On September 28, the 14th year of Xuanping, it was already more than half a month after the Ninth Army went out to fight, but until today, the Jinling City side gradually received the actual battle report from the northern grasslands.

Although the north and the south have always maintained communication, after receiving the order, the Ninth Army will send reports back to Jinling City almost every day, and most of these reports are also continuously transmitted back to Jinling City through a three-hundred-mile expedited way.

In order to ensure that the battle report of the Ninth Army and the orders from Jinling City could be effectively transmitted, and that the three-hundred-mile expedited transmission could be carried out in the lower districts, the Post Department took special measures, and they transferred some mail messengers and horses from other routes to strengthen the fast horse transmission from Datong Mansion to Jinling City.

As for the information report from Datong Mansion to the garrison of the Ninth Army on the grassland, it can only rely on the military's own messengers.

Although the postal department is the largest and only courier agency in the entire empire, it has not been able to expand its business to the grasslands.

Jinling City had also received battle reports from the Ninth Army one after another, but they were all battle reports from when the troops were just dispatched, so they couldn't see anything.

Today, however, they received a report of the battle, saying that many days ago, the transport unit under the command of the Ninth Army had a fierce battle with a Tatar division, and although the transport unit suffered heavy losses, it also inflicted heavy losses on the unit, and the number of Tatar corpses and wounded alone that could be confirmed exceeded 1,000.

This battle can be regarded as the first large-scale battle between the Ninth Army and the Tatars, and the previous ones were small-scale battles of dozens or hundreds of people, mainly focusing on reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance.

This battle naturally attracted the attention of the top brass of the Ninth Army, after all, this was the first medium-scale engagement between the two sides, which allowed the military to effectively judge some of the enemy's specific conditions.

However, when the high-ranking members of the Ninth Army carefully read the battle report of the 13th Baggage Regiment, there was an argument.

Because they found a very obvious loophole in the battle report of the 13th Baggage Regiment!

This loophole is that the series of orders given by Liu Mengyang at that time were obviously contrary to common sense.

For example, instead of choosing a detour, he went directly into the Stonehenge.

For example, after breaking into the Stonehenge, he did not gather the main force to rush out at the first time, but chose to gradually send troops.

These tactical choices are obviously contrary to common sense, and at least in the eyes of many staff officers in the military department, such an obvious low-level mistake should never have occurred.

Liu Mengyang, as a graduate of the fifth phase of the Martial Arts Academy, and an officer who graduated from the Imperial Academy, his quality in all aspects is not bad, how could he do such an obvious tactical mistake?

After causing discussion, it was also learned by Lieutenant General Deng Xide, commander of the Ninth Army, but after Lieutenant General Deng Xide turned over the battle report, he just put it down!

Then he said: "With a clumsy baggage army, 3,000 soldiers can meet the enemy's 5,000 cavalry, but they can kill 1,200 enemies, and they still kill the elite Tatar cavalry that comes and goes like the wind, I don't know who can do it?" ”

Just one sentence is to make everyone shut their mouths in unison!

Killing and wounding 1,200 Tatar cavalrymen, this is not an easy task!

Even the more than 15,000 cavalry of the cavalry corps have not achieved such results now.

But Liu Mengyang has caused such a big result with a transport force, and this alone is enough.

What's more, although Liu Mengyang did not explicitly say anything about the war of attrition, he also said in the war report why these tactical arrangements were made, in order to attract the Tatar cavalry to give up their mobility and directly fight hand-to-hand combat with themselves.

And the results have proved that he is right to do so.

Not only did he successfully escort a batch of hundreds of tons of supplies to the Ninth Army garrison, but he also annihilated 1,200 Tatar cavalry!

Although the second half of the journey was supported by the infantry and cavalry sent by the Ninth Army, when the Ninth Army was approaching, in order to dispel the idea of the main force of Altan Khan's army to attack, almost the entire cavalry corps moved to respond.

However, Liu Mengyang's credit for successfully escorting the materials is still there!

What's more, after the success of the first material escort he carried out, he also sent valuable experience to the second and third batches of material escort troops.

Of course, although there is credit, many people still feel that Liu Mengyang's approach is quite inappropriate.

Because they feel that such a war of attrition, although it can kill and injure a lot of Tatar cavalry, but their own losses are not small, not to mention, this kind of practice is easy to chill the soldiers.

Although it is said that it is necessary to fight to the death for the empire and the Son of Heaven, and it is acceptable to suffer certain losses in order to achieve strategic goals, but such a simple and rude life exchange with the Tatars is not convincing to the soldiers.

If you directly say to the soldiers that our Datang Army has a large number of people, and directly exchange more than 100,000 soldiers for the 100,000 Tatar army, and then our Datang will win, it would be strange if we did not mutiny.

No one wants to die!

Even if they have been brainwashed for a long time and have formed the instinct to obey orders, they are not willing to die, and they are even more unwilling to be treated as cannon fodder by their superiors.

In the end, the result of the Ninth Army's handling of the Battle of Stonehenge was that the big things were turned into small things and the small things were turned into small things.

