In the history of Chinese wars, there are many classic examples of winning with less, such as the Battle of Chibi, the Battle of Feishui, the Battle of Li Shimin's Battle of Luoyang, etc. In these cases, the commander of the successful side will be regarded as a god by many later generals, because the winning side is on the surface, the winner is a bad hand, but the outcome is a turnaround against the wind, shocking, and eyeballs fall all over the ground.

However, there is no fixed pattern for this kind of battle where there is less to win. The commander involved is often confused afterwards and does not know how he won. So in ancient wars, was it useful to have too many people?

In fact, from the perspective of the entire history of war, the army has a large number of people, but it is still very advantageous. The reason why the number of people wins is classic because there are few cases, which is particularly rare.

In 1915, British engineer Lanchester proposed the "Lantchester Equation". The equation is very complicated. To put it directly, it is that military strength is the most intuitive condition for victory, especially in large-scale encounters.

Of course, this advantage may not necessarily determine the outcome of the battlefield. Because the combat effectiveness of an army is not only determined by the number of people, but also depends on the type of troops, formation, accidental factors and other reasons.

Take the arms as an example. Before the Northern and Southern Dynasties, stirrups and horse lances were popular, and the cavalry had much more lethality than infantry.

On the battlefield, the cavalry will attack, divide the infantry's formation, disrupt the original command sequence of the infantry formation, causing chaos in the infantry group and even overall out of control.

Therefore, sometimes a small number of cavalry can defeat a huge number of infantry.

During the Battle of Shayuan during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Yuwen Tai of the Western Wei led 10,000 troops to face Gao Huan's 200,000 troops. As soon as the two sides contacted, Yuwen Tai's disadvantage in numbers was exposed. Unexpectedly, at this time, Li Bi, the commander of Yuwen Tai's right army, led the cavalry to rush to the formation of the Eastern Wei army, and cut the enemy formation with the advantages of speed and defense.

The bloody cavalry meets the infantry, just like a misaligned single in basketball, causing the opponent to fall into chaos, and Gao Huan's 200,000 troops were easily defeated.

In addition, for the commander, it is definitely not easy to command a large army of tens of thousands of people in actual combat.

Due to the difficulty of communication between ancient military formations, they did not have cell phones and phone calls, and could not post on Weibo or Moments, the soldiers' vision was limited, which could easily lead to poor information and group tension. Qi Jiguang, a famous general in the Ming Dynasty, once said: "If the foolish people are lost in the direction for a while, it will be difficult to recognize them." In the military formation, soldiers can easily become foolish people.

For example, in the classic battle of Feishui, where the two sides initially lined up across the water and had no room for decisive battle. The Jin army proposed to let the Former Qin army retreat a little, and the honest Former Qin army really agreed. Unexpectedly, on the way backwards, the Jin army rushed over. In addition, some people in the formation shouted "Qin soldiers were defeated" and other reactionary remarks, which made the soldiers of the Former Qin army panic. The Former Qin army was about to collapse and were defeated.

Of course, the 800,000 troops of the Former Qin army were defeated in one battle, which was also related to the complex composition of the army soldiers. Although this army is large in number, it is all made up of pieces. The army has poor cohesion and combat effectiveness can be imagined.

From this we can see that winning with less is not a fantasy, but behind it is the result of the comprehensive external and internal factors. The huge army does not mean that one can win with confidence, and lacks troops, nor does one sentence be sentenced to death.

Now Duoduo's Manchuria and Mongolian-Han coalition forces meet Fu Jian back then

The Qing army had a total of more than 400,000, including many races, and communication was very inconvenient. The Manchus were still a little worse, after all, less than 10,000 people, but 20,000 Mongolians would be in trouble. These Mongolians came from various tribes, including the Korqin tribe of the Qing Dynasty and the Chahar tribe of the Qing Dynasty. These Mongolians had ulterior motives. If the Qing Dynasty won all the way, it would be fine, but the Qing Dynasty suffered a defeat now, and the Taiji generals of each tribe could not help but have their own plans.

There were 20,000 Han military flags, and they came from the Eight Banners of the Han military. They did not have the problem of the Mongols, but instead became the most loyal subordinates of the Manchus, but the number was too small.

The majority of the Qing army was the New Affiliated Army. These guys were from a complex source, including Gao Jie's Shaanxi Iron Cavalry, Liu Zeqing's Shandong soldiers, Liu Liangzuo's Huai'an soldiers, and Wuchang soldiers who surrendered with Zuo Menggeng. Among them, Zuo Menggeng's army was even more complex, including bandits who surrendered by Li Zicheng, local soldiers who forced them to recruit in Wuchang, and guard soldiers in Henan and Hebei. These soldiers came from various provinces in northern China, and many places had different accents.

The military component is so complex that in order to prevent the new affiliated army, the high-level officials of the Qing Dynasty sent Qing generals to command the new affiliated army in each department. This situation was not a big problem when the Qing Dynasty was dominant, but when encountering such a big defeat became a big problem.

Duoduo's order was to retreat slowly, but Duoduo's order was transmitted to various departments and there was a problem. Many Qing army generals did not understand Chinese, but where did they go to find an interpreter at this time? Originally, those Han generals had an attitude of not having to do anything about themselves. Anyway, it was your Qing army generals' problem, and it had nothing to do with us if something happened.

