More than an hour later, Li Xiao hosted a banquet to entertain Zu Wan'er and his party, and then sent them back. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

"In the future, if I have time, I will often come to see you." Zu Wan'er was reluctant, and her beautiful and clear eyes that looked directly at Li Xiao seemed to be able to see through people's hearts.

"Li Xiao is waiting for Wan'er to arrive at any time." Li Xiao smiled and replied loudly.

After sending Zu Wan'er and his party away from the pier of no return, Li Xiao watched them disappear on the distant official road. The slanting sun clinged to him, dyeing his contemplative face into a warm golden yellow.

Eleven days later, Li Xiao's horse armor custom-made at Zhang Tongzhu in Jinzhou City was made, loaded on the carriage that Li Xiao went into the city to purchase daily necessities, and sent back.

Li Xiao saw that this set of horse armor was divided into four parts: a curtain, a chicken neck, a swinging chest and a front armor body, all of which were made of small black wrought iron pieces with a size of about 3 centimeters square and a thickness of more than 2 millimeters, skewered with cow tendons, coated with varnish to prevent rust on the outside, and a thick cowhide lining on the inside to prevent the iron pieces from directly rubbing against the horse's skin and causing it to fester.

Li Xiao first asked people to test the effect of defensive arrows.

He took the front armor body to test, hung it on a wooden stake, and then asked Wang Yishou to fire arrows at it from dozens of paces away.

Wang Yishou took his bow and arrows, and shot a few arrows in succession, only to hear a few crisp sounds of metal impact, and all those arrows fell to the ground, and none of them could penetrate the dense armor leaves.

Li Xiao was quite satisfied with the result of this test launch, and everyone on the sidelines was also happy.

This meant that even if the enemy had archers in front of them, it would be difficult to inflict substantial damage on the iron-scaled heavy cavalry and armoured horses.

Next, Li Xiao began to experiment with horse clothing.

Tian Wei couldn't hold it anymore on the side, he hugged all the vests over, loaded and tied all his mounts with his own hands, and then put on his whole body, picked up the riding gun and turned over on the horse.

"Drive!" Tian Wei shouted loudly and rode away.

He went around for more than a mile, then turned around, jumped off his horse, laughed and said to Li Xiao: "Vice-team! The armor was very well designed, and the horses could run without hindrance, and although the speed was a little slower, it was full of momentum and did not hinder it. In my opinion, after wearing such a vest, it can not only charge into battle, but also pursue the enemy in a short distance, which is really good! ”

Li Xiao smiled, and he estimated the weight of the horse in his heart. The person on the horse is 50 pounds of armor, the weight of the person is about 130 pounds, the vest is about 65 pounds, and the riding gun is 15 pounds, so the total weight of the horse is 260 pounds, that is, 130 kilograms. Combined with the weight of the Mongolian horse of 400 kg, the combined weight of the entire heavy cavalry is 530 kg.

Li Xiao knew that in the medieval French heavy cavalry, the weight of the horses was far more than this load, and the heavy cavalry with full armor could even carry more than half a ton of weight in the extreme charge.

Taking the ordinary gendarme cavalry of the 15th century as an example, a gendarmer includes 35 kg of plate armor, 55 kg of horse armor, a long sword, a mace (or axe), a dagger, a riding spear, and a shield with a total weight of 25 kg, and the foreigners themselves have more than 70 kg, and the overall weight of the horse is 185 kg. The horse is a French Norman horse with a height of 1.6-1.7 meters and a weight of about 500 kilograms, and the combined weight of the horse can reach 685 kilograms!

The standard mode of combat in such European cavalry warfare is usually that heavy cavalry controls the war horse, starting from 200 meters to prepare for the charge, first strolling, then brisk walking, by trot, and finally 50 meters, flat cavalry guns, full speed sprint. In the face of such a terrifying onslaught, this European heavy cavalry was almost invincible unless the extremely well-trained hoplites could barely withstand it. After the enemy army is crushed, the heavy cavalry retreats, and the light cavalry or infantry sweeps the remnants and pursues the routed soldiers.

Now the heavy cavalry set by Li Xiao has a combined weight of 530 kilograms, which is enough to stand out from the crowd on this eastern continent and show off their skills. Li Xiao was sure that unless both sides were heavily hedged, and the weakly armored Jurchen heavy cavalry on the opposite side had a large advantage in numbers, or he foolishly attacked the front of the well-trained pikemen, then it was possible for an elite heavy cavalry like himself to be defeated.

Moreover, these cavalry are not actually fully armored, because there is no rear armor body and tail, in fact, it is a simplified version of the semi-armor small full armor, so that compared with those bulky European heavy cavalry, it is much more flexible, it can be easily maneuvered, maneuver and steer, and there is still the spare strength to pursue the enemy in a short distance after charging into battle.

