During this interview, Hao Bainian, on behalf of the Tang Dynasty military, expressed high praise for the Cen family's action in supplying military rations, saying that the Cen family were good friends of the Tang military!
At the same time, he invited the Cen family to send direct descendants into the army. Cen Fan said that it would be a great honor for the Cen family's descendants to serve the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty and to serve His Majesty. He would soon select a direct disciple and several collateral descendants from the family.
Join the King of the Tang Dynasty and fight for the Tang Dynasty!
The Cen family is so sensible, and they have indeed made great efforts in supplying military rations, solving the food crisis for the Tang Dynasty's troops going south. Naturally, the Tang Dynasty will not treat the Cen family badly in Huaiyuan County, although Wuxuan County has not yet taken the food supply.
However, the Tang Dynasty's imperial edict conferring the title of chieftain of Wuxuan County on the family had already been given to the Cen family in Huaiyuan County in advance.
According to the official documents of the Tang Dynasty, the Cen family of Huaiyuan County was already the chieftain family of Wuxuan County and had the right to rule the local indigenous people.
And the Cen family of Huaiyuan County saw that not long after, the canonization edict had been received, and it was unambiguous immediately. The change of hands meant that in addition to the two thousand stone grain transaction next month, the Cen family would give away an additional batch for free.
Strategic materials are given to the Tang Dynasty as a tribute to honor His Majesty Li Xuan, the eternal sage!
Someone gave something for free, and the Tang Dynasty naturally happily accepted it. By the way, they also asked the Cen family if they could pay today's taxes in advance?
You don’t need cash, you can just pay with food and various materials!
But this time, the Cen family of Huaiyuan County politely refused. They had no choice. They were just a business family. Although they were one of the few big grain merchants in Guangxi and were rich, they couldn't withstand the free gifts over and over again.
, if they continue to give away like this, their family fortune will be wiped out first.
After dealing with the Cen family situation, Hao Bainian, as the commander-in-chief of the army going south, held a joint civil-military meeting with a group of senior generals, some civilian officials who had gone south in advance, and civilian officers from the Privy Council.
This meeting was naturally held for Liuzhou Fucheng.
At the meeting, civil servants, especially officials from the Ministry of Industry, said that in order to successfully open workshops to produce weapons in Liuzhou City, a large number of ordinary laborers would be needed. They hoped that the military would avoid causing a large number of civilians as much as possible when attacking the city.
casualties.
At the same time, people from the Ministry of War said that the Ministry of War has completed the screening of prisoners of war. Among the 3,600 prisoners of war captured in the Battle of Anjia Pier, 3,000 people have taken the initiative to join the Tang Dynasty King Division, and some of them have special abilities.
Four hundred prisoners of war with good skills and good quality will be selected to be added to the 1st Infantry Brigade, 2nd Cavalry Battalion, 2nd Artillery Battalion, 2nd Baggage Regiment and other units, and 600 people will also be added to the 3rd Garrison.
Each battalion of the brigade is to supplement the personnel losses incurred during the southward operations of the southward troops.
At the same time, officials from the Ordnance Department also stated that they would give priority to selecting high-quality weapons from the many captured weapons to supplement them to the troops heading south!
After such additions, the units of the troops going south have once again returned to their peak condition when they went south. Although the cavalry and artillery are still seriously undermanned, the infantry units have returned to their full strength.
member.
Part of the remaining prisoners of war and ordnance will be replenished to the 7th Infantry Regiment, and part will be used to establish the 9th Garrison Regiment.
As for the remaining 600 prisoners of war out of the 3,600, some were unwilling to surrender to the puppet Tang rebels, while some were so poor in quality that they were not even wanted by the garrison.
These people will be given to the Ministry of Industry. In the future, these 600 people will become the first batch of free workers in the many workshops opened by the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty in Liuzhou.
At that time, no matter whether they are willing or not, in the workshop of the Ministry of Work, they will exert the remaining value of their lives and contribute to the rise of the Tang Dynasty!
However, Hao Bainian and the others naturally do not care about these 600 prisoners. What they are more concerned about is that with the initial establishment of the 7th Infantry Regiment and the initial establishment of the 9th Garrison Regiment, the strength of the troops in Guangxi will further increase.
This will also bring greater tactical advantages to their attack on Liuzhou and even subsequent operations.
Even if the jurisdiction of these newly established troops does not lie with Hao Bainian!
In order to better prepare for the establishment of these new troops, and also to better enable these newly established troops to form combat effectiveness more quickly, and also to undertake combat tasks to a certain extent, a bachelor's degree scholar sent by the Hanlin Academy announced on the spot that he had come from Li
The appointment decree written by Xuan himself!
After a series of meaningless nonsense, the imperial decree finally appointed Li Chunjing as the first brigade commander of the 4th Infantry Brigade, and promoted Li Chunjing to Army Major General.
There was not only an imperial edict to appoint and promote Li Chunjing, but also an imperial edict to appoint the deputy commander and chief of staff of the 4th Infantry Brigade.
The candidates for the commanders of the two infantry regiments of the Fourth Infantry Brigade have been decided in advance and have taken office long ago.
At the same time, it was also clearly stipulated in the imperial edict that the soldiers of the Fourth Infantry Brigade will be mainly composed of indigenous people of the Han people. This will be an important step for the Tang Dynasty to recruit and utilize the indigenous people of Guangxi to join the army, and try to form a military force belonging to the Tang Dynasty.
