Chapter 987 The Son of Heaven is on the front line, cheers!
It is not surprising that the army and navy made opposite choices between iron cannons and bronze cannons during this period. The opposite was quite normal.
Because the two have completely different requirements for artillery!
On the Army side, after so many years of combat, the artillery has been used more often and in larger quantities, and it also has its own understanding. The Army's Artillery Director and other professional artillery generals believe that the Army's future artillery development should be divided into three
Type, the first type is field artillery, the second type is infantry support artillery, and the third type is siege artillery.
Field artillery is a long-barreled cannon that can accompany troops on maneuvers. In order to balance power and mobility, the artillery director believes that the caliber of field artillery should be greater than five pounds, but not more than nine pounds. The current five-pound artillery
The combination with the Nine-pound Artillery is quite suitable.
Infantry support artillery consists of various types of shotguns, currently mainly two-pound shotguns and three-pound shotguns. The artillery director believes that the performance of these two types of artillery is not very good and should continue to be developed.
Siege heavy artillery, including long-barreled cannons weighing more than 14 kilograms, and howitzers with larger calibers weighing more than 24 kilograms. The equipment is not large in quantity and is only used in specific siege battles. There is no requirement for mobility, but it must be
Powerful.
According to the development direction of these artillery of the Army, the Army believes that the performance of field artillery is the most important, hit accuracy, and ability to withstand rapid fire are very important, but only the barrel quality is average, and it is easy to explode when fired rapidly.
The iron-cast five-pound artillery with a barrel life of only more than 400 rounds is undoubtedly not in line with the needs of the army.
Every time there is a large-scale battle, the Army's logistics troops not only carry a large number of artillery shells, they also have to carry a considerable amount of spare artillery. No matter how you look at it, it is nonsense!
Therefore, it is not surprising that the army wanted to replace the cast iron five-pound cannon with a bronze five-pound cannon during the Battle of Hanyang.
But as for the navy, their demand for artillery is that the more powerful the better, the weight is not an issue, and the life of the barrel is not an issue. Anyway, in a decisive naval battle, it is impossible for a single artillery to shoot out more than 500 rounds or even more.
Even if it can fire a thousand-round cannon, there are not so many ammunition on the warship.
And another very important point is that the army's field artillery is light, relatively speaking, the demand for raw materials is relatively small, but as for the navy's artillery, the nine-pound artillery is only a medium-caliber artillery, and the fourteen-pound artillery is the main
Cannon, not to mention the battleship being built by the Army, the main gun is scheduled to be a thirty-two kilogram naval gun.
These are big things with long tubes, easily weighing several tons.
The cost difference between a few tons of cast iron and a few tons of copper is huge!
What's more, the navy's demand for these large-caliber artillery is quite large, not just a few or dozens, but hundreds or thousands.
Although the navy was the younger brother in the Tang military, they were equipped with many more artillery pieces than the army.
There are dozens of artillery pieces in a cruiser or frigate, and currently the navy has dozens of cruisers and frigates. If patrol ships and river warships are added, there are hundreds.
Therefore, the navy now has a very urgent need to use iron to cast large-caliber naval guns, so that it can effectively reduce the pressure on military expenditures.
As for the iron-cast artillery that is too heavy for the Army, has a poor barrel life, and has poor ability to withstand chamber pressure, this is not a problem at all for the Navy!
To withstand the difference in bore pressure, the gun barrel must be made thicker and the caliber larger. At most, it will weigh a few tons more!
As long as the cost is down, everything else is acceptable!
The Army and Navy's demand and development for artillery have now gone off the rails. In the future, it may be difficult to see the Army and Navy equipped with the same artillery.
Let’s not mention the artillery development of the Navy and Army, nor the Army’s happy troubles in the Battle of Hanyang because there were not enough artillery shells!
People in the logistics department and even the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises don't care what the people in the artillery think. They transport so many artillery shells not to please the army artillery general, but for their own future.
The Logistics Department is also part of the Privy Council. Those logistics generals know very well that in the Privy Council's strategic plan, the Southwest Campaign is the last large-scale battle in the near future.
After the Southwest Campaign is completed, although the Tang Army will still fight in various places, it is basically unlikely that such a large-scale battle will occur.
In other words, the Logistics Department does not need to worry too much about the Southwest Campaign, which has consumed too much ammunition and cannot take care of other aspects. Anyway, it is impossible for the arsenal to stop production. Artillery shells will be continuously produced every day. Now let's go and shoot.
, don’t worry too much.
Furthermore, everyone knows the importance of the Southwest Campaign, and the Logistics Department also hopes to fully play its role in the Southwest Campaign, so that the Holy Emperor can see that the victory of the Southwest Campaign is inseparable from the efforts of their Logistics Department, and even
It was because their logistics department had sufficient ammunition that they were able to win.
After the Southwest Campaign ends, the domestic unification campaign will come to an end. By then, it will be impossible for the troops to be released to the Nanshan Mountains and the soldiers to disarm and return to their fields, but a significant decline in military expenditures is certain.
If nothing else goes wrong, military spending will definitely drop significantly in the eighth year of Xuanping's reign. When military spending drops, the military will definitely have to tighten its belt.
