Chapter 159 Cavalry and War Horse

Although Meng Enyuan has become the leader of Fengtian's first mixed association, he has been regarded as breaking away from the limitations of small arms such as cavalry, infantry and artillery, and officially entered the level of senior generals in the army. However, he is the leader of cavalry in the Soviet system today.

In this case, it is not surprising that he supports the development of cavalry.

"A cavalry association?" Zhao Dongyun still frowned after hearing this. To be honest, he has not relaxed the development of cavalry over the years. On the contrary, he still pays more attention to it.

For example, the "big brigade battalion" system he set up in the Jinzhou patrol battalion is to make his cavalry better integrated into the modern army system.

Not counting, after the restructuring of the whole national New Army, the third town cavalry under Zhao Dongyun did not modify it into a standard cavalry standard, but adopted a separate brigade battalion system. What is a brigade battalion system? It is to expand the first level of the team from dozens of cavalry to about 200 cavalry, and one battalion has jurisdiction over three cavalry, thus forming a cavalry battalion of about 600 cavalry.

Such a battalion is equivalent to the three battalions organized by the New Army in the late Qing Dynasty, but why is this cavalry battalion still small? This is relative to the cavalry standard. Originally, the basic tactical unit of the cavalry of the new army at the end of the Qing Dynasty was the standard, but when it came to Zhao Dongyun, it was changed to a battalion, and the battalion was much smaller than the scale of the target. In fact, it is more appropriate to call the so-called "big team camp" system.

But in this way, it is not easy to do the organization and title, because the cavalry standard of the third town has three large cavalry battalions. If the battalion is changed to the standard, the cavalry standard of the third town will have to be renamed the cavalry association, and it is easy to be accused of openly changing the name of the third town. For political issues, so we simply used the 'camp'-level institutions.

In today's cavalry formation in various countries, there is generally no such establishment as cavalry battalions. Usually, three to five cavalry companies form about 500 to 800 cavalry regiments. Then there will be two or three cavalry brigades, and then there will be a cavalry division composed of four or five regiments.

However, in Zhao Dongyun's establishment, because the establishment of the camp was used, the subsequent establishment and names were different.

According to the planning plan proposed by Meng Enyuan, two to three cavalry battalions are formed into a cavalry association, and two cavalry associations are formed into a cavalry town. In short, Meng Enyuan's plan table replaces with 'bion'. Therefore, compared with the formation of Western cavalry, the content is the same, but the name is different.

However, no matter how the name changes, the development of Zhao Dongyun's cavalry follows the development direction of contemporary mainstream cavalry. It is not only the latest, but also equipped with Type 88 cavalry rifles, and even equipped with heavy machine guns and mortars on a large scale. In terms of firepower strength, it is much higher than that of other towns in Beiyang. The cavalry.

It can be seen that Zhao Dongyun has always attached great importance to the development of cavalry, but this attention is still unsatisfactory for cavalry generals such as Meng Enyuan.

"Your Excellency, although the number of cavalry in our army is insufficient now, we can barely make up a cavalry association!" Meng Enyuan continued to persuade Zhao Dongyun.

However, Zhao Dongyun still shook his head: "The cavalry in the third town can't move!"

Why? Because the third town is not only Zhao Dongyun's direct army, but also one of the six Beiyang towns. In other words, it is Yuan Shikai's direct army. The importance is far from being comparable to the two Fengtian mixed associations created by Zhao Dongyun himself. It's okay for Zhao Dongyun's own two mixed associations in Fengtian, but the third town Zhao Dongyun had no problem with paying for himself to equip mortars, equipping more machine guns, and even changing the cavalry. Instead of having any comments, he will greatly praise Zhao Dongyun for his good military training.

However, if Zhao Dongyun said that he would transfer the troops of the third town and be integrated into the local troops of Fengtian, then Yuan Shikai would have an opinion. Any move to weaken the direct forces of the six towns in Beiyang is unacceptable.

You should know that Zhao Dongyun spent a lot of saliva on Yuan Shikai in order to transfer an infantry battalion in the third town to serve as the core combat effectiveness in Fengtian's second mixed association, and promised to fill the gap in the third town within two months, otherwise Yuan Shikai would not allow it.

It hasn't been long since an infantry battalion was transferred, and then a cavalry battalion has been transferred? Yuan Shikai must have an opinion!

And the establishment of the Cavalry Association is too big, not to mention the cost, and the political impact will also be relatively large. You should know that Zhao Dongyun's cavalry establishment is different from the new army set by the court. There is nothing to do in private, but it is openly taken out to people, and it is also made a big fanfare. When the cavalry association comes and gives the words to the court, what do you want the chiefs of the training department and the military department to think?

"Let's stop this Cavalry Association for the time being, and we will do it later when we have a chance!" Zhao Dongyun was no longer ready to listen to Meng Enyuan's persuasion and explanation at this time, because the direction of Meng Enyuan and Chen Guangyuan's subordinate officers was different from Zhao Dongyun's.

Zhao Dongyun thought more about political influence, while Meng Enyuan thought very simply, that is, how to strengthen the cavalry!

