The construction of the pontoon bridge on the Yehe River was quite smooth, although the engineering professionalism of the Liaodong army was far less than that of the Praetorian Guard, which had an independent engineering configuration, but due to the existence of Tingzhou in the river at this time, Tingzhou could be used as an intermediate fulcrum, and the difficulty of building the pontoon bridge was greatly reduced. Even if there was an additional process of ice chiseling, it only took more than an hour to get it ready.

Cao Yan pinched the time and calculated, with a little care of horsepower, Ma Chengxun should be about to return to Dongcheng at this time, but he did not send a messenger, which means that he has no battle situation to report - in other words, it may not have caught up with or met the Mongols.

If he didn't catch up, Ma Chengxun would definitely choose to continue chasing, which is nothing to say; But if it didn't happen, Cao Yan had to be a little worried. He frowned, and for a moment hesitated to send troops across the river.

Thinking of going with him again, there is also Gao Yimin. And judging from his expression, Gao Yimin seemed to be more suspicious, and said in a deep voice: "Zong Rong, the situation seems to be a little different from what I expected before. ”

"What do you suspect?" Cao Yan asked him as he looked at the forest not far from the front of the Qi Jin army formation on the east side, as if he wanted to find something in it.

"Under suspicion...... Gao Yimin also looked towards the forest, and said slowly: "Buzhihatu transferred the tiger away from the mountain, and the main force of the Tartars is still in the forest. ”

Cao Yan's eyes were fixed, but to his surprise, he was not afraid, he just said calmly: "Ben Shuai entered the military camp at the age of thirteen, and so far he has experienced sixty-four battles, winning thirty-one battles, winning seventeen battles, winning eight battles, losing nine battles, and defeating one battle. ”

He took a deep breath and continued: "However, there has never been a battle of foot riding, and I have to try it now, what a regret in this life." Suddenly, he waved his hand and ordered: "Order the two generals Qi Jin and Zhang Wanbang to strengthen their vigilance and prepare to meet the enemy." He also said to Gao Yimin: "Ma Chengxun's department has gone, the northern line has been empty, and it is inconvenient for the commander to sit in the Chinese army. Please ask Brother Gao to lead 1,000 of his handsome family, 500 of my brother's family, and 1,500 guards, a total of 3,000 men and horses, to guard the northern line for this handsome, I wonder if Brother Gao is willing to agree? ”

Gao Yimin wanted to say that he would just let Cao Jian go, but he thought that Cao Yan might have other intentions for not letting his younger brother go into battle, although he didn't know why, he couldn't ignore it. So he said: "Meng Zongrong trusts, and Yimin will not disgrace his life." ”

Cao Yan gave a loud thumbs up, ordered the transfer of manpower to him, and informed Cao Jian. Gao Yimin originally lived as a staff member and never wore armor, but at this time he immediately changed his uniform, put on the "cold iron armor", and led people to arrange the battle formation on the northern front.

Unlike Cao Yan, Gao Yimin's understanding of "riding by foot" is much deeper, although he has a serious face, but he does not see this war as if he is dead like Cao Yan, and even says "What regrets in this life".

The reason why the ancient cavalry was strong was mainly because they were equipped with war horses that could gallop quickly, which gave them an absolute advantage in tactical time and space compared to the slow-moving infantry.

The advantage of cavalry is obvious, but Taizu of the Red Dynasty said well, "Weapons are an important factor in war, but they are not the decisive factor, and the decisive factor is people, not things." Even in the Song Dynasty, which had long been regarded as having poor combat effectiveness in the army, some generals gave full play to people's subjective initiative in the actual war and created some tactics of "riding on foot".

For example, in the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, Wu Jue commanded the battle of Monk Yuan and Xianrenguan used the technique of Fanxiu Stacking Battle, Liu Qi commanded the Battle of Shunchang, and Yue Fei commanded the Battle of Yuncheng, all of which were typical examples of the Song Dynasty using "cavalry by foot" to win.

At that time, the Song army adopted the following three main methods: First, "taking advantage of the terrain and limiting the mobility advantage of the enemy's cavalry."

This method mainly relied on the natural geographical barrier at the junction of the Song and Jin dynasties and the dangerous terrain in the Southern Song Dynasty to restrict the cavalry of the Jin people. In the tactic of "riding with infantry," in order to achieve the goal of controlling cavalry, the emphasis is on "suffocating danger," that is, waging operations on the basis of defense.

In the third year of Jianyan, Lu Yihao, who was the secretary of the Ministry at the time, believed: "The plain and the shallow grass can be used in front of it, but it is a place to ride, one of the cavalry, and ten of the infantry; Mountains, forests, rivers, and rivers, dangerous access and obstacles, is a place to use footsteps, one of the infantry, and ten of the cavalry. Since the Jin people have been in the south, the soldiers of the Central Plains and the Jin people have held each other, and those who have not fought each other have been defeated, and the plains and wilderness have captured many cavalry and the Chinese cavalry is few. "It is advocated to rely on the geographical situation of the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River to resist the attack of the Jin cavalry.

