When Gu Shizhong learned that the main force of the Ming cavalry was five kilometers away, although he gave the order calmly and calmly on the surface, he was inevitably a little flustered in his heart.

As a veteran general of the Tang Dynasty, Gu Shizhong has also experienced many large-scale battles of the Tang Army, and during this period, he has also been to the martial arts school and the imperial school to study, and his understanding of modern warfare is also quite profound.

At this moment, he led the fourth mixed regiment to raid Nanchang, what he was most afraid of was not that the Ming army in Nanchang would not come out of the city, and he was not afraid of a head-to-head confrontation with the main force of the Ming army, which was several times the strength of the Ming army, because he had three artillery battalions under his command, namely the first heavy artillery battalion, the fourth mixed artillery battalion, and the fourteenth artillery battalion.

It has three 48-kilogram heavy howitzers, nine 24-kilogram heavy howitzers, 12 9-kilogram guns, 18 seven-kilogram artillery, plus six five-kilogram artillery, 12 three-kilogram shotguns, and six two-pound shotguns.

Even if you don't count eighteen shotguns, there are forty-eight heavy howitzers and field guns combined!

This kind of artillery strength is actually comparable to an artillery regiment, and it is more than enough to assist the more than 3,000 infantry belonging to his Fourth Mixed Regiment.

Therefore, whether it is a tough battle or a head-on decisive battle, he has great confidence to fight!

However, this confidence is not included in the field by a large number of Ming cavalry!

As a high-ranking general in the Tang Army, although he said that he had never fought with the cavalry of the Ming Army, he had read many internal exercise reports of the Tang Army.

In the three years of Xuanping, the First Army organized a confrontation exercise between cavalry and infantry!

The cavalry of the two battalions combined, but more than 800 horsemen!

Fighting here were the two infantry regiments of the 2nd Infantry Division and the associated artillery units, with a total strength of more than 8,000 men!

The result?

The infantry units in the 2nd Infantry Division suffered a crushing defeat!

And it was an indisputable fiasco, which made people find no excuse to feel sorry for the 2nd Infantry Division!

How were the exercises fought at that time?

After the two met, the infantry troops urgently lined up, but the cavalry troops did not directly charge when the infantry was not finished, as many infantry generals expected, but stopped at a full seven or eight hundred meters away.

Brigadier General Lu Yuzhi, who led 800 cavalry, did not charge, and Major General Fang Xitong, the commander of the Second Infantry Division at that time, used infantry to take the initiative to attack, and tried to use the four-cornered phalanx to restrain the cavalry to fight.

But what did Lu Yuzhi do, he directly led the cavalry to open the distance, and did not give the infantry of the Second Infantry Division the slightest chance to fight!

And more importantly, the infantry of the Second Infantry Division need to maintain a formation all the time and dare not move, and if they slack off slightly, the cavalry troops on the opposite side will make the appearance of trying to attack, and then the frightened infantry will reorganize their formation and take precautions!

Next, the two sides entered a long period of confrontation!

Under the scorching sun, the heavy infantry in the Second Infantry Division were unable to support one after another, either taking off their armor or fainting directly!

Wearing dozens of pounds of armor to fight, even if he stands still, he can last for several hours is in good physical condition, and Lu Yuzhi is not stupid enough to stay where he is, but is he walking around the periphery with cavalry to find opportunities!

As soon as Lu Yuzhi's cavalry moved, the infantry phalanx of the Second Infantry Division had to follow suit, otherwise, it would be completely finished if they were killed by others from the flank and rear positions.

The Second Infantry Division also tried to withdraw from the battlefield, but after a slight change of formation, the cavalry immediately turned over and got on their horses, and you dare to go at this time? Let's go!

Once it is back on the march, it will take at least a few minutes to form a tight quadrangular phalanx, and these few minutes are enough time for the cavalry from four or five hundred meters away to charge over and kill it several times.

You have to know that a distance of four or five hundred meters is the best charge distance for a cavalry!

The next result was not unexpected, the infantry of the Second Infantry Division did not leave, did not stay in place, could not fight, and finally was forcibly consumed in place, when the infantry's physical energy was exhausted, and the morale of the soldiers fell, Lu Yuzhi's cavalry occasionally came up to test it!

So the 2nd Infantry Division can't do anything but defend in place!

And in this exercise, until the end, Lu Yuzhi did not lead the cavalry to charge, but the Second Infantry Division did not move a single step!

However, the commander of the exercise, Li Chunjing, judged on the spot that the Second Infantry Division would be defeated in this exercise!

And although there are many ideal conditions for this exercise, many questions have not been taken into account, such as why the 2nd Infantry Division has no cavalry? Why did Lu Yuzhi's cavalry unit not have infantry support, etc., so the exercise could not be compared with actual combat.

But this exercise is very accurate to reveal what is the advantage of cavalry on the battlefield!

The advantage of cavalry is not to charge in formation, in fact, if Lu Yuzhi directly led the cavalry to charge during the exercise, the four corners of the second infantry division would have to teach these cavalrymen to behave in minutes.

