Zhang Yan led his army to come from behind Yuan's army and tore a huge hole in Yuan's army. The heavy infantry quickly lined up on both sides, tearing the hole into larger and larger.

"Taishici, Xu Chu, Niu Jin, retreat from here quickly!" Zhang Yan took a deep breath, pulled it apart, and shouted loudly.

This shout was like rolling thunder, resounding through the sky. Most of the people in Taishi Ci, Xu Chu, Niu Jin and others heard it. They turned around and looked northwest together, but they saw Zhang Yan, Xu Sheng, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and others fighting with Yuan's army, and they had already fought a broad bloody path.

Taishici, Xu Chu, Niu Jin and others immediately fled northwest. The three of them led the way. Whenever they encountered Yuan's army who came to stop them, they would all be killed. A group of people escaped in a flash.

Yuan Tan stood on Gaogang, looked at the escaped Xuzhou soldiers, and said angrily: "Chasing! Chasing! Don't let them run away!"

The Yuan army soldiers chased after him, but Zhang Yan, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Xu Sheng and others were on guard and defended tightly, killing one by one, killing one by one, and using the advantages of the army, Yuan Jun was frightened.

At this time, Yuan Jun's fierce turbulence had been used up, and the strong men holding blunt weapons were all injured and killed. The other Yuan Jun soldiers watched from a distance, but did not dare to approach, and watched Zhang Yan and the others retreat.

Zhang Yan and others retreated for about half a mile, then reorganized the troops and rushed towards Yuan Jun again.

Yuan's army thought that the Xuzhou soldiers had retreated and were cleaning the battlefield. No one expected that the Xuzhou soldiers would return. They were in chaos for a while, and they could not stop them. They were driven away by Zhang Yan and others for more than two miles and beheaded more than 1,800 levels.

Seeing that Yuan Jun retreated, Zhang Yan stopped chasing him and took his soldiers back to the place where Yuan Jun ambushed. Seeing the Xuzhou soldiers who were buried in the sea of ​​fire or died under blunt weapons, he felt a little sad.

Zhang Yan asked someone to clean up the battlefield, carry away the bodies of the soldiers who died, and counted about more than 1,000 soldiers who died. However, more than 2,000 people were burned.

Through this battle, Zhang Yan also realized that his iron armored legion was not invincible. The reason for such a crushing defeat this time also gave Zhang Yan a profound lesson, so that no matter how he faced an enemy, he would no longer feel underestimated.

The group slowly retreated back to Zhuxu City. Who knew that before they arrived in Zhuxu City, they ran into Zhang Hong, Kong Rong, Liu Bei and others. Under the protection of three hundred infantry, they came to find Zhang Yan and informed Zhang Yan that Zhuxu City was occupied by Yuan army general Zhang He.

When Zhang Yan heard this news, he was surprised. Unexpectedly, this time he was not only ambushed, but also lost his troops and generals, but even Zhu Xu City was occupied by Yuan's army. He brought heavy cavalry and quickly returned to Zhu Xu City. By the time the city was under, there was no movement of Yuan's army in Zhu Xu City.

After entering Zhuxu City, Zhang Yan realized that Yuan Jun had taken away all the food and grass from Zhuxu City.

The furious Zhang Yan immediately ordered all the cavalry to take off their heavy armor, remove their horse armor, and go into battle lightly, and follow him and chase them directly.

Zhang He brought food and supplies, and couldn't walk fast at all. Zhang Yan moved forward lightly and soon chased after him.

Seeing that there were pursuers behind him, Zhang He had to give up his food, grass and supplies and retreat directly.

Zhang Yan intercepted the batch of food and supplies again, chased Zhang He for several miles, and then led his troops back to Zhuxu City.

Zhu Xucheng returned to Zhang Yan's hands, and Zhang Yan even reorganized his troops, and together with Kong Rong and Liu Bei continued to station troops here.

However, through this confrontation with Yuan Jun, he seriously realized the shortcomings of heavy cavalry and heavy infantry. He blamed all his defeat on himself and fell into deep self-blame.

That night, Zhang Yan was lying in bed and tossing and unable to sleep, thinking about how to use the army.

From the Qin Dynasty, I always thought of the Qing Dynasty, I excerpted the excellent arms of various dynasties and dynasties for comparison. Finally, I found that the Mongolian cavalry established by Genghis Khan was exactly the army he needed.

The Mongolian Iron Cavalry was founded by Genghis Khan and passed down from generation to generation by Genghis Khan's successor. It was a unique cavalry unit of that era.

The cavalry also played to the extreme in the hands of Genghis Khan and became the war machine that swept through that era.

The basis for the victory of the Mongolian cavalry in combat is not quantity but quality, and a single and concise organizational system is a prominent feature of its army.

The standard Mongolian Iron Cavalry field troops are composed of three cavalry columns, each with 10,000 cavalry, which is roughly equivalent to a modern cavalry division.

Each cavalry column includes ten cavalry regiments, one thousand men per regiment; each cavalry regiment includes ten cavalry companies, one hundred men per regiment; each cavalry company includes ten cavalry squads, ten men per squad.

All cavalry usually fight on horseback, but if many horses collapse, some soldiers have to stand behind the horse and shoot arrows under the cover of the cavalry.

About 40% of the typical Mongolian cavalry are heavy cavalry engaged in assault operations. The main weapon of heavy cavalry is a spear. Each soldier also carries a short scimitar or a mace, hung it at his waist or placed it on a saddle.

Sixty percent of Mongolian cavalry are mainly light cavalry. They are not armoured except wearing a helmet. The task of light cavalry is to reconnaise and cover, provide fire support for heavy cavalry, eliminate residual enemies, and track and pursue.

