Valley Emperor

Vol 2 Chapter 315: Occupy Zhengtai County

Everyone, including Li Xuan, was already looking forward to crossing the Lanjiang River and entering Xingquan Mansion.

In the past, it was because of weak strength, and there were tens of thousands of Ming troops on the other side of the river blocking the way, but now, the situation is different.

Through today's daytime battle, the main force of the Ming army was completely lost. Not only were the more than 2,000 Ming troops at the No. 2 ferry were defeated, but at noon, the Tang army at the Lanjiang ferry, which was attacked by the Ming army across the river, was defeated. The main force sent troops to pursue the lower reaches of the Lanjiang River, that is, due north. They wanted to catch up and defeat the more than 1,000 Ming army guards who had crossed the river from No. 3 ferry.

In addition to the more than 1,000 Ming troops at Ferry No. 3 that needed to be defeated, troops were also sent to the No. 2 Ferry Terminal in the south to continue chasing the Ming army defeated by Hao Bainian in the morning.

There are many remnants of the Ming army in these two directions. If they are not completely defeated in time, they may cause trouble to the new army of the Tang Dynasty.

But these are follow-up small-scale wars, which cannot affect the overall situation.

From the moment Song Zhiwen ordered the retreat, the second Lanjiang battle had come to an end, and more than half of the tens of thousands of Ming troops had lost, and only a few hundred of the 3,000 recruits who were the main force were left.

Even though Song Zhiwen still had more than 2,000 guard soldiers and almost the same number of young soldiers, but relying on these cannon fodder troops, he was definitely not the opponent of the new Tang army. The entire Xingquan Mansion is within easy reach.

Another very important point is that after destroying the tens of thousands of Ming army, it is impossible for the Ming army to assemble a large-scale force to attack again in a short period of time.

After this battle, Xingquan Mansion's own strength has been exhausted, and even the guards of surrounding prefectures and counties have been annihilated.

If the Ming army wanted to gather a large army to attack, it was no longer enough to rely on the strength of Xingquan Prefecture and even the surrounding prefectures and counties.

And such a thing, just political wrangling will waste a lot of time, not to mention that the mountain road in Guizhou is difficult, and it will be several months before they gather from various places and go to Xingquan Mansion.

With these few months, it is enough for Li Xuan to bring the entire Xingquan Mansion under control, and use the population and materials of Xingquan Mansion to once again expand the new army of the Tang Dynasty on a large scale.

Relying on a single county of Zhengtai, the Datang Dynasty can pull out an army of nearly 4,000 people. If relying on the entire Xingquan Prefecture with a population of more than 30 people, it is completely impossible to pull out a new army of the Tang Dynasty with a size of 10,000 people. possible.

From a military point of view, the time to attack Xingquan Mansion is ripe!

From a political point of view, the Datang Dynasty has been established for several years. Even if the previous one or two years have been playing the game of the family, it cannot always be nested in the ravine.

Not only Li Xuan yearns for the prosperity on the Qinhuai River in the south of the Yangtze River, Fang Dongquan and Chen Tufu are also yearning for the outside world. They can't wait to get out of the mountains, out of Zhengtai County, and take a look at the vast world outside.

Crossing the river and attacking Xingquan Mansion, this has become the consensus of Li Xuan and many generals, but how to fight? How to deal with the larger-scale counterattack of the Ming army after the fight?

In this regard, Zeng Ziwen proposed a series of countermeasures. After occupying Xingquan Mansion, he immediately began to expand the army and recruit new soldiers from the entire Xingquan Mansion. The scale of this expansion is to expand the new army of the Tang Dynasty to more than 10,000 people. !

In addition to the expansion of troops, Zeng Ziwen and other generals also put forward some suggestions for improving the existing weapons, such as equipping larger caliber heavy muskets and equipping battalion artillery.

And these suggestions for improvement have been put forward in the previous post-war summary meeting.

After each large-scale battle, the Datang New Army always held a post-war summary meeting to discuss the gains and losses of the battle, which has gradually become a tradition of the Datang New Army.

In today's post-war summary meeting, there weren't too many major problems. After all, although the fight was tough this time, the troop movements were actually pretty good, and there were no major flaws.

However, although the performance of the troops is good, it does not mean that there are no defects.

For the first time, the army felt the lack of the existing performance of the musket. According to reason, the performance of the musket equipped by the Datang New Army has been regarded as the top in the contemporary era, but there are still many problems, such as the shooting is too slow, and The success rate of ignition is too low.

When faced with a large-scale enemy charge, it is not enough!

Li Xuan is naturally clear about this problem, but he also knows that this problem cannot be solved in a short time, because the muskets of the new Tang Dynasty have basically squeezed out all contemporary technical potentials, from ammunition to muskets , there is not much room for improvement.

The only thing that can improve and greatly improve the performance of the musket is the strike mechanism, which is to replace the arquebus with the flint strike.

