Chapter 496 The Rich Man's Mount

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"Lord Governor, Marine Chen Zhouwei reports to you"

Zhang Zhun came out on the wooden board and looked, and a vigorous young man came up to report, it was Chen Zhouwei, the captain of the Marine Corps. Zhang Zhun remembered the previous things, and said with a smile: "Chen, has your mind turned a corner now?" ”

Chen Zhouwei's face suddenly turned a little red, and he said with some embarrassment: "My lord, I was ignorant before, so I didn't want to go to the new army." Now, I'm in love with the Marines. After we take Dongjiang Town, if we want to set foot on the land of Liaodong, our marines will definitely be the first to directly fight against the Tartars. Sir, don't you say? ”

Zhang Zhun said with a smile: "You, you finally reacted." Who was the first to set foot on the land of Liaodong? Who else but you? It's such a simple thing, and I have to think about it for so long."

Chen Zhouwei smiled a little awkwardly.

He turned out to be the commander of the Chuang Zi Battalion, and his military skills were quite outstanding. When Zhang Zhun formed the Marine Corps, he was also assigned to the Marine Corps. As a result, he was reluctant to go, and made a lot of jokes about it, which made people cry and laugh. However, the military order is like a mountain, and he has to go if he doesn't want to.

After Chen Zhouwei arrived in the Marine Corps, he still couldn't turn around in his thinking, and always felt that the Marines had no battle and had no chance to meet with the Tartars. Emotions have not been very high. It wasn't until the Tiger Ben Army Navy entered the Dongjiang Town area and directly interacted with the Tartars that he became interested. Thinking that if the Huben Army landed in Liaodong, the Marines would inevitably be the first combat troops to land, he came to his senses and finally straightened his mind.

Behind Chen Zhouwei, the soldiers of the Marine Corps were leading more than a dozen war horses. It turned out that it was Zhou Zhengyu who learned that the battle in Huangxian County had ended, and all the Tartars were locked up in Dengzhou City, so he asked people to send all the captured war horses over. These war horses are the best quality batch captured by Huang Shijun and them.

Zhang Zhun looked at these war horses, they were all tall and strong, or white, or black, or red, or gray, or brown, the coat color was quite pure, without the slightest miscellaneous hair, and I felt that it should be a first-class good horse. However, after all, he doesn't know much about horses, and he can't be sure if his coat color is a good horse. So he ordered someone to call the old man Chen Guoxi.

When the old man Chen Guoxi was in Liaodong before, he was a horseman, and his understanding of war horses was naturally the deepest. As a result, after Chen Guoxi came, he only glanced at it and shouted in surprise: "A good horse is really a good horse."

Chen Zhouwei said proudly: "It is said that it was Dolgon and Duoduo and their mounts, which were supposed to be sent to Dengzhou City, but they were robbed by us. ”

Chen Guoxi happily shouted: "No wonder, no wonder"

I only saw him circling around a dozen war horses, and he couldn't put it down, especially one of the white horses and a big red horse, which made Chen Guoxi feel very fond of it. He used to be a groom, and when he saw a good horse, he naturally couldn't put it down. If it had been before, he might have to get on his horse and take a good walk. It's a pity that now that I'm older, I don't dare to toss.

Zhang Zhun has an injury on his waist and can't ride a horse for the time being, so he can only watch. However, even so, he has to see if these war horses are really that powerful. Let's not say it's Dolgon's and Dordor's mounts, and let's see what they're capable of.

"Liu Mang"

Zhang Zhun shouted casually.

"To"

Liu Mang agreed beside him.

"Go and find Li Zhaohui and ask him to bring ten horseback riders"

Zhang Zhun said in a deep voice.

Liu Mang agreed to go.

Li Zhaohui was born in Guanning Iron Cavalry, and after being sent to the army, they naturally trained in the cavalry battalion. Since the Tartars had been cowering in Dengzhou City, most of the warriors of the Dragoon Battalion and the Leopard Cavalry Battalion were conducting daily training in the open space east of Huang County, and were also responsible for monitoring the movements of the Tartars in Dengzhou City. Li Zhaohui and they are also there, not far from Huang County.

Sure enough, after a while, the sound of horses' hooves sounded, and Li Zhaohui arrived. Not only Li Zhaohui arrived, but Xie Youzhi also arrived. When the two arrived, there were still talking and laughing, and it seemed that the relationship was quite intimate.