Soldier troops.
At the same time, given that Guangxi will also recruit a large number of Han soldiers, and these soldiers are only used to supplement the First Infantry Brigade, it is not practical to establish another infantry brigade in Guangxi. Therefore,
These newly recruited and subsequent recruits will form the Second Battalion of the Guards and the Third Battalion of the Guards. These two infantry battalions will rebuild the Guards together with the existing First Battalion of the Guards!
This Guards force is not under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council, but will be personally commanded by Emperor Li Xuan. It will not easily participate in combat missions of frontline troops, and will have the safety of His Majesty as its top priority.
Of course, the reconstruction of the Guards has nothing to do with Hao Bainian and the others, or even the many departments of the Privy Council, because the task of rebuilding the Guards will be directly handled by the existing Guards departments, and the ordnance
The supply will not go through the Ordnance Department, and the source of soldiers will not go through the Ministry of War and the Privy Council Training Department, but will be the responsibility of the internal organs of the Guards themselves.
Even military expenditures are spent separately!
This will be an independent force from the Tang Army, and in Li Xuan's mind, this force is not limited to the army, infantry, etc., this will be an independent force, just to protect himself and control
The armed forces that exist to defend the imperial family will have cavalry, artillery and other arms in the future. If necessary, they will even have their own warships and other surface armed forces.
Of course, the scale cannot be too large. Currently, the size of the Guards is only one battalion. Even if it plans to build two battalions, its size will only be three battalions in the near future. Even if it continues to expand in the future,
But the total military strength is only between 10,000 and 20,000 people at most.
However, the size of the Tang Army will expand with the expansion of the Tang Dynasty, and may eventually expand to hundreds of thousands or even millions.
Hao Bainian and others could tell from the way the Guards was rebuilt that this would be a very special force that they could not intervene in.
So he didn't care at all, and he didn't dare to care about the Guards setting up two Guards infantry battalions here in Liuzhou Prefecture.
Even in the upcoming Battle of Liuzhou, these Guards troops will not participate at all, not even the newly established Fourth Infantry Brigade.
The Battle of Liuzhou City will still be a battle dominated by the 1st Infantry Brigade and the 3rd Garrison Brigade.
The Fourth Infantry Brigade currently only has a higher-level structure and only more than a thousand recruits. These recruits have not even completed their training and have not become an army at all. Therefore, they currently only take over the tasks of the Third Guard Brigade and are stationed in Huaiyuan County and Rong County.
.
The fifth garrison brigade, on the other hand, has already surrendered two thousand Ming troops. After a slight reorganization, it can be directly brought to the battlefield to be used as cannon fodder!
Therefore, the Fifth Garrison Brigade will participate in the Liuzhou Campaign, even if they are just used as cannon fodder!
Then they also recruited some soldiers from the local chieftains. The local chieftains initially resisted the arrival of the Tang Dynasty. However, after the defeat of the Ming army, the chieftains in Liuzhou immediately changed their direction and expressed their allegiance to the Tang Dynasty.
.
Anyway, there is no risk for them. If the Ming Dynasty comes back in the future, they will still be chieftains!
Both the Tang Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty mainly focused on wooing these chieftains.
In order to show their loyalty, these chieftains also obeyed the orders of the Tang Dynasty and sent varying numbers of soldiers to fight.
The total number of these soldiers was about 1,500, and their leader was Cen Shouji, the chieftain with relatively high prestige in Liuzhou.
Of course, in order to control this extra-staff force of the Tang Dynasty King Division, and also to better cooperate with the operations, the Datang King Division dispatched several liaison officers to this army, but they were limited to sending liaison officers, but
They will not be involved in the operations of these militia troops in any detail.
In other words, the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty could order them to fight, but the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty did not care about how to fight. These chieftains had the power to fight independently.
Well, the Ming Dynasty's military conscripts generally followed this model. Wei Yan, the governor of Guangxi, could order the military forces to fight, but in fact Wei Yan would not specifically intervene in the military operations.
Calculated in this way, the Tang Dynasty King's Division participating in the critical battle of Liuzhou City will have most of the troops of the 1st Infantry Brigade, most of the troops of the 3rd Guards Brigade, and the 9th Guards Regiment of the 5th Guards Brigade, as well as
The 2nd Cavalry Battalion, 2nd Artillery Battalion, 2nd Baggage Regiment, Liuzhou Chieftains and other auxiliary units.
In addition, the Navy will also provide surface force support for the Liuzhou City Battle. To this end, the Navy has specially established the Liujiang Fleet, which will lead all five surface gunboats of the Navy and several auxiliary ships to participate in the battle to provide support and maintenance for the Army.
Safety of surface supply lines.
Calculated in this way, the total strength of the Tang Dynasty Royal Division that directly participated in the Battle of Liuzhou Fucheng will reach more than 13,000 people.
If some of the troops in the periphery are also included, in fact, among all the troops in Guangxi, except for the thousand troops who marched eastward to Guizhou, the rest are directly or indirectly involved in this kind of battle, and the total strength will reach more than 16,000
What about people.
It can be seen that the Tang Dynasty King's Division attached great importance to attacking Liuzhou City!
In order to conquer Liuzhou as soon as possible, the Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty made intensive pre-war preparations on the eve of the Spring Festival.
On the first day of the new year, the general attack on Liuzhou Fucheng was officially launched!