Chapter 487 The blood rain falling from the sky in Liuzhou
After Hao Bainian finished lecturing the officers, the troops heading south also began to launch a real general attack on Liuzhou Fucheng!
This time, the main force responsible for the siege is the regular army with the 1st Infantry Brigade as the core. However, this siege cannot only involve the 1st Infantry Brigade, but other troops will also participate in the battle!
For example, the 1,500 Liuzhou chieftain soldiers will also cooperate with the 1st Infantry Brigade to participate in frontal siege operations. These soldiers are provided by the local chieftains, and their combat effectiveness is basically better than that of the local Ming army guards, and even
It was also stronger than the garrison composed of Ming troops in the Tang Army.
This strength does not refer to tactics, weapons and equipment, etc., but to their combat courage!
This is the impression that outsiders have of Guangxi's martyrs, but they fight to the death. If equipment, tactics and other elements are put aside, these martyrs are still relatively strong. Of course, this is only limited to the standing martyrs under the chieftains.
, if it is an army composed of temporarily recruited soldiers, it will actually be like that, and will not be stronger than an army composed of ordinary young men.
If any army wants to obtain strong combat effectiveness, long-term training is indispensable.
In fact, the troops in the Tang Dynasty's royal division are not sufficiently trained. Otherwise, with their equipment and tactics, it would be easier to defeat the Ming army.
The first infantry brigade and the soldiers were responsible for the frontal attack. As for the garrison, their task was to launch an attack from another direction, contain part of the Ming army defending the city, and indirectly provide cover and support for the main force attacking the city from the front.
In addition, in this attack on the city, the Tang Dynasty King's Division formed a temporary commando consisting of heavy armored sword and shield soldiers, light armored sword and shield soldiers, grenadiers, and archers, just like the previous attack on Liping Fucheng.
The commando team has only one purpose, which is to scale the city wall and establish a wall position to prepare for the follow-up army to board the city.
And this task is also the most difficult task for the troops in the entire siege!
Otherwise, the King of the Tang Dynasty would not have specially formed this kind of temporary commando team similar to a death squad.
The soldiers in this temporary commando team were not only drawn from the 1st Infantry Brigade, but also some troops from the 3rd Garrison Brigade and Chieftain Soldiers.
There is only one requirement for selecting soldiers, and that is to have the courage to fight to the death!
The first wave of temporary commandos to climb the city will inevitably cause heavy casualties, and there is no need to pay attention to strict formations in the battle to climb the city, because the soldiers are basically on their own during the process of climbing the city or after they reach the top of the city.
In order to fight, the requirements for personal martial arts and courage are quite high.
In the end, more than 300 people were transferred from the 1st Infantry Brigade, nearly 100 people from the 3rd Garrison Brigade, and nearly 100 people from the Tusi Martyrs.
A temporary commando team of more than 500 people was formed, and Lieutenant Colonel Zhu Xu, deputy commander of the 1st Infantry Regiment, personally served as the commando team leader.
Among the more than 500 people, 200 were heavy armored sword and shield soldiers, all wearing double-layer heavy armor. There were also some light armored sword and shield soldiers, grenadiers, and archers.
They will become the sharp knives in this offensive battle, forcibly climbing the city wall and establishing a city head position, and then coordinate the frontal assault troops to board the city on a large scale.
Before the temporary commando team was ready to set off, Lieutenant Colonel Zhu Xu promised these hundreds of people that if they could capture the city, each soldier in the regular army would be promoted to a higher level, and the officers would be credited with merit. In addition, a certain amount of cash rewards would be given.
Soldiers who kill more enemies will receive more rewards.
For garrison soldiers, regardless of defeat or defeat, they can join the regular army after the war, and there will also be gold and silver rewards.
For Tusi soldiers, the reward is simply gold and silver, but the amount is slightly larger.
This kind of battlefield rewards to boost morale is not common in the combat history of the Tang Dynasty. The two larger scales were the Battle of Tonggu Acropolis. At that time, double pay was given to the soldiers.
award.
The second time was during the Battle of Liping Fucheng, where high gold and silver rewards were given to the assault troops.
It can be seen from this that in the Tang Dynasty, the temporary use of rewards, especially rewards for individual individuals, was not often used, at least it did not become a tradition among the emperors of the Tang Dynasty.
This is related to the way the Royal Division of the Tang Dynasty fought and recorded merits. When recording merits, the Royal Division of the Tang Dynasty rarely recorded the merits of an individual soldier, but rather recorded the collective merits of a certain unit.
This is because when the Tang Dynasty's royal divisions fought, they fought as a group, and the way to judge military merit was not how many enemy heads were harvested, but whether the combat mission was completed.
It is even more difficult to record the individual merits of the soldiers. A group of musketeers fired at a group of enemy soldiers. Who knows who shot the enemy soldiers!
This also makes it difficult to judge the credit of individual soldiers, especially the credit of ordinary infantry!
In the case of collective fighting and collective evaluation of merit, cash rewards are rarely given to soldiers.
