As the resisting horses moved away, a thousand cavalrymen who had already arrived swarmed through the defense line and rushed towards the Qing soldiers.
The importance of the cavalry as a heavily armed force in the cold weapon era is naturally self-evident, but cultivating an elite cavalry is not such a simple matter, especially when the cavalry is marching and fighting in the wild, the daily consumption is astronomical.
number.
A horse needs three horse feeds a day. This is not included. It also needs horse feed cakes made from good beans. A horse needs at least four kilograms of horse feed and seven or eight kilograms of grass a day.
When resting, stir-fried noodles with salt water must be provided, otherwise the horses will lose weight, which will affect the speed of the horses and make it difficult for the horses to recover quickly. For example, among the thousand cavalrymen brought by Pang Gang this time, according to the
Calculating one horse and two riders, the entire cavalry team would have 2,000 horses. Not counting this, there would also be more than 400 mules and horses specially equipped to carry rations and fodder for the cavalry team. Some people may ask, among the team
Don't they have special baggage troops? Their carts are full of food and grass, so why do they use cavalry to carry them themselves? But that's not the case. The cavalry is very fast, especially when they are fighting continuously for a day.
It was commonplace to fight for hundreds of miles. If the cavalry could only rely on slow baggage trains to supply food and fodder, they would not fight anymore.
It took Pang Gang more than a year to form a cavalry team of more than 3,000 people. The cost of these 3,000 cavalrymen alone was more than half of the other 20,000 or so infantry. It can be seen from this that
, it is such a laborious task to form a cavalry team.
However, the role of cavalry is also obvious. When more than a thousand cavalry brandished their sabers and attacked the Qing soldiers, the expression of the Qing general who was still hesitating about launching another attack finally changed.
Although the two teams of men and horses were almost wiped out just now, it made him feel like a knife, but for him, it was not to the point of breaking his muscles and bones. But now the cavalry of the Ming army has also arrived, this is not a loss.
It's so simple. Once this cavalry comes into contact with them, they will be in danger of being annihilated.
This Jia La Zhangjing looked at the Ming army cavalry roaring towards him, holding on to the horse's reins with both hands. He really wanted to meet all the remaining troops. He told the Ming troops opposite that the Qing Dynasty was red flag.
Warriors are not easy to mess with! But reason told him that if he faced the enemy with less than 300 remaining troops, the final result would most likely be the annihilation of the entire army.
The Qing soldiers behind him were also staring blankly ahead. They could see the scene clearly. The charging warriors fell one by one, but they could not get closer to the bridge than a hundred steps away.
It seems to be a restricted area of life. The Ming army's cannons over there are like the voice of the God of Death. Every fire flashes and every smoke dances, ruthlessly harvesting the lives of the warriors in the flag. But now, those
Akito's cavalry also rushed over. Can they withstand the charge of cavalry three or four times their number?
Looking at the large plume of smoke and dust and the dense sound of iron hoofs in front of him, this Jia La Zhangjing's face turned green and red, and he struggled in his heart. Out of the pride of the Qing warriors, he should lead the remaining warriors to bravely meet them.
The cavalry of the Ming army fought to the death.
But when he looked back at the soldiers behind him, he found that the faces of these usually ferocious warriors showed a look of fear, and they obviously had no intention of fighting. He gritted his teeth and shouted loudly: "Withdraw troops, retreat to Tongzhou immediately!
"
After saying that, this Jia La Zhang Jing took the reins of his horse and took the lead in running towards the road. As this Jia La Zhang Jing left, the remaining hundreds of Qing soldiers also jumped on their horses and ran away.
Even the slow-running auxiliary soldiers had no time to pay attention, and no one cared about the bodies and wounded soldiers of their fallen comrades.
Compared with when they arrived, the flags were brighter and more powerful. At this time, the Qing soldiers were like lost dogs, their flags were tilted this way and that, and their prestige was completely lost.
It stands to reason that after the Qing soldiers retreated, the Ming army should have retreated as soon as they were ready, but Qian Zong, the leader of the Qing soldiers, did not give up. Instead, he led a large group of cavalry and continued to pursue them.
"Sir, why don't we let Hei Qianhu stop the pursuit? After all, the enemy's situation is unknown. It would be bad if we were ambushed by the Tatars." Looking at the large group of cavalry who were pursuing the Qing soldiers with great energy, Da Zhuang looked at Pang Gang with some worry.
He put forward his own suggestions. After all, it is not easy to form a cavalry. Each cavalry must undergo strict training and selection. If the loss is too great, let alone Pang Gang, even Da Zhuang will feel distressed.
"Stop the pursuit?" Pang Gang looked at Da Zhuang with a determined look and shook his head: "Why stop? Cavalry is designed to attack. Otherwise, why would we form cavalry?"
"But......."
"It's nothing!" Pang Gang waved his arm and said in an indifferent tone: "That's it, it's good to order the cavalry to chase after us for a while, otherwise the Tatars will really regard our Ming Dynasty as their own garden.