Meng Enyuan was disappointed after hearing this, but he was also a cheeky man who heard that Zhao Dongyun rejected the Cavalry Association and the dispatch of cavalry from the third town, but there was another thing, that is, the newly trained cavalry battalion.

Sure enough, he then listened to Zhao Dongyun say, "But our army is located in the northeast, and there is no shortage of cavalry. In this way, you can train another cavalry battalion in the first mixed association!"

Anyway, Zhao Dongyun's cavalry troops have almost developed recently, but Zhao Dongyun has always been a guy who doesn't like to defend. Since the five existing cavalry battalions have been fully armed, it is time to continue to train a new cavalry battalion!

After listening to this, Meng Enyuan immediately said with a happy face, "Your excellency!"

Zhao Dongyun's face still hasn't changed: "Don't be in a hurry. I'll give you a few notes, and then go everywhere to handle it."

If Meng Enyuan wants to practice another cavalry battalion, he needs military horses, weapons and personnel, and these things can't be obtained from the supervision office, the education office, the ordnance department and other places without Zhao Dongyun's.

It is much more troublesome to practice a cavalry battalion than an infantry battalion. The ordnance is the best solution. War horses are second. The problem is cavalry. If you want to recruit cavalry, it is best to recruit those skilled equestrians, such as bandits, herdsmen and so on, but if they are ordinary peasants, they have been recruited. You have to train horsemanship. When they are trained to become an army, cucumber dishes will be cold. Therefore, in recent years, Zhao Dongyun's cavalry army has expanded. Generally, they recruit new recruits with skillful riding skills, and rarely recruit ordinary recruits.

There are several ways to solve the problem of war horses. One is to take the road of the imperial court through the formal way and ask for military horses. Of course, this has to be paid. The other is to buy them directly in the place. There are many horses in the northeast, and there are more Mongolian horses nearby. From these two ways alone Knowing that the Beiyang New Army located in the North Sea and the old army of the provinces are not short of horses, of course, the Southern New Army is another matter.

However, it does not mean that there are good horses. The horses available in Beiyang towns are generally Mongolian horses. Although this kind of horse is barely available, it is still relatively large away from riding horses.

There are many kinds of military horses, which can be divided into riding horses, horse riding horses, horse riding, horse riding, etc. Among them, the most used is actually not riding horses, but horse riding horses and horse riding horses. The latter mainly serves as the logistics horse of the troops, carrying mountain cannons, machine guns, ammunition, pulling field guns, heavy carriages, etc.

The so-called mule horseization is the special use of a large number of horses as the main force of logistics.

In Beiyang towns, logistics horses are not a problem. Although Mongolian horses are not suitable for charging, it is still possible to pull cars to carry goods. However, as a riding horse, it is far inferior to the Don River horse used by Russian cavalry and the Anglo Norman horse of the Japanese army, which is commonly known as 'East' by later generations. Yanma'.

However, in terms of the development of today's cavalry, although the Mongolian horse is not as good as these traditional horses in terms of speed, weight and explosiveness, it has a very powerful advantage, that is, its excellent endurance. Mongolian horses can completely allow cavalry to maneuver over long distances, which is unmatched by other types of horses in the world.

And this advantage is more prominent in the era when cavalry gradually became horse-riding infantry.

Although Zhao Dongyun's cavalry and logistics forces are mainly Mongolian horses, there are also a small number of other blood horses, such as more than 20 Don horses in Russia and more than 10 Anglo Arabian horses in Japan.

Among them, the more than a dozen Anglo-Arab horses given by Japan are better riding horses than Anglo-Normandy horses. They have always served as senior officers in the Japanese army. These more than a dozen Anglo-Arab horses were given private horses given to Zhao Dongyun by the Japanese army, and then given them to Chen Guangyuan and others by Zhao Dongyun. Grade officers are used as horses.

Unfortunately, these Anglo Arabian horses have been removed and cannot be used for breeding, otherwise Zhao Dongyun's men may get an excellent riding horse.

As for the more than 20 Don horses, they are not the active military horses of the Russian army. These horses are all more than ten stallions sent by Zhao Dongyun to buy from Russia in his private name at a high price a few years ago, including two stallions and 13 mares, as well as eight pi newly born in the past two years.

These Don hippos are highly expected by Zhao Dongyun. At the same time that they can get a large number of excellent Don hippos, they also hope to breed Mongolian horses with Don hippos to cultivate horses that are more suitable for Chinese terrain.

In fact, Zhao Dongyun thought of getting his own Anglo-Normand and Anglo Arabian horses at the beginning, but he had no problem with the more than a dozen stallions he gave him after castration, but the stallions refused to give them.

In fact, if Zhao Dongyun is willing, he can also go directly to France and even Britain to introduce excellent stallions, but after the introduction, he has to cultivate and hybridize by himself. It takes too long and may not be able to cultivate better horses than the Don River Horse, so he Simply put the center at the end of cultivating the Don River.

Although Zhao Dongyun's cavalry or the whole Beiyang New Army lacks good horses, the overall scale of the Beiyang cavalry force is not large and can barely cope with it. As for the cavalry for the logistics force, there is no shortage.

Compared with the complexity and trouble of developing cavalry and the cost of developing artillery, it is much easier for Zhao Dongyun to expand several infantry battalions!