Chapter 934 Does Datang Western Company do charity?
Even though the Tang Dynasty still has many enemies, including Zhang Yue and King Jing in the southwest, the pseudo-King Minghui in the northeast, the Duoyan Three Guards, the Chahar Tribe of the Tatars, and most of the Tatar tribes headed by the Anda Khan Tumote Tribe,
Even the Northeastern Jurchens and North Korea on the Korean Peninsula had no dealings with the Tang Dynasty.
But among so many enemies, the one that Li Xuan can pay attention to in the long run is An Dahan.
But even Anda Khan can only be a long-term opponent. In the short term, Anda Khan cannot pose much threat to the Tang Dynasty, but Zhang Yue's supervision is different.
Hundreds of thousands of people in the southwest region were like a sharp fish bone stuck in the throat of the Tang Dynasty. Unless Zhang Yue's supervision was completely defeated, it would be impossible to talk about unifying China.
In order to regain the southwest, Li Xuan mobilized more than 150,000 troops and prepared for half a year, in order to pacify the southwest in a battle and not give Zhang Yue any chance to breathe!
The Second Army is the vanguard of the Southwest Campaign. The attack launched by them will be in an indomitable manner, crushing the resistance of the governor in Qizhou and Huizhou Prefecture, paving the way for the subsequent First Army to cross the river and march north to Hanyang.
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After the Second Army reached Susong, Li Xuan's chariot still had not arrived in Jiujiang. Li Xuan was in no hurry to march westward this time. He did not even go forward in a navy ship, but took a carriage and traveled overland.
From Taipingfu to Chizhou, and then slowly enter Jiujiang!
When the royal chariot of the Holy Emperor arrived in Jiujiang, the Second Army's general attack on Susong was officially launched!
After many days of preparations, the artillery deployment of the Second Army has basically been completed. The tunnels and trenches used in the attack have also been dug. They are just waiting for the order to launch the final general attack!
Standing outside Susong City, Wang Chaohong looked at the small but hedgehog-like Susong City in front of him. There was a hint of ridicule in the corner of Wang Chaohong's mouth!
These supervisors have been fighting with their Tang Dynasty kings for so many years, but they have never wanted to make progress. Back then in Hunan and Jiangxi, they just played the game of defending the city, and they still play like this now.
Don't they know that the current war model has changed, and simply defending the city is no longer able to defend against the attack of the artillery troops!
In the age of cold weapons, a high and thick city wall was enough to make the attacking troops suffer!
But now, you only need to dig a tunnel and bury enough gunpowder to raise the city wall to the sky!
The shells of the heavy howitzers are enough to cause a large number of casualties to any defender trying to defend on the city wall!
And the heavy cannon with a large caliber and long barrel is enough to directly knock down the city wall!
There are thousands of square city walls in existence. Although their role in this era is still there, they have been greatly weakened. The Privy Council of the Tang Dynasty has already followed the example of the Portuguese in Malacca.
The fortress on the side of the city began to build a new city defense system, the "bastion". The purpose was to make the artillery and muskets play a greater role in defensive operations.
This brand-new fortress defense system has a very obvious feature, that is, it uses a diamond-shaped fortress with many protrusions, instead of the square, straight walls like the previous city walls. This kind of protrusions
The purpose is to enable the artillery and muskets in each protrusion to fire horizontally to achieve mutual support.
At the same time, a large number of trenches and even tunnels were built internally and covered with thick layers of soil.
Trenches and tunnels are used to defend against howitzers. Although the Datang Army has not seen short-barreled howitzers on other opponents, since the Datang Army can equip them, other countries want to equip them if necessary.
It’s not a problem, so we must take precautions now.
Current howitzers can basically only explode on the surface of fortifications. If there are trenches and tunnels, the defensive effect is still good.
The soil layer is more interesting. This thing is used to prevent artillery shells, or more accurately, solid bullets from ricocheting!
Because the soft soil layer has good energy absorption properties, if a solid cannonball hits it, the kinetic energy will be quickly absorbed.
But if it hits a hard rock, these solid cannonballs will ricochet, and these solid cannonballs will ricochet and have huge lethality!
The Army of the Tang Dynasty was very interested in this new type of bastion. After wanting to perfect the design, it began to build this kind of bastion on the northern border to defend against the attack of the northern Tatars.
But what’s more interesting is that the first to adopt the new diamond-shaped fortress defense system was not the Datang Army, but the Datang Western Company!
Their trading posts in Luzon and Banten are already building this diamond-shaped fortress.
Because the Datang Western Company has a small number of troops, currently the entire Datang Western Company, excluding the gunners, sailors, etc. serving on the ships, has only a thousand ground troops capable of fighting on the ground.
