Their Ming army does not have many cavalry. Even if the two Ming armies in Jingzhou are combined together, they have only a few more cavalry than the Fourth Army. The armies of the two sides have not officially fought yet. Their cavalry
More than half of the more than 300 cavalrymen have been lost. Now when these cavalrymen are asked to go out for reconnaissance, no one dares to go.
Even if they go out, these cavalrymen usually find a place to wander around casually, and then go back to resume their duties.
This also caused the Ming army to gradually lose control of the movements of the Fourth Army.
However, this cannot be blamed on the cavalry of the Ming Army. They did not have much strength advantage in the first place, and most of the cavalry were not professional cavalry. Let alone them. In the huge Ming Dynasty, except for the northern frontier army, there were large-scale
Except for the cavalry establishment, other places lacked large-scale professional cavalry units. As for the inland areas of the south, Huguang and even Nanzhili, there were even less cavalry units.
In the huge Huguang, there is only one professional cavalry unit on hand. This is the direct unit brought by Zhang Yue from the north, with about 500 cavalry.
This cavalry is not a Beijing camp unit, nor a northern frontier army, but a cavalry unit drawn from Shandong, Henan and other places by the Ming Dynasty to strengthen Zhang Yue.
After all, it was impossible for Zhang Yuenan to go to the south to supervise the army to encircle and suppress the puppet Tang rebels. It was impossible for him to bring no soldiers at all. In addition to transferring a thousand people from the Beijing camp to him, the big bosses of the imperial court also very considerately sent soldiers from Shandong.
Five hundred cavalry were mobilized from Henan and other places, thus forming the core of Zhang Yue's direct supervision.
These five hundred cavalry are not simple. They are not the ordinary mounted infantry in the Ming army. They are real professional cavalry. They are also a cavalry that can skillfully play mounted archery. In terms of horse combat effectiveness, except for those cavalry units in the border army,
The mounted infantry in the inland areas could not defeat them.
The core of Zhang Yue's supervision was a thousand men from the capital camp and 500 cavalry. In addition, he also used various means on the road to recruit 5,000 young men from northern Jiangsu, that is, the Huaihe River area, and also recruited 5,000 young men from southern Zhili.
A large number of sophisticated ordnance and even Franco machine guns and other firearms arrived.
This formed the supervisory standard directly under Zhang Yue, because most of them were newly recruited young soldiers who had been taken by Zhang Yue before and were stationed in the hinterland of Huguang, that is, Changsha, for training.
In the huge Huguang area, except for the 500 professional cavalry in Zhang Yue's Dubiao, most of the cavalry owned by the other Ming armies are said to be cavalry, but in fact they are mounted infantry, and many of them are personal soldiers of senior generals.
The reason why they hold concurrent posts is simple, because they have horses.
Ordinary big-headed soldiers don't have the matching attributes of horses.
Many times, these horse-owning infantrymen are used as reconnaissance cavalry. As for large-scale cavalry engagements, this is not their combat mission at all.
These horse infantry who work part-time as horse infantry are fine if you let them engage in single-player combat or even small-scale combat with a few people. They can even take advantage of it, because their personal martial arts are usually relatively good, even if they are unable to play.
Fight immediately, but after dismounting you are basically elite soldiers.
Even on horseback, he could compete with the equally incompetent scouts in the Tang army, and sometimes even gain the upper hand.
However, when Chen Keqiao mobilized the second cavalry battalion and conducted forcible reconnaissance with a large-scale cavalry unit, these Ming army horse infantry were obviously no match.
In a cavalry battle involving dozens of people or more, their outstanding personal martial arts skills could not be used to their full potential, and then they were chopped into pieces by rows of Tang army cavalry who rushed over.
The Tang Dynasty's regular cavalry battles did not focus on individual martial arts at all. They focused on group fights, and they were group fights in dense formations. When the cavalry fought, they only used a few fixed moves to come and go.
It’s just a matter of slashing with the sword, which can be said to have no technical content at all.
Even the cavalry of the Tang Dynasty did not pay attention to the martial arts training of the cavalry. Instead, they paid more attention to training the formation of the cavalry!
Charging in formation is the focus of their training!
After the cavalry battle that lasted for several days, the Ming army's reconnaissance cavalry gradually lost track of the Fourth Army, but the general direction could still be seen.
Because as long as you draw a straight line on the map based on the movements of the Fourth Army, you will find that the Fourth Army is heading straight to the north, and this direction is the center point of the two Ming armies.
Could it be that they want to intercept our two armies by force?
In this way, wouldn't they be trapped in a situation of being flanked from both front and back?
How could these pseudo-Tang rebels be so stupid?
Impossible, how could these puppet Tang rebels be so stupid? If they were stupid, they would not have been able to defeat the official army in succession and sweep across three provinces.
There must be some conspiracy behind this!
