Weird Three Kingdoms

Chapter 3329

This so-called "stick-to-stick" tactic was developed by Li Li based on his own thinking and secondary research from the battle reports of Sima Yi's cavalry archers.

I have practiced it many times, but never had a real combat experience with real weapons.

Now, it is Cao Jun's turn to enjoy Li Li's first time.

Li Li was not a famous general in the Three Kingdoms period. If he had not met Fei Qian, he might have spent his entire life as a soldier in Mobei or the north, living and dying in silence. But now he has a bigger stage that allows him to freely display his talents.

Li Li ignored the light arrows from Cao's army flying from afar. He ran while looking left and right at his own formation.

Because it was he who proposed the "stick together" tactic, he had to experience the ambiguity of closeness and the pleasure of friction personally.

Sima Yi's original cavalry archer tactics were similar to flying a kite. Run for a while, stop and shoot, then run for a while, and shoot again. Although Sima Yi achieved good results with this tactic, Li Li felt that it was not suitable, or it did not fully play the advantages of cavalry, and it was not a very complete tactical model.

This may be because Sima Yi himself is not a cavalry general. He is just a part-time commander of the Dali Temple. Although he has been trained at the grassroots level in the Northern Territory, he has never been on the battlefield in the Northern Territory. He has never faced the enemy with a sword like a cavalry academy general. Even Sima Yi's archery skills...

Um, cough, cough, let’s not talk about it.

Therefore, when Sima Yi was developing the archer cavalry tactics, he was inevitably subject to the invisible limitations of his own personal abilities. Now, as a military student who has lived in the north and the desert for a long time and has climbed up step by step from the grassroots soldiers, Li Li has a deeper understanding of the combination of the two skills of archery and horsemanship.

For cavalry, their strongest weapon is not the bow and arrow, but their speed!

Therefore, Sima Yi's direction actually had some deviations.

Sima Yi's cavalry archery tactics were actually a combination of infantry and war horses, rather than a true cavalry tactic.

Li Li made the opposite choice from Sima Yi, that is, no matter what time, especially in the life-and-death moment of battle, the speed of the cavalry must not be slowed down!

Sima Yi's archer cavalry tactics of running, stopping and shooting actually have advantages.

The long distance ensures the survival of the cavalry archers, and they will not be stabbed or hit by the swords and guns of the infantry. Stopping to shoot ensures the accuracy of the cavalry archers' shooting. In this way, they can ensure their own survival and increase the damage to the enemy, which is naturally very sharp.

But Li Li chose another way, another direction...

speed!

When the cavalry began to form a formation and gallop, for the soldiers of Cao's army, it felt like the world was full of horse heads and horse legs.

The long horse mane fluttered in the wind, and the dust raised by the horse's hooves rushed towards Cao's soldiers like a curtain wall.

  The leading cavalry were all experienced elites. They controlled their horses accurately and did not change direction while galloping or become unstable when they got close to Cao's infantry line. The results of long-term training and actual combat were fully reflected in them. Under the leadership of these leading cavalry, Li Li's troops, who were ready to get close to Cao's army, were like fish swimming in water. They flicked their tails steadily and almost got close to Cao's army!

The dense hoofbeats merged into a rumbling sound, which sounded like heavenly music to Li Li's ears!

But in the perception of Cao's soldiers, the actions of Li Li and others were like a huge chariot made of iron and blood. Even if they did not crush them directly, just passing by them closely was enough to make ordinary Cao's soldiers tremble with fear and scream.

"Hold on! Hold on!"

The generals in the Cao army formation yelled. They didn't understand why Li Li and others did this, but they had instinctively sensed the danger. While shouting at others to stay calm, they began to shrink their heads behind shields and human walls.

They said "stick to each other", so they would not charge in directly. When the distance between the cavalry and the Cao army was only ten steps, Li Li suddenly shouted: "Wind! Strong wind!"

The whole column of hussars also shouted:

"Strong wind!"

"Strong wind!"

As the roar sounded, the neat red tassels fluttered, then he half-turned sideways, leaned slightly outward, and drew his bow and shot!

