The Prosperous Era of Longwan

The stacked formation method is a new method of warfare created by Wu Lin, a famous general from Sichuan and Shaanxi in the Southern Song Dynasty, during the long-term struggle against the Jin Dynasty.

The first direct record of "stacked formations" can be found in the "Annual Records since Jianyan", which records the scene of reviewing Wu Lin's troops and horses.

Lin paraded the troops in the river pool, using the new battle formation method. Every battle, the spear was in the front, unable to sit down; the second strongest bow, the second strongest bow, kneeling to wait;

If the enemy is within a hundred paces of a fight, the divine arm will be launched first; at seventy paces, the strong bow will be launched simultaneously; the second formation will be the same.

The formations are limited to resisting horses, connected with iron hooks, and replaced when they are injured.

When there is a change, the drum is used as the festival.

Riding with two wings to cover the front, the formation is formed and the cavalry retreats, which is called "stacked formation".

The generals secretly discussed: "Will the army be wiped out here?"

Lin said: "In ancient times, the military order was bound to the army, and the military law existed, but the kings did not know it. There is nothing better than this to gain the remaining intention in chariot battles. A warrior's mind can be filled with concentration. No matter how sharp the enemy is, he will not be able to defeat it."

Fang Guan knew the benefits of chariot warfare, which could be used in the plains and wilderness, but without the method of chariot warfare, it would be a sure defeat.

The enemy cavalry is good at rushing, but no one can resist! "

These two sentences, especially the latter sentence, are quite crucial, because they directly point out Wu Lin's motivation and purpose of creating the "stacked formation" - to restrain the Jin Army's cavalry who are good at rushing in the plains and wilderness.

The purpose of the Song Army on the Western Front, represented by Wu Lin, in inventing the "stacked formation" was to restrain the Jin Army's cavalry in the plains and wilderness, and this tactical goal served the strategic goal of counterattacking Qinlong.

A sufficient supply of horses is the basis for building a strong cavalry. In comparison, the Song Army's cavalry was very pitiful.

There was already a serious shortage of horses in the Northern Song Dynasty. After the loss of Shaanxi in the Southern Song Dynasty, "the horse link between Sichuan and Shaanxi was blocked" and "horses were extremely rare". As a result, the generals of the Southern Song Dynasty had to find ways to make up for this shortcoming, and the stacked formation method came into being.

In fact, infantry formations composed of spears, bows, and crossbows have existed since ancient times.

Although this general principle has not changed much, its specific implementation process has been very different in different historical periods.

For example, the order of the formation in the Tang Dynasty was crossbowmen first, archers second, spearmen second. After the crossbow attack was completed, the crossbowmen in the front row had to pick up the short weapons they carried and participate in hand-to-hand combat.

But in the Song Dynasty, due to the development of the recruitment system, soldiers became more and more professional, and the division of labor between the arms became more and more detailed and strengthened. This situation gradually changed, and there was a situation where guns, swords, hand-to-hand weapons were in front, and bows were in front. Crossbows and other long-distance projectile weapons are arranged at the back of the queue.

It is recorded in the "Four Changes of Infantry Practice" in the Northern Song Dynasty's military book "Wu Jing Zong Yao":

A drum, a straight gun and a knife. On the second drum, all the spears and knives are sitting, and the bows and crossbows are standing. The Hou strikes the wood, and each bow and crossbow fires three arrows. When the drum beats, advance less. After three more arrows were fired, the troops marched forward to the sound of drums, drawing their spears and knives, and followed them with their bows and crossbows, until they stopped at the boundary flag. When they heard the drums, they straightened their spears and knives; when they heard the drums again, they were all seated. The one with the bow and crossbow stood up and fired three arrows. At the end, when the drums were heard to stand up again, the spears were lowered, and when the gold was heard, they retreated to the old place. One drum straightened the spear and knife, the second drum set up the clan, the third drum straightened the spear and knife, the fourth drum raised the flag and gun as before, and the sound of the drums stopped.

