By observing the entire battlefield and communicating with Hao Bainian on the front line, Li Xuan decided to mobilize the remnants of the baggage regiment, the 10th Infantry Battalion of the 4th Infantry Regiment, a musketry team from the artillery battalion, and a team from the Guards Battalion to form a temporary Chinese Army
The temporary commander of the commando unit will be Wang Shanxu, commander of the 4th Infantry Regiment.
The Chinese commando will conduct a surprise attack from the southwest to the northeast, that is, launch an attack from the left wing of the front line, assist the 1st Infantry Regiment to completely defeat the enemy's flanking troops, and then join the 1st Infantry Regiment to sweep into the enemy's center.
Army, completely defeat the enemy!
As for why Wang Shanxu was appointed as the commander, it was because the three senior generals Li Xuan valued were all in the forward troops. Hao Bainian, Li Chunjing, and Fang Xitong were all on the front line, each leading a main infantry regiment, and Hao Bainian was more
He is the vanguard commander.
With no one available, we can only use Wang Shanxu, a veteran bandit!
However, although Wang Shanxu, who was ordered to do so at the critical moment, was a general with a background of bandits, he had rich combat experience and had led thousands of people in battles, so his prestige and qualifications were quite sufficient.
As long as you don't mess around and simply lead the troops to launch a surprise attack according to the planned plan, then there won't be a big problem!
After receiving the order, Wang Shanxu listened to Li Xuan personally telling him how to fight, and repeatedly emphasizing that he should not change the battle plan without authorization and should always pay attention to the flag command of the Chinese army. He also knew that this might be something he could seize.
The last chance.
In the past few months, anyone who is not blind can see that His Majesty has begun to support young officers from the Guards, while veteran generals from bandits have been suppressed. Huang Xueren and Fang Dongquan are now only deputy commanders.
Woolen cloth.
Although he was promoted to leader, in terms of power, he was still inferior to Hao Bainian, Li Chunjing, and Fang Xitong.
This can be seen from the previous series of high-level personnel appointments. The forward commander is Hao Bainian, and the deputy commanders are Li Chunjing and Fang Xitong.
However, Huang Xueren, Fang Dongquan and even him, the former commander-in-chief of the Guards, lagged behind others.
Now, under the emergency situation of the war, His Majesty cannot let Hao Bainian and others command this Chinese army commando team, so the appointment of this commander fell on him.
And he must not waste this opportunity, because he knew that if he messed up this time, it would be almost impossible to get another chance to command an army in the future.
So when faced with Li Xuan's instructions, he listened very carefully, and at the same time, he shamelessly asked several staff from the combat department temporarily assigned to him by Zeng Ziwen to help him make temporary decisions. After all, this combat operation was not trivial.
He was also worried about his ability to successfully command so many temporarily mobilized troops.
Naturally Zeng Ziwen would not refuse, so he dispatched three young staff officers from the combat department to him on the spot.
The staff of the Operations Department are basically young officers who have been recruited in the past year. These young officers are basically scholars. After studying at the Martial Arts School, they then entered the Imperial Academy and have experience as junior officers.
These combat staff officers are basically lieutenants, who will be released to serve as chief officers of the army. According to the current expansion of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty, these people will at least become battalion commanders after they are released.
These people have both traditional cultural education and new military education. In terms of quality, they are even the best among the many officers in the New Army of the Tang Dynasty. And more importantly, they are actually still in the learning stage.
, learn from others or delve into more advanced military knowledge on your own.
If the officers who came from the Guards temporarily held up a sky for the New Army of the Tang Dynasty, then these younger generation of officers who were originally scholars and have gone through a series of military education will be the future of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty.
With these staff members from the Operations Department here, Wang Shanxu felt a lot more at ease. He did not dare to delay immediately and just rode on horseback to assemble the troops.
In Wang Shanxu's Chinese army commando team, the baggage regiment had just experienced a brutal battle. The number of troops was greatly reduced. Now there are only about 1,400 people left, while several other troops have not experienced battles.
new force.
The total strength of the entire army amounts to about 1,800 people, which can barely be called an army of 2,000!
From the perspective of the number of troops, this is actually the configuration of an infantry regiment. However, in terms of troop configuration, equipment level, and even the quality of the soldiers, it is still unable to be compared with the two main infantry regiments, the First Infantry Regiment and the Second Infantry Regiment.
.
After Wang Shanxu led his army to set off, Li Xuan was still watching the entire battlefield as before!
At this time, the battlefield looked as if the two sides had entered a stalemate. Hao Bainian's forward troops of about 6,000 people fought against the main force of the Ming army, which had 20,000 troops. The fight was quite strenuous, and the troop attrition was not small. There were several casualties before and after.
Hundreds of people.
However, the Ming army on the opposite side also had a hard time. More than half of them were young men and civilians with weak combat capabilities. If a fight broke out, they would actually have to rely on garrison soldiers and recruits.
As for the guardsmen, they can only rely on the general's personal soldiers. The combat effectiveness of ordinary guardsmen is actually very limited.
After the fight started, although it seemed that the puppet Tang rebels were suppressed and continued to fight, and they kept trying to launch offensives, in fact they did not advance much of the front, and they themselves suffered heavy casualties. Three infantry phalanxes were defeated successively.