Of course, with the course of history, the dominant medieval method of fighting with spears of the heavy cavalry in Europe began to be gradually suppressed by the well-trained hoplites and the rising musketeers at the end of the fifteenth century, and for a long time, it was in a state of decline. At this time in Europe, in order to ensure the use value of cavalry, in traditional cavalry powers such as France, cavalry with arquebuses began to appear with arquebuses and mobile invitations, which was quite similar to the combat mode of the American western cowboys in later generations.

However, in the sixteenth century, in which Li Xiao is now, a fierce man was born and regained the dignity and glory of cavalry, especially heavy cavalry.

This man was the king of Sweden, Gustav II.

Gustav? Gustavus 2adolphus, born 1594 and died 1632, King of Sweden (r. 1611-1632). He was Gustav, the founder of the Vassar dynasty of Sweden? Grandson of Vasa. In 1612-1613, the young King Gustav II launched a war against Denmark in order to restore Sweden's status as a great power, but Sweden was forced to cede land and sue for peace.

The young king, who had been humiliated, began to work hard. He began to streamline the army, improve weapons and equipment, especially the strict training of heavy cavalry, making it a new type of cavalry that emphasized tactical coordination and team fighting, and made it work closely with infantry, artillery, and logistics troops in battle, and finally this reform of Gustav II achieved remarkable results. In the following 1614-1617, he led his army to war against Russia, which won a major victory, forcing Russia to sign the Treaty of Stolpovo, which secured Sweden's possession of the Baltic Sea region and acquired large tracts of Russian land around the Gulf of Finland.

With Sweden as an excellent example, Prussia, France, Britain and other powerful countries began to do the same, and formed strong heavy cavalry teams, and the group charge of heavy cavalry began to become a clever way to defeat the enemy.

"This vest is very good and meets the requirements of this team. Mr. Wu can then follow this system to make 19 other pairs of horse armor. Li Xiao, who came back to his senses from his thoughts, smiled and ordered Wu Liang.

"The students must obey the orders of the Lord of the Hundred Households." Wu Liang smiled and promised.

At this time, Tian Wei and others proposed that now that there is a real sample, they can take this sample to other blacksmith shops in Jinzhou and let them do it, or even take it to the blacksmith shops in Ningyuan, Shanhaiguan and other places to customize, so as to save production time and let the heavy cavalry build as soon as possible.

Li Xiao agreed with them, and asked Wang Yishou to go with Wu Liang to various blacksmith shops to order the horse to be armoured. Because the room in the pier is about to be completed, by the way, the families of Tian Wei, Wang Yishou, Chen Monkey and others were picked up from Shanhaiguan.

Wang Yishou and Wu Liang took the sample and left.

After a few days, after seeing that the cavalry were more familiar with the use of weapons, Li Xiao and Tian Wei began to train the cavalry to cooperate in battle formations.

Li Xiao's key drill was a wedge-shaped battle formation.

Li Xiao has seen history and knows that this wedge-shaped battle formation is the secret of the majestic Teutonic Knights in those years, crisscrossing Europe.

The specific form of this battle formation is that the hoplites are the vanguard of the assault, the infantry follows, and the flanks and rear are protected and expanded by the light cavalry. This wedge formation is a common tactic used by the knights, its advantage is that the assault ability is strong, can quickly tear through the opponent's defense line, if the enemy's military literacy is not high, it is easy to be cut by the wedge tip of the cavalry wedge battle formation, break through from one point, and then quickly tear the enemy in half from this base point, thus finally causing the effect of the enemy's entire line of rout.

At that time, the Teutonic Knights relied on this trick to dominate Europe almost invincible, and under the oppression of his strong force, the Lithuanians who believed in the primitive religion had to accept Catholicism, so that they could avoid the doom of the country.

The real defeat of the Teutonic Knights was the Battle of Lake Chud in the winter of 1242, due to the slippage of the horse's hooves on the ice, the heavy cavalry could not successfully attack, and finally lost to the Russian hoplite coalition, this battle killed or captured more than 10,000 excellent knights who had experienced a hundred battles, and then the Teutonic Knights fell into the joint attack of Poland, Hungary, Russia and other countries, and gradually fell into decline and extinction in all sides, and finally, the remnants of the Teutonic Knights were renamed and established the German Knights, Headquartered in Vienna, Austria, it abandoned killing and conquest in favor of philanthropy, which has survived to this day. In the middle of last year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel also met with their representatives for unknown reasons.

Outside the pier, on an open and gentle, weedy flat ground, a group of cavalrymen in armor and guns began to train according to Li Xiao's requirements.

