Adding together the regular army and the garrison, the Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty suffered a total of more than 5,000 casualties in the Battle of Wuzhou. This number of casualties was more than the combined casualties caused by the Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty in the many battles it experienced after moving south to Guangxi.
Much.
If the casualties of ordinary soldiers can still be regarded as cold figures, then the large number of casualties of officers is unacceptable to Li Xuan and others.
In this battle, one lieutenant colonel was killed and two were injured in the Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty. Two majors were killed and eight were injured. As for the lieutenants, thirty-six were killed and forty-seven were injured.
In the system of the King's Division of the Tang Dynasty, officers above the rank of major are considered to be mid-level and senior officers, because except for a few brigade commanders who are major generals, the other deputy brigade commanders, regimental commanders, and battalion commanders of the entire King's Division of the Tang Dynasty are all colonel officers.
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A major battalion commander leads a force similar to that of Qianhu in the Ming army. A lieutenant colonel commander is basically more important than the commander of the Ming army's guards, and even as much as a staff general in the Ming army.
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A colonel can generally be compared with the commander-in-chief and deputy commander-in-chief of the Ming army.
More importantly, it is not easy for the King of the Tang Dynasty to train these middle-level officers who have studied in martial arts schools and imperial schools and have accumulated so much combat experience. It not only requires a lot of time and energy, but also requires
They pay tuition.
If a general wants to grow up, unless he is lucky or is a heaven-level general, if an ordinary general wants to grow up, necessary training is indispensable, and mistakes will more or less occur during this training process.
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Mistakes in daily training are fine, but if mistakes are made during combat, unnecessary casualties may occur to the soldiers under his command.
For some less serious mistakes, the senior generals of the Tang Dynasty usually turned a blind eye. As long as they could learn lessons and avoid the same mistakes, they would generally not lose their posts.
This is not only true for junior officers, but also for senior generals!
For example, during the Battle of Rongxian, although the battle was won, mistakes still occurred. The cavalry rushed to the wrong place and charged towards the Ming army infantry square that was listed in the square formation. At the same time, when the infantry was fighting
, but also because they underestimated the combat effectiveness of the Ming army's three thousand soldiers, which resulted in certain losses.
However, Li Xuan did not blame Li Chunjing, the commander of the 2nd Infantry Regiment at the time, let alone Lu Yuzhi, the commander of the 2nd Cavalry Battalion.
Instead, he continued to be reused, and Li Chunjing was further promoted to commander of the 4th Infantry Brigade.
If this kind of thing were placed in other rigid and rigid armies, it is estimated that many high-level generals would have stepped down due to this. However, in the Tang Dynasty, this kind of thing was brought out for post-war analysis and then discussed.
How to avoid subsequent mistakes.
Why did Li Xuan do this?
Because he deeply knows how difficult it is to train an officer, especially a mid-level and senior officer. The King of the Tang Dynasty has been in the army for so long, and he has only trained a few senior generals who can fight.
If they were removed from their posts after a defeat or some minor incident, where would Li Xuan go to find someone to replace them?
Do you think that senior generals who can lead thousands or even tens of thousands of people in battle are just cabbages? They are all over the streets and you can grab a lot of them with just your hand.
After all, there is no general who is always victorious. Victory and defeat are common matters for military strategists. Li Xuan can tolerate one or two small defeats occasionally.
Of course, if one day Hao Bainian, Li Chunjing and the others become dizzy and lose a large number of their main forces, causing irreversible adverse effects, Li Xuan will naturally be angry. At that time, it will not be as simple as dismissal.
Give them a cup of poisonous wine to warn future generations!
Officers in the Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty were rare, and the losses were so heavy this time, so naturally everyone couldn't be happy.
But everyone also knows that this is a war, there are no undead people, this time it is just a little more dead!
Moreover, although there were many casualties in the Wuzhou Battle, the 1st Infantry Brigade, as the main force, suffered little losses, especially the 1st Infantry Regiment. The number of casualties was only a few dozen, and most of them were transferred to the 1st Assault Battalion.
The First Infantry Regiment suffered almost no casualties in its own operations. Why? Because the First Infantry Regiment never participated in the war from beginning to end. Although an infantry battalion was sent to the southern front in the end, it failed to catch up.
The main battle.
The casualties of the Fifth Infantry Regiment were also small!
The Second Infantry Regiment had slightly more casualties, but the largest one was the Sixth Infantry Regiment. Strictly speaking, this had not yet become an army. Many of the soldiers in the army were new recruits, and they did not have muskets and other weapons. In this battle, they were directly regarded as
They used the same cannon fodder as the garrison and suffered huge casualties.
Then there was the Liuzhou Independent Regiment, which had just been incorporated into the regular army, and there were also some casualties.
In general, the Tang Dynasty King's division suffered a lot of casualties in this battle, but the main force was not lost!
At the cost of the casualties of 5,000 men and nearly 100 officers, in exchange for Wuzhou, nearly 10,000 enemies killed, nearly 20,000 prisoners, and enough food for the troops to eat for half a year, and more importantly, it improved the embarrassing strategy of the Tang Dynasty.
In this situation, after the Wuzhou thorn is removed, the core main force of the Tang Dynasty King's Division can be freed up.
It is possible to go east to Guangdong, north to Guilin or even to Huguang.