Dismantling the main force? This is impossible. The main force of the Tang Army now only has a total of 14 infantry divisions and ten mixed regiments, with a total strength of less than 200,000.
Abolition is impossible!
But if we want to cut military spending, in addition to cutting war funds, there will probably be significant cuts in non-essential expenditures in other areas, such as logistics forces.
Nowadays, the logistics force in the Tang Dynasty Army is quite large. Although they are all requisitioned civilians, they must be officers of the Logistics Department to manage these civilians. Under the Logistics Department, they are responsible for logistics affairs all over the country.
The total number of troops exceeds 30,000, which is not a lot at all.
After the Southwest Campaign, some of them will definitely be abolished. What the Logistics Department is striving for now is to preserve the backbone of the Logistics Department as much as possible and not to abolish it too harshly.
Li Xuan naturally doesn't care too much about the thoughts of his generals. He only wants to see the results he wants to see: surround and annihilate the Governor's Central Army, and capture or kill Zhang Yue!
He was too lazy to care about anything else.
After the artillery troops fired countless shells towards Hanyang Fucheng, the infantry of the Tang Army finally launched the attack on the fourth day!
It was not a large-scale general attack, but a small-scale exploratory attack. The main purpose was to test the remaining strength of the Ming Army Supervisor Biao's Chinese Army in the city and whether the effect of the artillery bombardment had met expectations.
This exploratory attack was surprisingly effective. The 10th Mixed Regiment, which was responsible for the exploratory attack, captured a section of the city wall with just one assault!
If this was not just a test attack and the follow-up troops did not catch up at all, it is estimated that the 10th Mixed Regiment would have been able to directly tear through the defense line of the Ming Army Supervisor Biao Zhongjun.
Although they were forced to retreat in the end, the success of the 10th Mixed Regiment also gave the Privy Council the confidence to launch the final general attack!
They think the time has come!
So Shu, the night after the 10th mixed regiment launched the test, Lieutenant General Lei Wan formally requested to launch a general attack on Hanyang!
After Li Xuan took a brief look at the combat plan submitted by the War Department, he gave it a big approval mark.
This announced that the general offensive of the Battle of Hanyang had officially begun!
At dawn the next day, the artillery units of the King's Division of the Tang Dynasty launched a rapid artillery bombardment before the sun had risen and the sky was still white!
The artillery units did not worry about the lifespan of the body or whether the barrel would explode, and they just fired rapidly!
When the artillery troops fired rapidly at the main assault directions such as the city head, the assault battalions that had been prepared jumped out of the traffic trenches and rushed towards their respective assault directions!
And the troops in the rear quickly followed up!
In fact, the Tang Army's general attack was not sudden, even though it was at dawn and the sky was just getting bright!
But how could a general attack involving tens of thousands of people be concealed from the Supervisor Biao Chinese Army in the city?
You have tens of thousands of people lined up outside the city ready to charge. Even a fool knows that you are preparing for a general attack!
But even if they knew about it, the Ming army in the city was well prepared. However, the remaining 20,000 Ming troops in the city faced a general attack by the Tang Army, which exceeded the first round of charge and amounted to more than 40,000 people.
It is impossible to have much power to fight back!
You have to know that in this general offensive, the Tang Army invested as many as eight assault camps at once!
Almost every weak point in the defense of the Chinese army has a surprise attack!
At dawn, when the general offensive was launched, Li Xuan led his ministers across the pontoon bridge and visited the front line in person!
Not for command, but also to boost morale!
When he wore his own dragon-patterned military uniform, an emperor's sword on his waist, black leather gloves, and long leather boots, he appeared on a brown Central Asian horse with a shoulder height of 1.55 meters.
Time on the front line!
The soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division responsible for the main attack on the west side were excited!
Of course, what made them excited was not only that Li Xuan personally came to the front line, but also because the glorious and great Holy Emperor, who was greater than the sun, personally announced to the soldiers: "Anyone who participates in this battle will receive double pay this month.
Those who have made meritorious deeds will receive double credit, and those who have outstanding military exploits will be knighted!"
Who is Li Xuan? He is the Emperor of Tang Dynasty!
If you say it, it is the imperial edict!
Ordinary soldiers fought hard to kill the enemy for double pay and double merit, while ordinary officers wanted to rush in and fight in person for double military merit.
And all the middle and senior officers were drooling over their titles!
Even senior generals like Li Chunjing and others have red eyes!
Because being knighted does not just mean that people without titles can be knighted. For senior generals like them who have titles, it is also an important opportunity to upgrade their titles to another level!
In the previous battles such as the Battle of Huangzhou, Li Xuan had no great heroes. No one would think that Li Xuan had forgotten. Everyone knew that Li Xuan was waiting!
But now it seems that after the Battle of Hanyang, it is time for the Holy Emperor to bestow honors on the heroes!
Therefore, today's battle is a rare opportunity even for someone like Li Chunjing who has reached the rank of Marquis!
Whether we can successfully obtain the duke at the end of the Unification War, or even make it hereditary, depends on today!