I want to be emperor

Chapter 614 Retreat to collapse

Trotting forward on the horse, Danba only relied on his body's instincts to control the horse with the skillful equestrian skills he had cultivated for many years, but his attention was all on the cavalry of Chu Manzi on the opposite side.

At this time, the distance between the cavalry of the two sides was less than a thousand meters, but it did not mean that Danba had to run a thousand meters to fight the Chu army, because the Chu army was also on the hedge.

Therefore, the actual combat distance still needs to be folded in half, which is less than 500 meters.

This distance is also the most suitable distance for cavalry to launch a charge. If it is too far away, the horse's physical energy will be consumed too much. If it is too close, there will be no response time, and at the same time, it will be difficult for the horse to speed up.

A distance of 500 meters is just right for cavalry charges.

At this time, the cavalry led by Danba listed the traditional formation, divided into a total of five cavalry small squares, showing a cone shape, and the cavalry did not use cavalry bows or pistols, but drew one by one. Out of the scimitar, ready to directly launch a close-range charge.

It's not that they don't want to use riding bows or pistols, but that the Chu manzis on the opposite side don't use muskets either, and those damned Chu manzis are directly carrying sabers on their shoulders.

At a glance, he knew that Chu Manzi on the opposite side was about to rush up to fight hand-to-hand.

Under such circumstances, if Danba's troops still want to play riding and shooting tactics, they will be directly beaten to collapse.

Cavalry and archery tactics, especially semi-circular cavalry and archery tactics, are very suitable for dealing with infantry, but they are actually very unreliable for dealing with enemy light cavalry, especially for cavalry who are charging, it is no different from courting death.

In the unified war, the Chu army likes to use pistol cavalry to play half-round tactics, and the parents who were beaten by the frontier cavalry of the Ming army don’t recognize it... When the frontier cavalry of the Ming army saw that the cavalry of the Chu army played half-round tactics, they didn’t know it at all. Instead of reasoning with you, he rushed up to melee you with a saber.

The pistol cavalry was short-lived in the Chu army, and withdrew from history with an extremely disgraceful history.

This is an inherent limitation of tactics, which cannot be changed in terms of current weaponry and equipment technology, so when the cavalry of the Chu Army found that this road was not feasible, they began to move to another extreme, starting to play retro style, directly making cold The weapons charged.

After doing this, I found that the effect is quite good, especially after combining the concept of tight formation of infantry, the dense saber/hollow cavalry charge of Chu army cavalry is so powerful that traditional cavalry cannot stop it at all.

Although Danba has never fought against the large-scale cavalry of the Chu army, his many years of war career has let him know that since the opponent is ready to form a charge, then his own side cannot use semi-circular tactics, if he does not take the initiative to retreat now , then you can only bite the bullet and rush over.

And retreat?

With one's own supplies exhausted, retreating in this uninhabited desert with few weeds was a dead end.

If it wasn't for this, Danba wouldn't take the initiative to turn back with the cavalry to fight.

Danba is still counting on winning the battle to grab a wave of food, grass and supplies from the Chu army. No matter how bad it is, he will break the blockade of the Chu barbarians and flee to the grasslands to the east.

Otherwise, it will be a dead word sooner or later.

So...Danba did not choose to retreat, but ordered his cavalry to switch to cold weapons such as scimitars!

Today, he is going to have a real cavalry confrontation with the Chu Manzi on the opposite side, and let these Chu Manzi know that the Western Regions are their Zhungeer territory, and that fighting on horseback is their specialty, not their Chumanzi. Barbarian farmers can play.

Danba was very determined, and trotted slowly over with his cavalry in formation.

The same is true for Colonel Linles, the head of the No.80 Sixth Cavalry Regiment.

With four cavalry posts, he listed the standard dense charge formation among the cavalry of the Chu Army, and then trotted forward.

In this formation, the space between the cavalry and the cavalry is very small, and the formation is very dense, just like the line formation of the musketeers of the infantry, it is also known for its dense force.

