Chapter 481 Mongolian horses and Mangu’s evil tactics appear
With the blessing of these two major skills, An Dianbao's command attribute directly reached the terrifying ninety-nine points, just shy of reaching the gold level.
And this is the horror of Temujin's genius skills. Fortunately, this increase has a limit on the number of people. Otherwise, it would be a nightmare for the opponent.
At this moment, on the battlefield between the two armies, under the command of An Dianbao, the quality of these 10,000 cavalrymen in all aspects has been greatly improved.
As the overlord of today's northern grasslands, the Xianbei people's threat to the Han people is not only the numerical advantage of cavalry, but also the huge advantage of mounted archery.
Among the Han people today, except for border areas such as Bingzhou and Youzhou, which have a certain size of cavalry, the cavalry in other places is simply pitiful.
With such a large number of cavalry, it is not easy for them to master the art of riding and shooting. However, on the grassland, since they have a large number of horse farms, they naturally breed many war horses.
Under such circumstances, the prairie people's riding and shooting skills were very terrifying.
What's more, the bipedal stirrup appeared on the grassland more than a hundred years ago. This was an earth-shaking revolution for the grassland people at that time.
It is precisely because of these conditions that almost every adult herdsman on the grassland can shoot an arrow immediately, and his archery skills are quite excellent.
"The whole army listens to the order and raises arms and shields." Seeing the Xianbei cavalry start shooting, Dongfang Chengyu immediately ordered loudly.
The so-called arm shield is actually an upgraded version of the hook set. The original hook set is a common compound weapon that combines a hook and a shield. It has hooks on top and bottom. The upper hook is about 25 centimeters long, and the lower hook is about 15 centimeters long.
In the middle is a small iron shield with a handle at the back.
The shield is a thin square iron plate with rounded corners and a protruding tip on the front.
As the iron smelting technology of the aliens became more and more advanced, the small hooked iron shields were basically useless.
Therefore, Wang Yu carried out a revolutionary transformation, strengthening the length and width of the hook inlay and the shield in the middle, turning it into an arm shield capable of both offense and defense.
Dongfang Chengyu is also very good at commanding cavalry in battle. He knows very well that when two cavalry charge against each other and kill each other, both sides basically only have two or three arrows to shoot.
Even if the commanders of both sides deliberately slow down the speed, they can only let their men fire three arrows at most. If more, it will affect the speed and impact of the cavalry. For the battle situation, it is really not worth the gain.
Therefore, after two or three arrows, it is usually a sword-on-knife, gun-on-gun melee fight.
Therefore, even if the Xianbei army came first with a wave of mounted fire, Dongfang Chengyu was not worried. He just ordered his men to raise their arm shields to resist, not even bothering to fight back.
However, what Dongfang Chengyu didn't expect was that after the Xianbei cavalry released an arrow, they did not continue to charge and use arrow fire to suppress it. Instead, they turned their horses' heads together, giving the impression that they retreated directly.
But in fact, these 10,000 Xianbei cavalry not only did not retreat, but instead fired arrows at the pursuing Han army. Wang Yu couldn't help but sigh with various showmanship.
In terms of riding and shooting, compared to the Xianbei people who grew up on the grasslands, the overall level of the Han people is far inferior.
"It's actually Manguhai. I didn't expect this guy Temujin to come up with this thing so quickly!"
When he saw ten thousand Xianbei cavalry firing arrows as they retreated, Wang Yu, who was familiar with historical allusions and war history, still didn't understand that this time his Bingzhou army was going to be flown as kites by the Xianbei army.
Manguye is the world-famous light cavalry fighting method of the Mongols, and Europeans call it the "Parthian archery method".
The so-called "Mangu evil" is actually very simple to put it bluntly. It is a tactic of retreating to lure the enemy and killing the opponent with bows and arrows at the same time.
At that time in history, most European knights wore heavy helmets and heavy armor. Although they were very powerful in close combat, their mobility could not be compared with the Mongolian light cavalry.
Facing the attack of the European heavy cavalry, the Mongolian light cavalry retreated while shooting the opponent. When the opponent retreated, they took the initiative to pursue and kill the opponent.
Of course, in addition to benefiting from the Mongolians' superb riding skills and unparalleled archery skills, this method of warfare is also closely related to the Mongolian bows used.
The bow used by the Mongolian light cavalry was a compound recurve bow, which was very powerful and had a range of up to 320 meters. However, the English longbow, which had the best performance in Europe at the time, had a range of only about 230 meters.
What's more, the English longbow was not widely used on the European continent at that time. The European coalition forces used more crossbows. Although the range was equivalent to that of the longbow, the frequency was far inferior.
Facing the flexible and skilled Mongolian light cavalry, the European heavy cavalry immediately fell into an embarrassing situation where they could not catch up, fight, or retreat.
Under the attack of endless arrows, no matter how elite the troops are, it is only a matter of time before they collapse.
However, today is not the future. The bows used by the Xianbei cavalry are just ordinary bows. It is not an easy task to maximize the use of Mangu's evil tactics.
But even so, if the Xianbei cavalry is allowed to continue shooting like this, it will be a blow to the morale of the Han army.
And, most importantly, for some unknown reason, whether it was the 5,000 cavalrymen who came out first or the 15,000 cavalrymen behind them, the horses they rode were not ordinary warhorses.
If Wang Yu is not mistaken, these war horses should become the famous Mongolian horses in later generations.
The Mongolian horse has a small body, a rough and strong constitution, a thick and heavy head, a short and thick neck, a deep and long chest, a straight back, a large belly, thick and short limbs, and solid hooves.
On the surface, the Mongolian horse looks small in size, but Wang Yu knows that the Mongolian horse is the most tolerant horse in the world and has the lowest requirements for environment and food.
Whether in the alpine deserts of Asia or the plains of Europe, Mongolian horses can find food at any time.
It can be said that the Mongolian horse has the strongest adaptability, can run continuously on the earth for long distances, and can survive in the wild whether it is severe cold or sweltering weather.
At the same time, Mongolian horses are capable of riding and pulling heavy loads at any time. This is also the reason why all traditional Chinese horses were eventually replaced by Mongolian horses.
Mongolian horses were able to reach this point in later generations, which shows their endurance and other aspects. Otherwise, people in later generations would not do this.
It can be said that it is simply impossible for ordinary cavalry to chase these cavalry on Mongolian horses. Otherwise, in the Middle Ages, the iron hoofs of the Yuan-Mongol army would not have wreaked havoc across Asia and Europe.
