The days go by day by day, sometimes faster, sometimes slower.

In the autumn season, some people feel that time is lost without a trace, while others feel that the days are like years, and every day is so long.

For Yu Dayou in Fuzhou, this time passed quite quickly, and even felt that it was not enough, he wanted to strengthen the city defense, and wanted to evacuate the personnel and materials in advance, and these all took time, but now he lacks time the most.

He has already received a report that the puppet Tang thief army from Quanzhou is only three days away from Fuzhou, what does this mean, this means that after three days, Fuzhou will face the threat of the puppet Tang thief army.

However, for Yu Dayou, there is not enough time, but for the Ming army in Nanping City, they feel that every day is extremely difficult.

Since the Puppet Tang Thief Army officially launched its general attack the day before yesterday, the Ming army in the city has finally really felt the Puppet Tang Thief Army's strong siege ability, or more precisely, the sharpness of the guns of the Puppet Tang Thief Army.

At the beginning, the puppet Tang thief army only used five-catty, nine-level field artillery to carry out shelling, although the Ming army in the city was a little shocked that the puppet Tang thief army outside the city had so many long-barreled heavy artillery, but the Ming army and the Tang army have been fighting for many years, and the broken thief army is one of the few new armies in the Ming army that can be named, and it is naturally no stranger to new guns.

The Broken Thieves Army itself is also equipped with a large number of guns, and even purchased a few nine-pound cannons from those foreigners.

But these new-style field artillery, there are only about 20 thieves in total, and there are only seven or eight cannons on the head of Nanping City, and more of them are those old-style bowl guns.

However, the puppet Tang thief army on the opposite side pulled out more than 50 such long-barreled cannons, of which there were 18 nine-pound cannons, and 36 five-pound cannons.

According to the latest artillery establishment of the Datang Army, the artillery regiment under the jurisdiction of the infantry division has four artillery battalions, namely a nine-pound field artillery battalion and two five-pound field artillery battalions, with a total of 54 field guns.

The infantry regiment under the infantry division also has a large infantry team under its jurisdiction, with nine two-pound shotguns and three three-pound shotguns, for a total of 12 shotguns.

The mixed regiment has an artillery battalion under its jurisdiction, which has a team of six nine-pound field guns, and two teams of six five-pound field guns each, for a total of 18 field guns.

In addition, the mixed regiment also has a shotgun team, which has nine two-pound shotguns and three three-pound shotguns like the infantry regiment.

To a certain extent, a mixed regiment is an infantry regiment that strengthens a field artillery battalion, a baggage battalion, a cavalry team and other auxiliary forces.

Before the Sixth Infantry Division marched into Fujian, it had just completed the reorganization of the new style, and not only did the three infantry regiments have stronger combat effectiveness, but also the Sixth Artillery Regiment was also fully staffed.

Fifty-four field guns were swinging outside the city, completely overwhelming the Ming army inside the city in terms of firepower!

And this, not counting the six short-barreled heavy howitzers of half a battalion that Cai Erhu borrowed from the Second Army.

In fact, the casualties caused to the Ming army were more about the six short-barreled heavy howitzers, because the Ming army defending the city had not experienced this kind of short-barreled heavy howitzer before, so they were arranged according to the defensive solid bullets, and a large number of garrison troops were left at the head of the city and near the city wall.

And when one grenade after another exploded at the head of the city, it instantly caused heavy casualties to the people at the head of the city.

Just one day after the artillery battle, the Ming army at the head of the city thought that they could not stay in the city in large numbers because of the heavy casualties.

What's more serious is that the artillery units of the Ming army arranged at the head of the city also suffered heavy casualties, and even some light bowl guns were directly destroyed by the powerful nine-pound artillery.

Although those field guns are good, they can't stand the artillery, and the casualties are heavy.

Under the heavy casualties of artillery, these artillery pieces naturally do not have enough manpower to operate, and artillery requires professional artillery to operate, not ordinary soldiers.

Therefore, in fact, in the artillery battle on the first day, the artillery units of the Ming army in the city, especially the field artillery with a relatively long range, actually lost the ability to counterattack.

However, the 6th Infantry Division did not rush to carry out a strong attack, but rigidly continued to attack the city according to the previous plan, they began to dig tunnels, and then prepared to blast, and at the same time wanted to continue to let the artillery kill and injure the Ming troops in the city and destroy their morale.

In this case, even if the city has not been breached, but the more than 10,000 Ming troops in the city are already bold, no matter who is in the enemy's shells from time to time flying overhead, and even explode, is there any of their own soldiers killed and wounded in the shelling, a bad luck, there will be a large number of casualties, morale will not be high there.

What's more, they can't fight back just by being beaten!

The artillery unit of the Ming army defending the city, although there were still some intact artillery on hand, the gunners suffered heavy casualties.