Suddenly, countless arrows whistled, like a tornado that suddenly erupted between the Hussar cavalry and Cao's army formation, whistling towards Cao's army formation!

In order to allow the cavalry to shoot accurately, Sima Yi acted like a kite, shooting and then running away. And in order for Li Li to allow the cavalry to shoot accurately and run fast, he had to get close!

Very close!

Only in this extremely close situation would the cavalry's shooting not be affected by the shaking of the warhorses. Even if there was an impact, it would not be a big problem, because from Li Li to these elite cavalrymen, they all adopted rapid-fire methods.

  Just draw the arrow and shoot!

Even if the previous arrow missed, the next arrow will hit the next target!

As for the previous missed goal, leave it to the teammates behind!

Arrows, whistling!

  Man, fall on your back!

In the blink of an eye, Cao's army formation was like encountering a sickle to cut crops, and they were all knocked down!

At such a close distance, even if Cao's soldiers saw the arrows flying, they would not be able to dodge!

  Within ten steps, the power of the arrow is even comparable to that of later pistols!

Fast and accurate!

With the sound of bowstrings, the soldiers in the Cao army's infantry formation fell down with continuous screams!

Even though the front row of Cao's soldiers were protected by shields, there were still some weak spots exposed.

For example, half a head, half a shoulder, even a calf, and a few fingers on the edge of the shield...

The bowstring was pulled rapidly, and then driven by the bow arm, the arrow was shot out like lightning!

  Blood-red flowers bloomed among Cao’s troops!

The bowstrings snapped and the shouts came one after another.

Because the screams of Cao's soldiers were so numerous and so dense that the entire world seemed to be filled with a single cry composed of different voices: "Ahhhhhhhhhhhh~~~"

……

……

Xu Chu, who was standing in the distance watching the battle, couldn't help but stand up straight by stepping on the stirrups.

He stared at the battlefield intently, and even had a trace of regret in his heart. If he had known that Li Li's tactics were so sharp, he should have cooperated and sent other soldiers forward as well...

Li Li said that he wanted to try out the cavalry archer tactics, but it turned out to be so powerful?!

If all the cavalry adopted this tactic...

Xu Chu took a breath of cold air.

Before his eyes were the galloping warhorse, the leaping red flames, the flying yellow dust, and the falling figures...

  This is a branch of Li Li!

Well, wait.

Xu Chu slowly sat back on the horse, pinching his chin and thinking.

The situation before him certainly surprised Xu Chu, but he quickly came to his senses from his fantasy.

Not everyone has such a talent for shooting.

And the cavalry archers are not invincible, it's just that the cavalry archers are extremely restrained by the infantry who only have short-range melee weapons. If the enemy changes its formation and adopts other strategies, the effectiveness of the cavalry archers will be greatly reduced.

Therefore, a single type of military force is not advisable.

Just like the Hussars, although they are famous for their cavalry, they still maintain a certain number of elite infantry, as well as long-range troops...

In the dense infantry battle formation, because there was no room to hide and no particularly strong cover, Li Li's close contact instantly caused the Cao army's soldiers to climax. Although these Cao army soldiers were equipped with spears and large shields, they could not cause any damage to Li Li's archers. Even if Li Li's archers were very close to the Cao army's formation, the long swords and spears of these Cao army soldiers still could not hurt the archers.

Ten steps away seems like the end of the world.

  why?

Xu Chu also figured it out, it’s fast, and not just ordinary fast, but extremely fast!

Sima Yi's cavalry archers added armor to protect themselves, similar to heavy cavalry archers, and could stand still and shoot at the opposing archers. However, Li Li chose another direction, that is, medium-armored cavalry archers. He also reduced the original melee weapons and equipped them with spare bows for long-range arrows, which greatly reduced the weight of the warhorse. This allowed cavalry archers like Li Li to run at a speed close to that of a warhorse's rapid sprint!