The main weapon of light cavalry is a bow, which is a large bow with strong tension and long range. In addition, they also carry two types of arrows with them, one is lighter, the arrow is small and sharp, for long shots; the other is heavier, with large and wide arrows, for melee combat. Like heavy cavalry, they also have a very heavy short scimitar or mace, or a lasso, and sometimes a javelin or spear with hooks on their heads.

To ensure and strengthen the mobility of the cavalry, each Mongolian cavalry has one or several spare horses. These horses follow closely behind the troops and can be replaced at any time during the march or even during the battle. The horse replacement is carried out in a relay manner, which can ensure safety and minimize the impact on completing the scheduled tasks.

The Mongolian cavalry were selected from the best trained soldiers at that time. They were sent to schools in the desert Gobi since they were three or four years old and conducted strict horse riding and archery training, so they had amazing skills in harnessing horses and using weapons. For example, they could turn back to shoot the enemies following him when they retreated quickly. They were able to endure hardships and endure harsh climatic conditions and not seek comfort and delicious food. They were strong and could maintain their health and adapt to the needs of battles with just a little or no medical conditions. It was their duty to obey orders at any time and everyone could strictly observe them. Discipline had formed a system, which was not heard of elsewhere in that period.

The most important thing is the horses used by cavalry, which have also undergone extremely rigorous training.

All the horses they chose were Mongolian horses, living in the wild regardless of the severe winter and heat. If necessary, they could walk for days without eating. In short, they had extremely strong tolerance. They could cross almost incredible distances on the most dangerous terrain in a very short time.

It is precisely because of these innate conditions that the Mongolian cavalry that was invincible in that era was invincible.

In terms of the way the battle begins, the Mongolian Iron Cavalry is also very distinctive.

Cavalry columns usually set up a very wide formation and rushed forward at high speed, and the main troops were sent by the messengers. When the enemy was discovered, all nearby troops carried out assaults with this target.

At this time, all the information about the enemy's position, force, movement direction, etc. are sent to the General Command and then transferred to the field teams. If there are not many enemies, the nearest commander will immediately lead the troops to fight. If the enemy is too large and cannot be eaten immediately, the main force of the Mongolian army will quickly gather behind the cavalry cover troops and then advance at high speed. When the enemy has not had time to gather troops, they will scatter and defeat the enemy.

The most commonly used combat method of the Mongolian army is to line up the troops into many roughly parallel columns under the cover of light cavalry and advance forward with a very wide front. When the first column encounters the main force of the enemy, the column will either stop advancing or retreat slightly according to the situation. The remaining columns will continue to advance and occupy the enemy's side and behind the enemy. This often forces the enemy to retreat to protect its traffic line. The Mongolian army takes the opportunity to approach the enemy and make it in chaos when retreating, and finally completely encircle the enemy and completely annihilate it.

So, after a night of thinking, Zhang Yan prepared to learn from the Mongolian cavalry and completely change the existing combat methods.

However, if you want to learn from the Mongolian Iron Cavalry, you must have many horses. Xuzhou is not a place where horses are produced. If you want to use cavalry thoroughly, you must purchase many horses. At least at this stage, he cannot achieve this grand goal.

Therefore, Zhang Yan could only rely on his existing cavalry to form a reduced version of the Mongolian Iron Cavalry.

Cavalry is undoubtedly the most lethal type of troops in the cold weapon era. If Zhang Yan could really use it properly and had a large number of cavalry under his command, he might be able to conquer all directions like the Mongolian cavalry.

The next day, it was Pingming. Zhang Yan, who had only rested for two hours, got up early one morning and directly summoned all the cavalry and gathered at the school ground.

In the battle yesterday, Zhang Yan's cavalry team also suffered some losses. Now there are only 2,831 cavalry left, and the rest are killed at the location where Yuan's army ambushed, and the faces of fire are beyond recognition.

Zhang Yan then selected 2,500 cavalry and divided the 2,500 cavalry into five columns, each with 500 people. Two of the columns remained unchanged, and were still heavy cavalry wearing heavy armor, horse-wrapped armor, and defending their teeth. The other three columns only wore helmets, and only wore a piece of leather armor that protected their hearts and chests. They all went lightly and turned into light cavalry.

The remaining 331 cavalrymen are still lightly engaged in battle, serving as guerrilla and reconnaissance troops, responsible for reconnaissance and cover.

Then, Zhang Yan began training these cavalry, letting Taishici take charge of the light cavalry and Xu Chu take charge of the heavy cavalry. He called Xu Sheng and asked him to take charge of the remaining 331 cavalry. He was fully responsible for the entire cavalry team and began training on the school ground.

Although Taishici, Xu Chu, Xu Sheng, and all the cavalry were a little confused about Zhang Yan's arrangement, they still followed Zhang Yan's command.

After two hours of training, the group gradually formed a tacit understanding from the initial inconsistency and basically all of them were able to grasp the key points.

At noon, Zhang Yan asked all the cavalry to rest, and the scouts who were sent out to inquire about Yuan Jun also returned at this time.

The scout brought back the news about Yuan Jun. Yuan Jun did not leave, but stayed away from Zhuxu City, but remained stationed.

Zhang Yan sent another scout to closely monitor Yuan Jun's movements, and after lunch with many cavalrymen, he continued to practice on the school ground.

Kong Rong, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and others saw Zhang Yan training cavalry on the school ground and ran to watch.

The well-trained cavalry quickly grasped the key points of cooperation with each other, and the tacit understanding became higher and higher. After Zhang Yan saw it, he was quite pleased.
Chapter completed!