Chapter 1290 - The Problem Is Not Small

In the evening of the same day, Ni Liang led the Escort Cavalry Brigade and the First Brigade to Yingshan County through Wuyang Pass, but they did not enter the city, but were stationed outside the city. The next morning, Ni Liang entered the city to meet the emperor, and Zhao Hao considered that they had been traveling for days, and the weather was hot and humid during the day, so he still rested during the day according to the previous rules, and took advantage of the cool period from sunset to early morning.

In the evening, he drove out of the city to meet the army and hit the road again, and Sun Kai drove back to Suizhou. In order to ensure safety, after five miles out of the city, Zhao Yu was persuaded to the car. At night, except for the starry sky and a bright moon, there is really nothing to see in the winding marching procession, so it is really lonely, so Wang Yinglin and Sun Kai are in the same car to talk.

"Sun Kai, your unit is close to the Jingxiang War Zone, and you know more about the situation, have you heard any news?" The royal car is modified, it runs more smoothly than the chariot, and it has eight horses, and it is more equipped inside, but it is still not as good as the modern high-end touring car. The three of them sat down around, and there was a small yellow door to bring tea, he looked at Sun Kai and asked.

"Your Majesty, our army has been besieging Jingxiang for more than three months, and there has been little progress, and the generals have some discussions in private!" Sun Kai didn't know what the emperor wanted to know, and he didn't want to talk about friendly forces, so he didn't dare to say anything.

"Our monarchs and ministers speak in private, there is no need to have any scruples, I will not settle accounts after the autumn, the king is also not a talkative person, even if he has something to say!" Zhao Yu listened to his words and understood that he had scruples, so he said with a smile.

"Well, the subordinates are lying in vain!" Sun Kai nodded and said, "All the generals said that now Jingxiang has concentrated the sixth, seventh and eighth armies of the forbidden army, and suffered very little losses in the early battle, and then strengthened the second cavalry division and the second artillery division and the Ezhou detachment of the inland water division, in addition to the assistance of some state troops, the total strength is 150,000 people, and the enemy army in the Xiangyang area is only 50,000 households and more than a dozen thousand households in nearby Tuntian, and the strength is less than half of our army. It was supposed to capture Xiangyang with the momentum of destroying the withering and decaying, but it could not be attacked for a long time, which is really incomprehensible. ”

"Well, you go on!" Zhao Yu nodded, he dispatched troops several times to strengthen the Jingxiang battlefield, just to want a quick victory, so as to echo the Lianghuai battlefield, but in the end it failed, causing the East Group to be too prominent, and had to give up the capture of Kaifeng and turn to defense.

"The subordinates also talked to the generals in private, thinking that Jing Xiang had been fighting for a long time without success, and there were mainly several problems." Sun Kai said, "On the one hand, the troops on the Jingxiang battlefield were slow to move, and even missed the opportunity to attack, and as a result, in April, the spring rain continued, causing the river to rise, causing difficulties for crossing the river to attack; The two generals, there are many contradictions, not convinced by each other, the wind is rumored that Jiang Zhishuai convened the generals several times, but the result is endless arguments, it is difficult to form a consensus of opinions, and they are all unhappy; Of the three, some people say that although Jiang Zhishuai has a strategy, it is in vain that several generals under him do not cooperate. ”

"What's more, don't hide your head and tail, I want to hear the real situation!" Zhao Hao heard that Xu Kai was deliberately downplaying Jiang Cheng's ability to avoid the suspicion of arguing about the official, so he sank his face and said.

"Yes, Your Majesty!" Sun Kai saw that His Majesty's face was not safe, and he didn't dare to hide it anymore, "Everyone said that Jiang Zhi had no way to command a few of his generals, and it was only because His Majesty remembered the grace of the dragon that he did not remove him......

Although Zhao Hao was able to learn about the situation of various ministries from the secret reports of the secretariat, he was more involved in the ideological dynamics of the personnel, whether there was treason with the enemy, and the corruption of officers, embezzlement of money and food, and abuse of power. And he was also very relieved that Jiang Cheng was not interfering in specific commands except for guidance on strategic issues and major decisions, and what he knew was also obtained from relevant battle reports.

However, Zhao Yu also felt that something was wrong with Jingxiang, and the hundreds of thousands of troops equipped with firearms had not been able to conquer Xiangyang for more than three months, especially when he had ordered to conquer Xiangyang as soon as possible in his three orders, the Song army had not yet entered the core area of Xiangyang, and even the outer encirclement had not been closed, so that the defenders of Xiangyang could still receive external assistance. So this is also one of the reasons why he insisted on pro-conscription.

What Sun Kai said now made Zhao Hao feel that the problem was serious, and now the six and seven armies deployed in the Jingxiang area were actually under the command of Jiang Cheng, and these three armies could be said to be his basic troops, which were reorganized from the forbidden army in front of the palace that he brought to Qiongzhou. Instead, he relied on the 2nd Cavalry Division and the 2nd Artillery Division directly under the Privy Council, as well as the inland water army, and the matter was like a joke.

