Both the Ming and Mongolian sides claimed to have achieved a great victory at the Yehe River, but whether the victory was a great victory itself depends on the strategic objectives of both sides, and to a certain extent, the strategic objectives of both sides have indeed been achieved.

The purpose of the Ming army's dispatch this time was to save Yehe and stabilize Beiguan, and this purpose was obviously achieved after the victory at the Yehe River. After the main force of the Mongol army retreated, when Cao Yan led his troops to Xicheng, hundreds of Mongolian defenders in Xicheng were retreating, and Cao Yan successfully received Xicheng.

The purpose of the Mongol army's eastward invasion was relatively more complicated, or their purpose was very flexible from the beginning, which can be divided into several grades. Directly seizing Beiguan is of course the best goal, but when the Ming army directly sent 20,000 elites, Buzhhatu knew that this goal would be difficult to achieve.

Despite this, Buzhhatu is not in a hurry, he can also stir up Liaodong, and the chaos in Beiguan provokes internal competition among the Jurchens, so as to distract Daming. As for what role Mongolia plays in it, it is naturally a fisherman, and it is a very active fisherman, if the sandpiper and the clam want to stop, Mongolia will go to add fire, so that sooner or later the Ming Dynasty will have to start.

Shooting, that means wasting power, whether it is manpower, material resources, financial resources or time, the Ming must pay, so as to relieve the pressure and delay time for Mongolia.

According to this line of thinking, in fact, the Mongols could not have even fought the battle of the Yehe River. It's just that Buzhhatu always felt that since Gao pragmatically fought the Battle of Monan, the strategic situation of the Ming and Mongolian sides has been reversed, from the original Mongols who took the initiative to continue to disturb the border and the Ming passive defense, to the Ming began to recuperate and formulate the national policy of "Eastern System", intending to conquer Mongolia in one fell swoop.

Such an offensive and defensive reversal happened to the Ming Dynasty, which has been founded for more than 200 years, and it is really difficult for Buri Hatu to tolerate. Even in the past, the Ming army occasionally burned the wasteland, but it was just a fire out of the plug and left, once upon a time dared to take the destruction of Mongolia as the goal?

Therefore, Buzhihatu's sense of crisis is very heavy, he is keenly aware that the change of the Ming Dynasty comes from Gao Pragmatism, and the combat effectiveness of the Ming Army has improved over the years, regardless of tactics and armaments, it is closely related to Gao Pragmatism, not to mention that he himself has become the "first marshal in the world" of the Ming Dynasty.

What the enemy agrees with is what we oppose, and what the enemy wants to hold on to is what we will defeat. The Ming army wants to recuperate, and Buzhhatu wants to make the Ming Dynasty unable to live in peace, and all the plans are for this in the final analysis.

When Yeh's strength has been hit, when Hada's weakness is exposed to everyone's eyes, when Nurhachi's greed is noticed by everyone...... In fact, most of the strategy of Buzhhatu is already completed.

But this time, Buzhhatu was reluctant to stop immediately, because he found that the Ming army's will to fight had exceeded his original estimate, to the point where it had to be stopped.

Where is this judged? It was discovered from the performance of the Ming army when encountering the city of Yehe Dongcheng.

In the past, the Ming army rarely took the initiative to do a decisive battle with the main force of the Mongolian cavalry, but this time Cao Yan made a move to forcibly attack the main force of the Mongolian army under the city of Yehedongcheng, which means that the Ming army, at least the elite of the Ming army, is not afraid of the main Mongolian force at all, and is confident of a decisive battle with the main force of the Mongolian army.

This kind of confidence is what the Mongols are most worried about, the Ming Dynasty in all aspects of manpower, material and financial resources to form a crushing trend against Mongolia, once the millions of troops under its command are no longer afraid of the Mongolian iron cavalry, dare the Mongolian cavalry to do a head-on battle, then how can Mongolia be at peace in the future?

And the source of this confidence, Buzhhatu thought about it, and felt that the biggest possibility was that Gao Pragmatic's three big victories were all on foot.

Although Gao Shishi's three victories were brilliant because his plans always put the Mongol cavalry in a dilemma of having to fight a decisive battle, and he was able to form a local advantage, or encircle or ambush, so the results were amazing. But Buzhhatu had to ask rhetorically, why couldn't the Ming army do this before Gao Pragmatism?

The reason is not complicated, the original Ming army, you just let them surround the Mongolian cavalry, and you can't really block it, as long as the Mongols really face a desperate situation, a charge will be killed.

Only when Gao Zheng was in charge of the army, the Ming army not only saw a significant increase in firepower, but also came up with a set of special methods to deal with cavalry, that is, the so-called bayonet array.

