Chapter 674: The Howitzer, the Great Killer of War
If we want to truly establish maritime superiority and allow the navy to assist the army in launching a landing offensive against the Ming Dynasty, we must first annihilate the navy of the Ming army, and it is their main force. However, this requirement is too high and is not realistic in a short time.
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Li Xuan estimated that if he wanted to truly control the sea power along the coast of Guangdong, he would have to work hard on the navy for more than five years. In five years, it was still unknown whether the Tang Dynasty would still exist.
Not to mention, there is another possibility, that is, within five years, the Tang army may have captured Fujian or even Zhejiang and other central coasts, and may even have reached the capital.
Therefore, regardless of whether the navy can win or not, it actually has little impact on the current situation of the entire Tang Dynasty!
The Tang navy was defeated, and the Ming army or Fo Langji had no way to land. If they did, they would die.
If the Tang Navy won the battle, it could only defend the Pearl River Estuary.
Therefore, although Li Xuan was also concerned about the strategy of the Tang Dynasty Navy, his actual concern was limited. Li Xuan was more concerned about the actions of the army and even the victory or defeat. This can be seen from the proportion of military expenditures. Now the navy
The annual military expenditure there is only more than one million taels at best, and this does not include the special funds for shipbuilding that Li Xuan took out from the internal treasury.
However, as for the Army, its annual military expenditure already exceeds tens of millions.
If the Navy wins a battle, the impact will be limited, and if the Navy loses a battle, the impact will be limited.
But if the army wins or loses a large-scale decisive battle, it will cause a series of chain reactions, which will directly affect the ownership of one or even several provinces, and even affect the Tang Dynasty.
of survival.
For example, on the Huguang side, if the First Army led by Hao Bainian was defeated, the Huguang Ming Army would be able to march straight in, and finally reach Guangdong to capture Zhaoqing, directly killing Li Xuan and other Tang emperors and ministers.
On the contrary, if Hao Bainian can annihilate the main force of the Huguang Ming Army in Huguang, he can also bring the entire southern Huguang under the rule of the Tang Dynasty. At that time, he can march northward to the hinterland of the Central Plains such as northern Huguang, and eastward to the south of the Yangtze River. I dare not say that he will completely ruin the Ming Dynasty.
, but it can also make the Ming Dynasty quite uncomfortable and lay the foundation for the subsequent overthrow of the Ming Dynasty.
As for this importance, the emperors and ministers of the Tang Dynasty knew it, and the Ming Dynasty also knew it!
Therefore, despite the extremely difficult situation, the Ming Dynasty still fully supported Zhang Yue in building firearms and training a new army, and even dispatched 20,000 border troops south to assist Zhang Yue in suppressing bandits.
As a result, both sides are heavily concentrated in southern Huguang and central Jiangxi!
The current Ming army cannot be defeated, and it is extremely difficult for the Tang Dynasty Wangshi to continue moving north.
In July, Hao Bainian planned a short-term surprise attack in an attempt to cut off the connection between Hengyang and Changsha. Unfortunately, the Ming army noticed that the Ming army in the direction of Hengyang and Changsha mobilized in large numbers and actually gathered together.
More than 100,000 troops attacked at the same time. In order to prevent the lone army from falling deeply into the encirclement, Hao Bainian finally chose to retreat.
The Jiangxi side wanted to be calmer. The Fifth Infantry Division did not dare to act rashly and continued to move north. The Ming army was also unable to move south. In the end, both sides could only stare at each other!
But this situation cannot continue. Li Xuan feels that it is necessary to change the current confrontation situation!
So after the end of July, taking advantage of the opportunity to rest and reorganize, Li Xuan began to significantly adjust the existing troop deployment. If Huguang could not fight, Li Xuan just did not intend to continue to attack Hengyang or Changsha, and was ready to change
The main direction of attack!
As early as June, he had already decided that this year's autumn and winter offensive would be placed in Jiangxi, leaving the 200,000 to 300,000 Ming troops in Huguang to squat and play!
To launch a large-scale strategic offensive with Jiangxi as the main attack direction, it is naturally impossible to rely on only one Fifth Infantry Division. Even if the current Fifth Infantry Division has been reorganized, the 15th Infantry Regiment to which it belongs has been reorganized.
The Spear Regiment was reorganized into the Musketeer Regiment, and the strength of the artillery battalion was also increased, but it was still not enough.
To this end, he established a new Second Army in the Jiangxi direction. The commander is Li Chunjing, the former commander of the Fourth Infantry Division. This army will have jurisdiction over the Fifth Infantry Division and other units.
Part of the main force was transferred from Huguang, but there were many Ming troops in Huguang, and the strength of the First Army could not be too bad, so he first made adjustments in Huguang and placed the Second Infantry Division under the First Army.
Order of battle.
However, the Fourth Mixed Regiment (originally temporarily designated as the Fourth Regiment) and the Fifth Mixed Regiment (formerly temporarily designated as the First Regiment) were taken out of the combat sequence of the First Army and assigned to the operations of the Second Army.
In addition, the First Mixed Regiment originally stationed in Chaozhou was also mobilized to go north to Jiangxi!
These three mixed groups are all new mixed groups that have completed the new organizational reform, and are even more powerful than the original mixed groups.
