I want to be emperor

Chapter 283

Luo Zhixue also spent a lot of money in order to make the Chunan offensive this time smoother and faster without affecting the eastward offensive that is expected to start this fall.

Now the Great Chu Empire only has eight marquises in total, which shows the scarcity of these marquises.

And there are only Wang Xiazi and Huang Dingquan among the courtiers who have received the reduced inheritance.

The other six marquises are all ordinary descendants, but they can inherit the original title for three generations.

In today's Great Chu Empire, this title is still very valuable.

Hearing Luo Zhixue's words, the lowly middle and senior generals couldn't help breathing fast, even Han Ziping, the commander of the South Route Army, couldn't help breathing heavily.

Marquis, Minor, etc. have no succession, no matter which of the two, the earl Han Ziping is very jealous!
If the two are added together, let alone, it is enough to make his old Han family rich and powerful for hundreds of years, and live with the country.

Han Ziping has already made a secret decision in his heart, this battle must be fought beautifully, whether their old Han family can achieve prosperity and wealth for hundreds of years depends on this battle.

At the same time, if he played well this time, his military rank should go a step further.

Han Ziping is now a major general, commander of the Fifth Division, and commander of the South Route Army.

In the current Great Chu Empire, there is currently only Huang Dingquan, the commander of the North Route Army who leads an army of tens of thousands and sits in Nanyang. This general who is deeply trusted by Luo Zhixue has the rank of lieutenant general.

Other senior generals are generally major generals.

Including the ministers of the four major departments, the commanders of the main divisions, and Wang Xiazi, the commander of the cavalry brigade.

The commanders of the garrison divisions, the deputy commanders of the main divisions, and the brigade commanders are still brigadier generals.

To become the second lieutenant general in the Great Chu Empire is the biggest ambition of many major generals in the near future.

However, in the Great Chu Empire, Luo Zhixue had already disclosed to the generals under his command through informal channels that his rank would not be promoted too quickly in the early stage in order to avoid the situation that the meritorious senior generals could not be promoted during the process of unifying China.

Therefore, it is very difficult to be promoted to lieutenant general in this general environment.

As for the general, don't expect it in the short term. It is estimated that the rank of general will only appear in the later stage of the unification war.

Many major generals, especially Han Ziping, the main division commander most wanted to make great contributions, and then won the rank of lieutenant general.

After Luo Zhixue made a promise, a group of senior generals including Han Ziping left with expectations.

After the meeting, Luo Zhixue walked out of the tent and looked at the night sky in the west!
There are scattered lights in there!

Those are the sporadic torch lights of the defenders above Linxiang City. Although they look dim because of the relatively long distance, in this era where light pollution is almost zero, they can be seen even from a relatively long distance.

Linxiang!

This city, which has blocked the Chu army for half a year, is about to face a real challenge.

Because the next day, the Great Chu Empire Army will officially launch a strong attack on Linxiang!

-

In the early morning of the next day, in the Chu Army barracks in the eastern suburbs of Linxiang City, a large amount of cooking smoke rose very early, and the soldiers were cooking to provide breakfast for the soldiers who were about to be dispatched.

On the front line, a group of soldiers had already started to act. Many soldiers began to transport the artillery and a large number of shells that had been hoarded in the rear through the traffic trenches to a place only a few hundred meters away from the Ming army's defense line.

There have long been artillery positions dug by engineers and ordinary soldiers.

In the past six months, the Chu army has not done nothing. Although the camp is more than 1000 meters away from the city wall, many traffic trenches, ditches and artillery positions have been dug in front of the camp.

As long as a war breaks out, artillery and a large number of troops can be quickly mobilized to the front line to launch a strong attack directly.

On weekdays, these frontline trenches also have garrison troops, but not many.

At around [-]:[-] in the morning, a large number of infantry units also entered the predetermined positions one after another.

At the forefront is the Ninth Infantry Brigade, which belongs to the Fifth Division.

Last year, the Fifth Division was finalized as the main force to attack Linxiang. The officers and ordinary soldiers of the division had already conducted long-term targeted training on attacking the city.

At the same time, in terms of equipment, it also focuses on strengthening the equipment used for siege. For example, there are more mortars and field artillery, and more emphasis is placed on nine-pound and five-pound field artillery.

The number of nine-pound field guns under the jurisdiction of the fifth division is the same as that of the first division, and they are all twelve of them.

Although the fifth division is a new force, as a fifth division that started from the establishment of the army, its goal was to rush to attack Linxiang and Changsha. In terms of the ability to attack fortifications alone, the combat effectiveness of the fifth division should not How much worse than the first division.

Apart from the [-]th Division, the other ministries were also more focused on assault operations, especially artillery units.

In addition, in this battle, there were a total of 24 nine-pound field cannons from all ministries, which accounted for almost half of all nine-pound field cannons in the Great Chu Empire.

Among them, the fifth division has twelve gates, the guard division has eight gates, and there are also four gates temporarily transferred from the first division.

As a comparison, the Chu army in several other directions did not have so many nine-pound field artillery. In the direction of the North Route, the entire North Route Army only had eight nine-pound field artillery in total.

The two lines in the west have no one.

The Third Division on the Eastern Front has six gates, and the Fourth Jiangbei Division on the Eastern Front has eight gates.