Liu Mengyang was not rewarded for his merit in killing the enemy, and he no longer pursued his responsibility for deliberately sacrificing soldiers.

However, this is only for Liu Mengyang's personal treatment, but for the entire 13th Transport Regiment and the soldiers of the garrison battalion in Nanlimburg, as well as the people of the 43rd Transport Regiment, they have won many rewards.

After all, they had suffered a great deal of casualties, which had led to the killing of many Tatars, and at the same time the successful escort of supplies to their destinations, and they had successfully completed their mission, and they had exceeded their quota.

In the Tang Empire, the rewards for meritorious soldiers have always been very generous, and the officers who command well have recorded their merits, and several people with outstanding performance have been promoted after the war.

Ordinary soldiers are also promoted to military ranks, and their salaries are doubled, and those who have made great contributions have been given the opportunity to study the martial arts academy.

At present, the Datang Army still retains the further education and training of this pair of active-duty soldiers, and provides an opportunity for accelerated training for active-duty soldiers with outstanding performance, and after passing the training, they will become officers.

Although most of the officers who come out of this crash course for active duty soldiers are unlikely to reach high positions, they usually stop at captains, and very few can become colonels, at most, and the rank of colonel is the end.

But even so, for themselves, it is also a great opportunity to change their own lives and even change the fate of their families.

Because an officer, even if he is the lowest-ranking warrant officer, he is still an officer, and after retiring, he can be transferred to a civilian official.

The unique system of retiring officers from the Tang Empire and turning them into civilian officials also allowed the generals of the Tang Dynasty to gain an equal status with civilian officials in terms of social and political status.

Even many years after the Unification War, there are still a large number of students applying for the officer examination because of this.

Because they don't have to worry about what kind of martial artist or even what kind of military household they will become after abandoning civil service and joining the military, they can serve in the army for decades, fight on the battlefield, and after establishing meritorious deeds, they can calmly change to civilian officials.

There is an almost perfect way out to dispel the students' fear of joining the army.

The rewards for the soldiers were also quite satisfactory, and even those ordinary people were also paid additional salaries.

And Liu Mengyang, who was directly skipped, was also very satisfied with the current situation, because after nearly 2,000 soldiers under his command were killed and wounded, he was still the commander of the 13th Baggage Regiment.

And as an ambitious man, he didn't believe that his superiors would turn a blind eye to him.

This time he didn't punish himself, in fact, it was already a kind of reward, and when the matter calmed down, the record of killing and wounding 1,200 Tatar cavalry on his resume was enough for him to defeat many of his colleagues and gain the advantage of priority promotion.

And that's enough!

The military headquarters of the Ninth Army also wrote the handling method into the battle report, and then sent it to Jinling City, after all, the officers of the Ninth Army actually have no right to directly reward soldiers, such as promotion, in the entire army, there is only the Quanxu Division that has the rank of promoted soldiers.

The power to appoint officers is in the Ministry of Military Affairs.

The authority of the operational command is in the operational department.

Of course, the front-line troops can also promote and appoint lieutenants and non-commissioned officers and soldiers in the middle of the battle, but the promoted military rank can only be regarded as a temporary military rank, and it is still necessary to apply to the Quanxu Division afterwards, and after the formal approval of the Quanxu Division, the promotion is really completed, and in most cases, the Quanxu Division will generally not reject the report of the promotion of the line of fire.

The same is true for appointments, the positions appointed on the battlefield are all acting positions, and they need to be confirmed by the Ministry of Military Affairs afterwards before they are officially appointed, and similarly, for the low-level positions temporarily appointed on the battlefield, such as captains and battalion commanders, they are usually not revoked, and they are usually confirmed.

Now, along with the war report, there are a large number of reports on applications for promotion and appointment.

These things naturally have follow-up people to do, Li Xuan doesn't pay much attention to this, he pays attention to the situation of both sides reflected in the battle of Stonehenge, at least from the perspective of the battle of Stonehenge, even if there is no cavalry to cover and only rely on infantry, it can complete the supply task to a certain extent.

And that's very important!

At the same time, seeing the effect of the car array in transportation and defensive operations, Li Xuan couldn't help but think of the train, if the empire can build a railway that extends to the grassland, and then rely on the railway for rapid maneuvering, even if his own cavalry strength is average, he can firmly control the grassland.

It's a pity that the current high-pressure steam engine still hasn't been built.

But Li Xuan really felt that even if the high-pressure steam engine hadn't been developed yet, the railway should also be put on the agenda.

Without a high-pressure steam engine, it's a big deal to use horses directly!

Under the impetus of Li Xuan, Datang has been engaged in experimental railways in many places.

As early as before the reunification, it was in the trade zone of Guangzhou to engage in railways, using horses as the driving force, for the bulk material transportation of the port, and later in a number of other port areas, mining areas and other areas successively built this kind of primitive railway, these primitive railways, the length of more than 10 kilometers, the short only a few hundred meters.

Now Li Xuan feels that it is time to build a long-distance railway!