The Prosperous Era of Longwan

"General, General Wang has led his troops into the city."

Outside Ruibo City, Li Chengliang was riding on a tall horse, and a messenger in front of him was reporting the battle situation in front.

"Come here, notify Qi Jimei immediately and ask him to lead his troops over. The target is Ava City. Get there as soon as possible at all costs."

At this time, Li Chengliang's face did not have the smile that he should have because of breaking the city, but said seriously.

He had already seen Zhang Tou, and also knew that his most valued eldest son Li Rusong actually took the second son Li Rubai to attack Ava City, intending to block the Burmese King Mang Yinglong there.

How many troops did he have around him?

At most, there were less than 40,000 people, and Mang Yinglong had at least 60,000 to 70,000 people around him, including a group of war elephants.

With such an army, Li Chengliang was very worried that his two sons could not stop the attack of the Burmese army.

After all, the other side was running for their lives, and the battle had reached this point, and they really had to fight to the death.

Therefore, Li Chengliang, while supervising the army, accelerated the pursuit again. When facing the obstruction of Ruibo City, he did not delay at all and directly led his troops to attack the city.

While preparing to attack the city, Li Chengliang sent Qi Jimei, who was beside him, to integrate the three front troops and command him, and let him lead the army to Ava City for support.

These three troops, two lieutenant generals and one guerrilla, have 7,000 to 8,000 soldiers.

After them, Li Chengliang will also lead the Ming army that came behind to speed up and arrive at the battlefield as soon as possible.

At this time, he didn't know that the Burmese king, whom he had been thinking about, had been captured alive by his son and knocked unconscious and brought into Ava City.

The Ming army brigade outside the city began to move. Li Chengliang's order, now these Ming army generals did not dare to delay time, and they all executed it immediately.

They already knew that the Ava City in front had been occupied by the eldest son Li and blocked the escape route of the Burmese king.

Chase faster, maybe you can catch the Burmese king under Ava City.

During this period of pursuit, the Burmese army fled in a panic, and they were exhausted.

Only by catching Mang Yinglong as soon as possible can they end this pursuit, and they can rest for a few days.

There were constant shouts and screams in the city. Qi Jimei ordered the gunners to open the way in front and break through directly, to break through Ruibo City and kill out from the south gate.

It’s not that they can’t go around the city, but the surrounding terrain is limited. Infantry and cavalry can easily pass, but carriages can’t.

Now the Ming army is extremely dependent on baggage in war. A large number of artillery, shells, and gunpowder need to be transported by carriages, instead of the era of giving soldiers some dry food and setting off.

It should be said that with the popularity of firearms, the original war model has changed imperceptibly.

The army’s dependence on logistics has been greatly strengthened, even to the point that destroying logistics is equivalent to limiting the firepower of an army, making them completely unable to display it.

In the famous turning point battles in World War II, whether it was the Battle of Stalingrad or the Battle of Moscow, the German army finally lost in logistics.

The logistics were not well prepared, and there was no time to provide cold-resistant items to the front line, so the attack had to be stopped, and finally the opponent counterattacked, and the offensive war became a siege war.

Although the firearms of the current Ming Dynasty are not as sharp as those of Western countries, the equipment ratio is close to three to one, which has long exceeded the level of four to one or even five to one of the European army at the same time.

Yes, although the European army was the first to equip firearms on a large scale, large-scale equipment actually only increased the proportion of firearms by 20%.

It's just that their commanders realized the power of firearms, so the country was willing to invest funds in research and development in this area, which was proactive.

With the research results, it will soon be equipped to the troops for use.

However, the shortcomings of small and poor European countries were also fully exposed at this time. They lacked resources and the industrial age had not begun, so their productivity was also extremely low.

Although the productivity of the Ming Dynasty was not much stronger than that of European countries, it was strong in national strength and vast land and resources, which was absolutely considered at this time.

With resources and population advantages, it is natural to truly realize large-scale production and equip troops.

Moreover, the military professionalization of the Ming Dynasty was no later than that of Europe, and was even more thorough, making the army hereditary.

Although the household registration system has its shortcomings, the attributes of military households from generation to generation also allow the children of these military households to receive some military skills training when they are still young, and they can quickly get started after entering the army.

At least, they are all very clear about the discipline of the army.

It can be said that if other things are not considered, the Ming Dynasty still completely crushes European countries in this era.

In the Ming Dynasty, the research and development of firearms is more of a personal preference. Scholars who like firearms conduct research in this area by themselves and then hand it over to the government.

Of course, whether it can be accepted by the court and organized for production in the end depends on the influence of this person in the court.

Many times, such research and development only stays at this stage and ultimately cannot really enter the army.