Zhang Zhunhu asked suspiciously: "Xie Youzhi, do you know Li Zhaohui?" ”

Xie Youzhi said solemnly: "Lord Hui, we have met a few times before, but we are not very familiar. I was originally stationed in Ningyuan, and he was in Songshan Fort. When the joint operation was carried out, he was the general manager of Qian, I was a soldier, I knew him, he didn't know me. ”

Zhang Zhun nodded suddenly in realization.

No wonder, both of them came out of Liaoxi, and they both belonged to the battle sequence of the Guanning Iron Cavalry, and after going down to the army, they naturally felt a little more affectionate. It's just that in the past, Li Zhaohui was the commander of the cavalry, and Xie Youzhi was a soldier. Now, just the other way around, Li Zhaohui is a soldier for the time being, but Xie Youzhi is the deputy commander and the team.

In fact, at that time, there was no such title as "Guanning Iron Cavalry". The name Guanning Tieqi was added by later generations. This name actually includes the 20,000 cavalry troops of the Ming Army in Liaodong. The 20,000 cavalry units were divided into five battalions, front, rear, left, right, and middle, and were stationed in different areas such as Jinzhou, Ningyuan, Shanhaiguan, and Jizhen.

For the average Ming army, the strength of each battalion is about 4,000 people. Of course, the premise is in the case of full staffing. Battalion-level commanders, the official rank is generally garrison or guerrilla, and the higher one is the general. For example, Li Chengdong was a garrison before, and Song Degang turned out to be a guerrilla.

However, the commanders of these five battalions of the cavalry of the Ming Army in Liaodong all had the rank of deputy chief soldier, and some even hung the title of chief soldier. For example, Wu Xiang, Wu Shangui's son, directly commanded a battalion of cavalry. It can be seen that the Liaodong Ming army is completely based on 20,000 cavalry as the core. In the future, Wu Sangui and Li Zicheng will fight, and it will be the main force of Guanning Iron Cavalry that will be dispatched.

Li Zhaohui brought nine people, plus Xie Youzhi, a total of eleven people. All of them are athletic guys, and they all look very neat. Seeing these war horses in front of them, they couldn't help but light up their eyes. There are actually a lot of war horses in Guanning Tieqi, but there are not many good horses. Because, their war horses were mainly bought in large quantities from Lin Dan Khan, and after the second dealer of the Imperial Horse Supervisor, the number of good horses was basically zero.

At that time, in the Ming Dynasty, there was a special agency responsible for the purchase of horses. This specialized institution is called the Imperial Horse Warden. Every year, the Imperial Horse Supervisor would buy a large number of war horses from the Mongols in the horse market in Datong, using tea, silk, medicinal herbs, porcelain, etc. as an exchange. At its peak, 300,000 war horses were purchased in a year. At the very least, there are about 100,000 horses per year. Therefore, most of the Ming army will not lack war horses.

But the freaks are the freaks here. The war horses purchased by the Imperial Horse Warden were not directly allocated to the army, but were stored in various pastures. The army had to use the horses, and they had to take their own money and buy them again from the Imperial Horse Warden. In other words, if your army doesn't pay for it, I'd rather let the horses die in the pasture than give them to you.

Doesn't it feel very freaky? Incredible? That's right, the power of the eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty was so powerful. It doesn't matter if you are in a hurry, whether you want to destroy the country and exterminate the species, anyway, if you don't pay, don't think I will allocate the war horse to you. In other words, as long as you are willing to pay, you will have as many horses as you want.

What needs to be purchased a second time is actually not just a war horse. There are also various military supplies stored in the ten stocks of the Inner Government. Most of the firearms produced in the Ming Dynasty were concentrated in the hands of the inner court, rather than directly in the hands of the Ming army. These firearms can only be obtained at the expense of the army. As a result, it is often the case that large armies go to the front without weapons.

For this reason, many generals who led their troops to the expedition had to bribe the eunuch leaders of the imperial horse supervisor and the celebrant eunuch with a lot of money when they left, so as to obtain sufficient weapons and equipment from them. Because the power of the inner court is too great, even cattle people like Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan have to pay for firearms and war horses. Otherwise, you will wait for the breeze on your sleeves to go to the front line and die

In the final analysis, the Guanning Iron Horse was still piled up with a large amount of silver. Silver is limited, and the price of a good war horse is quite expensive. What the troops needed was a large number of war horses, and it was impossible to pay a large amount of silver taels for one or two good horses. Therefore, all the horses used by Guanning Iron Horse are all ordinary Mongolian horses. It is simply unrealistic to expect that there are too many good horses in the Mongolian horses. The good horses were kept by the Imperial Horse Warden himself and quietly sold to the rich.