Come and leave as soon as you want!" At this point, Pang Gang's eyes were filled with deep anger...
The cavalry commander chasing these Qing soldiers was Heitie. Heitie was originally a Baihu under Hao Da. When Pang Gang was promoted to Baihu, he had a conflict with Pang Gang over the matter of stealing merit and was severely punished by Pang Gang.
He was given a harsh lesson, but since Pang Gang became the commander of the Qingzhou capital and settled in Qingzhou, his vision is no longer the same as before. As the saying goes, the sea is open to all rivers, and as long as the other party can be loyal to him, those small conflicts in the past will not matter.
Naturally, you shouldn't take it too seriously, otherwise a narrow-minded boss will chill your subordinates.
Therefore, Pang Gang once again used Heitie. In view of Heitie's riding skills and skills in commanding cavalry, Pang Gang, who lacked cavalry command talents, promoted him to become the cavalry commander.
Pang Gang was also very grateful. In less than a year, he trained the cavalry under his command to look good.
Black Iron spurred the horses and chased him forward like lightning. Behind him, more than a thousand cavalrymen wearing fine steel fish scale armor and red capes were working hard to catch up.
When the fleeing Qing soldiers saw the Ming army pursuing them, they tightened their grip on the horse's belly and whipped the horse's buttocks with the whip in their hands, trying to make the horse run faster.
After leaving the sparse woods, there was an open plain in front of them. However, the originally large fertile fields had turned into a wasteland due to the arrival of the Qing soldiers. The Qing soldiers waved their whips hard, and they believed that as long as they broke out of the woods,
, with their riding skills, they will be able to escape every day, but will things really go so smoothly?
Just when the Qing soldiers just ran out of the woods, a dull gunshot suddenly rang out from the flank. One of the Qing soldiers who was running for their lives fell off their horses like dumplings. At the same time, several people appeared near them.
Ten Ming troops wearing red cotton armor stayed up all night. They either held muskets or bows and arrows in their hands, and dense projectiles and arrowheads were flying towards the Qing soldiers.
In an instant, more than ten Qing soldiers were shot down and dismounted. Although there were only a few dozen knights in Ye Bu Shua, the Qing soldiers who came swarming did not dare to stop and fight with Ye Bu Shu because they knew very well that,
As long as they stopped for even a short while, they would definitely be overtaken by the large group of cavalry chasing after them.
Although Ye Busuo was unable to stop the Qing soldiers, it was still possible to stop their speed. Under the obstruction of Ye Busuo's guns and bows, the speed of the Qing soldiers inevitably slowed down.
In this way, Heitie, who had been rushing at the front, finally caught up with a Qing soldier who was lagging behind. As soon as the two horses approached, the saber in his hand drew an arc in the air, and a splash of blood flew.
A deep wound appeared on the back of the Qing soldier, and he immediately fell off the horse. Kurogie ignored the fallen Qing soldier, but took out his gun and pointed it at the nearest soldier in front.
A Qing soldier pulled the trigger.
"Bang..." With a crisp sound, another Qing soldier fell off his horse.
Putting the handgun that had run out of ammunition back into his waist, Kurogie took out a horn bow from his back, bent the bow and nocked an arrow at the Qing soldiers who were running away with their heads down, and shot at them.
"Swish swish..."
Not to be outdone, the Ming army that was catching up behind them took out their bows and arrows and fired at the front. The Qing soldiers in front were also shot and fell off their horses. In the pursuit battle, the pursuing side naturally took advantage and pursued for a while.
Finally, Kurogie saw that his horses were already showing signs of fatigue. He was afraid that he would suffer a loss if he encountered a large group of clear troops again, so he had better give up as soon as he could. So he quickly blew the whistle on his neck and ordered the cavalry to stop the pursuit.
They all rode back to the woods and began to clean up the battlefield.
In this round of pursuit, the Qing army left behind more than a hundred corpses, as well as more than a dozen wounded and prisoners. The cavalry returned to the woods, searching for the Qing soldiers who had slipped through the net, while chasing and gathering those who fled in fright.
Horses left behind by the Qing soldiers.
The Qingzhou Army had a complete set of regulations for cleaning the battlefield. Soon, they had nearly a hundred more war horses. On the backs of the war horses were numerous armors and equipment stripped from the Qing soldiers. Naturally, there were many more.
The bloody head.
At this time, dozens of Ye Fushou came from not far away. The leader was an ordinary-looking officer, and Kurogane also knew him.
Heitie still admired Ye Bushou, the elite of the Qingzhou army. He smiled and said, "Brother Guchen, it's lucky that you stopped those Tatars for us in front, otherwise we would have failed this time.
"
"You're welcome. If you hadn't been chasing after us, even the three of us wouldn't have dared to take advantage of this." Gu Chen smiled politely, "Master Hei, let's go back. Master Da Da must be impatient.
"
"Walk!"
Satisfied, Kurogane got on his horse first and galloped towards the road...(..)