Nearly two thousand people were killed or injured.
It's just that these casualties were ordinary cannon fodder soldiers, not the backbone of the general's personal soldiers and recruits. Otherwise, they would have collapsed on their own.
In order to support infantry operations, the artillery units originally mobilized to attack the Ming Army's cavalry also turned their guns and began to intensively bombard the Ming Army's infantry squares.
The solid shells of heavy artillery, the close shot attack of battalion artillery, and every artillery shot would take away the lives of a large number of Ming army soldiers.
In this battle, although the number of artillery pieces of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty was not large, they played an important role from beginning to end and caused a large number of casualties to the Ming army.
Whether it was a battle between infantry or the Ming cavalry attack just now, in fact, at least one-third of the Ming army's casualties were the result of artillery.
Of course, this is also related to the fact that the two sides have not officially entered the stage of large-scale hand-to-hand combat.
When the artillery began to bombard the Ming army's infantry square, Wang Shanxu looked back at the troops behind him again, then pulled out the command knife on his horse, pointed the command knife forward at the Ming army more than a hundred meters away and issued an order:
"The whole army is here, march forward together!"
Suddenly, these 1,800 infantrymen began to form two huge linear phalanxes and began to advance!
Advancing in two linear square formations was the advice given to Wang Shanxu by the staff of the Operations Department. This is because although this Chinese army commando team has the size of a regiment in terms of strength, it actually has more numbers, and there are only a few in the baggage regiment.
There are four battalions, the 10th Infantry Battalion of the 5th Infantry Regiment, a regiment of the Guards Battalion, and a regiment of musketeers in the Artillery Battalion.
Moreover, the configuration of arms and combat effectiveness of each army are different. The number of musketeers in the baggage regiment is relatively small. Each battalion has only one musketry team. Moreover, the four battalions of the baggage regiment have all reduced their numbers a lot, and none of them is full.
On their own, it would be difficult for them to organize a battalion-sized line formation.
The leadership of other troops was also a problem, so we simply divided these troops into two parts, with the commander of the baggage regiment and the commander of the 10th Infantry Battalion serving as the temporary commanders of the two phalanxes.
The first square formation is composed of three infantry battalions of the baggage regiment, and the second square formation is composed of one battalion of the baggage regiment, the 10th infantry battalion, one team of the guard battalion, and one team of the artillery battalion.
The former has more troops, but the latter actually has a stronger combat effectiveness, because the 10th Infantry Battalion is the only regular infantry battalion among these troops, and the infantry team in the Guards Battalion is not weak either.
When the Chinese commandos began to advance, the First Infantry Regiment also launched a corresponding counterattack. The Second Infantry Battalion put in the final reserve. The heavy armored sword and shield soldiers of the fifth team launched a surprise attack, together with several other main infantry.
The battalion is the same, limited by the shortage of muskets and a slight surplus of spearmen. The fifth team is generally composed of sword and shield soldiers and archers. The specific proportions are different, but the overall ratio is maintained at half and half.
The sword and shield soldiers in the fifth team are heavy armor sword and shield soldiers, and these about fifty heavy armor sword and shield soldiers are the only heavy armor sword and shield soldiers in a regular infantry battalion!
When the fifty heavy armored sword and shield soldiers in the fifth team, wearing heavy armor and holding shields, launched a surprise attack, they were like sharp knives inserted into the array of the Ming army in front of them. Although they were in the process of charging
During the attack, several people were shot down by the Ming army's muskets, and several people were killed and wounded by the Ming army's spearmen, but the remaining people still rushed into the Ming army's array.
And when more than forty sword-and-shield soldiers wearing heavy armor entered the Ming army's formation, it was almost catastrophic for the Ming army.
Because at this time, we have entered a real close-quarters combat, and in this kind of close-quarters combat, the only ones who can fight against the heavy armored sword and shield soldiers are actually the same heavy armored sword and shield soldiers. When other types of soldiers encounter them, they must either run away.
Or be killed.
Zhao Dashan held a long sword made of stainless steel in his hand, and used the round shield in his hand to carefully swing away a spear that was aimed at him. Then he took a few steps forward and gently swung the stainless steel sword in his hand.
He just stabbed to death the Ming army spearman who was stabbing him with a spear.
In this kind of close-quarters melee, it is almost impossible for the spear soldiers to be the opponent of the sword and shield soldiers, because the spear soldiers are different from the sword and shield soldiers. The sword and shield soldiers can fight independently based on their personal martial arts, while the spear soldiers can fight independently.
, it is necessary to use collective strength to form a spear array to kill the enemy.
Otherwise, the heavy-armored spearmen of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty would not have abandoned their spears during the melee and then pulled out their sabers to fight. Otherwise, they would have been unable to fight on the battlefield with spears that were four and a half meters tall.
Chaotic close combat!
The 2nd Infantry Battalion launched a counterattack. The other two infantry battalions of the 1st Infantry Regiment and the 3rd Infantry Battalion also launched a counterattack. As for the 1st Infantry Battalion, they took a break from fighting the cavalry and then joined the line.
Come in the order of battle.
The First Infantry Regiment plus the Chinese Army Commando led by Wang Shanxu, although these two units have already suffered considerable personnel losses, the remaining troops still exceed 3,500!
And all these troops launched a counterattack against the Ming army!