In fact, on the whole, the Ming Army's battle was very methodical. Not to mention Xiao Ruxun's firearms formation, it had also been tested in actual combat. The Japanese were also armed with guns, but they were also defeated by the Ming Army's firearms formation and artillery tactics. Their 200,000 soldiers were defeated by the Ming Army's 40,000 soldiers.
The world's perception of the Ming Army's weak fighting ability mainly came from the Tumu Fort incident and the Southern Japanese and Northern Barbarians in the Jiajing period, as well as the Ming Army's defeat in the 20 years after the Battle of Saerhu. However, the army's fighting ability could not be maintained forever. This was something that ancient dynasties could not do.
The Ming Army's fighting ability had two peaks. The first peak was during the Hongwu Northern Expedition and the five expeditions against the Mongols in the Yongle period. As long as they could catch the Mongols, they could press them on the ground and beat them up. The second peak was from the rise of Qi Jiguang to the end of the three expeditions in the Wanli period. During these two periods, the Ming Army's fighting ability was very impressive.
The Ming Army's fighting ability first weakened after the Tumu Fort incident. The destruction of the Wu Xun Group caused the military force left by Zhu Di to be completely wiped out. The Ming Army entered a state of stagnation. From the Jingtai Emperor to the Zhengde Emperor, except for the slight recovery of the Ming Army's fighting ability during the Hongzhi Emperor, the Ming Army's fighting ability as a whole showed a declining trend. During the Japanese rebellion in the southeast in the early years of the Jiajing period, the Ming Army's fighting ability fell to the bottom.
It should be said that the era in which the fighting power of the army in the middle and later stages of the military began to decline began to change during the reign of Jiajing. The Wokou rebellion in the southeast and the invasion of the Mongols in the northwest posed a serious threat to the Ming Dynasty. This prompted the Ming Dynasty to begin to rectify the problem of the military's fighting power, which had been declining day by day since the Tumu Fortress incident.
The inability of the Ming Army Wei Suo soldiers to fight at the first blow deeply pierced the hearts of the rulers. Therefore, they made a great decision to reorganize the army. Qi Jiguang, Yu Dayou, and other famous generals stepped onto the stage of history under such a background, opening the curtains to the great rise of the Ming Army's fighting power in the Jiajing period. Among them, with the Qi Family Army as the representative, the fighting power of the Ming Army once rose to the level at the beginning of the country's founding.
Qi Jiguang's existence was not only due to defeating the Japanese pirates and resolving the Japanese rebellion in the southeast. The deeper meaning of his existence was that his skills in training and commanding troops were inherited by a group of generals. His exceedingly brilliant military achievements appeared to be at the level of an elephant, causing the overall fighting power of the Ming Army to rise from the Jiajing period to the period before the Battle of Saar Hu in the later period of the Wanli Dynasty. The Ming Army's later use of firearms to coordinate with infantry mostly originated from the firearms tactics that Qi Jiguang improved when the Qi Family Army was guarding Ji Town.
The firearms formation and artillery tactics that Xiao Ruxun proposed were born out of Qi Jiguang's tactics against the Mongols, especially the mobile tactics of chariots and cannons. After realizing that the Mandarin Duck Formation could not deal with the Mongols, Qi Jiguang proposed a concept and then implemented it. In a few years, he created a powerful mobile firepower unit. He used his genius idea and practical execution to provide a model for the fighting style of the Ming Dynasty Army for the next hundred years.
The civil officials looked down on Qi Jiguang's status as a military general, but they dared not look down on his genius strategic thinking and tactical planning. Starting from Qi Jiguang, firearms began to enter the second stage in the Ming Army. The first generation of firearms developed by China was gradually abandoned, and the second generation of firearms was widely used. After Qi Jiguang played a few tricks, other than the Liaodong Army who despised the Southerners as usual, the troops in other places more or less accepted the second generation of matchlock.
To the Ming Dynasty, Qi Jiguang's significance was definitely not just the conquest of the Japanese pirates in the southeast. The conquest of the Japanese pirates in the southeast was a tactical victory, and the Qi Family Army's defense of Ji Town brought a leap in military strategy. The maturity of his military thinking was also completed during this period. Qi Jiguang's military vision was sharp, and his strong execution ability was unparalleled throughout the Ming Dynasty.
Xiao Ruxun admired Qi Jiguang very much. He admired his military vision and his execution ability. The military discipline of the China army was strong, and Qi Jiguang and his Qi Family Army could definitely be ranked in the top three. It was under this historical background that the Kyalung Wan Dynasty caught up with the pace of the world at the last peak of the Ming Dynasty. Without Qi Jiguang, Xiao Ruxun's path would take a long time.
Therefore, when the Siamese and the Burmese saw the tactics and the strong execution ability of the Ming Army, they were shocked. Before this, the Ming Army had never used force in front of them. But now, it was a situation where strategy and combat ability were soaring.
Ambushing the main camp of the pirates, destroying their military equipment and rations, shaking the morale of the troops, and causing the morale of the troops to be unstable. Their combat ability was sharply reduced, and the front and rear could not take care of each other, showing signs of defeat.
The artillery unit used superior firepower to suppress the enemy. Taking advantage of the fact that the enemy had gathered together, the power of one cannon could kill dozens of people. The power of hundreds of cannons caused the elephants to lose their lives, and the elephants to flee in fear. They did not distinguish between friend and foe, and trampled on many of the pirates, which was enough to shake the front and middle armies.
If the front armies were shaken, then the middle armies would be shaken. If the middle armies were shaken, then the whole army would be shaken. After three cannon shots, the morale of the pirates was completely broken, and they became dispirited. Suddenly, the main army pressed forward, and their morale was high. With our sharp troops against the dispirited troops, how could we not win?
The front of the pirates' army collapsed, and the soldiers fled in all directions. They rushed to the back, pushing and trampling non-stop, and directly attacked the middle armies. The battle line of the pirates' army was unstable, and the people were panicking. Moreover, our firearms unit and archers attacked from afar, and killed many of them. The foot soldiers pressed forward with swords and shields, and the gunmen raised their spears and stabbed. The pirates could not get within ten feet of our formation, and wherever the formation went, the pirates' weapons were turned into flesh and blood.
As a result, the morale of the pirates was in chaos, and there were many people shouting and wailing. One to ten, and ten to a hundred. The army formation completely collapsed, and the middle armies were in chaos. Even though their commander was holding the line and gathering the troops, our formation was right in front of them. The moment the pirates gathered, they immediately collapsed. Our formation faced the commander's formation, and both sides fought fiercely. Although the commander was brave, he could not turn the situation around.
After the three rounds of cannons defeated the Burmese elephant soldiers, and when they saw the elephants stampeding in fear within the Burmese formation, Xiao Ruxun and Yuan Huang knew that they had won the battle. The development after that only represented how much the Ming Army could achieve, how much of the Burmese main force they could kill, and whether they could destroy the hundred thousand elites in one battle.
"Let the Siamese consume the Burmese's troops and stamina. When they are at the end of their rope, suddenly attack their barracks, destroy their provisions, and shake their morale. Then, use the cannon to attack suddenly, and cause the elephant soldiers to retreat, and directly trample on their formation, giving our army a chance. In this way, our army can kill the most cave martial artists with the least cost. Ji Xin, your plan has succeeded."
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