When the war horses were sprinting at full speed, taking the Xiliang horses as an example, they could run fifteen steps in one breath. Even if the speed was slightly reduced, Li Li and others passed in front of the Cao army formation like lightning, shooting arrows instantly while galloping, and disappearing into the distance in a cloud of dust.

At this fatal moment, no matter whether the long swords or spears in the hands of Cao's infantry were enough to reach the cavalry.

Even if those Cao army infantrymen who were lucky enough not to be shot wanted to follow Li Li's archers to intercept and kill them, they would not be able to react in time and could not catch up.

At the same time, being close means a higher hit rate.

Even though the archers under Li Li were still somewhat lacking in combat training, their shooting stability would be relatively poor even on the ups and downs of the horses' backs. However, when they were only ten steps away, they could really get whatever they wanted...

There is also a very hidden advantage, that is, the closer the distance, the less the kinetic energy of the arrow decays, and the stronger the armor-piercing power.

Li Li and others don’t need to carry special armor-piercing heavy arrows. They only need ordinary bows and arrows, which are enough to directly penetrate armor and shields at this distance!

  It's not that the bows of Li Li and others are so powerful, but that the distance is close enough, so the power of the arrows is reduced very little, and they almost hit the opponent's body as soon as they leave the bowstring, so it can be said that there is almost no loss of kinetic energy!

Can infantry and bows restrain this tactic?

Xu Chu quickly denied it.

  It’s not that he looked down on those infantry archers of Cao’s army, but Xu Chu knew that the training methods of infantry archers and cavalry archers were completely different!

Cavalry bows are dynamic bows. They are used to capturing dynamic changes, and they also capture targets dynamically while their horses are running fast. They are even trained by hunting birds and beasts. However, most of the infantry archers shoot at fixed targets...

And the key point is that although archers also have the word "bow", they often aim to shoot towards a predetermined area or kill from a distance before the two sides engage in battle. This is completely different from Li Li's close-range hunting method.

Xu Chu himself led the infantry, so he was very familiar with the shooting methods of the infantry archers. Generally speaking, they would start preparing to shoot at a distance of 150 steps, crossbowmen would start shooting at about 120 steps, and archers would shoot at a distance of 80 to 60 steps. If the enemy approached within 20 steps, according to the requirements of the infantry drill manual, "the archers and crossbowmen would pick up their bows and crossbows, and the stationed troops would go in to collect them. The archers would first tie their arms, bring their swords and sticks with them, and then fight together with the battle team."

Yes, that's right, archers carry swords and can fight in close combat, but crossbowmen don't carry swords...

And the key is that now the Hussars are equipped with bows and swords!

Therefore, archers could only fight against cavalry with long-range shooting.

The horse is not a fixed target, but moves at a high speed of more than 10 meters per second. In comparison, the speed of an arrow is about 50 meters per second, so when the arrow flies 100 meters away, the cavalry has deviated from its original position by to meters.

The distance is far, and it is more difficult to penetrate armor with a bow and arrow.

And the archers have to pray for no wind...

So before the advent of machine guns, cavalry could even use fast running to avoid single-shot musket attacks.

Well, this may be a very important reason why firearms in the late Ming Dynasty failed to restrain the Qing cavalry.

If Cao's army dared to put the archers in the first row, and failed to stop the cavalry at a hundred steps away, then the next weapon the cavalry would take out might not be bows and arrows, but swords!

  This is the sharpest state of the archers!

Not only can you keep a distance and shoot the infantry at their faces, you can also switch to swords and spears to charge and kill the infantry at any time.

The war horses soared into the sky, and it only took two or three breaths of time to cover a distance of ten or twenty steps. If they made a mistake in responding, people would die immediately and the formation would collapse!

What's more terrifying is that even if you shoot a warhorse with a bow and arrow, it may not stop the injured horse from continuing to charge. A high-speed warhorse weighing half a ton or more is itself a terrifying impact weapon...

The galloping of cavalry and the ravages of conflict are no joke.

This is why even heavily armored infantry can hardly defeat cavalry in a one-on-one duel. No matter how heavy the armor is, it will still fly if it is hit by a horse. They can only form a formation, but once they form a formation, they will be hard to escape the clutches of the archers...

