Chapter 678 The surprise that Li Chunjing is looking forward to
As early as when the Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty marched south to Guangdong and Guangxi, the Ming troops in various places had already discovered that they could not confront the puppet Tang rebels head-on in the wild, even if they had double or even triple the strength advantage, it was not safe.
To fight against the puppet Tang rebels, the best way is to rely on fortified cities for passive defense!
Of course, such a passive defense method was not effective at first, because Liuzhou, Wuzhou, and Guangzhou were all captured by the puppet Tang rebels.
This impressed them deeply, and they believed that in order to resist the puppet Tang rebels, in addition to thick and high city walls, they also had to have a large number of guns and train an army with the same firearms as the puppet Tang rebels.
As a result, the top management of the Ming Dynasty, represented by Zhang Yue, devoted themselves to making guns and training the new army. In the past two years, the total number of muskets produced by the Ming Dynasty was actually no more than that of the Tang Dynasty.
Dynasty is much less.
These guns and artillery were equipped in the hands of the Ming army in various places. Most of the guns and artillery made by the Ming Dynasty in the north were equipped with the Beijing camp and the border army and the Ming army in nearby areas. However, most of the guns and artillery made in the south were equipped centrally.
He recruited the supervisors under Zhang Yue and recruited soldiers from various places.
Let’s not talk about the Ming army in the north. I will only talk about the Ming army in the south. It is mainly composed of the 40,000 governors under Zhang Yue, followed by Yu Dayou’s tens of thousands of musketeers. There are also some small-scale troops with only a few hundred people and two to three thousand people.
A small-scale recruitment of troops on a human scale.
These are armies equipped with a large number of firearms. The proportion of matchlock equipment has basically reached about 20%. This proportion is actually copying the old organization of the Tang Dynasty King Division.
The musketry army under Yu Dayou had a higher proportion of matchlock equipment, reaching about one-third, which was almost the same as that of the reorganized Fifth Infantry Division.
Not only are the proportions of muskets and equipment similar, but in fact, the organization of these firearms units of the Ming army is basically copied from the Tang Dynasty king's division!
Build guns and train a new army.
How to make guns? Directly imitate the guns of the puppet Tang bandit army. Even the Ming army didn't even bother to change the name. They directly used the name matchlock gun instead of using the name of bird gun, bird gun, etc., and there was no artillery.
We don't use the title of "General" or "Invincible General", but we use "Five-pound Artillery" and "Seven-pound Artillery".
This is true for firearms, and so is the detailed organization of the army.
It has been several years since the rise of the Tang Dynasty. During this process, the detailed organization of the Royal Division of the Tang Dynasty could not be concealed for too long. The Ming army knew the detailed organization of the infantry battalions of the Royal Division of the Tang Dynasty for a long time.
Of course, they are just imitating, not completely plagiarizing, and the names are also different.
Taking Zhang Yue's supervision as an example, they still use the titles of small flag, general flag, hundred households, and thousand households, but the specific organization is directly imitated by the puppet Tang thief army, with sixteen people per flag and a small flag commander.
, the six banners are one hundred households, and the commander of the hundred households is appointed, and the general flag is his deputy.
Five hundred households are divided into one thousand households, one thousand households are set up, and one thousand households are sub-thousand households.
The above-mentioned small banners, hundred households, and thousand household establishments are basically equivalent to the platoons, teams, and battalions in the Tang Dynasty King's Division.
However, in terms of higher-level organization, the Ming army also has its own rules, that is, there are guards for more than a thousand households, and each guard does not have a fixed number of people. It can be as few as two or three thousand households, and as many as
Five or even seven or eight thousand households.
At the same time, the artillery of each guard is directly under its own independent jurisdiction.
A number of guards were organized into armies. The entire 40,000-person garrison had a total of five armies, including front, rear, left, right and center.
The forces under each army's jurisdiction are different, not only the main infantry, but also the artillery, cavalry and other forces.
The specific strength of each army or even each guard depends on the personal abilities and power of these guard commanders and army commanders.
Why?
Soldiers are the generals!
These soldiers are Zhang Yue's soldiers. To a certain extent, they are Zhang Yue's private soldiers. Although they fight for the Ming Dynasty, these 40,000 governors are not loyal to Emperor Zhengde, but to Zhang Yue!
Zhang Yue is the one who is loyal to Emperor Zhengde!
Similarly, the military commanders are loyal to Zhang Yue, but the guard commanders under them are not loyal to Zhang Yue, but to themselves.
Specifically, the same applies to thousands of households and hundreds of households!
Such a layer-by-layer loyalty system constitutes the extremely special military group of the "Dubiao"!
The personnel relationship in this military group is somewhat similar to that of the Hunan Army in later generations. They are all maintained through relationships between teachers and students, relatives, friends, and fellow villagers. However, what is different from the Hunan Army in later generations is that although these commanders in the Dubiao are not related to
Zhang and Yue are closely related to each other, but without exception, they were all court officials before, and many of them were civil servants.
That's right, of the officers under Zhang Yue's supervision, only the middle and lower-ranking ones were traditional military generals, but the middle- and high-ranking generals were actually all civilian officials, probably not from Jinshi background, but from Juren or scholar status.
