The Holy Emperor personally visited the front line and made a personal promise of promotion and fortune. This was undoubtedly a great encouragement to the 100,000 soldiers who participated in the Hanyang Battle!
When spiritual incentives and material incentives are combined, the lethality is huge!
It’s not that there are no people in this world who can resist firmly, but they are definitely a minority!
Especially behind these promises, the Army of the Tang Dynasty also occupies an almost absolute advantage. The Ming Army Superintendent Biao who defended the city had only 30,000 people in total. After several days of shelling and tentative operations, the Ming Army
At least several thousand people were reduced, and most of these reduced personnel were very important artillerymen!
The artillery of these days is very technical. The difference between experienced gunners and inexperienced gunners using the same artillery is huge. The artillerymen of the Ming Army Supervisor suffered many casualties, and they would be unable to fight against the Tang Army in the future.
of shelling.
Under such circumstances, the Tang Army's artillery had an absolute advantage. This absolute advantage in artillery could quickly be transformed into an advantage for the infantry.
When the order for the general attack is issued, the horns of the various troops charging are blown!
The tens of thousands of Tang Dynasty soldiers who attacked in the first wave rushed towards the head of Hanyang Fucheng like a flood that broke a dike!
Among them, many of the assault battalion soldiers were the vanguard in the flood. They all wore various types of plate armor, jumped out of the traffic trench, and then rushed to the city head dozens of meters away!
Naturally, the Superintendent's Chinese Army in the city would not sit still and wait for death. They watched helplessly as the Tang Army rushed forward. They were also resisting desperately!
Braving the artillery fire of the Tang Army, they bombarded the city with all kinds of remaining artillery, such as bowl-mouth cannons, Franco machine guns, field artillery, and of course the muskets of the musketeers!
It has to be said that the firepower of the Dubiao Chinese Army is stronger than that of other Ming armies, and it is much stronger. But unfortunately, they are facing the Tang Army, and it is the Datang Army that has completed the change of uniforms.
Main force.
This time, all units of the Tang Army participating in the Southwest Campaign have completed the replacement of their rifles. The matchlocks have long been abandoned and replaced by flintlock muskets.
At the turn of last spring and summer, the Tang Army in the Northern Expedition had only one infantry division and one Guards equipped with flintlocks. However, by last winter, most of the main forces participating in the Southwest Campaign had successfully replaced
Flintlock muskets were installed, and by the end of the first month of the seventh year of Xuanping, all the troops participating in the Southwest Campaign had already completed the change of equipment!
The flintlock musket has become the most important infantry weapon of the Tang Army!
And this also means that the Tang Army's infantry firepower, even with the same strength, far exceeds that of the supervisors who are still equipped with matchlock guns.
Not to mention, in this battle, the strength of the Tang Army was almost four times that of the Superintendent's Central Army in the city.
When many infantrymen in the front row launched a charge, the fusiliers in the back row who provided fire support fired at the city head row after row. Their purpose was not to kill many Ming troops, but to completely suppress the city.
The Ming army counterattacked above.
Tens of thousands of muskets fired suppressively, and countless projectiles hit the battlements, splashing countless sand and stones. Those Ming soldiers who dared to lean out to fight back would be easily beaten as long as they dared to come out.
A hornet's nest.
The rumbling sound of artillery, the clear and intensive sound of gunfire, the sound of exploding grenades, and the shouts of soldiers on both sides filled the entire battlefield at this moment!
Even in Jiangxia County, which is across the south bank of the Yangtze River, people can clearly hear the rumbling sound of artillery. Through the rumbling sound of artillery, they can feel the cruel war thousands of meters away.
A charge of tens of thousands of people, and a charge in a dense formation. If this situation had been in the era when machine guns were invented and equipped on a large scale, then you would have seen swarms of soldiers being cut like wheat by heavy machine guns.
However, there are no machine guns now!
Although the Ming army had shotguns, Folang machine guns and field artillery, their power was not small. If one shot hit, it could also cause considerable casualties to the Tang Army. However, these artillery pieces,
But there is a huge flaw, that is, the sustained ability of firepower is too poor.
If the artillery fires and wants to fire again, it needs to be reloaded, and this reloading takes time.
The reloading time is calculated in minutes!
And even if the Assault Battalion Sword and Shield Soldiers in heavy armor rushed to the city wall from thirty meters away, the whole process would never take a minute!
In other words, the Ming army on top of the city actually only had one, or at most two, chances to fire and intercept!
So when the Ming army on top of the city opened fire and killed many charging Tang soldiers, the officers of the Tang Army commanding the battle outside the city all showed excitement and waved their hands.
Command the sword and shout loudly: "Charge!"
Even ordinary soldiers who have experienced several battles know that it takes a long time to reload after the guns are fired. Otherwise, you would think that the Tang Army likes to play with bayonet volleys in front of them in frontal decisive battles.
Flow.
