Eight hundred and sixtieth chapters non-stop war machine
Sitting on the dragon throne, Li Xuan was flipping through the plan in his hand as usual, while listening to Lei Wan explain his strategic concept.
Li Xuan had learned about Lei Wan's main direction many times before. After all, without Li Xuan's approval, Lei Wan would not have been able to make subsequent detailed plans.
As for the main strategic concept, in fact, a unified concept was formed last year, which was to go north to Shandong and Henan to look for opportunities to annihilate Emperor Zhengde's main force.
But this is just a concept. How to implement it specifically to achieve the goal requires the efforts of Lei Wan and many generals.
The combat plan explained by Lei Wan this time is actually a specific implementation plan.
Li Xuan listened very carefully, and through Lei Wan's explanation, Li Xuan also felt that he made the right substitution this time. Lei Wan's ability was obviously much higher than Zeng Ziwen's.
Not only can he talk about military affairs on paper like Zeng Ziwen, but he has also served as the chief of staff of the army many times. He is also very good at actual combat command. When formulating a combat plan, he will take into account the different characteristics of each unit and the strength of the Ming army on the opposite side.
Different arrangements will be made depending on specific circumstances.
Of course, such a huge combat plan cannot be attributed to Lei Wan alone. In this case, you will have obliterated the efforts of many staff members in the combat department.
After explaining the basic plan, the other generals were not polite at all and kept raising their own questions and even objections.
This situation basically occurs in every strategic meeting. Li Xuan has long been used to it. It is beneficial to have more arguments. A perfect plan is perfected in arguments.
In fact, he also knew that the plan proposed by the Operations Department was finally perfected after countless intense discussions within the Operations Department.
Now participating in the discussion are several other units of the Privy Council and the main generals of the Second Army and the Third Army.
Although most of the main generals, such as Hao Bainian, Li Chunjing and others, were on the front line and could not leave to return to participate in the meeting, most of them sent their respective chiefs of staff back to Jinling to participate in the meeting.
In this imperial army strategy meeting, many generals discussed many issues such as logistics and specific operations, while several secretaries of the Hanlin Academy who were responsible for recording the meeting were all very nervous.
After the meeting lasted for more than three hours, Li Xuan interrupted many debates and then adjourned the meeting to continue in the afternoon!
On this day, Li Xuan directly put aside other matters and held an army meeting in the conference room. After the evening, although there were still many disputes, Li Xuan believed that after discussion, it would be perfected.
The plan is already enough.
The decision was made immediately, and the battle plan for the spring offensive was formally determined and approved!
After the battle plan was finalized, the war machine of the Tang Dynasty was once again running at high speed!
There is no problem at all in saying that the Tang Dynasty was a war machine, because to put it bluntly, the entire Tang Dynasty today serves the purpose of war, and many departments in the cabinet actually serve as auxiliaries.
role, contributing to the war on the home front.
Moreover, the war preparations of the Tang Dynasty actually never stopped. This can be seen from the fact that the major arsenals almost never stopped producing various types of ordnance.
When a war broke out on the front line, the arsenal was producing ordnance. When the front line was resting, the arsenal was still producing ordnance!
In the Tang Dynasty, when the frontline troops stopped large-scale offensives, they were just preparing for the next large-scale offensive.
Large-scale ships carrying hundreds of tons, fully loaded with various ordnance supplies, depart from the Guangzhou pier, then go north along the coast, arriving at the material transfer centers at Wusong, Jiangyin, Yangzhou and other ports, and then distribute them. Most of them will be loaded.
Small and medium-sized inland river transport ships continue to transport north through the canal, and some continue to move west along the Yangtze River, and then transport to Jinling, Anqing, Jiujiang and other cities along the Yangtze River.
A large number of materials are being transported, and soldiers are being replenished at the same time. All the units of the Third Army and the Second Army have been replenished with soldiers. At the same time, several mixed regiments have been established and deployed in several important areas in Jiangbei.
Free up the main forces of the Second Army and the Third Army to move north.
Among the many additions, the most important one is the flintlock gun.
After the five-year-old flintlock musket was finalized and officially mass-produced last year, almost all the flintlock muskets produced in the past few months were taken away by the Guards. After the Guards were all re-equipped, it was the Army's turn.
and navy.
After these few months of production, the Army has successfully completed the replacement of the Fifth Infantry Division!
The Fifth Infantry Division has always been the core force of the Tang Army. Its reputation is comparable to that of the First Infantry Division. However, in the past two years, the actual combat effectiveness of the unit has actually surpassed the First Infantry Division and has become the first infantry division.
A veritable ace unit in the Tang Army.
