Chapter 805: Chapter 348: The North Is Without Worry
By the end of May this year, with the early sumr upon us, the Barbarians’ grain looting war this spring, following a major defeat and a loss of over two hundred thousand n, barely ca to an end.
Now, it’s only been August, the start of autumn, and not even three months have passed, yet the Barbarians have once again sought cooperation with the Chu State.
“Do you plan to attack Helong again this autumn?”
In Baling, within the palace, Lu Yuan looked at the Barbarian ssenger below and, after hearing the intention, couldn’t help asking.
“Yes.”
The Barbarian ssenger nodded, then earnestly said, “This spring, thanks to Chu State’s assistance, we were able to loot a large amount of grain. This sumr, no one in the various tribes starved to death.
But now, more than two months have passed since the grain brought from Helong has been consud.
This autumn, there will be a shortage of grain among the tribes.
If we can’t store enough food, during the cold winter and early spring—over the long four to five months—our people will freeze and starve to death.
Therefore, while it is still autumn and before the snow falls, we want to raid Helong one last ti for grain, as it’s our last opportunity.
However, Zhou People are strong, and relying solely on our Snowy Wilderness family, it’s very hard to win against the Zhou People.
The Great King and us are bound by marriage, and Chu State has always harbored hatred towards Zhou Country, our common enemy.
Three months ago, Chu State and we cooperated, and we were both very satisfied with the coordination.
Therefore, for this autumn’s grain looting, the tribes have discussed and hope to invite Chu State to join forces with us, to plunder Zhou Country.”
This ssenger explained the reason.
Lu Yuan listened, fell silent for a mont, and then asked, “How many troops and horses do you plan to mobilize this ti?”
The ssenger imdiately answered, “Since the fodder was abundant for the tribes during the sumr, and the warriors and horses were well-fed and strong, we can mobilize more troops and horses than before.
We, the Snowy Wilderness’ one hundred and twenty-seven tribes united under the leadership of four kings, can bring forth eight hundred thousand Cavalry.
All are warriors of the Snowy Wilderness, unrivaled in riding and archery. This grand deploynt will surely strike terror into the hearts of the Zhou People.”
The ssenger finally added a sentence, sowhat lacking in confidence.
The so-called eight hundred thousand Cavalry sounds formidable and is certainly intimidating when spread, but in reality, they are only eight hundred thousand temporarily gathered nomadic herdsn, akin to Village Braves and civilian workers.
Those nomadic herdsn, if faced with untrained civilian workers, might indeed overwhelm them with the grand montum of a Cavalry charge, easily crushing and chasing them down.
But if they encounter well-trained, armored, and sharp-lancing troops, then even a slight advantage in horse riding becos utterly useless.
Well-trained elite soldiers are courageous and fundantally do not fear the so-called Cavalry charge.
Moreover, warhorses also know fear, encountering formations of infantry and seeing the pikes and long spears in front of them, they too would know to be scared and to avoid.
So long as the infantry is brave enough, not intimidated by the montum of a Cavalry charge, does not collapse but maintains a tight formation,
Then such Cavalry is virtually a joke.
In front of infantry in solid formations, Cavalry that dares to charge forward is rely courting death.
Often, a few thousand infantry in formation can withstand the charge of tens of thousands, or even a hundred thousand Cavalry, unmoved.
Any attempt to forcefully break through would only result in bloody losses.
Here’s a classic example:
In Lu Yuan’s past life during the Three Nations era, Gongsun Zan, Governor of Youzhou, selected three thousand riders good at horseback from the Northern Border, had them all mount white horses, calling them the White Horse Righteous Followers.
Leading them across the steppe, they were invincible; all nomads heard of them and changed color – they were renowned Cavalry of The world.
Then, during the Battle of Jieqiao, Gongsun Zan personally led the three thousand White Horse Righteous Followers in a frontal charge,
Only to be greatly defeated by Yuan Shao’s vanguard general, Qu Yi, who led eight hundred elite front-runners with shields and armor, releasing a torrent of Strong Crossbow bolts, decimating this elite Cavalry and beheading over a thousand.
After this battle, Gongsun Zan’s elite force was entirely obliterated, with his power never recovering, ultimately being vanquished by Yuan Shao.
This is one of the most famous examples of using infantry to defeat Cavalry during the Three Nations period.
Going back further, there was the case of Western Han’s Li Guangling who led five thousand elite Danyang soldiers, battling against more than eighty thousand Xiongnu Cavalry. Although ultimately suffering a crushing defeat and being captured, he still managed to achieve a death toll of tens of thousands of the enemy.
As for later generations, there were even more examples of infantry defeating Cavalry.
Even during Emperor Taizong of Tang’s ti, there was a Nomad tribe of the Tie Le who utilized mounted infantry tactics; they relied on horseback mobility, dismounted for combat when battle approached, and then as infantry, they defeated Nomad Cavalry.
In the end, leveraging this strategy, the Tie Le chieftain, Xue Yantuo, united the north of the steppe, becoming the Great Khan commanding hundreds of thousands of troops.
During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, heroes erged in abundance; multiple records show infantry defeating Cavalry, even charging against them, breaking tens of thousands, a hundred thousand, or even hundreds of thousands of Cavalry.
From this, it is evident:
How much of a threat a well-trained force of elite soldiers poses to Cavalry—it’s simply a crushing dominance.
In front of such troops, the only advantage of Cavalry is their mobility.
And if a force with elite infantry also possesses elite Cavalry, then those Nomad tribes will utterly lose their sole advantage of mobility.
Facing infantry, defeated, and even if they want to flee, they won’t be able to outrun well-trained Cavalry.
The many theories of invincible Cavalry in later ages all stem from the propagation after the Later Jin invaded.
Here’s a digression:
In fact, when the Later Jin subdued the steppe and united the Nine Provinces, their so-called elite of the Eight Banners were mostly mounted infantry, achieving victory through infantry and were especially adept at firearms.
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