The first wave of Ming troops that came over had more than a thousand cavalry in total!

They braved the Chu army's fierce bombardment and walked quickly for more than 500 meters, and then launched a charge more than 300 meters away.

Then... they ran into the Chu army's infantry hollow phalanx.

Strictly speaking, they did not take the initiative to attack the Chu army's infantry hollow phalanx. Even if this hollow phalanx looked very weak, no rational cavalry general would let his cavalry take the initiative to attack the enemy's waiting army.

Infantry array.

The direction of the attack of the Ming army's cavalry was actually the gap between these square formations.

There is a distance of about 130 meters between each hollow infantry square formation of the Chu army. At the same time, the sharp corners of each square formation face the side where the cavalry is attacking. This arrangement is actually to allow the two sides to attack each other.

The infantry firepower between the formations crosses, and at the same time, mutual accidental fire can be avoided.

It probably looks like this: (‘-’ represents the space bar, please ignore it)

□----------Cavalry

--□

----□

The Ming army's cavalry wanted to rush through these gaps, shoot arrows directly on their horses, and prepare to continue the assault after rushing through, and then attack the artillery positions behind the Chu army's first division and the flanks of the eighth division.

And then turn the whole war situation around!

As long as the Chu army's artillery positions and the flanks of the Eighth Division are attacked by cavalry, even if the Chu army does not collapse, it will be severely damaged and the attack on the east fort will be stopped.

This is the core mission of these Ming army cavalry.

However, what they did not expect was that when they rushed forward, they were attacked by crossfire from numerous hollow square formations of the Chu army, resulting in heavy casualties.

What they didn't expect was that the Chu army's hollow phalanxes were not only the ones in front, but also several in the rear. So after they rushed through the first batch of Chu army's hollow phalanxes, they immediately encountered the second batch.

The third batch...

As these Ming army cavalry were constantly forced to turn, they not only suffered continuous casualties, but the speed of the horses also decreased rapidly, and finally fell silently among the many hollow square formations of the Chu army.

Ever since, the top generals of both sides saw this scene: the Ming cavalry seemed to have just stupidly ran up to die!

It looks like a suicide charge!

When some of the remaining cavalry in the first wave of cavalry finally bypassed the Chu army's infantry square and successfully rushed out from both sides.

This wave of cavalry already totals more than 400 people...

You know, before launching the attack, this Ming army cavalry numbered more than 1,500!

On the way to the charge, two to three hundred were killed and injured, and seven to eight hundred were killed and wounded by crossfire in the hollow square formation.

It is no exaggeration to say that there were heavy casualties!

The most important thing is that when the remaining 400 cavalry rushed out, they immediately encountered the belated cavalry unit of the Chu army.

Army Lieutenant General Zhu Xingfa received the order to attack. Because the battle situation was urgent, he could not even wait for the other two cavalry brigades and other cavalry regiments. Instead, he led the first cavalry brigade, which was originally deployed near the east side, to kill them.

However, in order to maintain the physical fitness of the war horses, and also to maintain the formation, he could not directly lead the cavalry troops all the way. Instead, he took the cavalry troops by walking quickly across several hundred meters, and finally arrived at the battlefield.

Even now that he had arrived at the battlefield, he was only three to four hundred meters away from the enemy cavalry, but he still did not let the cavalry charge directly. Instead, he continued to walk quickly until he was more than two hundred meters away from the Ming army's participating cavalry.

meters, then the charge was ordered.

The cavalry charge does not mean charging at full speed from the beginning. The Chu army cavalry divided the pace of the charge into four stages: slow step, quick step, running, and attacking step.

The simple explanation is that slow gait is normal walking, with only one hoof leaving the ground; trot is two hooves leaving the ground at the same time; running is four hooves leaving the ground instantly; and running is charging at full speed, running as fast as you can.
p>

The armored cavalry in the Chu army would often walk quickly only after entering 500 meters, running at 200 meters, and sprinting at full speed only after about 60 meters.

And this is a training requirement. In actual combat, if the opponent's artillery fire is weaker, the running distance can be further shortened. In short, the formation is maintained as much as possible and the final attack time is shortened.

Of course, this team is limited to charging in formation. If it is a scattered cavalry shooting or other combat methods, then it is a different matter.

However, in the Chu army, unless it was a small-scale battle between sporadic reconnaissance cavalry, cavalry operations were fought in formations, and scattered formations rarely occurred.

On the one hand, the overall quality of the Chu army's cavalry is not very good. They are not good at dogfighting with classical cavalry. At least they cannot defeat the elite cavalry of the Ming army.

Therefore, in order to offset the poor combat effectiveness of a single cavalry, the Chu army was more inclined to fight in formations, and the requirements for the density of cavalry formations were getting higher and higher.

As the formation improved, the improvement in combat effectiveness was also obvious. Although the Chu cavalry was often unable to defeat the elite cavalry of the Ming army on the opposite side, even if they were at a disadvantage, they could still fight against the elite cavalry of the Ming army.

Six open.

Sometimes if tactics are used properly, we can win a big victory.

After all, whether it is cavalry fighting or infantry fighting, formation is very important.

Once the cavalry is allowed to charge and fight freely regardless of the formation, then a very interesting military law will appear, namely the 28-20 law.

