Pang Zijin didn't know what the emperor was going to do, so he could only stand by and watch quietly.
After a moment, Wang Chengen brought back the four sets of armor on the wooden dummy.
“Your Majesty, this is a combination of cotton armor and dark armor; these are two sets of dark armor.”
Chongzhen nodded and looked at it carefully.
Even two layers of hidden armor were useless under the attack of the fire gun. But compared to the other dummy whose lead bullets were deeply embedded, the wooden stake was protected by two layers of hidden armor, which reduced the damage by 90%.
"Pang Zijin, have you been to Liaodong?" Chongzhen put down the dark armor in his hand and asked.
Pang Zijin replied respectfully: "Your Majesty, I have been there and was defeated."
"What year?"
"Fourteen years."
Chongzhen looked at Pang Zijin with some surprise and sighed in his heart.
In the 14th year of Chongzhen, the elite troops of the Ming Dynasty were all wiped out in the Battle of Songshan.
After ten days of fierce fighting at Songshan, the Ming army was badly defeated, with more than 50,000 killed, nearly 8,000 horses and about 10,000 sets of armor lost. In addition, tens of thousands of people died at sea, and their bodies floated on the water like geese riding the tide, rising and falling with the waves.
It would have been fine if all the dead were Liaodong border troops, but in this battle almost all the elite troops from Xuanfu, Datong, Miyun, Jizhou, Yutian, Shanhaiguan, Qiantunwei, and Ningyuan were dispatched.
Hong Chengchou commanded the army poorly (or perhaps intentionally), was defeated and captured, and then surrendered and became a running dog of the Qing Dynasty.
The chain reaction was that the Ming Dynasty could not suppress the bandits at home and could not stop the Jiannu from abroad, and it became increasingly precarious.
He patted Pang Zijin on the shoulder and asked another question: "Which branch of the Eight Banners Army impressed you the most?"
Pang Zijin thought about it and said seriously: "Heavy infantry!"
"Wait..." Seeing that Pang Zijin was about to continue speaking, Chongzhen held out his hand to let him wait, and then he ordered the 200 soldiers of the Yongwei Battalion, "Come closer, sit down and listen together."
No one dared to disobey, and they all sat down on the ground and listened attentively.
"Pang Can will continue."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Pang Zijin pursed his lips and recalled the past that he dared not look back on.
"If the Eight Banners were a mounted archery army similar to the Mongolian cavalry, they would definitely not be able to defeat our Ming border troops. Moreover, the Jianzhou Jurchens were not strictly nomadic peoples."
Chongzhen nodded in agreement.
When he was a teacher in his previous life, he told his students that in the eyes of uneducated people, the Jianzhou Jurchens were a nomadic people who took off their shirts to reveal their eight-pack abs, pounded their pectoralis major with their hands, and howled loudly.
In fact, Jianzhou Jurchens had already popularized cotton armor and attached great importance to artillery. All citizens were soldiers, and those who died in battle were given ten times the salary. The degree of military-civilian integration was very high.
Pang Zijin continued, "Your Majesty, I am a cavalryman. Horseback archery is not as amazing as the civil officials say. It is not as stable as foot archery and the hit rate is very low. Moreover, our army is equipped with cotton armor and dark armor, which have a very high protection against arrows. It is difficult to shoot through cotton armor, and if you wear dark armor, you will be even more fearless. Therefore, cavalrymen often use close-range arrows in combat, but the Eight Banners soldiers are more powerful because they are full of momentum and will fight to the death!"
"If the Eight Banners only have cavalry, they will be as vulnerable as the Mongolian cavalry. Our army only needs to use artillery and muskets to attack the horses. The horses will be frightened or die, and the cavalry will be in chaos!"
"The real Eight Banners Army is a mixed force, with more branches than our army."
At this point, Pang Zijin glanced at his brothers. The emperor prepared so many armors and asked him to bring so many people here, the purpose was to let these people see the Eight Banners soldiers in advance.
He cleared his throat and continued, "When I fought in Liaodong, there were four main types of soldiers in the Eight Banners Army."
"The first type is heavy infantry; the second type is light cavalry, most of which are Mongolians; the third type is heavy cavalry, most of which are Manchus, and there are also some Solon soldiers. The last type is firearms soldiers, mostly composed of surrendered Han people and Liaodong troops."
"Among these soldiers, the most difficult ones are the heavy infantry!"
"Why?" Wang Chengen couldn't help but ask.
He had lived in the palace for a long time, and although he had some understanding of the Ming court's situation on the Liaodong battlefield, he had never been to a war and had no idea what heavy infantry was.
Pang Zijin seemed reluctant to continue speaking, but when he saw Chongzhen trying to comfort him, he paused and started talking again.
"When two armies confront each other, they don't just charge in, but need to do a lot of preliminary preparation."
"The first step is to send scouts to observe the battlefield terrain. Then the generals will set up camp according to the scouts' reports or after they personally inspect the terrain. The third step is for the two armies to meet and line up to face each other. The last step is for both sides to line up and for the generals to look for weaknesses or deficiencies of the other side based on the formations."
"At this point... both generals will consider whether to attack or defend."
"If you're going to attack, you have to consider how and where the infantry will attack! Where will the artillery fire! How will the cavalry attack!"
"The Jiannu would send out heavy infantry first. These people wore double or even triple layers of armor. When the cavalry arrived at the battlefield, they would dismount and line up with weapons in hand to attack. Because they were wearing thick armor, not to mention arrows, even bird guns and ordinary muskets could not hurt them. The only way to hurt them was with cannons."
"But..." Pang Zijin's tone changed, "Once the artillery moves or appears in the enemy's field of vision, the Eight Banners cavalry will be dispatched. I would like to add that under normal circumstances, cavalry will not line up on the battlefield."
Chongzhen nodded heavily.
It can be seen from the bandits attacking the city that the main purpose of the cavalry is to roam and kill. When the bandits attacked the city, the cavalry watched from a distance and never even approached.
"After the Jiannu cavalry can see our artillery positions clearly, they will charge from the flank and launch a surprise attack!"
"Fight back! Bomb them with artillery!" Wang Chengen said indignantly.
Pang Zijin spread his hands, "First, the artillery relies heavily on artillery. When they discover the enemy cavalry, they have no time to turn the muzzle. Secondly, most of our artillery soldiers do not have armor. Without the protection of artillery, they are simply vulnerable."
"Aren't the heavy infantry and their horses afraid of death?" Wang Chengen was still a little unconvinced. In his eyes, there was nothing that could not be destroyed by the Ming Dynasty's firearms.
"Eunuch Wang, forgot what I said just now. Heavy infantry wear two or even three layers of armor. As long as the distance is not too close, firearms cannot cause serious damage. Oh, by the way, the heavy infantry's horses also have armor, which is the cotton armor made by the Jiannu themselves!"
Wang Chengen's scalp instantly went numb when he heard this...
Imagining the heavy infantrymen who were not afraid of arrows or firearms coming towards him all over the mountains, the feeling of oppression made him collapse in an instant.
The cannons could have hurt them, but as soon as the artillery fired, the Jiannu cavalry would rush forward and launch a surprise attack.
There is no solution!
"The heavy cavalry of the Eight Banners is almost as large as our cavalry. They..."
Just as Pang Zijin was about to continue speaking, he heard a loud bang coming from the west.
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