the artillery, a large number of powerful, but itself is also because of the unstable quality of the cannon has become the focus of attention.

But the power of muskets on the battlefield is irreplaceable by artillery. On the battlefield of the era of firepower, which consumes a lot of manpower, the ability of the musket to improve the ability to reduce the target to annihilate the enemy is difficult to achieve by the cannons of the same era in any case, and the blind pursuit of the power of the cannon is almost unrealistic to pray that the cannon can achieve the effect of long-range annihilation of the enemy in the target, which is almost a dream, and no matter how it develops, it cannot meet the requirements.

And too much attention to artillery, especially the powerful and large cannons, also brings another serious problem, that is, the problem of transporting artillery. In the fifteenth century, the Ming army obviously did not have the transportation capacity when the largest war broke out in human civilization later, and the large artillery did not have the flexible transportation and consequent battlefield combat capabilities, and could only be fixed on a fixed point.

Under such circumstances, the status of firepower weapons has fallen directly from the level that may have determined the battlefield to a very unstable position, and the power of long-range firearms is limited, and powerful firearms are limited to some special places where they can be played, and they do not have the ability to fight flexibly.

In the era of the germination and development of hot weapons, at the beginning of the future firearms age, the firearms of the Ming Dynasty entered a sad dead end, completely turning firearms into a kind of chicken ribs, and firearms should have been its most reliable support as a huge country. This line of thinking may even be more pathetic and misleading to later times.

And the story of the Ming Dynasty, or the story of the Ming Dynasty came to an end, before the Liaodong battlefield, the earlier the time passed, the relative strength of the Ming army was actually stronger, and the infantry of the Ming army attached great importance to firearms and firearms tactics, and from a certain point of view, the strategic thinking may be more advanced than two hundred years later.

At this time, the Ming army, from being able to win in many key places, gradually regressed, could not win in some key battles, and then could not win in some key battles, and then there may be key defeats, which was also accompanied by the process of the decline of the strength of the Ming army.

This kind of decline, as Jiang Yugang analyzed, is two-fold, on the one hand, the number of people, and on the other hand, military science and technology. For the sake of military science and technology, let's not talk about it in the early and middle stages of Ming Yingzong, after all, the technological level is still superior to the surrounding forces.

But the question of the number of troops actually began to arise at this time. In the Ming Dynasty, when the guard system was established and matured, the Ming Dynasty army, which claimed to have 2 million people, developed into the fourth Luchuan Battle in the key period of Yingzong's orthodoxy years, and gathered the strength of the whole country, but could only take out 130,000 troops.