Chapter 316: Zhao Yu vs. Wanyan Aguda

…

First, it must be clear: the Jin army is not the Liao army, nor the Mongol army; the Jin army has cavalry, and its cavalry is no less formidable than the Liao iron cavalry or the Mongol iron cavalry, but the Jin army is by no means a purely cavalry force—it is a combined-arms field army composed of light infantry, heavy infantry, light cavalry, and heavy cavalry.

In its early days, the Jin army, due to poverty and scarce resources, consisted mostly of light troops with little armor.

But as the Jin army continued to defeat the Liao army, it no longer had many light troops; most Jin soldiers became heavy infantry, especially its core Jurchen forces, all clad in the finest armor, and even its heavy infantry routinely rode horses for mobility, dismounting only upon reaching the battlefield.

The Jin army's light cavalry primarily consisted of former Liao cavalry who had surrendered to Jin, used for outer harassment.

The heavy cavalry remained Jurchens, serving as the main force for final battles and pursuit.

In reality, the most formidable element of the Jin army was not its heavy cavalry, but its heavy infantry.

Ordinary armies faced with Jin heavy infantry were virtually helpless.

Jin heavy infantry wore at least two layers of armor, and their horses were also armored; when forming ranks and advancing, ordinary bows and crossbows could not pierce their defenses.

Where did these Jin heavy infantry's armors come from?

The answer is simple.

They were given by the Liao.

The Jin army marched from north to south, defeated millions of Liao soldiers, and captured three Liao capitals.

In the Battle of Hubudagang alone, seventy thousand Liao troops abandoned countless armors, including massive weight of heavy armor.

Moreover, since the Song army had upgraded to lightweight yet highly protective cotton armor, they sold off large quantities of discarded iron and leather armor to the Liao and Jin, most of which ended up in Jin hands.

Also, over these years, the Jin army captured vast numbers of Han craftsmen and could now produce armor in large quantities themselves.

——The Jurchens placed great value on craftsmen; any craftsman willing to surrender to Jin received extraordinary treatment—women, gold, livestock, whatever they wanted.

Thus, the Jin army gradually transformed from a primitive tribal force into a well-equipped heavy field army.

Han men serving as khans, barbarian fortune began in Tang, border threats peaked here, Song and Ming both suffered.

Since the Tang dynasty opened foreign exchanges and recruited nomadic tribes into its army, the Central Plains dynasties lost all technological barriers; one could say, whenever the Central Plains developed advanced technology, the barbarians learned it, and if they further refined it, the Central Plains would suffer.

Take bows and arrows.

The Jin army's bows were significantly superior to those of the Central Plains, even better than the Song army's Li Lin muskets.

The core Jurchen homeland lay in the frigid northeast, and they long remained in a state of nomadism, hunting, and warfare, thus demanding extreme range and penetration from their bows, driving craftsmen to continuously optimize designs.

Harsh living conditions combined with prolonged wars against Goryeo and the Liao gave Jin a stronger combat-driven focus on weapon improvement; as the core ranged weapon, bows evolved faster.

Also, the northeast region under Jurchen control was rich in high-quality timber (such as birch), horn, and sinew—key materials for making powerful bows, tough and easily obtained.

Moreover, adapting to the cold, dry northern climate, Jin craftsmen emphasized wood drying and low-temperature-resistant adhesives in bow construction, ensuring stable performance under harsh conditions.

During its rise, Jin absorbed bow-making techniques from the Liao, Bohai, and other northern peoples, while also borrowing some Central Plains techniques, forming a unique technical system.

Its bow designs (such as the "horn bow") were better suited for cavalry use on horseback, with draw length and force efficiency aligned to nomadic combat habits.

Crucially, its heavy bows—the ones used by Jin heavy infantry, typically fired at point-blank range within ten paces—had such power they could pierce both man and horse, rivaling siege crossbows, enough to strike terror and even cause enemy collapse.

In contrast, the Central Plains long remained in a relatively stable agrarian society; while bows developed, military urgency, material priorities (such as greater reliance on mulberry wood), and combat methods (infantry-dominated) created performance gaps compared to Jin bows.

Early muskets had drawbacks: low rate of fire, poor reliability, limited range and accuracy, clumsy and heavy, high logistical dependence.

Of course, muskets also had advantages: strong armor-piercing capability, easy to learn.

Also, the Song army had the Shen Bi Gong, whose range and penetration utterly outclassed Jin bows, with low operational thresholds and relatively stable accuracy, though its rate of fire was low, portability poor, and maintenance costly.

In short, excluding artillery, Song and Jin weapons each had strengths; when the two armies clashed, victory ultimately depended on command and troop quality.

And this was precisely what the Jin army took greatest pride in.

The Jin army Zhao Yu and his ministers saw—especially its elite—moved swiftly as wind, calmly as forest, attacked like fire, stood immovable as mountains, remained elusive as shadow, and struck like Lei Ting.

Looking at these Jurchens, they truly resembled what the historical Six-Rules Official Li Ye described: men like tigers, horses like dragons, climbing mountains like apes, entering water like otters, their momentum like Taishan, China like an egg stacked high.

This explains why Wanyan Aguda and the Jin generals chose to fight two enemies at once, confronting both Song and Liao simultaneously.

Indeed, at this moment, Jin had a wise ruler, brave generals, strong troops, sturdy horses, and had swept across the entire northeast, standing at the peak of its power.

Crucially, the Jurchens, especially the Wanyan clan, were once mere thousands of ill-equipped villagers, but now they commanded an army of nearly four hundred thousand, approaching the pinnacle of cold-weapon warfare.

Such strength made them unmatched in Northeast Asia at the time, and terrifying even by global standards.