In the history of Chinese affairs, Yue Fei can be said to be a veritable legend. It is a miracle that he was able to defeat the Jin cavalry in the situation of the Southern Song Dynasty.

In Chinese history, most of the times when the Central Plains won victories against ethnic minorities, it was a period when the Central Plains was strong and rich in horse resources. Whether it was General Wei and Champion Marquis of Hanwu, Ma Fubo during the Guangwu Period, or Ma Fubo during the Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty.

Li Jing, Li Ji.

Because the experience summed up by the Central Plains Dynasty in long-term foreign wars is that cavalry is invincible, and the only way to fight against cavalry is with cavalry. During these periods, the Central Plains also had first-class cavalry.

However, these conditions changed drastically by the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty can be said to have the smallest territory among all the Central Plains dynasties that unified the Han nationality areas in history. The two main horse-producing areas in the northeast and northwest are not within the territory. Therefore,

After all, during the two Song and three hundred years, the Central Plains did not organize a decent large-scale cavalry unit.

But it was this situation that gave birth to a genius like Yue Fei. It was Yue Fei who created the miracle that infantry could win against cavalry.

It is said that Yue Fei used a special formation to deal with the Jin cavalry at that time. The formation was called: Star Spreading Formation.

Yue Fei's Star Spreading Formation was mentioned in countless historical novels. Zhao Weiji originally liked reading novels. He was also quite curious when he saw this formation. He also specifically checked it on the Internet, but the information about the Star Spreading Formation

There is only a little description of the array.

"Wushu gathered his cavalry together in one place, with the same number and order, and they joined together to charge at me. He was good at combining forces. Yue Fei dispersed his troops to fight in the field, and they formed a group of thousands, spread out like stars, and dispersed when they heard the drums.

When they heard about the gold, they gathered together. When the enemy reached the drum, they had nothing to gain, and they returned tired, so the gold was killed and captured. This is the way to divide the troops to break their combined strength."

However, some clues can be seen from this little record, that is, the scattered formation used scattered shapes to resist the impact of the cavalry. When fighting, the soldiers were spread out so that the impact of the cavalry had nowhere to vent, and when the cavalry waited

After the impact, the soldiers were gathered together to kill the cavalry.

This is quite similar to the artistic conception of Tai Chi, first remove your power and then counterattack. It is also a bit like Mao Taizu's travel notes, the enemy advances and we retreat, avoid its edge and then wait for an opportunity to counterattack.

However, setting up the formation in this way is a test of the soldiers' ability to execute the general's orders. When they hear the gold, they will disperse, and when they hear the drum, they will gather.

Although the Star Spreading Formation is just a legend and seems to have a very difficult name, Zhao Weiji is still willing to give it a try at this time.

…

"Come on, let's all express our opinions on whether this formation will work." After Zhao Weiji came up with the Star Spreading Formation, he summoned Zhenzhou's existing lieutenants and Zhao Xin and Li Jiguang to discuss it.

Possible surnames for scattering stars.

"Is it still called a formation if the soldiers are spread out?" a general surnamed Sun questioned.

"I think it's possible. The reason why the Khitan cavalry is so powerful is because of the strong impact of the cavalry. If the cavalry has no impact, the infantry doesn't have to be much stronger. Besides, we have company crossbowmen to cooperate, so this formation may not be able to achieve miraculous results.

." Li Jiguang retorted here.

"What Li Tongzhi said makes sense, but the requirements for such a formation on the soldiers are a bit high. They must scatter without scattering. When they hear gold, they scatter, and when they hear drums, they gather together." A general surnamed Liao spoke here.

Basically, the generals below have already quarreled over this star-spreading formation. There are roughly two factions of opinions, about half in favor and against.

In the end, Zhao Weiji had no choice but to ask Xin Zhao, who had been silent so far, because only Xin Zhao present had long-term experience in serving in the middle and lower levels of the military. Whether this formation can be used successfully depends on Xin Zhao

What answer was given?

"I think this formation is not without the possibility of manipulation, but when we disperse the soldiers, we can't spread them too thinly. We can spread the soldiers in units of one tenth, and the army can be dispersed into small units of one tenth at most. In this way, as long as

When we choose a suitable person to lead each army, we can prevent the army from becoming scattered to the greatest extent, so that it can disperse without scattering. Moreover, it is easy to gather when we gather. Everyone has their own subordinates, and tens of soldiers gather into a hundred.

Ten hundred gather into a thousand. Everyone just gathers according to the original number and that's it."

The optimization changes proposed by Xin Zhao were quickly recognized by some people who did not originally agree, so now the majority of people who agree with it are already in the majority.

So Zhao Weiji decided to start training the formation according to the optimization proposed by Xin Zhao.

When it comes to the actual training stage, another problem arises. How to select the chiefs, centurions, and thousandth captains who are responsible for uniting the team is a very troublesome problem.

