When the massive and brutal strategic decisive battle of the Bronze Drum Acropolis came to an end, most of the soldiers of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty who had fought hard and chased the Ming army all day began to gather and prepare to rest.
However, only part of the rest was done. The forward troops led by Hao Bainian and the cavalry troops continued to pursue the Ming army. According to the latest intelligence, the forward troops led by Hao Bainian personally moved more than ten miles north.
In the Tonggu Guard City, it has now become a sea of new armies of the Tang Dynasty. More than 4,000 new armies of the Tang Dynasty are crowded inside the city. There are also a large number of new armies of the Tang Dynasty surrounding the city, and in the middle there are many prisoners of the Ming army who have been drawn into prisons.
In a former Ming military officer's office in Tonggu Acropolis, Li Xuan was listening to the post-war report by Zeng Ziwen and a group of officers.
According to rough statistics, as of an hour ago, our army had killed, seriously injured more than 3,000 puppet Ming rebels and captured 5,600 people in this battle. The remaining Ming army fled in several directions. Currently, the forward troops
We are continuing to pursue these defeated Ming troops! And some of them have completely turned into stragglers and fled. At present, the Chinese army has also sent out a number of small-scale troops to search around, clear out, and capture these fleeing Ming troops!"
"There is no doubt that this is a great victory, an unprecedented great victory!" Zeng Ziwen said this without any shame, because for the new army of the Tang Dynasty, this was an unprecedented great victory.
"It is worth mentioning that in this battle, our army defeated most of the enemy's cavalry, killed and wounded more than 400 enemy cavalry, and captured more than 300. In addition, we captured more than 1,300 horses of various types, including about four
Hundreds of horses can be used as riding horses. With this batch of horses, our army's logistics and transportation capabilities and cavalry strength can be greatly improved!"
The new army of the Tang Dynasty currently has a very large demand for horses. Officers need horses to ride, and orderlies need horses to ride. The artillery unit needs a large number of horses to transport artillery and ammunition, not to mention the cavalry unit. They need a large number of high-quality soldiers.
War horses for riding.
Even for the logistics and baggage troops, the demand for horses is huge!
With the addition of this batch of horses, the demand for horses in the new army of the Tang Dynasty can be greatly alleviated.
Perhaps in the near future, the new army of the Tang Dynasty will be able to have hundreds of more cavalry. If Cao Mingda, the commander of the cavalry battalion, were here, he would definitely be laughing from ear to ear.
Zeng Ziwen's words continued: "More than 40 large and small bowl-mouth cannons and three artillery pieces ranging from 300 kilograms were seized. However, according to feedback from the artillery unit, these three 300-kilogram artillery pieces were old and poor, and the quality of the barrels was poor.
Worryingly, after inspection by colleagues in the artillery unit, they believe that the barrels of these three artillery pieces are no longer important. If they are used forcibly, there will be a great risk of exploding the barrels. Our army has a small number of gunners, so it is not appropriate to risk using them!"
"Although some bowl-mouth cannons also have problems of too small caliber and poor quality, after selection, about twenty bowl-mouth cannons can still be selected to equip the troops!"
The artillery unit of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty was much stronger than the Ming Army. It was equipped with 800-jin and 500-jin heavy artillery. In the future, the artillery unit of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty was preparing to equip the 800-jin heavy artillery in batches. For the 300-jin artillery captured from the Ming Army,
It doesn't look normal.
On the other hand, those bowl-mouth cannons are used to fire shotguns anyway, and the quality requirements for the artillery are not too high. Moreover, the infantry unit has a huge gap for the 150-pound battalion cannon, so there are bowl-mouth cannons as a supplement.
If so, it can also be used as a transitional use.
Zeng Ziwen continued talking with a thick report: "During the process of cleaning the battlefield, we seized 250 pieces of iron armor, leather armor, and thousands of cotton armor of various types. Although some were damaged,
All can be repaired. After repair, these armors can effectively increase the combat effectiveness of our heavy armored infantry. After inspecting the captured cotton armor, colleagues from the Ordnance Department believe that after modification, these cotton armors should be able to perform the same as the previous cotton armors.
Modify it into cotton armor and equip our army."
Li Xuan nodded slightly after hearing this. It was hard to say that the new army of the Tang Dynasty lacked everything. Horses, guns, even cold weapons and soldiers, even food, and uniforms. There was nothing that was in short supply.
So when cleaning the battlefield, it's like the devils entering the village. They want everything. Even broken weapons will be picked up. Why pick them back? Naturally, they will be melted down and used to make new weapons!
This iron is a strategic material collected by the Tang Dynasty!
Armor, an equipment with great tactical and even strategic value, cannot be ignored. Needless to say, iron armor. The creation of iron armor takes a lot of time. In fact, the new army of the Tang Dynasty did not make much self-made iron armor. It can even be said to be very few. Most of them were
Repaired armor captured from the Ming army.
In fact, cotton armor also takes a lot of time. The Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty has not made many cotton armors by itself. They all used cotton armor captured from the Ming army and converted them into cotton armor.
Therefore, capturing the armor of the Ming army was an important way to expand the heavy armored infantry of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty.
