The cavalry phalanx composed of the Second Cavalry Regiment of the First Army of the Chinese Army and the cavalry companies of the two divisions was about 1,000 cavalry, and now these 1,000 cavalrymen were brandishing their swords and charging towards the cavalry of the Jianghuai New Army on the opposite side!

The two forces of cavalry rushed together like a torrent, and then caused a wave like an explosion, and the cavalry at the front of the two sides fell in a large area the moment they first came into contact.

The training system of the cavalry on both sides is the same, and the sabers are also imitated by the standard sabers of the French hussars, and the war horses used are mainly Mongolian horses.

This can be seen from the fact that they all chose a dense formation and charged directly with their sabers.

However, when the seemingly half-hearted cavalry collided together, the two sides still slashed each other with sabers at first, but soon after falling into a melee, a dense soft sound sounded among these cavalry, and bursts of white smoke rose from the melee cavalry.

And as the gunshots rang out, a large number of Jianghuai New Army soldiers wearing light blue military uniforms fell one after another!

Seeing all this, Li Hongzhang in the rear closed his eyes, he knew that the scene in the morning was now repeated, in the morning, the cavalry of the Chinese army pursued, he had to send his own cavalry to intercept, originally he still had a certain confidence in his own cavalry interception, but the initial stage of the engagement of the cavalry on both sides was fine, but after entering the melee stage, the cavalry of the Chinese army on the opposite side gave up the saber, and then took out the pistol one by one, this pistol is not a new thing. But all Li Hongzhang knew was a single-shot pistol.

However, the pistols of those Chinese cavalry are all pistols that can fire six shots in a connection!

As early as last year, the cavalry of the Chinese army began to be equipped with six-shot pistols on a large scale, but the cavalry of the Chinese army rarely used pistols directly on the battlefield. In the past, they relied on saber charging or dismounting to shoot rifle shots to achieve victory.

This traditional modern cavalry tactic also allowed the Chinese cavalry to win frequently in the face of the Taiping army and the Qing cavalry, and never missed.

But since the second half of this year, there have been frequent exchanges with the cavalry of the new army of Jianghuai. Although this traditional tactic can still play a certain role in combat, it is simply difficult to occupy absolute strategic superiority in the face of the cavalry of the Jianghuai New Army, whose training mode and cold weapons are exactly the same.

Then, in many skirmishes, the cavalry found that the revolver was better used than the saber in the melee!

This situation was quickly revived, and this was the reason why this morning, when Wang Luyun's cavalry attacked the new army in Jianghuai, it used pistols on a large scale for the first time in a melee and won a decisive victory in one fell swoop.

In the past, in the small-scale cavalry battles with the Jianghuai New Army, although there were more victories and fewer defeats. The battle loss ratio is often one to two, but in this morning's battle, the battle loss ratio rose sharply, reaching more than one to five.

This data makes Wang Luyun pay more attention to the role of the revolver!

Before going to war today, he even specially asked Shi Qingxuan to cooperate and temporarily assemble the 1855 officer pistols assigned to the officers, so that his cavalry could achieve two guns per person.

At present, in the cavalry of the Chinese army, the standard preparation is a curved saber, which was originally the standard saber of the French hussars. However, in recent years, minor improvements have been made according to actual combat to make it more suitable for the use of the cavalry of the Chinese army, and the curvature of the blade has become smaller and the weight has been reduced. As a result, it has traces of Western-style cavalry swords, but it is a cavalry knife with the characteristics of the Chinese army's cavalry.

This sabre, known as the 1856 style riding knife, is 96 centimeters long. The handle has a handguard and weighs 1.7 kilograms. It is worth noting that this saber is just like any other cold weapon. It is not produced by the mechanism of Linde Machinery Factory or Jinling Arsenal, but after the military specifies the specifications and processes, the order is built by some private workshops with a certain scale or small machine factories.

Due to the production is more scattered, the quality is naturally bad and bad, the best quality is produced by a private ironsmith workshop in Zhenjiang, the use of mechanical power assistance, plus their own exercise of steel excellence, so the quality of all kinds of sabers created is very good, but the quality of good also means that the output is low and the price is high, the sabers purchased from them are often assigned to officers, ordinary soldiers generally do not use.

Most of the cavalry still used riding knives made by ordinary blacksmiths!

In addition to the 1856 cavalry sabre, the cavalry also had a short-barreled cavalry mini rifle, and each cavalry revolver of the 1855 model.

After tasting the sweetness of the revolver in the morning battle, Wang Luyun just felt that the pistols of his own cavalry were not enough, and after this melee, it was often not enough to shoot out the six-way bullets, so he transferred the pistols of the officers and artillerymen belonging to other arms, although the pistols assigned to the officers were slightly inferior in power, but they could also allow the cavalry to use six more bullets.

No, now these pistols are showing their value, I saw the cavalry of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment brandishing their sabers to charge, and after the first round of chaotic fighting with their sabers, one by one they took out the pistols hanging on horseback with the other hand and had already been loaded.

Then after the muzzle of the gun was aimed at the enemy cavalry, the trigger was struck, and after the gunfire rang out, a large number of cavalry of the new army of Jianghuai began to fall!

Seeing all this, Li Hongzhang's heart was full of helplessness!

He had already sensed the inadequacy of the defeat in the first battle in the morning, and he also knew that it was difficult for his cavalry to beat the enemy cavalry, but now in the face of the surprise attack of the enemy cavalry, even if he knew that his own cavalry was invincible, he had to send them?

Why?

Because if you want to intercept the onslaught of enemy cavalry, the best way is to send your own cavalry to intercept it!

If Li Hongzhang did not send cavalry to intercept, then the more than 1,000 cavalry would directly attack his own infantry column, and then Li Hongzhang would have to stop the pace of the army, and then arrange a tight hollow phalanx or other formations to guard against the impact of the Chinese cavalry.

At that time, these Chinese troops will definitely not stupidly attack their own infantry phalanx, because they don't need to do it at that time.

What is the strategic task of these cavalry of the Chinese army? It is to delay the escape of the new army of Jianghuai, he only needs to make you unable to go, then it is a victory.

Once he stops, then the main infantry of the Chinese army behind him will catch up, and it won't take long, maybe more than an hour, and then whether he wants to or not, he must start a duel with the Chinese army.

And this kind of duel is what Li Hongzhang has always tried to avoid!

Based on these considerations, even though Li Hongzhang knew that his cavalry might be invincible, he still sent them to take the initiative to meet the enemy.

He didn't expect his cavalry to win a big victory, he only hoped that his cavalry would be able to hold them back, and preferably inflict heavy damage on the Chinese cavalry before his cavalry completely collapsed.

As long as his own cavalry can inflict heavy losses on the cavalry of the Chinese army, even if the whole army is annihilated, Li Hongzhang can accept it.

Now the crux of the matter is that even if their own cavalry fights to annihilate the whole army, can they inflict heavy damage on Wang Lu Yun's cavalry? (To be continued......)