Take the Fourth Mixed Regiment as an example. Currently, the regiment has five musket battalions, but the original reserve battalion has completely disappeared. In addition to the five musket battalions, it also has a baggage battalion and an artillery battalion, with six guns.
Seven-pound cannons, twelve five-pound cannons, and six three-pound cannons, a total of twenty-four cannons.
In addition, there is also a full cavalry team under its jurisdiction, with a hundred cavalrymen!
A team of 100 grenadiers.
and other affiliated personnel of the regiment.
The total strength has reached a huge scale of 5,000 people, and these 5,000 people have independent combat capabilities and can be responsible for combat missions in one direction.
Three mixed regiments, this is 15,000 troops. Although the total strength is still not as good as that of an infantry division, its combat effectiveness actually exceeds those of infantry divisions that have not completed their reorganization.
In the first half of the year, the main reorganization work of the Tang Army was mainly focused on the five temporary regiments, expanding them into mixed regiments, and it was carried out according to the standard establishment!
As for the infantry divisions, they mainly expanded their artillery units and equipped them with plate armor. However, most of these infantry divisions still have reserve battalions.
Of course, among these units, the Fifth Infantry Division is an exception, because when Li Xuan decided to use Jiangxi as the main offensive direction of this autumn and winter strategy, he prioritized a large number of resources to strengthen the Fifth Infantry Division.
This means that the Fifth Infantry Division became the first division-level unit in the Tang Army to complete reorganization, and it was also the only division-level unit to complete reorganization.
After the reorganization was completed, the three subordinate infantry regiments were all musketeers. At the same time, the reserve battalions of these musketeers were all converted into infantry battalions. The number of infantry remained unchanged, but the number of musketeers increased to more than 3,000!
At the same time, due to the increase in artillery, baggage and other troops, the total strength of the 5th Infantry Division has also been expanded to 14,000, which is 2,000 more than other infantry divisions.
In the future Jiangxi strategy, the main force will be the 5th Infantry Division and the 1st Mixed Regiment, 4th Mixed Regiment, and 5th Mixed Regiment. At the same time, Li Xuan also strengthened the division with a heavy artillery battalion.
This heavy artillery battalion was also the first heavy artillery battalion in the Tang Dynasty. It had a small number of artillery pieces, only twelve. Compared with those field artillery battalions, which had eighteen or even enhanced twenty-four.
The number of artillery battalions is much smaller.
But if you look at what kind of artillery this artillery battalion is equipped with, then you will know why it was directly given the establishment of an artillery battalion, and it was also named heavy.
Because these twelve artillery pieces were the first batch of heavy siege artillery built by the Tang Dynasty!
Including three 48-pound (64-pound) howitzers and nine 24-pound (32-pound) howitzers!
The Tang Dynasty has always wanted to manufacture artillery with larger caliber and more power, but due to technical limitations, it can currently only produce nine-pound cannons, and even fourteen-pound cannons cannot yet be mass-produced.
But whether it is the army or the navy, the demand for large-caliber artillery is extremely urgent, especially the army. They urgently need large-caliber artillery to blast through the turtle shell of the Ming army: the city wall!
In actual combat, it was found that whether it is a seven-pound field gun or a nine-pound field gun, although the power of its projectiles is amazing in field battles, it is still too powerful for a city wall that is casually seven to eight meters or even more than ten meters thick.
Seems inadequate.
Li Xuan has always been very concerned about the development of armaments, so he instructed the Ministry of Industry to develop grenades and short-barreled heavy artillery.
Grenade, that is, a shell that can be launched, but the fuze problem and the launch problem are more difficult to solve, because in order for the grenade to explode after being launched, it must have a fuze, and with Datang's current technical capabilities, it can only use
The match-rope was detonated.
Before the shell is fired, the gunner will light the fuse and then fire it, but this brings about the problem of the shell rolling, so this kind of grenade cannot be used on long-barreled cannons.
Although it is said that the Ministry of Industry is developing a more advanced fuze to replace the matchlock fuze, it will not be possible for a while.
Because these current grenades can only be used on short-barreled artillery!
To this end, Zhaoqing Arsenal took the lead in developing a howitzer. The test sample gun was not heavy, but its caliber was relatively large and could fire nine kilograms of shells.
Because the barrel is short, in order to allow the projectile to obtain sufficient muzzle velocity to ensure the range, the barrel is made very, very thick, resulting in a short and thick howitzer.
In order to save costs, iron is even used instead of bronze because the price is extremely low.
Subsequently, the Zhaoqing Arsenal continued to increase the thickness of this howitzer, and finally produced heavy-duty howitzers weighing 24 kilograms or even 48 kilograms.
After the army learned about these howitzers, they were ecstatic. They immediately placed a large order. At the same time, because the autumn and winter offensive was imminent, they directly took away all the sample guns used for testing from the Zhaoqing Arsenal, and then
The key gunners and artillery officers were transferred from various artillery units. In just half a month, this heavy artillery battalion was established and then rushed to the Jiangxi front line.
The Army of the Tang Dynasty is going to use the Nanchang built by the Ming Army to be the same as Tietong to test the actual combat effectiveness of these heavy howitzers!