Of course, there are actually differences between the military uniforms of the Tang Navy and the army. For example, the navy officer uniforms do not have stripes representing military rank on the cuffs, but have epaulettes representing military rank on the shoulders.
This situation is exactly the opposite of that of the navy and army in later generations. Only the army in the Tang Dynasty had stripes representing military rank on its cuffs, but the navy did not. In the armies of various countries in later generations, the navy's cuffs had stripes representing military rank, while the army's cuffs had stripes representing military rank.
No.
In addition to the differences in cuffs and epaulettes, there is another obvious difference: the navy soldiers' trousers are not red trousers, but navy blue trousers that are consistent with their jackets.
The reason is very simple. The Navy dislikes the Army's blue uniforms and red trousers because they are too ugly. Lieutenant Colonel Bao Yifen, Director of the Navy Department, once commented on the uniforms of Army soldiers in a private setting in a joking tone, saying in one word
To describe the uniforms of army soldiers, it is: ugly. If you use two words to describe it, it is 'very ugly'. If you use three words, it is 'very ugly'.
On the one hand, they feel too ugly. On the other hand, the soldiers of the navy do not need to wear bright and conspicuous clothes like the army. Soldiers need to wear bright and conspicuous clothes in order to distinguish between ourselves and the enemy on the smoke-rich battlefield. Therefore, the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty navy are the same as the navy, whether it is a shirt or a
The pants are all navy blue.
The dispute over the military uniforms of the navy and army in the Tang Dynasty actually came to Li Xuan's attention for a time, but Li Xuan was too lazy to take care of these trivial matters. He was more concerned about the improvement of the actual combat effectiveness of the army. He didn't care about the navy's uniforms, he cared more about the navy.
How is the design of the new battleship going?
After discussing with the shipbuilding craftsmen from the Ministry of Industry, the bandits from the Navy quickly came up with the second design plan. It couldn't be done quickly. Li Xuan was about to lead his army to march eastward, but there wasn't much.
Time is left for the navy to slowly design a plan, which must be finalized as soon as possible. Otherwise, after Li Xuan leads his army eastward, he will not have so much time and mood to deal with these messy matters of the navy.
They didn't know that Li Xuan was actually more concerned about the development of the Tang Dynasty's surface power than the navy itself!
This is not only because the army needs river transportation to move eastward, but also because the Guangdong and Guangxi regions are coastal areas, especially the Pearl River water system, which is directly connected to the South China Sea. After entering Guangdong, they will definitely need to fight with the navy of the Ming Dynasty.
The navy of the Ming Dynasty was still quite powerful. Needless to say, the Zheng He fleet during the Yongle period was the most powerful fleet in the world at that time, enough to defeat any other navy at that time!
Even today, in the 42nd year of Zhengde, the power of the navy of the Ming Dynasty still cannot be underestimated!
Although today's navy of the Ming Dynasty is being devastated by Japanese pirates (ps: the word did not refer specifically to the Japanese at that time, but generally referred to pirates in the East Asian waters at that time), the Japanese pirate rebellion is getting more and more serious, and some
The extremely courageous Japanese pirates have dared to go ashore and go deep into the hinterland to plunder.
But even so, the Ming Navy can still muster enough power to repeatedly crush the Datang Navy ten thousand times. Let alone the Ming Navy, even a small pirate gang can defeat the current Datang Navy.
!
Although the Tang Dynasty has not officially entered Guangdong yet, as an ambitious emperor, Li Xuan will lead his army into Guangdong sooner or later to seize Guangzhou. A battle with these maritime forces will definitely be unavoidable.
Therefore, even if the current Tang Dynasty navy can only stay in the Liujiang River, a tributary of the Xijiang River, Li Xuan still needs to take precautions and develop surface power first. The ocean-going navy will not be mentioned for now, and it will not be developed even if it is mentioned, but the inland river navy still needs to be prepared.
It needs to be done first.
At least you must be able to defend your home at the Pearl River Estuary in the future!
When he saw the newly submitted battleship design from the Tang Navy, he found that these navy bumpkins had finally figured it out and knew how to increase the firepower of the battleships.
After looking at several of the ship types, Li Xuan picked out four of them, thinking that he could build some in small batches first, and then see whether the equipment could be built on a large scale based on the specific usage conditions.
Of these four ship types, the first one is the main battleship planned to be used by the officers of the Tang Dynasty Navy in the Xijiang River Basin!
Although the overall shape of the ship still has a strong shadow of traditional river warships, it is already very different, because there are six gun positions designed on it, and it is enough to install an 800-pound artillery piece.
There is a gun emplacement on the bow that can install an 800-jin artillery piece, and then there are two artillery emplacements on the left and right sides of the ship that can be equipped with about 300 kilograms of artillery.
Five artillery pieces, including an 800-jin cannon, plus four 300-jin small cannons, this firepower is unprecedentedly powerful in the small inland river of the Xijiang River Basin. At least Li Xuan felt that in the Liujiang River Basin, even
In the Xijiang River Basin, this battleship is probably the most powerful battleship. For this reason, Li Xuan specially gave this class of battleship a mighty and domineering name: Weilong!
