In the past, most cavalry could only use ring-headed swords as weapons, charge with swords, or play riding and shooting with bows.

Only a small number of cavalry with stronger legs and a smaller number of generals can charge with spears, hold spears, or swing the spear to fight immediately.

Because there are no double stirrups and a Takahashi saddle, the balance of the body depends on the legs to clamp the horse's belly. You cannot use too heavy weapons, otherwise you will lose balance and fall down from the horse.

Only those who have carefully trained and have strong legs can use weapons like spears, and can charge forward with a certain lethality and impact.

Even so, when pricking the enemy with a spear, most cavalry must learn to let go in time, otherwise the reaction force brought by high-speed impact is not something that anyone can bear, the arms may be torn, and the cavalry themselves will be injured and fall off their horses.

At this time, the cavalry can only fight and assist, fight with the opponent's cavalry, or chase and kill defeated soldiers who have lost their military formation. They can only be used to attack a small number of infantry, and cannot be the main force of the rushing formation, and the main force is still the infantry.

It was not until the horse harness matured that the cavalry could truly be called an iron cavalry, with a bit of a torrent of steel and its lethality to the infantry increased exponentially.

Especially heavy cavalry covered with armor, people wearing armor, horses wearing armor, maces and other weapons with powerful lethality, they have extremely powerful rushing to break the formation.

Having said that, this type of heavy cavalry usually wears into an army in front of the formation and organizes it, and is responsible for rushing to break the formation and destroying the infantry formation.

However, because the weight is too heavy, there are high physical requirements for both people and horses, and it must be a strong man and a tall and headed horse of excellent bloodline with extremely strong weight.

Therefore, the number of heavy cavalry must be very small, and the time to fight is short, and it cannot be rushing for a long distance, otherwise it will lose its combat effectiveness due to excessive fatigue.

Therefore, real heavy cavalry often belongs to the battlefield killer, which is a super killer.

If you don’t go out, you will definitely win once you go out.

Think about it, facing a complete infantry formation, a heavy cavalry unit was covered in heavy armor, connected to each other, advancing in unison, and charging together.

They rushed directly towards the infantry formation with an indomitable momentum, just like a large iron block crashing into the marching formation. Such impact force cannot be simply resisted by the shield-holding infantry. They can instantly tear the infantry formation apart and kill all directions within the military formation.

At that time, a large number of follow-up troops followed closely behind, destroying the infantry that had lost the protection of the army, splitting and surrounding them, and defeating them one by one.

That poor infantry army would be tortured and killed in this way, collapsed directly, and suffered heavy casualties.

That is the tank in the era of cold weapons.

Infantry to deal with such tanks, they cannot fight encounters. They must set up positions and place the decisive battle battlefield on the preset positions.

The preset position requires digging traps, setting up horse-rejecting horses, and equipped with weapons such as cutting horse legs, which are specially designed to cut horse legs. Cutting it against horse legs is one of the weaknesses of heavy cavalry.

Of course, the biggest weakness of heavy cavalry is not that the horse's legs are not protected, nor that it is a joke that the infantry who has been very professional and rigorously trained and strong in body wants to fight against heavy cavalry.

The biggest weakness of heavy cavalry is that they are expensive and few.

The money spent on raising such a heavy cavalry unit is not affordable by ordinary warlords, and it is a sky-high price.

First of all, a person's physical fitness must be strong and elite. Then he must eat enough meat, sufficient protein and oil, so that his body can withstand heavy armor and bear heavy weapons.

The same is true for horses. They not only need good breeds, but also need to feed them. They must be fat and strong enough to charge into battle while wearing heavy armor and carrying heavy armor.

The cost of raising such a heavy cavalry and a horse was conservatively estimated to be about thirty normal infantrymen.

Judging from Guo Peng's current military level, it is estimated that only the personal soldiers of the Tiger Guard can become heavy cavalrymen.

As for war horses that can carry heavy loads, it is estimated that at most thousands of such war horses can be collected among hundreds of thousands.

When such a unit was taken out, it would definitely be amazing to the world. Moreover, for a long time, it was invincible to fight all over the world. It would definitely make the enemy's military formation cry and howl and run away when they see it.

However, once someone grasps his weakness, he will be severely damaged by the heavy cavalry troops as long as he fights. Once such troops are severely damaged, even if their family has a strong foundation, they will not be able to raise another unit within three to five years, which will be a huge burden on the finance department.

This is the biggest weakness of the heavy cavalry unit.

That is the real aristocratic army, the aristocratic way of playing, and the money is burning.

In Mr. Guo's opinion, it feels quite a bit like it is not worth the effort.

As long as the basic cavalry is large enough and well-equipped, it can still be regarded as a torrent of steel. As long as a few heavy cavalry are the first to rush to destroy the infantry formation, the cavalry that follows can also clean up the infantry like chopping melons and vegetables. There is no need to really build tens of thousands of torrents of steel.

The financial burden is too great, and Mr. Guo cannot afford it.

He only needs to free his hands, put on an appropriate amount of armor, hold various weapons, have certain rushing ability and fighting ability, and greatly increase the number of cavalry and greatly reduce the difficulty of cavalry training. That is enough.

He was definitely not in such a state that he had been in an army for more than ten years and had 400,000 troops to get more than 60,000 cavalry.

It is not too easy to find a soldier with strong legs.

With the full set of horse harnesses, not only will the loss of the war horses be greatly reduced, but the difficulty and time required for training cavalry will also be greatly reduced.

The benefits brought by technological advancement are really too obvious.

In November of the first year of Jian'an, Guo Peng held a military meeting in Yecheng, displaying war horse harnesses such as double stirrups, horseshoes and high bridge saddles.

He let the generals with experience in leading cavalry observe the new posture of the war horses equipped with full sets of horses and cavalry on the spot, which immediately shocked the generals.

Zhang Fei returned to Yecheng from the Youzhou border from a long distance. After seeing the soldiers' drills, he was very excited and decided to go on battle himself, put on armor, and rode a war horse equipped with a full set of horse harnesses. He easily made a lot of difficult tactical actions on the war horse.

Zhang Fei was wearing a ghost-faced mask, looking like a ghost, and easily waved a heavy mace, easily smashing seven or eight wooden men into rags, looking majestic and imposing.

This situation surprised the generals, and after seeing the advantages of horse harnesses, some of the accompanying staff officials immediately thought of the benefits that a large number of horse harnesses could bring.

Let the cavalry free their hands and use weapons to fight on both hands on the war horse. They can make many tactical actions, greatly reducing the burden on cavalry riding.

More importantly, the requirements for the quality of cavalry are greatly reduced, and therefore, more soldiers can become cavalrymen, and the difficulty and cost of training cavalry are greatly reduced, which will save a lot of military expenses.
Chapter completed!