There are only a few standards for a good war horse. The first is that the camel carrying capacity should be strong, and it is generally required to be able to carry more than 300 catties. Second, be quick. Third, the endurance should be good, at least you can gallop for a hundred miles in a row without resting. The fourth, obedient and easy to control. The fifth, not alarmed, not afraid of gunfire. Sixth, it is easy to raise, not picky eaters, and has strong disease resistance.

Of course, no war horse can have all the advantages mentioned above. Generally speaking, the performance data of war horses with large numbers and easy to raise are generally not outstanding. For example, Mongolian horses are not good. If you want to charge into battle with Mongolian horses, it is not powerful enough. The advantages of Mongolian horses are that they are hard-working, coarse and extensive, resistant to diseases, and easy to breed in large quantities. One-on-one heads-up, the Mongolian horse is certainly not the opponent of the Dawan horse.

These high-headed horses in front of you should be the breeding of Dawan horses. The advantage of Dawan is that it is very fast, has a strong sprint ability, and has a strong ability to carry a camel. Able to form heavy cavalry charges. In the short battle, Dawan Ma won completely. However, the shortcomings of Dawan horses are also obvious.

First of all, the endurance is not very good, and you have to stop and rest after running for one or two hundred miles at most. In fact, the Dawan horse forcibly ran for a hundred miles, and the damage to itself was already great. Once you have injured your vitality, it takes a lot of time to recover. In addition, Dawan horses must be raised by special people, and there are specially prepared forages, if you just eat grass, it will be finished in half a month. Dawan horses are also prone to illness. If you get sick and don't get timely treatment, it will soon be gone.

Due to the difference in horse breeds, the Chinese cavalry generally preferred to use Mongolian horses. The main thing is that it is coarse and extensive, cheap, easy to serve, and not very demanding. As long as they outnumber each other, the Mongolian horse can also defeat the Dawan horse. In the past, the Mongolian cavalry relied on rough Mongolian horses to conquer the world. The Ming army bought a Mongolian horse, about fifteen taels of silver, which was really cheap and couldn't be cheaper.

After listening to Li Zhaohui's brief explanation, Zhang Zhun said casually: "Don't worry about these for now, you go up and talk about it." ”

Li Zhaohui agreed and began to assign tasks.

Eleven people, just right eleven horses. The strange thing is that Li Zhaohui was not the first to go up on the white war horse, but instead designated another warrior to go up. After introduction, this warrior who controls horses is called Chen Musheng. In the original Guanning Iron Cavalry, this Chen Musheng's level is top-notch, purely in terms of riding skills, even Li Zhaohui has to bow down.

Sure enough, as soon as Chen Musheng got on the horse, the white war horse looked very anxious, and repeatedly pouted his buttocks, wanting to take Chen Musheng off. Its movements were so violent that even Zhang Zhun next to him couldn't help but be a little worried. However, Chen Musheng was firmly attached to the horse's back, but he refused to come down. The white war horse then kept spinning in circles, pouting his buttocks, and even lying down, rushing sharply, braking suddenly, he was really a very irritable guy.

Chen Zhouwei said in a low voice: "This guy is very short-tempered, when we were in Weihaiwei, he was also thrown by two people. ”

The old man Chen Guoxi said beside him: "Ordinary war horses recognize the master, and the more powerful the war horse, the more they recognize the master." Chen Musheng was trying to get rid of his temper. When the temper of the war horse is almost exhausted, it will slowly accept the new owner. ”

He further explained that the war horses that have been drained of their temper will have a period of silence and sluggish performance. It will not get better until it has passed this adaptation period. During this time, Zhang Zhun just took time to get along with it more and completely tame it. After getting along with Zhang Zhun for a long time, it will slowly recognize the Lord.

"My lord, this place is too narrow."

Li Zhaohui said a little embarrassed.

The courtyard of Yunfeng Residence is actually quite large, and there is enough space for a horse to toss. The problem is that now there are eleven horses. All the war horses are crowded together, and the space is very large. Besides, the biggest ability of these war horses is to sprint in a straight line for short distances. In the courtyard, there is no such distance.

"Go outside and go around the city"

Zhang Zhun said decisively.

Li Zhaohui and the others immediately turned their horses' heads and walked out of Yunfeng Residence.

"Da Da Da"

The sound of the horse's hooves was crisp and swift away.

These war horses were really fast, and they disappeared into the city gate hole in a moment.

"Let's go up to the castle tower to see"

Zhang Zhun said excitedly.

The group carried Zhang Zhun to the tower of the East Gate.

