Valley Emperor

The artillery used to attack Guangzhou this time has the highest number of artillery shells fired by the King of the Tang Dynasty.

In the fiercest battle yesterday and at night, each of those 9-jin heavy artillery fired hundreds of shells, and the rumble of cannons rang from yesterday morning until dawn today.

The gunshots never stop!

If there is no such powerful artillery support, the battle of the King of the Tang Dynasty's attack on Guangzhou City will never be so smooth.

You must know that the Ming army in Guangzhou City also has a good artillery force. If there is no suppression by its own artillery, the attacking troops will definitely be severely killed by the artillery of the Ming army.

However, even if a large number of artillery pieces were used to successfully suppress the artillery of the Ming army, the continuous offensive operations, especially the storming of the King of the Tang Dynasty in the following days, still cost a lot of casualties.

Of course, our losses are not small, but the results are also huge!

In addition to capturing Guangzhou City, a city with an important strategic position, it also killed no less than 3,000 Ming troops, captured nearly 10,000 people, and seized a large number of various materials, including food and various cold weapons.

And more importantly, they also seized a large number of artillery pieces of the Ming army. Although most of these artillery pieces were small-caliber artillery pieces similar to bowl-mouth cannons, they did not have the value of use for the king of the Tang Dynasty. The artillery used, such as some medium-sized artillery such as the Great General Artillery and the Flang Machine Cannon, although the quality and power are a bit inferior, they can barely be used.

In addition, there are 12-pounder guns, 6-pounder guns, and 3.5-pounder guns purchased by the Ming army from foreigners.

These foreign artillery pieces are all good things, and their quality and power are considered to be the top in the Far East. Even the Master of the Tang Dynasty himself, they are equipped with a lot of artillery purchased from foreigners.

After this batch of foreign artillery was captured, together with the original foreign artillery of the Datang Wangshi, even an entire foreign artillery battalion could be equipped, which could effectively supplement and improve the artillery power of the Datang Wangshi.

And Li Xuan did exactly that. He combined the two captured 12-pounder artillery pieces and some of his own 12-pounder artillery pieces to form a team of 12-pounder (nine catties) artillery pieces.

Those six-pound (five-pound) guns were organized into two teams.

Three and a half pounds (three catties) of artillery were also organized into two teams.

The artillery of these four teams of five jin and three jin was independently compiled into the sixth artillery battalion, and this artillery battalion was prepared to be matched with the third garrison brigade.

As for the nine-jin heavy artillery team, it is directly under the direct jurisdiction of the Privy Council, because these cannons weighing more than two thousand catties are not suitable for field battles, because their mobility is too poor.

The best attribution is to move them to the city head or other fortresses. Of course, if they encounter a fortified battle, they can also be moved to the front line.

Therefore, it is not suitable to be directly assigned to the major field armies.

The preliminary plan is that these nine-jin artillery pieces are still deployed in the Guangzhou area, as an important force in the defense of Guangzhou, to defend against the naval attack of the Ming army.

After all, Guangzhou is on the edge of the Pearl River. At present, the Pearl River and the lower reaches of the Xijiang River are still under the control of the Ming Army Navy. Before the Datang Navy did not have enough strength to expel the Ming Army Navy, the Tang Dynasty had to rely on The coastal defense forces came to confront the Ming army navy.

Therefore, after the King of the Tang Dynasty captured Guangzhou City, the first thing to do was to strengthen the coastal defense force and prepare to build a river defense fort on the sandy surface on the southwest side of Guangzhou City.

The fort is directly opposite to the Baietan of the Pearl River. As long as the number of artillery pieces of the fort is large enough to guard the Pearl River, it can protect the city of Guangzhou.

And these nine catties of artillery will be placed here.

At the same time, there will also be many general artillery and Folang machine guns captured from the Ming army. These artillery do not meet the needs of the regular artillery battalion of the Datang King Division because of their quality and power, but they are delegated to the infantry regiment to act as infantry artillery. It is also too heavy and too large, so the treatment of this batch of artillery by the Master of the Tang Dynasty is basically used for the fire resistance of the city.

The artillery captured from the Ming army will be deployed in the city of Guangzhou and the Shamian Fort.

In order to protect the safety of the fort, the King Division of the Tang Dynasty will also deploy thousands of troops on the sand surface, but it will not set up an independent fortress like the Antelope Canyon fort, but will still be under the jurisdiction of the Guangzhou City Defense Force.

Because the water network of the Pearl River Delta is dense, and the Pearl River Basin is not like the Yangtze River, the Yellow River and other large rivers, it is a complete river with only a single outlet to the sea.

The Pearl River, in fact, it is more appropriate to call it the Pearl River system. There are Xijiang, Dongjiang, and Beijiang. Then these three rivers are connected with the dense water network of the Pearl River Delta and form numerous sea outlets.

Therefore, it is almost impossible to defend the entire Pearl River system by relying on a single coastal defense battery, because the ships of these years are not giant steel ships. The small warships range from dozens of tons to hundreds of tons. The draft is very shallow, and the many estuaries of the Pearl River system are accessible.