In the end, Zhao Weiji decided to use football to identify these leaders. The principle is very simple. Although football today does not have as rich a combat system as in later generations, these teams today are naturally divided into two parts: offense and defense during games.

Already.

During the game, both the offensive and defensive sides will consciously or unconsciously form a core. What Zhao Weiji is looking for is this core. Whether it is the offensive core or the defensive core, in short, as long as it is the core, it will naturally affect the surrounding players.

Teammates have a cohesive role, and such people will become these potential seedlings.

So Zhao Weiji organized a large-scale football league in the army, divided all the infantry who were going to participate in the training of the Star Spreading Formation into a number of football teams, and then caught the pairs to fight. In order to save time, only thirty players were played in each game.

A minute is a quarter of an hour in ancient times.

These generals were watching those with potential.

After the first round of selection is completed, these selected potential personnel are then formed into a team, and then they fight against each other. The selection and elimination are continued until the right candidate is finally selected.

With the right candidates in place, the training of the Star Formation began. However, they discovered a problem at the beginning of the training. That was what to do if the enemy also divided their troops, although the impact of the cavalry was still weakened.

, but once the enemy divides their forces and entangles your squad, you will not be able to successfully gather together to effectively kill the enemy.

Zhao Weiji thought of a solution to this problem, that is, "jungle". In later generations of Dota-like games, there are always people who play such a role, that is, "jungle". During the laning period, they roam in the jungle

The whole field provides support to each lane. Each lane can form a situation of using more to defeat fewer in a short period of time, so as to consume or even kill the enemy.

At this moment, Zhao Weiji decided to introduce the role of "jungle" to the battlefield. Although the Song Dynasty could not organize a large-scale cavalry force due to lack of horses, small-scale cavalry units were still no problem. Zhao Weiji selected an elite group to form a small group of cavalry units.

Let Li Jiguang lead the troops. He expected that Li Jiguang's keen judgment on the battle situation would lead the cavalry troops to reinforce parts of the entire battle. The cavalry's maneuverability would shuttle throughout the battlefield, just like the "jungle" in the game.

Doing so will allow a local situation to arise where more people are fighting against fewer people.

In this way, the Star Spreading Formation method proposed by Zhao Weiji began to enter a relatively complete training process, but he still felt it was not enough, so he prepared to start with the shooting method of the bow and crossbow.

China has had a crossbow attack method of shooting at an elevation a long time ago, but now Zhao Weiji feels that this method is not accurate enough, because basically all troops shoot at an angle of 45 degrees.

Now that we have telescopes, we have made some progress in estimating the contact distance with the enemy, so we can have more choices in elevation angles. Zhao Weiji, who studied engineering physics, is working hard to calculate the angle problem at this time.

Combining the maximum horizontal firing range of the repeating crossbow, the approximate ballistic speed, and the understanding ability of soldiers of this era. Finally, Zhao Weiji concluded that three angles of elevation can balance the range and power well.

Then he ordered people to start training the crossbowmen.

"Why did the young master have to make so many preparations? Are the Khitans really that scary? I don't think so." Seeing that Zhao Weiji used so many methods to increase the army's combat effectiveness in a short period of time, Zhao Xin was a little disapproving, because in his

Although he knew in his heart how strong the Khitan was, he still felt that after developing new weapons, the Song army would already have the strength to compete with the Khitan. Yang Yanping's defeat that time was all because the general fell into a trap.

Of course, Zhao Weiji couldn't tell Zhao Xin that we actually had less than three months left before the war, and he couldn't tell Zhao Xin that the Song army had suffered another disastrous defeat in this battle.

At this time, he could only prevaricate Zhao Xin by saying that any enemy must pay attention and be careful about sailing the ten thousand year ship.

At this time, the entire Song Dynasty had begun to prepare for Zheng's army, and the Liao Kingdom was not completely unaware of Song's actions. It was just that the current domestic political situation in Khitan was problematic. Although Liao Shengzong had succeeded to the throne for two years, and

In the past two years, his mother, Empress Dowager Chengtian, Xiao Chuo, together with Yelu Xiezhen and Han Derang, have basically stabilized the political situation, but not all internal risks have been eliminated.

Han Derang, who had been governing the Han region of Nanjing, was recalled to Beijing by Empress Dowager Xiao to help handle state affairs. Since Han Derang was absent, Yelv Mo did not have any actual political power, so he could not have any impact on Yanyun's defense. But Yelv Mo also

Not idle, a large number of his spies had already infiltrated the Song Dynasty in the south.

From the intelligence sent back by the spies every day, we can also know that Zhao Song in the south is about to take action. At this time, Yelu Mo also felt that he could not wait any longer. Since Handerang was in Beijing, he wrote a letter to directly remind Liao Shengzong and

Empress Dowager Xiao must be wary of the Song Dynasty.

Zhao Weiji on Song's side was still not satisfied with the current situation, so he came up with something new and was ready to experiment.
Chapter completed!