For the first division in the direction of Jiujiang on the eastern front, there are still eight divisions left for the time being.

The nine-pound field artillery currently equipped by the Great Chu Empire Army is actually only 48 in total.

And outside Linxiang City, half of them are concentrated.

In addition to the nine-pound field artillery, there are also a large number of five-pound field artillery. The Fifth Division has 24, and the Guards Division has 44, adding up to [-].

In terms of mortars, there are more 92-jin mortars, 24 in total, 24 in the Fifth Division, [-] in the Guards Division, [-] in the First Mortar Regiment, and [-] in the Second Mortar Regiment. , Eight Gates of the Sixth Defense Division, Eight Gates of the Eighth Defense Division.

There are 48 24-jin mortars in the first mortar regiment, and 42 mortars in the second mortar regiment, a total of [-] mortars.

As for the two-and-a-half catty field artillery, this small-caliber field artillery is of little use in facing Linxiang City, which was specially reinforced by the Ming army, and a large number of fortifications were reinforced for shelling, and it was basically negligible.

In order to attack Linxiang by force, the Great Chu Empire Army spent all its money.

And with such a lot of effort, the effect is also very good.

After the artillery units completed their preparations in the morning, large-scale shelling began at about eleven o'clock.

More than 100 field guns of three different types and more than 100 mortar guns of two different types began to bombard the head of Linxiang City and some fortifications dug by the Ming army outside the city.

The violent shelling was almost earth-shattering, but in fact it did not cause much damage to the Ming army.

Because the Ming army saw that the Chu army was moving so much, they had already guarded against the Chu army's shelling, so they hid under the city wall or in the trenches early.

But it doesn't matter. The reason why the Chu army launched such a violent bombardment was not to kill and injure the vital forces of the Ming army in the first place, but to destroy some fortifications of the Ming army at the top of the city and outside the city through artillery fire.

The Ming army in Linxiang City learned the lessons of the fall of Zhongxiang and Wuchang, and did not garrison alone on the top of the city. Instead, they built various fortifications on the top of the city, especially artillery fortifications.

The most typical one is to pile up a large number of sandbags on the top of the city. This is the way the Ming army obtained it from the Chu army.

Because the Chu army would pile up sandbags in artillery positions close to the Ming army to prevent the Ming army from shelling.

The Ming army also has artillery. Although they are short-barreled artillery such as general artillery and Francophones, they can also hit two to 300 meters in defensive operations. If you don’t care about the hit rate and lethality, you can. It threatened the artillery positions of the Chu army deployed close to it.

In order to guard against the shelling of the Ming army, the gunners of the Chu army would build sandbag fortifications when building artillery positions.

This time there were many times, and the Ming army on the opposite side also figured out the way, and finally they also learned to play like this.

Similarly, the Ming army learned from the Chu army in digging trenches outside the city.

You Chu thieves can dig trenches close to the city wall, or we can dig trenches directly outside the city, and then hide in the trenches to defend against shelling. When you security thieves rush up, you can come out and attack with assault artillery, tiger squatting artillery, muskets, and bows and arrows. Fire interception ah.

War, this is a process of mutual learning.

In order to protect themselves, the Ming army in Linxiang also learned to protect the bandit army within its ability.

It is unrealistic and impossible for you to ask them to build a lot of artillery and new-style muskets, and it is also impossible for you to ask them to build a lot of armored soldiers.

But it's not a big problem if you ask them to build a gun defense, dig a trench and so on.

Now the Chu army's fierce shelling is to a certain extent aimed at destroying these fortifications, such as the large distance horses, railings and other obstacles in the open space outside the city, and the parapet above the trench outside the city.

There are also battlements on the city wall, sandbags and other fortifications.

Destroying the fortifications of the Ming army is also to suppress the Ming army!

Then cover the actions of your own infantry and engineering units.

Siege is not just a matter of shouting and rushing up, just like the storming of Wuchang, before the infantry can charge, it needs to go through a series of early battles.

Before the infantry launched an attack, the Chu army needed to clear part of the trenches of the Ming army outside Linxiang City and fill in part of the moat, so that they could obtain a starting position.

At the same time, the engineering troops need to continue to extend the trenches, and at the same time secretly dig tunnels to prepare for blasting.

Before carrying out these tasks, it is necessary to suppress the momentum of the Ming army, lest they come out to make trouble.

The violent shelling has indeed achieved this effect. Since the intensive large-scale shelling in the morning, although the intensive shelling of the Chu army has basically stopped at noon, only the normal intermittent shelling has been maintained.

But the Ming army still didn't dare to run out to launch a large-scale counterattack.

Only a small counterattack.

Ever since, on the first day of the battle against Linxiang, except for the large-scale bombardment on the first day, the following small-scale attacks and counter-offensives took place for most of the day.

This kind of battle seems to be small in scale, but it is actually very frequent.

Therefore, the entire battle scene seems very dull and boring. Behind this dull and boring battle scene, in fact, the combat strength of both sides has reached tens of thousands, and the scene is not much worse than a large-scale battle in the wild.

During the battle, the generals of both sides continued to fight wits and bravery, and the soldiers fought seemingly small but still extremely cruel.

(End of this chapter)