Chapter 1269 Cavalry Showdown

But the soldiers of the two armies in the battle formation did not find it funny, but only felt cruel.

Wave after wave of arrows rained down from the sky. If you were unlucky enough to be hit, you would not have time to dodge and would be shot like a hedgehog.

At this time, it was a competition of whose armor was thicker...

The Yuan army was obviously no match for the fully armored Ming army. They could not even wear full leather armor, and their war horses were completely unprotected. Basically, they would fall off their horses if they were hit by arrows.

Look at the Ming army again. They were stabbed like hedgehogs, but they could still shoot arrows.

Moreover, not only were they not good at defense, but they were also not as good as the Ming army in attack. The Ming army's shooting speed was obviously much faster than theirs. Basically, for every two arrows fired by the Yuan army, the Ming army could shoot three arrows... It was almost the same as the situation in Gyeongju.

So this was not an isolated case, but reflected the general combat power gap between the Yuan army and the Ming army in this era.

The average horseback archery level of the people on horseback was indeed higher than that of the farming people, but it was just a matter of practice. History has proven countless times that as long as the Han people have horses, are properly trained, and no longer owe wages, they will beat up any nomadic people.

Some people say that Zhu's conquest of the world was due to the corruption of the Yuan Dynasty and the weakness of the Yuan army, and it cannot be used as an example that the Han cavalry is stronger than the Mongolian cavalry.

Let's take another example when the Mongolian cavalry was at its peak. After Mengge's death, Kublai Khan returned from the front line and competed with his half-brother Alibuga for the Khan position, relying on the Han cavalry.

There were only tens of thousands of Mongolian cavalry under his command, while Alibuga was the Khan officially recommended by the Mongolian nobles. He had the support of all the Mongolian cavalry and tribes in the entire northern desert, but he was defeated by Kublai Khan's Han army and was captured alive.

In fact, before the Song Dynasty, the Han cavalry had always been far stronger than the nomadic cavalry, otherwise how did the Xiongnu and Turks disappear?

~~

Under the strict training and strong support of Zhu, the cavalry of the Ming Dynasty had already surpassed the level of the Mongolian cavalry. Not to mention the organization, discipline, and tactics that are the strengths of the Han people, even the individual archery on horseback is the same.

Even the arrows used by the two armies are very different. The Yuan army used ordinary iron arrowheads, and because of the lack of iron, they were generally only equipped with two or three iron arrowheads, and the rest of the arrowheads were made of bones. This kind of arrow is no problem in killing people, but it is powerless to break armor, and it lacks lethality to war horses.

The Ming army used a special four-buckle horse arrow. The end of the arrow shaft of this arrow is a two-moon shape that crosses into a cross, which is convenient for cavalry to shoot quickly.

Moreover, the arrowhead is flat and conical. Once it hits, the wound is very deep and large, which is extremely harmful to the war horse.

War horses are more resistant than people. If they are hit by one or two arrows in a short time, basically there is no problem, but if they are shot by this four-buckle horse arrow, they will be in unbearable pain and throw the knight off the horse's back to the ground.

Cavalry without horses are worse than dogs. Even if they don't fall to death, they can't be considered combat effectiveness.

So although the troops are twice as many as the Ming army, it is the Mongolian soldiers who can't stand it first.

Seeing more and more of their comrades being shot and falling off their horses, while the damage they inflicted on the Ming army was very limited, anxiety began to spread among the Yuan army.

They either involuntarily approached the Ming army, wanting to kill them at close range. Or they quietly retreated and got out of the Ming army's range...

Seeing his troops begin to get out of control, Azashili simply ordered them to approach the Ming army and shoot, in order to use their superior forces to cause greater damage.

In this way, at least no one would dare to retreat secretly.

The Ming army would certainly not let them succeed. Seeing the Yuan army advancing, the left and right vanguards of the Ming army shot while moving towards the left and right wings, leaving the middle road to the central army behind them.

The soldiers of the central army had already been waiting in a strict battle array dozens of feet away from the front.

With the sound of the horn, the Yuan army continued to move forward in the increasingly dense rain of arrows. The soldiers of the central army of the Ming army, like the vanguard, moved towards the wings while shooting at the Yuan army until they withdrew from the main battlefield.

Now it was the turn of the rear guard to meet the enemy...

Since the start of the war, Azashili had watched one or two thousand of his men die under the arrows of the Ming army. His eyes were red and he gritted his teeth and said, "Let's see who can still support you!"

As a result, the rear guard of the Ming army continued to fight and retreat, withdrawing from the battlefield from both wings. And behind them, a large group of Ming troops appeared in full battle array, supporting them with bows and arrows...

That was the vanguard troops that had retreated to the two wings before, and they had taken advantage of this time to retreat and re-arrange their formation.

Not surprisingly, the central army troops that had withdrawn before also regrouped behind the vanguard troops.

The vast snowfield is the most suitable battlefield for cavalry to play a roundabout advantage. If the Mongols continue to approach at a snail's pace, the Ming army can repeat this cycle until the end of time.

But no one could stand such a slow and continuous bleeding. After this cycle, nearly 3,000 Mongolian cavalrymen were shot and fell off their horses...

Without waiting for Azhashili to give orders, the impatient Toluhuchar ordered the front army of the Wuliangha tribe to launch an attack.

Facing Toluhuchar was Wang Bi, a general known for his unparalleled ferocity. However, he was not in a hurry to engage the enemy at this time, but ordered his troops to retreat!

A sharp whistle sounded, and nearly 10,000 cavalrymen on the left followed the eye-catching flags of their respective thousand households, turned their horses around and marched back.

For highly organized professional soldiers like cavalry, retreating is nothing to be afraid of. It is just a common tactical action.

In a cavalry battle, one side's cavalry group will launch an attack, and the other side will retreat, meet up with the reserve, and then turn around and launch an attack to repel the enemy. There are rarely fierce scenes of cavalry confrontations like the Battle of Gyeongju City.

In fact, in the Battle of Gyeongju, as soon as the Ming cavalry rushed in front, the Mongolian cavalry retreated, and there was almost no close combat.

The scene of the two armies' cavalry rushing towards each other and slashing face to face only exists in people's imagination... For the flexible and mobile cavalry, that is tantamount to playing to their weaknesses and abandoning their strengths.

Although the Ming army wore a full set of armor, they were unwilling to fight the enemy hand-to-hand unless it was absolutely necessary.

Under the leadership of their respective thousand households, they accelerated their retreat in all directions.

When they saw that the Yuan army did not catch up, they stopped and waited for them to come forward or took the initiative to find a team of Yuan army and let them chase them.

Under the provocation of the Ming army, the furious Wuliangha cavalry chased one team and another, and the formation instantly became a mess.

But no matter which team they chased, the Ming army did not simply flee, but retreated while turning back to shoot arrows at the Yuan army.

The Yuan army cavalry was naturally not to be outdone, and they all drew their bows and shot arrows at the Ming army. But they were shooting against the wind during the pursuit, while the Ming army was shooting with the wind during the retreat. As one side gained and the other lost, the range of the two sides was much different.