In the forty-sixth year of the Ming Dynasty (1618), Nurhaci raised an army in Shengjing and officially declared war on the Ming Dynasty, opening the prelude to the Ming and Qing Wars. For Nurhaci, this was undoubtedly a very risky decision, because the difference in size and strength between houjin and the Ming Dynasty at that time was too large, and the entire Jianzhou Jurchen tribe, men, women and children, were counted, even the troops with the people, less than 400,000 people, less than the number of Ming troops.
However, the development of facts is unexpected. The seemingly weak Qing Dynasty finally completed the impossible goal of unifying the rivers and mountains in the Central Plains, replacing the Ming Dynasty as the last great unified dynasty in Chinese history. Although the influencing factors of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty are various, the Eight Banners Iron Horse with strong combat effectiveness is undoubtedly one of the most decisive factors.
In the 26-year-long Ming and Qing Wars, the two sides fought hundreds of battles, large and small, and the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty, except for the only few defeats in the Battle of Phi Dao, the Battle of Ningyuan, and the Battle of Ningjin, almost all of them ended in total victory. Especially in large-scale battles such as the Battle of Salhu and the Battle of Songjin, the Eight Banners Iron Horse was able to miraculously annihilate the main forces of the Ming Dynasty in the case of absolute inferiority in terms of troop strength, which is a classic example in the history of ancient warfare.
The Eight Banners iron horse of the Qing Dynasty was therefore known as one of the most effective ancient armies. However, what is puzzling is that the Eight Banners Troops, which can recruit good battles, encountered difficulties and hard battles, and also had to invite a "special soldier" left by the Ming Dynasty. Since the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the Tsarist Russia in the north has become increasingly powerful, and in order to meet the ambitions of aggression and expansion, they have repeatedly sent troops south into the territory of the Qing Dynasty, and established aggressive strongholds in Yaksa, Nebuchu and other places in the middle and lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River.
By the 24th year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, after recovering the war wounds caused by the San Francisco Rebellion, freed up its hands, and finally made up its mind to counterattack the Russian invasion by force. But what gave Kangxi a headache was that the Russian army was equipped with the world's leading firearms and guns at that time, with a long range and great power, which was a generation advanced than the bow and arrow sabre of the Eight Banners iron horse of the Qing Dynasty. The Eight Banners Iron Horse is to be brave and good at war, in the face of muskets and artillery, there is no way to exert one's ability, only the share of losses.
The Kangxi Emperor was troubled by this problem and had no way to do anything about it. After some thought, he finally found a way to crack it. He remembered a special unit of the former Ming Dynasty: the Rattan Soldiers. The Rattan Pai Bing, founded in the Qi family army of the famous Ming Dynasty general Qi Jiguang, "takes the rattan as a card, near Fujian, and the yashi gun and knife can be covered, so it is used for the use of the armor", "placed before the line, covered by the people, guarding the long and short instruments, for the other to help." In the face of the enemy, its multitudes can be united and inseparable, can be used but cannot be tired, and there is no disadvantage in the left and right, and the function of this rattan card is also.".
In the war against the Qing Dynasty and the restoration of the Ming Dynasty at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the famous general Zheng Chenggong Zheng once again carried forward the Rattan soldiers, "its soldiers are three people and one team, one soldier holds a regimental card to shelter two people, one soldier cuts horses, and one soldier cuts the enemy", and the combat effectiveness is extremely strong. The advantage of the rattan soldiers is that they can provide good protection for the soldiers while maintaining a strong offensive ability, and the well-trained rattan soldiers can defeat the strong enemy with the least casualties.
Kangxi revived lin xingzhu, a veteran of the Ming Dynasty's rattan soldiers, and asked him to lead four hundred rattan soldiers to the battlefield of Yaksa. In the Battle of Yaksa, the rattan soldiers really played a miraculous role, they held a solid rattan card to cover the body, the other held a knife, and quickly approached the Tsarist Russian army to rush and fight, and the firearms at that time were far less powerful than modern guns, bullets often could not penetrate the rattan card, so the Russian musketeers were useless, and they were defeated by the rattan soldiers.
In the thirty-fifth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty's Dzungars gardan launched a large-scale rebellion. Gardan's men were also elite cavalrymen, very similar to the Eight Banners Iron Horse Tactics, with comparable combat effectiveness and the battle was stuck in a stalemate. At the critical moment, the Qing Dynasty once again moved the rattan soldiers to the battlefield and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy army in the Battle of the Trulun River, making great achievements. This special force left by the Ming Dynasty has been in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, and was once again in the Opium War, but because the power of firearms at that time has been greatly improved, the rattan card has been difficult to resist, and eventually the entire army has been destroyed, leaving a historical tragedy.
References: "Guangyang Miscellaneous", "Shengwu"