Because on the first day of the artillery battle, a large number of artillery of the Sixth Infantry Division concentrated on killing and wounding the artillery positions of the Ming army, and the howitzers all hit the artillery positions of the Ming army.

With the heavy casualties of the Ming gunners, they naturally could not have enough gunners to operate the remaining artillery.

Moreover, the artillery bombardment of the puppet Tang thief army was so sharp, even the remaining gunners did not dare to risk going to the city to operate artillery to counterattack.

Seeing that the Ming army on the head of the city was completely suppressed by his own artillery, Cai Erhu also sighed: "In this year's war, it is already the world of guns, if there is not enough artillery in this battle, I am afraid this battle is really not good!" ”

"No wonder Butcher Chen is going to be an artilleryman early, this is still farther than me!"

Butcher Chen is now more chic than Cai Erhu, as an early change to artillery, and a lot of hard work from Chen Butcher, although he was not as good as Cai Erhu and Wang Danxu and others in terms of promotion in the early days, but he has been working steadily and steadily, as the commander of the artillery battalion, the commander of the artillery regiment, and later he was transferred back to Zhaoqing as the director of artillery.

Artillery director, this position is quite special, it is a position that Li Xuan only established in the first half of the year, and he belongs to the Privy Council, but it does not belong to the departments of the Privy Council, but exists independently, and its responsibility is to shoulder the development of artillery.

The same goes for the Commander of the Cavalry.

Compared with Butcher Chen, Cai Erhu felt that although the two were the same in rank, he knew his own family affairs, and with his own ability, he could barely serve as a regiment commander, but when he was such a division commander now, it was actually no longer possible, otherwise, he would not have delegated almost all the operational command of the Sixth Infantry Division to the staff team, and he would only be a rubber stamp to give the final order.

Many people know their own situation, and His Majesty knows that he can be the commander of the Sixth Infantry Division, which is already the reason for occupying the early Conglong and working hard, but in this way, let himself go to the position of division commander, which is basically the end, and it is almost impossible to go further to become a commander.

Even if Li Xuan asked him to be a military commander, to be honest, he wouldn't dare to go!

Now in the Tang Dynasty, if the officers at the level of division commanders, mixed regiments, and regiment commanders can still find a few mediocre talents, then at the level of army commanders, almost all of them are the most strategic and tactical people in the Tang Army.

Hao Bonian, Li Chunjing, Wang Chaohong, the names of these three people are not only in the Tang Army, even in the Tang Dynasty, they are also famous generals, their names are even known to Zhengde Lao'er, and they are quite familiar.

Without sufficient prestige and qualifications, and without strong enough strategic and tactical capabilities, it is basically impossible to serve as the commander of an army in today's Tang Army.

Sometimes, Cai Erhu actually misses the early years, although there were guns at that time, but the role was not so great, and that time was also the most dazzling era for him and Butcher Chen.

Wearing heavy armor, holding a sharp blade to lead the heavy armor soldiers into the enemy array, as if entering a no-man's land, this is what he Cai Erhu is best at.

It's a pity, this situation is gone forever, even if the Tang Army is already a large-scale batch of equipment plate armor, in terms of armor has almost reached the peak of all dynasties, but the battle that the heavy armor troops can play a decisive role can only be the city attack and defense battle, or more precisely, the hand-to-hand combat at the head of the city, and at other times, the heavy armor troops can hardly decide the trend of the battle with the power of one blow.

However, even so, it is only after the overwhelming superiority of one's own artillery that the heavy armored units can have a chance to play a role, otherwise, the heavy armored units of the assault battalion will be completely crushed by the artillery on the way to the charge.

No matter how thick the armor is, it can't stop bullets, let alone shells.

Cai Erhu sighed at the end of the heavy armor sword and shield soldiers, but soon he was glad again!

Although the heavy armor sword and shield soldiers are outdated, their own Tang Army has a strong artillery unit!

Dozens of heavy artillery pieces swung outside Nanping City, and for two days, the Ming army in Nanping City could only shrink behind the city wall.

Relying on absolute artillery superiority, the 6th Infantry Division launched an attack on Nanping City almost in a crushing posture, first in artillery battles, and then in succession with three large-scale explosions.

When the soldiers of the assault battalion wearing plate armor rushed to the top of the city, the battle came to an end.

After five days, the Sixth Infantry Division took Nanping City with an absolute advantage, almost completely annihilating the Ming army in the city, and its own casualties were less than 500.

After taking Nanping, it was announced that Fuzhou had opened its arms to the Sixth Infantry Division, and immediately, Cai Erhu led the Sixth Infantry Division to continue south, preparing to return to the division with Wang Chaohong's division, which had arrived under the city of Fuzhou.

Preparing to launch the final general attack on Fuzhou, as long as Fuzhou is taken, it can basically be declared that Fujian has been included in the rule of the Tang Dynasty.