It’s not that the rapid fire of the musket is too slow, and the hit rate is too low at a long distance, so we simply get close to within thirty meters before firing to ensure a relatively high hit rate, and then charge directly with the bayonet after firing the salvo!
This is why the Tang Army only required its musketeers to carry fifty rounds of ammunition when performing standard field combat missions!
In fact, so many bullets are not used at all. Often after a large-scale battle, the musketeers only fire a few shots!
For example, during the Northern Expedition, many soldiers in the army did not even use up the fifty rounds of ammunition!
However, this situation is different during critical battles, because during critical battles, there are often large-scale confrontations, and during confrontations, the consumption of bullets is relatively large.
More bullets are consumed, which means that the Dubiao Chinese Army on the opposite side has endured a greater firepower density1
The absolute superiority in troops and firepower made this general offensive decisive from the very beginning!
Li Xuan didn't even have the chance to personally adjust his troops for combat, and the battle was already over.
In the first wave of general attack, the Tang Army completely entered Hanyang City!
By noon, they crushed the last organized resistance of the Ming army in the city, and then completely controlled every part of the city!
After the troops entering the city took control of key places in the city, they began to clear out the remaining soldiers in the city, and then began to capture some of the senior generals and officials who had escaped.
When the soldiers entering the city captured Du Biao's Yamen, they learned from the captured Du Biao soldiers and several officers that Zhang Yue had left with more than a hundred soldiers a quarter of an hour ago, but they didn't know where he went.
Although Hanyang City is not considered big, it cannot be considered small either.
Hanyang City, which is also in the middle of a war, is now full of chaos. The remnant soldiers of the Supervisor and many residents of the city are mixed together. It is not that easy to find Zhang Yue.
But the Army of the Tang Dynasty was naturally unwilling to give in. If it was an ordinary senior general of the Ming Army, he would just run away. They would be too lazy to take care of him, but Zhang Yue was different. He was the commander-in-chief of the Supervisor and the Superintendent of the Six Provinces.
, and at the same time, he was also the chief minister of the cabinet and grand master in King Jing's puppet regime. In short, King Jing added all the titles that could be added to Zhang Yue.
How could such an important character just run away if he was told to? He must be found and captured!
The order from above is: if you are alive, you must see the person, and if you die, you must see the corpse!
In order to capture Zhang Yue and other senior generals and important officials who had escaped, the Tang Army, which had just entered the city, directly blocked the entire city. All city gates and walls were blocked, and all traffic arteries in the city were also blocked.
, no one is allowed to move around at will.
This is the strictest martial law!
There are still at least tens of thousands of defeated soldiers in the entire city, and there are tens of thousands of ordinary residents. These people are now hiding, and no one dares to openly take to the streets.
However, due to the strict blockade, they did not find Zhang Yue for the whole afternoon. Many other senior generals and officials in the supervision system who escaped had been arrested, but Zhang Yue did not know where he had gone.
.
Is it another person who never saw his body when he was alive and never saw his body after he died?
This is why Major General Ying Songbai, commander of the 12th Infantry Division, who is in charge of the search and arrest mission in the city, is quite annoyed!
Although there were many troops entering the city on this day, in fact many of the troops entering the city had their own fixed tasks, and they were mainly to defend the city walls and control important buildings and traffic arteries in the city.
The task of hunting down the broken soldiers in the city was handed over to the Fifth Army!
The Fifth Army once again assigned the task of capturing Zhang Yue and other senior generals to the 12th Infantry Division. In order to capture Zhang Yue, Ying Songbai mobilized an entire infantry regiment to surround the Governor's Headquarters.
building and several other possible hiding places.
But Zhang Yue was still not found!
Is Zhang Yue dead?
impossible!
They captured the guard commander of the Chinese Army, Supervisory Biao, at night. After he was arrested, in order to survive, he took the initiative to reveal that he was with Zhang Yue half an hour ago, because he was with Zhang Yue at noon.
Yue escaped from Dubiao Commander's Yamen together with them. Several other senior officials and generals escaped with them, and were escorted by more than a hundred soldiers.
At night, because they were short of food, the commander of the Chinese rear guard led a dozen people out to look for food. Unexpectedly, they were discovered by patrolling soldiers and eventually arrested.
Based on his clues, they found Zhang Yue's nearest destination, which was an ordinary private house. Unfortunately, when they got there, it was already empty.
However, the many messy traces in the house prove that many people did hide here not long ago!
A battalion commander who led the team looked at the messy traces on the ground and the ashes still emitting warmth, and then said: "Please help the friendly forces to completely seal off the area with a radius of one thousand meters, no, two thousand meters!"
"They can't run very far. As long as they are still in the city, we can find Zhang Yue!"
In fact, Zhang Yue did not run far. At this time, he was in a small alley hundreds of meters away. Soon after, he was escorted by a group of soldiers into a simple courtyard deep in the alley.