Zhu Hongsan was born in Wuchang, south of the Yangtze River, and his power grew up in Guangdong, and he fought south of the Yangtze River in all previous battles, and the importance of cavalry did not appear. In several battles with the Manchus, the Manchus' excellent cavalry and archery skills ended the battle without showing them at all.

Outside the city of Nanchang, Duoduo did not know the combat effectiveness of the Ming army on the other side, and regarded Zhu Hongsan's new-style Ming army as the previous guards, so he was defeated and suffered heavy casualties under shotguns and dense muskets. However, Duoduo's final defeat was not because the weapons were inferior to the people, but because it was located in the Yangtze River water network, and the defeated defeated troops could not be well organized, and the mobility of the cavalry was greatly reduced. was chased around by the Ming army like a duck, and finally forced to the shore of Poyang Lake before being slaughtered by the navy's gunboats in large numbers.

In the Battle of Nanjing led by Hong Chengchou, the Qing army also relied on its familiarity with the terrain and took advantage of the rainy day to attack the Ming army. The ending was similar to Duoduo, and Hong Chengchou fled to Yangzhou with only a few thousand people.

The Battle of Hanyang was completely lost to the navy, but it should be that north of Hanyang was the territory of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, so the defeat of Zilharang was a failure, and the army losses were not large, because he could retreat to the range of the navy and calmly organize the troops.

As the head of the Shenwu Group, Zhu Hongsan naturally knew that he had taken a great advantage in the duel with the Manchu Qing in the past few times. If the Northern Expedition to the Central Plains in the future, Henan and Shandong are not the Jiangnan with dense water networks, and on the open North China Plain, the cavalry charges back and forth, and their own musketeers may have no problem, but if the mobility is not good, they will not be able to effectively annihilate the living forces of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. If these people are allowed to escape back to Liaodong or Mongolia alive, it will be troublesome. Zhu Hongsan didn't want to leave his children and grandchildren a Northern Qing after his death. You must know that the Northern Yuan left by Zhu Yuanzhang made the later Ming Dynasty emperors unlucky, and one of the emperors was arrested by the Northern Yuan, and Zhu Hongsan did not want to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Before the advent of burst firearms, the only effective means of dealing with cavalry was the cavalry itself, and Zhu Hongsan knew this deeply. Therefore, after seizing Li Chengdong's military power, he immediately formed his own cavalry team on the basis of Li Chengdong's 28,000 cavalry.

The cavalry team that Zhu Hongsan envisioned was the kind of cuirassiers of Napoleon's France, lined up in a tight formation, wearing shining cuirassiers, and riding high-headed horses, this kind of cavalry was the ideal cavalry form in Zhu Hongsan's heart.

However, with the understanding of the cavalry of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Hongsan was deeply disappointed. Ancient Chinese cavalry could not be counted as cavalry, but could only be said to be a group of infantry fighting on horseback. The Mongols have never heard of that kind of mangu tactics, and even if they have heard of it, they can't learn it. Because the Mongols grew up on horseback, this level of proficiency in horses was not something that the Han Chinese who farmed could learn.

But fortunately, Zhu Hongsan was on a honeymoon with the Spaniards at that time, and there were many Spanish instructors in Zhu Hongsan's army, and when he heard that the emperor wanted to form a cavalry, a cavalry captain Gonzalez recommended himself to Zhu Hongsan, hoping to help Zhu Hongsan form a European-style cavalry.

At that time, Zhu Hongsan was interested and immediately summoned this Gonzalez bearded man. From his mouth, Zhu Hongsan learned that the cuirassier was not invented by Napoleon.

Cuirassiers were cavalry armed with cuirasses, sabers, and firearms, and first appeared in Europe in the late fifteenth century. The more famous cuirassiers in Europe today are the imperial cuirassiers formed by the Dutch, the arch-rivals of the Spaniards. In the Dutch War of Independence, the Dutch formed a heavy cavalry with short guns in order to fight against the Spanish phalanx, the most powerful in Europe at the time. Instead of the cavalry spears of the previous heavy cavalry, these cavalry used two muskets to shoot at the enemy, while simplifying the medieval heavy cavalry armor and removing the flashy ornaments and using the weight to protect the torso.

This cavalry caused great suffering to the Spanish infantry phalanx, and in the following Thirty Years' War in Europe, the European powers more or less formed similar cuirassiers.

Zhu Hongsan was very interested after listening to Gonzalez's speech, and in Zhu Hongsan's belief that cavalry was a type of army that used cold weapons and used the speed and weight of horses to charge, it seemed that the Europeans had come out of a new way.

Although the cuirassiers were not as well defended as the previous medieval knights, they were also a kind of heavy cavalry, and the equipment of the scale was still very expensive, even with the economic strength of the Netherlands, it was only equipped with 1,100 cuirassiers in the war. In later generations, Napoleon occupied most of Europe, and the productivity increased greatly, under this condition, only tens of thousands of cuirassiers could be formed, and the rest of the cavalry had to be made up with dragoons.

The dragoons sounded formidable, but they were actually mounted infantry who often dismounted and fought with muskets in battle, acting as mobile "horse infantry". Dragoons had an awkward position as cavalrymen, their lack of cuirass made it difficult for them to deal with elite infantry, and their complex equipment greatly reduced their mobility. But the all-round ability of the horse made them favored by the countries of Europe. After the Thirty Years' War, European countries saw the excellent effectiveness of dragoons, and all formed a large number of dragoons in their own armies.