But this involves a seemingly inconspicuous, but actually unsolvable problem at present, that is the spring.

The most important technical difficulty of the flint gun is this small spring, and this thing has very high requirements on steelmaking technology. With the technical capabilities of the workshops under the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty, it is simply impossible to do it.

Without the spring, it is impossible to make a flint striking mechanism, and it is impossible to upgrade the existing arquebus to a flint gun. It is naturally difficult to improve the performance of the existing musket.

The generals also knew about this, and proposed another solution, that is, to continue to increase the caliber of the musket to obtain a greater range and power to counter the thicker and more bulletproof capabilities that the Ming army may appear in the future. shield.

When Li Xuan heard this proposal, he thought it was feasible. The existing muskets of the new army of the Tang Dynasty were not large, only 14 mm. It can only be said that they are slightly larger than the Japanese iron cannons and the shotguns equipped in the historical Ming Dynasty. It's a medium caliber musket.

But at the same time, the caliber of the muskets equipped by the Europeans was much larger, especially the muskets of the Spaniards, which could reach 20 mm, and the effect against heavy plate armor was equally good.

When the Ming army charged before, they used a large number of thick giant shields and even hand-pulled shield carts to fight the Tang army's muskets. It is impossible that they will use these larger and thicker giant shields in the future, even if these giant shields The same is true of poor mobility.

Li Xuan decided to take precautions and build a batch of 20mm caliber heavy muskets first!

After deciding to build a batch of heavy muskets, Li Xuan also thought about improving the existing guns!

Through this actual combat, Li Xuan found that the existing six artillery pieces of the artillery team, no matter which Italian artillery weighing 800 catties, or the five artillery pieces weighing 500 catties, are still too heavy to be fast. The fatal flaw of maneuvering.

Although these cannons have decent range and power, they are all front-mounted cannons, and they are still too heavy.

When Li Xuan saw the old antique Wankou guns of the Ming army, he felt that he must also have a kind of artillery that can accompany the infantry quickly.

Last night, when Hao Bainian led the troops to reinforce the No. 2 ferry, it was because the artillery was too heavy to be reinforced quickly. As a result, when Hao Bainian led the army to fight, he could not get the support of artillery, and could only rely on grenades and pure bayonet charges.

And this is also the main reason for the casualties of Hao Bainian's department!

The new army of the Tang Dynasty must have a light artillery that can accompany the infantry to fight at any time, and it is a light artillery directly under the direct jurisdiction of the infantry battalion.

It must be able to be directly carried by horses and other livestock, and can be carried by soldiers in an emergency, instead of being pulled by multiple horses like the six cannons now, in an emergency, or in the mountains and muddy areas Can't move.

After arriving on the battlefield, to be able to maneuver with the formation of the infantry, this requires the soldiers to be able to push the artillery away.

Under the premise of satisfying fast maneuvering, other performance data can be as good as possible.

In addition to these two, there are other suggestions, such as equipping more spearmen with armor, but these are secondary, and the impact is not as large as the first two.

After the post-war memories of this day are over, the Datang New Army is running fast again!

The heavily damaged units began to accept recruits from the rear on a large scale and supplemented the lost muskets and other weapons.

Try to restore the Datang New Army to its previous combat effectiveness, but it is impossible to get there as soon as possible~www.wuxiaspot.com~ At least it is impossible to do it before the Datang New Army starts to cross the river.

Recruitment and training of new recruits take time, and weapon production is limited.

And at this time, it could not catch up with the crossing of the river set by the new army of the Tang Dynasty.

In order to strike while the iron is hot, Li Xuan decided to cross the river in a hurry, just five days later!

These five days are the time for Datang's new army to finally resume replenishment.

In the following two days, Li Chunjing, the battalion officer of the Second Mixed Battalion, who led the army to pursue the enemy at No. 3 ferry, pursued and routed the Ming army, killing more than two enemies and taking more than 500 prisoners. The prisoners were escorted back that day.

Fang Xitong, the first mixed battalion who led the army to pursue the remnants of the No. 2 ferry, sent people to report that the remnants of the Ming army in the south had already been completely disbanded, and many of them had become stragglers, making it difficult to pursue them one by one.

In this regard, Li Xuan can only put them aside for the first time. Anyway, a little straggler will not affect the overall situation.

Now, Li Xuan has set his sights on Zhengtai County!

Before officially crossing the river and attacking Xingquan City, he had to take down Zhengtai County!

For this reason, he sent an order to Fang Xitong, asking him to immediately lead his troops to Zhengtai County to take it down, and in order to catch up with the crossing of the river in a few days, Li Xuan only gave him two days.

It didn't take long, when Su Jiakang in the county seat of Zhengtai County heard that a large number of puppet thieves from the Tang Dynasty had come from outside the city, and when he was posing to attack the city, he couldn't stand up and fell on his chair. His eyes were full of despair.

He also murmured: "What should I do, what should I do?" ()

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