It has to be said that Dai Yaxin led a group of field cavalry to the edge of the unnamed lake to dig fortifications in preparation for a positional defense battle. Not only did he surprise his own subordinates, but even the enemy Wulihan was also surprised.
It is said that the person who knows you best is not yourself, nor your friends and relatives, but your enemies.
Of course, what I know best about the Tang Army and the Tang Cavalry is their enemy: the Tatars.
The two sides have been hostile to each other for more than 20 years, and they have fought countless battles, big and small.
Although it is the Tatars who suffer most of the time, after so many years, the Tatars have already figured out many situations of the Tang Army.
Not to mention tactics, equipment, and organization, the Tatars have figured it out a long time ago, otherwise they would not have learned so much, and even their own army organization has been completely adapted from the Tang Dynasty.
Even for some of the main generals in the Tang Army, especially the main generals who garrisoned their neighbors in the Western Regions, Central Asia and other places, most of them had relevant information.
Wulihan had also heard about Dai Yaxin. According to what he knew, the Southern Tang general named Dai Yaxin was a typical cavalry general. He was a cavalryman who had been serving in the cavalry unit and had served them several times.
The Jin army caused losses.
But I have never heard that Dai Yaxin is good at fighting on foot.
I have never heard of any infantry battles fought by Dai Yaxin.
But today, he just met it!
No wonder Wulihan was surprised and even couldn't understand.
However, he didn't know that Dai Yaxin himself was actually helpless. As a typical and pure cavalry general, he was naturally more willing to lead the cavalry to charge and kill any enemy with a glorious, fearless, and fierce wall-mounted charge.
But the strength does not allow it!
With the 20,000 men under his command, and deducting the cavalry and artillery, baggage trains, grooms, cooks and other auxiliary forces that could not charge, he would only be able to gather around 15,000 cavalry at most.
If you win this charge battle, it's easy to win, but if you lose, you will have to escape in embarrassment. If you escape, the cavalry and artillery and baggage troops behind you will definitely not be able to escape.
The risk of a strong attack is too high and the success rate is too low. As the commander of an army, he naturally has to consider the risks.
So he simply chose to fight on foot, which neither the enemy nor we were good at, trying to rely on the terrain and fortifications to hold off for a few days, waiting for reinforcements to arrive.
If you do this, the risk will be greatly reduced!
And it can also bring an additional effect, that is, there is an opportunity to attack the Tatars from both front and back, leaving them all behind.
Of course, Dai Yaxin did not have much hope in this. If the Tatars did not attack their First Cavalry Army, it would be easy for them to leave.
But even so, they should be able to keep some of their troops by then. If their army retreats sideways, they must leave some of their troops to break up the rear.
Eating these severed men and horses would be a military achievement.
With this calculation, neither the left nor the right will suffer.
This is why Lieutenant General Dai Yaxin would rather give up the cavalry fighting that the First Cavalry Corps is best at, and instead choose to dismount and fight on foot.
Riding a horse up the hill, Lieutenant General Dai Yaxin was close and he could see a large number of soldiers building fortifications.
On the top of three relatively high mountains, the artillerymen were struggling to carry cavalry cannons weighing several hundred kilograms. Not only them, but also other cavalrymen came over to help carry cannons, shells, and build artillery positions.
The cavalry horses have already been placed on the inside near the lake to ensure that they will not be hit by enemy artillery fire. At the same time, it also allows the First Cavalry Corps to quickly go to the horse gathering place when something unexpected happens.
people.
At the foot of the mountain, there were also dismounted cavalrymen building positions on the west side of the creek.
This seemingly inconspicuous river, only seven or eight meters wide and only one or two meters deep, has become a ready-made moat.
This kind of small river is usually easy to cross, but if there is continuous fire attack from the opposite side, it will be troublesome, not to mention that the First Cavalry Corps still builds parapets directly on the bank.
At the same time, a second line of fortifications was built behind the breastworks by the river, and a third line of fortifications was built further back, halfway up the mountain.
Dai Yaxin gathered more than 20,000 people here to defend it, and the density of troops was very high.
The three front lines of defense were not only defended by soldiers holding muskets, but also by the army's cannons scattered among them.
On the hilltop further back, a large number of cavalry artillery are being deployed. Once deployed, a huge firepower strike network will be formed from a commanding height.
The largest number of them is the old 85mm cavalry cannon. This cavalry cannon is actually the former five-pound cavalry cannon. It is just that in recent years the military has carried out a unified innovation on the classification and numbering of artillery, directly replacing the previous equipment.
The smoothbore guns are also divided directly according to caliber.
The cavalry's five-pound cavalry cannon had a caliber of 85 mm and a barrel that was only 20 times shorter, so it became the 85-mm cavalry gun of 20 times the length of the Xuanping 11th year.
Not only the cavalry artillery, but most other artillery in the Army and Navy have also changed their names. For example, the Army's five-pound field gun, which is the most active and is mainly equipped with the artillery regiments of various infantry divisions, has basically been renamed the 85-mm field gun.
