While the Ninth Army in the north was fighting to the death with the Tatars, over there in Jinling City, people were still singing and dancing, as if they could not see the slightest impact of the war.
Actually it is!
Although the Battle of Hetao planned by the Tang Empire was very important, it was at best a strategic battle, far from being able to completely defeat the Tatars in one fell swoop.
The troops mobilized by the Tang Empire were only 40,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry. Even if the more than 10,000 young civilians were included, the total was only 60,000 to 70,000.
This small number of troops seems to be a large number, but it is not as large as the troops that marched into Liaodong back then.
For the Tang Empire today, this amount of troops is only a small force!
Today, the Army of the Tang Empire has a total of twenty main infantry divisions, five cavalry divisions, more than ten cavalry regiments, and more than a dozen other independent artillery, infantry and other units. The first-line main force alone has reached thirty Thousands.
This refers to the situation without mobilization, because in order to save military expenses, even the main front-line troops are divided into two types of formations. One is the wartime establishment. The wartime establishment is full of personnel, or even overstrength.
The other is the peace establishment. In the peace establishment, combatants are retained, but only the basic auxiliary forces are retained. At the same time, the establishment of some units is incomplete. Overall, the peace establishment is only 100% of the fully-staffed establishment. A strength of about eighty.
However, even if it is a peaceful establishment, the number of combatants and weapons and equipment is complete. What is lacking is some capabilities such as long-distance maneuvering, but this does not affect the main combat mission.
If all the above-mentioned troops are mobilized and reach full strength, the total strength will exceed 400,000!
In addition, reserve divisions must be added. The number of reserve divisions in various places affiliated to the Tang Dynasty Army has been arranged to more than fifty. Although these reserve divisions are strong and weak, the strong ones can have seven to eight thousand or even tens of thousands of troops, while the few are There may only be four or five thousand troops.
The reserve division's manpower shortage is even more serious than that of the regular army!
Combined with the reserve divisions and the main force, the strength of the Tang Army alone reached 500,000 to 600,000.
This only accounts for one-tenth of the 50,000 to 60,000 troops.
At the same time, this does not include the navy and the Guards.
The navy has a lot of troops. It has many combat ships and a total of about 60,000 troops, of which more than 10,000 are marines, while the rest are sailors and artillery.
The strength of the Guards is smaller, currently at 40,000. Although the Guards only has two divisions, these two divisions are very large establishments and are in a state of combat readiness all year round. Full of personnel.
The total active strength of the three armies mentioned above is nearly 700,000!
This is a very scary number, at least for any neighboring countries in East Asia.
It is a pity that most of this huge army is actually used internally!
Yes, you read that right!
The real enemies of the million-strong army of the Tang Empire were actually not foreigners, but internal rebels.
Compared with the Tatar threat, internal rebellion is more deadly.
Therefore, no matter how lively the fighting in the north was, the imperial army in the Zhili region had never been mobilized. At most, troops were sent to the war on a rotational basis.
The tens of thousands of people in the Ninth Army are actually nothing within the empire.
Otherwise, why would Liu Mengyang, the leader of the 13th Baggage Regiment, have the idea of waging a war of attrition?
It's because he knows very well how powerful the empire is. Losing thousands of people is nothing, and they can be replenished in minutes. He has heard that the recruitment scale of the Ministry of War this year is much larger than in previous years, and the number has reached
Fifteen thousand people.
From the number of soldiers recruited by the Army Department, it can basically be judged that the Tang Army either wants to expand its army or is preparing for war.
The service period of ordinary soldiers in the Tang Dynasty Army was three years in the early days, and was later increased to four years. The reason why the additional year was added was because the military wanted to supplement the time for training new recruits and replenishing soldiers.
Coming back, this period will take at least half a year.
If they are not replenished, then after the Datang Army has worked hard to train the new recruits and send them to the army, they will only have two and a half years of service left. The Army felt that it was a bit of a disadvantage, so it later retired them.
The deadline was extended by one year.
If this is the case, it means that the Army needs to recruit more than 100,000 new soldiers every year to supplement the various units and reserve units to fill the vacancies after the veterans in each unit retire.
But as of this fall, the number of new recruits recruited by the Army Department has exceeded 200,000!
This exceeds the personnel gap caused by the normal retirement of troops.
What will the extra troops be used for?
Expand the army?
Without the designation of new troops, it is impossible to expand the army.
Then the only explanation is that they were mobilized for war. These extra soldiers were added to the participating troops to fully fill up the participating troops. They were also used as supplementary soldiers. After casualties occurred in the troops fighting at the front, these processes
The trained recruits will be able to take over.
