About 15 kilometers away from Chenzhou Prefecture, in a small plain composed of many low hills, on the slopes of the hills, which were only a few tens of meters above the ground, there were a large number of officers and men of the Tang Army wearing blue clothes and red trousers, and they were the soldiers of the Fourth Regiment.

At this time, they surrounded the small hill, and lined up several phalanxes of hundreds of people, and on the top of the hill, there were more than a dozen artillery pieces facing the northwest direction.

The phalanxes listed by the officers and men of these provisional fourth regiments are not the same as the line phalanxes commonly used by the Tang Army, because the level of firearms and equipment of the provisional fourth regiment is not as good as that of the main force.

According to the reorganization plan of the Tang Army, the establishment of the provisional regiment is a helpless establishment under the rule of insufficient firearms and equipment, so it is impossible to organize the provisional regiment into a pure musket regiment, but because the provisional regiment is also an independent operation, the necessary firearms cannot be less, and it cannot be equipped with simple cold weapons like the spear regiment.

Therefore, the establishment of a provisional regiment is usually to have one musket battalion, four reserve battalions, and one baggage battalion, in addition to a cavalry team of about 50 cavalry, a grenadier team, and a large-scale artillery team with three five-pound field guns and six two-pound shotguns, for a total of nine artillery pieces.

At full strength, the total strength was about 3,500 men.

And on the opposite side of them, tens of thousands of Ming troops have already listed several super large phalanxes and are gradually advancing!

These two sides, one side wants to break through the interception, and the other side wants to intercept, which is destined for them to have a battle!

The Ming army on the opposite side looked at the formation and knew that almost all the guards had firearms troops, although there were firearms troops, but they should all be firearms units with handcuffs or small and medium-caliber bowls, and there were no musket troops of the Ming army that had been discovered by the Tang Army before, and this point has basically become an important basis for the Tang Army to judge whether the Ming army is a guard or a recruit.

The recruitment of soldiers in the Ming army, especially the recruitment of senior civilian officials, has already begun to reform in the past year, and is equipped with muskets, and the Tang Army has learned in the intelligence that Zhang Yue has a recruitment force with a number of tens of thousands, of course, the specific number and equipment are still unknown.

Just like the current Ming army cannot accurately judge the details of the Tang army's troops, and does not even know that the Tang army has withdrawn the garrison.

"It's almost five hundred meters, and the enemy is about to enter the effective range of artillery, so let the artillery units get ready, fight for a while, and frustrate their spirit!" On the top of the mountain, Gu Shizhong, who was wearing a satin dark blue military coat and the rank of colonel on his collar badge, put down the monoculars in his hand and said.

The adjutant beside him immediately said: "Obey!" ”

Immediately, I saw him running to the artillery position not far away, and whispered to a young man with the rank of captain of the artillery team.

If there is a high-level leader of the Tang Dynasty here, he must be very familiar with this young man, because this person is an early general of the Tang Dynasty, and he can be regarded as the earliest Conglong, but with the development of the Tang Dynasty, he is already Fang Tong, the son of Fang Dongquan, who has gradually become a marginal figure.

This Fang Tong is not very old, he is only twenty years old this year, but he is also an old qualified bandit, he entered the Guards in his early years, and then gradually promoted to non-commissioned officer and officer, but he went to learn artillery halfway, and when he graduated from the martial arts school again, he officially served in the artillery unit, and was successfully promoted to the captain of the provisional Fourth Artillery Corps, with the rank of captain.

However, although he has developed smoothly in the military circles, his old son Fang Dongquan is now completely marginalized, and in the process of army reorganization in the second half of the year, Fang Dongquan was transferred back to Zhaoqing, although he is now also the rank of major general of the army, but he holds the position of a dispensable special adviser to the War Department.

The advisers at all levels in the War Department are also a kind of special positions used by Li Xuan to place a large number of officers who are unable to follow the continuous development of the unit because of their limited personal ability, and there are 'special advisers, which are generally for generals, and 'senior advisers' which are used to place school officers, and 'consultants', which are used to place lieutenants.

However, although these advisers are still in the War Department and have offices in the War Department for them to work, in fact they are no longer able to participate in the day-to-day affairs of the troops, let alone the operational command.

If you send out the influence of the past, even those staff officers in the war department are more powerful than them.

However, in order to appease them, Li Xuan will give them certain supplements in terms of military rank, salary, and title, for example, after Fang Dongquan was transferred to the nominal adviser of the War Department, his military rank was directly promoted by one level, from colonel to major general, and the title was also changed from viscount to earl, and it was Li Xuan's title of Fang Dongquan, which could be reduced to hereditary after three generations.