Of course, this is also related to the fact that the Tang Dynasty was already poor. It was difficult for them to pay the troops' daily salaries normally, let alone use extra money as rewards.
But this time, in order to quickly capture the capital of Liuzhou, Hao Bainian also spent a lot of money and promised a heavy reward!
With the commando team also ready, Hao Bainian officially ordered the troops to launch the final general attack!
The first to open fire was the heavy artillery unit of the Second Artillery Battalion, followed closely by three teams with a total of more than 20 battalion artillery pieces that had already moved forward to be only a hundred meters away from the city wall.
These artillery fired intensively and rapidly. In order to suppress the Ming army on the top of the city, the artillery shells were fired towards the top of the city as if they were free.
The intensive bombardment made the Ming army unable to move on top of the city!
After initially suppressing the Ming army at the top of the city with shelling, the musketeers of the First Infantry Brigade began to move forward. They advanced in a standard three-row formation, and then advanced to a distance of only 80 meters from the city wall, using their muskets to attack the city.
The Ming army above them fired in turns!
As the musketeers moved forward, the archers also moved forward. The distance they advanced was even closer than that of the musketeers. They shot arrows at the city head from a distance of 67 meters.
In addition to these conventional long-range firepower, there were also more than ten mobile arrow towers that slowly approached the city wall and then fired arrows at the Ming army on the top of the city.
These mobile arrow towers are not very high, only more than six meters, but even this height is higher than the city wall of Liuzhou Fucheng, which is enough to give the archers on the arrow towers a height advantage and be able to carry out operations from a commanding height.
shooting.
The archers on these mobile arrow towers are originally elite archers carefully selected from the entire army. Although there are only more than a hundred archers in more than ten arrow towers, the arrows of these archers
His skills are obviously better than those of ordinary archers.
After occupying the height advantage, the shooting of these archers appeared to be extremely efficient. Even if the Ming troops on the top of the city were hiding behind the battlements, some people would still be hit by arrows from time to time.
On the one hand, this is because these archers have good archery skills. Secondly, after gaining the height advantage, it will be easier for the Ming army after they build the battlements. Unless the Ming soldiers are close to the battlements, otherwise they are slightly farther away.
The farther away the battlements are, the more likely they are to be hit by arrows.
All kinds of long-range firepower opened fire at the Ming army at the top of the city. The intensity of the firepower was no less than when the Tang Dynasty king's army used all its strength to attack Lipingfu City. Even because the width of the battlefield here was smaller, the intensity of the firepower was even higher.
A little denser.
With such intensive firepower suppression, the Ming army on the top of the city was not stupid. Naturally, they would not stand stupidly on the top of the city and then be killed by the artillery, muskets, and bows and arrows of the puppet Tang rebel army!
They would hide behind the battlements, or even temporarily withdraw from the city head and run directly to the city wall!
In this case, although Hao Bainian's troops had fired numerous artillery shells, bullets and bows and arrows towards the city, the damage caused to the Ming army was actually relatively limited. After all, these attacks often had to directly hit the enemy.
Take effect.
Artillery shells are all solid shells, and even the shotgun shells fired by shotguns are actually no different from bullets. As long as the Ming army hides well, the chance of casualties is still relatively small.
This also led to the fact that such violent shelling could only make the generals of the Ming army lament that the puppet Tang rebels' weapons were sharp, but it could not cause many casualties to the soldiers of the Ming army.
But this does not affect Hao Bainian's good mood!
When he used his telescope to see that the Ming troops on the top of the city no longer dared to take the lead, and many of them even ran under the city wall, he put down his telescope and said: "Let the First Infantry Regiment and the soldiers start attacking.
The Third Defense Brigade will also launch a companion attack!"
Soon, Hao Bainian's order was transmitted to all the troops of the Tang Dynasty King's Division through semaphores!
Immediately, Colonel Chen Keqiao, the commander of the 1st Infantry Regiment in charge of the front row attack, issued the order for a frontal charge!
After his order was issued, more than a thousand infantrymen in the First Infantry Regiment, mainly sword and shield soldiers converted from the original spearmen, and soldiers in the reserve battalion launched a frontal charge!
At the same time, more than a thousand Tusi soldiers also launched a charge on the side of the First Infantry Regiment!
Not long after, nearly 4,000 infantrymen in the Third Guard Brigade also launched a charge!
Suddenly, on the entire front line, the Tang Dynasty King's Division launched a general offensive, with more than 6,000 troops participating in the front-line charge!
For a moment, the Ming army generals on top of the city all changed their colors. Seeing so many puppet Tang rebels rushing towards them, it was impossible for them to be nervous and not afraid.
But even though they were nervous and scared, they still forced themselves to direct the soldiers to fight back!
Use bows and arrows, use bowl-mouth cannons!
With the Ming army's counterattack, the various units of the Tang Dynasty King's Division that launched the charge under the city wall also began to suffer casualties!
At this time, whether it was the Ming army on top of the city or the Tang army below the city, they began to suffer relatively large casualties one after another. The blood of countless casualties splattered out, dyeing the sky red, so that it looked like Liuzhou
It seemed like it was raining blood in the sky over the city!