The second is to use the "non-contact" long-range strike of the bow and crossbow projectile to defeat the enemy. If the infantry directly came into contact with the Jin and Mongolian cavalry in a field battle, the cavalry would undoubtedly have a condescending advantage, and only by striking before making contact with the cavalry could they have a chance of victory.

Compared with the Northern Song Dynasty, the manufacturing technology and function of the Southern Song Dynasty bow and crossbow have had some new developments, and the most commonly used ones are the divine arm bow inherited from the Northern Song Dynasty and the newly created enemy defeat bow and Shenjin bow, etc., which will not be repeated here.

The third is to rely on infantry formations to defend the enemy's operations. Due to the shortcomings of cavalry strength, the Song army tried to rely on the infantry formation to defend against foreign cavalry. However, this method of operation limited the impact of the opponent's cavalry, but at the same time sacrificed the mobility of the own army, and from the perspective of actual combat results, it was not a good strategy.

For example, in the battle before the "Lanyuan Alliance", the "Pingrong Wanquan Array" gathered 110,000 elite soldiers of the Song army, and under the subordinates of Dingzhou, they set up a defensive formation like waiting for the rabbit, but they were bypassed by the Liao army and easily attacked the Daimyofu and other cities in the rear.

All in all, the advantage of cavalry is that they always have the first move, they can fight when they want, and leave when they don't want to. If the infantry wants to find out their own advantages, they must first pick the right place, and secondly, they must choose a good weapon.

Today's battle has changed, and the current situation is that the Ming army is fighting on its back - but there is a pontoon bridge that has been built behind it. The number of the Ming army is now slightly lower than that of the Mongolian army due to the "transfer of the tiger from the mountain" by Buzhihatu, but the disadvantage is limited.

As for weapons and equipment, Gao Yimin believes that his own side has a clear advantage.

The greatest pressure was probably on the Qi Jin Division, which was facing the enemy in a wide front. Qi Jinben took more than 3,000 Qi family troops to Shenyang to take office, to be exact, 3,109 people, which is the standard number of a battalion of Qi Jiguang's car battalion.

Under this configuration, the Qijin Sho Battalion had 256 Jinghua No. 3 guns, 512 Wanli Type 2 muskets, and 8 Jinghua No. 2 guns. Later, due to the further improvement of the degree of firearms in the Ming army, the equipment of the car battalion also increased the number of Wanli II muskets to 1,080, and the number of firearms was 1,080, accounting for nearly half of the combat personnel (some of them were specialized in logistics).

Qi Jiguang's standard tactics for the Che battalion were that when the Mongol cavalry charged the Ming army head-on, the Che battalion quickly formed a phalanx, and the infantry cavalry was placed in the middle of the phalanx.

When the Mongol cavalry came within range of firearms, all firearms fired a volley, knocking out a group of Mongol forward troops; However, the Mongols would continue to rush forward, and at this time, the infantry would place horse repellents in front of the chariot formation. A horse repellent is something like thistle, and the horse will either be pricked and startled, or it will be stuck, or even hit headlong to death. Either way, it will cause confusion for the enemy's attack.

Taking advantage of this chaos, the spearmen and wolf soldiers of the Ming army in the car formation stabbed with thousands of guns, so another group of enemy troops were knocked down. By this time, the Mongol cavalry had been in a chaotic formation, the front was about to retreat, but the rear could not stop the car, and still rushed forward, the team was chaotic and lost its spirit.

At this time, after the first two links have fully consumed the enemy army, Qi Jiguang's cavalry troops will suddenly kill and give the Mongolian cavalry the final fatal blow.

However, this tactic has now changed, and after the rise of the bayonet formation, the musketeers also have melee capabilities, so the pikemen and wolf fighters have been greatly reduced, and the number of musketeers has only increased to the 1080 mentioned.

As a result, it also caused a change in tactics, that is, the original "10,000 guns stabbed" became "10,000 guns in unison" under the highly pragmatic "hollow phalanx" tactics, and hand-to-hand combat became shooting.

In recent years, the reform measures of the Ming army have been very large, and the establishment and tactics have been constantly changing. Earlier, Qi Jiguang sat in Jizhen, and wrote in the "Actual Record of Military Training" the firearms configuration (not counting cold weapons) and the number of people in each car battalion, horse battalion, and infantry battalion, at that time, a complete cavalry battalion totaled 8,517 people, at least 3 cavalry battalions, plus the baggage battalion, the number was nearly 30,000.

