Regarding Li Xuan's problem of banditry, Wang Chaohong is no exception, and now everyone knows that the bandits are serious in various places, especially in the southwest provinces.

The Tang Dynasty resolutely maintained a high-pressure attitude towards large-scale bandit dens and all kinds of large-scale bandits, and found one to suppress the other, because the Tang Dynasty was born as bandits, and naturally would not allow others to follow their own old path.

However, due to limited energy, the Tang Dynasty can only maintain a high-pressure attitude towards some large-scale bandits, but for ordinary types of bandits, that is, the kind of bandits that are not large-scale, usually just robbed, and the political impact is not too great, they do not have so much energy to suppress.

But now, it is different, seeing that the Tang Dynasty is about to completely unify China, this public security problem is also urgent, and at the same time, the patrol police department lacks large-scale and organized military force, so the matter of armed bandits can only fall into the hands of the military.

Wang Chaohong immediately said to Li Xuan: "Back to Your Majesty, there are indeed a lot of bandits in the southwest now, although the scale of these bandits is not large, and they cannot shake the foundation of my Tang Dynasty, but it is not a long-term solution." ”

Li Xuan said: "Well, you can't continue to drag it out, you can start acting after you go back, pay attention to proportions when acting, don't bring trouble to the local yamen!" ”

If it was the courtiers who had just come into contact with Li Xuan, they would probably be stunned when they heard Li Xuan's words, what does it mean to pay attention to proportion, but what do you say not to bring trouble to the local yamen.

Many people's first thought is probably that they can't work too hard when they suppress bandits, so as not to cause any big trouble, but as a very early member of the dragon and received Li Xuan's personal education in his early years, Wang Chaohong knows what the Son of Heaven is talking about.

Pay attention to proportion, don't bring trouble to the place, the meaning of this is: kill if you can, try not to leave a disaster for the local yamen!

Immediately, Wang Chaohong's expression became slightly serious, and then he said: "The minister obeys the order, and after the minister returns, he will organize troops to encircle and suppress bandits from all over the country as soon as possible!" ”

Li Xuan nodded slightly, he knew that Wang Chaohong was a smart person, and if his subordinates were smart people, he would be more relaxed, and as soon as he said it casually, they would know what they wanted to do, so that they could do things properly.

This matter of banditry in the southwest, Li Xuan stopped at the point, just say a few words, and don't need to say too much, it is not beautiful to say too much.

Li Xuan and Wang Chaohong discussed the current weapons and equipment and tactics of the Tang Army, trying to find something that they could not see from the perspective of Wang Chaohong, a front-line general.

Although Li Xuan is a later generation and has extraordinary knowledge, in fact, the tactics of later generations may not be useful in this era, because all kinds of tactics are matched with various objective environments.

For example, the three-row tactics of the line infantry, this tactic requires a flintlock pistol as a premise, if it is an arquebus, what kind of three-row round shooting is played, and the tiger that directly abandons the spearmen will be beaten out of.

When the arquebus was used by the Tang Army, the arquebusiers listed the formation of six rows of horizontal formations, not three rows, and the spearmen also maintained a large number of them, until they were equipped with flintlock pistols in batches, and then began to play the three-row line line tactics, and finally eliminated the spearmen.

Another example is skirmisher tactics, Li Xuan's impression is that in many war films, those soldiers are showing scattered teams rushing up, lying down when they encounter enemy fire interception, and then counterattacking with guns.

But scattered teams are not easy to use in the Tang Army, and it is even worse to lie down.

Because in the case of scattered formations, it is impossible to maintain a dense formation, without a dense formation, it is impossible to ensure sufficient firepower, and at the same time, without a dense formation, when facing the enemy's charge, there will not be enough troops to fight.

Today's Datang Army does not play any scattering, but hopes that the formation will be denser and the firepower density will be as large as possible.

And if you lie down, how do you load it when you lie down?

The musketeer needs to reload from the muzzle, and the rifle is so long, the musketeer needs to stand and load, otherwise it will not be possible to reload at all, you lie down to avoid the bullets, but don't expect to return fire.

Many tactics of later generations may not be applicable in this era, and Li Xuan also knows this, so many times, when he formulates the equipment and tactical development of the army, he listens to the opinions of the front-line soldiers of the army as much as possible, and comprehensively formulates better tactics and develops better equipment.

For example, when it came to the musketeers equipping armor, Li Xuan thought that the armor would affect the mobility of the musketeers too much, so in the early days, the musketeers were not equipped with armor, regardless of whether it was iron armor, cotton iron armor or plate armor, they were not equipped.

However, it was later found that musketeers equipped with armor would greatly reduce the casualty rate, and in the bayonet charge stage, they could greatly increase their combat effectiveness.

