Bi Zhian learned that the cavalry was coming, and then ordered the troops to prepare for battle urgently, but not a single shot was fired from the beginning to the end.
In other words, it was just watching the Tatar cavalry suffer a round of shelling from an armed train, but that round of shelling did not actually cause any actual casualties to the Tatar cavalry. When the battlefield was cleaned later, it was just
Only four or five Tatar cavalry were found who were killed on the spot and a dozen injured Tatar cavalry.
In other words, the casualties caused to the Tatar cavalry were only a dozen or so.
Because the Tatars retreated very promptly, they retreated decisively after being attacked by the first round of shelling at 500 meters!
The most important thing is that the armed train does not directly belong to his jurisdiction. At most, it can be regarded as a cooperative operation.
At present, the armored trains in the Tang Dynasty Army are all independently organized, with armored regiments or armored battalions as tactical units, with as few as a few armored trains and as many as more than ten armored trains.
Each armored train is equipped with dozens of artillery pieces, corresponding gunners and a team of musketeers, commanded by a major officer.
And Bi Zhian’s own military rank is just Army Major!
There is no subordinate relationship between them, only a cooperative relationship. In addition, the two have the same military rank, so the armed train went out to fight and repelled the Tatar cavalry. Strictly speaking, it had nothing to do with Bi Zhian, let alone sharing any credit.
This made Bi Zhian quite disappointed.
But even if I am disappointed, there is nothing I can do about it.
In the more than a month since he came to the front line, he has met a Tatar at least once, but the other infantry and artillery units in the entire Fourteenth Army have not even seen a shadow of a Tatar.
It was actually the cavalry units that had actual contact with the Tatars and even developed actual combat.
The three divisional cavalry regiments and the Sixth Cuirassier Regiment under the Fourteenth Army had frequent contact with the Tatars, but their previous contacts were mainly with Tatar reconnaissance cavalry.
Today was an exception. A Tatar cavalry regiment was discovered. This made the cavalrymen of the 6th Cuirassier Regiment and the 31st Division's Cavalry Regiment very excited.
As soon as they discovered the traces of the enemy, they dispatched urgently and chased the Tatars.
But, this has nothing to do with Bi Zhian.
Now, even if he uses a telescope, he can no longer see any trace of the cavalry on both sides. They have gone to who knows where.
It was not until the afternoon that he learned the news from friendly forces that the two cavalry regiments that had gone out to pursue him had returned. The news was mixed!
The good news is that after the two cavalry regiments of the Tang Army relied on their superior strength to catch up, with the Sixth Cuirassier Regiment as the main force, they severely beat the Tatar cavalry, killing and wounding at least hundreds of Tatars in a row.
cavalry.
The bad news is that the pursuit was too fierce, and the cavalry regiment of the 31st Division was equipped with only two horses, so the horses could not hold up, and the 6th Cuirassier Regiment was unwilling to give in. After continuing to pursue them, the result was almost
He was ambushed by the Tatars on the opposite side.
After the Sixth Cuirassier Regiment pursued alone for several hours, they found that the Tatar cavalry in front had stopped running, but before they had time to be happy, a group of Tatar cavalry came out from the flank, with a total of thousands of them.
The men of the Sixth Cuirassier Regiment were scared to death!
Fortunately, the Sixth Cuirassiers also understood the essence of cavalry warfare. If they could fight, they would fight, and if they couldn't, they would run away. When they found out that another group of Tatar cavalry had arrived after the battle, they immediately chose to retreat.
However, even so, the Sixth Cuirassier Regiment lost dozens of soldiers, and many of the horses were killed. The Cuirassier Regiment, which was originally equipped with three horses, had more than 2,500 horses before the war.
War horses, only two-thirds remain after this battle!
Although they had killed and injured hundreds of Tatar cavalry in the previous pursuit operations, when they were pursued later, they also lost dozens of people. This time, they did not gain any advantage at all.
On the contrary, the loss of so many war horses still has a big impact.
Therefore, the next day, the commander of the Sixth Cuirassiers, who underestimated the enemy and rushed in, was dismissed from his post with a transfer order. He did not know where he was transferred, but Bi Zhi'an knew that the former commander of the Sixth Cuirassiers, who underestimated the enemy and rushed in, was
, the official career is definitely over.
Bi Zhian only heard about the changes in the cavalry and didn't know much about them in detail. After all, he was an officer in the infantry system and had nothing to do with the cavalry.
But he still warned himself to be more careful.
Nowadays, the whole country is paying attention to the Northwest Campaign. Even if the people don't care much about it, the military is still supporting it.
Every officer leading the army, especially battalion commanders, regiment commanders, and division commanders, have countless eyes behind them!
Many military officers in the country are eagerly waiting for them to make mistakes so that they can replace them.
The dismissal of the 6th Cuirassiers also indirectly reflected that the Tatars were not weak and could be bullied, especially their cavalry units, which could still fight.
Previously, the Sixth Cuirassier Regiment had been stationed in Shaanxi for a long time. Although it had participated in the Battle of Hetao in the early years, that was more than ten years ago. In the past ten years, it has been stationed in Shaanxi safely. There is no
Fighting with Tatar cavalry.
This time I was full of confidence and wanted to win a big victory, but I almost got myself involved.
It is said that this incident also made Lu Yuzhi, who was born in the cavalry, very angry. He personally sent a message to the cavalry generals of each cavalry regiment and above, telling them to pay attention to their opponents and never underestimate the enemy.
