Datong is located in the upper reaches of the Sanggan River in the northeast of the river. It is a basin surrounded by gaps in the eastern part of Shandong. It spreads to the northeast-southwest, with a flat and wide ground, and is the center of the basin. Due to the high terrain, less precipitation, strong wind and thick soil texture, and unreasonable reclamation and utilization, the ground vegetation has been severely damaged, wind and sand are raging, and sand dunes and sand are common.

The Song army entering Jin was mainly composed of two infantry brigades of the Imperial Front Guard, one artillery brigade and the first cavalry division. Later, the Imperial Front Cavalry brigade escorted materials to the Jin Dynasty to reinforce, plus nearly 60,000 auxiliary troops. This time, except for some of the troops left in Taiyuan, the main force was all, but they were still at a disadvantage in terms of force.

The emperor can be said to have handed over his family's fortune to himself, and he also wanted to drive the Mongolian Yuan grassland army into Dadu, achieve the strategic encirclement of Dadu, and wipe out the Mongolian Yuan Khan and his main force in Dadu. Ni Liang knew that he had a great responsibility and dared not slack off at all. But he also knew that he was also facing the most fierce grassland army in the Mongolian Yuan, and if he wanted to complete the mission, he would have a fierce battle.

Since the enemy troops they face are all cavalry, their mobility is far better than theirs. They come and go like the wind, and the battle may break out anytime and anywhere. Therefore, after entering Datong Road, not only did the scouts detect the enemy's movements everywhere, but the marching teams also formed formations so that they could quickly enter the battle after being attacked.

"Report to the commander-in-chief, twenty miles ahead, we found an enemy cavalry attacking our army!" The central army had just walked out of the valley, and a scout came to report.

"Explore again!" Ni Liang frowned. They were extremely vigilant in the mountains, worried that the enemy would set up an ambush with the help of the mountains, but there was nothing wrong with it. Then they walked out of the valley and encountered the enemy attack.

"Yes!" The scout immediately turned his horse's head and galloped away.

"Let the front army accelerate forward and block the enemy, and the rear army will quickly leave the valley!" Ni Liang then ordered. He knew that the Mongol Yuan cavalry was best at long distances and the enemy launched a raid when his front army was intercepted and the rear army had not yet left the valley, and the army would be unable to unfold its formation, and would suffer heavy losses under front and back attacks. Now, only by getting rid of the terrain that was not conducive to him as soon as possible to meet the enemy is the best strategy.

With a command, the army accelerated its marching and quickly left the valley. Ni Liang urged his horse to leave the valley first, but his heart sank. He saw a wide open land ahead, with undulating terrain, and only a few short earth mountains were distributed among them, with dozens of miles of no cover. There was no terrain available, which was conducive to the cavalry's rushing.

"Appoint the front army to launch defense in front of the mountain, the cavalry division disturbed the enemy in front of the formation, and delayed the enemy's operations. The cavalry brigade in front hides in the forest. The artillery relies on the earthen mountains to arrange positions, the central army is placed in the formation, and the rear army forms a formation on both wings." Ni Liang rode his horse on a high slope, held a telescope to observe the surrounding terrain, and found that there was a slightly larger earthen mountain about five miles ahead. The surrounding terrain was slightly higher, and there was a forest in the northwest direction to hide soldiers. He immediately issued a third order.

The Imperial Guardian was the leader of the army of the Song Dynasty. Not only were the elite soldiers selected by each army, but the training was extremely strict and the military literacy was superb. Even the first cavalry division was the earliest independent cavalry battalion of the general's office in Qiongzhou. From small to large, from weak to strong, it was also the unit with the most participation in the war among the cavalry and richest combat experience among the cavalrymen.

After receiving the order, the first cavalry division quickly advanced forward and moved towards the enemy's direction. The regiments of the front army immediately divided into several columns to run forward to seize the position. The other units immediately unfolded in an orderly manner and quickly drove to their respective predetermined positions. For a time, tens of thousands of troops in the entire open area were divided into dozens of straits and advanced under the command of their respective generals.

The scene seems messy, but it is busy but not messy. The routes of entry between the departments do not intersect, but it can ensure that each department can choose the nearest route to reach the predetermined area. This not only tests the command and decision of the general, but also tests the planning and dispatching ability of staff at all levels of the school and the execution ability of grassroots officers.

The enemy cavalry was only twenty miles away, and even if they were jogging, it was only an hour. When the enemy cavalry all over the mountains appeared in the sight line, the Song army's formation had already taken shape. When the inner court and the outer court split, the imperial guards were reduced and adapted from four infantry brigades into two brigades. However, Zhao Bing used a small trick and adapted according to the "44" organization, so that each brigade still had more than 16,000 soldiers.

Ni Liang set up a hollow square array with a "hui" shape, with a side length of about four miles, two groups were arranged on each side, and a small square array was formed in units of the city, with each small square array being about twenty steps away. The inner layer was arranged with a second square line of defense on the earth mountain as the center, and the square array was formed with a baggage chariot, and the team directly under the headquarters of the Metropolitan Command was guarded.

