The Yiding, with less than a hundred riders, were naturally unable to threaten the formation.
This is more of just harassment before the official battle between the two armies.
Jiannu especially liked to play this trick. Before officially engaging in battle, he would often send out his white-armored soldiers, who were the best at riding and shooting, to endlessly harass the Ming army's infantry formation.
The Ming army would send servants to expel them.
In most cases, both sides will fight each other.
In terms of top-level individual combat effectiveness, the Ming army has never been inferior to the Jiannu.
As expected, the rebel army also sent a group of cavalry to drive away the Yiding, probably also a group of servants.
There were about 300 rebel cavalry in the battle, more than three times the number of Yiding cavalry.
However, as soon as the two sides came into contact, the situation quickly evolved into a massacre of the rebel army by the Yi Ding, because the Yi Ding never stopped training even after following Chongzhen, but the rebel army had followed Zuo Liangyu and stationed in Wuchang Town.
Arrogant and extravagant, with little formal training, all of them had fat on their waists.
The equipment gap between the two sides is even greater. The Yi and Ding all have triple armor.
As for the cavalry of the rebel army, they only had two layers of armor at most, or even one layer of armor.
There are also weapons. The Yi Ding have Rumi blunderbuss for long distances, sabers for short distances, and even concealed chili pepper weapons. The weapon of the rebel cavalry is only a saber for sabers.
In just one round, the rebel cavalry was rushed to pieces.
After losing nearly half of the cavalry, the remaining rebels finally fled back in panic.
The Yiding did not pursue them, but gathered more than a hundred war horses abandoned by the rebels on the battlefield.
After gathering his horses and returning to the formation, Hu Guozhu reported to Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, these cavalry are just like chickens and dogs. The last general only needs 800 barbarians to defeat them easily!"
"Well, defeating them is not possible." Chongzhen said, "We must annihilate them all."
"There is no problem in total annihilation." Hu Guozhu turned his attention to the cavalry battalion, "But it requires the cavalry battalion to cooperate in the attack. As long as the cavalry battalion cooperates, I promise not to let any rebel cavalry escape."
After the test just now, Hu Guozhu really has this confidence now.
After a pause, Hu Guozhu said again: "Your Majesty, please give the order to attack?"
"Don't worry yet." Chongzhen waved his hand and said, "The rebel cavalry are chickens and tile-dogs, but their infantry are not chickens and tile-dogs. The Duke of Chu also said just now that there are still 20,000 to 30,000 elite soldiers."
This situation is not much different from what Chongzhen knew.
In another time and space, after the Zuo Army surrendered to the Qing Dynasty with Zuo Mengeng, Azig eliminated the old, weak, sick and disabled, as well as the servants and soldiers, leaving only 20,000 soldiers in the end.
Twenty thousand people still have considerable fighting capacity.
Twenty thousand elite infantrymen were arranged in formation, and there was also a sidecar formation, which the cavalry could not rush through.
If they attacked by force, the cavalry battalion and Yiding would definitely suffer heavy casualties, and Chongzhen would not be able to bear it.
The key point is that there is no need for this. As long as the army blocking Yinxi crosses the river, the psychological defense of the hundreds of thousands of rebel troops in front will collapse in an instant, and then all that will be left is to beat up the drowned dog.
Therefore, if Chongzhen was asked to take the initiative to attack, he would not take the initiative to attack.
The rebel army can form a formation, but the Ming army cannot form a formation?
At that moment, Chongzhen shouted: "Preach my will, form a car formation, and resist the enemy on the spot!"
A total of 90 sidecars were immediately pushed to the front of the formation, and then spliced together sideways, quickly forming a wall of cars nearly 270 steps wide.
The height of the car wall is about seven feet.
The height is not high, but there is a parapet.
Where did these 90 sidecars come from?
It was transported to Huangzhou Prefecture by the Navy in advance and handed over to the New Army in Huanggang.
The 2,700 new troops that Chongzhen brought into the Dabie Mountains were only infantry camps. Only when combined with the vehicle battalions and artillery battalions would the new army take its final and complete form.
In the final form of the new army, each team was equipped with a sidecar and two mules and horses.
During the march, this sidecar was responsible for transporting supplies for the entire team, including thirty pairs of cloth armor for the entire team, which must also be loaded on the vehicle. Marching in armor was abnormal.
In this expedition, Chongzhen asked to march in armor in order to train the new army.
But from now on, soldiers must be able to conserve as much physical energy as possible before going into battle.
The total length of the body of the sidecar plus the shaft is about one foot and six feet. After being spliced with the front car to form a car wall, the parapet of each sidecar can accommodate ten musketeers standing side by side. This is all calculated
.
In this way, a sidecar plus a team of soldiers is the most basic combat unit of the new army.
It becomes very simple for the commander to set up the formation. He only needs to splice the basic combat units together one after another to form a long snake formation, a 7-shaped formation, a gate formation, or a completely closed formation.
Rectangular formation, this rectangular formation with side carriages added is stronger than the hollow square formation of the lobster soldiers.
For example, what Chongzhen puts out now is a typical one-word long snake formation.
This is mainly due to the small number of soldiers, and also because there is no need to worry about being flanked by rebel troops because they are protected by cavalry.
Although the rebel army also had cavalry, if the rebel army dared to send out cavalry for a side attack, it would be a military exploit for the cavalry battalion and the eight hundred barbarians.
