According to the assumptions of some generals in the army, especially those who support the construction of heavy cavalry!

Once this kind of heavy cavalry wearing full-body plate armor charged, then no cold weapon troops could stop their charge.

Even if they are blocked by the enemy's tight formation, they can rely on the impact of tall and strong horses, and even the super protection ability of men and horses to crush the enemy's defenses.

Even if they end up in hand-to-hand combat, they will be the best hoplites of their time.

If you want to use cold weapons to cause damage to them, you can only use heavy weapons, such as sledgehammers or something to effectively kill, if it is a bladed weapon, then you can only use the most exquisite technology to accurately insert the sword into the joint gap of the plate armor, if you are not a super master, don't try it, because when you are looking for its weak point, he has already stabbed you through with a knife!

Of course, they also admit that even the best armor of the era could not stop the guns of these heavy cavalry, and at medium and long distances, they could cope with the fire of ordinary caliber muskets, but when they were close, they would be killed by a single shot.

Not to mention heavy muskets, shells or something, heavy muskets can punch them a hole a hundred meters away, and casually let an artillery regiment of the Tang Army come over and shoot a burst of rapid fire at the phalanx of this cavalry regiment, which can reimburse more than half of this cavalry regiment 100%!

In the face of guns, these heavy cavalrymen equipped with the best plate armor are still vulnerable!

But the generals who supported the construction of the heavy cavalry said: "We are not stupid, why should we be stupid enough to let the heavy cavalry attack the enemy's infantry phalanx equipped with guns!"

And according to the enemies facing the empire at present, these enemies are not modern armies equipped with a large number of guns, but East Asian armies that are still generally equipped with cold weapons in this era!

You're going to run into the enemy's musket troops!

Why use heavy cavalry to attack the phalanx of musketeers, their Tang Army started with guns, and they won't directly pile up the infantry, and they won't shell it directly!

Playing with guns or something, the Datang Army has never been afraid of anyone!

As for the role of the heavy cavalry, it was used against the enemy's cold-armed troops!

But even so, it didn't convince everyone that these heavy cavalry were of any use, and there were still many people who thought that these heavy cavalry were expensive vases, and most of the people who thought so were people from within the army.

Even within the cavalry, there is a great disagreement on this!

Many people who advocate the construction of light cavalry say that the cost of building such a heavy cavalry is enough to build several times the number of light cavalry, and several times the number of light cavalry can definitely beat this kind of heavy cavalry.

You must know that the first lancer regiment is the best in all aspects, and the knights are the best cavalry selected from the whole army, not to mention that they are all strong and strong, but most of them are proficient in a variety of combat skills at the same time, and many of them are even old cavalrymen during the unification war, and these old cavalry are valuable assets for the army.

At the same time, in order to support these heavy cavalry in charge of combat, the horses they belong to are also the best Central Asian horses and some Arabian horses selected from all over the country, and the shoulder height of the horses they ride generally reaches 1.48 meters, and some even reach 1.5 meters.

In order to reduce the burden of riding horses, there are two additional Mongolian horses, one for their daily marching and one for carrying equipment.

Then, to reduce the burden on the knights, each cavalry also has an auxiliary cavalry, who raises horses on weekdays, carries logistics supplies or something, and when it is time to fight, they can also ride on horses to accompany the battle.

Standard one ride on three horses!

So don't look at them equipped with full-body plate armor, just think that they are special cans with very poor mobility, their long-distance running ability, will not be weaker than those light cavalry, and on the battlefield, if necessary, they can also give up the plate armor and knight's spear, directly wield the saber to fight, if necessary, they can also use the Sui Fa cavalry lance to dismount and fight!

They say they are heavy cavalry, but in fact they can also be incarnated as light cavalry!

But this is also a point that many people accuse, since you want to turn into light cavalry to fight, then why do you waste so much energy to engage in heavy cavalry, just get light cavalry.

There are so many controversies, which also makes it so that in the current Tang Empire, there is only one hoplite cavalry like the First Lancer Regiment!

Later, several other heavy cavalry units of the Tang Army, although they also hung the title of heavy cavalry, but in fact, there was no big difference from the light cavalry, at most, the cuirass they wore was thicker, because the cuirass was heavy, and the horses attached to it were slightly better.

As for the pure light cavalry, they were also equipped with cuirassiers, but they were lightweight cuirass with a thickness similar to the light plate armor that the infantry were equipped with.

All kinds of lightweight plate armor, which is almost the standard equipment of all arms of the Tang Empire, even if this lightweight plate armor can not effectively resist the shooting of muskets, but the effect of resisting arrows and other cold weapons is still good, and most of the enemies faced by the Tang Empire are still in the era of cold weapons, which is worse than the Ming army of the year, so the actual combat effect of various light plate armor is still much better.

Generally speaking, ordinary musketeers are equipped with light cuirass, while some heavy musketeers and grenadiers in the front row are equipped with light half-body armor, and sword and shield men in the assault force are equipped with light full-body armor.

