Extremely luxuriously equipped Mongolian cavalry
According to Planno Garbini, a single Mongol cavalryman was armed with: 2 to 3 bows, 3 huge quivers filled with arrows, an axe, and ropes to drag weapons. The leader of the troops carried a scimitar with a sharp tip but a blade on only one side, which was carried in a fine scabbard. The horses on which they rode had armour, and some of the soldiers' horses had armour.
Exploded view of the Mongol cavalry and its equipment.
The cuirass of the Mongolian cavalry consisted of 4 parts, one from the thigh to the neck, made according to the shape of the human body; The other piece is connected to the front piece from the neck to the waist, and an iron plate is fixed on each shoulder. They also have a piece of armor on each arm, covering from the shoulders to the wrists, and another piece of armor on each leg. All of these pieces of armor are joined together by clasps. Judging from the content of this description, it is more protective of the body than the armor in the picture.
The armour of a horse consists of five parts, one on each side of the horse, which covers the horse's head; Another piece of armor is placed on the horse's rump and tied to the two sides of the armor, leaving a hole in this piece of armor so that the horse's tail can stick out of the hole; The other piece of armor is on the horse's chest. On the horse's forehead they put an iron plate and tied it to the armor plates on both sides.
The upper part of the helmet is made of iron or steel, but the part that protects the neck and throat is made of leather.
The armor of the Mongolian cavalry was made in an extremely delicate way, taking the willow leaf armor as an example, they first made a number of iron pieces one finger wide and one palm long, and drilled eight small holes in each iron plate. They put 3 sturdy and narrow belts as a base, and then they put these pieces of iron on top of another piece of iron one by one, so that the pieces of iron overlapped, and they tied them to the 3 pieces of iron with a thin leather wire through the small holes mentioned above. At the top they tie a piece of leather wire, so that the pieces of iron are firmly joined together. In this way, they made a strip of iron out of these pieces of iron, and then joined these strips together to make the various parts of the iron armor. They joined these parts together to make iron armor that protected people and horses. They polished the iron sheet to a shine (good for rust prevention and could prolong its service life) so that it could be reflected in the iron sheet.
It has the longest range and most lethal combination bow at the time. A tendon on the animal's back, a layer of material on the bowed belly and a wooden frame in the middle. The bow has a pull force between 50 kg and 75 kg, and the bow and arrows are generally short, making it easy for cavalry to wield freely, and the arrows fired can kill up to 300 meters. They carry two types of arrows, one light, with small, pointed arrows, for long-range shots, and the heavier, with large, wide arrows, for close combat.
In a typical Mongol army, 40% of the total number was carried out by heavy cavalry engaged in assault operations. The main weapon of the heavy cavalry was a spear, and each soldier carried a scimitar or a mace around his waist. The other 60% of each unit is light cavalry, and their tasks are reconnaissance and cover, providing strength support to heavy cavalry, clearing out remnants, and tracking pursuits. Light cavalry generally do not wear armor except for a helmet. As with the heavy cavalry, they carried a scimitar or mace (which could be used to hammer an enemy soldier in armor), or a lasso (a rout who could flee on a horse when pursuing a rout on a light horse, which greatly improved the effectiveness of the pursuit), and sometimes a javelin or spear with a hook on the head.
Soldiers were required to wear a silk robe before the battle. This robe is made of raw silk and is so finely woven that it is difficult for an arrow to penetrate it, but it is inserted into the wound along with the garment, and the arrow can be pulled out of the wound by simply pulling the silk out.
Each Mongol cavalry had one or more spare horses.
Such luxurious equipment, to our surprise, with spare horses, is normal for Mongolia, which produces horses. And the rest of the equipment was almost not produced in Mongolia, relying on captive craftsmen to produce for them. With such good equipment, each cavalry needs to consume a lot of steel, which is the strong steel production capacity in East Asia during the Northern Song Dynasty, which met this demand. We should now be aware of the strong material basis of the Mongol cavalry, that is, first-class luxury equipment. This kind of equipment is far more luxurious than the equipment of the soldiers of the vassal states during the Warring States period. The equipment of its heavy ordinary cavalry is already equivalent to the equipment of the general level in our impression, and the equipment of our ordinary soldiers cannot be compared with it. For example, silk comes entirely from Han areas, and ordinary Han people can hardly afford to use silk, while Mongolian cavalry can use it in large quantities.
In fact, this is a sign that the cavalry has entered the most glorious era, and the increase in metal production capacity in agricultural areas has promoted the popularization of stirrups and horseshoes in nomadic areas where material is scarce, and the cavalry in nomadic areas has been strengthened, prompting them to greatly increase their ability to plunder the wealth of the surrounding agricultural areas. As a result, a large amount of manpower and material resources were obtained, which prompted the level of its equipment to be further improved, so that it became luxurious. Luxurious comprehensive equipment has further enhanced its strength and further improved its plundering ability. As a result, almost all of the surrounding wealth is controlled by it, and its equipment is at its peak in luxury. As the surrounding areas are severely plundered, the level of wealth will decline significantly, and even tend to go bankrupt. This means that even if it has a great plundering ability, it will be difficult to plunder more manpower and material resources, and as a result, it will be difficult to continue to improve the luxury of its equipment, and even decline appropriately, and its combat effectiveness will also decline, which will prompt its expansion rate to stagnate.
Such luxurious equipment, which had problems in summer or hot regions, should have been one of the reasons for the setback of the Mongol army in Southeast Asia. The equipment of the Mongol army was to learn the equipment of the cavalry of the Jin State. The equipment of the cavalry of the Jin Kingdom should also be of similar luxury or similar equipment, which would be very out of place in the summer in the North China Plain. This should be the reason why during the Jingkang Difficulty, the Jin State attacked Bianjing in the Northern Song Dynasty twice, and chose to do so in the autumn and winter.