This is an army led by pure civilians, which is very different from Yu Dayou's musketeer army, which is also a new army of the Ming Dynasty!
A large number of guns, newly recruited soldiers, and sufficient food and wages gave Zhang Yue's governors a combat effectiveness that far exceeded that of local guardsmen!
However, this powerful new army was actually controlled by Zhang Yue alone. Even the imperial court had no way to directly command this army without Zhang Yue.
This also caused worries among the bigwigs of the Ming Dynasty. They were not worried that Zhang Yue would rebel. Emperor Zhengde and many cabinet bigwigs sent Zhang Yue out and did not replace him even when Zhang Yue suffered successive defeats. It was enough.
Prove their trust in Zhang Yue.
However, Zhang Yue is Zhang Yue, and Supervisor is Supervisor!
What if one day the generals under Zhang Yue give Zhang Yue a yellow robe?
This is why the guns and artillery built by the Ming Dynasty in the northern region were not sent to the south, but were only equipped with guards in Shandong, Henan, and North Zhili, as well as the Beijing camp and frontier troops.
They have to save a hand. They need to strengthen the defense force in the north to prevent the situation in the south from getting completely out of control. The risk of the situation in the south is not only the strength of the puppet Tang rebels, but also the rebellion of Zhang Yue or other generals under Zhang Yue.
Also based on this defensive mentality, the 20,000 border troops who went south to suppress the rebellion were not controlled by Zhang Yue, but were controlled by the Jinling Military Department. They went to Jiangxi to participate in the war, and they were only assisting in defense. Zhang Yue did not have the power to mobilize
These border troops.
There are actually many armies that are also not controlled by Zhang Yue. For example, the army under Yu Dayou's command has been very popular in the past two years and single-handedly blocked the puppet Tang rebels from going north to Fujian.
Although Yu Dayou is now the commander of the Fujian capital and is nominally under the control of Zhang Yue, the governor of the six provinces, in the past two years, Yu Dayou has gradually become famous with the nearly 10,000 firearms troops under his command. He not only defended Fujian, but also gave people on Nan'ao Island
The defenders received great support. In addition, because the number of the Tang army stationed here was always relatively small, and Fujian was not the main attack direction of the Tang army, Yu Dayou had a good life in Fujian.
Recently, the Ming Dynasty, because of its merits in training troops to fight against thieves, added the governor Qian Shi to him on the basis of the Fujian General Army. At the same time, it also gave him the power to act on his own convenience, and gave the musketry army under his command the title of "Thief-breaking Army"
.
So although Yu Dayou is still nominally under Zhang Yue's control, in fact, because of the four words "acting cheaply" granted by the imperial court, Zhang Yue can't control him. Basically, he can fight how he likes.
Although the organization and armament of the Bandit-breaking Army under Yu Dayou and the Supervisor Biao under Zhang Yue are similar, the personnel system is very different. Although the soldiers in the Bandit-breaking Army are recruited, the generals are all traditional military generals. There is no
The so-called civil servants.
To a certain extent, it can be generally considered that Zhang Yue's supervising army is an army of literati, and Yu Dayou's army of breaking thieves is an army of generals, but they all have a common characteristic: they are all private armies!
And these two armies, plus the 20,000 border troops, are also the main enemies of the Tang Dynasty King's Division heading north!
The Ming army used the above-mentioned troops as the backbone, supplemented by local recruits, and guard soldiers as miscellaneous, and jointly built a defense line in the three provinces of Huguang, Jiangxi, and Fujian to contain the puppet Tang rebels!
Li Chunjing, who went north to Ji'an, Jiangxi Province, knew very well that the enemies he faced were no longer the local guards soldiers from two years ago!
The biggest trouble in attacking Ji'an this time is the governor and border troops in the city. As long as they are killed, the remaining tens of thousands of guardsmen and young men will be vulnerable!
But they have a strong city to rely on, and it will not be easy to kill them!
Li Chunjing is not in a hurry about this, he still has time!
So he took his time and made preparations for the siege, especially building artillery positions!
Whether this can break the city depends on the strength of the artillery!
At the same time, he is still waiting for news from Jishui!
And his wait did not last long. Just four days later, news came from Jishui that two mixed regiments, led by Brigadier General Gu Shizhong, had successfully breached Jishui.
The Ming army in Jishui City was no more than 10,000 people, and there was no main force. Most of them were guard soldiers. There were only more than 1,000 soldiers organized by Ji'an local officials who could barely fight. However, under the fierce attack of tens of thousands of Tang Dynasty troops,
Under this, the more than a thousand recruited soldiers soon suffered heavy casualties, and then the remaining guardsmen dispersed in a rush.
Later, Brigadier General Gu Shizhong left two battalions of troops to garrison in Jishui, and led the remaining more than 8,000 troops back south to Luling City, Ji'an. The Ming army in Luling City was completely surrounded!
And this means that the general attack on Luling City is about to begin!
When the troops were prepared, especially the artillery, Li Chunjing did not hold any mobilization meeting. He simply ordered the siege to begin!
Li Chunjing issued a formal order, which meant that the Second Army's general offensive would be launched immediately. He was looking forward to surprising himself with the powerful siege artillery!