The first ship is the Veyron, and subsequent ships are collectively called the Veyron class.
Of course, in order to install so many artillery, this kind of warship also paid the price of being large in size, having poor maneuverability such as turning on the inland river with sails, and having a slightly higher center of gravity and poor ability to withstand wind and waves!
However, it does not matter that it has poor maneuverability, because this ship also has a large number of oars. For inland river operations, it is not possible to rely only on sails. It must be used together with sails and oars.
This is the main river battleship. It is huge in size and has huge firepower. Of course, it is also expensive to build. Not to mention anything else, the five cannons on it are not cheap.
This is destined to have too much equipment for this kind of main inland river battleship!
If you want a large number, you need a warship of the second design. This warship is much smaller. It can only install a small 300-pound cannon on the bow and stern. However, it is small in size and fast in speed.
, the steering is flexible and the price is cheaper.
These two are battleships, while the remaining two are not battleships, they are both transport ships. These two transport ships are said to be newly designed, but in fact they are just slightly modified from existing civilian transport ships.
The first type is relatively large and can transport more than 150 troops at a time!
The second one is smaller and can transport fifty troops!
These four boats all have the same characteristics, that is, they have a very shallow draft, and they have both traditional hard sails and paddles. They use both sails and paddles.
Li Xuan feels that some of these four types of ships can be built appropriately. First, let’s see how they are used, and then decide whether to build them on a large scale!
And imitating the army's equipment, Li Xuan also set models for the navy's equipment. The main battleship was designated as the Weilong class, and the secondary battleship was designated as the Canghai class. As for the two transport ships, there is nothing special about them, so they will not be given any special ones.
’s title.
After deciding on the specific ship type, Li Xuan didn't care about the follow-up matters, because the next thing was the matter with the Navy, the Ministry of Taxation, and the Ministry of Industry. These officials would naturally negotiate on their own, and then purchase or make their own purchases.
put up.
If they have to trouble Li Xuan with these things, Li Xuan doesn't mind changing a group of people to become officials!
If these things can't be done, what's the use of the Tang Dynasty waiting for you?
After dealing with the Navy issue, Li Xuan returned his focus to the Army!
He urged people from the Ministry of Works and the Logistics Department to distribute the last batch of artillery from Xingquan Prefecture to the First Artillery Battalion, bringing the number of five-pound field guns in the First Artillery Battalion to twelve and seven-pound field guns.
After the number of cannons reached three, Li Xuan once again led the army to conquer in person!
The night before departure, Li Xuan had a family dinner with Empress Dowager Bai and Empress Dong as usual. Everyone was accustomed to Li Xuan's personal expedition, but told him to be more careful and not to take risks easily and put himself in the situation.
In danger.
Li Xuan didn't care about this!
Just kidding, if the situation goes bad, he will definitely be the first one in the army to escape. Only a fool would put himself in danger!
If the eastward advance fails, you can try again. If the army is defeated, you can recruit and train again, but if you lose your life, there is no chance of a second try.
However, there is no guarantee of this. He has been able to travel through time once, and he may be able to travel through time a second time. However, although Li Xuan sometimes thinks so, he does not have the guts to take a shot at himself, and then take a look.
Will you travel through time a second time?
After appeasing his family, Li Xuan formally took many Hanlin officials from the Hanlin Academy as well as some officials from the Cabinet, Privy Council, etc. to board the ship and headed south the next day.
Accompanying Li Xuan going south were the 3rd Infantry Brigade, the 4th Infantry Brigade and many ancillary troops, such as two artillery battalions, two cavalry battalions, etc., as well as a larger number of garrison troops.
They will go south to Xiangzhou and join up with Hao Bainian's 1st Infantry Brigade!
Later, the army will leave nearly 10,000 troops including the 3rd Infantry Brigade and an artillery battalion in Xiangzhou to guard against the Ming army's westward attack on Liuzhou, and Li Xuan himself will continue to lead the First Army.
The main force and the Third Army continue to advance westward along the Xijiang River!
where to?
Go guest!
Because there are nearly 10,000 Ming troops there who can threaten the Tang Dynasty king's division at all times. Li Xuan is not willing to lead the army to march eastward when there are still tens of thousands of Ming troops who can threaten his rear area, so before marching eastward,
, we must first annihilate the guests, the Ming army.
Moreover, simply conquering the guests is not enough. They must be completely annihilated, or at least defeated. Otherwise, simply capturing the guests does not have much strategic significance. This Ming army can still threaten its own rear at any time.
Otherwise, Li Xuan would not have led the main force to march westward. This was obviously a lion-fighting-rabbit posture!
Li Xuan led the army to leave Liuzhou and then went south along the Liujiang River. Naturally, this could not be concealed from the spies of the Ming army!
Before Li Xuan and the others could even lift anchor and sail south, the fast horses of the Ming army spies ran towards Wu Xuan like crazy!