readx; When Zhu Youzhen first proposed the idea of forming a firearms cavalry, Li Laiheng felt that it was not too feasible. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info Please search! The fastest updated novel because firearms are the biggest disadvantage compared to bows and arrows is that they are inconvenient to carry and difficult to replenish. A bow is not heavy, an arrow weighs one or two, and two hundred arrows are ten catties, and the arrows can be recovered or captured from the enemy; Not with birds, in addition to the fact that the projectile cannot be recovered, there must also be gunpowder for firing. The weight of the ammunition together is not light, and if there is less belt, it will not make much difference; If you bring too much, it will affect your mobility.

At the beginning, Zhu Youzhen's thinking was also stuck here, but fortunately, there was Li Dingguo, a person who was willing to use his brains. He pondered for only a few minutes before saying, "Holy Lord, if the cavalry is one man and one horse, it really can't bring much ammunition. But what if it's one man and two horses? ”

Yes! Zhu Youzhen's thinking suddenly became clear. It is true that because the Central Plains is not a horse-producing area, it is not easy to form cavalry, let alone one person and two horses. But purely from a military point of view, which is more combative, 500 cavalry with 1,000 horses, or 1,000 cavalry with 1,000 horses? It's really hard to say. If you face each other head-on, 500 against 1,000 will definitely suffer, but what if it is a guerrilla war? The fewer troops, the less they are consumed, and the more staying power they have.

Moreover, Li Dingguo's sentence reminded Zhu Youzhen and reminded him that it seemed that the Mongolian cavalry that crisscrossed the Eurasian continent in history was one person with more than one horse in its heyday. Even if it is a thief like Li Zicheng, the main cavalry is one person and two horses, one carries people and the other carries baggage, and depending on the situation of the horse during the battle, it can be transferred at will. Although the Ming army was short of horses, in line with the principle of being good at the army and not too many, why couldn't it form such a cavalry?

Therefore, when the battle to defend the Beijing Division had just ended and the participating troops were still resting in the Beijing Division, Zhu Youzhen began to form such a unit. Originally, the idea was from Li Dingguo, and it stands to reason that this force should be led by Li Dingguo; But the more Li Laiheng thought about it, the more he felt that the cavalry formed with this idea could have extremely strong combat effectiveness, so he salivated and begged Zhu Youzhen and Li Dingguo over and over again that he must let him lead them. It just so happened that Zhu Youzhen wanted to arrange a new important task for Li Dingguo, so he agreed.

Of course, this newly formed firearms cavalry unit was still experimental in nature, and it was impossible to have too many troops at the beginning, so it was tentatively set at 3,000 men. However, due to the shortage of war horses, it was impossible to achieve one person and two horses, so Zhu Youzhen only agreed to allocate an additional 1,500 horses to Li Laiheng. For this reason, Li Laiheng also looked for Hao Yongzhong in private, and wanted to "borrow" another 1,500 horses with a dead face, but Hao Yongzhong was scolded: "You can pick up the most capable ones, and you want more war horses?" Believe it or not, Lao Tzu asked his aunt-in-law to be a matchmaker, and quickly found someone for Xiaofeng to marry! Frightened, Li Laiheng hurriedly walked away.

No wonder Hao Yongzhong was angry, Li Laiheng was too "greedy", Zhu Youzhen asked him to pick people from the cavalry at will, he was really not polite, all the soldiers of the reconnaissance battalion in the regiments of the original Qin soldiers. Such a unit can be said to be the elite of the elite, and Zhu Youzhen's letting them participate in the battle to counterinsurgency is very much like "training troops in actual combat." How can that thief come up with it recklessly, how can he please it?

Before yesterday, although Li Laiheng's army followed Lu Xiangsheng all the way south, and fought a lot of big and small battles, it did not really use these 3,000 firearms and cavalry once, and Lu Xiangsheng always used Li Laiheng as a reserve. However, in all battles, the officers and troops won by overwhelming superiority, and the reserves naturally had no place to play. Seeing that Li Dingguo, Hao Yongzhong, and even Meng Gong, who was less qualified than himself, had made meritorious contributions, and even his original subordinates were obviously Li Shouyi began to lead the army alone, Li Laiheng was a monkey with a quick temper, so he had to train hard every day to vent the depression in his heart.

Therefore, the thieves were very "honored" and became the first test stone of this firearms cavalry unit. With Li Laiheng's order, the 3,000 cavalry immediately discharged the long-trained formation: every 500 cavalry, that is, a battalion, were divided into four phalanxes from left to right, leaving a gap about 15 zhang wide between the various formations. One battalion was left behind as a reserve, and the other battalion was responsible for protecting the horses carrying the baggage.

The enemy does not hate the lonely land

Specific to each phalanx, it is a horizontal row of 20 horses, a total of 25 rows, and the formation is very neat. The thieves shouted and charged, and the officers and soldiers began to advance, but the speed of the march was not fast, that is, the level of the trot.

As the distance between the two sides got closer and closer, and they were about to enter the range of the bird's gun, Li Laiheng shouted: "Release!" "The cavalry in the front row of the four phalanxes had already loaded their ammunition and had been aiming their guns for a long time, and at this time, they fired at once, and the guns roared loudly, no less than the roar of artillery!

Immediately after that, the twenty cavalrymen in the front row immediately divided to the left and right, ten to the left, and ten to the right, and withdrew their horses from the gap between the various formations, and still returned to a line. They retreated to both sides, and the original second row became the first row, and the cavalry of this platoon had already been prepared, fired immediately, and then repeated the above process.

It's complicated to say, but it's only a short moment on the battlefield. For the thieves, it was rows of lead bullets whistling with the breath of death, like a storm, almost without intervals, ruthlessly sweeping into their dense formations, stirring up a rain of blood!

As soon as they fought, the thieves were in chaos. They had also encountered an extremely terrifying cavalry before, but that cavalry was releasing arrows while retreating, as long as they didn't chase too closely, the casualties would not be too fast, and the lethality of the arrows was limited after all.

However, the official army in front of him, although the speed of progress was not very fast, it was crushed like a withering and decaying, and the thieves had no power to resist! The effective range of buckshot is eighty paces, but the actual maximum range can reach more than one hundred paces, which is longer than the range of a bow and arrow. The range of the thief's bow and arrow was not even fifty paces, and he did not have time to fire his bow and arrows, and he was beaten by rows of buckshot bullets and turned his horse on his back.

Moreover, the dense formation of cavalry targets is too large, especially the war horses are more likely to be shot. If an arrow hits a war horse, the horse will not fall right away; But after being hit by lead bullets, it is a small hole, but in it can form a wound greater than a fist or even a bowl, and no flesh and blood can bear such pain! With the tragic neighing of countless horses, there was chaos in the bandits' array.

In this way, the formation of the officers and troops repeatedly advanced in a cycle, and by the time the first row of cavalry at the earliest had relined the first row, there was plenty of time for them to have already loaded their ammunition, and the cavalry in front of them could be fired immediately when they were divided to both sides.

By the time the official army and the thieves engaged in close combat, the thieves had already been defeated. At this time, Li Laiheng's subordinates put away their flintlocks, drew their swords, let out an earth-shattering shout, and began the final blow!