In the case of cavalry, ordinary hussars were equipped with cuirasses, the same thickness as those of musketeers, which was to ensure the flexibility and mobility of the hussars.

In the case of cuirassiers, the cuirassiers equipped were thicker.

The 1st Lancer Regiment was the only heavy cavalry unit in the army equipped with specially made light full-body armor.

In addition, no matter what kind of cavalry, the weapons they used were uniform, and they all used the three main weapons of the Suifa pistol, the sabre, and the Suifa cavalry.

Therefore, most of the time, the tactics of the cavalry of the Tang Army are very simple, forming a cavalry spear in a dense formation and rushing forward, and the cavalry in the front row first uses a wave of pistols, and then wields a saber to kill!

Among them, the Suifa pistol replaces the role of the cavalry hollow lance in the past, which is used as a close-range disposable weapon, and now even the heavy cavalry regiment of the First Lancer Cavalry Regiment has given up the hollow lance and replaced it with the Suifa pistol!

Because they are also disposable weapons, the killing distance of the hollow lance is closer, and the Suifa pistol is farther, and the Suifa pistol can carry several at the same time, many cavalry like to carry two Suifa pistols at the same time, open the bow left and right, and throw it away on the spot after the fight and rush up with a sabre.

This tactical cavalry is still an infantryman, and the infantry also like to rush to a distance of about 20 meters to fire a salvo before launching a bayonet charge, and at the same time throw grenades, and finally rush forward with bayonets.

Now even those Tatars in the north know how these musketeers of the Tang Dynasty charged, it was such a simple three-plate axe, but knowing it doesn't mean that they can resist it.

From the cavalry equipment of the Tang Army, to the heavy cavalry, there is currently only one cavalry regiment, and the rest are all light cavalry that are easy to all, and it can also be seen that the high-level leaders of the Tang Army still keep a clear head about the development of cavalry, and it is enough for the heavy cavalry to have such a regiment as a façade, and the main cavalry still has to rely on light cavalry.

The light cavalry in the Tang Army is not strictly divided into hussars or dragoons or anything, because the equipment of the light cavalry of the Tang Army is unified, there is no obvious difference, and they are all equipped with Suifa pistols, sabers, and Suifa cavalry guns at the same time.

You can charge with a saber when you get on the horse, and you can use a lance to fight on foot when you get off the horse!

The only difference is in their armor and the horses they ride.

Therefore, theoretically speaking, all the cavalry of the Tang Army are capable of charging on horseback and dismounting on foot.

The Tang Army has five independent cavalry divisions, 12 independent cavalry regiments, a total of about 30,000 independent cavalry, and 20 divisional cavalry regiments and reserve division cavalry battalions with a total of about 15,000 divisional cavalry.

Thus the total number of cavalry was about forty-five thousand.

However, it is impossible for these 45,000 cavalry to be placed in the north, and it is even more impossible for them to be placed in the Hetao area.

For example, the Third Cavalry Division stationed in the Liaohetao area, this cavalry division shouldered the important task of guarding against nomads such as the Chahar Department and the Duoyan Sanwei, and defending the Liaohetao and even the entire western and eastern Liaoning.

Another example is the Fourth Cavalry Division stationed in Gansu, this cavalry division is basically immobile, because the Tang Empire is in the northwest region, and there is only such a main cavalry division.

Most of the remaining cavalry units have their own tasks, either deployed in the defense line of the Great Wall or deployed in the hinterland of the Central Plains, which is difficult to mobilize easily.

At present, the army is concentrated in the northern part of Shanxi, that is, about 15,000 cavalry in the eastern part of Hetao, which is basically the largest number of cavalry units that can be used for mobile warfare that the Tang Army can draw.

For this reason, they even disrupted parts of other troops, and transferred many divisional cavalry units stationed in the hinterland of the Central Plains to the north to take over the heavy responsibility of the independent cavalry that had been transferred.

In addition to these 15,000 independent cavalry, in order to march into the Hetao, the Tang Army also gathered two infantry divisions and two reserve divisions of infantry units in the north of Shanxi, and the total strength of these four troops reached 45,000 people!

That is to say, in order to march into the Hetao, the Tang Army has already assembled an army of 60,000 people, and the 60,000 army has been assembled, and Li Xuan, the son of heaven, has also held another imperial military and political meeting during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and officially issued a secret decree ordering the Ninth Army on the front line to officially launch the Hetao Campaign!

This Battle of Hetao will be the largest battle launched by the Tang Empire after the Liaodong Campaign that year, not only in terms of strength but also consumption!

For this battle, the empire prepared more than eight million taels of silver for the war!

It can be seen from this that the war is such a waste of money, the Zhengde Emperor of the former Ming Dynasty also planned many times to recapture the Hetao, but in the end they all gave up, why, this does not mean that the army can not defeat these Tatars, Zhengde ruled the former Ming Dynasty for more than 40 years, he himself is also good at martial arts, the army is still relatively important, and the combat effectiveness is maintained quite well.

But why did they all give up on recovering the Loop?

No money!