This article was first published as "Insight into New Dimensions", and the author was authorized to push Romanism
"Heavenly Dynasty" is definitely a blockbuster movie worth watching, especially after reading my series of articles, I can let you have a good taste of that passionate, heroic era.
Not to mention that there is also my favorite exotic beauty, Eva. Green, her dark temperament, magical eyes, full of evil beautiful carcass, all the time, exudes a seductive atmosphere, very worthy of your visit.
Movie poster for Dynasty of Heaven
Of course, the reason I mention this movie is because some readers are asking, what did the Europeans do in your last article (what the Song Dynasty people could not do?) ), mentioning that the crusaders were very effective, can you cite a few more battles to prove this?
It just so happens that the king of Baldwin IV, who is seriously ill and dying at any time, really staged this scene, which gave me a perfect interpretation of the crusader tactics I talked about earlier.
Anyone who has seen this movie should remember a plot in which Saladin, the greatest hero of the Muslims, led a heavy army to attack a city-state in the kingdom of Jerusalem in order to punish the crusaders who attacked the Arab caravans, and Baldwin IV also led the army to the rescue.
After seeing baldwin IV's banner, Saladin immediately stopped marching, immediately went to negotiate with him, and only got a verbal promise from him, and immediately led the army to retreat, which was a very humiliating thing, so why would he be willing?
And not only that, but this king, who was already terminally ill at that time, after entering the city, all those crusader knights who were usually flying and stumbling, immediately bowed their heads, and the atmosphere did not dare to breathe, and the leading troublemakers were even more sincerely afraid, allowing him to be whipped, and were forced to respectfully kiss his leper-stricken hand, never daring to show the slightest disrespect.
So what is it that makes him have such a high prestige?
This goes back to the year he was 16 years old and just took the throne, saladin, who was already in the ascendant, leading an army of 30,000, of which 8,000 were first-class archers, and 18,000 archers with Middle Eastern characteristics, riding dromedary camels, ready to take advantage of the doubts of the lord of the kingdom of Jerusalem to destroy the Crusaders in one fell swoop.
(M. Benvenisti, The Crusaders in the Holy Land, Jerusalem, 1972, and later data on the battle, from the same source.) ）
The fledgling King Baldwin IV, who hurriedly raised 3,000 infantry and 375 to 500 knights, hurried to Mongiza to fight, with the support of 80 Knights Templar from Gaza, and later some Knights Hospitaller also joined his army, but the balance of power between them and Saladin was still incomparably different.
When the two armies met at Mongiza, facing a muslim army that was nearly 10 times larger than his own, the young King Baldwin IV was not afraid, and while Saladin's army was still in position, he led less than 600 knights, braving a rain of arrows like locusts, and rushed into the Egyptian position, forcing the other side into a short engagement.
As we have already said in the previous article, the heavily armored knights from Europe had an overwhelming advantage once they dragged the Muslim archers, whether on horseback or camels, into the white-knife warfare.
Due to the large number of Saladin's troops, the sudden charge launched by the Crusaders caught him off guard, and the command failed in a hurry, the cavalry in front could not resist and wanted to retreat, and the cavalry in the back did not know what was happening in front, still rushing forward, instantly crowded into a pile, unable to distance themselves from the Crusaders, giving full play to the advantages of the bow and arrow, and the two sides began a melee.
This is exactly in the arms of the Crusaders, the Arab machetes and leather light shields of the Muslim cavalry, which are not suitable for this kind of melee, and the crusader knights wearing heavy chainmail armor, with the protection of the Iris shield, open the way with a spear, holding a heavy sword to kill, and the battle instantly becomes one-sided.
Saladin was defeated in this battle, watching the crusader knights, wielding spears and heavy swords, dashing left and right in his archer ranks, chopping melons and chopping vegetables, and the lightly armored Muslim cavalry had no resistance and could only be slaughtered, and the blood of the killed flowed into a river.
Less than 600 knights, including King Baldwin IV, rushed into the enemy position and became entangled with the other side, the Muslim cavalry lost its mobility advantage, and the 3,000 infantry of the Crusaders, all took the opportunity to join the melee, slaughtering nearly 10,000 Muslim cavalry in one day, and then began a fierce pursuit, more than 30,000 Muslim troops were almost completely destroyed, Saladin finally escaped in the night under the protection of more than 1,000 loyal Mamluk guards.
In this epic battle, King Baldwin IV, who was only 16 years old and suffering from leprosy, surrounded by the knights of the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller, always took the lead and looked everywhere he went, and from then on, he was regarded as a god-like being, no one dared to question his authority, and Saladin never dared to fight him head-on.
By the way, Saladin is neither Arab nor Egyptian, Syrian or Iraqi, but a Kurd, the ancestor of the Kurds who will be used by the Americans today and abandoned by them for a while.
Since this battle, however, Saladin has also realized the shortcomings of the Muslim archers and embarked on military reforms, vigorously expanding his most reliable personal guard, the Guard of mamluks, that is, white slaves in Turkic language, into heavy cavalry based on hand-to-hand combat.
However, his transformation was not successful, and in the later battle with Richard the Lionheart, when facing the impact of the British and French knights, although there was no total collapse, he still could not defeat the European knights, why was this so?
A very important reason is that although the Arabian horse is a good horse known for its speed, its weight-bearing ability is not good, not as good as the European Persh horse, although the armor of the Mamluk cavalry has become thicker, but it cannot be thicker than the Europeans, because the horse does not move, so in the white-knife battle, it still falls behind.
Horses are therefore the most important issue, and like today's engines, they are the basis of all military equipment.
So how do you solve this problem? Of course, it was to find a good horse, so what other horse at that time, faster than the Arabian horse, more capable of carrying weights?