Artillery positions were set up in the middle of the two large formations in a staircase, and the outermost periphery was composed of light mortar teams and battalion heavy mortar teams to attack enemy troops within a hundred steps of the defense line; rapid-fired artillery positions were arranged between each small square array to intercept enemy troops within two hundred steps of the position.

The brigade artillery regiment is arranged at four corners of the square formation, which can form cross fire to strike long-distance enemy troops, and can adjust positions at any time to support the infantry in the front. The Weiyuan artillery and rocket launchers of the artillery brigade are arranged in front of the second line of defense, specializing in attacking long-distance targets and disrupting the enemy's offensive formation.

However, due to the tight time, it was difficult for the Song army to dig solid permafrost, dig trenches, lay traps, and build horse-retaining walls. The surrounding area lacks materials to build fortifications, and it is impossible to create fences, horns, horse-resisting barriers that hinder the enemy's attack. It can only build a simple and alienated line of defense with the gun bundles used to camp.

In theory, in an open area where there is no danger to defend and no sufficient time to build fortifications to fight the cavalry, Ni Liang arranged troops on all sides, regardless of the main and secondary battlefields, which meant that the frontal defense power was weakened, but doing so was his plan. He was also one of the first new Song army generals to come into contact with cavalry operations. In order to learn cavalry tactics, he also retained captured Mongolian soldiers as coaches.

Over the years, Ni Liang also gained something with the increase in practical experience. He knew that after entering the Song Dynasty, the main opponents of the Song army for more than 200 years were the Khitan, Jurchen and Mongolia who were good at cavalry combat. They also gained valuable experience in fighting with the Central Plains dynasty, formed their own combat systems, and their combat power had earth-shaking changes.

By the Liao Dynasty, the cavalry troops had been quite standardized and had a relatively clear tactical system. During combat, cavalry were displayed on all sides of the enemy's formation, and a commander was set up to control each "side". When a battle occurred, a team of people first launched an attack tactic. If the advantage was prevailed, other teams would follow up quickly; if the advantage could not be achieved, retreat temporarily, let the second team continue to attack, and other teams would be postponed.

The cavalry of the Jin Dynasty had a relatively obvious functional division. The front row focused on close-range weapons such as heavy armor, guns or sticks, and the back row was light armor and used bows and arrows to shoot. In the later stage, the light cavalry and heavy cavalry were completely separated and the formation was arranged in a team-standing manner. Tiefutu and the kidnapped horse were in the form of joint combat between heavy cavalry, using heavy cavalry to destroy the enemy formation, and then using light cavalry to encircle and intercept the fleeing enemies from both wings.

After the southward transition, the Mongolian army faced by Song was slightly different. The common tactics of the Mongolian army: at the beginning of the confrontation, cavalry often launched a tentative charge. If the enemy's formation showed signs of defeat, no matter how many cavalry the number was, it would continue to attack and drive straight in; if the impact did not achieve results, it would no longer continue to attack, but chose to withdraw from the horizontal direction, and then let the people in the rear team carry out an attack, and so on until the enemy formation was defeated.

When some cavalry attacked head-on and restrained the enemy, the Mongols would take the opportunity to mobilize other forces to move smoothly to the enemy's flanks and tails. After all deployment is completed, the last arrival of troops shouted "Gugui", and teams from four directions launched an attack at the same time to encircle and suppress the enemy's formation.

It can be seen that the cavalry of Liao, Jin and Mongolia will be arranged in multiple rows of formations, and each column will implement the tactics of taking turns to attack, but the tactics between the three are slightly different. The cavalry of the Liao army is more traditional; the Jin army strengthens the impact of heavy cavalry; while the Mongolian army is good at breaking away from the enemy's flank after completing the charge in the front row, and continues to follow up in the rear row, and finally completes the joint attack.

Therefore, when a large-scale cavalry battle is fought in an open area, the defender will not only be attacked on the front, but will be attacked by enemy cavalry from all directions. One side of the formation will be broken, which will lead to the collapse of the entire formation. The infantry will not be able to run through the four-legged war horses, and the result will be one-sided slaughter.

Facing the Mongolian Yuan cavalry that was galloping like black clouds, the Song army remained unmoved and slowly made a way to allow the first cavalry division, which had completed the delayed enemy cavalry mission, to retreat into the formation. Seeing that the Song army had formed a formation, the gathering of Mongolian Yuan army lost the opportunity for a sudden attack, and stopped three miles away from the Song army and re-arranged troops.

When attacking, cavalry is not as sporting as TV shows, and thousands of horses galloping, chasing each other to attack the enemy formation. The basic function of the formation is the command tool during war, and the most needed cavalry impact is of course "formation". Because the horses charge very quickly, it is very difficult to adjust large-scale arrays during combat, so the formations are often arranged in advance.

In particular, cavalry arrays also need to leave a certain gap between the front and rear units to prevent unnecessary collisions from the cavalry of the formation. Therefore, when using impact tactics, cavalry has high requirements for formation and command. The specific width interval of the queue is formulated according to tactics. Some use dense horizontal queues to impact the enemy, while others use incorrect rows to increase flexibility to facilitate the implementation of cavalry.
Chapter completed!