So now, Li Xuan has no plans to build a fort in Humen, because the famous Humen fort in later generations is not useful these days. The river outside Humen fort is several kilometers wide, and the effective range of artillery in this year is only a few hundred meters. , If it weren't for the forty-eight-pound or sixty-four-pound artillery, it would be difficult to completely block it.

To build a fort in Humen, it is better to build a fort directly on the sand surface, and then build a small-scale fort at several other estuaries in the Xijiang River Basin. These estuaries are relatively small and can block the river surface without heavy artillery.

However, no matter how good the fort is, it can only be passively defended. To completely solve the maritime threats facing Guangzhou and even the Pearl River Delta, the best and even the only way is to train a powerful navy to directly resist and even attack the sea. Destroy the enemy.

But the Datang Navy is unbearable, and for many years as Li Xuan predicted, it will be unbearable. Without a large number of warships and naval guns, the Navy is just empty talk. The current Datang Navy is not to mention the Ming Army. The navy is fighting, and even some medium-sized pirate gangs can't fight it!

In this case, the coastal defense battery is still necessary.

The navy is weak, and the coast faces great maritime threats. This is why Li Xuan did not choose to establish the capital in Guangzhou, but in Zhaoqing.

In the capital city of Guangzhou, he had to worry that the enemy would suddenly appear from the sea one day and then bombard the city of Guangzhou.

After conquering Guangzhou, Li Xuan did not stay in Guangzhou for too long, but after a few days, he led the guards to prepare to return to Zhaoqing. This time, he had already achieved a complete success in his personal expedition to Guangzhou. Although there will be many more in the future. wars, but not all of them need to be directed by him.

However, before returning to Zhaoqing, he had to reorganize the existing troops in Guangzhou, or in other words the entire Guangdong region, to better deal with the next war.

First of all, the 7th garrison brigade was separated from the establishment of the first army. The garrison brigade was still stationed in the western coastal areas of Guangdong and prepared for the subsequent attack on Qiongzhou.

The third garrison brigade will stay in the Pearl River Delta region. Its defense area includes Guangzhou, Foshan and other places. If it is divided into administrative regions, it is the southern part of Guangzhou Prefecture, including the entire Pearl River estuary.

The follow-up mission of the First Army is to go north to Shaozhou Prefecture, but there was originally a provisional first regiment in Shaozhou Prefecture, and Li Xuan also planned to send the Liuzhou Independent Regiment to Shaozhou Prefecture to fight, so the first The first army only retains the backbone, and prepares to separate a part of the main force from it to form an independent regiment.

That is to say, they are drawn from regular army units such as the 1st Infantry Brigade, 1st Baggage Regiment, 1st Artillery Battalion, and 1st Cavalry Battalion.

Two battalions of infantry battalions, one battalion of reserve battalion, one team of five-jin field artillery, one battalion of baggage, and one team of cavalry were recruited from the regular army of the First Army to form a new mixed regiment, and awarded the designation of the first mixed regiment .

For the vacancies in the original troops, the infantry troops are the easiest, and it is enough to send new recruits to fill the gaps. The muskets can be used directly from the muskets captured from the Ming army. The number and organization do not need to be changed.

However, in order to take Shaozhou Mansion in one fell swoop, Li Xuan will also dispatch an artillery team from the Artillery Battalion of the Guards and a cavalry team from the cavalry battalion to temporarily strengthen the First Army. After the Shaozhou Mansion Battle, the above two units will be returned to Guards.

In the future, the First Army will continue to go north, and together with the Fourth Army, they will become the two main corps fighting in Huguang. The garrison in the First Army is still the Fourth garrison brigade, but it is the fourth after reorganization. garrison brigade.

Because after the Battle of Guangzhou, the 4th garrison brigade was divided into two, its original two garrison regiments, the 7th garrison regiment will join some of the captured soldiers of the Ming army in the Guangzhou battle to re-form the fourth garrison brigade.

The 8th Garrison Regiment will be expanded into a new 8th Garrison Brigade. The supplementary soldiers are also Guangzhou soldiers. In the future, this 8th Garrison Brigade will cooperate with the 1st Mixed Regiment to go to eastern Guangzhou to fight.

The First Mixed Regiment, which was established by drawing the main force from the First Army~www.wuxiaspot.com~ Although it is said to be a brand new unit, it is actually basically a branch of the First Army. It was not affected, so the First Independence Regiment had perfect combat capability and could go into battle.

The mission of the first mixed regiment will be to advance eastward to Huizhou and Chaozhou, and the eighth garrison brigade, which cooperates with the first independent regiment, will be unable to participate in the operation in a short period of time. A garrison regiment under his jurisdiction served.

After completing the reorganization of the troops and the arrangement of the follow-up strategy, Li Xuan officially led the Guards back to Zhaoqing to continue to be his emperor.

But Li Xuan's departure did not affect the Tang Dynasty's powerful rule over Guangzhou!

Deng Guan, the first prefect of Guangzhou in the Tang Dynasty, who was in charge of the affairs of the entire Guangzhou government, immediately summoned a large number of former Ming officials and prominent gentry in the city after moving into the dilapidated Guangzhou prefect government.

Three fires for a new official to take office, no, it should be said to be three fires for changing the dynasty!