Naturally, Chen Keqiao and others outside the city cannot know about the disputes in Guilin City. If they let him know, they would laugh out loud!
At this time, you still don’t forget about intrigues. Does this make sense? After the city is broken, no matter whether it is the official’s property or the property of King Jingjiang, all of it will become the spoils of war for the Tang Dynasty, and then be filled into the national treasury as military expenses.
!
Chen Keqiao is very busy now. He is busy arranging his troops and making final preparations to attack Guilin Fucheng!
The establishment of the Fourth Army is quite large. It consists of a regular army infantry brigade, a garrison brigade, and a temporary first regiment. If these three parts are added together, the full establishment will exceed 15,000 people, and then additional troops will have to be added.
If the previous baggage regiment, artillery, cavalry and other auxiliary units reach full strength, they will be able to reach 20,000 people.
But this is only a paper establishment. In fact, the troops that belong to the 6th garrison brigade have not yet been fully organized. The brigade headquarters is still in Wuzhou. This time, the garrison troops who went north with Chen Keqiao are actually
There are only three battalions, with more than a thousand people, and they are all transferred from the 5th Garrison Brigade.
Secondly, the Sixth Infantry Regiment of the Third Infantry Brigade also suffered heavy losses in the previous battle against Wuzhou, with hundreds of men missing. Before Chen Keqiao went north, the Sixth Infantry Regiment actually stayed in Wuzhou, preparing to accept new soldiers and muskets.
, it will take several days before we can go north.
Therefore, accompanying Chen Keqiao to the north, there were actually only the fifth infantry, three garrison battalions and the second baggage regiment, an artillery battalion with only six artillery pieces, and a cavalry battalion with no more than 150 cavalry, and very few others.
auxiliary troops.
The total military strength is actually only more than 6,000 people.
However, there are still 2,000 men from the temporary first regiment outside Guilin, so if the two are added together, there are 8,000 troops.
Chen Keqiao thought that eight thousand troops, including a fifth infantry regiment and six heavy artillery, were enough to attack Guilin Fucheng, which was only guarded by two to three thousand people.
But even so, he was quite cautious. He still wanted to take the main force of the Fourth Army north to Huguang, but he could not lose too many troops under the walls of Guilin.
Therefore, he did not rush to attack on the first day or even the second day of his arrival. Instead, he asked the troops to slow down first and then make preparations before attacking the city.
On the third day, Chen Keqiao believed that the time was ripe to launch a general attack on Guilin Fucheng, so he officially ordered a general attack.
Like every time when the main force of the Tang Dynasty attacked the city, the artillery was launched first!
Six five-pound field guns (eight hundred pounds) in the artillery battalion fired at a distance of less than 300 meters from the city gate, shelling the city where the Ming army was densely populated. At the same time, six scattered guns belonging to the Fifth Infantry Regiment fired.
The artillery shells were also fired close to the city from a distance of 150 meters.
Before shelling the city head, the heavy artillery unit of the artillery battalion actually tried to shell the city gate yesterday.
Naturally, the mere city gate could not withstand the shelling of five kilograms of solid shells from field artillery. Soon the city gate was beaten to pieces, but a large amount of bricks, stones, sand and soil were found behind the city gate. It was obvious that the Ming army had already
With the city gate hole directly blocked, it is no longer feasible to launch an attack from the city gate.
However, this is not a problem for the Tang Dynasty King. They have fought many tough battles, and this is all based on experience.
Although the current Tang Dynasty's offensive capabilities are still far inferior to their field capabilities, after fighting so many times, they have gained some experience.
So the old method was adopted, directly digging trenches and tunnels for blasting. At the same time, a large number of temporary commandos composed of heavy armored infantry were prepared for climbing the wall, and other siege equipment such as mobile arrow towers were also readily available.
In the past, when they were just bandits, they only knew how to carry long ladders up stupidly and rely on human lives to fill them. This method was okay when encountering those small cities with walls that were only a foot high, but in the face of this kind of
The city wall of Fucheng, which is at least six meters high, just doesn't work.
However, they have fought more wars and gained more experience. In addition, middle and high-level generals of the Ming Army have continued to defect to the traitors and join them, which has also brought many traditional army combat methods.
For example, these messy siege vehicles, digging tunnels, and blasting are actually learning from the traditional army.
However, digging zigzag trenches and using trenches to shorten the charging time and reduce the casualties of soldiers was the original creation of the Tang Dynasty King Division.
At the same time, using artillery, especially shotguns, close to the city to suppress the firepower was also a method devised by the Tang Dynasty King himself.
In other words, the traditional army's siege mode is actually relatively similar, such as using muskets to suppress fire. Traditional armies also use archers to suppress fire.
The commando model is more common. There are many death squads in the traditional army. If there is any difference, at most the commando team in the Tang Dynasty King's Division has added the grenadiers, a new unit, and used grenades in close combat.
of immense power.
