In the forty-seventh year of the Ming Dynasty, in 1619 AD, the cold in the Liaodong region was different from previous years. Under the command of Yang Hao, the Ming army divided into four routes and marched to the later Jin capital city of Hetuala to encircle.
Due to the long road, the north road and the east road were slow to advance, and the general Jun song led the western route army to go deep alone, and was annihilated by the superior forces of Houjin at Salhu.
Subsequently, the North Road and East Road Army were defeated one by one, and the South Route Army fled without a fight, and at the Battle of Salhu, Houjin won more with less and defeated the Ming army with more generals. Why didn't the Ming army concentrate its forces and directly attack the Yellow Dragon with the power of thunder? After all, from the perspective of the battlefield environment, it is far easier to concentrate troops than to divide troops, and it is easier to win battles.
Specific analysis, the tactics of dividing troops and encircling troops are difficult to be effective. First, the ancient means of communication were backward, relying on horse manpower to pass orders.
Coupled with the dispatch of troops in February of the lunar calendar, the weather is cold, the road is slippery, and the mutual communication of military intelligence orders has been seriously delayed. It is difficult for the various armies to communicate effectively with each other and to adjust the deployment of operations in a timely manner. Second, there are many hills and valleys in the Salhu area, the terrain is undulating, the roads are difficult to navigate, and the speed of the march is even more difficult to control uniformly.
The various lines of attack of the soldiers and horses are different, and they cannot effectively provide support at all, and they cannot take care of each other from end to end. Third, although the Ming army claimed to be 470,000, the actual regular army capable of fighting was around 200,000, and it also included the Jurchen Yehebu and the Korean servant army that assisted. After the division of troops, the Ming army's combat strength in different directions did not actually dominate.
From a comprehensive point of view, the overall consideration of the battlefield environment, combat coordination, and local enemy and enemy forces, and the adoption of the tactic of dividing troops and combining attacks are very inconsistent with the actual situation, and even the lack of military command quality. However, Yang Ho, the commander of the Ming army sitting in Shenyang, was not ignorant of marching and fighting.
Although he was born as a civilian official, he had been in the battlefield for a long time, leading the Ming army to resist the Wo and aid Korea, and plotted against each other to defeat the Japanese 100,000 strong soldiers, and his merits could be described as rich in actual combat experience. Why, in this domestic counter-rebellion with more fights and less fighting, Yang Hao frequently made faint moves, completely disregarded the terrain, climate, army combat strength and other factors in Eastern Liaoning, and blindly adopted a division strategy, so that tactically, he was toyed with by the Houjin army?
First, most of the Ming troops were temporarily transferred, and the supply of local materials and grain was difficult to support. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the original Weishou military households fled in large numbers, and the combat effectiveness of the army continued to weaken and was difficult to reuse.
Once there is an internal rebellion or a foreign war, it mainly relies on the conscription of border troops and Fan armies with strong combat strength, or the selection and transfer of a small number of elites from various armies to participate in the battle together. Therefore, in the large-scale wars of the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the guest troops who traveled long distances were often the main force of the battle.
Taking the Battle of Salhu as an example, in addition to the local Liao army, the guest army came from Sichuan, Xuanfu, and Datong. Suddenly, the army gathered, and it was difficult to supply the required materials and food.
If all the troops are concentrated in one place, it will be difficult to support the huge daily consumption. Therefore, the troops were scattered in the four cities of Kaiyuan and Kuandian, which facilitated the transfer of materials and eased the pressure on military supplies.
Second, the Wanli Emperor considered the huge cost of the war and urged him to make a quick decision. However, the generals did not subordinate themselves to each other, and they were eager to make contributions, and it was difficult for the Ming army to integrate in a short period of time. Therefore, even if Yang Hao, as the commander-in-chief, wanted to dispatch the Liao army and the guest army and form a close cooperation, it was difficult to achieve.
However, the military's lack of unity of mind, not to mention the pre-war run-in training, forced to let strange armies from different regions act together, but will hinder each other, resulting in internal friction. Therefore, according to the original structure, the Ming army was divided into four roads, and in the operation, there were fewer requirements for combat coordination, and unnecessary friction and infighting could be reduced.
Third, the internal composition is complex and the command is inconvenient. In ancient feudal society, the concept of regional vernacularity was strong, and within the Ming army, according to different regions, soldiers and soldiers were concentrated in groups. Hasty integration of the relationship between subordinates, the difference in dialects, there will be a problem of officers and soldiers with language barriers, poor command.
During the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, known as the National Mosaic, had a complex ethnic composition within the army, and the hungarian, Austrian, Serb and other ethnic languages were not understood. Some upper-class aristocratic officers had difficulty commanding all their subordinates unless they mastered multiple national languages or gave orders purely in the imperial written script.
Naturally, such a mixed Austro-Hungarian army had millions of soldiers in the air, but its combat effectiveness was difficult to form. In the face of the onslaught of the Russian army, it collapsed. Therefore, in the case of a complex composition of the army and a language barrier, it is more advantageous to divide the army than to concentrate the troops, and it can retain the original independent command system of each army to the greatest extent and give play to normal combat strength.
Fourth, in previous campaigns, the tactics of dividing troops have repeatedly worked, and they have despised the combat effectiveness of the Later Jin Army. The Ming army dared to divide its troops, and it must have considered the possibility of each road being broken separately. However, in the battle of Yang Yinglong, which broke out earlier, the Ming army also adopted a multi-way attack tactic, dividing troops to seize the main points and advancing step by step. When they encounter the main force of the enemy army, they will stand by and wait for help. Repeated victories gave Liu Ling, the general of the Ming Army, who had participated in the Battle of Pingding Bozhou, a taste of sweetness.
The Ming generals generally believed that the Houjin army would disperse its forces like Yang Yinglong's rebels, deploying resistance at key points at various checkpoints, and seriously underestimating the tactical flexibility and continuous combat capabilities of the Houjin army. Under the premise of misjudging the situation on the battlefield, the commanders of the Ming Army habitually followed the tactic of golden oil and still adopted the strategy of dividing troops and attacking together.
Fifth, the group marches in formation, and the lack of cover is likely to cause tactical passivity. In the Battle of Shuishui between the Eastern Jin Dynasty and Former Qin, Former Qin claimed that the 800,000-strong army adopted the method of warfare that concentrated all its forces. It seems that there are many people and many people, and the whip is broken. However, once the army collapsed, it caused an avalanche rout.
In the change of Tumu Fort, due to the fear of the combat effectiveness of the Wallachian army, the Ming army also adopted the method of concentrated warfare of the whole army. But there were so many soldiers and horses and limited roads that they were slow to move. In the end, the Ming army had a numerical superiority in the air, but it was surrounded by the Wallachian army in the square inch of the Tumu Fort, unable to move.
Like a huge caterpillar, it moves slowly, but there are no hands and siblings who can take the initiative to fight back, and can only be continuously eaten by ants. Therefore, the Ming army learned a lesson and often adopted the tactics of wandering troops and responding to each other in marching operations. Avoid the concentration of troops, resulting in insufficient marching speed, so that it is suppressed by the encirclement.
The Ming army's tendency to divide tactics is a summary of the experience of previous wars, not an offensive that lacks military common sense. However, it cannot be targeted at the rapidly changing battlefield situation, and can only be broken by more flexible enemy forces.