The distance between the two sides continued to narrow, and soon, the four 80mm cavalry guns of the No.65 Sixth Cavalry Regiment began to fire.

But as expected, the four 65mm shells did not achieve too obvious results.

Because Danba on the opposite side is not stupid, he will not walk slowly for you to fight. After entering the range of the Chu army's artillery, he has already started to speed up, allowing the cavalry to enter the running stage.

At the same time, there is no obvious dense formation for you to bombard, but a column is adopted, and the formation is relatively loose.

Well, in fact, the formation of traditional cavalry is very loose, because it is necessary to leave space for the cavalry to fight.

The combat of traditional cavalry, even if it is a charge, actually relies more on the bravery of the cavalry itself, and it will basically enter a state of melee after hedging.

This is completely different from the cavalry of the Chu army.

After entering the battlefield, the cavalry of the No.80 Sixth Cavalry Regiment maintained a trot for a long time. The speed was not fast, but the formation was extremely complete.

Even after entering the running stage, because the speed has not been increased to the maximum, it can even be lowered to a certain speed, and these are all in order to maintain a dense formation as much as possible.

The cavalry of the Chu army paid attention to the whole body in combat, and did not pay much attention to individual bravery.

Of course, this is only a relative term. In fact, cavalrymen who have undergone long-term and intensive training are not far behind in personal bravery.

As the distance between the two sides further narrowed, when the distance between the two sides was only more than 100 meters, the Chu cavalry, who had been suppressing their speed to maintain their formation, finally entered the final state of charge.

The cavalry of the Chu army did not deliberately suppress the speed to maintain the formation, but let the horses unleash the maximum sprint speed.

The Zhungeer cavalry on the opposite side entered the attacking stage earlier, and in this way, the Jungar cavalry, which was originally in a loose formation, entered the attacking stage and no longer maintained the formation. loose.

It seemed that Zhungeer's cavalry seemed to be a large area, sweeping a large area in front of them, and it seemed to be very powerful.

But this kind of huge momentum is actually not good for the cavalry charge... because the cavalry is full of mountains and fields here, and the momentum of the cavalry often means that the formation is not tight enough!

On the other hand, the cavalry of the Chu army on the opposite side, even if they entered the attacking step stage and let go of the speed suppression, the cavalry and cavalry still maintained a relatively tight formation.

And this difference led to the fact that when the two sides actually encountered each other, the cavalry of the Chu army seemed to be like a sharp sword, piercing straight into the loose formation of the Zhungeer cavalry.

This... is also what happened to the frontier cavalry of the Ming army and the cavalry of the Eastern Captives when they fought against the cavalry of the Chu army.

Obviously the troops were about the same, and even our own troops were more, but they were directly pierced through the formation by the charge of the Chu army's cavalry, and there were more casualties.

This is because in local areas, or in the limited area where the two sides are actually fighting, the Chu cavalry can often gain an absolute advantage in strength.

This is how it is now. After the two sides collided together, Danba found that more than a dozen guards around him were besieged by at least two Chu cavalry, and some unlucky ones were even attacked by three or four at the same time. Siege by cavalry.

The other nearby subordinates were similar, all in danger of being besieged.

However, on both sides and the rear, more Zhungeer cavalry can only watch from the outside. Because of the high-speed sprint, they even turned at a large angle midway to help the besieged friendly army, and could only watch inside. The friendly army of the Chu army was besieged by the cavalry of the Chu army.

Especially Danba, who was the most conspicuous on the battlefield, was dressed differently from ordinary Zhungeer cavalry, and the presence of personal soldiers around him made him besieged by a large number of Chu cavalry.

Even if the soldiers around him tried their best to protect him, they couldn't stop the roaring cavalry from the Chu Army who seemed endless.

And although these personal guards are all strong in martial arts, if they fight alone, it is estimated that no cavalry of the Chu Army present can match them, but on the battlefield, especially on such a large-scale battlefield, individual martial arts The effect is very limited.