Therefore, Gonzalez suggested that Zhu Hongsan that these cavalry should be mainly dragoons, with a small number of cuirassiers, and there should be no problem in dealing with the cold-armed Mongols.

Zhu Hongsan, who was persuaded by Gonzalez, immediately ordered Gonzalez to serve as the head of the Ming Dynasty cavalry, which was probably similar to Lin Chong, the head of the 800,000 forbidden army. Gonzalez, who was only a small cavalry captain in his native country of Spain, was ecstatic and immediately threw himself into his work, vowing to train a dragoon for the Emperor of the Ming Kingdom that would be better than all the cavalry in Europe.

Three years later, after the cavalry training was completed, Zhu Hongsan handed over the cavalry team that had been built with a large amount of money to his two sons-in-law, the main general was Li Yuanyin, and the deputy general was Zhao Hu, who also served as the commander of the 2,000-strong heavy cavalry.

In order to form these two thousand heavy cavalry, that is, cuirassiers, Zhu Hongsan used all the bottoms. Originally, Zhu Hongsan held my Heavenly Empire, and the national strength is comparable to that of your small and wild European countries. At that time, he waved his hand at Gonzalez and asked him to form five thousand cuirassiers.

How do you know that it is really practiced, Zhu Hongsan knows that this is impossible at all, and the most important thing is that the horses are not qualified. A set of cuirassiers cost more than eighty pounds of equipment, plus the knight himself, it was two hundred pounds, and the thin Mongolian horse could not charge with the knight at all.

There was no way to import all the horses, but fortunately, Spain was the place where horses were produced, and the main horses of Napoleon's cuirassiers were Andalusian horses from Spain. This * horse is a warm-blooded horse, with a tall body, a tough and docile character, an understanding ability and a good learner, and is the most excellent breed of war horse. On the one hand, Zhu Hongsan spent a lot of money to introduce, and on the other hand, he set up a horse farm in Nanjing to breed by himself.

After several years of preparation, we finally had more than 2,000 qualified horses, so we formed a heavy cavalry team of 2,000 people.

Now this 50,000-strong cavalry team is in Suqian, at that time Zhu Hongsan gave them the task of capturing the central capital Fengyang, but the local Manchu officials had already fled, and the remaining few civil officials saw the Northern Expedition army coming, and they all surrendered one by one, so Li Yuanyin did not have a fight with the Manchu army.

Li Yuanyin and Zhao Hu crossed the Yellow River from Xuzhou on March 20 with 50,000 cavalry, and after receiving orders from the emperor, they came to Suqian to make peace with the emperor. Who knows that I have been staying here in Suqian for two months, and it is already June, and the emperor has not yet decided when to go north, Li Yuanyin and Zhao Hu are as anxious as ants on a hot pot.

Today, the two brothers-in-law were drinking in the cavalry camp outside the city, when suddenly a brocade guard came outside the door to report that His Majesty the Emperor had let the two enter the city, saying that there was something important to discuss in detail.

Li Yuanyin and Zhao Hu were overjoyed after hearing this, and Li Yuanyin said: "Brother-in-law, Your Majesty finally remembered us this time!" I don't know where we can attack! ”

Li Yuanyin and Zhao Hu both married Zhu Hongsan's daughter, and Zhao Hu married the eldest princess Zhu Luo, and her status is stronger than that of Princess Zhu Yu of Yuyang, so the cautious Li Yuanyin generally calls Zhao Hu, who is younger than himself, his brother-in-law, as long as it is not a formal occasion.

Zhao Hu knew that fathers and sons like Li Chengdong and Li Yuanyin had always been very careful, but Zhao Hu was not ready to use his identity to suppress Li Yuanyin, and called Li Yuanyin a handsome in public. Because the two of them are careful to maintain their identities, there has been no conflict between the two in recent years, but their relationship is not bad.

"Dashuai, the last general estimates that the emperor should make up his mind, the last general listens to the grapevine, the Manchu Qing in the north mobilizes 500,000 troops to the south, and wants to fight to the death with us, this time the emperor is looking for us to let us take the lead!" In this era, there were camels that did not brag, Zhu Hong's 3.21 million horses dared to claim to be one million, and the 300,000 horses of the Manchu Qing Dynasty claimed to be 500,000 were already very restrained.

Li Yuanyin nodded, his estimate was similar to what Zhao Hu said. The two hurriedly got up and washed their faces, put on official uniforms and followed the Jinyi guard who passed the decree to the city to meet Emperor Zhu Hongsan.

Zhu Hongsan's favorite general in the late Ming Dynasty, except for Li Dingguo, who was a famous king of the two Turks, was probably this Li Yuanyin. Li Yuanyin persuaded his father-in-law Li Chengdong to oppose the Qing Dynasty in history, and then be loyal to the Ming Dynasty to the end, and finally put on court clothes to martyr the Ming Dynasty, which is much taller than ordinary civil servants. Therefore, Zhu Hongsan was a little dissatisfied with this son-in-law, except for his age, he didn't pick anything else at all.

Li Yuanyin, who is six years old Chinese New Year's Eve today, is only three years younger than Emperor Zhu Hongsan, walked into the house and knelt down on one knee and said: "Minister Li Yuanyin, please see my father!" ”

Zhu Hongsan likes Li Yuanyin more and more, the longer he is lofty, his body is straight, and his appearance is very outstanding, if he is ten years younger, he must be a good match for Xiaoyuer. However, it is not easy to find a satisfactory son-in-law in the future, let alone this troubled world, so Zhu Hongsan is still quite satisfied with Li Yuanyin.