Chapter five hundred and eighty-fifth three fires to change the dynasty
The artillery used in this attack on Guangzhou fired the largest number of shells in any of the Tang Dynasty's royal divisions.
In the fiercest battle yesterday and at night, each of those nine-pound heavy artillery fired hundreds of shells, and the rumble of the cannons continued from yesterday morning to dawn today.
The sound of gunfire never stopped!
Without such powerful artillery support, the Tang Dynasty Royal Division's attack on Guangzhou City would never have gone so smoothly.
You must know that the Ming army in Guangzhou City also has considerable artillery power. If there is no suppression by our own artillery, the attacking troops will definitely suffer heavy damage from the Ming army's artillery.
However, even though a large number of artillery was used to successfully suppress the Ming army's artillery, the continuous offensive operations, especially the storming of the Tang Dynasty King's Division in the following days, still cost a lot of casualties.
Of course, although our losses are not small, the results are also huge!
In addition to capturing Guangzhou City, a city with an important strategic position, they also killed no less than 3,000 Ming soldiers, captured nearly 10,000 people, and seized a large amount of various materials, including almost countless grains and various cold weapons.
And more importantly, they also captured a large number of artillery pieces from the Ming army. Although most of these artillery pieces were small-caliber artillery pieces similar to bowl-mouth cannons and were of no use value to the Tang Dynasty's royal divisions, they also captured some worthless artillery pieces.
The artillery used, such as some general cannons and medium-sized artillery such as Fran cannons, are somewhat inferior in quality and power, but they are still usable.
In addition, there were twelve-pound heavy guns, six-pound naval guns, and three-and-a-half-pound naval guns purchased by the Ming army from foreigners.
These foreign artillery are all good things, and their quality and power are considered top-notch in the Far East. Even the Tang Dynasty King's Division is equipped with a lot of artillery purchased from foreigners.
After the capture of this batch of foreign artillery, together with the original foreign artillery of the Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty, an entire foreign artillery battalion could even be equipped, which could effectively supplement and increase the artillery power of the Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty.
And Li Xuan did exactly that. He combined the two captured 12-pound cannons with several of his own 12-pound cannons, and formed a 12-pound (nine-pound) artillery team.
Those six-pound (five-pound) artillery were organized into two teams.
The 3.5-pound (three kilograms) artillery pieces were also organized into two teams.
The artillery of these four brigades of five-pound and three-pound guns was independently organized into the Sixth Artillery Battalion. This artillery battalion was prepared to be assigned to the Third Guard Brigade.
As for the Nine-Pin Heavy Artillery Team, it is directly under the direct jurisdiction of the Privy Council, because these cannons weighing more than two thousand kilograms are not suitable for field combat because their maneuverability is really poor.
The best way to relocate them is to move them to the top of the city or other fortresses. Of course, they can also be moved to the front line if they encounter difficult battles.
Therefore, it is not appropriate to directly assign them to the major field armies.
The preliminary plan is that these nine-pound artillery will still be deployed in the Guangzhou area as an important force in the defense of Guangzhou to defend against Ming navy attacks.
After all, Guangzhou is on the edge of the Pearl River, and currently the Pearl River and the lower reaches of the Xijiang River are still under the control of the Ming Navy. Before the Datang Navy has enough strength to drive the Ming Navy out, the Datang Dynasty has to rely on
The coastal defense forces came to fight against the Ming Navy.
Therefore, after the Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty captured Guangzhou City, the first thing they did was to strengthen the shore defense forces and prepare to build a river defense fort on the sandy surface southwest of Guangzhou City.
The fort is directly opposite Baietan of the Pearl River. As long as the fort has enough artillery, it can guard the Pearl River and thus protect the city of Guangzhou.
And these nine-pound artillery pieces will be placed here.
At the same time, there will also be many general cannons and Folang machine guns captured from the Ming Army. These artillery pieces do not meet the needs of the regular army artillery battalions of the Tang Dynasty King's Division due to their quality and power, but they are devolved to the infantry regiments to serve as infantry cannons.
They are also too heavy and too large, so the Tang Dynasty King's current treatment of this batch of artillery is basically for city defense firepower.
These artillery captured from the Ming army will be deployed in Guangzhou city and Shamian Fort.
In order to protect the safety of the fort, the Tang Dynasty King's Division will deploy thousands of troops on the sand. However, it will not form an independent fortress force like the Antelope Gorge Fort, but will still be under the jurisdiction of the Guangzhou City Defense Force.
Because the Pearl River Delta has a dense water network, and the Pearl River Basin is not a complete river with only a single outlet like the Yangtze River, Yellow River and other large rivers.
The Pearl River, actually more appropriately called the Pearl River water system, consists of the Xijiang River, the Dongjiang River, and the Beijiang River. These three rivers are connected with the dense water network of the Pearl River Delta and form numerous outlets to the sea.
Therefore, it is almost impossible to defend the entire Pearl River system with a single coastal defense fort, because ships these days are not giant steel ships. Battleships can range from dozens of tons to hundreds of tons, and
The draft is very shallow, so many estuaries in the Pearl River system are accessible.
So until now, Li Xuan has no plans to build a fort in Humen, because the famous Humen fort in later generations is not functional these days. The river outside the Humen fort is several kilometers wide, and the effective range of artillery these days is only a few hundred meters.
, if it weren't for that kind of 48-pound or 64-pound artillery, it would be difficult to completely blockade it.