Danba's personal guards, who are highly skilled in martial arts, can block and avoid one or two sabers, but they cannot avoid three or four sabers.

In just ten seconds, more than a dozen guards around Danba were killed or injured!

Immediately afterwards, Danba was directly exposed to the sabers of countless Chu cavalry soldiers!

Danba was also strong in martial arts and had excellent reflexes. He escaped three consecutive saber attacks at the first time, and even used the scimitar in his backhand to chop one of the Chu cavalry soldiers and fell off the horse.

But... the next second, a cold light appeared in the corner of his eyes, and then he only felt a pain in his neck, and in an instant, he lost all his strength and fell from the horse!

Danba, after all, he still failed to rush out!

Not only them, but most of his subordinates also failed to rush out!

In this tragic cavalry confrontation, more than 900 cavalry under Danba's troops, including Danba, killed or injured more than [-] cavalry on the spot.

Others tried to escape, but more than 300 Zhungeer cavalry who fled eastward failed to escape in the end. They were quickly overtaken by the No.80 Sixth Cavalry Regiment, and then joined forces with the No. The Seventh Cavalry Regiment carried out annihilation.

There were more than 200 Zhungeer cavalry who fled all the way west...but these people actually ended up worse.

Although more than half of the more than 300 Jungar cavalry who fled eastward were killed or injured after being besieged, half of them survived as captives.

And the more than 200 Zhungeer cavalry who fled westward... The cavalry sent by the Chu army once went to pursue them, but after these Zhungeer cavalry went deep into the desert, the Chu army cavalry stopped chasing. The chasing cavalrymen of the Chu army were not sure that they would be able to return...

Since then, no one has seen these more than 200 Zhungeer cavalry.

After all, to the west is an endless desert.

Without any supplies, or even spare horses, it was impossible for them to walk out of the depths of the desert alive.

This interception operation lasted for more than half a month, but it was finally won. In addition to annihilating the enemy cavalry, a large number of mules and horses were also captured. More than 200 of the best Central Asian horses were seized. , There are more than 1000 Mongolian horses that are generally available for riding.

However, these captures and enemy casualties are not important in themselves. The important thing is that the Chu army completely wiped out the Zhungeer cavalry unit that brought great danger to the Chu army's logistics line after this encirclement and suppression operation, and let Jiayuguan go to Hami. The logistics transportation line can be safe and sound.

This is the role that the top leaders of the Chu army value more.

Otherwise, the Chu army would not dispatch the entire No.20 Second Cavalry Division and No.19 Division to garrison the towns and forts along the way represented by Guazhou.

In addition to the strength of the Fourth Cavalry Army itself, the troops maintaining the logistics line in the rear also have two divisions behind them.

And the further north you go, the more troops the Fourth Cavalry Army has left behind to defend the logistics line.

When approaching the direction of Hami, the logistics and transportation units of the Fourth Cavalry Army were no longer limited to the supply units of each division. The Second Infantry Division dispatched the Sixth Infantry Regiment to be responsible for the escort of supplies. At the same time, the No.14 Cavalry Division also Responsible for escorting supplies.

At the same time, the transportation of materials also adopts a large-scale centralized transportation method. Each transportation consists of thousands of horse-drawn carriages, transporting at least a thousand tons of various materials, escorted by at least one cavalry regiment and one infantry regiment .

The Chu army's progress is naturally very slow. On average, they can't even walk [-] kilometers a day. Most of the time, they walk for two or three days, and then they are stationed in a small town to wait for the logistics troops.

However, the Chu army's cautious approach also completely made the Zhungeer people in the direction of Hami lose the possibility of continuing to attack the logistics line.

Danba's unit never came back, which made Zhuote Babatur feel very bad!
It's been a month, but no news came back, which made Zhuote Babatur pessimistic.