This is actually simulating the situation in actual combat. When the enemy is still far away, the swordsman sits on the ground to make way for the crossbowmen to attack. When the enemy approaches, the swordsman stands up to fight, engages in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, and protects the projectile units behind him.

This arrangement is already very similar to "stacked formation".

But the difference is that the layout of the infantry queues in the Northern Song Dynasty paid attention to "the arrangement of formations between formations, the arrangement of teams between teams, the accommodation of songs between songs, and the accommodation of people in the world. When going in and out, there is no fighting and chasing, and the strength is used to offset the shortcomings. "Short and long", the arrangement of gunners and crossbowmen is complicated, and the changes in the queue are also complicated.

The Southern Song Dynasty army made large-scale simplifications based on actual combat requirements. It mostly used large-scale "pure teams" consisting of fifty or sixty people. One team was pure guns, and the crossbows were pure crossbows. Then several units of the same arms were combined. The team gathered together to form a small formation of pure spears or pure crossbows. Between the small formations, they were arranged in the order of hand-to-hand combat units in the front and projectile units in the back.

Regarding Wu Lin's record of the number of people in the formation, the main infantry formation has "two out of five gunmen of the Army A, two out of two hundred divine arm bows, and two out of two hundred flat-shooting bows", and the left and right wings each have "two hundred and one flat-shooting bows" Seven out of ten, sixty-four with the divine arm and bow.”

Judging from the number of personnel in the weapons establishment, it should be a formation in which several pure teams were assembled and then organized in the order of spears in front and crossbows in the back.

In fact, this kind of array was also used as a reference in the Ming Dynasty. The Ming army's infantry array imitated this method, except that some of the crossbowmen had become musketeers.

This is also where the Mongolian cavalry will be helpless when facing the well-prepared Ming infantry phalanx. They can often only use the speed of their horses to attack the marching Ming army, and it is difficult to compete with the Ming army on the frontal battlefield.

After all, everyone cherishes their lives.

Facing the well-equipped and well-trained Ming army, the Mongols would collapse if they were massacred before they even met.

However, given the current conditions of the Ming army, such infantry phalanxes are actually rare. Perhaps only the main barracks under the commander-in-chief and deputy commander-in-chief of each town can manage to do so.

Other health centers have long been abandoned due to lack of food and salary and neglect of training.

The reason why generals such as Ma Fang and Qi Jiguang were able to shine in this era was that their tactics were not necessarily the most sophisticated. After all, most of them were based on the experience summaries of their predecessors. These were also recorded in the "Da Ming Huidian". The reason is that they made up for these shortcomings.

Although the soldiers of other guards led by Yu Dayou could not completely solve the problem of food, salary and training, they could make up for it during the war to the maximum extent, so as to improve the fighting spirit of the soldiers.

In fact, the basic quality of the Ming Dynasty guardsmen was still there, otherwise Yu Dayou would not have been able to lead the local guardsmen to participate in battles and win.

"Ma Fang's army is equipped with a large number of repeating firearms such as "three-eyed guns" and "five-eyed guns". In terms of combat thinking, Ma Fang has taken "quick to control quick" to the extreme.

Giving full play to the advantages of the government army in firearms technology, the gun cavalry, cavalry archers, and swordsmen cooperated with each other during the battle, and repeatedly charged and killed, so as to "make up for the shortcomings of cavalry and archery."

In addition, every winter and spring, Ma Fang would send small detachments of elite cavalry to carry out counterattacks on the Mongolian grasslands, with the goal of robbing horses and burning pastures to destroy the Mongolian combat resources to the maximum extent.

When the Mongolian army goes south to invade, it is important not to retreat and defend passively. Instead, it is necessary to conduct long-distance attacks, cut off the Mongolian army's retreat, and gather and annihilate the effective strength of the Mongolian army. "

"Ah, that's it. Use your strengths and avoid your weaknesses to arrange your troops."