  This is the best way to use horse archers!

A simple infantry formation is inherently restrained by this kind of tactics!

It's a pity that the requirements for this kind of tactics are too high...

"Good!" Xu Chu clapped his hands and praised, and said to the guards on his left and right, as well as other military schools, "The iron cavalry rushed forward, with bows and swords ready! What a great general Li! I will give him credit for his merit! You should also watch carefully and study this method carefully!"

Naturally, everyone agreed with Xu Chu's words, and they watched Li Li perform his skills in front of the battle line and break the Cao army's formation. Even the ordinary hussars cheered along, and the sound shook the whole area.

……

……

The cavalry troops were cheering, while Cao's army was wailing everywhere.

  Cao Hong opened his mouth wide, stared with eyes wide open, and stared without blinking. The whole person seemed to be frozen at this moment!

Seeing is better than hearing.

This sentence has been said almost too many times, but only at this moment, all the Cao army soldiers and military academies, including Cao Hong, truly understood how powerful the Hussar cavalry was!

"General... General..." The guard standing next to Cao Hong couldn't even speak clearly, "What should we do? What... What should we do? !"

Cao's army's column was undoubtedly originally a whole piece, parallel to Cao's main camp, forming a relatively wide front, but now Li Li and a group of horse archers suddenly bit off a large piece of it!

Cao Hong didn't care how many ordinary Cao army soldiers were killed or injured. If he could exchange them for the losses of the cavalry army, he would not hesitate to exchange all of them!

But now...

  This is his mother!

"Attack!" Cao Hong shouted angrily, "Intercept! Stop them!"

We must not let these cavalrymen go back easily, otherwise it will cause great damage to the morale of Cao's soldiers!

Although Cao's soldiers have little morale now, they can't let it fall to the bottom, otherwise...

"General, we still have catapults!" the guard beside him said anxiously, "Give the order to throw the stones!"

Cao Hong slapped him, "Fool! Don't act on your own! Order the troops to move forward and intercept and drive away the cavalry!"

This moment, that moment.

The original plan cannot be rigid and inflexible when encountering changes on site.

Cao Hong's catapults were indeed prepared to deal with the Hussars, but they had stopped and crowded into a group, so even if they "accidentally" hit some Cao soldiers next to the Hussars, it was understandable. After all, everyone's original intention was good, and a little negligence in the process was understandable, but now the Hussars were very fast and so close to the Cao soldiers, whether the catapults could hit the Hussars by chance was another matter, but it was foreseeable that the number of people killed would far exceed the number of Hussars killed!

  This might even cause the morale of Cao's army, which was already barely maintaining its position, to plummet to the lowest point!

Cao Hong was not afraid of accidentally hurting his own people, but he was afraid that the Cao army formation would be stabbed in the back by its own people when the situation was already devastating. The inevitable result would be a total collapse!

Therefore, Cao Hong’s only hope now is to let Cao’s soldiers surround them. Even if they cannot intercept them, he cannot let these cavalrymen make such a second trip!

The most crucial point is that due to the perspective, the Cao army soldiers on the front line could not see each other as clearly as Cao Hong. Therefore, many of the Cao army soldiers far away from the area attacked by the Hussar cavalry were still confused and frightened, and had no idea what was happening.

Cao Hong's current order was also to cover up the inability of Cao's army formation in front of the cavalry archers...

As long as the Cao army soldiers move, the cavalry will obviously move as well. Once the two sides engage in a melee, the Cao army soldiers who were shot and killed by the archers on the battlefield will naturally be counted as casualties. Even if these Cao army soldiers outside the camp died in the melee, it doesn't matter!

  As long as there is a melee, there will inevitably be casualties!

By then, as long as the written battle report is slightly modified to let the military school generals speak with one voice, the other Cao army soldiers will have no way of knowing what happened just now, and the people's morale inside the camp will remain as stable as possible.

  This will give Cao Cao and other advisers time to figure out how to restrain the tactics of the Hussars!

But most of the time, people don’t get what they want…