Danba's troops, I'm afraid it's over, and it's the kind of annihilation of the whole army, otherwise it's impossible that even a little news won't come back.

Now that the logistics line can't be fought, and it is doomed to fail to defend Hami City, Zhuote Babatur is a little confused.

What should I do?
It is definitely not enough to stick to Hami City. Zhuotebabatur is not deaf to what is going on outside the window. He is very clear that the Eastern Captives even have a strong army of more than 20 in the Liaoxi Corridor, with many guns. Even the cannons couldn't withstand Chu Manzi's indiscriminate bombing.

He is in Hami, but has only [-] to [-] troops. Although there are some guns, Hami City is not a strong fortress...

It is impossible to stop Chu Manzi's bombardment.

The attack on the logistics line was also difficult. There was no news from Danba, and Chu Manzi's operation was smooth, and he didn't seem to be troubled by the logistics at all. Let Zhuote Babatur understand that the attack on the logistics line is also unreliable.

Straight out of town to play a decisive battle?
The risk is also great, because Chu Manzi has too many guns, and there are also many cavalry.

In terms of military strength and firepower, the Zhungeer people have no advantage, and they will suffer more in a fight.

But Zhuote Babatur finally chose to take the initiative to go out of the city to fight!
Defending Hami City, once the Chu army completes the siege, they can only wait to die.

And if you go out of the city for a decisive battle, it's best to win!
If the situation is not good, just retreat directly. Anyway, the Zhungeer executives never said that they must defend Hami. For nomads, it is normal for them to run away if they cannot be defeated.

As for the retreat, as long as the livestock, a large amount of food, grass, and other supplies are transported away in advance, and only the combat troops are left, the subsequent retreat will not be very difficult.

After all, they have a lot of Zhungeer cavalry, mules and horses. If they are prepared in advance, it is relatively easy to run.

It would be even better if we could attract those Chu barbarians to chase after us when retreating...

From Jiayuguan to Hami, the supply line of thousands of miles is already long enough. If the Chu army has just captured Hami and has not stabilized their position, they will rush to pursue themselves westward...

Zhuote Babatur can wake up with a smile in his dreams!

If Chu Manzi has the guts to really do this, it means that he needs to maintain thousands of kilometers or even longer, and most of the places along the way are supply lines in no-man's land...

At that time, they don't need to bother to fight in Zhungeer, and they can lie down and win directly.

Of course, Zhuote Babatur also knew that this kind of thing was unlikely, after all Chu Jun was not stupid.

Now they are walking cautiously on the road from Guazhou to Hami, walking for three days and resting for two days.

Under such circumstances, it is also difficult for them to continue westward regardless.

With a high probability, after occupying the Hami area, they will carry out reclamation in the Hami area for several years, and use the oasis in the Hami area to solve the food and grass problem needed by the garrison.

Then continue westward.

This is also the idea of ​​the top of the Great Chu Empire Army!

In this war, the top leaders of the Great Chu Empire never thought of destroying Zhungeer in the first place. It's not that they didn't want to, but the cost was too high, which would seriously interfere with the construction of people's livelihood in the country.

Therefore, this war is a local war, with the main strategic goal of capturing Hami. It would be even better if some of Zhungeer's main forces can be taken advantage of.

It is precisely because of this that the Great Chu Empire only attacked in the direction of the Hexi Corridor, and did not involve the western part of Monan Mongolia and the Mobei region.

If it is the war of destroying the country against Zhungeer, then it will attack from multiple directions at the same time, especially from the west of Monan and Mobei areas, at the same time, at least 10,000+, as many as 30, [-] enemy troops will be dispatched to sweep across the past. .

It's just that the price is too high.

These are the thoughts of the high-level people of the Great Chu Empire, and although Zhuote Babatur is not a member of the Great Chu Empire and cannot know the inside information of the high-level people of the Great Chu Empire, he can still judge from the specific actions of the Great Chu Empire. The current ambitions of the Chu Empire are not too great.

