Chapter three hundred and twentieth fight for crossing
Although their new army of the Tang Dynasty has expanded to thousands of people, and more than 500 people were killed and injured in the previous battle, but now they heard that crossing the river head-on will cause thousands of casualties, and there may also be thousands of casualties during the siege stage.
This is not what the current Datang New Army can bear.
This level of casualties would probably cripple the existing main infantry battalions and mixed battalions!
Moreover, such heavy casualties will trigger a chain of negative reactions. Excessive casualties will cause soldiers to resist, and when the time comes, the troops will collapse.
Li Xuan also sighed at this time, fearing that crossing the river head-on would not be feasible.
The No. 1 battle plan that Zeng Ziwen mentioned before was actually to forcefully cross the river head-on without any strategy, use the combat power of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty to forcefully break through the Ming army's defense line, and then defeat them.
This plan sounds simple, but it is actually very difficult!
The Ming army has not been idle on the other side of the river in the past few months. Although they spent most of their time preparing for the attack across the river, they have not failed to make necessary defensive preparations.
Although the fortifications on the other side of the river are not as well built as those on the New Army side of the Tang Dynasty, they are not easy to fight either.
So Li Xuan immediately said: "If we adopt the No. 2 combat plan, what are our chances of winning?"
Operation plan No. 2 was proposed by Hao Bainian to use the main force to cross the river from the No. 3 ferry to carry out a sneak attack, then go around behind the Ming army and launch an attack on the Ming army. This would not only severely damage the Ming army, but also cut off the Ming army's retreat and eliminate them.
The possibility of escaping back to Xingquan Fucheng.
At this time, Zeng Ziwen said: "The key to plan No. 2 is whether the main force can successfully cross the river when crossing the river from No. 3 ferry. If a large number of Ming troops are intercepted during the crossing, the subsequent combat plan will also be different.
It would be useless. In order to avoid unnecessary casualties, we would need to actively abandon crossing the river and retreat.
The possibility of success depends on whether the Ming army knows the direction of our army's crossing the river and how long it will take to send troops to intercept it.
Once the main force of our army successfully crosses the river from Ferry No. 3, with the field combat capabilities of our main force, even if the puppet Ming rebels send two to three thousand people, they will not be able to stop the attack of the main force of our army. In this way, our chance of winning will be 70%
above, and the total casualties are expected to be kept below 500!"
Li Xuan continued: "What about Plan No. 3?"
Plan No. 3 is a change to Plan No. 2, which is to launch troops from No. 2 Ferry and No. 3 Ferry at the same time to cross the river, and then attack the Ming army after crossing the river.
"With Operation Plan No. 3, the crossing stage may be smoother, but it will be easily defeated by the enemy one by one. If the puppet Ming rebels send a large army towards the No. 2 or No. 3 ferry, it may be difficult for our troops to disperse across the river.
Break through the interception of the puppet Ming thief army!"
Li Xuan did not continue to speak at this time, but pondered in his mind for a long time, and finally said: "Change the No. 2 battle plan. We will also send some troops to cross the river at the No. 2 ferry to confuse as much as possible and attract a large number of enemy troops.
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These three combat plans all have their own advantages and disadvantages. Li Xuan would not be at ease if he chose only one of them, so he planned to combine the No. 2 and No. 3 combat plans and prepare to cross the river in three directions at the same time.
Of course, there are primary and secondary directions for crossing the river.
Because the No. 2 Ferry is more suitable for large-scale troops to cross the river than the No. 3 Ferry, the Ming army is more tightly guarded. There are already thousands of Ming troops stationed there and building fortifications, so Li Xuan plans to send a few
Part of the troops went to attract the attention of the Ming army.
On the other side of Ferry No. 3, the Ming army's defenses were slightly more relaxed, which was suitable for a large number of main forces to launch a cross-river raid.
Of course, this is just a brief crime plan. In fact, it is quite complicated to implement. For example, how to attract the attention of the Ming army at the No. 2 ferry and make them misunderstand that the main force of the Tang Dynasty's new army will be at the No. 2 ferry.
Crossing the river is a very complicated and difficult matter.
All kinds of preparations and disguises are required!
How to conceal the main force, sneak into the vicinity of Ferry No. 3, and then cross the river in one fell swoop is quite troublesome in practice.
However, Li Xuan does not need to worry about these things himself. Naturally, many officers below will worry about it, especially the combat department led by Zeng Ziwen, who is responsible for these trivial details.
Otherwise, what's the use of this war department!
After deciding on the plan to cross the river, the new army of the Tang Dynasty also started a new round of busy work!
A large number of new recruits who have only undergone one month of basic training are constantly being replenished into various units, and various combat materials sent from the rear are constantly arriving at the Lanjiang Ferry.
There are not only ammunition, but also weapons and even artillery. The Ministry of Industry recently built a 500-pound artillery and sent it over.
But the light artillery weighing one to two hundred kilograms that Li Xuan wanted most could not be built so quickly.
A batch of muskets have also been replenished, so that the current musketeers and grenadiers of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty already have one musket in hand, and there are even dozens of extra muskets as strategic reserves to replenish the troops at critical moments.