Therefore, the grenadiers were the first to be equipped with armor, and then the musketeers of some elite units, and it was only after the large-scale elimination of heavy armored spearmen in the infantry regiment that in order to increase the bayonet hand-to-hand combat ability of the infantry regiment, the musketeers began to be generally equipped with armor!

Later, a light cuirass was even developed specifically for musketeers, which was not heavy, and although it would inevitably affect the mobility of musketeers, the impact was not too great and barely acceptable, but it was an effective defense against cold weapons such as bows and arrows, swords and spears, and could also defend against bullets at long distances.

And this situation is actually different from the modern troops under Li Xuan's influence!

But the actual combat effect is greater than everything, when the musketeers of the Tang Army line lined up with light cuirasses and helmets walked into the battlefield in a dense formation, they were basically able to lay the tide of battle.

This situation is especially striking in the northern border and in some small-scale armed conflicts between the Tatars, Warats, and Turpans!

Many of the above-mentioned enemies do not have many guns, and the mode of war is basically stuck in two or three hundred years ago, mainly cavalry, long-range firepower projection relies on bows and arrows, and close-range relies on swords and spears, in other words, they use cold weapons, although there are also firearms, but the number is not much.

In this case, the plate armor equipped by the Datang Army can play a huge role!

Regardless of whether it is long-range shooting or close-range slashing, the Tang Army with plate armor is not afraid!

The only trouble is that these enemies are mainly cavalry, and many times they don't play with the Tang infantry at all, but when they see an opportunity, they will sneak attack a wave, and if they don't have a chance, they will get on their horses and leave.

If these enemies dismount stupidly, tens of millions of people form up a formation and fight a head-on decisive battle with the Datang Army, and the Datang Army says that it can beat them out.

It's a pity, the enemy is not stupid!

During the discussion with Wang Chaohong, Li Xuan found that this Wang Chaohong was also a staunch artilleryist, and he suggested to Li Xuan that the infantry equipment of the Tang Army is already very good, and it doesn't even need to be improved, but the army's artillery power is seriously insufficient.

Yes, the vocabulary he used was seriously insufficient, and those who didn't know listened to it and thought that the Datang Army didn't have any artillery, but in fact, the number of artillery in the Datang Army was definitely the first in the world in this era!

An infantry division of 15,000 men has 54 field guns, and two-thirds of these field guns are five pounds, and one-third are nine pounds.

At the same time, when the Tang Army is fighting now, basically every infantry division can be supported by at least one heavy artillery battalion, although these heavy artillery battalions are still nominally independent, but in fact they are basically fighting with various infantry divisions.

This kind of artillery power, at present, no other army in the world can do it.

But that's the case, Wang Chaohong still feels insufficient about the army's artillery power!

Wang Chaohong euphemistically suggested that it is not enough for a division to have only more than 50 artillery pieces at present, and it is better to have hundreds of guns, and in the future, when encountering the enemy in a battle, it will open artillery, and after hitting it with shells, then send infantry to rush forward.

This kind of tactic is, to put it more profoundly, an infantry and artillery coordination, and it is not easy to put forward these opinions in this era.

But Li Xuan directly ignored his suggestion, a division of hundreds of field artillery, this is unrealistic, even modern armies are not so extravagant.

Strengthening artillery does not simply increase the number of artillery, because it is too costly.

Rather, it is necessary to strengthen the quality of artillery.

Others don't know, but Li Xuan knows very well that the future is the era of howitzers!

Although today's heavy short-barreled howitzers have many defects, even the most dangerous weapons of this era, every time they fight, the gunners are risking their lives, but it is undeniable that these defects and even heavy short-barreled howitzers have become the current war weapons of the Tang Army, although the number is small, but the results are no less than those field guns.

What we need to do in the future is to strengthen the technical research and development of howitzers, especially the fuze, as long as the fuze problem is solved, the later Tang Dynasty will be able to stuff howitzer shells into the barrel of long-barreled artillery, and when the time comes, regardless of whether it is the army's field artillery or the battleship's cannon or something, all of them can fire grenades.

This is the royal way to strengthen artillery firepower, as for the one-sided increase in quantity, the gains outweigh the losses!

In recent years, the Tang Dynasty has been developing new fuses, whether in the military or at the Royal Institute of Technology, the research and development of new seals has always been the highest priority, higher than the research and development of new artillery, and even steam engines.

Yesterday, Li Xuan received a report from the Royal Institute of Technology, saying that it was a new type of fuze scheme designed by them, and the initial test results were very good, and they were preparing to hold a live-fire test.

So after thinking about it, Li Xuan said: "The Institute of Science and Technology has proposed a new design scheme for a grenade fuse, and the report says that the test effect is not bad, and the day after tomorrow will conduct an internal live-fire test, and you can go with me to see it when the time comes!" ”