Therefore, he did not expect too much that the Chu army would continue westward immediately after capturing Hami.

But although the possibility is very small, what if Chu Manzi's generals get dizzy...

Therefore, Zhuote Babatur has a little hope for this.

Of course, the more important thing is to protect yourself!
Therefore, after deciding not to stick to Hami, Zhuote Babatur began to act. He ordered to move the large amount of grain, gold and silver property and livestock hoarded in Hami city, and even the local population to the west.

In the city of Hami, there are only more than 3 garrisons left, and most of these troops are cavalry, and a few infantry and artillery also carry a large number of mules and horses.

Moreover, the food and luggage carried are not too much.

All this is to be able to retreat smoothly when retreating.

On August 14, 29th year of Chengshun, after a long journey, the main force of the Fourth Cavalry Army finally arrived in Hami.

The Chu army came so slowly, and Zhuote Babatur was a little impatient... because he had ordered the transfer of supplies and people before, and there was not much food and grass left in Hami City.

If the Chu army drags on for another ten days and a half a month...then Zhuote Babatur will have to consider retreating first.

You can't wait for the Chu army in Hami hungry, right?

After the Chu army arrived smoothly, Zhuote Babatur breathed a sigh of relief, and then sent a large number of scouts to go out, and at the same time ordered the troops to prepare to go out of the city to face the battle.

Well, by the way, finalize the final retreat plan.

In this battle, fight if you can fight, and retreat if you can't fight. This is the plan that Zhuote Babatur has already finalized, and most of the senior generals in the army know this plan.

After all, you have to prepare in advance, so that there will be no chaos when you retreat later.

On August [-], Zhuote Babatur led an army of [-] out of the city to face the Fourth Cavalry Army of the Chu Army.

And this battle seemed to be on a large scale, but in fact it was not tragic, and even felt like a child's play.

The two sides set up a battle early in the morning, but Zhungeer began to retreat in an orderly manner after eleven o'clock in the morning.

The reason, of course, was that after a few tentative battles in the morning, the chances of the Zhungeer people were completely wiped out.

At [-]:[-] in the morning, Zhungeer took the lead in dispatching cavalry to attack the artillery positions of the Chu army... but was intercepted strongly by the cavalry of the Chu army and intensively bombarded by the artillery.

More than 2000 Zhungeer cavalry attacked, and hundreds of them were killed or injured on the spot and fled in embarrassment.

Subsequently, an infantry phalanx of more than 1000 people on the Zhungeer side was intensively attacked by the Chu army's line troops on the left flank.

The infantry array composed of matchlock guns and spearmen on the Zhungeer side is not at all the opponent of the Chu army's line infantry using flintlock guns, let alone the Chu army's infantry is also supported by a large number of artillery.

The two sides only fought for a few minutes, and Zhungeer's infantry phalanx collapsed.

After the two battles failed, Zhuote Babatur decisively gave the order to retreat!
Although the scale of these two battles was not large, it allowed Zhuote Babatur to see the powerful combat effectiveness of the Chu army.

The cavalry is all right. In fact, the gap between the two sides is not particularly large, but the gap between artillery and infantry is enough to make people desperate.

The continuous intensive shelling of the Chu army was enough to deal a devastating blow to Zhungeer's dense array!

Although the Zhungeer people also have twenty or thirty artillery pieces, they are vulnerable to the powerful artillery of the Chu army.

The contrast between the infantry is even greater. Those Chu barbarians don't know why, but the firepower of their line infantry is extremely dense. After a few rounds of platooning, the infantry formation composed of Zhungeer's arquebus gunners and spearmen can no longer hold up. .

Just looking at these two battles, Zhuote Babatur knew that this battle was hopeless, and if he continued to fight forcibly, his entire army might be wiped out.

Therefore, he simply ordered to retreat.

In order to cover the retreat of the main force, he ordered more than 4000 troops from the original Yarkand Khanate to attack the Chu army before the main force retreated.

