Just like the Tang Dynasty's royal divisions who attacked Guangzhou many times, the first thing to fire when attacking Guangzhou this time was artillery!
In order to reduce the casualties suffered by the infantry from the Ming army's artillery during the subsequent siege, Li Xuan personally ordered the two artillery battalions in the siege force, namely the First Artillery Battalion and the Guards Artillery Battalion, to attack the artillery positions on Guangzhou City.
Intensive bombardment must destroy these Ming army artillery on the top of the city.
However, the Ming army on the top of the city was not to be outdone, and also fired back. The two sides launched a vigorous artillery battle over a distance of more than 400 meters, and the rumbling sound was heard all the way to the Pearl River.
But after the two sides fought back and forth for more than an hour, many Ming soldiers discovered that although they fired back, they didn't know where the shells had gone. After fighting for a long time, not many shells fell.
On the artillery position of the puppet Tang rebel army opposite.
However, the artillerymen on the city's own side suffered heavy casualties, and even a twelve-pound naval gun purchased at a large price was destroyed.
How is this going?
The Ming army on the top of the city was puzzled. Could it be that the cannons in their hands were not as good as those of the rebels on the opposite side? Impossible. These were cannons purchased from those Folangji people. Mr. Wang Yue, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, even gave these cannons to
He was given a mighty name: Super Invincible General Cannon!
The fact is of course not that the quality of the Ming army's artillery is not good, but that the quality of the Ming army's artillery is not good!
This is because there are not many professional artillerymen in the Ming army garrison in Guangzhou!
Although the Ming army widely used firearms, most of them were small cannons weighing tens or hundreds of kilograms, mainly bowl-mouth cannons and small Folang machine guns. There is no need to be particular about how to use these artillery, as they should be used according to regulations
Just load the gunpowder and shells, and then light them.
But nowadays, large-caliber cannons are used, and they fire solid bullets. If you want this kind of artillery to fire accurately, you need experienced artillerymen, especially the gunner, who needs to carefully calculate the amount of gunpowder and adjust the angle.
Only then can you get a hit.
But the artillerymen in the Ming army were basically illiterate. How could they calculate ballistics?
They just aim the muzzle roughly in one direction, then load the gun and fire it. It's strange that they can have a high hit rate.
But it was different in the King's Division of the Tang Dynasty. Li Xuan attached great importance to artillery power. These artillerymen were all specially trained. The gunners in the artillery unit were all battle-hardened, and the officers in the artillery unit were also all
Proficient in arithmetic and able to perform complex calculations on various ballistics.
The quality of the artillery on both sides is almost completely different from each other, which also causes the artillery effects of the two sides to be completely different.
But even though his own artillery troops completely suppressed the Ming army's city artillery, Li Xuan still frowned.
Because the appearance of these artillery pieces on top of Guangzhou City made him realize a situation!
That is, the Ming army has begun to attach great importance to the power of firearms. This emphasis has allowed them to begin to equip a large number of artillery and matchlock guns, and these two weapons actually have little technical content. If the Ming Dynasty was determined, it could
Forging a large number of artillery and matchlock guns, this means that in the subsequent wars, the Ming army that your army will encounter will be equipped with more and more artillery, and it will not be the kind of bowl-mouth cannon in the past.
Franco machine guns and other small guns, but regular field guns.
This situation is not good!
But even if he was worried, there was nothing he could do. After all, he couldn't stop the Ming army from developing and using artillery.
His Tang Dynasty kings all used matchlock guns and artillery in batches. He couldn't expect the Ming Dynasty to continue to fight with him with the handguns and bowl-mouth cannons of the Yongle period.
Enemies will also learn and improve themselves in war.
The only thing he hopes now is that the Ming Dynasty will be slower in equipping artillery and matchlocks.
But his wish was obviously going to come true. He didn't know that Zhang Yue had already started to forge cannons and guns in Huguang, and he also directly imitated the muskets of the Tang Dynasty. As for the cannons, he did not need to imitate them, but directly produced them.
The original General Cannon and Folang Machine Cannon will suffice.
Even in the capital, the cabinet bosses saw the threat and began to build cannons and guns. Emperor Zhengde even issued an order for the Ministry of Industry to imitate and produce matchlock guns as soon as possible, and then use them to equip anti-bandit troops and
Jingying.
And if Li Xuan knew how many muskets the Ming Dynasty planned to manufacture, he would probably be shocked!
Because Emperor Zhengde asked the Ministry of Industry to produce the first batch of 10,000 matchlocks, and they were to be completed within one year, and then allocated to the anti-bandit troops in Huguang and the Beijing camp. This output was not much lower than that of the Tang Dynasty.
.
In the future, the output of matchlocks in the Ming Dynasty will definitely become higher and higher. With the variable of the puppet Tang rebel army, the era of large-scale equipment of matchlocks in the Ming Dynasty has been advanced several years.