After Wei Guangde introduced what he knew about Ma Fang's cavalry charge formation, King Yu clapped his hands and praised him.

"In the past, I only thought that the cavalry was just a frontal charge. Whoever's men were braver would be able to defeat the enemy. I didn't expect that we still had to form a good formation.

Also, although the formation will loosen a bit when charging, after all, the positions in the front and back will not change.

With the musketeers on the periphery and the crossbowmen in the middle, a group of cavalry and Tatars were brought down before the battle to demoralize the enemy. It's no wonder that Ma Fang's troops were able to win consecutive battles. "

Wei Guangde talked about it in a little more detail before, but many of them were actually things Zhang Juzheng had not thought about.

Zhang Juzheng had read the military books, but he had only a partial understanding of many of them. The same was true for King Yu.

After all, the Ming Dynasty was not facing a peaceful environment during this period. The threat from Mongolia in the north was increasing day by day, and the pressure on the Ming Dynasty was also increasing.

Under such an environment, the courtiers were forced to read two more military books involuntarily.

After the Tumu Fortress, these two times, the Mongolian cavalry was only a hundred miles away from the capital. Who knows which day their soldiers and horses would really hit the walls of the capital.

"It seems that Ma Fang's tribe really fell into the trap of luring the tiger away from the mountain. An Dahan avoided Ma Fang's tribe and attacked Xuanfu."

Yin Shizhen's words finally brought the focus of everyone's discussion back.

The army was outside. In fact, although Wei Guangde didn't think Ma Fang's tribe would be in much trouble at first, he still felt uneasy without any news.

Wei Guangde's words made King Yu, Zhang Juzheng and others seem to understand the true strength comparison between the Ming army and the Luqi, and they felt that the Ming army was not really useless.

As long as the leading generals are good, the Ming army has the ability to defeat the Mongolian Tatars head-on.

A common situation that often occurs in border forts is that the captive cavalry invades and besieges the city, and the surrounding Ming army comes to rescue. The captive cavalry often sneak attacks and ambush the advancing Ming army, and then take advantage of the situation to attack the city.

Well-trained soldiers can naturally adjust their formations and complete battle preparations quickly after the scouts warn. The Tatars saw that the Ming army was fully formed and had no chance of winning, so they immediately drove away.

And more often than not, the queue was still scattered when the Tatars charged in front of them, and they were directly scattered and collapsed.

If things go on like this, the fear of the cavalry among the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty will be infinitely magnified, thinking that the infantry is really unable to compete with the cavalry.

Looking through the history of the Ming Dynasty, there will be many written records of the scene where the cavalry retreated voluntarily due to the Ming army's formation.

This kind of battle report would only be scorned by the civil service group, thinking it was a false report of military exploits.

As the saying goes, "Those who are good at fighting have no great achievements." This is the truth. If you train too well and don't meet an opponent who is not afraid of death, you will lose the opportunity to make achievements.

"How long will the Xuanfu crisis last?"

Zhang Juzheng asked.

"If my prediction is correct, Ma Fang's troops will attack Beisha Beach. The march should take more than ten days. If something is wrong, it should take three to five days to return quickly.

It had been half a month since Ma Fang had left the customs, and he should have arrived near Beishatan by this time. Counting the return journey, the Tatars would only have two or three days to wreak havoc. I think by tomorrow at the latest, the Tatars would have withdrawn from Xuanfu.

Our move to urgently mobilize the Shanxi Town army seems to have been miscalculated. "

Wei Guangde replied.

"This time, it's always a one-sided move. If Ma Fang's tribe cannot encounter the Tatars on the return trip, we have to find ways to reduce the punishment for him this time."

Zhang Juzheng smiled bitterly.

"The encounter is nearly impossible."

Wei Guangde also smiled bitterly.

At this time, in a valley near Beishao Beach, Ma Fang was also learning about the situation outside at this time from the whistle.

