With the current national strength of the Tang Dynasty, it is far from being able to raise an army of more than 10,000 people.

The combined population of Xingquan and Liping is only four or five hundred thousand, and these two provinces are barren and barren, although the place is not small, and the population is quite large, but there is basically no economic pillar industry, even the most basic agriculture, is also very scarce.

Food is barely self-sufficient, and if there is a small natural disaster, there will basically be a famine.

And the Tang Dynasty raised thousands of soldiers, and the food was only secondary, after all, the looting was ruthless, and it was barely enough to eat.

However, the various strategic materials needed by the new army of the Tang Dynasty to maintain the war are not so easy to solve, whether it is iron, copper, saltpeter, sulfur, or even the cloth used to make military uniforms and quilts, they cannot be satisfied by themselves, and can only rely on outsourcing.

Even if the entire Xingquan Mansion and Liping Mansion are looted, it will not be able to maintain the war needs of the new army of the Tang Dynasty!

At present, the Tang Dynasty mainly relied on warfare to feed the war, and many captures obtained through war, including prisoners, cold weapons, bowl cannons, gunpowder, horses, grain and grass, etc., were used to maintain continuous expansion and warfare.

Most of the cold weapons used by the new army of the Tang Dynasty were actually captured from the Ming army, and there were not many self-made cold weapons, mainly concentrated in some high-quality command knives used by officers, waist knives used by swords and shields, such as iron armor, bows and arrows, shields, etc., which were actually captured from the Ming army.

And now, even the artillery of the Datang New Army uses a large number of bowl-mouth cannons captured from the Ming army!

There are two kinds of artillery units in today's Datang New Army, one is the battalion artillery team belonging to the infantry regiment, and the other is the artillery battalion directly under the Privy Council.

However, the battalion artillery team to which the infantry regiment belongs can use the bowl mouth cannon captured from the Ming army, because the artillery in the battalion artillery team is also a 150 kg shotgun according to the standard, but the artillery workshop under the Ministry of Industry has limited output and cannot meet the artillery needs of the rapidly expanding Datang New Army.

Although the caliber and power of the bowl mouth cannon captured from the Ming army will be smaller, it can still be barely used by selecting some bowl mouth guns of about 100 catties!

Anyway, it's better than nothing, isn't it!

However, the Ming army's handguns, that is, the firearms held by individual soldiers, basically could not meet the combat needs of the Datang New Army, and they were basically recast as scrap.

Such a Tang Dynasty is destined to only maintain the war through continuous external expansion and expansion, but once it is dragged by the Ming army to fight a war of attrition, no matter how strong the combat effectiveness of the new army of the Tang Dynasty is, it will not be able to support a long battle.

After all, this Ming army is behind the entire Ming Dynasty, if they are trapped, they will be able to flatten the Tang Dynasty even if they use their lives!

Not to mention that after being dragged into a war of attrition, the Tang Dynasty will not be able to obtain a large number of war materials and population through expansion, and it will become poorer and poorer.

So when Hao Bonian said that he was worried that the Ming army would defend Liping Mansion and even avoid a decisive battle with his own side, Li Xuan was a little worried.

A war of attrition is not advisable!

In this way, the battle on the side of Lipingfu City must be more cautious, if possible, it is best to block the main force of the Ming army from Lipingfu City, and strive to fight a strategic decisive battle in the field, preferably the same battle as the Battle of Tonggu Acropolis.

Just when Li Xuan and Hao Bonian were worried that the Ming army might fight a war of attrition with them, in fact, there were indeed people on the side of the Ming army on the West Road who had such an idea.

A few days after the end of the Battle of the Tonggu Acropolis, Zhu Zhihai on the side of the Ming army on the West Road finally knew that the Ming army on the North Road suffered a crushing defeat under the Tonggu Acropolis, and the army of more than 20,000 people completely collapsed in less than a day, leaving only more than 3,000 people to flee north in embarrassment.

After learning the news, Zhu Zhihai's first reaction was not to be angry, but to ponder, and then anxious again Everyone began to discuss the military situation, and the main body of the discussion was not how to fight, but to discuss the reality of the pseudo-Tang thief army.

Discuss what the puppet Tang thief army relied on to defeat more than 10,000 people in Song Zhiwen's department, and then be able to defeat more than 20,000 Ming troops on the North Road again.

This has defeated the total number of more than 30,000 officers and troops twice, and if anyone dares to say that this is luck and coincidence, Zhu Zhihai will immediately dare to order his head to be cut off.

Since the puppet Tang thief army was able to defeat the official army many times one after another, and it was still tens of thousands of official troops, you told me that it was coincidence and luck?

Then if I cut you with a knife, I can only blame yourself for being too unlucky?

These pseudo-Tang thief armies are so arrogant, they must have something to rely on, and this reliance has made them win battles and battles, and they have the confidence to fight against the officials and the army, and even take the initiative to attack the officials and the army.

