Chapter 2905: New Journey (11)

Tan Shuangxi raised his hand with no small misgiving. Years in the service, dozens of fights great and small behind him — but those had all been infantry's business. This "dragoon" business he had heard mentioned a few times before coming to Jeju, and what it actually amounted to had remained, in his head, a bowl of paste.

Yang Ning nodded at him. "Speak."

Tan Shuangxi rose and stood at attention, his voice full and loud. "Reporting, Chief! I want to ask — we keep speaking of light cavalry, heavy cavalry, dragoons... what exactly is the difference? What is each one for?"

He paused, then added, "And which kind are we to be?"

A few soft laughs ran through the hall, quickly smothered. Plenty of the others carried the same puzzle; they had merely been too shy to air it.

Yang Ning did not laugh. He tapped the blackboard with his pointer, motioned Tan Shuangxi to sit, then turned and wrote out several words:

Light cavalry · Heavy cavalry · Dragoons

"A very good question," he said. "If a man does not even know what he is to become, then all his training is just flailing in the dark."

He set down the chalk. "Light cavalry first."

Yang Ning's eyes traveled the young faces below. "What is the duty of light cavalry?"

He paused, his gaze drifting somewhere out the window as if in recollection. "Antoine de Brack put it thus — the duty of light cavalry is to discover the roads, and to protect the army."

Tan Shuangxi and the candidate officers around him traded looks, with no purchase at all on the strange Western name. Who was Antoine de Brack? They had never heard any of the names the Chief dropped, no more than they could say what separated the Frenchmen, the Germans, and the Hungarians so often spoken of. But that did not keep them from finding this Brack's words eminently sensible. If the Chief quoted him, he must be a man worth remembering.

Yang Ning took up the chalk and drew a simple diagram: a square at the center for the main column, dots scattered to either flank and ahead of it.

"When the army is on the march, what should light cavalry do?" He touched the dots with his pointer. "Disperse ahead of the column and upon both wings, forming the outer screen. Scout the road; ward off surprise. Meet a small enemy — drive him off; meet a large one — send word back. This is called 'screening.'"

He turned to the infantry-bred officers in the rows. "Many of you came over from the infantry; you will know the light infantry's task — ranging out ahead of the ranks, scouting the ground along the main column's line of advance, driving off the enemy's own light troops, clearing the way for the main body."

A good many officers nodded.

"What light cavalry does is in essence the same," Yang Ning said. "Only they ride, and so range farther and faster. They are the army's eyes and ears, and its first fence. All the cavalry in all the world first did this work. Some of you served in the Ming army — you will know that the Ming, on the march, likewise sent out their 'twenty-four tang' scout riders around the array."

He paused, laying a shade more weight on his words. "But light cavalry is more than scouting and screening. On the battlefield they carry another charge — harrying, pursuit, interdiction. When the enemy retreats, light cavalry pursues, and turns retreat into rout. When the enemy's flank lies bare, light cavalry cuts in fast and breeds confusion. When a gap opens in the enemy's line, light cavalry is first through it, tearing the gap wide."

"The light horseman's arms," Yang Ning pointed at the equipment chart on the wall, "are saber, carbine, and pistol. What he wants is speed and suppleness, not weight of armor. Mobility is the light cavalryman's protection. Hence 'light' — the word means gear that travels light and movement that strikes quickly. In short, light cavalry is cavalry that lives by its mobility."

Someone asked quietly from the benches: "Then what of heavy cavalry?"

The corner of Yang Ning's mouth lifted; he had plainly been waiting for that one.

He walked back to the board and drew a heavy line beneath the words "heavy cavalry."

"What is heavy cavalry for?" His voice rose a notch. "The heavy cavalry's task is one thing only — the charge."

His hands sketched a rein-grasping surge forward. "Imagine it. The enemy's array is whole, his spirit unbroken. Light-cavalry harassment, infantry assault, even the pounding of the guns — he grits his teeth through all of it and holds his formation. What do you do? Or take the other case: enemy foot and horse in mass come against us; we cannot hold; the ranks are broken; the units show the first signs of crumbling — how do you mend that crisis?"

The hall went still, every eye upon him.

"This is the hour that wants a sledgehammer." Yang Ning chopped downward through the air. "Heavy cavalry is that hammer. The man in heavy armor — some armies armor the horse besides — formed dense and driven at full speed straight into the enemy's line. You have all had your little physics; you know that momentum rides on mass. There is the 'heavy' of heavy cavalry — the tremendous shock of man and horse made one, and armor enough to stand fast against the enemy's shot."

He drew his hands back, and his voice settled. "The hour for their charge is usually when the enemy is already worn — formation loosening, morale beginning to sway. They must not ride too far: to pass through the enemy's array is itself the victory. The rest is left to the infantry and the light horse. If one charge does not break him, they draw off, re-form, and charge a second time."

