If it is an elite army, the morale of the army will be shaken after the logistics line is cut off, and it may even lead to the collapse of the entire army. This has little to do with the combat effectiveness of the army, because after the logistics line is cut off, there will be no food and no ordnance.
fight?
There have been too many battle lines in history that led to the collapse of the army because the logistics line was cut off, and Tan Rong did not want to be one of them.
So he immediately worried several senior generals in the army. After hearing the news, most of these generals looked as nervous as Tan Rong. Naturally, they also knew the risk of cutting off the logistics line.
This risk is enough to collapse the entire army!
So they started talking quickly. Some people wanted to launch a general attack on Xingquan Fucheng immediately while there was still time. They didn't believe that the thousands of puppet Tang remnants in the city could withstand it. After taking Xingquan Fucheng,
Then the army returned to support Jingzhou City, trying to cooperate with the defenders in Jingzhou City, and ate up the puppet Tang bandits who entered Jingzhou.
As long as these two groups of puppet Tang rebels are killed, the entire strategic situation will be greatly improved. At that time, whether we continue to march westward to Guizhou or directly go south along Guilin, it will be possible.
But some people say that regardless of the remaining soldiers in Xingquan Prefecture, since they have been besieged for so long, the rebels in the city have probably run out of food. If they wait another ten days and a half, they will probably starve to death.
, there is no need to attack by force.
Their reasons are also very good. It's not like Xingquan Fucheng has never been attacked before. They have tried two general attacks before and after, but each time they failed and returned with a loss of troops and generals.
If the first general attack failed because they were new and did not have enough troops, then in the second attack, they used 30,000 troops, almost ten times the number of troops to defeat the enemy in Xingquan.
A general attack was launched, but the firearms of the puppet Tang rebel army were too sharp.
There were already heavy casualties before they even reached the city. It was even worse when they reached the city. The puppet Tang rebels on top of the city dropped a large amount of explosive bombs, causing heavy casualties on the spot.
With heavy casualties, it was naturally impossible to attack the city. After all, the Ming army had 30,000 troops, but it was impossible for them all to rush forward. Not to mention the reserves, the small area under the city could not accommodate them.
So many troops were deployed.
Therefore, when the frontline siege troops collapsed due to heavy casualties, even the troops in the rear were unable to continue the attack, and in the end they could only stop the siege operations.
The two strong attacks before and after caused the Ming army to lose almost 3,000 people. Especially the second attack, more than 2,000 people were killed and injured in one go, and the battle loss rate exceeded 7%.
This is almost the limit for the Ming army's casualty tolerance.
That's why it was changed to a siege later. Otherwise, they would have stormed Xingquan Mansion long ago, and there would be no need for a siege!
As for deploying more troops to carry out a strong attack, this is also a troublesome matter!
Their enemies are not only the puppet Tang rebels in Xingquan Prefecture, there are thousands of rebels in Liping Prefecture. Last time, in order to block their eastward advance, Tan Rong and the others mobilized a total of 20,000
Many armies intercepted them, and it took nearly 3,000 casualties to repel them.
Therefore, even if there are still 50,000 troops on hand, in actual use, the force is still not enough. It takes 20,000 people to besiege Xingquanfu City, and it takes 10,000 to 20,000 people to block the rebel army on the front line of Lipingfu.
He also had to leave some troops on hand to serve as strategic reserves.
Under such circumstances, it is almost impossible to attack Xingquan Fucheng from the front, unless they are willing to kill and injure thousands or even tens of thousands of people again.
But neither Tan Rong nor several other senior generals have this determination!
Therefore, they proposed that it was not advisable to attack Xingquan Fucheng by force. The best way was to send about 10,000 troops back to Jingzhou to aid. In this way, plus the more than 10,000 defenders in Jingzhou, they could gather more than 20,000 troops.
Even if we can't defeat the puppet Tang rebel army with only 7,000 people, we should at least be able to maintain the supply line.
As long as they wait another ten days and a half, the bandits in Xingquan City will probably starve to death, and by then they will be able to free up at least 20,000 troops.
At that time, we can first go west and defeat the rebel army in Liping Prefecture, or we can go back east and defeat the rebel army in Jingzhou, and the whole game of chess can be revived.
After discussing with these people, Tan Rong finally made the decision to transfer 5,000 people from the siege troops, and then add the 10,000 reserve troops he had on hand, for a total of 15,000 people to return east to Jingzhou.
Although everyone said that sending ten thousand people would be enough, Tan Rong felt that it was better to be safer. Anyway, the puppet Tang thief army in Xingquanfu City was already at the end of its strength. Even if he had fewer troops for siege, there wouldn't be a big problem.
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On the contrary, those in Jingzhou were a fresh force, and intelligence said that most of the 7,000 pseudo-Tang thieves were real thieves.
As a general who has fought many times against the Puppet Tang thief army, even among the Puppet Tang thief army, there is a huge difference in combat effectiveness between real thieves and fake thieves. Although those fake thieves can be beaten, in a one-on-one situation, our own side has
It may not be an opponent, but it is possible to send more troops. There is no need to send more troops. If you have 1.5 times the strength, or send more elite soldiers, you can basically win.
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But the real thieves in the Puppet Tang thief army are really tough. In field battles, if you don't have three or four times the force, you can't expect to fight head-on. As for attacking fortresses, even ten times the force is enough.
