The Tatars not only have strong military strength, but they have fought with the Tang Army for many years and have considerable experience in fighting firearms troops. Don't expect today's Tatar cavalry to be stupid enough to attack the infantry musket phalanx. Such idiots
After they did it once in Shandong, they never did it a second time.
If we are talking about fighting with pure cold weapons, let alone that. People are more skilled at this. They are not afraid of fighting with pure cold weapons. What's more, if the enemy is not a firearms unit and does not use firearms, it does not mean that the Tatars do not use them.
ah.
They also have matchlocks and traditional shotguns. When fighting, they also fire guns and cannons...
Don't think that people are just stupid enough to charge with a saber. If they were so stupid, they would have been wiped out by the Tang Army long ago, and they would still be able to survive until now!
The army of the Tang Dynasty grew up in the war, and the Tatars also grew up in the war!
Even the Tatars are trying to imitate the guns of the Tang Dynasty, but unfortunately there is not much progress. The main reason is that they, the Tatars, are natural warriors.
If you ask them to pick up sabers and fight, there will be no problem at all, but if you ask them to make guns, it will be very difficult. The Tatars do not have a complete education system at all, and there are very few literate people.
Not to mention imitating Datang’s guns and cannons.
The principle of the Tang Dynasty's guns and cannons is actually very simple, and everyone knows it.
The matchlock is just a hollow iron rod plus a few bits and pieces. The artillery is even simpler, just a large hollow iron rod.
But the problem is, I know the principle and it looks very simple, but how to make it?
For example, those matchlock guns exported by Datang were all made of machinery. In order to control the weight, and more importantly, to control the cost, the barrels were made very thin. Although the charge was more and the gun was more permanent, the barrel would explode, but anyway
It's an export product, so it doesn't matter.
But how can such a thin barrel withstand the high chamber pressure after the gunpowder is ignited?
Those foreign craftsmen couldn't understand it at all, let alone them. Even the Portuguese and Spanish expressed difficulty in understanding the light and thin Tang Dynasty muskets.
This involves steel smelting technology and processing issues. The production of gun barrels in the Tang Dynasty is different from other contemporary countries. In other countries, the iron is often forged into iron sheets first, then rolled into hollow iron bars, and then
Continue finishing and finally become a gun barrel.
However, the gun barrels produced by the Tang Empire were directly cast from molten steel into a rough embryo, and then a hollow steel tube was directly drawn out on the machine for finishing. It was a one-time molding, simple, efficient and of good quality.
In addition, they have also tried drilling holes directly into the steel pipe, but this method is relatively expensive and has not been adopted on a large scale for the time being. Anyway, the quality of the barrels produced by drawing the pipes is also good, so they are too lazy to make more
The drilling process is copied.
As a result, artillery with long barrels is generally produced by drilling. This production method is also different from the current production methods in other countries. Other countries generally use casting to produce artillery.
However, the various cannons produced by the Tang Empire were first cast from a solid rough embryo and then drilled. However, this process was only used on long barrels due to its high cost.
For shotguns with short barrels, hollow steel tubes are often directly cast and then finished, which is simpler and more trouble-free.
Datang's gun production used a lot of mechanical equipment, and the raw materials were generally the most advanced steel, so the guns produced looked thin, but they were of very good quality and powerful.
And this method is difficult to replicate in those manual workshops.
The Tatars have not been idle in recent years. They have sent many spies deep into the Tang Dynasty to collect various materials. In fact, they have even found various textbooks from primary school to middle school and various popular science books. These books are generally available on the market.
Buy them all, and collecting them secretly is not difficult.
The difficulty is that even with these simple popular science materials, it is difficult for them to produce them, because the books available at the middle school level and on the market are generally at the basic and theoretical level, while more advanced knowledge is generally at the basic level.
Only available in universities.
As for various advanced technologies, they are controlled by the Royal Institute of Technology and major enterprises. They are their breadwinners. Not to mention leaking them to foreigners, even other domestic enterprises are hiding them.
Although the Tatars found some books, there was no one who could understand them, and there were even fewer people who really mastered the technology.
So although I tried to imitate it, I couldn't succeed. At most, I just hand-made a few barrels and short barrels.
Without technology and equipment, they cannot engage in industrial production, and even manual production is difficult because there are not enough craftsmen.
Now, the Tatars have found a group of craftsmen from the Tubo people, and this is the beginning of their real attempt to produce guns by hand.
There is only mechanical mass production. Sorry, this production model is just like alien technology for them and cannot be imitated at all.
But after all, it can be produced by hand, and the quantity is not large, so just use it sparingly, it is better than nothing, right?
After holding enough Tang weapons to equip tens of thousands of people and starting small-scale production of matchlocks and short-barreled artillery, Anda Khan felt that he was more confident.