What does this mean? That is, only about 20% of the soldiers dare to fight and charge. The rest basically call 666. They will follow up with a few hits in the downwind game, and run away in minutes in the headwind game.

Most people are afraid of death. Survival is human instinct and it is difficult to violate it.

In order to reverse this, the Chu cavalry tended to form a tighter formation and sacrificed the charging speed of the cavalry. The cavalry was required to maintain a relatively slow speed most of the time when charging, only in the last few dozen meters.

It was only then that the restrictions were relaxed and the order was given to charge at full speed.

All this was fully reflected in today's cavalry battle!

When Zhu Xingfa led the cavalry to the last two hundred meters, he ordered the first cavalry brigade to start running. When the Ming cavalry was only sixty or seventy meters away, he ordered to charge at full speed!

As a result, the high-speed cavalry from both sides collided with each other in an instant!

The result is no surprise!

The First Cavalry Brigade had more than 1,500 cavalry, and only more than 400 Ming cavalry were left in the attack.

Moreover, these Ming army cavalry had just escaped from the hollow square formation, and they were all panicked. What's more important was that they completely lost their formation. These more than 400 cavalry were all crowded together in a mess.

The Ming cavalry generals on the opposite side wanted to launch a counterattack and ordered a counterattack, but without a formation and without a command system, their counterattack was neither fish nor fowl.

A handful of dozens of people rushed out immediately, and the remaining more than a hundred people hesitated for a while and followed. However, there were still more than two hundred cavalrymen who were just dilly-dallying around, and many even went around directly.

The bank tried to retreat.

Such a remnant of the Ming army's cavalry was impossible to stop the fierce charge of the Chu army's first cavalry brigade.

In just a few minutes, this Ming army cavalry with 400 remaining cavalry became history!

Dozens of Ming cavalry who rushed at the front were immediately crushed by the Chu cavalry. The more than a hundred cavalry who followed behind some turned around and tried to continue charging forward, but in the end they were all crushed by the first cavalry.

The brigade was completely crushed.

On the other hand, the more than 200 Ming Army cavalry who lagged behind from the beginning had already escaped disaster because they turned and fled!

But they didn't last long, because most of them couldn't tell the direction clearly when they fled in a hurry, and they actually ran towards the square formation of the 2nd Infantry Regiment of the 1st Division of the Chu Army...<

/p>

As soon as they saw the Chu army infantry square in front, these remaining Ming army cavalry dared to charge forward. They walked around in circles, and saw that the Chu army cavalry was outflanking them from behind...

One of the guerrillas they led gritted his teeth and directly ordered to surrender...

If they don't surrender, they will really die.

The first wave of Ming army cavalry, totaling 1,500 cavalry, was bombarded by the Chu army, intercepted by infantry, and intercepted by cavalry, and finally the entire army was wiped out!

After being exhausted, only a few dozen cavalrymen ran out.

This scene stunned the senior generals of both sides, and frightened the second wave of Ming army cavalry half to death...

The Ming army's cavalry attacked in three waves. After the first batch of cavalry, there was a second batch of cavalry of about 2,000 cavalry.

According to the plan, they would join the battlefield a few minutes behind the first group of cavalry.

Well, when the first wave of Ming cavalry entered the hollow square formation, this second batch of cavalry had actually entered the Chu army's artillery range, which was within 800 meters.

By the time the remnants of the first batch of Ming cavalry were attacked head-on by Chu cavalry, these Ming cavalry had already launched a charge.

But... their charge only started, and then the Ming cavalry general on the opposite side took his cavalry and made a strategic turn more than 200 meters away from the Chu army's formation...

After the first batch of cavalry attacked, the entire army was wiped out. If they had followed, the consequences would not have been much better.

This second group of Ming cavalry turned and retreated directly, not to mention the third group of cavalry. They did not appear within the range of the Chu army's artillery. They are still behind the low hillside 800 meters away.

.

Seeing the Ming cavalry on the opposite side retreating, Zhu Xingfa snorted coldly, and then led the First Cavalry Brigade to pursue them.

At the same time, the Second Cavalry Brigade and two divisional cavalry regiments in the rear were ordered to follow.

It's just that this pursuit battle between cavalry is unlikely to have any results in a short time. The Ming army cavalry were so frightened that they did not dare to turn back and fight with the Chu army cavalry. Instead, they marched all the way

Running towards the rear...

As I ran, I ran straight out of the battlefield!

While the cavalry from both sides were chasing each other outside the battlefield, the Eighth Division of the Chu Army continued to launch a strong attack on the East Fort. Even the First Division sent an infantryman after seeing that there seemed to be no cavalry from the Ming Army.

The corps went up to provide infantry fire support to the Eighth Division.

Hong Chengchou's tactical idea of ​​using a cavalry assault to severely damage the Chu army's flanks, thereby restraining the Eighth Division from attacking, and even turning the tide of the battle, met with complete failure.

As a result, around four o'clock in the afternoon that day, the commandos of the Chu Army's Eighth Division finally broke through the last line of defense of the Ming Army's East Fort, and successfully planted the Chu Army's red-background black dragon flag on this crucial fort fortress.

!
Chapter completed!