Chapter 438: Cavalry Training
After personally participating in many major wars, Tian Ze has a deeper understanding of war.
In war, there are too many factors that determine victory or defeat, and any negligence may lead to the collapse of the entire situation.
The outcome of every war is based on countless details and cannot be determined by just one strategy or one good timing.
According to the original historical trajectory, was it purely because of a rain that Guan Yu was able to dominate China?
The training of the Jingzhou army, the understanding of the terrain in the Xiangfan area, the grasp of the overall battle situation, the grasp of the weaknesses of Cao Wei's military deployment, and the instigation of anti-Cao forces within Cao Wei...
These are just the macro aspects, there are too many specific details.
Xu Huang was able to defeat Guan Yu at the peak of his powers, so his ability is unquestionable. He is absolutely a top-notch commander.
You have to know that at that time, Guan Yu defeated Cao Cao, who had experienced countless storms in his life, and made him even prepare to move the capital.
Most of his men are new recruits with weak combat effectiveness, and they are facing a situation where all friendly forces on the front line have collapsed and Guan Yu's army is in high morale. How many people in the world can head-on defeat Guan Yu, who is so powerful throughout China, under such circumstances?
But Xu Huang did it.
Reorganize the new soldiers, stabilize the situation, cooperate with the outside forces, make a feint to the east and attack in the west, march straight in, defeat Guan Yu head-on, break through ten layers of sieges, and lift the siege of Fancheng...
There were so many commendable actions taken by Xu Huang in this battle, and his achievements were astonishing to the world.
Even Cao Cao couldn't help but marvel at this. He had been commanding troops for more than 30 years and had never heard of anyone who could do this.
Although Liao Lize, a counselor of Shu Han, believed that Guan Yu made the mistake of relying on his reputation for bravery and failing to command the army, it was just empty talk.
Guan Yu in his ultimate state defeated many famous generals of Wei and Wu alone.
Cao Ren, who had always been known for his bravery, was turned into a master of defense and defeated Yu Jin, the number one general of the Cao clan who was not of the same surname.
Military strength, popular support, and morale advantages...
In this situation, Cao Cao could not think of any way to stop Guan Yu, so he directly recalled Zhang Liao and other generals, and even made preparations to move the capital.
It is almost a fantasy that Xu Huang won the battle with a group of new recruits despite being at a disadvantage in terms of troop strength.
To compare, it is just like the previous Central Plains War, where Guan Yu led hundreds of thousands of elite troops and was defeated by the enemy with only 100,000 new recruits.
To a certain extent, this battle of Xu Huang almost laid the foundation for the Three Kingdoms situation.
After all, with Guan Yu's power and the situation at the time, if he had really captured Xiangfan, even if he was attacked from the rear by Sun Quan, the outcome would not have been like that.
The reason why Tian Ze has always been conservative in his use of troops is that he is worried about this kind of thing happening.
From a God's perspective, it always seems that Guan Yu's defeat was natural and reasonable, but that is just hindsight.
If it was really in Guan Yu's position at that time, who would have thought that he would be defeated so badly? Even Cao Cao couldn't believe it. At that time, people all over the world thought that Guan Yu was about to recover the Central Plains and the Han Dynasty would be revived for the third time.
There were too many such incredible wars at the end of the Han Dynasty.
Yuan Shao and other princes have many talented generals under their command, and Tian Ze is not sure which one will accidentally explode and change the situation of the war.
Although Cao Cao appeared to be recruiting people based on their talents, he was always very suspicious and always promoted relatives of the Cao and Xiahou families. Foreign generals basically had no chance to lead troops on their own and basically served as deputy generals, doing useless work and cleaning up the mess.
If they win, they will be considered as a member of the Cao clan and will receive very little reward. If they lose, they will be left at the rear, which will not only put their lives in danger, but they may also be blamed.
In this environment, the five best generals who can emerge are absolutely valuable and are no less capable than the Five Tiger Generals in leading troops in battle.
If you are not suppressed all the time and gain more experience, your achievements will be limitless.
This is the case with Xu Huang now. Tian Ze has his own methods and will naturally not suppress these brave generals. Xu Huang can firmly sit in the position of the five generals and suppress Zhao Yun, Zang Ba and Gan Ning. His strength is beyond doubt.
It's just that because of his lack of distinctiveness in employing troops, he has always been assigned to do the dirty and tiring work.
He is of the same nature as Xu Rong and Zhao Yun, and is the backbone of the team.
After receiving Tian Ze's military order, although Xu Huang remained calm, he couldn't help feeling a little excited.
Finally he had a chance to shine.
Just as Cheng Yu said, there were not many generals under Tian Ze who could play Guo Jia's strategy well. The best at this delicate job was Xu Huang.
Dong Zhao, Cheng Yu and others said that Xu Huang was not good at cavalry combat, but that was only relative.
Although Xu Huang, who was strict in employing troops, did not like to take risks, he was never vague at critical moments, otherwise he would not have been able to launch a direct attack.
Cavalry, a type of military force with obvious advantages and disadvantages, was indispensable in Xu Huang's view, but there could not be too many of them, so he seldom used them in large-scale cavalry combat.
This does not mean that Xu Huang does not understand large-scale cavalry command operations. On the contrary, Xu Huang can do many things that Zhang Liao and Guan Yu cannot do.
After nearly 100,000 cavalrymen dispatched by Tian Ze arrived one after another, Xu Huang immediately began special training.
Xu Huang, who knew the strategy of this battle, used his strict military discipline to the extreme this time, almost causing the cavalry under his command to collapse.
As a result, Chen Gong had to once again strengthen the food supply for these soldiers, and also arranged a large number of scholars to carry out propaganda and ideological education.
During this six-month training, the emphasis was on training the cavalrymen to communicate with each other and to move upon orders, almost making it an instinct for the cavalrymen.
After all, the key to this battle lies not in combat capability, but in the organizational ability of these cavalrymen.
The large-scale troop mobilization of the Great Qi and Xu Huang's frantic military training naturally could not be concealed from the princes of the Central Plains.
Especially Yuan Shao and Cao Cao, after learning about this, they immediately realized that they were in big trouble!
In the terrain of the Central Plains, their side lacked cavalry, while the opponent had prepared a large number of cavalry. They all knew very well what this meant.
For a time, the rumors that Yuan Shao's subordinates would abandon Qingzhou and retreat to Xuzhou once again became popular.
Even on Cao Cao's side, there were talks of abandoning Yanzhou and defending Yuzhou.
Yuan Shao and Cao Cao had no good solution to these idiotic remarks. They could only suppress them and pretend not to know.
Can they not understand what is going on in the minds of those who make these remarks?
There are just a few short-sighted, weak people, and a large number of people with ulterior motives.
But at this time, with a powerful enemy at the doorstep, they simply couldn't spare the time to deal with it and had to handle it coldly.
Behind the scenes, Cao Cao and Yuan Shao had already made notes in their little notebooks, waiting for the chance to settle the scores behind the scenes.
The two brothers contacted each other almost immediately and started discussing countermeasures.
They were not sure who Tian Ze's target was, nor when Tian Ze would send troops, but they would definitely not sit and wait for death.
(End of this chapter)