In fact, historically, after the Ming Dynasty came into contact with Western and Japanese matchlocks during this period, they also started the research and development and imitation production of matchlocks, and finally produced shotguns. The output was not small, with the first batch of 10,000 pieces.
The shotgun was produced and equipped with the army within a year.
This is the strength of a large empire. Although their efficiency is lower, it cannot match their great heritage. When the Tang Dynasty struggled to collect craftsmen, but the income was only a few hundred or thousands of craftsmen, Ming Ming
The dynasty can mobilize tens of thousands or even more than 100,000 related craftsmen for production at any time.
In this era of manual production, craftsmen are the productivity. The more craftsmen there are, the greater the productivity!
Li Xuan is too lazy to think about the future now. Anyway, the most important thing now is to win Guangzhou!
The artillery battle between the two sides continued, and the rumbling sound of artillery could be heard almost every moment. As the artillery battle progressed, the Ming army's artillery on the top of the city gradually became silent.
This does not mean that the heavy artillery of the army was destroyed. In fact, these big guns, which weighed several thousand kilograms or even several thousand kilograms, were not easily destroyed. What was destroyed was the fort and the artillery.
To set up the artillery, you need a fort or artillery carriage to fix it. For the artillery to successfully fire shells, you need artillery.
When the fort was destroyed, these artillery naturally became unusable, and the large number of artillery casualties meant that the Ming army began to lack enough gunners to operate the artillery.
Even though the quality of the Ming army's gunners was not very good, they were still able to load and fire the cannon. These things were beyond the capabilities of ordinary soldiers.
While the artillery at the head of Guangzhou City was gradually suppressed, the Tang Dynasty's own artillery force also suffered certain losses. However, the quality of the Ming army's artillery was too poor and their accuracy was poor, so they fought for two full days. The Tang Dynasty
In the two artillery battalions, a total of two five-pound artillery pieces were destroyed, and more than 20 artillerymen were killed or injured.
Seeing that the artillery force at the top of the city had been successfully suppressed, Colonel Lei Wan, deputy director of the Operations Department, said to Li Xuan: "Your Majesty, is it time to take the next step?"
Li Xuan nodded slightly: "Let the engineering troops take action. The musketeers and artillery must provide good fire cover!"
Lei Wan immediately nodded and said: "I obey your order!"
As the order was issued, the soldiers in the two engineering battalions began to take action!
Their main task is to continue digging forward from the traffic trench about fifty meters away from the Guangzhou City Wall!
Based on the battles of the Liuzhou and Wuzhou offensives, the generals of the Tang Dynasty's royal division had already fully realized that during the critical battles, the communication trenches could effectively cover the advance of their own armies and avoid a large number of losses on the road.
By using the traffic trench, you can move forward to a place about twenty or thirty meters away from the city wall before launching an attack!
Therefore, in the early preparation stage, the engineers of the Tang Dynasty King's Division had already dug a large number of communication trenches. The closer they were to the city wall, the stronger the Ming army's counterattack firepower would be.
So this time when they dug fifty meters away from the city wall, they stopped involuntarily, because if they continued to advance, the Ming army's shotguns and even archers would be able to cause intensive damage to them.
Without the cover of a large amount of artillery power, it is impossible to continue the excavation operation.
But now, with the fire cover of artillery and even musketeers, engineering troops and even ordinary soldiers began to brave the Ming army's fire counterattack and began to dig, trying to extend the communication trench to near the city wall.
Provide convenience for subsequent filling of the moat.
During this process, although engineers and ordinary troops suffered casualties, these casualties were still within an acceptable range, and it was relatively smooth. With multiple fronts moving forward, they were basically close to the moat.
The next step is to fill in the moat and build a channel for the army to attack the city wall!
However, in the stage of filling in the moat, although there is the cover of traffic trenches, the soldiers will inevitably be exposed to multiple firepower attacks by the Ming army during the filling operation. In order to avoid heavy casualties of the regular army, the troops responsible for filling in the moat will
It will be a garrison unit.
At the same time, in order to appease these garrison troops, Li Xuan personally ordered that all garrison troops participating in the landfill battle would receive double pay this month, and their meals this month would be the same as those of the regular army.
And also let the regular army troops continue to provide them with fire cover!
To a certain extent, this also greatly improved the morale of the garrison, but high morale was unable to cover the large number of casualties in the moat stage.
On the first day of the moat filling operation, which was also the third day of the Guangzhou Campaign, more than 300 people from the various garrison troops participating in the battle were killed or injured, which was the first time that the Tang Dynasty King's Division suffered large-scale casualties!
But even though there were a lot of casualties, the battle still continued!
On the fourth day of the Battle of Guangzhou, after the Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty had paid more than two hundred casualties, it finally filled in several sections of the moat.
In this way, the infantry of the Tang Dynasty King's Division can rush over directly and launch an assault on the city!
On the fifth day of the Battle of Guangzhou, according to the predetermined plan, the Tang Dynasty King's Division was about to launch a forcible wall-mounting operation and attack the city in the simplest and most direct way!