Before the Battle of Hetao, he had not made any dazzling achievements in his military career of more than ten years, but he got out of hand during the Battle of Hetao and became one of the most important cavalry generals in the army.
This time, the Tang Army wanted to make a big move in the Northeast. The cavalry was a top priority. Naturally, not just anyone could serve as the commander of a cavalry corps, especially the First Cavalry Corps, which brought together the most elite cavalry.
In the end, both the senior officials of the Privy Council and Fang Xitong chose Kang Changning!
The reason for choosing him is actually not very complicated. It is not because he is proficient in cavalry combat, nor because he understands the Tatar combat methods. In fact, there are many generals who are better at cavalry combat and understand the Tatar combat methods better than him.
There are few people.
I chose him just because he has won battles before!
Regardless of whether it is because of his strength, luck, or anything else, as long as he can win the battle, then that is his greatest advantage.
Therefore, Kang Changning took the post of commander of the 1st Cavalry Corps without any controversy.
At the same time, because the commanders of the other two cavalry regiments are both cavalry division commanders with no more than major generals, when these three cavalry regiments fight together, Lieutenant General Kang Changning will be the undisputed top commander.
official!
Kang Changning also knew that he had a heavy burden on his shoulders this time, so when leading the army to set off, he kept thinking about how to fight this battle.
If you fight this battle well, make a great contribution, and then persist for a few more years, you can hope to get the rank of Army General.
But if you don't fight well and lose the battle, then sorry, all the previous efforts will be in vain. The lighter ones will be hidden in the snow, and they will be directly thrown into the local place to serve as the garrison commander until they retire. The worst ones will be directly ordered to quit.
Active duty, transferred to reserve duty.
Over the years in the Tang Army, countless generals have ended up being ordered to retire because of one wrong move!
After the Ninth Army entered the Hetao, including the large-scale Battle of the Hetao and subsequent small and medium-sized battles, many people rose to prominence because of their military exploits, but there were also many who ended up unlucky because of defeat or other reasons.
Retired.
In the Army of the Tang Dynasty, the tolerance for mistakes made by generals is very low. If you do a little bad job, you will be ordered to retire. This is of course due to the fierce competition. There are a lot of people waiting for you to grab the position if you are unlucky.
, and on the other hand, in order to keep the army's metabolism normal, Li Xuan didn't find any reason to kill the veterans, so how could he promote newcomers?
Kang Changning didn’t want to become one of these unlucky people!
He finally got up, but he didn't want to fall back to the bottom just because of a defeat.
After setting off with the First Cavalry Regiment, Kang Changning did not move forward in a hurry, but slowly wandered behind the Third Cavalry Regiment!
According to the headquarters' combat plan, this time's combat plan is actually very simple, that is, to directly carry out high-speed penetration. For this reason, these cavalry units are basically one horse and two cavalry units.
In order to equip these cavalry units with two horses, the military collected almost all the available horses in Northeast and North China, especially the horses at Jeju Racecourse and Liaohe Racecourse. Basically, all the horses that could be used were used.
In addition, a large number of horses were temporarily purchased from the private sector.
In this campaign, the number of mounted war horses (including cavalry, messengers, officers, etc.) under the Northeast Expedition Command exceeded 60,000, and there were also nearly 100,000 service horses.
In this battle, there were actually more horses than people!
This phenomenon is naturally caused by the fact that the cavalry rides on two horses. There are at least 100,000 horses in the 50,000 main cavalry alone!
And the 50,000 infantry artillery unit also has a large number of horses!
The main cavalry force with many horses penetrated at high speed to divide and encircle the Chahar and other tribes.
This time they wanted to take the initiative. In order not to leave time for these tribes to mobilize and assemble, high-speed interspersed attacks were necessary.
As a result, the cavalry unit will be seriously out of touch with the infantry unit in the rear, and the supply of the cavalry unit will be a big problem.
Some people suggested that we should use the fine tradition of the Tang Army to "eat the enemy", but Kang Changning knew that if he wanted to eat the enemy on the grassland, it was not that difficult. It depends on luck and character.
If an outbreak breaks out, you can grab cattle, sheep, etc., but if your character is not good enough, and you can't see anyone after walking for ten days and a half, who will you grab then?
Therefore, Kang Changning did not have much hope in feeding the enemy. On the contrary, he asked his cavalry troops to bring more rations, and even less cannonballs, but they must bring enough food and grass.
As for combat, guns and cannons don’t work, only sabers do!
Although his superiors hoped to use guns and cannons to sweep across the grassland, Ning despised the wishful thinking of the big bosses.
You know how powerful guns and cannons are, but others don’t!
After fighting with the Tatars for so many years, except in extreme cases, I have seen the Tatars brave the artillery of the Tang Army to rush forward a few times!
