In the past, most cavalry could only use ring-headed knives as weapons, charge with knives, or play mounted archery with bows.

Only a small number of cavalry with strong legs and a smaller number of generals could use spears, charge with spears, or pick up spears and fight immediately.

Because there are no double stirrups and Takahashi saddles, the balance of the body depends on the legs to clamp the horse's belly, and you cannot use too heavy weapons, otherwise you will lose your balance and fall off the horse.

Only those who have been carefully trained and have strong enough leg strength can use a weapon similar to a spear, which can charge forward with a certain lethality and impact.

Even so, when stabbing the enemy with a spear, most cavalry must learn to let go in time, otherwise the reaction force brought by the high-speed impact is not something that everyone can bear, and the arm may be torn, and the cavalry itself will be injured and fall from the horse.

At this time, the cavalry can only fight auxiliary, fight with the opponent's cavalry, or chase and kill the rout of the lost formation, which can only be used to strike a small number of infantry, and cannot be used as the main force of the charging formation, the main force is still the infantry army.

It wasn't until the harness matured that the cavalry could really be called an iron horse, with a bit of a torrent of steel, and its lethality to the infantry increased exponentially.

In particular, the heavy cavalry covered in armor, people in armor, horse armor, mace and other weapons with strong lethality, have extremely strong strength to break the formation.

Having said that, this type of heavy cavalry is generally dressed in front of the formation, organized and specially responsible for breaking through the formation and destroying the infantry formation.

However, because of the excessive weight, there are high physical requirements for both people and horses, and it must be borne by strong men and tall horses with excellent bloodlines with strong weight.

Therefore, the number of heavy cavalry must be small, and the time for which they can hold out in battle is also very short, and they cannot run long distances, otherwise they will lose their combat effectiveness due to excessive fatigue.

Therefore, the real heavy cavalry often belongs to the category of battlefield killers, super nirvana.

If you don't come out, you will win.

Think about it, in the face of a well-established infantry formation, a heavy cavalry unit covered in heavy armor, connected to each other in a line, marching in unison and charging together.

They rushed directly towards the infantry formation with an indomitable momentum, like a large piece of iron crashing into the military formation, such an impact force is not something that the shield-wielding infantry can simply resist, and can instantly tear apart the infantry formation and kill all sides within the military formation.

At that time, a large number of follow-up troops followed, breaking the foot soldiers who had lost the protection of the military formation, dividing and encircling them, and breaking them individually.

That poor infantry army would have been tortured and slaughtered like this, and it would collapse directly, with heavy casualties.

That is the tank of the cold weapon era.

If the infantry wants to deal with such a "tank", it cannot fight an encounter, it must preset a position, and the decisive battlefield must be placed on a preset position.

The preset position should dig traps, set up horses to resist horses, and be equipped with weapons such as horse chopping knives to cut off horses' legs, which is one of the weaknesses of heavy cavalry.

Of course, the greatest weakness of the heavy cavalry is not that the legs of the horses are not unprotected, and it is not a joke that very professional and well-trained and physically strong infantry want to fight against heavy cavalry.

The biggest weakness of the heavy cavalry is that it is expensive and few.

The amount of money spent to raise such a heavy cavalry unit is not affordable by ordinary warlords, which is a sky-high price.

First of all, people's physical fitness must be strong, they must be elite, and then they must eat enough meat, and they must have enough protein, oil and water, so that their body bones can withstand heavy armor and bear heavy blades.

Horses are the same, not only must have a good breed, but also must be the best feed, and must be fat and strong enough to be able to charge forward at the same time as wearing heavy armor and carrying heavy armor.

The cost of raising such a heavy cavalry and a horse, with the productivity of ancient times, is conservatively estimated to be about thirty normal foot soldiers.

Judging from Guo Peng's current military level, it is estimated that the only people who can become heavy cavalry are the Tiger Guard's own soldiers.

And the war horses that can carry the load, it is estimated that there are at most a few thousand such war horses out of hundreds of thousands.

When such a unit is taken out, it is absolutely amazing to the world, and for a long period of time, it is an invincible opponent all over the world, and it will definitely make the enemy's military formation cry wolf and run away when they see it.

However, once someone grasps the weakness, as long as it fights, it can inflict heavy losses on the heavy cavalry troops, and once such a unit is heavily damaged, even if the family has a great business and a solid foundation, then it will not be a great burden on the finances to pull up another one within three or five years.

This is the biggest weakness of the heavy cavalry units.

That's the real aristocratic army, the aristocratic play, don't burn money and don't want it.

In Guo's opinion, there is a feeling that the gains outweigh the losses.

As long as the basic cavalry is large enough and well-equipped, it can also be regarded as a torrent of steel, as long as a small number of heavy cavalry rush first to destroy the infantry formation, the cavalry that follows can clean up the infantry like chopping melons and vegetables, and there is no need to really build up tens of thousands of steel torrents.

The financial burden is too great for Guo to afford.

He only needs to let the cavalry free their hands, put on an appropriate amount of armor, take all kinds of weapons, have a certain ability to charge into battle and fight, and let the number of cavalry greatly increase, so that the difficulty of cavalry training is greatly reduced, that is enough.

He is definitely not in the state of being an army for more than ten years and having 400,000 troops to get more than 60,000 cavalry.

It's not too easy to find a soldier with strong enough legs.

With a full set of horse harnesses, not only will the amount of wear and tear of the horses be greatly reduced, but the difficulty and time required to train the cavalry will also be greatly reduced.

The benefits of technological advancements are all too clear.

In November of the first year of Jian'an, Guo Peng held a military meeting in Yecheng, and displayed war horse harness such as double stirrups, horseshoes and Takahashi saddles.

He asked the generals of the whole army, who had experience in leading cavalry, to observe the new posture of the war horses and cavalry equipped with a full set of horse harness, which immediately shocked the generals.

Zhang Fei returned to Yecheng from the border of Youzhou, and was very excited after seeing the soldiers' drills, so he decided to go into battle in person, changed into armor, and rode a war horse equipped with a full set of horse harnesses, and made a lot of difficult tactical moves on the war horse very easily.

Zhang Fei wore a grimace mask, like a ghost, and easily brandished a heavy mace, easily smashing seven or eight wooden figures into rags, looking majestic and imposing.

This situation surprised the generals, and some of the accompanying staff desk officers immediately thought of the benefits that a large number of horse harnesses could bring after seeing the advantages of horse harnesses.

Let the cavalry free their hands, they can use weapons with both hands on their horses, and they can make a lot of tactical moves, which greatly reduces the burden of cavalry on horseback.

More importantly, the quality requirements for cavalry have been greatly reduced, and as a result, more soldiers can become cavalry, and the difficulty and cost of training cavalry have been greatly reduced, which will save a lot of military spending.

And what excited the officers and generals of the staff station the most was the small horseshoe.