Today's Tatar cavalry is no longer the loose nomadic cavalry more than ten years ago!
They also learned from the Tang cavalry and carried out many reforms. Of course, they still could not learn many things about the Tang cavalry, and they were not willing to learn it.
Even though the Tatar cavalry has matchlocks, plate armor and other equipment, as well as standard cavalry formations, they are still classical cavalry at heart.
But even so, it cannot be underestimated.
Because classical cavalry can also kill people!
In particular, their cavalry grew up on horses and had excellent riding skills. After they learned most of the tactics of the Tang cavalry, they were even able to make some more complex tactics on the battlefield than the Tang cavalry.
Come on maneuver.
In terms of cavalry alone, in fact, even now, the cavalry of the Tang Dynasty dare not say that they are better than the Tatar cavalry!
Lu Yuzhi knew this very well, so he had no intention of simply relying on cavalry to kill the Tatars. The cavalry of the Tang Army only had to guard the railway.
After the railway was built to Hami City, Lu Yuzhi wanted to see what else the Tatars could do!
Lu Yuzhi's strategy for the Western Expedition had already been reported to Li Xuan in person when he was in Jinling City. Or to put it more directly, Li Xuan officially chose Lu Yuzhi as the commander-in-chief of the Western Expedition because he was optimistic about his strategy.
Commander, instead of choosing another army boss.
Of course, Lu Yuzhi's cavalry background was an important reason why he was the leading cavalry general in the Tang Dynasty. When fighting in the Western Regions and even Central Asia, cavalry was unavailable and was also the most important type of arms.
If the commander-in-chief of the Western Expeditionary Army was not good at cavalry warfare, he would not be able to fight at all.
After the first attack by the Tatars, although the railway suffered no actual damage, it still attracted the attention of Army General Lu Yuzhi, and he began to deploy more troops to garrison along the railway.
Not many infantry and artillery units, more armed trains and cavalry units.
Pure infantry units were stationed at train stations along the way and stood guard along the entire route, targeting small-scale attacks by the enemy.
But it is almost impossible to stop the enemy's large-scale cavalry attack. We have to rely on armed trains and cavalry.
Especially cavalry units are the only way to resist the enemy's large-scale cavalry attacks!
Sure enough, the Tatar cavalry came back in the next few days, and another Tatar cavalry regiment attacked the railway line. This time they had better luck and destroyed hundreds of meters of railway. However, it was precisely because they wasted time by destroying the railway that they were subsequently followed up.
The Tang cavalry caught up with them, but this time the Tatar cavalry was not so lucky.
After a huge melee between the cavalry of both sides, the Tang cavalry relied on its superior strength to kill more than 300 incoming Tatar cavalry, less than half of them, while its own losses were only a few dozen.
As for the more than 100 meters of damaged railway, Datang dispatched an engineering support vehicle from a nearby train station on the spot. With the help of nearby garrison troops, it took just over an hour to successfully repair it.
They didn't even specifically deploy more workers or garrison troops.
The Tatar spies who were hiding and monitoring in the distance were in despair when they saw that the damaged railway was completely repaired by the Tang people in just over an hour!
He watched with his own eyes as an entire cavalry regiment rushed up, risking their lives to plant explosives, and then detonate and evacuate. Because it took time to bury and detonate, the evacuation was not timely. In the end, the Tang cavalry overtook them, resulting in the loss of more than 300 people.
.
However, it only took them more than an hour to repair the more than 100 meters of railway that was destroyed by the explosion at the expense of more than 300 people.
So what's the point of them doing this?
These Tatars still don’t know that if the armies of later generations want to destroy railway lines, they will only destroy several kilometers or even dozens of kilometers.
But even if they knew about it, there was nothing they could do. The Tang army along the railway line was not a vegetarian. There were reconnaissance activities on the periphery all the time, and armed trains would also carry out armed patrols from time to time.
There will be a large site every ten kilometers or so, stationed with troops and engineering support vehicles, as well as a large number of spare sleepers, rails and even gravel.
But this time they suffered a loss, which does not mean that the Tatars have given up. They will continue to attack the railway. They cannot just watch the Tang Dynasty build the railway all the way to the city of Hami.
That's a waste of time, just run away!
As a result, the two sides engaged in frequent and intensive battles around the railway starting in late June, July, and even August.
The Tatars use various methods. Sometimes they mobilize an entire cavalry regiment to carry out large-scale attacks, but more often they disperse and sneak in secretly, especially at night. After planting explosives, they wait for a train to pass by and then light a match rope.
With a bang, the rails and trains can be blown directly into the sky!
Then the Tang Dynasty also responded tit-for-tat, directly building barbed wire fences on both sides of the railway, and then building individual soldier bunkers a few hundred meters apart, and directly arranging soldiers to stand guard.
Anyway, there is only one for a few hundred meters. Even if soldiers are arranged to stand guard along the entire line, it will not use much force.
In this way, if a Tatar spy wants to sneak up and cause damage, he will be discovered, and then the troops will be summoned to encircle and suppress it.
After fighting like this, the Tatars would occasionally be caught, and occasionally they would successfully blow up the railway. However, after much tossing, the Tatar cavalry discovered that the Tang Dynasty's trains still passed through the railway every day, and then arrived at the front line carrying countless supplies.
!
All their efforts were in vain in front of the continuous Datang trains heading to the front line! .m.