The term "bayonet array" itself comes from the Ming Dynasty itself, and this very deceptive name even Burihatu was fooled into it, thinking that the key to the Ming army's infantry riding was the bayonet itself. At that time, Buzhhatu was also a little incomprehensible, what the bayonets could do, the spearmen in the past could do it or even better, why did the Ming army abandon the spear formation and use the bayonet formation?

Many years ago, Buzhhatu believed that the number of spearmen in the Ming army was decreasing because the Ming army did not dare to fight hand-to-hand, and they were extremely cowardly, and only dared to shoot with firearms such as birds and guns from a distance. Once the Mongol cavalry rushed over, they were immediately scattered, and any formation was a thousand miles away, and only a few elite troops were able to stand up and fight a tough battle.

However, there are always too few individual elites, such as Qi Jiajun, Ma Jiajun, Li Jiajun, Ma Jiajun and other old opponents of the Mongols, except for Li Chengliang's Li Jiajun, none of them can exceed 10,000. With this amount of troops, the emergency field is about the same, and it will be difficult to turn the tide, so it is naturally impossible for the Ming army at this time to win any real big victory.

After the Gengshu Change, the first war that the Ming Dynasty could truly call a great victory was the Battle of Monan, which Buri Hatu personally experienced.

Gao Pragmatism also began to be regarded as a "Wen Shuai" after this war - although the scale of the Battle of Annam was also very large, it was impossible for the mainstream of the Ming Dynasty to regard Annam as an opponent of the Mongolian level, so the success of the Battle of Annam within the Ming Dynasty was slightly insufficient.

In this battle of Monan, Gao Shishi's performance was perfect, but as some people within the Ming Dynasty also noticed, Burihatu also knew that the real main force of this battle was actually Tumut and not the Ming itself. Gao pragmatic actually used the powerful Tumut Iron Cavalry to crown him victoriously through superb political means.

Even if ordinary people find out about this, they will only think that they can use high pragmatic means to "defeat raze", but Buzhhatu has found another key point.

It's not that Gao Pragmatism has to show some superb political means, but he clearly understands that with the strength of the Ming army at that time, he can't win the battle of Monan!

There is no hearty victory at the bottom, and the vast majority of the elite Ming troops simply do not have the courage to face tens of thousands of Mongolian cavalry alone.

Therefore, Gao pragmatic carefully selected and designed, and chose an important but not particularly large location for the appearance of the "Bayonet Array", which led to the battle of Zhang Wanbang and his son's great victory over Xin Ai.

This battle, therefore, unsurprisingly became the focus of the Ming army's propaganda - the other battles were all fought by Tumut, and it was inconvenient to blow it.

As a result, the "bayonet array" became famous and became the killer weapon of the Ming Dynasty's infantry riding. The Ming Dynasty believed that with the miraculous power of the bayonet array, it was enough to contain or even stifle the fierce power of the Mongol cavalry for many years.

At this time, the Ming Dynasty was like the European powers in the twentieth century, and it had the right to speak. The Ming Dynasty preached so hard, and it didn't take long for another battle in southern Liaoning, as a result, even the Mongols themselves believed in the evil of high pragmatism, thinking that the bayonet array was indeed extremely powerful, and the Mongolian iron cavalry had encountered the most powerful opponent in history.

Then there was the Northwest Rebellion, where was the daredevil, Bo Shuoketu, a pragmatic opponent, who was calculated to death by someone Gao, crashed into the encirclement by force, and was pitted by the bayonet array - this is the statement of the Ming Dynasty, and now Buzhhatu has guessed that the real merit of that encirclement is definitely not bayonets, but firearms.

Three great victories, the bayonet array was famous, and the Mongols changed their color when they heard about it. Although Cao Yan did not command a bayonet array, he had a bayonet array at his command, so he was not very afraid of a field battle with the Mongol cavalry, and was very arrogant and prepared to repel the Mongols under the city of Dongcheng.

Although Buzhhatu had doubts about the power of the bayonet array, he was reluctant to fight under the city of Dongcheng, because at that time, the Ming army also had many elite cavalry, and the Yehe cavalry in Dongcheng City could also fight at any time, and the choice of the battlefield here was not conducive to the Mongol army. Once the attack on the bayonet array is in trouble, and the Ming cavalry and Yehe cavalry launch an offensive from the flank, then the Mongols will have another major defeat.

Therefore, Burihatu chose to retreat directly to avoid fighting. But Buzhhatu was definitely not willing to retreat, he had to find a way to personally test the depth of this bayonet array, otherwise how could he make a correct decision when dealing with the Ming army in the future?

Whether it was to transfer Ma Chengxun away from the mountain, or to pick up Zhang Wanbang's troops on the southern front instead of attacking the weak enemy on the northern front, these were all special arrangements made by Buzhihatu in order to "test" the quality of the bayonet formation.