In other words, Fang Dongquan's son, that is, Fang Tong, can inherit Fang Dongquan's earl title, and Fang Dongquan's grandson can also inherit the earl title, and then this earl title will be reduced to hereditary status.

Also enjoying the same treatment is Huang Xueren, a former bandit leader who also can't keep up with the times, like Fang Dongquan, who was transferred back to the War Department as a special adviser, was promoted to major general, and was given the title of earl, with the privilege of reducing the internship after three generations.

At present, this kind of hereditary privilege of retaining three generations and then reducing it is only possessed by Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren, because they are the earliest senior generals from the dragon, and now they have withdrawn from the front line and lost power, which is Li Xuan's compensation for them.

As for others, it is unlikely that they will be treated this way.

After all, there are gains and losses, those high-level people who still enjoy power and grow up with the growth of the Tang Dynasty, since they enjoy power, then don't expect this kind of privilege to treat their children and grandchildren.

In other words, although the captain Fang Tong is inconspicuous in the Tang Army, his body is relatively special, he is the eldest son of Earl Fang Dongquan, but the officially recognized earl's son will inherit the earl's title in the future.

However, even so, he strictly implemented the orders issued by Gu Shizhong, a person who didn't even have a title!

In the Tang Army, obeying orders is the principle and bottom line that every soldier must follow, even if Fang Tong is the son of the earl who violates the order, I am afraid that he will be cut by the gendarmerie as soon as possible!

After receiving the order, Fang Tong also took out the monocular on his chest and looked at the Ming army in the distance, he was able to get a monocular that ordinary major battalion commanders could not get with the rank of captain, naturally not because he was so awesome, but because he had a good father, this telescope, together with the stainless steel on his waist, was regarded as the command knife of the treasure knife in this era, which was given to him by his son Fang Dongquan.

The production of telescopes in the Tang Dynasty has not been high, even now they are able to get some transparent glass from foreigners, and there is no need to use crystal to make telescopes as before, but the production of telescopes requires highly skilled craftsmen to polish them by hand little by little, otherwise they will not be able to get high-magnification telescopes at all.

Therefore, even if the cost is greatly reduced, it is only a reduction in the cost of materials, and the labor cost is still the same, or even higher.

So the production is still very low, and the price is high!

Therefore, the navy and navy of the Tang Dynasty can only be equipped with large monoculars with high magnifications on the capital ships, and this is generally used by the lookouts, and the captains are equipped with ordinary hand-held monoculars that are only four times larger.

On the army side, it is usually the officers at the regiment commander level who are attached, or the cavalry in the high-tech troops and the battalion commanders in the artillery.

With Fang Tong's military rank and position, he can't get the telescope, but he can't stand it from having a general's father, Fang Dongquan directly gave Fang Tong his telescope, and even the golden silk tassel that only senior generals will have the opportunity to get, and the imperial command knife with rubies on the handle of the golden sword were given to him.

It can be seen that Fang Dongquan's expectations for Fang Dong are very big!

"The distance is five hundred, the enemy continues to approach, and all artillery groups are ready!"

Fang Tong used a telescope to carry it out, and at the same time ordered the platoon commanders and artillery commanders under his command: "Prepare five catties of guns, load solid shells, and target the enemy's front row artillery unit!" ”

"Bearing 281, distance 450, solid bullet loading!"

The platoon commanders and artillery commanders under his command were quickly mentally calculating the shooting elements, including the very important charge and the angle of fire.

Soon, the gunners of the three five-pound field guns nearby were busy, but they were busy, but in fact, they had already completed the relevant preparations, and now they were just loading the prepared medicine bags and projectiles, and soon, the commanders of the three guns were controlling the guns for the final subtle aiming.

The final aiming of the artillery is a special skill that is generally only available to the commanders of each artillery, and it is a skill that has been tempered by long-term experience, which is an experience and has nothing to do with military theoretical knowledge!

Therefore, even the officers of the artillery unit would not be able to complete this last stage if they did not play with artillery every day.

So soon the gunners of each artillery group reported: "Aim complete!" ”

At this time, Fang Tong did not continue to order, but waited, waiting for the Ming army to continue to advance, and the Ming army did not let him down, continued to advance steadily, when the Ming army in the front row, especially the gunners in the Ming army column who pushed the artillery forward, also entered the distance of four hundred and fifty meters.

Fang Tong decisively pulled out his father's gold tassel gilded and ruby-encrusted command knife, only to see him hold the command knife high and point diagonally forward, shouting, "Shoot!" ”

In the next moment, the rumbling cannon reverberated in this small valley plain!