The moment a horse charges, the human body betrays the mind.
Even before you think, you lean back.
That reflex is why cavalry carried an aura of terror across so much of war history. Cavalry was often fast, tall, heavy—and mobile by choice. Infantry could march all day just to reach a fight. Cavalry could enter and exit the fight as long as it still had room to move.
And yet war history doesn’t end with “cavalry wins.”
It keeps returning to a different scene—one that’s almost anti-heroic:
Infantry doesn’t “outfight” cavalry.
Infantry endures the charge… and breaks it.
The secret ingredient usually isn’t a legendary sword. It’s a less romantic word:
1) Infantry’s first weapon: shape
When infantry defeats cavalry, it tends to do one thing first: it refuses to become individual people.
It doesn’t scatter.
It doesn’t open its flanks.
It locks itself into a form that makes running harder than staying.
Once that form exists, cavalry loses a chunk of its advantage. Horses are fast—but a charge into a dense wall of points and bodies becomes a gamble with terrible odds. If the charge stalls, cavalry can suddenly turn into very expensive infantry.
A vivid example appears in the Samguk Sagi record hosted by Korea’s National Institute of Korean History: the text describes Wei general Guanqiu Jian forming a square formation (방진 / 方陣) and fighting desperately, resulting in a catastrophic defeat for Goguryeo—recorded as over 18,000 dead, followed by the king fleeing with cavalry. (한국사데이터베이스)
The fascinating point isn’t “Goguryeo strong/weak.”
It’s the recurring lesson:
The fear of cavalry is not beaten by courage alone—
it’s beaten by geometry.
Britannica’s broader discussion of mounted warfare and the counters that emerge (bows, disciplined infantry, and later pike tactics) fits the same arc: cavalry dominance provokes systematic infantry solutions. (Encyclopedia Britannica)
2) Infantry’s second weapon: discipline
A formation is not a spell. It’s a behavior.
And behavior collapses under fear unless something holds it together: training, punishment, reward, peer pressure, belief, community identity—sometimes even the grim arithmetic of survival.
So the deeper technology isn’t the spear or the shield.
It’s the system that keeps frightened humans acting like one body.
That’s why “shape” and “discipline” travel together through history. The square is a concept; discipline is the engine that keeps the concept alive when the ground starts shaking.
3) If cavalry hits harder, infantry gets heavier: Song China’s Bu Ren Jia
When cavalry becomes a long-term strategic threat, infantry often responds by turning itself into a walking barricade.
A striking case is the Song dynasty’s 步人甲 (Bu Ren Jia)—heavy infantry armor described as being mentioned in Wujing Zongyao, with an oft-cited specification: 1,825 lamellae and a weight around 29 kg, with an imperial cap recorded as 29.8 kg for infantry armor. (위키백과)
Numbers look cold on the page. But inside the numbers is a stubborn decision:
“We can’t outrun the horse.
So we will outlast it.”
Of course, heavier armor brings its own problem: the soldier becomes durable—yet less mobile, more exhausted, more dependent on logistics and cohesion. “Anti-cavalry” isn’t free. It’s a trade.
4) The real upgrade: from “hold” to “hit first”
Infantry becomes truly terrifying when it stops being only a shock absorber and starts being a long-range machine.
The Song History (宋史) describes the Shenbi Gong (神臂弓) in a technical, almost bragging tone—materials, dimensions, and an account of its performance (including a long shot and deep penetration into wood), presented as something the emperor inspected and approved. (위키문헌)
And once you add organized missile tactics, you start seeing “infantry fights before contact.” The famous volley fire drill illustration associated with Song-era military texts is basically a diagram of that idea: coordinated shooting and replacement cycles, turning the infantry line into a repeating engine rather than a collection of shooters. (위키백과)
At that point the horse is still dangerous—
but it’s being taxed every step of the approach.
5) The last mutation: smoke that makes formation a liability
Here’s the irony: infantry’s greatest invention against cavalry—tight discipline and dense formation—eventually becomes something that can get infantry killed.
As gunpowder weapons and field artillery mature, the battlefield begins to shift from:
“the side that holds formation wins”
to“the side that holds formation gets erased.”
Britannica’s overview of the Battle of Castillon (1453) emphasizes the French use of artillery and its decisive impact—often treated as a landmark moment at the end of the Hundred Years’ War and a symbol of artillery’s rising dominance. (Encyclopedia Britannica)
And long before artillery becomes routine, Europe is already imagining it. Oxford’s exhibit notes that the earliest European image of a firearm (1326–27) appears in Walter de Milemete’s manuscript—an illustration that quietly announces the future: the age when machines, not formations, start deciding who gets to stand where. (cabinet.ox.ac.uk)
The moral (the part worth keeping)
It’s tempting to romanticize this story as “discipline and toughness.”
But there’s a darker truth running underneath:
formation and discipline are impressive,
and they can also be technologies for forcing humans to endure what humans are built to flee.
So the best takeaway from war history isn’t “love weapons.”
It’s closer to this:
Remember how humans organized fear—
and what that organization cost.
Bonus: fast “content expansion” ideas (games + modding)
Games to absorb the concepts fast
Total War (formation + cavalry shock made visible)
Mount & Blade (the emotional reality of a charge—panic vs cohesion)
Crusader Kings III / EU4 (military systems, mobilization, institutions)
Civ-style modding hooks (high fit)
Wonder: “Drill of the Square” (formation bonuses, anti-cavalry resilience)
Wonder: “Divine-Arm Workshop (Shenbi Gong)” (ranged production + tech edge)
Policy card: “Harsh Discipline” (training up, war weariness up—power with a price)
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