After several years of precipitation, Makoto Shinkai, who once created the popular "Your Name", now comes back to everyone's vision with his new work "Weather Child". Regardless of the polarization of the film, or the suffocating operation of three years of heavy rain that can accurately raise sea levels. In fact, the setting of Qingnu in the movie is quite eye-catching. Although in the real world, it is naturally impossible to really have a sunny girl, the impact of the weather on ancient wars is enough to affect the success or failure of a war.
▲ Stills from "Weather Child"
In many novel interpretations, a very important hard indicator of a good general is to be able to "know astronomy from above and geography from below." For example, Zhuge Liang in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has "grass boats borrowing arrows", "borrowing the east wind" and other weather conditions in advance, so as to use examples for his own use. Of course, these two things are only the plot of the novel, and in ancient times, without accurate weather forecasts, only relying on some natural phenomena, although there is a certain reference to the general changes in the weather, it is impossible to predict the weather like Zhuge Liang in the novel to reach the level of "unpredictable".
▲The precise grasp of climate change such as "borrowing the east wind" was impossible to achieve under ancient conditions
In the case of unpredictable weather, the impact of weather on war is actually often like a "Russian roulette" of RP. For example, the "burning Chibi" that we are very familiar with is because of the "instant wind", that is, the sudden east wind. At that time, Sun Liu's combined forces seized the opportunity to launch a fire attack on the Cao army, thus winning the Battle of Chibi. Of course, sun and liu on the side of the coalition army were able to seize the opportunity, but it is also possible that they are familiar with the local weather and know that at this time, the wind direction itself is not stable. In this case, even if Cao Cao's face is painted white, he can only be a "non-chief".
▲The Battle of Chibi
If the Battle of Chibi is not fresh enough because it has been talked about too much, then there is a more exciting one. That was the Battle of Baigou River between the Yan army led by the later Yongle Emperor Zhu Di and the Ming army at that time in the Battle of Jingnan.
▲The Battle of Jingnan
The Battle of Baigou River can be said to be one of the most thrilling battles in Zhu Di's military career. The entire battle lasted a total of two days. On the first day, an ambush was set up by the generals of the Ming army who were familiar with Zhu Di's combat style, followed by a siege of the Yan army by various Ming armies. Although in the end the Yan army broke through the siege, the Yan army suffered heavy losses. The next day, the Ming army relied on its superiority in strength to once again launch a joint siege, the Ming general Qu Neng and Ping An went around to the rear of the Yan army, attacked the rear army, although Zhu Di tried to make a frontal attack on the Ming army led by the "god of war" Li Jinglong, thus disintegrating the offensive, but it ended in failure.
▲ The Ming army in the Battle of Baigou River showed extremely high combat effectiveness
However, thanks to Li Jinglong's suspiciousness and the arrival of a small number of reinforcements from the Yan army, the Yan army collapsed without the pressure of the Ming army's encirclement. However, under the strong offensive of the Ming army's encirclement troops, the entire Baigou River battlefield was still in chaos. Just when zhu di and other people's lives were hanging by a thread, Zhu Di suddenly "Emperor Ou" possessed and was favored by the god of weather. The fierce wind blew down Li Jinglong's flag. This small incident brought ruin to the Ming army on the already chaotic battlefield. Because the Chinese army led by Li Jinglong was unclear about the war situation, coupled with Li Jinglong's lack of ability to restrain soldiers, there was confusion in the entire Ming army.
▲ The chaos of the Ming army provided an opportunity for the more mobile Yan army to turn the tables
Taking this opportunity, Zhu Di attacked decisively and led the cavalry to the rear of the Ming army and set fire to it, which eventually led to the complete collapse of the entire Ming army. Losing the cover of the Chinese army, the encircling troops on both wings were quickly wiped out by the Yan army. The Battle of Baigou River was thus fought, because of Zhu Di's weather bonus, the Yan army was able to reverse defeat and win.
▲ Sure enough, luck this can not completely look at the face "color"
As the saying goes, "where there is wind, there must be rain", because rain still has certain omens relative to the wind, so in most cases, the generals still have time to reduce the impact of rain on their side. Of course, everything is naturally not absolute, in the battle of Xiangcheng between the supermodel Sun Chuanting and the king Li Zicheng, the heavy rain gave Sun Chuanting and the Ming Dynasty a thorough cool.
▲Sun Chuanting
In the sixteenth year of Ming Chongzhen, Sun Chuanting, under the repeated urging of the Chongzhen Emperor, finally had to lead his troops out of Tongguan to fight a decisive battle with the invading army led by Li Zicheng. At this time, the two sides did not have much difference in strength, and the Ming army may still have a slight advantage in equipment and training. However, in September, when the Ming army marched to Ruzhou (郏县, Henan) to force Xiangcheng, it was very unfortunate to encounter seven days and seven nights of heavy rain. This heavy rain not only directly caused the roads to be muddy, and the logistics grain and grass could not be followed, but also for the Ming army, which was already in the era of alternating hot and cold weapons, it would undoubtedly affect the use of gunpowder.
▲ Heavy rain made the Ming army's firepower superiority of course not exist
However, the heavy rains not only affected logistics and gunpowder. For a huge army that has been marching for four months, the blow to morale caused by the weather is also very large. Since the Ming Dynasty did not have a "sunny day" service, Sun Chuanting decided to temporarily retire after weighing the pros and cons. But with low morale and foreign enemies, it was risky to make such a decision. Due to improper arrangements, Sun Chuanting's withdrawal plan caused chaos in the rear of the Ming army, and in this case, the long-awaited intruders took the initiative to attack and successfully damaged the Ming army.
▲ Sun Chuanting's hasty retreat had disastrous consequences
In the Battle of Xiangcheng, the Ming army lost a lot of materials. What is more serious is that the original 100,000 Ming army also lost about 40,000 in the First World War. This is undoubtedly worse for the Ming Dynasty, which is already full of holes. The most direct factor in this failure, in addition to Sun Chuanting's own intelligence collection, did not discover the movement of the intruding army in time, and the arrangement of retreat was too hasty, the direct factor causing this disaster naturally had to be attributed to the weather. But then again, for the Ming army, which has many problems in itself, even without this rainstorm, whether it can finally defeat the intruding army is actually a problem.
▲Heavy rain became an important reason for the fiasco of the Ming army in the Battle of Xiangcheng
Of course, in addition to the battles mentioned above, there are many famous battles that have been affected by the weather. For example, the "kamikaze" encountered by the Yuan Dynasty during the conquest of Japan, the battle of the fortunes of Sassanid Persia and the Arabs - the Battle of Cadizia, the sandstorm that blew on the last day, and the Battle of Tautton during the British War of the Roses, which determined the fate of both sides to a blizzard.
The Battle of Cadethia, which ended the fortunes of Sassanid Persia
Finally, it can only be said that modern weather forecasting is really a great invention. After all, sometimes what determines war is really just something we didn't expect, the accident of chance.
This article is the original manuscript of the Cold Weapons Research Institute. The original outline of the editor-in-chief and the silent owl of the author shall not be reproduced by any media or public account without written authorization, and the offender will be held legally responsible.