Is there anything wrong with Cao Yan and Gao Yimin's tactics? Actually, no. They just didn't expect that under the series of means of Buzhhatu, the purpose was not to defend Xicheng, or even to inflict heavy damage or defeat on the Ming army. Burihatu just wanted to test the true power of the bayonet array and understand its tactical characteristics, so that he could think about how to crack it on his own.

As for Burihatu's repeated claims to break the myth of the bayonet array, in fact, it is nothing more than wartime propaganda. Of course, it is best to be able to break, and it is actually within his acceptable range if it cannot be broken.

The outcome of this battle is still acceptable to Buzhhatu. Although nearly 2,000 were killed in the battle (more than 1,600 were beheaded by the Ming army, and most of the rest were seriously wounded after being rescued), and the elite heavy cavalry suffered heavy losses, Buzhhatu still thought the battle was worth it.

No matter how big the loss is, it is bigger than Mo Nan? In the battle of Monan, the loss of Chahar's main force alone was in 10,000, and this time it was less than 2,000, what's the big deal? Compared with the harvest, Buzhihatu can be completely satisfied, and it is enough to give an explanation to the Tumen Khan.

After listening to the detailed battle report and the analysis and explanation of Buzhihatu, Tumen also felt that although the loss of 2,000 people was not small, it was completely worth it, at least he now understood that the real strength of the bayonet formation was not that it could restrain the cavalry, but that it could combine the cold and hot weapons of the Ming army to form a new tactical system.

This tactical system was closely coordinated with the various weapons of the Ming army in the past, which was the magic weapon of the Qi army, and the bayonet formation was characterized by the opposite, and it appeared to simplify operations.

According to the past tactics of the Qi family's army, including the mandarin duck array, the characteristics are "each has its own division", that is, the firecracker is only responsible for releasing the gun, and the wolf is only responsible for blocking the enemy, and so on.

Is this tactic good? Of course, it's easy to make, otherwise Qi Jiguang's victory in a hundred battles is because he is hanging?

But the problem is that once a certain part is missing, this mandarin duck array will be somewhat incomplete, and its effectiveness will be greatly reduced, and this is also one of the root causes of Qi Jiguang's insistence on fighting with few casualties or even zero casualties. It's not that his thinking is advanced to the 21st century, it's that he knows that casualties have too much influence on his tactical system.

He first vigorously emphasized the use of firearms, and the proportion of musketeers increased day by day under Gao Pragmatic's insistence, so that the command of a general like Zhang Wanbang was even completely firearmed—in addition to artillery, the combat troops were musketeers, and only Zhang Wanbang himself fought with pure cold weapons.

It is clear to everyone that musketeers cannot fight in close combat, is Gao pragmatic doing this to give up hand-to-hand combat? No, he made a bayonet and gave the bayonet a platform with all his might, deliberately letting his three great victories be attributed to the bayonet formation.

Why? Burihatu now understands that no matter how strong the firearm is, it cannot represent the blood and courage of the Ming army, and blood and courage will always be the soul of an army.

At the beginning, the Ming army that did not dare to fight hand-to-hand, the Mongols looked down on it at all, and once the Ming army dared to fight hand-to-hand, the Mongols, including him Buzhihatu himself, immediately felt a huge threat.

This is the transformation brought about by blood bravery.

Gao pragmatic did not publicize how powerful his cannon was, did not publicize how powerful his musket was, but preached his bayonet array, the reason was that he wanted to use this to arouse the blood and courage of the Ming army, so that the Ming army dared to fight hand-to-hand and dare to face any strong enemy.

As long as his goal was achieved, the Ming army would become a force that integrated long-range attack and close combat. Any army that wants to fight against the Ming army must first be hit by artillery, then by muskets, and finally with bayonets, which is difficult to think about how deadly it is.

And the most shocking thing about Buzhhatu is that such an army that combines long-range attack and close combat has actually existed in the past, that is, the Mongol army after the conquest of Central Asia!

There are return cannons in the distance, there are horse bows, and there are scimitars in the near!

The Mongol army of that time is now long gone, and even if they are still there, Buzhhatu knows that he will not be able to deal with the army that Gao Shishi hopes to build.

In terms of distance, Jinghua's artillery has no rival in northern Xinjiang; In the theory, the effective killing distance of the musket has exceeded that of the bow and arrow, and the power is much greater; In terms of close combat, the scimitar did not necessarily have an advantage over the bayonet after losing the charging momentum of the war horse.

Tumen looked at the worried Buzhihatu, hesitated, but couldn't help asking: "Is there a way to solve it?" ”

Buri Hatu slowly came back to his senses and shook his head slightly: "Not yet." Then, as if he couldn't bear to look at the disappointed eyes of the Great Khan, he sighed and added, "Let's see if the things left in Xicheng can do something." ”

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