Li Zicheng's rebel army was active at the end of the Ming Dynasty, they were armed with displaced people and bankrupt military families in the northwest region, they went from weak to strong, from scratch, and finally attacked Beijing and destroyed the Ming Dynasty.
Historically, because of Li Zicheng's rapid defeat, there has never been an objective evaluation of him, and the history books written by the feudal literati have denounced him as a thief and regarded the army he led as a ragtag group.
Is this really the case? Today we will talk about Li Zicheng's best cavalry combat and see the real strength of the rebel army.
At the beginning of Li Zicheng's uprising, the peasant army was still very weak, and at that time, except for a very small number of bankrupt military households, the vast majority of people were outcasts who did not have enough to eat, they had no military training, no technology and culture, and naturally they were not opponents of the regular army of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the rebel army could only take mobile combat in the early stage, and went around in circles with the Ming officials and troops.
In this process, on the one hand, because of the decay of the Ming Dynasty, a large number of displaced people joined the ranks of the rebel army, and their number increased, on the other hand, it also tempered the characteristics of the rebel army's proficiency in mobile combat, especially the use of cavalry became more and more skilled.
Li Zicheng and others once fought thousands of miles from the Guanzhong region, attacked the hometown of Zhu Yuanzhang in Fengyang, Huainan, and ripped off the ancestral tombs of the Ming Dynasty, and then fought fiercely in the Central Plains for a long time, relying on strong mobility.
The erratic tactics of Li Zicheng and others made the Ming Dynasty officials and troops who surrounded and suppressed them very headaches.
According to historical records, Li Zicheng's rebel army attached great importance to the collection of mules and horses, and they concentrated the captured warhorses and other livestock, distributed them to more experienced soldiers, and formed a cavalry unit.
When the army moved, because the rebel army was dragging the family and the mouth, they protected the old and weak women and children in the middle, and the cavalry troops were on both wings, and the team was orderly, not afraid of the attack of the officers and soldiers.
Zuo Liangyu's report said that it was very headache for the mobile operations of the rebel army, and the officers and soldiers were dragged down and thinned, and then they were defeated.
At the Battle of Shaanxi County in the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, Sun Chuanting, who had originally taken full advantage of the peasant army, was surprised to find that Li Zicheng's rebel army not only had a clean lineup, but also had an elite cavalry with extremely strong combat effectiveness.
The history books record that Li Zicheng's cavalry numbered 30,000 people, known as the "three walls", and during the war, the infantry was the forerunner, and the cavalry followed up, and the three rows of cavalry took turns to attack, rushing back and forth, like mountains and forests. Sun Chuanting's Qin army could not resist and was eventually defeated.
It is also said that li zicheng's army selected the soldiers who killed the most as knights, often with more than one horse, and took turns riding when marching. Serve them with a number of auxiliary soldiers to ensure their strong combat effectiveness.
For the breeding of warhorses, the history books are somewhat exaggerated, saying that the rebel army fed the warhorses with the corpses of captured captives, and raised them with human blood and human flesh, so the warhorses of the rebel army ran bloodthirsty and wild when they started the war. This point is probably the rhetoric of later generations of literati and bureaucrats slandering the rebel army, and it is not reliable.
But it is certain that the rebel army attached importance to cavalry construction and formed a fairly strong cavalry unit.
However, Li Zicheng was not born at the right time, just when the rebel army was thriving, in the Battle of Yishi, they encountered a joint attack by the Guanning Army and the Eight Banner Army.
At that time, the Guanning Army was the elite of the former Ming Dynasty, and the Eight Banners Army was even more like the sun in the sky, which was a powerful brigade in a hundred battles. The rebel army first fought fiercely for two days and nights, crushing the GuanNing army, but did not expect Wu Sangui to surrender, and the Eight Banner Army suddenly raided, resulting in a disastrous defeat for the rebel army.
The most serious loss of the rebel army in the Battle of a Stone was the mule horse, which directly led to the inability of the rebel army to play the most effective mobile combat later, but the Eight Banner Army, which had many mules and horses, took full advantage of the maneuver.
The heavy loss of cavalry troops in the Battle of Yishi was an important factor in Li Zicheng's eventual defeat.
If Li Zicheng had known in advance about the Eight Banners Army's participation in the war and could have retreated in advance and retained its main cavalry force, it is difficult to say whether the Eight Banners Army could successfully unify the world in the subsequent war.