I only saw Li Zhaohui, Xie Youzhi, and Chen Musheng, manipulating the war horses, galloping back and forth, and circling back and forth around Huangxian. These war horses are indeed very fast, and they only need half a cup of tea to be able to go around the city. And, in the first ten laps, it does not decrease at all. The existing war horses of the Tiger Ben Army, if you compare them alone, are not the opponents of these war horses at all. Even if Zhang Zhun was the big red horse before, if he competed, he would be thrown off at least a few streets.

The white war horse, sure enough. Chen Musheng manipulated it, as if it was flying. Zhang Zhun estimated that this white war horse may be forty or fifty kilometers long, and the short sprint can be compared to a car. followed by the big red horse ridden by Li Zhaohui. It wasn't slow either, only three or four stalls slower than the white horse.

These war horses more or less recognized their masters, and at the beginning, they kept trying to resist, and from time to time they had to make some awkward trouble. However, Li Zhaohui and them are also masters of horse control, and it is impossible for these war horses to get rid of them. As a result, in the process of running between the two sides, they continued to fight wits and courage. It took two hours before the horses finally succumbed.

"Da Da Da"

After running dozens of laps, all the horses were tired and had to stop slowly. Chen Guoxi has already adjusted the forage. When Chen Zhouwei and the others arrived from Weihaiwei, they also brought some special forage. All the war horses are desperately eating forage to replenish their lost physical strength.

Zhang Zhun estimated beside him that these war horses are indeed good horses, but it doesn't seem to be so easy to wait for them. Look at the forage they eat, it's all specially formulated and has plenty of legumes in it. At that time, the price of beans was relatively high. War horses eat a lot of food, and they need at least thirty catties of such high-nutrient forage every day. If there are thousands of such horses, it will definitely impoverish the owner. The cost of forage consumed by one such war horse is enough for twenty ordinary Mongolian horses to eat. Oh, it's really a rich man's mount

After galloping just now, everyone knew that the white war horse and the big red horse were obviously the two fiercest horses. These two war horses were naturally reserved for Zhang Zhun to use. After Chen Musheng and Li Zhaohui's tossing just now, the tempers of the two war horses are no longer so hot. As long as Zhang Zhun's waist is good and he completely tames them, there should be no problem.

Chen Guoxi smiled and said, "Yulin, come up with a nice name for the two of them." ”

Zhang Zhun's cultural level is indeed not good, but fortunately, he has seen a lot of things in Romance, and he still knows some about jade flowers, night lions or something. However, those names are all in it, and there are no such awkward names in reality. Therefore, he thought for a moment and said, "The white one is called the White Dragon Horse." The red ones are called dragon foals. ”

These two names sound simple, catchy, and everyone accepts them. Chen Guoxi volunteered to take care of these two big horses. However, this is obviously not a good errand, because, while eating forage, the white dragon horse somehow had a conflict with the fire dragon horse, and the two horses even almost fought, Chen Guoxi hurriedly took the two horses away.

Zhang Zhun was itching, and he couldn't wait to turn over and get on the horse immediately, galloping vertically and horizontally, but unfortunately, he had no choice but to watch it for the time being. In the end, Zhang Zhun left the White Dragon Horse and the Fire Dragon Horse by himself, and the other war horses were left to the sniper detachment around him. The White Dragon Horse and the Fire Dragon Horse are too fast, and if the sniper detachment's war horses can't keep up, it won't work.

At the same time as Chen Zhouwei sent the war horse, he also sent a report on the battle situation of the navy some time ago.

In the past ten days or so, the harvest of the Navy has been too rich. It's as if a homeless man broke into the vault and seized a large amount of supplies from the Tartars. All the ships that had gone out on the expedition were full when they returned. Especially Huang Shijun, Mao Huihui and others, it was too late to send back the looted materials.

The most valuable captures, of course, were the war horses, which totaled more than 1,400 horses. The 2,000 war horses that the Tartars were going to send to Dengzhou City, except for a very few that slipped through the net, all the others were intercepted by the Tiger Ben Army Navy. Now, all the war horses are in the Weihaiwei Naval Port. In addition to the batch given to Zhang Zhun, other war horses will also be sent one after another.

"Don't give it away"

"Li Zhaohui Xie Youzhi"

"You take people directly to Weihaiwei to receive them"

Zhang Zhun said decisively.

"Understood"

Li Zhaohui said excitedly.

The original cavalry troops, each based on a horse, a turnip and a pit, there was nothing superfluous. These new soldiers can only share one war horse with others. Now, with more horses, each of them can have their own horse. At the same time, there are more horses that can be rotated in cavalry units. If the horse is sick or unexpected, it will not lead to a shortage of cavalry.