To build a fort in Humen, it is better to build a fort directly on the sand, and then build small-scale forts at several other estuaries in the Xijiang River Basin. These estuaries are relatively small and can block the river without heavy artillery.
However, no matter how good the fort is, it can only passively defend. In order to completely solve the maritime threats faced by Guangzhou and even the Pearl River Delta, the best or even the only way is to train a powerful navy to directly resist or even resist on the sea.
Destroy the enemy.
However, the Navy of the Tang Dynasty was not useful, and it would not be useful for many years as Li Xuan expected. Without a large number of battleships and naval guns, the navy was just empty talk. The current Navy of the Tang Dynasty, let alone the Ming Army, could not be used.
The navy is at war, and even some medium-sized pirate gangs cannot defeat it!
In this case, coastal defense forts are still necessary.
The navy was weak and the coast faced great maritime threats. This was why Li Xuan did not choose to establish the capital in Guangzhou, but in Zhaoqing.
When establishing his capital in Guangzhou, he had to worry that the enemy would suddenly appear from the sea one day and bombard the city of Guangzhou.
After conquering Guangzhou, Li Xuan did not stay in Guangzhou for too long. After staying for a few days, he led the Guards to prepare to return to Zhaoqing. This time, his personal expedition to Guangzhou was a complete success. Although there will be many more in the future,
wars, but not all of them need to be directed by him personally.
However, before returning to Zhaoqing, he had to reorganize the existing troops in Guangzhou, or in other words, the entire Guangdong region, to better cope with the coming war.
First of all, the 7th Garrison Brigade was separated from the First Army. The garrison brigade still garrisoned the western coastal areas of Guangdong and prepared for the subsequent attack on Qiongzhou.
The Third Garrison Brigade will stay in the Pearl River Delta region, and its defense area includes Guangzhou, Foshan and other places. In terms of administrative regions, it is the southern area of Guangzhou Prefecture, including the entire Pearl River estuary.
The follow-up mission of the First Army is to go north to Shaozhou Prefecture. However, there is a temporary first regiment in Shaozhou Prefecture. In addition, Li Xuan also plans to send the Liuzhou Independent Regiment to Shaozhou Prefecture to fight, so the first regiment will be sent to Shaozhou Prefecture.
The first army only retains its backbone, and plans to separate part of the main force from it to form an independent regiment.
In other words, they were drawn from the 1st Infantry Brigade, 1st Baggage Regiment, 1st Artillery Battalion, 1st Cavalry Battalion and other regular army units.
Two infantry battalions, one reserve battalion, one five-pound field artillery battalion, one baggage battalion, and one cavalry battalion were transferred from the regular armies of the First Army to form a new mixed regiment, and were awarded the title of the First Mixed Regiment.
.
For the vacancies that have been transferred from the original army, the infantry unit is the simplest. Just send new soldiers to fill the vacancies. The muskets can be directly used from the muskets captured from the Ming Army. There is no need to change the number and organization. As for the artillery, there will be a temporary vacancy first, and the cavalry will be temporarily lacking.
However, in order to capture Shaozhou Prefecture in one fell swoop, Li Xuan would also send an artillery team from the Guards Artillery Battalion and a cavalry team from the Cavalry Battalion to temporarily strengthen the First Army. After the battle of Shaozhou Prefecture, the above two units were returned to
Guards.
In the future, the First Army will continue to move north and, together with the Fourth Army, will become the two main armies fighting in Huguang. The garrison in the First Army will still be the Fourth Garrison Brigade, but it will be the reorganized Fourth Army.
garrison brigade.
Because after the Battle of Guangzhou, the 4th Garrison Brigade was divided into two, its original two garrison regiments, the 7th Garrison Regiment, will join some of the captured Ming troops surrendered in the Battle of Guangzhou to reorganize the 4th Garrison Brigade.
The 8th Garrison Regiment will be expanded into the new 8th Garrison Brigade, and the supplementary troops will also be troops dropped from Guangzhou. In the future, the 8th Garrison Brigade will cooperate with the 1st Mixed Regiment to fight in eastern Guangzhou.
The First Mixed Regiment, which was established by drawing the main forces from the First Army, is said to be a brand new unit, but in fact it is basically a branch of the various departments of the First Army, and because it is established in an organic form, its combat effectiveness is not affected.
Therefore, the First Independent Regiment has complete combat effectiveness and can go into battle.
The mission of the 1st Mixed Regiment will be to march eastward to Huizhou Prefecture and Chaozhou Prefecture. The 8th Guards Brigade, which is cooperating with the 1st Independent Regiment, will not be able to participate in the battle within a short period of time. The early cooperating troops will be provided by the 3rd Guards Brigade.
A garrison regiment under its jurisdiction is in charge.
After completing the reorganization of the troops and the arrangement of subsequent strategies, Li Xuan officially led the Guards back to Zhaoqing to continue being his emperor.
But Li Xuan's departure did not affect the Tang Dynasty's strong rule over Guangzhou!
Deng Guan, the first magistrate of Guangzhou in the Tang Dynasty, who was responsible for the entire affairs of Guangzhou Prefecture, immediately summoned a large number of demoted officials from the former Ming Dynasty and prominent gentry in the city after moving into the shabby Guangzhou magistrate's office.
There are three things to prepare for when a new official takes office. No, it should be said to be a change of government!