When Dai Liliang said loyalty to the emperor and the country, the faces of the officers below turned red. This was definitely not because of loyalty to the emperor and the country, but because of meritorious service, which meant promotion and wealth!
The Army of the Tang Dynasty has now passed the early stage of blind military expansion. In the foreseeable year or two, the size of the Army of the Tang Dynasty should remain around 100,000.
It was not that they were unwilling to expand the army but that they had no way to expand it. Limited by the financial resources and population base of the Tang Dynasty, maintaining a professional army of 100,000 people was almost the limit.
In other words, there will be no military expansion in the short term, but the focus will be on improving the overall strength of the existing troops.
Not expanding the army means that you can't be promoted as quickly as before. Now you have to climb up, you have to be capable, and you have to have military exploits.
Ability is a personal issue. As long as you work hard, you will eventually be able to meet the requirements.
But war merit is not so easy to earn, you have to have luck and strength!
Because you have to fight in order to have military exploits, and because the Sixth Infantry Division is stationed in the Pearl River Delta, although it cooperates with the navy to continue fighting with the Ming Navy, to be honest, the main contributor is the navy, and the army only cooperates, and fights
They were all small-scale battles, and there were not many opportunities to make any achievements.
Unlike the several troops fighting on the northern front, there were a large number of Ming troops waiting for them to fight!
Now attack the Fo Lang robots. Although the number and scale of the Fo Lang robots in front of us are very small, mosquitoes are small but they are still meat. The big shots above may not look down on these achievements, but for battalion-level and team-level soldiers,
For these middle and lower-level officers, this is an extremely rare opportunity to gain military exploits!
Seeing the expressions of his subordinates eager to try, Major Dai Liliang also smiled and nodded, and then said: "The artillery fires first and knocks down their towers. The infantry is ready to advance!"
Send a signal to the navy and let them start taking action too!"
Although the army and navy are not under separate control, and even look down upon each other. When competing for military expenditures, the generals of both sides almost drew their swords at each other, but in specific wars, there is still cooperation between the army and the navy.
Of course, Dai Liliang, an army major, cannot interfere with the navy's actions. The navy also has its own battle plan.
The army and navy had already coordinated before the war. The army was responsible for conquering Haojing and clearing out the power of the Folangji on the ground. Even if they could not annihilate them, they still had to be driven into the sea.
As for the navy, it is responsible for sea battles, containing the enemy's maritime power, and covering army operations.
But how the navy will fight is the navy's business. Dai Liliang doesn't even know the navy's detailed battle plan, let alone interfere!
By lighting thick smoke, sending out semaphores and other means, the Army finally conveyed the official message of war, while the Navy accepted the signal and began to take action.
Dai Liliang also ignored the navy at this time. In this battle, the navy was destined to only play a cooperating role. Whether the naval action failed or succeeded, it was actually innocuous. The focus was still on his own army.
Yes, that's right, like most battles in which the army and navy cooperate, the army generals believe that the protagonist of the war is themselves, and the navy is just a soy sauce!
As for the naval generals, they have almost the same idea. In the eyes of the naval generals, the army is just a soy sauce in this battle. It is only responsible for driving the enemy into the sea. After the enemy goes into the sea, the next main combat tasks are all
It's the Navy's responsibility.
After Dai Liliang's order was issued, the first to take action was naturally the artillery troops. They quickly pushed the artillery forward about a hundred meters, and then loaded it in the pre-constructed artillery position.
It won't take long for those five-pound artillery pieces to start firing!
The artillery shells accurately landed on the Fo Langji position on the opposite side, and most of them hit the two towers near the front. Although these towers have not collapsed in a short period of time, it seems that they cannot hold up.
How long.
When the artillery of the Tang Army officially opened fire, the rumble of the artillery naturally quickly reached the ears of the Fo Langji people on the opposite side.
"These despicable and shameless Tang people have indeed torn up the treaty and attacked us. We must stop them and hit them hard. The glory of the great Portugal must not fall in our hands!"
Several Portuguese colonial officials shouted!
"Fight back and kill them all with our cannon!"
"Kill all these damn natives!"
Although the Portuguese military force in Haojing is small, and most of them are merchants and sailors who live here temporarily or permanently, their equipment level is actually not bad. Behind the small infantry of hundreds of people, there are more than a dozen artillery pieces.
support.