And after Hong Linquan looked at the extremely abstract map in his hand for a long time, he finally secretly said, "No!"
Others kept asking what was wrong!
Hong Linquan said: "They are most likely going towards the Jingzhou defenders!"
"No, we must speed up and join the Jingzhou defenders as soon as possible. Otherwise, it will be too risky for the Jingzhou defenders alone to deal with these pseudo-Tang rebels!"
Although it was a bit embarrassing to say this, Hong Linquan was a cautious person. He did not think that the 10,000 men of his Jingzhou garrison could surely defeat the 7,000 men of the puppet Tang rebel army, even if his side had a slight military advantage.
It is well known that the real thieves in the Puppet Tang thief army are powerful in combat, and most of the 7,000 Puppet Tang thief army are real thieves. At the same time, the enemy is in darkness and we are in the clear. If we are beaten,
If we make a surprise attack, I'm afraid the boat will capsize in the gutter!
"Is it possible that they are coming towards us? Although the Jingzhou defenders have fewer troops, they have just left the city, and if something unexpected happens, they can retreat back to the city at any time. These rebels don't know this.
Yes, on the contrary, we are short of soldiers after a long march. If we are intercepted, we may not be able to fight!" someone else said.
Hong Linquan said: "Coming towards us? Well, it would be better if they dare to come. Our headquarters has fifteen thousand soldiers. Even if we cannot defeat them, we will not be defeated in a short time. By then, our headquarters will entangle them first, and then
Waiting for the Jingzhou garrison to arrive and cooperate with our army to attack the bandit army, our army will definitely win a complete victory in this battle!"
Hong Linquan guessed correctly, Chen Keqiao really planned to attack the Jingzhou defenders first. The reason was naturally that the Jingzhou defenders had a small number of troops, and more importantly, they were closer to the Fourth Army.
Through the maneuvers of the past few days, the main force of the Fourth Army is less than twenty miles away from the Jingzhou defenders, and this distance is still shrinking. However, it is still more than thirty miles away from the Xingquan Prefecture reinforcements.
By sending the defenders out of Jingzhou City first, he would have more time to avoid wasting time for the two armies to join together and thus be attacked from both front and rear.
As for how long it will take to defeat them?
Chen Keqiao believed that from the beginning of the battle, if the two sides fought in a field battle, one day would be enough to determine the winner, and within this time, unless they gave wings to the Xingquan Prefecture reinforcements, they would not be able to win in just one day.
Came here.
However, what Hong Lin didn't know was that in order to avoid being attacked from both sides, Chen Keqiao did not go to the west of Jingzhou's formed army to fight, but launched an attack from the southeast. This was to block the Jingzhou defenders.
The army fled back to Jingzhou City.
In order to gain this advantage in this direction, he even led his troops in a small circle, wasting an extra half day on the march.
By the evening of that day, the main force of the Fourth Army was already only about ten miles away from the Jingzhou garrison. However, it was naturally impossible to continue marching at night, let alone fight.
Night is a rest time for both parties!
Do you want to fight at night? Your brain is burned out. You are so blind. It won’t take long for you to run out. The enemy will be defeated before he can touch you!
As for marching with torches, it is barely possible, but it also requires a guide who is very familiar with the terrain to lead the way, and then it is necessary to use cavalry to communicate back and forth frequently, otherwise it will be easy to get confused while walking.
As for launching an attack with torches, this is basically telling the enemy: I am here and I am coming over. Get your bows and arrows ready and shoot towards me!
The most important thing is that you have no way of knowing how many enemies are on the opposite side and what kind of defense methods have been prepared for you. The enemy can give you a fatal blow at any time in the dark.
This is actually a good thing. In a more likely situation, the troops in the rear do not know the situation of the troops in the front, and there may even be friendly forces attacking friendly forces. A slight disturbance can easily lead to the collapse of the entire army, because you simply cannot
I wonder what happened to the friendly forces hundreds of meters away!
That scene was a disaster for any general, and he was unable to command the battle at all.
Of course, it is feasible to send only a small number of elite troops to harass in the dark night, but everyone is not stupid. The camp is all lit with torches, just to prevent you from playing this trick. If you want to send people to harass, there is a possibility of success.
Sex is not big!
Therefore, in most ancient and modern wars, night battles rarely occur, unless it is the kind of battle where the enemy and ourselves are quite transparent.
Even during World War II, night battles were rarely fought!
Darkness is the best messenger of peace. It brought a short period of peace to the Jingzhou defenders and the Fourth Army, but this peace was destined to not last long. At dawn, before it was dark, the Fourth Army
They have already started cooking pots and preparing for the troops to have breakfast in advance.
The sun had just risen, and the Fourth Army, which had had breakfast in advance, set off again towards the northwest. At this time, they were only ten miles away from the Ming Army!