Therefore, from an overall strategic perspective, this tough battle is worthwhile, and this is also an important reason why Li Xuan was determined to launch a strong attack on Wuzhou.
After reporting the enemy's and our casualties, Li Xuan made important instructions to have his troops further and thoroughly clear out the remnants of the enemy in Wuzhou City. Although there was no large-scale Ming army to resist in Wuzhou City, there were still many scattered broken troops.
There were 30,000 regular Ming troops and 20,000 young Ming troops before the city. More than 50,000 Ming troops were killed, nearly 10,000 were seriously injured, 20,000 were captured, and two to three thousand escaped by boat.
It is estimated that several thousand people took advantage of the chaos and fled in other directions, but even so, there will still be nearly ten thousand people scattered throughout the city.
And I dare not say that the defeated troops in the city will not be organized to launch counterattacks or riots again.
Therefore, the continuous elimination of remaining soldiers is very necessary.
In addition, Li Xuan also pointed out that the warehouses storing grain in the city must be strictly guarded. Don't be afraid of wasting troops and don't be afraid of hard work. This batch of grain is the reassurance of the Tang Dynasty king's army. With this batch of grain, the subsequent development of the Tang Dynasty
Only then can the King's division's operations continue.
Furthermore, he also instructed the Ministry of War to complete the screening of prisoners of war as soon as possible, classify the prisoners of war quickly, and give preferential treatment to the Ming army prisoners of war who voluntarily joined the Tang Dynasty King's Division and passed the physical fitness and basic military qualities, and selected some to join the regular army.
force.
For those who join voluntarily and have average quality, they will supplement the existing garrison and form a new garrison.
For die-hards who are unwilling to surrender, they will be monitored on the spot, and the Ministry of Works will send someone to take over later.
The Ministry of Industry has recently changed its idea of building a large number of workshops in a certain city, because it is more difficult and the goal is larger.
Just like Xingquan Prefecture and Liuzhou Prefecture, with the westward advance of the Huguang Ming Army, Xingquan Prefecture was in danger. In order to avoid the death or injury of craftsmen, the Ministry of Industry had to transfer most of the craftsmen from Xingquan Prefecture.
A small number of ordinary workers are left to continue production, but all they produce are consumable materials, such as bullets, gunpowder, bows and arrows, etc.
The workers who made cannons and guns, especially the technical backbone and craftsmen, were all taken away.
Originally, the Ministry of Industry used this group of evacuated craftsmen to continue to expand the strength of the workshops in Liuzhou, but now that Wuzhou has been captured, and it is expected that Zhaoqing will not be able to withstand the attack of the Tang Dynasty King, the Ministry of Industry
We have ended the large-scale construction in Liuzhou ahead of schedule and are preparing to move to Wuzhou and Zhaoqing, with Zhaoqing as the main focus.
Because Zhaoqing was already the established capital of the Tang Dynasty, well, although Zhaoqing was still in the hands of the Ming army at this time, this did not prevent a group of senior officials from the cabinet from formulating various construction plans for Zhaoqing.
At the same time, although Wuzhou will not be used as the capital, the transportation here is extremely convenient, the business itself is extremely developed, and it can also be regarded as the west gate of Zhaoqing, and it supports each other with Zhaoqing.
Because it is also feasible to carry out certain industrial construction in Wuzhou!
It is worth mentioning that in a series of future plans of the Ministry of Industry, the future large-scale workshop center will not be in Liuzhou, nor in Wuzhou, nor in Zhaoqing, but in Foshan!
The reason is very simple. Foshan is the largest hand-smelted steel city in contemporary China and even the entire East Asia!
And this reason alone is enough!
In the future, Foshan will be the large-scale mass production center of various industrial products that require steel in the Tang Dynasty, including artillery, muskets, and cold weapons.
Several other cities, such as Liuzhou, Wuzhou, Zhaoqing and even Guangzhou or other places, have established small-scale workshops to produce consumable combat supplies, such as gunpowder, bullets, artillery shells, bows and arrows, etc., for
Reduce logistics transportation distance.
To build so many workshops, the more craftsmen the better, and the same goes for ordinary workers.
Prisoners of war who do not need to be paid are the best labor force in the eyes of the Ministry of Industry. They have even made relevant plans. After Guangdong, they will use prisoners of war as miners to Luoding, Dong'an, Nanxiong, Shao
Go to the iron mines in Zhouzhou, Lianzhou, Yangjiang, Huaiji and other places to mine, not to mention the young and strong labor force in Yishui, and there is no need to pay wages.
The city must be cleared, the trophies must be cleaned up, the prisoners of war must be cleaned up, the dead of both the enemy and ours must be buried as soon as possible, and the wounded must be rescued. This series of aftermath work is quite a lot.
However, Li Xuan's eyes had already left Wuzhou at this time, and instead set his sights on Zhaoqing, Guilin, Xingquan Prefecture and other places.
After the First Army captured Wuzhou, it was impossible to stay here for too long. After a short rest, it would embark on the journey again. The question now is whether to go north to Guilin first or return to Liuzhou and go all the way to Xingquan Prefecture.
Or they could send the main force eastward to capture Zhaoqing or even Guangzhou.
These choices are related to the future strategic development of the entire Tang Dynasty, and must be done with great caution!