For cavalry units, the rotation of war horses was very necessary. Because, like people, war horses are born and old, sick and die, and they are even more fragile than people. In case of a situation with the war horse, it is necessary to replace the other war horse to avoid a shortage of personnel. In fact, for a truly powerful cavalry unit, each of them must have more than two war horses.

In terms of the big horn, a cavalry of 1,000 people must be equipped with at least 1,200 war horses to meet the most basic rotation needs. If you take into account the rotation of marching and fighting, a cavalry of 1,000 people, it is better to have more than 2,500 war horses, in order to be considered to be able to switch freely, and can rotate for a long time.

In the past, the Mongol cavalry even had three, four, or even five war horses per person. A thousand-strong Mongolian cavalry team often has more than 4,000 horses of various colors, so there are many things that can be done. Not only can a large number of rotations ensure that each soldier can ride a horse to participate in the battle, but can even constantly change the horse to ride, saving physical strength, in order to carry out the longest-distance raid.

The power of war horses is limited, and riding a horse to drive a hundred and fifty miles a day is almost the limit. This is still occasionally, if it is a continuous march, the war horse walks a hundred miles a day, which is definitely enough to choke. The kind of data of marching 1,000 miles in five consecutive days, or 2,000 miles in ten consecutive days, can only appear in a dream. The advance of the Mongol cavalry was so fast, and at its peak, it once advanced continuously for three or four hundred miles, which was based on the replacement of a large number of war horses.

The cavalry of the Tiger Ben Army is also gradually working in this direction. Each cavalry battalion of the Tiger Ben Army had about 600 personnel, and the number of war horses was only about 650, which obviously could not meet the basic needs. At least it must be increased to 100 horses, so as to ensure that when the battle starts, there will be no shortage of cavalry. If it can be increased to a thousand horses, the maneuverability will be much stronger. If it can be increased to 2,000 horses, it will be able to continue to advance and march for a long time.

In addition to the war horses, the navy also captured a large number of merchant ships, as many as thirty in total. The average carrying capacity of each merchant ship is about 3,000 stone (about 15o tons). All combined, more than 100,000 koku (about 5 tons). In other words, if all merchant ships were dispatched, more than 100,000 koku (about 5 tons) of cargo could be transported at a time.

Although these merchant ships are somewhat old, they can be sailed, especially offshore voyages. It is just enough to continuously transport building materials, such as cement, from Mawan to Weihaiwei to build Weihaiwei Military Port. According to Zhang Zhun's meaning, the scale of construction of Weihai Weijun Port is larger than that of Mawan Military Port.

"After you go back, send an order to Yang Guohua and Zhou Zhengyu to capture Huangcheng Island as soon as possible."

Zhang Zhun said slowly.

"Understood"

Chen Zhouwei replied excitedly.

The capture of Huangcheng Island is equivalent to the navy having an additional stronghold between Dengzhou City and Liaodong, which can more effectively intercept the Tatar merchant ships coming and going between Dengzhou City and Liaodong. With the continuous strengthening of the naval power of the Tiger Ben Army around Huangcheng Island, it is impossible for the Tartar transport ships to secretly go south. In other words, the Tartars in Dengzhou City were completely blocked.

Zhang Zhun's original plan was to use Dengzhou City to continuously consume the strength of the Tartars and attract more Tartars to come. The more Tartars were eliminated in Dengzhou City, the more resistance they encountered when they marched into Liaodong in the future, but now it seems that this plan may not be realized. Because, in the first battle of Huangxian, the loss of troops caused to the Tartars was too great.

According to the statistics of cleaning the battlefield, there were 2,500 corpses of Tartars around Huang County. Together with some mutilated corpses, the death toll of the Tartars may be close to three thousand. Together with the number of Tartars destroyed earlier, the total loss of Tartars was close to five thousand people. Such a big loss is enough to completely scare the courage of the Tartars.

Even Dolgon may not dare to stay in Dengzhou City. Especially after the Tiger Army captured twenty-six Hongyi cannons. These big guys are a sharp weapon for attacking the city, therefore, Zhang Zhun estimated that Dolgon might find a way to escape and escape back to Liaodong.

Since it was possible for Dorgon to escape, the only way to do that was to cut off his escape route. Since you are here, don't leave, this is what Zhang Zhun has always meant. You just stay in Dengzhou City. As for when to attack Dengju Castle, that will be a matter for later.

Chen Zhouwei, Li Zhaohui and others quickly said goodbye and left.

Not long after they left, someone arrived, and it was Liu Rushi and the red lady

[Today's third update is sent to 7 chapters, I hope you like it]