Once Li Chunjing led the main force of the Second Army towards Wuchang in the northwest direction, there would be only a mere Sixth Infantry Division left in Nanchang and Fengcheng and other places behind.
Although the 6th Infantry Division has been reorganized recently, it has not been completely completed. It only reorganized a spear regiment into a musketry regiment, and the artillery unit has only expanded by one artillery battalion.
Although the 6th Infantry Division, which has not yet completed its reorganization, has more than 13,000 men, it has less than 3,000 muskets and only more than 20 field guns. Compared with the 5th Infantry Division, which has been completely reorganized,
Compared with the troops with more than 4,000 muskets and 54 field guns, there is still a gap in combat effectiveness.
The only thing that is better is that most of the heavy armored infantry in the 6th Infantry Division have also been equipped with plate armor!
Plate armor does not pose much technical difficulty to the Datang Engineering Department, which has initially realized hydraulic power and mechanized production. Even the biggest difficulty in manufacturing is that the production of steel is relatively difficult, but the processing stage is relatively easy.
.
Therefore, since the plate armor assembly line was built, plate armor can be produced in large quantities almost every day.
Of course, although this kind of mass-produced plate armor is said to have defensive capabilities, it has absolutely nothing to do with its aesthetics. Even some soldiers who are relatively short or very tall cannot find plate armor suitable for them.
Because during the production of Datang's plate armor, in order to simplify the process, improve production efficiency, and reduce costs, only four fixed sizes of plate armor were produced. If these four sizes cannot be worn, then there is no solution.
Plate armor is easy to produce, and it has replaced the original various armors in large quantities. In particular, iron armor has become the standard configuration of heavy armored infantry.
In order to strengthen the defense of Nanchang and Fengcheng, Li Chunjing took away the main troops, but left Cai Erhu with many weapons that could be used for defense. For example, he left Cai Erhu with a field artillery battalion and a large number of weapons.
Grenades, mines.
In addition, a large number of artillery captured from the Ming army continued to remain on top of Nanchang City!
This part of the artillery captured from the Ming army was actually quite large in number, and although the quality of those field artillery was somewhat worse than that produced by the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty, they were still barely usable.
In the Battle of Luling in Ji'an and the Battle of Nanchang, the Second Army not only captured tens of thousands of Ming troops, but also captured a large number of Ming army's ordnance. Not to mention those cold weapons, the Tang Army basically only
Choose the best quality part to use.
In addition, some of the swords with acceptable quality are selected to be equipped for public servants, such as patrol police and tax inspection team members, and some are attached to the settlement regiment and civilian husbands.
As for the remaining ones that are of really poor quality, they are basically returned to the furnace. The scrap copper and scrap iron these days are actually quite valuable.
As for thermal weapons, the handling of muskets is much more troublesome. Although it means that the dynasty's muskets are imitations of the muskets of the Tang Dynasty kings, their muskets are still in the manual stage, and every place and even every craftsman makes them.
The muskets are only similar in appearance, but in fact they are quite different. What troubles the Tang Army the most is that their calibers are not uniform.
Many Ming Army muskets were seized, with calibers ranging from ten to fifteen millimeters!
To be honest, until now, the logistics officials of the Tang Dynasty have not understood how the Ming Dynasty's muskets could produce so many calibers!
The musket ammunition used by the Datang Army is all paper-cased fixed-load ammunition. The propellant and bullets have been bundled together in advance. Although only some of these bullets are directly produced by arsenals, many ammunition in frontline troops are
It is made locally, but if you want to make it locally, you need to have a mold for melting lead bullets!
The bullets have different calibers, so the molds are naturally useless.
But it is even more impossible to throw away these muskets directly. The Tang Army can just throw away the cold weapons captured from the Ming Army, but it still cares about the guns.
In the end, there was no choice but to test the caliber of the captured muskets. If the caliber was 14 mm, they would be directly supplemented for use by ordinary troops.
If the caliber does not need to be changed, there is actually no need to change other aspects, because the muskets, front sights, rulers and bayonets made in the Ming Dynasty are all indispensable. Otherwise, how can they be called imitations?
But if the caliber of muskets is not 14 mm, then they will be classified, and then if there are too many matches of a certain caliber, they will be concentrated and equipped to a certain unit. At present, the equipment of muskets of this special caliber is limited to baggage and artillery.
Transport troops and other auxiliary troops, while combat infantry are still not equipped.
At the same time, molds for making lead bullets were specifically built for these special muskets, and the amount of propellant was tested to produce paper shell ammunition that met the Tang Army's standards.
Among the captured muskets, 13mm muskets were the largest, with more than 500 in total. The Second Army had already equipped two supply camps with this batch of 13mm Ming-made muskets.
There are still slightly fewer muskets of other calibers, and they are currently stocked in warehouses in Nanchang and Ganzhou. The Sixth Infantry Division is now under too much pressure, so Li Chunjing also put the remaining five or six hundred of them in a mess of calibers.