The main firearms of the nearly 30,000 vehicle, infantry, and cavalry joint combat units are as follows: (excluding the firearms configuration and number of people in the baggage battalion) a total of 384 vehicles, 768 No. 4 guns, 12 rocket vehicles, 24 No. 2 guns, 180 No. 3 guns, 8,232 musketeers (Wanli 1 type), 1,296 fast gunners (Wanli 2 type), 76,800 No. 4 shells, 720 No. 2 shells, 1,497,600 musket bullets, 388,800 quick gun bullets, and 104,280 rockets. No. 3 shells 162000, total number 25551 people.

If the baggage battalion is included, the number of various types of equipment will be increased a little more, and the total strength will reach 30,531 people.

The establishment of the car battalion has made some changes to adapt to the tactical changes with the victory of high pragmatism, but in any case, according to Qi Jiguang's thinking, these 30,000 people can form a "complete establishment".

It's a pity that although the theory is good, it is difficult to do under the military system of the Ming Dynasty. As mentioned before, the military power of the general army has been suppressed, and the Ming army does not have a regular establishment of up to 30,000 people at all - this establishment was placed in the later Red and Blue Civil War period, which is equivalent to a reorganized division of the Blue Army.

Therefore, when Qi Jiguang himself was in Jizhen Town, he could train and "compile" in this way, but when he left, this establishment actually ceased to exist. The only good news is that after he became the Praetorian Guard, he discussed this establishment with Gao Shishi, and created a Beiyang Army-like establishment that was very close to Yuan Shikai's "Small Station New Army".

Although Qi Jin brought a complete car battalion to Shenyang, this time he left 1,000 people to look after his family in Shenyang, and only brought two-thirds of the manpower. Theoretically speaking, Qi Jin now has only one castrated version of the car battalion in his hands, and his combat effectiveness will definitely be affected.

Zhang Wanbang's department, which defended the southern front, was simpler than Qi Jin's department in terms of organization, and he had 500 family members and 1,200 guards. Among them, all the family members were mounted infantry, and now they have already dismounted and set up formation.

Because Zhang Wanbang's department is a typical "highly pragmatic establishment," the ratio of firearms is higher, but there is no van car, and it relies entirely on bayonet formations. The characteristic is that it looks thinner than Qi Jin's department, and as for fighting...... Anyway, his record is there, and no one dares to doubt that he can't bear it.

In contrast, the 3,000 people led by Gao Yimin now are quite "primitive". One is that the proportion of their firearms is not enough, and the family members are fully equipped with Wanli type 1 muskets and "cold iron armor", but the guards are not, and the Longqing 2 style is not complete - of course, the Longqing 2 style has been discontinued, and it is estimated that it will not be matched again, and they are old goods in their hands.

These guards brought by Cao Jian came from Jinzhou, southern Liaoning, there was almost no war in Jinzhou, and the priority of changing clothes was not enough, 1,500 guards only had 400 Longqing II muskets, and the remaining muskets were not three-eyed guns, but bird guns eliminated from Jizhen in the early years.

The range of the bird gun is actually okay, mainly because the accuracy and killing distance are not as good as the Longqing two styles, and the reloading is much slower, as for the comparison with the Wanli one type and the Wanli two styles...... Or don't compare, it sounds sad.

Since neither the Longqing Type nor the Bird Gun could use bayonets, in fact, there were only 1,500 people on Gao Yimin's side who could put up a bayonet formation, and Gao Yimin suspected that their bayonet formation training was seriously insufficient.

One of the biggest characteristics of this "modern tactic" is that it treats people as machines, and similar ideas can be seen by comparing them with "lining up to shoot": you don't need to have thoughts, you don't need to be assertive, you just need to obey orders!

The gist of training such an army, as has been summed up in history, is to the effect that soldiers should be "more afraid of officers than of bullets." Gao Yimin knows this very well, and the Cao family brothers have not been in the ranks of "high-level generals" for a long time, and the family members under their command are more of the same as before: brave fighting, outstanding personal force, but it is difficult to say that the discipline is not good.

Therefore, the current form of defense of the Ming army in the north, east, and south is that the north has the largest number of people but the combat system is slightly outdated; The eastern side has the most complex tactical system, but it is also the most well-trained; The south side was small in numbers and had an excellent tactical system, and by the way, the morale of this army was extremely high, and there was no fear of the Mongols (Zhang Wanbang's troops twice defeated the Mongol cavalry head-on with inferior forces).

Cao Yan himself was in charge of the Chinese army, and there were only seven or eight thousand people left at hand, and most of them were only guards and infantry. The task of these people is naturally to support which side in an emergency, but to say that, the eastern and southern fronts are actually relatively unsuitable for support, because the tactics of these two sides are self-contained, and the guards who supported the past may not be able to cooperate effectively.

Relatively speaking, only if there is a problem on the northern front, his support here will be more useful.

Gao Yimin obviously understands the current situation, he has the largest number of people here, but the actual combat effectiveness may be the lowest. He rushed to the front of the battle, and while directing the arrangement, he became a little nervous in his heart: If I am Buzhhatu, I am afraid that I will have to choose to break through from the north.