Many weapon atlases that people in later generations have seen in ancient books, especially various strange firearms, are actually mostly produced in one or two batches, and then they are no longer produced and directly abandoned.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that most of these things are flashy and impractical. In fact, there are only two types of firearms in this era that can be continuously produced, that is, bird guns and cannons, and the others can only be eliminated.

As the main department responsible for weapons research and development, they actually have no deep understanding of firearms and have not organized any research work at all.

Before, Wei Guangde asked them to make the general cannon, but it was a mess in the end and no results were achieved. It was Yu Dayou who got the cannon making technology from the trench mirror, and they improved it.

It must be said that the ancient Chinese seemed to have a high talent for improvement. At that time, the performance of the products copied from the mountain was better than the original ones.

Li Chengliang watched the teams of soldiers entering the city, followed by carriages, dragging their own supplies. He seemed to have realized the importance of carriages.

Calling the clerk, Li Chengliang said: "You immediately draft a document to the Ministry of War, saying that our army is now extremely dependent on logistics, and the court needs to prepare a carriage with a larger and more flexible loading capacity, and the last four-wheeled one."

"Four-wheeled carriage?"

The clerk was stunned. He seemed to have never heard of the existence of a four-wheeled carriage.

"Just write it down, someone in the capital should know."

Li Chengliang waved his hand impatiently and asked him to go down and draft the official document immediately.

Four-wheeled carriages were rare in ancient China. It was not that no one had thought of them, but that the terrain of China made it seem impossible to use them.

Sixty percent of Europe is flat, especially in Western Europe, which is almost flat and very suitable for four-wheeled carriages.

So in the 13th century, Europeans found the steering problem of four-wheeled carriages, and four-wheeled carriages began to become popular in Europe.

In fact, before the 12th century, there were only two-wheeled carriages in Europe.

The way Europeans solved the steering of four-wheeled carriages was actually very creative. Simply put, their four-wheeled carriages were actually two two-wheeled carriages connected together, so that the front set of wheels became steering wheels, allowing the carriages to turn freely and adapt to different roads.

There were also four-wheeled carriages in China, but not many, and most of them were pulled by oxen and turned by brute force.

It was so troublesome that the scope of use was naturally narrow, and it became uncommon over time.

China has a complex terrain and poor transportation conditions in ancient times. The so-called roads are nothing more than winding, uneven loess roads. It is difficult for two-wheeled carriages to pass, and it is even more difficult for four-wheeled carriages to pass, which is very impractical.

Perhaps only the straight roads of the Qin Dynasty can meet the needs of four-wheeled carriages, but unfortunately the straight roads were basically abandoned in the Han Dynasty.

Except for the North China and Northeast China regions, which have more plains, other regions in China have complex terrain, including hills, mountains, plateaus, deserts, Gobi, and even swamps and wetlands. These are not even accessible to two-wheeled carriages, so there will naturally be no four-wheeled carriages.

The difference between a four-wheeled carriage and a two-wheeled carriage is mainly in terms of load capacity and comfort.

The two-wheeled carriage has a simple structure, usually consisting of two wheels and a shaft, and is suitable for driving on flat or relatively flat roads.

Two-wheeled carriages are relatively flexible when turning, suitable for short-distance transportation and light cargo, but the load capacity is relatively small. Usually, a healthy adult horse pulls a common two-wheeled carriage in rural areas on a flat road, and its load capacity can reach 1,000 kilograms.

The structure of a four-wheeled carriage is complex, including a bogie and four wheels.

Although the carriage is larger and has a larger load capacity, it is longer and more complicated to operate, and is suitable for driving on relatively flat roads.

The operation of a four-wheeled carriage on complex terrain is more difficult, and it requires more livestock to pull, which is also one of the reasons for limiting the use of four-wheeled carriages.

However, the design of the four-wheeled carriage allows the carriage length to be more than twice that of a two-wheeled carriage, with more cargo capacity and smoother driving.

During Napoleon's expedition to Russia, the baggage troops mainly used ordinary four-wheeled carriages and Comtois four-wheeled light carriages. The ordinary four-wheeled carriage has a load capacity of about 30 quintals, or 3 tons, while the Comtois four-wheeled light carriage has a load capacity of more than 1.2 tons.

In China, the largest two-wheeled carriage has a load capacity of about 1.8 tons, which requires 9 horses to pull. There are also 7-horse carriages that can carry 1.5 tons of goods, which is the limit of the two-wheeled carriage.

Because of the road conditions, each carriage in Li Chengliang's hand can only pull about one ton of things, which should actually be seven or eight stones. When encountering a slightly steeper slope, it is necessary to increase the number of horses or use soldiers to push the cart.