It is a pity that those 20mm muskets have not been built yet. From the beginning of building a musket to the time it can be used, the total time required for each process is about a month, which is not fast.
In addition to replenishing a large amount of supplies at the rear, the New Army of the Tang Dynasty also began to prepare a large number of equipment for crossing the river, such as rafts and bamboo rafts. In the past few months, the New Army of the Tang Dynasty had also prepared many ships and captured many Ming troops.
It was left behind when crossing the river, but if you need to confuse the Ming army, you must prepare a large number of ships at Lanjiang Ferry and No. 2 Ferry. Otherwise, you don’t even have so many ships, and the Ming army must be
I can’t believe you would send the main force to cross the river!
During the preparation process, the number of ships at Lanjiang Ferry and No. 2 Ferry was increasing day by day. In order to confuse the enemy, Li Xuan repeatedly sent many troops to No. 2 Ferry, and also built a simple
The temporary large-scale camp was large enough for two thousand people to be stationed there, and it was tightly guarded. Before the return point was reached, a large amount of smoke was rising.
However, the troops in the camp came during the day and sneaked away at night. This repeated process created the illusion that there was a large number of main Tang troops at Ferry No. 2.
At the same time, at the No. 3 Ferry, about 200 people were sent to station there openly, assuming a posture of crossing the river. However, this posture could easily be misunderstood as a partial division to contain the Ming army.
As for a secret forest three miles away from No. 3 Ferry, there is a main force of 1,400 people hidden. They include almost all the main forces of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty today.
Including the 1st Infantry Battalion, 2nd Infantry Battalion, 1st Mixed Battalion, Sword and Shield Corps, Archer Corps, Grenadier Corps, and even a team of baggage troops.
This unit carried enough ammunition for three high-intensity battles and enough food for seven days.
This temporary main force will be commanded by Hao Bainian. At the same time, Li Xuan specially transferred four or five staff officers from the Operations Department to Hao Bainian, so that these staff officers can provide advice to Hao Bainian.
This force will be responsible for all the most critical battles in crossing the river and even attacking Xingquanfu City!
After they entered this dense forest, in order to hide their traces, they could not light a fire to cook, lest the smoke from the fire would be noticed by the Ming army. For this reason, they could only eat dry food.
It was naturally impossible for the New Army of the Tang Dynasty to hide such large-scale preparations for crossing the river from the Ming army, because even if Song Zhiwei looked on the other side of the river, he could see many soldiers of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty cutting down trees to make rafts, and they were still on the riverside.
Conduct rowing and other related training related to river crossing operations.
"These bandits are probably going to cross the river, and it's just in these few days!" Song Zhiwen was worried after seeing the preparations of the new army of the Tang Dynasty!
Those tiny bandits are about to cross the river, but can I stop them?
For a moment, Song Zhiwen regretted that he had concealed the real strength of the puppet Tang rebel army. If he had reported the truth truthfully, even though he would have been severely punished, the governor would have mobilized a large number of people.
The troops arrived at Xingquan Mansion.
In this case, the last attempt to cross the river would not have been such an embarrassing defeat, and perhaps the puppet Tang rebel army would have been annihilated long ago.
What a pity, there is no regret medicine in this world!
Just because he made a mistake once, it doesn't mean that he will make a mistake a second time. As early as after the second attempt to cross the river failed, he had already sent someone to report the relevant situation here.
This report was naturally written in a clever way, shirking responsibility as much as possible, and in order to cover up the failures and heavy casualties in the two battles, he once again erased the recruits and young men he had recruited, and only counted the guards
Soldier casualties.
The 2,500 recruited soldiers who were annihilated have never appeared. As for the young and strong civilian men, they did not even write down the specific data, only a few words.
After such a report, the number of troops going into battle decreased from 10,000 to less than 5,000, and the only casualties left were less than 1,000 guardsmen.
And asked the governor to mobilize troops to suppress the rebellion of the puppet Tang rebels!
However, even if the governor really wants to mobilize troops to support us, it will probably take a month or two or even longer.
However, the puppet Tang rebel army on the opposite side is already preparing to cross the river in the next few days!
what to do?
At this time, Song Zhiwen was also a little helpless!
He had no choice but to make people pay close attention to the movements of the puppet Tang rebels on the other side of the river, and stay vigilant at all times. Once the puppet Tang rebels really crossed the river, it would be time to fight to the death.
His guess was not wrong. Two days later, the scouts who crossed the river for reconnaissance reported that a huge camp of puppet Tang rebels was found behind the No. 2 ferry. And judging from the amount of smoke, there were at least two thousand puppet rebels.
Stock up here.
Song Zhiwen sent 500 reinforcements to No. 2 Ferry that day to strengthen the defense of No. 2 Ferry.
On the night of the third day, the Ming army stationed at No. 2 Ferry sent people to report to Song Zhiwen on horseback, saying that a large number of puppet Tang rebels had appeared at No. 2 Ferry. Judging from the number of torches, there were at least two thousand.
After hearing this, Song Zhiwen took a deep breath: "It's finally here!"