When the Army switched to flintlock muskets, it naturally gave priority to the Fifth Infantry Division.
During the equipment change process, because the spearmen had to be replaced one by one with musketeers, which also made a large number of existing spearmen unemployed, it was naturally impossible to directly retire the spearmen.
For this reason, the Tang Army adopted the method of directly training spearmen into musketeers!
At the end of last year, the Fifth Infantry Division was identified as the first batch of troops to be equipped with flintlock rifles. In addition, the Fifth Infantry Division stationed in Xuzhou at that time had no large-scale wars. Therefore, the Fifth Infantry Division began to organize long-term troops.
Spearmen are trained intensively to operate muskets, and a one-by-one approach is adopted, allowing each musketeer to lead a spearman for training.
Later, after the first batch of about 2,000 flintlock muskets were equipped to the unit in January, the Fifth Infantry Division used these flintlock muskets for rotational training. Several soldiers shared one, mainly to train new loading techniques and new types of rifles.
Queue tactics.
As the number of flintlock muskets increased, by March, after the Fifth Infantry Division completed a complete change of equipment, the original spearmen had basically become qualified musketeers.
Other units are basically re-equipped according to this model. However, due to limited production, it is impossible for the Army to have a second main unit equipped with flintlock guns on the battlefield in a short period of time. The Fifth Infantry Division,
Will be the only army unit equipped with flintlock muskets in the Spring Offensive.
Why not say it was the only army of the Tang Dynasty, but only the army, because the temporary brigade of the Guards participating in the spring offensive was also equipped with flintlock muskets.
Therefore, there will be two fusiliers actually participating in the spring offensive, with a total of about 13,000 fusiliers!
The other troops are still traditional troops equipped with matchlocks and spears!
In the city of Xuzhou, Chen Keqiao looked at the letter in his hand, and then began to convene a meeting with his officers. The letter he just read was a formal military order issued by the headquarters of the Third Army, with the seal of the Third Army on it.
, Hao Bainian’s personal seal, and it still uses the latest password encoding.
In order to prevent the messengers carrying military orders and other confidential information from being intercepted and causing secrets to be leaked, the Tang Army began to use ciphers to write various secrets last year.
The full text of this kind of letter is all meaningless and written in regular Arabic numerals. It requires a special code book to be translated. This kind of code book is generally only carried by generals above the infantry regiment. The code book is provided by the Military Intelligence Department.
A dedicated team of people separately writes them randomly, then prints and distributes them.
It also stipulates that under normal circumstances, the codebook should be changed every one year. If an emergency occurs, such as theft, loss, etc., the person responsible will be held accountable and the backup codebook will be used urgently.
The military order sent by Hao Bainian said that his Fifth Infantry Division should be ready for battle. At that time, the forward force of the entire army would be the first to launch an attack along the canal. The specific time of the attack would not be announced until Hao Bainian arrived in Xuzhou.
.
Yes, the specific attack time is not specified in the imperial battle plan. The series of detailed plans formulated by Army Lieutenant Colonel Lei Wan are actually detailed, but they are only responsible for the general direction, and the specific operations,
In fact, we still need to rely on the frontline troops.
The attack time of the Third Army is decided by the Third Army. Of course, it cannot be postponed without reason. Generally speaking, it is determined to be between late March and early April.
Moreover, the overall spring offensive will take the Third Army's launch of the general offensive as the time node, and then the Second Army and the First Army's units will subsequently launch corresponding actions.
Hao Bainian arrived in Xuzhou on March 20. After arriving in Xuzhou, he did not rush to order an attack. Instead, he inspected the situation of the Fifth Infantry Division first, especially watching the new tactical drills of the Fifth Infantry Division.
In this spring offensive, the Third Army is undoubtedly the main force, and within the Third Army, the Fifth Infantry Division is the main force. Therefore, whether the Fifth Infantry Division is in good condition will directly affect the Third Army.
success or failure.
It is reasonable for Hao Bainian to see the situation of the Fifth Infantry Division with his own eyes before making a decision.
After watching a regiment-level exercise conducted by the Fifth Infantry Division, Hao Bainian lamented that wars these days are changing faster and faster.
In the early years, although muskets were also important, cold weapon troops were more important. At that time, heavily armored spearmen and sword and shield soldiers were the core forces that determined the outcome of the battlefield.
Later, it became equal importance to musketeers and spearmen, and sword and shield men were reduced to playing a certain role in siege operations.
However, now, the spearmen have been directly abandoned and become all musketeers!
I just don’t know how the 5th Infantry Division, which abandoned the spearmen and was equipped with tens of thousands of flintlock muskets, performed in actual combat!