In short, he has already felt that the current Ming Dynasty carriages seem to have limited the attack speed of the Ming army.

Since the beginning of this pursuit, Luo Rufang and Mu Changzuo have mobilized all the mules and horses they can mobilize, but the logistics are still not guaranteed.

This made Li Chengliang start to think about solutions, and one of them was the four-wheeled carriage that he knew about in Haojing when chatting with Wei Guangde.

Those people in the Ming Dynasty were not really concerned about the four-wheeled carriages that appeared in Haojing. They were just amazed at the size of the carriages and the comfort of riding, and did not consider military needs.

Even Yu Dayou, who had not personally led troops to fight and felt the difficulties of logistics and baggage transportation, had never thought of it.

Perhaps Qi Jiguang would have other ideas after seeing it, but although he had also suppressed the Japanese in Guangdong, he was mostly in Chaozhou and other places, and had never been to Haojing, so he had never seen it.

The reason why Qi Jiguang might be interested in the four-wheeled carriage was naturally because of the chariot camp that Qi Jiguang vigorously developed.

Why is it a side-carriage carriage? Isn't it just to reduce weight? In fact, most of Qi Jiguang's chariot camps are two-wheeled vehicles, and there are some four-wheeled vehicles in the baggage camp, but steering is still a problem, that is, it relies on horsepower and manpower to force steering.

Such chariots naturally have many restrictions on their routes of action.

Qi Jiguang knew this and struggled to find a solution, so if he saw Haojing's four-wheeled carriage, he would definitely be very interested in introducing it to the Ming Dynasty.

Wei Guangde naturally didn't know that the Ming army at this time was already troubled by logistics and transportation. He just talked to Li Chengliang about local affairs and told Li Chengliang as new things.

In his eyes, they are all carriages anyway, there doesn't seem to be much difference between two-wheeled and four-wheeled.

Li Chengliang believed that after this official document was delivered to the Ministry of War, Wei Guangde would definitely see it and think of the four-wheeled carriage on the other side of the trench mirror.

Although he could not catch up in Burma, the Ming army used four-wheeled carriages to transport baggage, and then there would be less restrictions on fighting.

As for the discomfort caused by the terrain, that is not his problem, it is an issue that the generals in charge of logistics need to consider.

Choose the right route.

By the time Li Chengliang walked into Ripple City, it was already half a day later.

Even if you stand at the south gate of Ripple City at this time, you can't see the exhaust of Qi Jimei's army.

Qi Jimei really didn't dare to delay things. Li Chengliang had already let him go last time because of his elder brother's appearance, so this time he led his troops and horses to march south quickly, hoping to reach Ava City as soon as possible.

However, twenty miles out of Rippo City, suddenly more than ten cavalry scouts in front reported that a large number of Burmese troops were coming here.

Hearing that the Burmese army was retaliating here, Qi Jimei was startled. He thought that they should be fighting the Burmese army outside Ava City. At this time, his team was stretched for a long time and he had to quickly gather three people to form an army. The formation is no longer possible.

"Quick, form a formation to stop them immediately."

Qi Jimei did not hesitate, and did not dare to issue an order to retreat and gather troops. He directly ordered the front troops to start gathering and forming formations on the spot, preparing for a head-on confrontation with the Burmese army.

Learning from previous lessons, Qi Jimei prepared more than 40 Fran cannons in the front army, but they did not bring much ammunition, but they could also fire three or four rounds. If these ammunition were used for fighting, it would be enough.

When more than 2,000 people from the front of the Ming army completed their formation, the Burmese army appeared in front of them at the end of the road.

Qi Jimei is not a newcomer to the battlefield now. He has also participated in suppressing bandits in Guizhou and fought against the Burmese army in Yunnan. The Burmese army he saw rushing over to fight looked like a lost dog.

"Fire the cannon, fire quickly, and the musketeer is ready."

For the first time, Qi Jimei calmed down and ordered loudly.

"Bang bang bang"

Immediately, intensive artillery fire sounded, and countless projectiles flew towards the Burmese army rushing over from a distance. A burst of blood mist appeared in the ranks of the Burmese army, and broken limbs and broken arms fell everywhere.

The Ming gunner quickly unloaded the sub-cartridge faster and then fired again.

When six consecutive cartridges were fired, the "attack" of the Burmese army on the opposite side was also repulsed, and it was not the gunman's turn to fire.

"Tell them to surrender."

Qi Jimei said to the people escorted by his own soldiers.

These people are the Burmese army who chose to surrender early. Among them, those who understand Chinese culture remain in the former army and are responsible for speaking out to the Burmese army.