Because the three armies were not in agreement, no one could convince the other, and they did not convince the others, so they each had their own way of attacking Xiangyang, and it was difficult to achieve it on their own. Jiang Cheng couldn't suppress them, so he wanted to formulate a plan that could be accepted by everyone, but it was so difficult. As a result, there was a stalemate on the battlefield of Jingxiang, and then the dry period of the Han River was missed, making it even more difficult to attack Xiangyang.

In addition, according to Sun Kai's knowledge, the combat effectiveness of several armies on the Jingxiang side was much worse than that of the Jiangdong armies, especially the lack of command ability of the officers. It is rumored that Pan Nian, the commander of the Sixth Army, and Wu Long, the commander of the Seventh Army, actually fought against his Sima and joined the army to command, because he couldn't calculate the accounts, he didn't know how many soldiers a phalanx needed, how long the battlefield could be controlled by each platoon, and he couldn't even understand the current new map, and he had to explain to him by the people below.

The upward and downward effects, the generals are like this, and the officers below will naturally not take the initiative to learn, and they also rely on their subordinates to join the army and Yu Hou. The greatest role of the officers who came back from the lecture hall was to help the officers read the pictures and write the documents, and the officers who came from other armies also did the work of military advisors and staff officers, and they did not have the right to command the troops independently.

Zhao Yu was also extremely shocked when he heard this, and he had two major proofreads in the spring and autumn of the past year, because the Huguang Preparation Division was far away from Lin'an, the deployment was scattered, and the scheduling was inconvenient. They were all dispatched from the Imperial Protector Army and the Jiangdong Army, while the Huguang System and Envoys were all supervised by the Privy Council, and the Placement Division organized the review by itself. He couldn't even understand the true combat effectiveness of each department, and thought that everything was like this!

And Zhao Yu knows very well that the battle between the two armies is by no means like in a war movie, in order to catch people's attention, it is a very scene of hand-to-hand combat between soldiers. Or add some generals to fight alone to cheer up the main play; Then at the sound of an order, the infantry rushed towards the enemy in a tight formation, and the archers' arrows rained down on the shields, and finally the infantry of both sides met in close quarters.

So I took it for granted that the ancient generals seemed to be able to fight as long as they could fight, occasionally attack with fire, or know how to ambush the enemy. Zhao Yu can tell you clearly, don't be too naïve! If you fail the course every year in high school, you can only stand in the front row and be a small soldier when you travel back to ancient times. Although being a military commander does not require you to get perfect marks in advanced mathematics and linear algebra, if you are not good at mathematics, you will definitely not be able to command the army well.

Because it is a headache for the commander to arrange thousands of soldiers on the battlefield in a reasonable formation, after all, every step on the battlefield is related to life and death. When it comes to the battlefield, it will be more complicated when it comes to the formation.

For example, how many lines does an infantry team have to stand? In order to ensure that each infantry does not swing a knife or stab during the battle, it may hit a friendly soldier and accidentally injure a comrade, how much space does each infantry have to fight? This is all calculated, and this is when no special formations are used, and when the iconic Goose Wing Formation is used, or when opposing enemy cavalry charges, the formation configuration will be different. As a commander, on-the-spot adaptability is essential.

On the other hand, there is also mathematics involved in the specific soldier position. How many pikemen, sword and shield soldiers, and crossbowmen are there in an army, a division, a regiment, or even a city, and how should you arrange the formation and assign the soldiers' battle positions to ensure that they can all exert their maximum combat power. At this point, you'll have to go through a series of slightly more complex calculations, otherwise you'll have to mess up with it.

The depth of the formation is also a problem, that is, for the simplest phalanx, how to ensure that the number of horizontal rows and the number of vertical columns are equal or very small, and how much longitudinal spacing between soldiers should be, so as to leave room for step, to ensure that more front row personnel are engaged in battle, and can surround the fragile flanks of the narrow formation.

Now that the New Song Dynasty has entered the era of firearms, muskets have become the protagonists of the battlefield, the formation that attaches importance to hand-to-hand combat has become outdated, and the infantry formation has also changed, and the line infantry tactics have replaced the traditional infantry tactics. In order to ensure the continuity and density of firepower, the most common is the so-called 'triple attack', after encountering the enemy, the soldiers in the rear row will go to the front, and the number of rows will change from six to three. Immediately after that, the first row of soldiers could shoot on their knees, the second row of soldiers could bend down to shoot, and the third row would shoot standing up, so that all the musketeers could fire a volley of fire if necessary.

At the same time, there are requirements for the distance between each infantry battalion: the distance between the various formations should be large enough so that they have enough space to deploy in a linear formation, although this is only the general case. In many cases, it has to change according to the specific battlefield terrain, and it also requires accurate and fast calculations.

Countering cavalry is still very important in the era of line infantry. If enemy cavalry is observed charging towards you, the infantry should form a hollow anti-cavalry phalanx in a very short time, and sometimes even have to line up your troops in a more complex solid phalanx to deal with the enemy's cavalry threat. The transformation of the formation is like building blocks, how to put together blocks of different specifications into a suitable large square, and at the same time, it also needs to be calculated to maximize the combat efficiency.

And these are only the basic skills to be mastered as an officer, so they can't learn arithmetic well, and not a single grassroots officer is unqualified, let alone a senior commander who commands thousands of troops and horses, and has to cooperate with all branches of the armed forces......

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