In this kind of field encounter, the biggest advantage of cavalry is not its ability to charge, but strategic initiative!

In other words, cavalry can fight if they want to, they can leave if they don't want to fight, and they can stay on the side if they don't fight.

And the infantry can only deal with this passively, and there is almost no other way than to stick to the same place!

The 8,000 infantry, and the infantry with complete infantry and artillery, were dragged in place by the cavalry with only more than 800 cavalry, which is why Li Chunjing judged that the Second Infantry Division's exercise had failed.

Because under normal circumstances, these 8,000 infantry were held back by the enemy's cavalry for so long, and the enemy's main infantry force must have caught up long ago, or completed other strategies, but these 8,000 infantry could not do anything about it.

The failure of the Second Infantry Division's exercise was just a drill, but now Gu Shizhong is facing a real battle!

Thousands of Overseer cavalry were near him, like a poisonous snake, ready to pounce on him at any moment and bite him.

Now, Gu Shizhong has even forgotten about attacking Nanchang!

The current Fourth Mixed Regiment has more than enough self-preservation, but it has already lost the opportunity to continue to attack Nanchang!

The infantry of the 4th Mixed Regiment rushed into formation, and the artillerymen also hurriedly unloaded the artillery, and then pushed directly up a low hill, and began to dig bunkers and build artillery positions in a race against time.

On the periphery of the artillery position were a large number of infantry units of the Fourth Mixed Regiment, and at this time, the heavy infantry in these infantry units were wearing armor with the help of their comrades, while the musketeers, light armored spearmen and other soldiers had already begun to line up on the periphery.

In the face of the enemy cavalry attack, they naturally listed the quadrangular phalanx specially designed to deal with the cavalry.

On the four sides of this four-cornered phalanx are spearmen, and the four corners are musketeers!

The spearmen are the core of the defense, and the musketeers at the four corners are the main lethal firepower!

After more than ten minutes had passed, the more than 6,000 men of the 4th Mixed Regiment had already formed a huge defensive formation, with artillery positions and a large number of baggage in the center, and infantry phalanxes on the periphery.

The five infantry quadrangular phalanxes, composed of five infantry battalions, coordinated with each other to protect the artillery and baggage inside.

In the rear of the quadrangular phalanx of infantry, the second line of defense is formed by auxiliary troops such as baggage soldiers and transport troops, and they do not list the quadrangular phalanx, but the traditional tight phalanx, with a depth of six columns!

When the formation of the fourth mixed group had just been completed, a puff of smoke and dust rolled up in the distance, and then everyone heard the sound of rushing thunder!

Through the binoculars, Gu Shizhong had clearly seen the direction of about 1,500 meters in the distance, and a large number of cavalry appeared!

In a rough number, the strength of the enemy cavalry was as many as 1,000 horsemen, and although these cavalry had not yet mounted their horses and ran, but the cavalry led the horses forward, they still caused a huge momentum.

It's not good!

"Command the whole army, hold your ground!" Gu Shizhong said this to the heralds around him, and soon, the flag soldiers behind him would move the flags in their hands to convey Gu Shizhong's latest orders to the troops!

After giving the order, Gu Shizhong was worried, but in order to boost morale, he still pretended to be relaxed and said: "Don't worry, gentlemen, this thief can't rush over, if they dare to rush over, the guns we are waiting for will teach them a hard lesson!" ”

The 6,500-strong army listed a tight infantry phalanx, and a large number of artillery to help the battle, as long as the enemy's cavalry generals are not stupid, then they will not launch an active charge!

The battle may remain stalemate until something new happens!

And the fact is indeed as Gu Shizhong expected, after the 1,000 puppet Ming cavalry arrived at a distance of about a kilometer from the fourth mixed regiment, they took the initiative to stop, and through the telescope, Gu Shizhong could see that the puppet Ming cavalry on the opposite side still had the heart to feed the war horses.

At a glance, you can see that the puppet Ming cavalry on the opposite side will not be stupid enough to charge directly, what are they waiting for

Maybe it was waiting for the opportunity to rush up and fight, maybe it was waiting for more of the main infantry to arrive to try to surround them, maybe it was waiting for the Ming army from other directions to return to Nanchang, but either way, the situation was extremely unfavorable for the 4th Mixed Regiment.

Gu Shizhong knows that he can't wait like this forever, this stalemate must be changed!

But what should you do?

At this time, Gu Shizhong finally realized Fang Xitong's helplessness in the summer exercise!

However, at that time, Fang Xitong was only facing exercises, but now, what he is facing is a real war, and if he is not careful, the Fourth Mixed Regiment will fall into a place of no return, let alone carry out the task assigned by Lieutenant General Li Chunjing: to conquer Nanchang.

Brigadier General Gu Shizhong pondered hard, and the other officers of the Fourth Mixed Regiment did not listen one by one, and a large number of middle and senior officers gathered together to argue and discuss various feasible methods!

At this time, Gu Shizhong suddenly heard a major say: "The cavalry on the opposite side is not the cavalry under General Lu!" ”