At this time, Tian Wei, Wang Yishou and others, in these days of training, have selected 20 heavy cavalry and 14 light cavalry specific candidates. The selection principle is also very simple, those who are better at riding and know how to shoot bows and arrows are preferred as light cavalry, and the rest are heavy cavalry candidates.

If you look at it from the sky, the cavalry lined up in battle formation looks like this.

At the front are heavy cavalry lined up at sharp angles of more than 30 degrees, each armed with a cavalry spear, taking the lead in charging in a pyramid shape, breaking the enemy with momentum and sharpness. And at the end of this pyramid, there is a whole team of light cavalry that follows, they cover the rear wing, everyone is armed with a riding knife, and those who know archery also carry bows and arrows, ready to break the formation of the heavy cavalry in front, these light cavalry immediately wield their swords and slash and kill, expand the results of the battle, and chase and kill the rout.

In this kind of training, the most important thing is that the cavalry formation must always be compact and orderly, whether it is accelerating the charge or jogging slowly to maintain the formation, which is quite difficult for the cavalry who have just begun to practice, but it is a hurdle that must be overcome.

In fact, in this late Ming and Qing era, both sides of the Ming and Qing dynasties did not have a standard method of cavalry warfare, and there was no such special cavalry training. Both sides are elite heads, following their own generals to rush into battle, the main force of the Ming army's cavalry is the general's family, and the Qing army is the white tooth and horse armor soldiers, after the cavalry impact, if you take the lead, you will slash and kill, if the battle is unfavorable, roll up the flag and flee, of course, on the probability of defeat, the Ming army is more than ten times that of the Qing army.

At that time, the Houjin also had a method of warfare, that is, the heavy cavalry was arranged behind the heavy infantry used to charge the formation, and when the infantry of the two armies engaged in the battle, they went around to the side and rear to impact the two wings of the Ming army, and there was basically no frontal case of using heavy cavalry to defeat the Ming army's infantry array.

In fact, really speaking, there is a lot of knowledge in these cavalry battle formation training, not only the cooperation between personnel, such as horse speed, wind direction, spacing and other factors, will have a considerable impact on the effect of the battle formation. If you want to be more detailed, including the training and feeding of war horses in peacetime, the diet and body control of the cavalry itself, etc., there are quite requirements, and European countries have also explored for many years before they finally took shape, and Li Xiao, who traveled back from later generations, only knows a rough idea, and can only improve it in practice while groping.

Li Xiao and Tian Wei were divided into two shifts, morning and afternoon, taking turns to direct training. Li Xiao had carefully arranged the time, and when the cavalry was tired of training and resting, four or five old men from those homeless families were selected to carry over the horse trough and feed the horses with refined bean feed. In the afternoon, when the horses were put into the stables after training, the cavalrymen washed their horses, and the laborers not only fed the horses with grass and bean feed, but also fed the horses some salt to replenish their strength.

When the horses are resting at night, these laborers also pay attention to the warmth of the horses, so as not to get cold and sick to the horses. Now Li Xiao only has two extra horses in his hands, and if an illness comes down, the war horses will immediately be out of use.

After practicing like this for more than ten days, the horses ordered from various places have been retrieved, and Tian Wei, Wang Yishou and other family members have also been taken to the pier.

After the twenty heavy cavalry horses were all armoured, the entire heavy cavalry team marched forward, and the momentum was quite powerful, like a fierce black steel monster. Moreover, as soon as this equipment was upgraded, the spirit of the cavalry also rose a lot, and the spirit of the training was strengthened. This small cavalry team that Li Xiao painstakingly built up has become more and more of a fierce and majestic momentum.

Another month passed.

As the sun sets, the autumn breeze is bleak, rolling up and falling leaves all over the sky. The heavy blood color dyed the entire open space a dizzying dark red, but it made the black cavalry lined up in a neat wedge-shaped battle formation, like charging in a curtain of blood, quite a rough and sharp beauty.

"The deputy team, this heavy cavalry team and light cavalry team, after a while of training, should be able to go into battle to kill the enemy. But I don't know what the deputy team plans to name them? Tian Wei asked with a smile at Li Xiao.

"The name of the team has been decided, and the heavy cavalry team is named Xuanhu Cavalry! The hussars took the name of the Flying Harriers! Li Xiao's voice was clear and deep, and his handsome eyes shone like bloodshot in the sky, like two sparkling rubies.

"What a Xuanhu ride! What a flying harrier! The name taken by Li Baihu is imposing! Tian Wei, Wang Yishou and others all clapped their hands and laughed.

Li Xiaoyi laughed loudly, and the whistling cold autumn wind blew, spreading everyone's hearty and heroic laughter far away。。。。。。