Take it out and give it to the 6th Infantry Division for temporary use.
Inconvenience is better than nothing!
The handling of muskets is troublesome, while the handling of artillery is quite simple. The Ming army's matchlocks are not very well made, but their artillery is not bad, although it is said that there are some quality problems of one kind or another.
However, they copied the artillery of the Tang Dynasty Army, and its caliber still maintained the original caliber standard. This allowed the Datang Army to capture these field artillery of the Ming Army, and basically did not even need to adapt, and could use them directly.
Even the five-pound field cannons manufactured by the Ming Army are all made of bronze. Although the manufacturing process is not mature yet, the barrel life is better than the iron-cast five-pound field cannons of the Tang Dynasty Army Industry Department.
The more it is, the less likely it will explode.
The artillerymen on the front line actually like to use five pounds of bronze made by the Ming army.
Unfortunately, not many of these standard field artillery were captured, and not many were produced by the Ming Dynasty. The most seized were the messy bowl-mouth cannons, general cannons, and Franco machine guns.
The artillery units of the Datang Army basically looked down upon these artillery units, and most of these captured artillery were moved to the top of the city by the Ming Army and used as fixed defensive firepower.
Li Chunjing also gave all these captured artillery pieces to the Sixth Infantry Division for use!
All of this is to strengthen the defensive combat capabilities of the 6th Infantry Division!
When Li Chunjing left Nanchang and headed north with his army and an equal number of civilians, a total of 70,000 people, Cai Erhu summoned the Sixth Infantry Division and began to arrange defenses.
Of course, the detailed defense deployment was not done by Cai Erhu, but by the staff team of the Sixth Infantry Division.
Cai Erhu also knows that his cultural level is not high, and when it comes to various tactics and theories, he is not as good as those staff officers with professional backgrounds, so most of the time, he respects the staff team under him very much.
The defensive tactics formulated by a large number of staff members can be said to be simple or complex.
First of all, the main force of the 6th Infantry Division was stationed in Nanchang, and a regiment was also left to station in Xiafengcheng!
If the Fuzhou Ming army takes the opportunity to attack Fengcheng, then the Fengcheng defenders will defend to the death, and then the main force of the 6th Infantry Division will immediately attack, rush to Fengcheng, and annihilate the incoming Ming army under Fengcheng City.
If the Ming troops from the Jiujiang direction also dispatched, there were fewer of them, and the Sixth Infantry Division didn't even bother to pay attention to them.
But if the main force of the Ming army from the direction of Jiujiang and Nankang is attacking, then it is not the 6th Infantry Division's own business. Li Chunjing will lead the main force of the Second Army directly to intercept it. At this time, there is no need to attack Wuchang.
, it is the best way to directly take the opportunity to eliminate the Ming army's heavy military groups in the direction of Jiujiang and Nankang in the wilderness!
At that time, even the Sixth Infantry Division will send troops north to cooperate with the main force of the Second Army!
If Jiujiang can be annihilated and Zhang Yue supervises the main force in the direction of Nankang, even if Fengcheng is captured and Nanchang is surrounded, it will be worthwhile.
Li Chunjing led his army away, and Cai Erhu led the Sixth Infantry Division to stay in the rear. This also announced that the Tang Dynasty had launched the second round of large-scale operations in this year's autumn and winter offensive: the attack on Wuchang!
As soon as Li Chunjing moved, the Ming army's reconnaissance cavalry in the nearby area immediately detected the situation and quickly sent it to the Ming army generals in the direction of Jiujiang.
It was not Zhang Yue who was in charge of Jiujiang at this time. Zhang Yue had returned to Wuchang half a month ago and was stationed at the base camp of Wuchang to prevent any accidents during the process of reducing the number of soldiers in the guard station. At the same time, he also wanted to urge his subordinates to speed up the recruitment of soldiers.
and making guns.
Now, the person in charge of Jiujiang is Du Danqing, the commander-in-chief of the Supervisory Biao Zuo Army. Of course, the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Supervisory Biao Zuo Army is not Du Danqing's official position. It is not even a military general's official position or dispatch recognized by the court. It is just Zhang Yue's personal appointment.
His official position was actually the Yushi of Youqiandu, a senior official of the fourth rank, and this fourth rank was much higher than that of local officials.
The left and right officials are all censors, which is usually the standard configuration for a provincial governor!
In other words, Du Danqing's political status is actually equivalent to that of a provincial governor!
Zhang Yue also took great pains to resolve the positions of officials in the special civilian-led force of the Supervisory New Army. He could not directly convert these civilian officials under him into the official positions of military attachés.
So, Commander-in-Chief, guerrillas and the like cannot be used, otherwise, a group of civilian generals under his command will hate him to death!
If you give me the title of military commander, who is an upright official and came from the imperial examination, isn't this treating me as a rude warrior?