It doesn’t matter, some are twenty-three times, some are twenty-five times.
The same is true for the Jiujin artillery. Because the caliber reached 115 mm, it was directly changed to 115 mm.
This is true for old smoothbore guns. In the past two years, the Army has tried to serve a batch of front-loaded rifled guns, which were divided according to caliber and barrel multiples from the beginning.
For example, in the current First Cavalry Corps, the cavalry artillery regiment directly under the military headquarters has two battalions with a total of thirty-six 100mm front-loading rifled guns.
This is also the first front-loading rifled gun developed and equipped by the Tang Army for the cavalry. Considering that the caliber is too small and lacks power, the caliber is too large and heavy, the barrel is short and the range is insufficient, and the barrel is long and it is difficult to load.
Too heavy.
Therefore, after all aspects of performance are average, the barrel diameter of this 100 mm front-mounted rifled gun is only sixteen times.
It can be regarded as a rifled gun with the smallest barrel multiple among the Tang navy and army.
But even so, its effective range is far beyond that of previous smoothbore guns. The maximum range of this gun can reach 4,500 meters, and because of the existence of rifling, its hit accuracy is very high, even for those with poor sighting and aiming levels.
Now, relying entirely on the gunner's aiming, within a distance of two thousand meters, the hit rate is still relatively objective. As for within a thousand meters, even the hit rate is quite high.
The definition of the effective range of the army's artillery is different from that of the navy. The requirements are not that high and the firing is stable. Therefore, the army defines the effective range of this front-loaded rifled light howitzer as two thousand meters.
However, if it were switched to the navy, it would probably only have an effective range of one thousand meters.
Because the barrel is relatively short, the trajectory is relatively curved, and it is equipped with a cylindrical grenade equipped with a new collision fuse. Therefore, this artillery is classified as a howitzer.
And it is still a light howitzer.
If it is not a light howitzer, the cavalry troops will not need it. The artillery cavalry is too heavy and cannot carry it for rapid maneuvers.
This type of artillery began to be equipped with the Army last year, and like other new weapons, it was also given priority to the troops on the front line in Central Asia. The artillery regiment of the First Cavalry Army was first equipped with two battalions, a total of thirty
Six doors.
In this position defense operation, these more than thirty 100-millimeter front-loaded rifled light howitzers will become the main artillery for shelling.
The effective range of two thousand meters, coupled with the huge explosive power, is enough to become a nightmare for offensive troops.
As for the remaining 85mm old front-loading smoothbore cannon, it can only be used as supplementary firepower.
Because of the importance of the more than 30 artillery pieces, Lieutenant General Dai Yaxin personally visited the artillery regiment's positions to inspect and supervised the deployment of their artillery positions and artillery bombardment preparations.
The commander of the 1st Cavalry Artillery Regiment was a fifty-year-old veteran artilleryman. He personally demonstrated to Diaxin the test firing of these 100mm front-loaded rifled light howitzers.
"We have set up the artillery bombardment in advance and built a strong artillery position. When the time comes, we only need to follow the set steps to fire the various elements and bombard them to achieve the predetermined effective hit rate of more than two thousand meters!"
As the old artillery colonel spoke, he asked his artillerymen to load, and then took aim and fired the gun himself.
Following a loud noise, a cloud of smoke and dust rose from an open space about two kilometers away.
That is exactly the target area set before.
Many generals held telescopes and couldn't help but nod when they saw this scene.
The artillery regiment's preparations are still very sufficient, and it can achieve effective hits at such a long distance.
Lieutenant General Dai Yaxin said: "Yes, it seems that you have still worked hard on weekdays, and it was not in vain that I won the first equipment opportunity for you in the army in front of Mr. Gu!"
"Fight well. Once you're done, I'll go find Mr. Gu and ask for more cannons!"
Hearing what Lieutenant General Dai Yaxin said, several other generals also laughed, and someone immediately said: "Yes, if we fight well this time, we can go back to Master Gu to complain, and we should be able to get some cannons back."
"Master Gu, please understand that we have worked so hard to obtain supplies for us. We cannot let Master Gu down any more!"
The Lord Gu whom Dai Yaxin refers to is General Gu Zhishu, the third commander-in-chief of the Western Expeditionary Army and the Earl of the Empire.
This Gu Zhishu was also a veteran of the founding of the People's Republic of China, but he was not very famous during the Unification War. At the time of unification, he was just a lieutenant colonel, but he gradually became mixed up later. After holding many important positions in the army, he was appointed this year.
With the important responsibility, he was ordered to supervise the military affairs in Central Asia. This supervisor was actually the commander-in-chief of the Western Expeditionary Army.
General Gu Zhishu is different from the previous General Lu Yu. General Lu Yu likes to personally lead his troops to fight on the front line. However, General Gu Zhishu has the demeanor of a civilian general. After arriving in Central Asia, except for inspections, he has basically never been to the front line.
, even in the six months since he took office, he has spent half of his time in Jinling City!
But Gu Zhishu like this is quite popular among the frontline generals in Central Asia!