This also includes bows. The manufacture of strong military bows is more time-consuming than armor and artillery. Therefore, most of the bows and arrows used by the new army of the Tang Dynasty were captured. This time they also captured a batch of Ming army bows. Needless to say, these bows and arrows,
Together with those Ming army archers who surrendered, they will form a new archer unit of the Tang Dynasty's new army.
It's interesting to say that most of the archers and cavalry in the new army of the Tang Dynasty were actually prisoners of the Ming army!
The New Army of the Tang Dynasty who cleaned up the battlefield were like locusts, pulling everything back. In addition to the more important items such as horses, armor, bows, and artillery, cold weapons such as swords and spears were also the focus of recycling, because the cold weapons of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty were
, which is actually the same standard as the cold weapons of the Ming army. As long as the quality is not too poor, you can basically use it directly.
However, these Ming armies were all in the inland areas. They had been at peace for a long time and their war preparations were lax. Most of the weapons they used were in dilapidated condition, especially swords and spears. Many of them were rusty and they had many captured cold weapons.
They are all unusable and need to be recast.
After Zeng Ziwen recounted the results of the battle one by one, everyone present looked happy. This capture could greatly alleviate the current shortage of various strategic materials for the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
Especially after capturing a large number of horses, it can greatly improve the mobile combat capability of the new army of the Tang Dynasty, which is very important.
After talking about the results of the battle, Zeng Ziwen also took out another report. After opening this report with incomplete handwriting, Zeng Ziwen's expression became heavy.
When the people next to him saw his appearance and looked at the word "battle damage" at the beginning of the report in his hand, they could guess why Zeng Ziwen looked serious.
After Zeng Ziwen opened the report, he looked a little heavy and said slowly: "Our army has achieved great results in this battle, but our soldiers also paid a bloody price for it!
According to the incomplete statistics submitted by various ministries, the casualties of various ministries of our army are relatively high!"
Having said this, he paused, and then looked around at everyone. At this time, even Li Xuan, who was sitting on the dragon chair, had a look on his face to show respect for the dead and wounded soldiers.
Zeng Ziwen took a deep breath and said: "The list of our dead officers in this battle is as follows:
Major Liu Longquan, deputy commander of the 1st Infantry Battalion, Captain Xu Gou, captain of the 3rd platoon of the 1st Infantry Battalion, Second Lieutenant Song Xu, platoon leader of the 1st platoon of the 3rd Infantry Battalion, Second Lieutenant Wang Erwa, deputy platoon leader, and Wei Er, leader of the 3rd platoon.
Second Lieutenant Niu, Second Lieutenant Xu Yang, deputy platoon leader of the fourth platoon...
Lieutenant Shao Hong, deputy captain of the second team of the second infantry battalion, and second lieutenant Lu An, leader of the first platoon of the third team.
Captain Wang Dayi, the commander of the second team of the 3rd Infantry Battalion...
As the names were announced one by one according to the unit number, the atmosphere in the hall became heavier and heavier. Finally, everyone's breathing could not help but become heavier, and many people clenched their fists!
Especially when Zeng Ziwen mentioned some familiar names, there would always be people who couldn't help but take a deep breath, clenched their fists, or looked sad, because some of the people on this list of those killed in battle were not only their subordinates, but also their subordinates.
brothers and nephews.
When Zeng Ziwen talked about Zeng Zike, captain of the fifth team of the 8th Infantry Battalion of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, his own tone couldn't help but pause, because this Zeng Zike was his cousin.
The Zeng family has now been forced to fully rely on the Tang Dynasty. As a family of generals, most of the family's children are basically in the army, and now is no exception. In addition to Zeng Ziwen's younger brother Zeng Zisong, there are a total of more than ten
Two cousins served in the military, and most of them were in the 3rd Infantry Regiment and the 5th Infantry Regiment.
Zeng Ziwen was a cousin who died, but when Zeng Ziwen mentioned that Second Lieutenant Huang Yaoshan, the deputy platoon leader of the Third Artillery Battalion, was killed in action, Huang Xueren almost stopped in his tracks, because the name Zeng Ziwen said was...
He is his biological son.
Huang Xueren only has two sons in total. Both of them, without exception, are serving in the military. The eldest son serves as the captain of the fourth team in the 1st Infantry Battalion. He is also from the Guards. When it comes to his future, he is actually better than him.
I want to be brighter.
As for his youngest son, he is still relatively young, only sixteen years old this year. Although he joined the New Army of the Tang Dynasty last year, he has been studying in the Martial Arts Academy, and then entered the Imperial Academy to study and became a member of the artillery department.
a student.
Huang Xueren's original plan was to let his youngest son continue to study for a period of time before officially entering the army. However, during this period of time, the new army of the Tang Dynasty expanded greatly, and there was a shortage of personnel, especially officers who had undergone systematic training.
So his youngest son finished his studies last month and then entered the artillery battalion under Xie Ziwei to become a deputy platoon leader.
But what would you think of is that he was killed in battle just after entering the army and officially serving in the army. How could this make Huang Xueren not heartbroken?