Therefore, in the spring of the 18th year of Xuanping, Anda Khan officially decided to prepare for the Western Expedition and first occupy the vast grasslands of Central Asia.
Anda Khan is now attracted to the Central Asian grasslands and even the Eastern European plains to the west. There, he still has the heart to fight to death with those annoying barbarians of the Southern Tang Dynasty. Even in the northwest region, he has no heart to garrison too much.
However, in order to prevent the barbarians from the Southern Tang Dynasty from coming out of Jiayuguan, he still retained the Tubo people and did not destroy their country.
He was thinking of using the Tubo people as a shield to prevent those damn barbarians from the Southern Tang Dynasty from coming out of Jiayuguan and hindering his plan for the Western Expedition!
Anda Khan who ran to the Western Regions had his own plans, and Li Xuan in Jinling City also had his own plans, but his plans had nothing to do with the Tatars.
Now that the Tatars have gone to the Western Regions, and according to intelligence, the Tatars plan to continue the Western Expedition, then the Tang Dynasty is naturally too lazy to pay attention to them. Anyway, as long as they do not harm the northwest border of the Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty will not bother to care about these things.
Who do the Tatars harm?
Today's Datang Dynasty is also busy. On the one hand, it is to completely incorporate the Hetao area and Fengzhouchuan area into the rule of the Tang Dynasty. On the other hand, it is launching a plan to sweep the Northeast.
For this reason, the Tang Empire has officially established Hetao Prefecture and Fengzhou Prefecture. The scope of Hetao Prefecture is the Hetao area south of the Yellow River and is directly under the jurisdiction of Shaanxi Province.
As for Fengzhou Prefecture, its current jurisdiction is north of Datong Prefecture, south of Yinshan Mountain, and Hebei to the east. The prefecture is directly under the jurisdiction of Shanxi Province.
At present, all the Tatars in the above-mentioned areas have fled, and the number of imperial citizens who have immigrated here is too few, less than 100,000 in total, and they are all soldiers of the Ninth Army, the colonization militia who followed the soldiers north, and other
Mainly family members.
If the population is too small, it will be impossible to completely control these two areas.
To the north of these two prefectures, there are still a large number of nomadic peoples. Although the Tang Empire has always boasted that the areas further north also belong to the territory of the Tang Empire, but this is not the case after all.
Actual control, so no administrative agency has been set up yet.
In order to prevent the various nomadic groups in the north, the remnants of the Tatars in the north, and the Mongolian left wing and other tribes in the east from taking the opportunity to enter Hetao and Fengzhou, the Tang Empire is also preparing to vigorously attack the above two places.
development.
Immigrants developed farmland. In addition, they also prepared to develop animal husbandry in these two areas and prepare to establish a super-large horse farm belonging to the Tang Empire.
Hetao and Fengzhou are currently safe, so the military's focus here is mainly on prevention and reclamation. In the northwest region, the focus is also on prevention and reclamation. The empire has not currently expanded on a large scale in the Western Region.
plan of.
The area of large-scale expansion is currently only in the Northeast!
The military's Northeast Unrest Operation Plan has been in preparation since last year. One hundred thousand troops have been gradually prepared and are waiting for the ice and snow in the Northeast to melt and the roads are no longer muddy to be ready to march in the summer.
For this time's Northeast Operation Plan, the Army deployed a large number of elite troops, 50,000 elite cavalry plus 50,000 elite infantry, artillery, engineers, baggage and other units.
There are a total of three cavalry divisions and nine independent cavalry regiments; there are two main infantry divisions, two reserve divisions, one independent field artillery brigade, and one independent engineering regiment.
The total strength reached 100,000.
This does not include the nearly 80,000 civilians who provided logistical support in the rear and belonged to dozens of transportation regiments under the Privy Council Logistics Department, because civilians were never included in the combat force of the Tang Army.
In order to coordinate the above-mentioned 100,000 troops, Li Xuan specially set up the "Northeast Expedition Command", which is an organization higher than the military-level headquarters.
The reason why such a high-level headquarters was established was partly due to the influence of the previous Ninth Army. The Ninth Army had a corps-level command structure and once had more than 100,000 troops under its command. Its command structure was unable to directly command numerous divisions and brigades.
Regiments and other units can only be commanded by temporary regiments. Lieutenant generals commanded lieutenant generals.
On the other hand, it is also because the troops participating in the war this time came from various armies. Although the main force was only 100,000 people, there were more than 100,000 people who actually participated in the overall operation. More or less all of them participated in the battle, including those stationed in Hebei.
The Third Army includes the Tenth Army stationed in western Liaoning, the Sixth Army stationed in Northeastern Province, and northern Liaodong, and even the Fifteenth Army stationed in the southwestern Liaoning and the Korean Peninsula will be dispatched and coordinate to participate in the war.
When it comes to military-level units alone, there are four armies.