Yang Ning looked out at the young men, his gaze going grave. "But mark me — that is the usual case only. The face of a battlefield changes by the instant; there is no fixed rule for when heavy cavalry goes in. Sometimes a commander must do as the strong man cuts off his own wrist, and spend his heavy horse against an enemy defense still whole and ordered."

Tan Shuangxi listened rapt, his mind filling with pictures of the charge: armored riders, iron hooves striking the earth like thunder, nothing able to stand where sabre and lance pointed. Despite himself, something in him yearned toward it.

"Chief," Shao Rui rose to ask, "the Senate's cavalry... do we have heavy cavalry? The horses in our camp don't seem to include any of those great tall beasts."

Again a few soft laughs, all of them kindly — half the hall had been nursing that very question.

Yang Ning did not laugh. He nodded and motioned him down.

"Shao Rui has put his finger on the point," he said. "At present we have no heavy cavalry. The reason is simple — we lack the horse."

"Heavy cavalry rides heavy horses bred over centuries — shoulder height of one meter fifty-five or better, weight reckoned in tons." Yang Ning turned and unrolled a wall chart of horseflesh. "Back broad, loin short, legs thick and strong. Only such a horse can bear a knight armored head to toe into a charge at full speed without flagging. Even so, heavy cavalry's staying power is the shortest of any arm of horse. After two or three charges at the uttermost, man and mount alike may be spent. When to commit the hammer rests wholly on the field commander's eye in the moment. Should any of you one day rise to senior command, that will be the hour that tries your craft."

"Our warhorses at present are chiefly Mongolian," he went on, his tone level and entirely practical. "They thrive on coarse feed, resist sickness, go far, and endure hardship. But the shoulder height falls short — generally about one meter thirty — and the weight and the burst of speed fall short too. Set a rider of a hundred-odd jin upon one, add a few dozen jin of armor, and the animal breaks down before many li — never mind charging. It is not that the horse is poor; the breed was never made for this work."

He paused, then came back to the lectern, both hands braced along its edge. "So the mainstay of our cavalry in the future can only be dragoons and light cavalry. Dragoons move mounted and fight dismounted; light cavalry carries the scouting, screening, harrying, and pursuit. That is what our conditions have settled — not that we would not have heavy cavalry, but that for the present we cannot."

A hand went up. "Chief — so we are never to have heavy cavalry at all?"

Yang Ning shook his head. "Not that either."

From beneath the lectern he drew out a sheet, unfolded it, and pinned it to the board: a sketch of cavalry armor, a shade heavier than the common trooper's kit, two curved metal plates over the chest — nothing like so cumbrous as the European cuirassier's harness.

"This is a light cuirass now in trial," he said, touching the drawing. "Thinned down, guarding only the vital chest and back, weight held within fifteen jin. The horse goes unarmored; its bearing strength is raised by richer feed and conditioning aimed at the purpose. Horsemen in this harness the Europeans call 'medium cavalry' — some say 'heavy dragoons.'"

He patted the drawing. "If we do come to raise a little heavy cavalry, it will most likely be of this so-called heavy dragoon sort. 'Heavy' by name — half-heavy in truth. After all, we lack the horses. Whether any of you will one day wear this half-armor turns on how many suitable warhorses the Senate can lay its hands on — and that is no matter for a year or two."

He paused, gathering the thread back. "As for the dragoon's proper work — that is to play the 'mounted infantryman.'"

Yang Ning took up the chalk and drew two arrows facing one another, an X set between them.

"An example. Both sides mean to seize some key point — a bridge, a hill, a village. Send light infantry to race for it: too slow; by the time they arrive, the enemy holds it. Send light cavalry: fast enough, but their staying power is short and their weapons run light and short; once the enemy closes or strikes back, they often cannot keep their feet. Here the dragoons — armed as infantry, with a fast horse under them — are the right tool: gallop to the spot, dismount, form up, and hold the point with infantry fire and the bayonet."

He drew another line and set points along it. "There are many such cases. A gap tears open in the line and must be stopped at once; the enemy breaks, and someone must thrust in fast to cut him off; in pursuit the enemy rear guard stands hard, and someone must dismount and dig him out. All of this the dragoons can do. They can ride out ahead of the infantry, and they can dismount and fight like infantry."

His last look went round the whole hall. "So the dragoon is the jack of all trades. He can ride the road, dismount and fight, and when need be take up the saber and charge a while. Of everything, this is what our present condition suits best."

Hard upon the words a hand rose in the back rows. "Chief — if dragoons must carry so many duties, is the Mongolian horse then their most suitable mount?"

Yang Ning nodded, the small smile coming back to the corner of his mouth. "An interesting proposition from this student! And what says the rest of the class?"

(End of chapter)