In this way, the orderly retreat at the beginning quickly turned into a great defeat. Tens of thousands of new affiliated troops outside the Taiping Gate, carrying a few Manchu Eight Banners and Mongolian Eight Banners, ran along the official road outside the Taiping Gate. During this period, the defeated soldiers encountered reinforcements from the Xiaoling Camp. These guys finally organized their formation according to Jin Shenghuan's order. As soon as they arrived at the Taiping Gate, they were defeated by the soldiers retreating from the front line. In addition, they heard that the front line was defeated, and these new affiliated troops with more than 30,000 people joined the defeated team together.

On the left side of the official road outside Taiping Gate is Xuanwu Lake and on the right side is Zhongshan. The road was originally not wide, but now 50,000 or 60,000 Qing troops gathered in this place, and for a moment, the scene in the city was formed, and those who could not go out and those who could not come in could not come in.

Ma Cheng in the city did not expect this situation to happen. At first, he thought it would be better to drive the Qing army out of the city, so he quickly organized civilians to repair the broken wall. However, when Ma Cheng came to the city wall, he found that this situation occurred to the Qing army two miles away.

When Ma Cheng saw this great opportunity, he grabbed Luo Bingran beside him and asked, "Old Luo, what's going on with these Tartars? Why are they in chaos?"

Although Luo Bingran is not a general like Ma Bao and Zhang Guozhu, Luo Bingran is well aware of the worldly ways. After taking a look, he immediately knew what happened to the Qing army.

"Mr. Military Sect, these Tartars seem to be blocked on the official road!"

Ma Cheng nodded happily and said, "Lao, you said a lot. Now the Tartars are in chaos. Do you think we can use this opportunity to eliminate the Tartars in one fell swoop?"

Luo Bingran was shocked when he heard Ma Cheng say this. Even if the Qing army on the opposite side was in chaos, there were only a few people outside the Taiping Gate, and 50,000 or 60,000 people were killed. You must know that the total number of Qing army was enough.

There are more than 400,000. The Ming army in the city has only 240,000. This is still counting all the civilians and the guards. It is not a match for the Qing army at all.

Luo Bingran quickly persuaded: "The military lord is absolutely not good. The number of Tartars is far above our army. If you go out of the city to fight, you may achieve some results, but it will be a bad thing to let the Tartars react!"

Ma Cheng shook his head hesitantly: "Old Luo, you are right, but the situation in the city is not good!"

Although there is no shortage of food in the city now, it is based on exploiting ordinary people. If the Qing army was besieging the city for a year or two, the grain stored in the city will always be eaten up one day. What should we do then? Should we learn to eat human flesh like Zhang Xunshou Suiyang? Although Ma Cheng has discovered potatoes and corn, the quantity is too small and he cannot be counted on within two years. Therefore, how to solve the Qing Dynasty siege is the only way.

Ma Cheng knew that Luo Bingran was not a politician, and he would not consider issues from the perspective of politics. Ma Cheng thought about it and decided to try it out. What if it really succeeded?

"Old Luo, I will leave it to you here in Dongcheng. You will take the civilians and the garrison troops to repair the city walls quickly!"

After saying that, Ma Cheng said to the personal soldiers behind him: "Send the order, Shenji Camp and all the new troops gather! I have something to say!"

The new army under the city was cleaning the battlefield. After a night of battle last night, the new army suffered heavy losses, and 15,000 new army suffered a total of 5,000 casualties. However, the new army had received strict training after all. I heard that the military sect had something to say, and they stood at the Taiping Gate one by one, waiting for Ma Cheng to speak.

Ma Cheng stood at a high place and saw that most of his soldiers were injured. Most of the 10,000 new troops were injured. There was no problem with the five thousand Shenji camps. They suffered little losses last night.

Seeing his subordinates like this, Ma Cheng shouted loudly: "Brothers, thank you for your hard work last night! Without the hard work of all brothers, you can't drive out the Tartars who entered the city, so this governor will ask for rewards for you in front of the emperor!"

After Ma Cheng said that, he looked at his subordinates, and then shouted: "But brothers can't rest yet. I know that everyone is very tired, but the Tartars outside the city are even more tired. Their morale is now in chaos, which is a good opportunity for us to rescue the siege! Now I order that everyone will give you a quarter of an hour to repair, drink some water and eat, and follow me out of the city to fight the Tartars to the death!"

Ma Cheng's words made the new army silent. Everyone knows the size of the Qing army outside the city. Even if more than 10,000 Qing troops were wiped out last night, the total number of Qing troops was still 400,000. On the other hand, there were only 15,000 people on one side, 400,000 to 15,000. As long as you are not a fool, you know how small the chance of winning or losing is.

The generals led by senior officers such as Gu Changwei, Xu Dahu, Xie Guangkun were so angry that they were about to swear, but Ma Cheng waved his hand to stop them. Ma Cheng said in a slow tone: "Brothers, I know that everyone is very tired and that there are many Tartars outside the city, but I have to give you a solid foundation. There are not many military rations in the city, which is only enough for everyone to eat for half a year. If the siege has not been resolved within half a year, then everyone can only eat human flesh."
Chapter completed!