The armor and cavalry, that is, the heavy cavalry with both men and horses in armor, was originally specially used to deal with the hoplites who fought in formation.

During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the regime established by the nomadic herders of the north seized the northern China region and gained a large Han population, which naturally had a large number of artisans.

As a result, they gained a strong production capacity, and in the war with the southern powers, in order to give full play to the superiority of their cavalry over the southern infantry, these regimes all coincidentally developed powerful armored cavalry, that is, armored cavalry.

During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the armor and riding equipment developed to its peak in the Sui Dynasty, but in the Tang Dynasty after the Sui Dynasty, the armor and riding equipment disappeared.

Could it be that the more powerful Tang Dynasty couldn't afford to raise armor and cavalry? Of course not, because the enemies of the Tang Dynasty changed and became nomads in the northern steppes.

Expensive but cumbersome armored cavalry equipment, which could not catch up with the light cavalry of the nomads at all, was useless in the steppe war, so it was naturally eliminated, and they were replaced by fast heavy cavalry, that is, heavy cavalry with people in armor and horses without armor.

In the war between the Han people and the nomadic tribes in the northern grasslands, it is difficult for the cavalry in the Han army to become the protagonist, because of the different ways of life and production, the cost of the Han people's production of cavalry is far greater than that of the nomadic people, so in the war between the two, the Han cavalry can only be a supporting role most of the time.

Take the usual tactics of the Tang Dynasty against the nomads, they used infantry to resist the attack of the opponent's cavalry, relied on infantry to consume the opponent's vital strength in defense, and waited until the opponent could not bear the casualties and retreated, and then sent melee cavalry to pursue the opponent to expand the results.

Therefore, when the enemy is a steppe cavalry, the armor of your own cavalry is not the most important aspect, but speed.

It is only when the enemy is an elite hoplite that the protection of the cavalry exceeds the speed as the most important aspect.

Chen Xian established his own cavalry, which was actually positioned similar to the cavalry of the Tang Dynasty, and did not rely entirely on it to defeat the enemy, but to rely on it to hunt down the enemy and expand the results of the battle.

For example, in the war between the Jin army and the Song army, the Song Dynasty army had strong armor and a number of bow and crossbow projection troops.

Chen Xian's views are not new in modern times, and many people who are interested in ancient military affairs know it, but in this era, this way of analyzing military technology from a macro perspective is undoubtedly extremely shocking.

Yang Miaozhen looked at the dignified-looking and deep-eyed man in front of her, and said deafening remarks, thinking that this person was her husband, and stars almost popped up in her eyes.

In the end, Yang Miaozhen was successfully persuaded by Chen Xian.

She didn't ask why Chen Xian would put the main imaginary enemy on the northern nomads, she thought that Chen Xian, like his brother, was planning to oppose Jin.

In addition to the way of cooperating with the infantry phalanx and the rapid heavy cavalry, Chen Xian also had another plan in mind to deal with the grassland cavalry, that is, the combat method of the Later Jin Eight Banner Army in later generations.

The way the Houjin Eight Banners fought is very interesting.

The two sentences of dead soldiers in front and sharp soldiers in the back may be known to many people who like to read history, but some people may not be very clear about what dead soldiers look like and what sharp soldiers look like.

Many people think that the dead soldiers of the Eight Banners are the heavy infantry, and the sharp soldiers are the projection light infantry.

In fact, the difference between the dead soldiers and the sharp soldiers of the Eight Banners is not obvious, the dead soldiers must be heavy infantry, but they are not exactly the same as ordinary heavy infantry, because the dead soldiers of the Eight Banners will also be equipped with bows and arrows, and his archery skills are no worse than the so-called sharp soldiers.

The sharp soldiers of the Eight Banners are certainly not light infantry in the traditional sense, they are not light at all, because the sharp soldiers of the Eight Banners are also armoured, but they are slightly lighter than the dead soldiers who generally wear chain mail and cotton armor (lined with iron armor).

The sharp soldiers of the Eight Banners also wore thick cotton armor.

