Sun Shuke had been thinking about this issue since King Su's army joined the Northern Xinjiang campaign.
After all, he had almost never dealt with cavalry, but this time he had to face South Korea's powerful cavalry, so he was more or less unconfident.
He had thought of asking his colleagues in the Shang Shui Army for advice. After all, the Shang Shui Army had fought against the cavalry of the Jiejiao tribe in Sanchuan County and was the army with the most experience in fighting against cavalry in King Su's army.
But it is a pity that the conflict between the Shangshui Army and the Yanling Army was quite fierce. In addition, he had taken the initiative to avoid fighting and retreated to the post-war campaign during the Four Kingdoms Campaign against Chu. As a result, generals such as Wu Ji and Zhai Huang, etc.
Ran Teng, Xiang Li, Zhang Ming and other thousands of generals all treated Sun Shuke indifferently.
Even during this period, Sun Shuke heard some bad cynicism: What are the logistics generals of the third battalion of the Yanling Army doing so actively? Do they want to take the lead alone?
These words are indeed a bit poisonous. Come to think of it, Sun Shuke was also a well-known general in Chu State. When did he become a general of the logistics army?
Although Sun Shuke was unhappy with these cynicisms, he did not care. Therefore, he knew that ninety-nine percent of other people's prejudices against him were because he had not yet been able to prove himself.
And I believe that this kind of prejudice will disappear sooner or later as he stays in his Yanling Army and gradually builds more merits.
During this period, Nanmen Chi, the deputy general of the Shang Shui Army who defected to the Wei Army at the same time, pointed out a clear path to Sun Shuke: If you want to figure out how to use infantry to contain cavalry, you have to ask the people who know the cavalry best.
The man who knows the cavalry best…
After Sun Shuke thought about it carefully, he realized that Nanmen Chi was referring to two people: one was a certain His Highness Prince Su; the other was the General of the Shangshui Youma Army who was born in Yuma of the former Dang County.
Horse travel.
Sun Shuke did not dare to disturb His Highness King Su, so he went to consult Ma You, the general of the Youma Army.
Ma You was surprised that Sun Shuke came to ask for advice.
It's not that he has any prejudice against Sun Shuke, but in Ma You's impression, isn't Sun Shuke the rear camp general responsible for the Yanling Army's logistics and food transportation? He came to ask him for tactics?
"His Royal Highness King Su has authorized General Sun Shuke to come to the battlefield in person this time?" Ma You asked inadvertently, because in his opinion, "logistics generals" like Sun Shuke are generally responsible for guarding the garrison and have almost nothing to do with it.
Opportunity to go to the battlefield in person.
Although he understood that Ma You's words were just unintentional, Sun Shuke's face was still particularly ugly at that time. He forced a smile and said: "Be prepared for a rainy day... After all, the person in charge is a soldier of the third battalion of the Yanling Army, not a civilian leader of the grain transport team.
"
Ma You was stunned for a moment, then realized his gaffe, and immediately apologized to Sun Shuke.
Compared with Sun Shuke, Ma You's status in King Su's army is undoubtedly much higher. After all, his Shangshui Youma is the only cavalry in King Su's army. Especially after this cavalry was transformed into heavy cavalry, Ma You
You's status has skyrocketed.
But even so, Ma You is still very humble. After all, Ma You has suffered the unfair treatment of being abandoned by the country and the court, and has long tempered a heart that is neither happy nor angry. Except when he learned that the court had restored the title of Yu Ma,
Apart from losing his temper once and crying bitterly while holding the imperial edict, Ma You gave others the impression of being very steady and restrained.
Perhaps because he unintentionally satirized Sun Shuke's relationship, Ma You explained everything about cavalry to Sun Shuke in detail.
Few people know more about Korean cavalry than Ma You. After all, Dangjun Youma was the first cavalry team secretly organized by Emperor Wei to imitate Korean cavalry. Therefore, Dangjun Youma was very familiar with and understood the tactics of Korean cavalry, and later This tactic was improved to suit one's own side and used in the two battles against the Song Dynasty and Chu Yangcheng Lord, with excellent results.
In the next ten days or so, whether the army was stationed in Linfen or Tang County, or the Shang Shui army later attacked Pilao Pass, as long as there was no military affairs, Sun Shuke went to see Ma You and asked the latter about the Korean cavalry.
During this period, Ma You also generously explained to Sun Shuke the tactics used by the Korean cavalry, and through various combat examples, Sun Shuke could truly understand the advantages and disadvantages of the cavalry.
It is worth mentioning that this incident finally reached Zhao Hongrun's ears, which surprised Zhao Hongrun and kept it secretly in his heart.
Therefore, when he realized that the confrontation with the 30,000 Qingqi of the Baoyuan Army was inevitable, Zhao Hongrun thought of Sun Shuke, the general who "prepared for a rainy day", and gave up the more suitable Qu Cheng, Yan Mo, and Zhai Huang, and chose Sun Shuke as his commander. Commander on the battlefield.
Opportunities are reserved for those who are prepared, right?
In fact, Zhao Hongrun originally planned to take command personally. After all, the 30,000 cavalrymen of the Storm Kite Army were a powerful force capable of destroying the 100,000 King Su Army. However, in the end, he decided to use this life-and-death battle to hone his skills. Sun Shuke.
After all, Zhao Hongrun knows one thing very well: as the war escalates in the future, he alone will not be able to command multiple battlefields. Therefore, it is necessary to train some generals who can take charge of their own affairs, and Sun Shuke is a good training target. He once blocked Yanling's army outside the city in Qi County for several days.