In less than half a stick of incense, the new troops had already set up a long snake formation. 2,700 new troops also climbed up behind the vehicle wall, standing in three rows in front and back, ready to prepare.
…
Seeing that the officers and soldiers stopped moving after forming their formation, the rebel army was a little confused.
Chongzhen, you don’t follow martial ethics. Why don’t you lead the troops to attack now? How can you go to the edge of the field and then go on the defensive, waiting for us to attack? You are acting like a rogue.
"What should I do? Just waste it like this?"
"No, we can't spend too long with the officers and soldiers."
"I also think that Chongzhen must have a back-up plan."
"You're just talking nonsense, so here's a trick."
The dozen or so generals and lieutenants of the rebel army immediately started arguing again.
Hao Xiaozhong said angrily: "How about driving the whole army to launch a decisive battle?"
"That's easy to say." Xu Yuxian immediately retorted, "Do you think we can drive the entire army? Can the entire army maintain its formation during the attack? What if this messes up the formation?"
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! It is not easy to get hundreds of thousands of people to form a formation, but to allow hundreds of thousands of people to maintain the formation when attacking is even more wishful thinking, just thinking with your toes
Everyone can imagine that it will definitely be chaos by then.
If the Ming army has collapsed, it doesn't matter. It's a pursuit anyway. Chaos versus chaos, it doesn't matter.
But now the Ming army has not collapsed, and has set up defensive formations. If they rush in and fight, let alone hundreds of thousands of people, even millions will be useless, because if they cannot maintain the formation, there will be no more people.
It's a crowd, but it's a trap. Too many people is a trap. The more people there are, the more chaotic and ruined it will be.
When bandits fight, hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people often rush forward in a chaotic manner.
But every time they were beaten to pieces by thousands or even hundreds of cavalrymen from Guan Ning's army.
In short, driving hundreds of thousands of people forward to attack is basically suicide.
If you set up a formation and wait for the Ming army to attack, you can still fight, but you can't take the initiative to attack.
"Then what do you think we should do?" Hao Jiaozhong said with a dark face, "If this is not possible, that is not allowed. In my opinion, we should just break up and go our separate ways with our own people."
"We can't break up." Xu Yong shook his head decisively.
"We can still compete with the Ming army if we gather more than 100,000 people together, but if we divide our forces, we will immediately become fish on someone else's chopping board. We can kill and eat whatever we want."
More than a dozen generals and lieutenants were silent when they heard this.
Because what Xu Yong said is true, otherwise they would have gone their separate ways.
Xu Yong said in a deep voice: "Let's do this. Let's have a general in each town. Don't just use the soldiers to make up for the numbers. We need to be elite. Put together a battalion and try to beat him for a while to see how good the officers and soldiers on the opposite side are.
"
"Okay, this method works." Everyone nodded in agreement.
Soon, the rebel army used a dozen soldiers to form a battalion of more than 6,000 people.
Then a brave guerrilla was selected to temporarily serve as the chief officer of the battalion.
In order to enhance the combat effectiveness of this battalion, each soldier was equipped with cotton armor.
Officers above the rank of sentry commander are each equipped with a pair of straight body armor and a stomach bowl.
The guerrilla leading the team was wearing chain mail, cotton armor and iron armor from inside to outside.
The weapons and equipment are one-three-six. The front row is for swordsmen, responsible for defense, the back three rows are for musketeers, responsible for long-range strikes, and the next three rows are for spearmen.
This is the standard configuration of the Ming army infantry.
It took almost an hour to finally get ready to attack.
"Attack!" The leader of the guerrillas used force to draw the sword in his hand, and more than 6,000 rebel troops lined up in a neat formation and began to stride forward towards the Ming army in front.
Hundreds of thousands of people cannot maintain formation during an attack, but a few thousand people can do it.
Soon, the six thousand rebel troops were approaching within 500 steps of the Ming army. At this distance, if there were Crouching Tiger Cannon, Fran Machine Cannon or Hongyi Cannon in the Ming Army's formation, they would open fire.
However, there was still silence in the Ming army formation.
A dozen generals and lieutenants breathed a sigh of relief when they saw this.
Fortunately, it seems that the Ming army did not carry artillery.
…
Xu Wuniu stood in the front row holding a flintlock gun in front of his chest with both hands.
Looking at the thousands of rebels marching in front of him, Xu Wuniu felt absolutely unfazed. The first reason was because he had already experienced fighting bandits, and the second reason was that he was protected by the car wall.
The walls of the sidecar are three inches thick, enough to withstand the shots of cannons.
Unless the rebels have Hongyi cannons or Folang machine guns, they cannot threaten them.
After a while, the rebel army approached within eighty steps. The swordsmen in the front row squatted down one after another, and the musketeers in the second row raised their blunderbuss and aimed at the Ming army's vehicle formation from a distance.
"Squat down!" Xu Yingwei pressed down hard with the knife in his hand.
Xu Wuniu then decisively held the flintlock gun and squatted behind the car wall.
The next moment, there was a banging sound from the outside of the car wall.
Xu Yingwei, who was still standing, also heard a clanging sound.
However, Xu Yingwei's burly body only swayed slightly.
Seeing that the cannons were useless, the rebels stopped shooting and continued to advance.
It seemed that the rebels planned to rush to the Ming army's vehicle formation and launch a wall-seizing battle.