In addition to armor-piercing, the Eight Banners Sharps will also be equipped with medium-length weapons such as tiger guns or Kanto sweeps, and they are not simply projecting infantry.

In addition to the dead soldiers and sharp soldiers, the Eight Banners Army will also use the most elite Bayala to supervise the battle in the rear and serve as a reserve soldier in the battle.

Whether it is a dead soldier, a sharp soldier, or a bayara, all the Eight Banners soldiers are equipped with bows and arrows, and they are all hard bows with great bow power.

When you fight against the Eight Banners, you will find that when you fight from afar, your enemies can all be used as elite archers, and when you fight in melee combat, your enemies are all melee hand-to-hand combatants, and they can be used as good cavalrymen on horseback!

When the Eight Banners Army and the Ming Army fought, they would often rush into a place about 20 meters away from the Ming Army, and then suddenly stop, and the whole army would shoot at the Ming Army's position together, at this time, the army of the Eight Banners Army would form a military formation of about ten rows, the first three or four rows were heavily armored dead soldiers, and after they staggered slightly, they would shoot accurately at the Ming Army in front, and the sharp soldiers in the back six or seven rows would be more than ten meters behind the dead soldiers, and use this gap to carry out a small angle projectile on the Ming Army's position.

More than ten rows in front and back, shooting together, the projection density formed is very terrifying, and because the team is only about twenty meters away from the enemy, even the sharp soldiers in the last row are only fifty or sixty meters away from the target, and this is the best range for heavy arrow shooting with the long bow used by the Eight Banners!

Because the Ming army was equipped with a large number of firearms, and the firearms could not be ejected, in order to give full play to the power of all firearms, they had to discharge a relatively wide transverse plane.

The Eight Banners Army will choose one or more points on its wide horizontal plane and concentrate its forces to attack.

The backward firearms of the Ming Dynasty era, the firepower density produced, naturally could not compete with the projection density of the ten rows of Eight Banner shooters, once the failure in the shooting, the Eight Banners Army was able to transform all the troops from the projection infantry into hand-to-hand infantry, and the chaotic Ming Army carried out a surprise attack, and once the Ming Army's wide horizontal row was broken through a point, or more points, they would be divided into several sections, and after the Eight Banners Army broke through the weak Ming Army front, they could detour behind their backs to attack.

In the Battle of Salhu, the Eight Banners Army relied on this method to defeat the main force of the Ming army led by Juniper.

In addition to dealing with infantry, the characteristic that all the soldiers of the Eight Banners are strong archers also has a great advantage when dealing with nomadic soldiers.

When dealing with infantry, the nomadic cavalry has a classic tactic that has been used for more than a thousand years, that is, to use the speed advantage of the light cavalry to gallop around the enemy's army formation in one direction, and in the process of galloping, focus on a certain range of the enemy's army formation to cover and shoot, so as to disrupt the infantry formation in the area, once the enemy formation is shaken, they will throw into the shock cavalry, surprise the place, and then tear the enemy's dense formation.

And what this tactic is most afraid of is a large number of dense strong bows and hard crossbows.

In order to ensure the power of cavalry shooting, this kind of harassment cavalry shooting will generally be within 50 meters of the enemy's military formation, and this distance is also the best range of the Eight Banners Long Bow Bow.

Think about it, when the steppe cavalry used their classic tactics to ride and shoot the Eight Banners Army formation, they found that the enemy's arrow rain was several times denser than what they shot at them, how could this battle be fought?

In addition, the Eight Banners Army is suitable for every horse, and its mobility is no worse than that of the grassland cavalry, so it is naturally invincible to deal with the grassland cavalry.

Therefore, the Houjin army expeditioned to the grassland, and every time it was able to win a big victory.

Of course, the Mongolian cavalry of the Ming and Qing dynasties cannot be compared with the Mongolian cavalry of the Genghis Khan era, and the Mongolian cavalry of the Genghis Khan era was more tenacious, more disciplined, and more executed.

But in any case, the composition and tactics of the Eight Banners Army, at the tactical level, have quite a good advantage over the steppe cavalry.