However, the combination of traditional methods and new methods left the Ming army at the city gate at a loss, especially the trenches dug by the Tang Dynasty King's Division. Because they were not tunnels, they were actually dug very quickly.
Moreover, the trenches were not dug directly to the foot of the city, but were dug to a place twenty or thirty meters away from the city wall and stopped there. At this distance, unless the Ming army ran out on their own, it would be difficult to destroy these trenches.
As for killing people digging trenches or soldiers marching in trenches, the Tang Dynasty King's Division was not stupid either. They would directly cover the trenches with wooden planks.
These wooden boards may seem weak, but they can block the sight of the Ming army and block arrows. If it means military artillery bombardment.
Shrapnel can naturally penetrate wooden boards, but the artillery in the Ming army is mainly small and medium-sized bowl-mouth cannons. In professional military terms, these artillery are shotguns, and the range of shotguns is not far enough.
And it is a surface-to-surface killing method, relying on shrapnel to kill and injure enemy personnel.
Destroying fortifications has basically no effect.
Even if the planks were destroyed, the worst case scenario would be to simply replace them with another plank. The Ming army's artillery couldn't destroy all the templates in the trenches, right?
Even if we don't mention the fire suppression of the Tang Dynasty King's Division outside the city, they don't dare to take the lead and just let them fight. How much ammunition do they have to spend to destroy the almost dense trenches outside the city!
Gunpowder these days is very expensive, and the King of the Tang Dynasty himself is reluctant to use it. Although the Ming army relies on the huge Ming Dynasty, the Ming army is actually harder than the King of the Tang Dynasty.
Therefore, even if the Ming army in Guilin discovered that the rebels were digging trenches outside the city, they tried to use artillery or bows and arrows to attack, but later found that the effect was ineffective, and the artillerymen suffered heavy casualties under the rebel artillery counterattack, so they simply did not
No more care.
Anyway, the trenches of these rebels did not look like tunnels, and they did not dig to the foot of the city wall.
Seeing that the infantry unit was well prepared and the artillery fire was almost ready, Major General Chen Keqiao finally ordered the commando team and the three garrison battalions of the 11th Garrison Regiment to launch an attack.
At the same time, he also ordered the temporary first regiment to launch an attack on the other side of the city wall to contain the Ming army.
As for the Fifth Infantry Regiment under his command, they sent out musketeers, archers and artillery to suppress fire, while other troops held down the formation from the rear.
It has been proved in many siege battles that the regular army of the Tang Dynasty King's Division is no more useful than the garrison in siege battles, especially in hand-to-hand combat of climbing city walls.
Because at that time, the line tactics that the regular army of the Tang Dynasty was proud of would completely lose their effectiveness, and so would the muskets.
In addition, the infantry in the regular army are mainly equipped with muskets and spears, which are not suitable for tough battles.
Therefore, in previous fortified battles, commandos could only be temporarily organized, and then garrison troops were used to cooperate with the siege. The infantry of the regular army mainly provided fire cover and raids to prevent the enemy from rushing out of the city to counterattack.
This time, the size of the commando team under the Fourth Army was not large, with only more than 300 people, and its sources were more complex. There were soldiers from the regular army, soldiers from the garrison, and people from various armies.
But the commandos of the Tang Dynasty King's Division all have one characteristic, that is, they are heavily armored!
There are more than 300 people, and nearly 200 of them are sword and shield soldiers wearing heavy armor!
When they jumped out from the trenches and rushed forward shouting various slogans, a group of Guilin officials who were watching the battle on the top of the city were frightened.
It's not that they have never seen the Puppet Tang Dynasty rebel army, they have also experienced the Puppet Tang Dynasty rebel army attacking the city, but they have never seen hundreds of heavy armored infantry intensively charging into the city to fight.
It’s over!
When they saw the heavy armored infantry climbing up the city one after another, all the officials present, including King Jingjiang who came over temporarily to watch the battle, were frightened!
That's two hundred heavy armors. Even if you include the armors worn by the generals, your own city defense troops only have more than fifty pairs. This battle is impossible to fight!
When our own light infantry encounters these heavy armored infantry, there is only one outcome, and that is to be massacred!
A group of Guilin officials looked panicked. Several generals had already run over to command the troops and tried to stop the rebels. However, a group of civil servants looked strange. A few people quietly pushed out of the crowd, and then disappeared from the city wall.
There was no trace of them, while the others were completely missing.
"What to do? The thieves are coming!"
"Hurry and stop them, or we will all die!"
A group of officials shouted with panic on their faces.
At this time, King Jingjiang still couldn't see the danger of the situation, so he shouted: "Quick, stop the bandit army, as long as you stop them, you will be rewarded heavily!"
"I have money, a lot of money. If you kill a true thief, you will be rewarded with fifty taels of silver. If you kill a heavy armored person, you will be rewarded with a hundred taels of silver!"