As an officer of the Imperial Army, Liu Mengyang was only a lieutenant colonel, but he was also very familiar with the operation mode of the army. He also knew that the staff department under the Privy Council Operations Department had already prepared tens of thousands of new recruits in Taiyuan and Datong.
What are these new soldiers used for? You can figure it out with your brain. They are used to prepare for replenishing battle losses.
The Tang Empire was never afraid of dead people!
Liu Mengyang is even less afraid!
If the transport force could be wiped out and the Tatar cavalry be severely damaged, Liu Mengyang would be very happy.
It's a pity that the Tatars in front of them seem to have noticed it, and they actually retreated!
Looking at the Tatars running away wildly, Liu Mengyang felt it was a pity. Unfortunately, his army was not a cavalry unit, but a transport unit, and did not have enough mobility to pursue the enemy.
Otherwise, it will be a great victory in chasing down the fleeing enemy in every minute!
Unfortunately, his troops were not cavalry, so he could only watch as Xin Ai and Huang Taiji roared away with the remaining three thousand cavalry.
After the war, this transportation force did not move forward immediately. Instead, it stayed in place in the stone formation. If it continued to move forward, it would be difficult to cover such a huge convoy with the remaining more than a thousand troops.
At that time, it is very likely that the Tatars will take the opportunity to attack.
At the same time, it is also for the sake of the wounded.
Although Liu Mengyang did not care about the life and death of the soldiers and regarded them as cold numbers, this did not affect his concern for the injuries of the wounded soldiers.
Because his troops are now severely depleted, some of these wounded soldiers who are slightly injured, if they can be treated properly, can fight with injuries, which can greatly make up for his current manpower gap.
Well, after all, he still considers the problem from a purely military perspective!
In this battle, the main force of the transportation force, the 13th Baggage Regiment, was reduced to a thousand men. About 140 people were killed on the spot, more than 400 were seriously injured, and hundreds more were slightly injured.
Needless to say, if you die in battle, there is a high probability that you will not survive if you are seriously injured. For those with minor injuries, some of them can still barely return to the battle sequence after simple treatment. Liu Mengyang needs these people.
As for the others, it is their responsibility and honor to die for the empire and the Holy Emperor.
Not to mention ordinary soldiers, even officers, even mid-level and senior officers, must have the consciousness to die on the battlefield when they go to the battlefield.
However, even if there was a certain amount of supplements for the wounded, there were still too few troops available for combat. In desperation, Liu Mengyang could only let those civilians undertake certain combat tasks.
Although these civilians were temporarily recruited, they had received several days of military training before setting off. At least they knew how to load and pull the trigger to fire.
Of course, they can't be counted on for cruel hand-to-hand combat, but if they just pick up their muskets and fire at the enemy, it's still possible.
When we relied on vehicle formations to fight in the past, these civilians played a certain role. After all, they had thousands of people and thousands of muskets. No matter how bad their marksmanship was, the bullets fired were full of damage.
Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that Liu Mengyang used these civilian men as combatants.
However, Liu Mengyang also knew very well that these civilians could only be used under certain circumstances. If they were ignored and used as ordinary soldiers, the outcome would be very wonderful.
After all, these civilians have not received complete military training. Their physical fitness and combat skills are completely incomparable with professional soldiers. These are actually secondary. The most important thing is military discipline!
During the three-month recruitment period for soldiers of the Tang Army, there are three most important trainings. One is physical training. This is simple, just eat and drink enough and then work hard to build muscles.
The second type of training is discipline training. Brainwashing them in various ways every day makes them know the importance of obeying orders and helps them develop the instinct to obey orders.
The rest is naturally the training of combat skills, such as loading, aiming, shooting, and bayonet fighting. These are the most basic combat skills that need to be trained.
Generally speaking, the above three major projects are trained together!
The recruits who have undergone a complete three-month training are completely different from ordinary people in terms of mental outlook and personal qualities, and these soldiers also laid the foundation of the Tang Dynasty Army.
These civilians have not received military training, and their quality in all aspects is naturally not up to standard. They can only be used in specific situations and occasions, but they must not be used as ordinary soldiers.
It took them a lot of time to treat the wounded and clean the battlefield. What is worth mentioning is that when they cleaned the battlefield, they also harvested hundreds of intact horses. These horses were all left by the Tatars.
As for the wounded and dead horses that can be used as military rations, there are even more.
The Tatars left thousands of cavalry in this area. The horses they were riding were either dead or wounded, left on the battlefield, or simply ran away.
It's a pity that, except for the officers, few of the soldiers under Liu Mengyang's command can ride horses. Otherwise, he would have asked the soldiers to ride on those draft horses for mobile combat.
Don’t think that a draft horse is no longer a horse. It is also a four-legged cavalryman riding on it!