"Anda Khan moved westward three days ago, why didn't he report it in time?"

Ma Fang said angrily at this time.

An Dahan ran away, so this time it was all in vain.

It's not easy for 20,000 people to go out for a trip. There is only one small nomadic tribe in Beitan Beach now. Even if they all are killed, it won't be enough to achieve much military success.

"Commander, the main force of the Tatars moved westward a few days ago, and Anda Khan left only after that. Among them"

Liu Han, the general under Ma Fang's tent, reminded him hurriedly.

Liu Han, of course, was the former chief military officer of Datong. He was punished for the failure of the attack and was deprived of the title of chief military officer of Datong.

It's just that Yang Bo of the Ministry of War cherished his talent and tried every means to protect such a general who dared to take the initiative, so that he was not laid off and went home, but was transferred to the Xuanfu as a staff general. He has been with Ma Fang for the past two years.

"Where do you think they will fight?"

In recent years, Ma Fang was stationed in Xuanfu, and the targets of Tatar intrusion had to move westward to Yansui, Ningxia and other towns.

This time, Ma Fang still did not expect that Anda Khan would dare to attack Xuanfu, but still thought of attacking the military town in the west.

However, even if he knew the target, Ma Fang would not be able to directly lead his troops to the west to pursue Anda Khan's army without a military order.

"Ge Jin, take the people to destroy the enemies in Beishatan. The army is ready to return."

After arranging his Qianhu men to clear out Beishandang, Ma Fang let his soldiers rest and prepared to return to Xuanfu.

The continuous victories really made Ma Fang feel a little elated at this time, and her pride was growing inadvertently.

In fact, such signs had appeared in the early years, but Wei Guangde did not notice it. After all, most of the exchanges between the two were letters, so it was not easy to detect.

Two years ago, Xia Yang, the imperial censor of Xuan Daxun, impeached him for "arrogant and powerful generals, seeking credit and greed for war."

However, such impeachment memorials were suppressed by Xu Jie, entrusted by Prince Yu's Mansion at that time, and he was not punished.

After that, Wei Guangde even made friends with the patrol censors of Xuanda and Shanxi in order to prevent such a thing from happening again.

Ma Fang couldn't think of it, but Liu Han, who had suffered a lot, didn't think so.

According to Ma Fang's order, while arranging the battalion sergeants to prepare for the return journey, they were also thinking about the matter.

Finally, when he thought that he would return to Xuan Mansion soon, he suddenly discovered their biggest weakness in this battle.

The Xuanfu border barracks were often attacked by Tatars, but these were small-scale and short-lived. Most of the time the Tatars ran away before the Ming army had time to support them.

The target of their looting in Xuan Mansion was also the property outside the fort, and they had no time to attack the fort.

However, because of this, I am very familiar with the border wall of Xuanfu, and I am familiar with the place where it is suitable to break in quickly.

Thinking of this, Liu Han couldn't help but think about it. If Anda Khan really found out the clues when they came out of the customs, he would send a large army to raid Xuanfu at that time, and just rush south to kill them.

The forts in the Xuan Mansion were unable to resist at all and could only defend the forts. However, the people and property outside the forts had no support and could only be plundered.

The worst thing is that the Xuanfu Ming army has no mobile power and cannot limit the scope of the Tatars' looting.

If the Tatars invade Longqing, Yongning and other cities, I am afraid that martial law will be imposed again in the capital.

Behind Longqing is Juyongguan, in the past is Changping, and it is not far from the capital.

If the Tatars were more courageous, they could attack Longqing directly, attack Juyongguan secretly, and fight their way out of the pass through the Jizhen defense zone.

When Liu Han thought of this, sweat was already covering his forehead. Although the temperature was already quite low at this time, a drop of water almost turned into ice.

Anda Khan had done this many times, killing several Ming army towns like this.

Thinking of this, Liu Han did not dare to delay for a moment, and hurriedly got up and ran towards Ma Fang's tent.