Of course, although it was intended to sharpen Sun Shuke, Zhao Hongrun was always paying attention to the war in the south. If Sun Shuke made any wrong decision, Zhao Hongrun would naturally take over the command immediately.
But so far, Sun Shuke's command has been impeccable.
For example, Zhao Hongrun was not deceived by the Korean cavalry into firing a volley of crossbows at the beginning, which deserves Zhao Hongrun's praise for Sun Shuke.
The main formation of King Su's army was located on a slightly higher slope, so that Zhao Hongrun could clearly see the battle situation on the southern battlefield.
I remember that at the beginning, Zhao Hongrun's face was tense, and he was obviously a little worried about Sun Shuke. But after seeing Sun Shuke's instructions one after another, Zhao Hongrun's tense expression gradually relaxed, and even a bit of a smile appeared on his face. .
This made Zongwei Chief Wei Jiao a little puzzled and asked doubtfully: "The crossbowmen under General Uncle Sun did not cause huge casualties to the cavalry. Isn't that terrible? Why does Your Highness seem relieved instead?"
Zhao Hongrun laughed when he heard this and said: "You are referring to the fact that Sun Shuke predicted the charging route of the Korean cavalry and fired the crossbows in advance, but allowed the Korean cavalry to avoid the arrow rain?... He did it to seal the road. I don't know. Did Ma You teach him? If Sun Shuke came up with it himself, then...this general has a bright future."
"Sealed the road?" Zongwei Chief Wei Jiao frowned, and then asked in confusion: "But the Korean cavalry was not blocked. They turned a corner and avoided the arrow rain..."
"Having said that, their speed has slowed down." Zhao Hongrun squinted his eyes and said seriously: "The power of the cavalry is mainly reflected in its speed... The cavalry charging at full speed cannot catch up even with crossbows.
Not to mention slashing with swords and bayonets, the infantry may just blink, and the cavalry charging at full speed may have rushed past them... Therefore, if you want to use crossbows to deal with the cavalry charging at full speed, you must calculate the opponent's speed and advance in advance.
Predicting the opponent's only path... In my opinion, Sun Shuke did an excellent job. On the contrary, the cavalry commander leading the troops on the opposite side, haha, in order to avoid the area covered by the rain of arrows from our army, had to
Not slowing down the charging speed of the war horses is simply stupid... What is the power of cavalry without speed?"
Although he kept saying that the cavalry commander on the opposite side was stupid, in fact Zhao Hongrun also understood that this was the helplessness of Qingqi on the frontal battlefield.
In order to make up for the lack of endurance of the horses, so that these horses can charge on the battlefield for a while, the light cavalry had to reduce their load. Therefore, as the name suggests, the armor on the cavalry would not be much stronger.
The light cavalry, who go into battle lightly, are very flexible and extremely powerful, but their defense ability is very poor. A game terminology from Zhao Hongrun's memory can very vividly describe the defense ability of this unit: low defense, high
Avoid (dodge).
But the problem is that avoiding this thing is not reliable. If there is a wave of area arrows (aoe) on the battlefield, if you avoid it, you will be in trouble in a matter of minutes.
Therefore, when faced with the predicted rain of arrows from the Wei army, the Korean cavalry general on the opposite side subconsciously chose to avoid the attack. This is understandable, after all, the defensive capabilities of the light cavalry are very poor.
There is no way, after all, light cavalry is not a tactical cavalry like heavy cavalry.
"I don't know what the mood of the Korean cavalry commanders on the opposite side is at this moment..."
Zhao Hongrun joked with a smile.
Because while he was chatting with Wei Jiao, the Wei army fired a wave of arrows at the Korean cavalry in the distance in a pre-judged shooting manner. Although the Korean cavalry narrowly avoided it, it did not cause any damage.
There were many casualties, but the speed that had finally been raised was slowed down again.
During these two rains of arrows, Zhao Hongrun also understood Sun Shuke's tactics: to prevent the Korean cavalry from running in a straight line.
This is quite a smart approach.
Some people may think that the cavalry's speed depends on distance, so the longer the distance, the faster the cavalry charge will gradually increase, eventually reaching its limit.
But this is not the case.
The cavalry does need distance to run up and speed up, but it does not need to be too long. Too long a distance will not only not be helpful, but will cause the horse to consume a lot of energy in advance.
Therefore, the normal process of a cavalry charge is to let the horses jog first, which is the same principle as people loosen their muscles and bones before strenuous activities.
After jogging, you should gradually start to increase your speed.
The cavalry at this stage almost all run in a straight line. This is just like running or driving in a straight line to speed up. How can you expect to speed up as quickly as possible if you run an S route or a Z route?
What Sun Shuke was very smart about was that he did not let the Korean cavalry run in a straight line in the final stage of speeding up, and predicted in advance the position where the opponent was about to pass, so that his Wei soldiers shot a wave of arrows to cover the land. If the Korean cavalry generals
If you don't want your side to suffer too many casualties, you have to avoid it, for example, run an S-shaped route.
But in this way, the straight-line speed increase was interrupted, and the Korean cavalry had no way to enter the final charging stage. They could only maintain a "medium running speed" and watched the distance to the Wei army's defense line become shorter and shorter.
As Zhao Hongrun expected, among the Korean cavalry on the opposite side, the two brothers Hua Chang and Hua Can were extremely depressed.
Every time he tried to speed up in a straight line, he was interrupted by Wei Jun's arrows, which made Hua Chang curse in his heart.
Is it over yet?!...How many fucking crossbow bolts are you going to shoot?!