Especially when the cavalry of the two sides is fighting, let alone displaying the cavalry cannon, even if you want to dismount and pull out a flintlock to fight, the Tatars will not give you this opportunity.
They are just one or two kilometers away and they let you play with artillery and guns. What can you do to them?
If you move, others will move. If you don’t move, others will stay with you until the end of time!
If you want others to rush in and fight despite your gunfire, you are stupid and don't think they are stupid, like a Tatar!
Not to mention guns and cannons, now that the Tatars know that the cavalry of the Tang Dynasty is powerful in formation charges, they will no longer play with you in formation charges. In the past one or two years, the Tatars have been fighting against the Tang Dynasty, and they have all been harassing and attacking.
!
It's impossible to get into a head-to-head confrontation!
Although the barbarians such as Chahar and Duoyan are different from the Tatars of Anda Khan, as the saying goes, everyone is not stupid. They also know that the Tang Dynasty has powerful guns and cannons, so they will not take risks foolishly.
Gunfire came up.
So, it doesn’t really matter if you bring more or less cannonballs, the effect will be the same. If you want to decide the winner when the time comes, you still have to rely on the saber!
Kang Changning can be said to be the most staunch advocate in the Tang Army. He has repeatedly emphasized the need to strengthen the cavalry's ability to kill on horseback. Of course, he also knows that guns and artillery are important, but he believes that it cannot be because of
Once you have guns, give up and kill immediately.
When you can't feed the enemy, there is no need to choose whether to bring more cannonballs or more food. In Kang Changning's opinion, if you bring a few cannonballs as a token, it will be enough to be able to fight three or three times.
As for food, the more the better, especially the fine food for war horses.
Because he knew very well that if he could not feed the enemy, he could only rely on the food carried by the cavalry troops themselves, and his own cavalry troops had to be equipped with two horses on one horse. In the case of high-speed crossing, they could run out several times a day.
Ten kilometers, ten days and a half month, it is easy to run three to four hundred kilometers.
However, it may sound wonderful to move hundreds of kilometers quickly, but it is easy to run hundreds of kilometers, but without logistical support, it is equally easy to starve to death.
In order to avoid starving to death, you must bring enough food and grass, but it doesn’t matter about artillery shells!
As long as they have food to eat, a saber is enough for these cavalry troops riding one horse and two horses. If they can defeat them, they will fight, and if they cannot defeat them, they will run away!
Fighting on the grassland, although the advantages of the Tang Army's cavalry lie in equipment and wall-mounted charging, in fact there are few situations where this advantage can be brought into play. This also constantly forces the Datang Army's cavalry units to continuously improve their tactics.
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For example, the Suifa pistol, which was not taken seriously by the cavalry of the Tang Dynasty in the early years, has been taken seriously in the past two years, because it is quite useful in small-scale cavalry battles.
Small-scale cavalry battles, cavalry artillery, or even dismounting and using cavalry muskets are not feasible, because the enemy will not give you this opportunity at all, and these days, whether it is artillery or muskets, what matters at medium and long distances is the density of firepower projection.
, the emphasis is on area killing, and the hit rate of precise shooting is basically negligible.
Therefore, today's guns have not reached a certain firepower density, and the actual results are quite disastrous.
Therefore, in small-scale cavalry battles, long guns and artillery are often useless, and sabers and pistols are used more.
When dozens of cavalry are fighting, first use the Suifa pistol to harvest a wave, and then use the saber to kill them. The actual combat effect is much better than the bombardment of cavalry artillery.
Therefore, in the past two years, the most important weapon for the cavalry of the Tang Dynasty Army was the saber, followed by the Suifa pistol, and then the cavalry cannon. As for the Suifa spear, it was the last weapon, at least in the Tang Dynasty.
Among the elite cavalry, except for the extremely special musketry cavalry regiment, there is no cavalry unit that uses the Suifa spear as its main weapon.
Kang Changning has been playing cavalry for so many years and has rich experience. Naturally, he knows what is most important when going deep into the Liaohetao area this time.
The most important thing is to maintain mobility. For this reason, you must bring enough food and grass. For this reason, it is acceptable to sacrifice part of the ammunition carrying capacity.
In addition, in order to ensure the rapid transportation of materials, this time the Tang Army used four-wheeled carriages as fast mobile transport vehicles for the first time and incorporated them into the cavalry unit.
Since the four-wheeled carriage with a complete steering mechanism and excellent shock absorption performance was developed, it has always been an important transportation vehicle for the Tang Army. It was first used in professional baggage troops, and later was widely used in ordinary troops.
among.
Nowadays, even cavalry troops have begun to use four-wheeled carriages.
However, in order to allow these carriages to keep up with the rapid maneuvers of the cavalry, special improvements were made to these carriages.