This is the famous Indian curly ear horse, the Marwari horse, the best war horse in the Middle Ages, with an average height of 1 meter 55, the tallest is even close to 1 meter 7, which is the best of the horses, after Saladin, was introduced to Egypt by the Mamluk general Byers, forming a super heavy cavalry, the Casadia Guard.
Indian Curly Ear Horse
Speaking of which, it is estimated that many readers will be surprised that India actually produces good horses?
Yes, India not only has large rain forests, but also vast deserts, and in the present-day state of Rajasthan, on the border between India and Pakistan, a semi-arid plain, is rich in princes and good horses, because the two are themselves complementary.
While its capital, Jaipur, has many beautiful royal palaces and castles, it is the northwest of India, the most tourist-worthy location. Why are there so many places of interest here? Because a successful civilization must have a strong military force, and a strong military force is inseparable from a good horse in ancient times.
Why did this good horse spread to Egypt? Because the Muslims were a people keen to do business, in the Middle Ages, the Indian Ocean was almost their inner lake, the Arabs established a large number of trading points along the Indian coast, with the monsoon, their sailing ships, endless flow between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, the main income of the Mamluk dynasty in Egypt, was from commerce, until hundreds of years later, the arrival of the Portuguese, changed all this.
([American] Avner Grave: The Great Fission: Comparison of Medieval Trade Systems and the Rise of the West, translated by Zheng Jianghuai et al., CITIC)
With this kind of good horse, it is quite powerful to have a powerful engine, which can create first-class fighters and tanks, so the Mamluk cavalry, suddenly shotgun for gun, they are on the outside of the original lock armor, now can be draped with another layer, there is a cold calcined steel sheet made of za armor, this protective thickness, has exceeded the gold army's iron floating.
Mamluk cavalry
Not only that, but their horses were also draped in thicker chainmail or armor, they also began to use long and heavy riding spears, and their melee weapons became the kind of hammers that Yue Yun and Jin Zenzi liked to use, which was a sharp weapon against the heavily armored cavalry.
After this change, they became an upgraded version of the early Jin army, composed of Indian curly-ear horses, super heavy cavalry, serving as iron floats, and light cavalry composed of Arab horses, playing the role of kidnapper horses, so how is their combat effectiveness now?
When King Louis IX of France led the Seventh Crusade, they found that the traditional knightly charge could no longer easily crush the Mamluk army.
Although there were many reasons for the crusaders' eventual defeat, the crusaders could no longer gain an overwhelming advantage in the white-knife warfare, which was a key reason. In addition to those siege battles and intrigues, in the frontal clash between the two sides on April 6, 1249, the mamluk heavy cavalry crushed the crusader charge several times, and finally King Louis IX of France, with his personal bravery, commanded the French infantry to stabilize the position with heavy crossbows, so that they were not defeated.
However, the war ended with the total rout of the Crusaders and the capture of the King of France.
Ten years later, on September 12, 1259 AD, 130,000 Mongol troops, led by Hulagu himself, left Baghdad in three ways and began to march towards the Mediterranean Sea, the first target, as seen on the news every day, was Aleppo, the important northern syrian town.
Reading this, some people may find it strange, did not you say before, Hulagu sent Guo Kan to attack Cyprus, by the way to conquer Syria and Palestine, how did it become Hulagu personally led an army of 130,000 troops, the army attacked Syria in three ways?
Speaking of this, there is really a public case, the story about Guo Kan, is recorded in the "History of the Yuan" and "New History of the Yuan", at first no one felt inappropriate, because before the Opium War, Chinese did not understand the geography and history of the Middle East at all, so what is said in the "History of the Yuan" is what it is, anyway, for scholars of the Ming and Qing dynasties, it is basically equal to the Book of Heaven.
However, after the outbreak of the Opium War, the foreigners came, and they not only brought opium, but also let the intellectuals of the Heavenly Dynasty know that Yidi also had a history, and even had culture, so some xiucai who were full of poetry and books also began to care about the gossip of foreigners.
Among them, there was a man named Ding Qian, born in 1843 and died in 1919, who happened to have the right contact with the heresies of the foreign devils, and then he wrote a book called "Penglai Xuan Youdi Series", which specifically examined the history of the 17 canonical histories of ancient China and the 13 miscellaneous histories of the Central Plains Dynasty and yidi conquests, and then he found that the "Biography of Guo Kan" in the "Yuan History" was very suspicious.
Why did he find it suspicious? Ding Juren cites the scriptures to point out many problems, but most of them require very professional historical and geographical knowledge to understand, I will not quote his original text, simply summarize the two most convincing points for everyone:
First, Guo Kan's rank was only a thousand households, that is, a regimental leader, how could he be arranged to command a legion-level battle?
Second, guo kan's offensive direction is also problematic, if you want to attack Cyprus, why do you have to go to Saudi Arabia to go around in a big circle? This is completely different.
Therefore, he felt that the "Biography of Guo Kan" was not credible, plus Guo Kan alone captured hundreds of cities, fought the Crusaders and Muslims and screamed, and the history of foreigners was not recorded, so not only Did Ding Juren feel suspicious, I also felt a little exaggerated, so we still used the Persian Rashide's "History Collection" as the main line of our story.
However, the Mongol siege of Aleppo, Guo Kan must have participated, because in this 40-day siege battle, the decisive role was also from the Central Plains artillery, as for the other stories, they are all controversial.
So we still use the history recognized by everyone to talk about this great drama of the Guan Gong War Qin Qiong, but the protagonist has changed again, neither the Crusaders nor Guo Kan, but the authentic Mongol cavalry, fighting the upgraded version of the Tiefu Tu and the kidnapped horse, and the number of troops on both sides is basically equal, so what is the final result of this war that occurs in Israel today, or Palestine?