Author | Cold Research Author Team - Qu Mo Feng
Word count: 2165, Reading time: about 4 minutes
Editor's note: Recently, I was asked a question: the wars between Rome and Parthian and Sassanid Persia, which took down enemy capitals several times and won victories. So it seems that infantry is feasible to fight cavalry, how can it not be in China (in fact, it is mainly said that there are two Song Dynasties in the Southern Dynasty), can it be that the expeditionary ability of ancient Rome is stronger than that of ancient China?
On the question of the Roman Expedition, we can first look at the map. The capitals of the Parthian Empire and Sassanid Persia were located in the middle reaches of the Tigris River, in the middle of the Two Rivers Valley, not very far from the Roman border, and not in the depths of the Empire. Given the availability of water transport from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the logistical pressure on the Roman invasion of Ctesiphon was even lower.
In other words, although the Romans conquered Ctesiphon several times, they did not completely penetrate the Two Rivers Valley. The Great Rear of the Parthian Empire and Sassanid Persia was the Iranian Plateau, which was also the Empire's most important source of soldiers and horses, which meant that Rome could not destroy Parthian and subsequent Sassanid Persia.
For example, in the case of the Northern Expedition in the south of ancient China, the difficulty of Rome's attack on Taixifeng was only about the same as that of attacking the Yellow River line. The Southern Dynasty And Northern Expedition repeatedly hit the four towns of the Yellow River, Chen Qingzhi recovered Luoyang, and later Yue Fei's Northern Expedition also recaptured Luoyang, reaching Fenjing, but it was difficult to go further.
▲ Yue Family Army's elite cavalry back ridge army
In fact, in the battle of determining the battlefield, it is difficult for a cavalry power that lacks high-quality infantry to gain an advantage. Since the range of the mounted archer is not as good as that of the archer, it is difficult for the armored cavalry to break the static defense of the high-quality infantry phalanx, in the frontal confrontation, the infantry power can completely brake statically, if there is a small number of elite cavalry to assist, it is more like a tiger.
However, the victory of the campaign often does not depend on the frontal battlefield, but on logistics and depth. The biggest problem of infantry against cavalry is not decisive battle but supply, and the longer the supply line, the greater the risk of the logistics line being destroyed by the cavalry team.
The advantage of the cavalry is to use mobility to seek fighters, even if it is a armored iron horse that protects the teeth, it is very rare to use the front of the long gun phalanx to harden the line, because the training cost of the armored cavalry is much higher than that of the spearman.
▲ The Jinguo Tiefutu was also difficult to directly penetrate the long gun phalanx of the Yue family army with sword and axe hands and hook and sickle guns
During the Sixteen Kingdoms period of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Murong Chui defeated the Famous Eastern Jin general Huan Wen and Liu Jiaozhi in the Battle of Fangtou and the Battle of Wuqiaoze. But in fact, the Xianbei Iron Rider had suffered a lot of losses in the previous confrontation.
Before the Battle of Fangtou, Murong Shi's iron horse was defeated by Huan Wen at the Battle of Linzhu (at that time Murong Chui was Fu Yan's second-in-command), and Murong Zang was defeated. Later, Murong Chui, as commander-in-chief, confronted Huan Wen with the tactic of shrinking, and sent Murong De and Li Yi to Shimen to cut off Huan Wen's army's water and grain routes. Huan Wen's army was starved of food and retreated, and on the way home it was pursued by Murong Chui's cavalry and attacked by Murong De's ambush troops, suffering heavy losses.
Infantry because there is no horse to move, physical exertion is very fast, the infantry during the battle of the huge amount of food, in order to maintain the consumption of long-term combat, once the food supply is insufficient, combat effectiveness and resilience will be seriously weakened. Therefore, cavalry powers often use the mobility of rangers to destroy the opponent's supply line and weaken the opponent's food supply before launching a general battle.
▲Liu Jiaozhi
Before the Battle of Wuqiaoze, Murong Chui was defeated by Liu Gaozhi at Yicheng, so he raised his troops to the north, and Liu Gaozhi's army continued to go deeper, physically exhausted, and entered the swampy terrain that was not conducive to the battle of the array, but the elite Beifu army still suppressed Murong Chui's army again in the battle, at this time the Northern Fu army competed for the weight left by Murong Chui's army, so that Murong Chui captured the fighter and launched a counterattack, "The defeat of the prison, the soldiers were annihilated." The prison's horse jumped five times and had to get out."
Whether it was the Battle of Fangtou or the Battle of Wuqiaoze, the losses of the Eastern Jin Army were very heavy. Obviously, the mobility advantage of the cavalry is conducive to expanding the results of the battle, and the annihilation ability is very strong.
▲Murong Chui
However, we must also note the ability of the infantry to reorganize in the midst of chaos. In 1512, at the Battle of Ravenna in the Italian War, the famous French general Gaston de Foix successfully defeated the Spanish army, but in pursuit of the Spanish rout, encountered a small phalanx of reorganized and retreating small Spanish infantry, and was shot down by long guns and killed on the battlefield.
▲ The French general who killed Ravenna in battle star Fuva
In the confrontation between Rome and Persia, the Persian king Shapur II also took the way of luring the enemy deeper and constantly plundering his grain and grass, thwarting the large army of the Roman Emperor Julian. Although Julian defeated the Persian army of war elephants before Ctesi's blockade, the Persians who retreated into the city still held Ctesiphon. The Persians continued to fortify and harass the Romans' food supply, and eventually, the starved and tired Roman army fought with the Persians at Samyra, and the Roman Emperor Julian was killed on the battlefield. However, the resilient Roman infantry managed to reorganize their formation after the chaos, thwarting the Persians' attempt to annihilate them. In the end, King Shapur II had to let the remnants of the Roman army slowly withdraw.
Even after discussing so many factors, we will find that the disadvantages of the infantry power against the cavalry power are more. The mobility of the cavalry means that it is more able to grasp the initiative of war. So why did the Roman Empire have a better record than the southern dynasties of ancient China?
▲ Shapur II silver coin
This was purely due to the fact that the Roman Empire had far surpassed the Parthian Empire and Sassanid Persia in terms of resources in the east alone. For example, in the time of Diocletian, the Eastern Roman Emperor Galerius first defeated the Persian emperor Nassech with the strength of the Asian part, and then transferred troops from the Danube Line and the Balkan Peninsula to support, and won with overwhelming strength. Even if the military resources in the western part of the empire are too far away to be mobilized, the national population in the east is also above the Two Rivers Valley and the Iranian Plateau.
As far as ancient China was concerned, the population of the south was not as good as that of the north for a long time, and even when the Song and Jin confronted each other, they were only equal to the north and south. During the Northern Expedition to the south, it was natural that it could not launch a crushing superior resource to attack like the Roman Empire. However, although Rome repeatedly attacked Ctesiphon, it was unable to effectively occupy the Two Rivers Valley, which could be used as a mode of attack for cavalry powers, and an example of the superiority of infantry powers in war.
Therefore, to talk about military expeditions without talking about logistical issues is to play hooliganism.
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