In order to break through, he mobilized more than 3000 cavalry to make a surprise attack in order to attract the attention of the Chu army, except for these servants who were sent to die as cannon fodder.

Of course, these [-] cavalry were not his direct descendants, but the troops of the Heshuote branch who had surrendered to Zhungeer.

While ordering more than 7000 people to attack, he also ordered the remaining 5000 main forces to retreat, especially the more than [-] people in his direct line were the first to leave the battlefield.

However, even though Zhuote Babatur had made a lot of arrangements in advance, there were still a lot of problems when he actually retreated.

First of all, as soon as Zhungeer's main force retreated, it immediately caused a rebound from the cannon fodder army sent to die to contain the Chu army...

You are about to run away, and you still let me die?

Then the Chu army also reacted quickly. Lieutenant General Liao Hongpo immediately ordered a counterattack. The counterattack launched by more than 1 cavalry and tens of thousands of infantry at the same time was extremely large in scale.

As a result, the orderly retreat originally expected by Zhungeer quickly turned into an embarrassing escape.

That is to say, they prepared very well, prepared a large number of mules and horses, and most of them were cavalry themselves, so even if the scene was a little chaotic, the speed of escape was still not slow.

Even though the Chu army has a lot of cavalry, it is not easy to chase Zhungeer's troops who are riding horses and wanting to escape.

The two sides chased and fled until the evening of the day before the Chu army retreated and returned.

Although this battle was a bit of a joke, the Chu army achieved a lot. At least more than [-] enemy soldiers were killed and more than [-] were captured.

Most of these captives were the cannon fodder army sent by Zhuote Babatur to die to restrain the Chu army. They saw that Zhuote Babatur abandoned them, and when they faced the counterattack of the Chu army, they were only symbolic resistance. He simply surrendered.

Including more than 3000 cavalry originally belonging to the Heshuo Special Department!
In addition, the Chu army also captured a large number of mules and horses.

As for Hami City, because it was voluntarily abandoned by the Zhungeer people, it was accepted directly without a battle. Unfortunately, the Hami City accepted by the Chu army is already a pure empty city.

Not to mention food and supplies, there was not even a single person, and Zhuotebabatur had already sent away all the personnel and supplies.

However, even if it is an empty city, the Chu army can gain a valuable foothold. The surrounding oases are enough for the Great Chu Empire to carry out large-scale military reclamation here, and the food and grass produced locally will be enough to maintain tens of thousands of troops.

The Chu army has gained a lot, which naturally means that some people on the Zhungeer side will be upset.

Zhuote Babatur was very upset. He had already overestimated the combat effectiveness of the Chu army, but he still underestimated them unexpectedly!

More importantly, he found that he seriously overestimated the fighting power of his own people, especially the fighting will of those collateral cannon fodder!
It's all rubbish!
It was clearly agreed to retreat in an orderly manner, but when it came time to retreat, it was a big rout!
The final loss far exceeded the estimate!
He doesn't know the exact number of people who were killed, captured, missing, or fleeing, but Zhuote Babatur only gathered about 7000 people after the war.

And he had 3 troops before the war.

This means that about 3000 people were lost.

As for why the Chu army only killed and wounded 3000 people and captured more than 5000 people, adding up to more than 8000 people; but Zhungeer lost about 3000 people.

Because there are still three or 4000 people who were either deserters, or disappeared and lost their way and were not collected by Zhuote Babatur.

God knows where they went!

But the good news is that none of the more than 5000 direct line troops belonging to Zhuote Babatur's headquarters have been evacuated in a complete and organized manner.

However, this good news made many senior generals under Zhuote Babatur, especially those from other tribes, have a lot of opinions!

If it wasn't for you, Zhuote Babatur, who ran away with your direct lineage in the first place, how could we collapse so quickly.

He said so nicely before the war, but when the situation turned out to be bad, he was the first to take people away. If it didn't collapse, it would be unreasonable.

(End of this chapter)