If you want to successfully exterminate these pseudo-Tang thief army, you must know what these pseudo-Tang thief army rely on? Only then can we know the corresponding restraint measures.

As long as the corresponding restraint method can be found, the extermination of the puppet Tang thief army is a matter of easy capture, and it is easy, just like the many rebellions suppressed by the imperial court every year.

When everyone discussed, most of them unanimously agreed that the main reason why the puppet Tang thief army was able to win successive battles was that the firearms of the puppet Tang thief army were too sharp.

Artillery, handcuffs, flowering shells, etc. are all big killers on the battlefield, and the pseudo-Tang thief army with these big killing weapons will be so arrogant.

In addition, they also unanimously believed that whether it was the previous Xingquan Mansion soldiers or the North Road Ming Army, whether it was Su Jiakang or Song Zhiwen, or the follow-up Guizhou Fen Shoudao and Zuo Zhenglong, they all made a mistake: underestimate the enemy!

At the beginning, Su Jiakang underestimated the enemy, and to be honest, it was understandable, because at that time, the puppet Tang thief army had just emerged, and the outside world did not know enough about this puppet Tang thief army, and it was normal for them to be ordinary bandits and thieves on the spot.

But Su Jiakang only underestimated the enemy at the beginning, and later defended Zhengtai County.

However, the follow-up Song Zhiwen and Long participated in politics of the light enemy, then it is unforgivable, in the face of a pseudo-Tang thief army that has swept Zhengtai County, Song Zhiwen after the fiasco of the first Lanjiang Campaign, the second Lanjiang Campaign was still a light enemy, which finally led to heavy losses, and directly led to the follow-up Lanjiang Trench as a fictitious, and the pseudo-Tang Thief Army passed the Lanjiang Trench, thus sweeping Xingquan, Lipingfu County.

Lord Long is no exception, in the face of a puppet Tang thief army that has defeated tens of thousands of official troops, without waiting for the arrival of the main friendly army on the west road, he went south without authorization and fought a decisive battle with the puppet Tang thief army under the copper drum acropolis, and the result was good, more than 20,000 people were beaten by more than 10,000 puppet Tang thief army, and the defeat was that it could not be defeated again.

And everyone present naturally thought that they couldn't be as stupid as Song Zhiwen and Lord Long, and would do such a stupid thing as taking the enemy lightly.

But there is a saying, people who are drunk always shout that they are not drunk; Neurological patients always say that they are not sick, how can it be that I am sick, obviously you are sick, everyone in the world except me is sick!

Therefore, everyone present despised Song Zhiwen and them, but they didn't know that they continued to march east to suppress the puppet Tang thief army when they knew that the Ming army on the North Road was defeated, which was actually an act of underestimating the enemy.

If they are cautious enough, they will stop, and then continue to accumulate troops, gather an army of 780,000 or even more than 100,000 and then continue to march eastward.

Now that they are marching east with more than 30,000 people, will they think that they will perform better than the more than 20,000 people of the Ming army on the northern route?

But this can't be blamed on them, being in the mountains and not knowing the height of the mountain, being in the forest and not knowing the big forest, this is a very normal thing, people who can clear the clouds and mist in the deep mountains and old forests and see the truth of the matter are always a minority.

And obviously, these people are only a group of the majority, not a minority.

So they thought they were very cautious, but they still headed towards Liping Mansion, and even planned to go to Xingquan Mansion.

Of course, they also made a lot of preparations, and when they knew from many sources that the firearms of the puppet Tang thief army were sharp, they also spent a lot of effort to prepare a lot of corresponding measures.

For example, prepare a large and thick shield that can block bullets, such as the armor on the body of some heavily armored soldiers, temporarily hung with a piece of iron, especially the addition of heart guards on the chest.

These measures are basically the same as what Song Zhiwen did at the beginning, after all, this is the first reaction of ordinary troops when they encounter troops with sharp firearms.

If there is a corresponding weapon, it is natural to use the corresponding weapon, if not, then you have to make some means of defense.

Like shields, shield carts and the like.

Strictly speaking, these things actually have some use, at least at long distances, they can also block bullets, but at medium and short distances within fifty or sixty meters, they are actually useless.

Can you use a shield thickened with iron sheets to have a steel armor several millimeters thick with high defensive capabilities?

The bullets fired by the 14 mm muskets of the Tang New Army can penetrate the steel armor a few millimeters later, let alone these thin iron sheets.

Unless you really don't have the shame to go into battle with a big, thick piece of iron!

But if you do take it, then you don't fight, and the dead stuff can exhaust you to death before you go to the battlefield and get bullets.

The Ming army on the West Road, which thought that it had been well prepared, and thought that it was extremely cautious, arrived not far from the city of Liping Mansion all the way, and at this time, it had actually been two days since the Ming army captured the city of Lipingfu!

These two days are not only enough for the main force of the Ming army to arrive not far from Lipingfu City, but also for the Third Infantry Regiment, the vanguard unit of the Tang New Army, to have rushed to the city of Lipingfu!