Moreover, the characteristics of overseas colonies also determine that it is difficult for Datang Western Company to maintain a large number of troops in all colonies. It is good to maintain a few hundred troops in one place. Only very important areas will deploy more than a thousand troops.
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On the Luzon and Wantan sides, Datang Western Company did not prepare many troops. There were 300 troops on the Luzon side, and more troops on the Wandan side, but only 500 troops.
In distant overseas colonies, only 500 people could resist the counterattacks of local indigenous people, and even resist the attacks of colonial troops from other countries. Ordinary defense methods were not feasible, so they were the first to use this diamond-shaped fortress.
Even though building these diamond-shaped fortresses will consume a lot of energy and wealth, these investments are still more cost-effective than maintaining a large number of troops.
After all, in the final analysis, Datang Western Company is still a commercial company. Even if it has military and trade monopoly rights, it is still a commercial company in essence. Making profits is the meaning of its existence, so controlling costs has become very important.
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Although a small fortress costs a lot of money, the Tang Dynasty Western Company is not stupid enough to hire workers from all over the country and transport construction materials to build the fortress. The materials can be obtained locally, and the workers who build the city can definitely
When local indigenous people are requisitioned, they don't have to pay wages.
What, the indigenous people are unwilling, so the indigenous people forcefully demand wages?
Ma Dan, do you think Datang Western Company is doing charity?
Or do you think that the armed force of several thousand people of Datang Western Company is just a decoration?
I still pay my salary, I missed you too much!
So after calculation, if Datang Western Company builds bastions in overseas colonies, the price it needs to pay is only a little time, and a small amount of cannonballs and bullets!
Others can be obtained from local materials without even paying half a penny!
However, the Datang Western Company can do this overseas, but the Datang Army certainly cannot do this at home. The Datang Army can requisition domestic civilians to build fortresses, but does it not provide wages or rations?
Keep a lot of people impeached!
Therefore, to some extent, the Datang Western Company is actually more free and convenient in its operations than the domestic army and navy, without so many restrictions.
Bastions have begun to emerge in Europe, and are now introduced in East Asia by the Tang Dynasty, and are ready to flourish. However, the Susong City in front of us, or other cities in the southwest, is not these bastions.
If a fight breaks out, Wang Chaohong can definitely use the old methods: shelling, demolition, and heavy armored infantry assault!
Under normal circumstances, with such three blows, the city would be destroyed!
In the past, the Tang army conquered many cities of the Ming army, regardless of whether it was Changsha, Yangzhou or Anqing. It was basically the same routine.
The supervisors on the opposite side also know this routine, but knowing this routine doesn't mean they have a way to deal with it!
In the absence of a bastion, it is very simple for a defensive city to deal with this routine. It only needs the defender's artillery to suppress the attacker's artillery, and then it will basically hold more than half of the city.
But then again, if the defenders have so many artillery pieces, why are they defending? It would be easier to just fight in the wild for a decisive battle!
Although there are a lot of Ming army artillery in the city, the Second Army has even more artillery!
After the attack started, the rumble of artillery was not heard. One after another, artillery shells flew from outside the city to the top of the city. Occasionally, there would be a huge cloud of white smoke and explosions from the top of the city, which were fired by heavy howitzers.
The grenade exploded.
Some of the solid bullets hit the battlements, and the flying gravel harvested the performance of countless people. Some of them hit the city walls directly!
Especially those fourteen-pound ship-borne cannons. Each of the huge solid shells landed accurately on the city wall, and they were concentrated in one place.
The huge kinetic energy of the cannonballs put the small wall of Susong City under tremendous pressure!
Even though Supervisor has strengthened the thickness of the city wall, the foundation is still too weak. The thickness of the city wall is only three to four meters, which cannot withstand the continuous bombardment of the 14-pound artillery.
Not to mention, the Second Army has also prepared two blasting points!
On the first day of the general attack, it was the artillery of both sides. The Second Army fired a total of 8,000 rounds of artillery shells on the first day, directly destroying several sections of the city wall. However, the Ming army defending the city also responded quickly.
The first thing to do is to start repairs and deploy additional troops for defense.
In addition, the Ming army still had a lot of artillery at that time. If they launched an attack rashly, although there was a high hope of getting in, the losses would probably not be small, so Wang Chaohong chose to wait and let the artillery fire for two more days.
have a look.
Anyway, in this battle, the Privy Council promised the Second Army that there would be absolutely enough ammunition, especially artillery shells!
Wang Chaohong hasn't had the opportunity to waste ammunition like this for a long time. If he has the opportunity this time, he has to have a good time. If he can directly destroy Susong with artillery shells, he doesn't mind using the 30,000 rounds of artillery shells he brought.