Of course, ambushes and the like are not among them. Even if the real thieves of the Pseudo-Tang Dynasty are strong, if they are ambushed, the morale of the army will still be disturbed.
When he attacked the puppet Tang thief army from Liping Mansion, he used a plan to ambush, but he did not use many troops, and achieved considerable results. This is because the puppet Tang thief army ran fast. If it ran slowly,
He estimated that it would be possible to annihilate all this bandit army of pseudo-Tang rebels.
Considering that most of the thieves in Jingzhou were real thieves with considerable fighting strength, for the sake of stability, he specially sent thousands more troops, bringing the number of returning troops to 15,000.
As a result, he basically has no reserve troops on hand.
We can only barely maintain the situation in Xingquan Mansion!
When he watched the returning army slowly set off, he couldn't help but sigh in his heart. The real thieves in the pseudo-Tang thieves army were so powerful in combat, especially their firearms, which were so sharp that they were at a loss as to what to do.
I don’t know when my army will be able to use these firearms!
As a senior general, he already knew that his immediate boss Zhang Yue, the governor of the four provinces, had ordered craftsmen to start imitating the firearms of the pseudo-Tang rebels. He also heard that Wang Yue, the governor of Guangdong and Guangdong, also ordered craftsmen to imitate the firearms of the pseudo-Tang rebels.
Firearms of the bandits.
And he also reported it to the imperial court, asking the imperial court to vigorously manufacture firearms!
Faced with the reports from local officials, the court officials did not dare to look down upon them. Now they have begun to imitate the firearms of the pseudo-Tang Dynasty, and even planned to purchase them from foreigners for emergencies.
From the imitation and purchase of ordnance by the Ming army, it can be seen that the Ming army has intentionally or unintentionally begun to learn some of the strengths of the puppet Tang rebel army. However, except for ordnance, other aspects of learning have not been very successful.
This involves looking at too many aspects, such as military discipline. It is very simple to say, but it is still relatively difficult to form absolute military discipline. Didn’t you see that when the Tang Dynasty King was fighting, he had
A large number of war supervisors were behind to supervise the battle, and if they wavered even slightly, they would be killed on the spot.
And the most important thing is that this kind of discipline is not enough simply to supervise the team. It requires long-term rigorous training.
The structure of the Ming army determines that it is impossible for them to achieve this level of training, let alone discipline training, and even physical training cannot be learned.
Because most of the Ming army soldiers didn't even have enough to eat, how could they carry out intensive training? This training would kill the soldiers directly.
Even though under the military pressure of the Tang Dynasty, a few Ming army generals and officials wanted to reform the military to enhance the army's combat effectiveness, but this reform was one-sided and even superficial.
Even the plan to imitate and purchase firearms, which even the cabinet bosses agree with, is still in its infancy. At least as of now, the 50,000 Huguang Ming Army under Tan Rong has only a handful of captured Tang thieves.
In addition to the muskets of the army, the individual firearms used are still the old handguns from the early years. As for the large-scale formation of musketeers, it is temporarily impossible.
However, Tan Rong heard that Wang Yue, who had retreated to Guangzhou, had obtained hundreds of muskets through imitation and purchase from foreigners. It was rumored that he was going to organize a musket battalion, but he didn't know if it was true.
Not to mention, the rumors Tan Rong heard were indeed true!
After being defeated all the way from Wuzhou to Guangzhou, and even Zhaoqing was lost, Wang Yue calmed down and thought about it. He believed that all the previous defeats were due to the sharp weapons of the Puppet Tang Dynasty. To defeat the Puppet Tang thief army, it is easiest to defeat them.
The most direct way is to own a large number of firearms, and they cannot be the bowl-muzzle cannons or short-handed guns of the past.
It must be the same or even better long-handed blunderbuss and heavy artillery than the puppet Tang bandit army!
So after arriving in Guangzhou, on the one hand, he asked the craftsmen to imitate as much as possible. However, imitation is not something that can be done immediately, and Guangzhou is not an industrial base. After Foshan was captured by the puppet Tang thief army, Guangzhou continued to
The supply of steel is running out.
So he still bought directly from those foreigners. These days, Western foreigners have gone to the coastal areas of China for trade. They brought with them matchlock guns and artillery that were commonly equipped in the West at that time. However, in the past, the Ming Dynasty except for the Folang machine cannon.
Apart from having a special liking for it, I am not too interested in other muskets and muzzle-loading artillery.
But that was all in the past. Now, Wang Yue bought matchlocks and artillery whenever he saw them. He even paid a huge price and bought half of the guns on a Portuguese armed merchant ship. There were even some
The two twelve-pound heavy cannons were larger than the nine-pound cannons of the Tang Dynasty!
In this way, he really got a lot of artillery and hundreds of matchlock guns. These firearms also gave him the confidence to defend Guangzhou City!
Otherwise, he really doesn't know how to continue to defend Guangzhou City. After all, as time goes by, the puppet Tang thief army has gradually captured many peripheral areas of Guangzhou, and then completely surrounded Guangzhou City from the land.
Faced with the threat of nearly 10,000 bandits, without these artillery and muskets, Wang Yue might have led his army to escape from the Pearl River!