Most of these artillery pieces were actually moved from armed merchant ships for use. In addition, if they really couldn't beat them, they could retreat to the port and get fire support from the naval guns of the armed merchant ships anchored in the port.
As for regular warships, sorry, they actually don’t have any!
In the Far East, whether it is the Portuguese or the Spaniards who have been working hard to establish colonies in the Philippines, they actually do not have many regular warships here, and most of them are armed merchant ships.
However, Western-style armed merchant ships are equipped with much more artillery than traditional Chinese-style sailing ships.
If you compare it purely with artillery, the Tang Army does not actually have an advantage!
But the war is not simply about the superiority of artillery. If that were the case, the Ming army would not have to fight and just surrender, because the Ming army's artillery power would be even worse.
Dai Liliang also knew that his artillery was not as powerful as the enemy, so he did not take the risk of letting the artillery come forward and engage in artillery battles with the enemy's artillery. His artillery was used to deal with the enemy's towers and other simple fortifications. At the same time,
Used to deal with enemy infantry.
As long as these artillery can clear obstacles for his infantry battalion to advance, the next battle will be easier!
An hour later, after wasting many artillery shells, Datang's artillery troops finally defeated the simple defense line that Fo Langji had worked so hard to build. However, they themselves were hit by Fo Langji's fierce artillery fire.
, also suffered a lot of casualties, several artillery pieces were knocked over, and there were dozens of artillery casualties.
Dai Liliang ignored all this, but decisively ordered the infantry who had already prepared to attack!
An entire infantry battalion formed a typical line formation commonly used by the Tang Army, and then began to move forward quickly. Although this line formation was a little thinner, it had the ability to withstand artillery fire well.
In order to reduce the casualties he suffered during the advance, Dai Liliang also made a temporary change and changed the original standard six columns to three columns, so that he could cover a wider front and give full play to his own strength.
When the infantry began to advance in formation, the Franco's artillery began to bombard the infantry, and the infantry of the Franco's who had originally avoided the artillery fire of the Tang army also began to line up and prepare to fight.
This does not mean that the Francois are willing to fight against the enemy's superior force with a small number of troops. If possible, they are naturally willing to hide in the castle and engage in defensive operations!
But this damn place, Haojing, had no hair a few months ago. They finally used local materials to build a simple defense line, but now these defense lines have been beaten to pieces.
So now, they can only rely on their own strength to defend.
Of course, even if they line up to defend, it doesn't mean that they will foolishly rush forward to hedge. Instead, they will still rely on a slope for defensive operations.
If this continues, a typical queuing and shooting battle will break out here and now!
The artillery fire from both sides continued!
Whenever a cannonball falls on the infantry formations on both sides, it can cause more or less casualties!
When a solid bullet falls in the queue, it can often directly kill and injure many people. This is why the queues of both sides are relatively thin. If it is a purely cold weapon like the Ming army, in the future, more than ten rows of thick and dense square formations will fight.
With a large number of troops, it is possible for a single artillery shell to kill or injure dozens of people.
However, whenever soldiers were killed or wounded and were hit by artillery shells, soldiers from both sides would consciously fill the gap, keeping the front row queues tight.
And when the soldiers on both sides were within a hundred meters of each other, the soldiers on both sides could even see each other's array clearly!
After entering eighty meters, nearly a hundred French robot musketeers who were also lined up in a tight formation on the opposite side and protected by more than a hundred militiamen finally fired their first round of fire!
At the same time as the gunfire rang out, many of the soldiers of the third battalion of the 17th Infantry Regiment who were advancing with guns and spears fell down in response. But at this time, the officers riding horses and walking in the queue were all stunned.
Everyone was walking around and shouting: "Keep formation and keep moving forward!"
It didn't take long before they withstood another round of fire from the Franco's musketeers, and inevitably many more people fell!
Many of the soldiers of the third battalion have begun to tremble, but the rigorous training in the past has made them develop the instinct to obey orders and continue to move forward according to the orders of the officers!
At this moment, the officers strictly followed the battle plan. They did not fire a single shot or launch a quick charge. They continued to advance at a normal walking speed. Only dozens of archers in the back row fired back. However,
The command rate of ejection is extremely low, so the results are very limited!
Sixty meters!
Fifty meters!
Thirty meters!
By the time they arrived only thirty meters away from the Folangji people, many soldiers of the third battalion had already fallen on the way forward. However, at this moment, several officers on the front line raised their arms in unison.