If you want to really establish maritime superiority, so that the navy can assist the army to launch a landing offensive against the Ming Dynasty, you must first annihilate the Ming army's naval divisions, and they are their main force, but this is too demanding, and it is simply unrealistic in a short time.

Li Xuan estimated that if he wanted to truly control the sea control power along the coast of Guangdong, he would have to painstakingly manage the navy for more than five years, and five years later, it was unknown whether the Tang Dynasty would still exist.

Not to mention, there is another possibility, that is, within five years, maybe the Tang Army has already captured Fujian and even Zhejiang and other central coasts, and it is even possible to kill the Beijing Division.

Therefore, regardless of whether the navy can win or not, in fact, it will not have much impact on the current situation of the entire Tang Dynasty!

The Tang Navy was defeated, and there was no way for the Ming army or the Franc machine to land on the shore, and if they landed, they would die.

If the Tang Navy wins, it can only hold the mouth of the Pearl River.

Therefore, although Li Xuan also cares about the strategy of the Tang Navy, he actually cares about it to a limited extent, and Li Xuan is more concerned about the actions and even the victory or defeat of the army. This can be seen from the proportion of military spending, and now the navy's annual military expenditure is at best more than one million taels, and this is still counting the special funds for building ships that Li Xuan took out from the inner treasury.

However, on the side of the army, the annual military expenditure is already more than 10 million.

If the navy wins a war, the impact will be limited, and if it loses, the impact will be limited.

However, on the army side, if a large-scale decisive battle is won or lost, it will cause a series of chain reactions, which will directly affect the ownership of one or even several provinces, and even affect the survival of the Tang Dynasty.

For example, on Huguang's side, if the First Army led by Hao Bonian was defeated, then Huguang's Ming army would be able to drive straight in, and finally go to Guangdong to capture Zhaoqing, and directly kill Li Xuan and other Tang monarchs and ministers.

On the contrary, if Hao Bonian can annihilate the main force of the Huguang Ming army in Huguang, then he can also bring the entire southern part of Huguang into the rule of the Tang Dynasty, and then he can go north to the hinterland of the Central Plains such as the north of Huguang, and go east to the south of the Yangtze River.

And this importance, the Tang Dynasty monarchs and ministers know, and the Ming Dynasty also knows it!

Therefore, despite the great difficulties, the Ming Dynasty still fully supported Zhang Yue to build firearms and train the new army, and even sent 20,000 border troops south to assist Zhang Yue in suppressing thieves.

Now, whether it is the south of Huguang or the middle of Jiangxi, both sides are heavily armed!

The current Ming army can't be defeated, and it is extremely difficult for the Tang Dynasty to continue to go north.

In July, Hao Bonian planned a short-term raid to try to cut off the connection between Hengyang and Changsha, but unfortunately it was detected by the Ming army, and the Ming army in the direction of Hengyang and Changsha was a large-scale move, and it was actually a gathering of more than 100,000 troops at the same time.

The Jiangxi side is to be more calm, the Fifth Infantry Division does not dare to act rashly and continue to go north, the Ming army is also unable to go south, and in the end the two sides can only stare at each other!

But this situation cannot be sustained, and Li Xuan feels that it is necessary to change the current confrontation situation!

Therefore, after the end of July, taking advantage of the opportunity of rest and reorganization, Li Xuan began to greatly adjust the existing troop deployment, Huguang could not fight, Li Xuan just didn't plan to continue to attack Hengyang or Changsha, and was ready to change the direction of the main attack!

As early as June, he had already decided that this year's autumn and winter offensive would be placed in Jiangxi, so that the two or three hundred thousand Ming troops in Huguang would squat and play eggs!

Even if the current Fifth Infantry Division has already been reorganized, and the 15th Infantry Regiment has been reorganized from a spear regiment to a musket regiment, the strength of the artillery battalion has also increased, but it is still insufficient.

To this end, he set up a new Second Army in the Jiangxi direction, under the command of Li Chunjing, the former commander of the Fourth Infantry Division, which would have the Fifth Infantry Division and other units under its jurisdiction.

Some of the main forces were transferred from Huguang, but there were many Ming troops in Huguang, and the strength of the First Army could not be too bad, so he first adjusted Huguang and assigned the Second Infantry Division to the operational sequence of the First Army.

However, the Fourth Mixed Regiment (formerly the Fourth Provisional Regiment) and the Fifth Mixed Regiment (formerly the First Provisional First Regiment) were withdrawn from the operational sequence of the First Army and assigned to the operations of the Second Army.

In addition, the first mixed regiment originally stationed in Chaozhou was also dispatched to Jiangxi!

These three mixed regiments are all new-style mixed regiments that have completed the reform of the new establishment, and they are even stronger than the original mixed regiments.

Taking the Fourth Mixed Regiment as an example, the regiment currently has five musket battalions, while the original reserve battalion has completely disappeared, and in addition to the five musket battalions, there is also a baggage battalion and an artillery battalion, with six seven-pound guns, twelve five-pound guns, and six three-pound guns, a total of 24 guns.

In addition, there is also a full cavalry team, with 100 cavalry!

A team of grenadiers of a hundred people.

and other subordinate personnel of the regimental headquarters.

The total strength of the army has reached a huge scale of 5,000 troops, and these 5,000 people have independent combat capabilities and are able to undertake combat missions in one direction.

Three mixed regiments, this is 15,000 troops, although the total strength is still not comparable to the infantry division, but the combat effectiveness is actually more than those infantry divisions that have not completed the reorganization.

In the first half of the year, the main reorganization work of the Datang Army was mainly concentrated on the five provisional regiments, and they were expanded into mixed regiments, and they were carried out in accordance with the standard establishment!

As for the infantry divisions, the expansion of artillery units was mainly carried out, and the armor was also equipped, but most of these infantry divisions still had reserve battalions.

Of course, among these troops, the Fifth Infantry Division was an exception, because when Li Xuan decided to take Jiangxi as the main direction of attack for this year's autumn and winter strategy, he gave priority to strengthening a large amount of resources to the Fifth Infantry Division.

This is the Fifth Infantry Division, which has become the first division-level unit in the Tang Army to complete the reorganization, and it is also the only division-level unit to complete the reorganization.

After the completion of the reorganization, the three subordinate infantry regiments were all musket regiments, and at the same time, in these musket regiments, the reserve battalions were all changed to infantry battalions, and the number of infantry did not change, but the number of musketeers increased to more than 3,000 people!

At the same time, due to the increase in artillery and baggage troops, the total strength of the Fifth Infantry Division has also expanded to 14,000 men, 2,000 more than other infantry divisions.

In the future Jiangxi Raiders, the main force is the Fifth Infantry Division, the First Mixed Regiment, the Fourth Mixed Regiment, and the Fifth Mixed Regiment, and at the same time, Li Xuan also strengthened a heavy artillery battalion for the department.

The heavy artillery battalion is also the first heavy artillery battalion in the Tang Dynasty, and the number of artillery under its jurisdiction is not much, only 12 guns, which is much smaller than the artillery battalion of 18 or even 24 guns of the reinforced type.

But if you look at what kind of artillery this artillery battalion is equipped with, then you will understand why an artillery battalion was directly given an establishment and was also crowned with the word heavy.

Because these twelve artillery pieces are the first batch of siege artillery built by the Tang Dynasty!

Including three 48-pound (sixty-four-pound) howitzers, and nine twenty-four-pound (thirty-two-pound) howitzers!

The Tang Dynasty has always wanted to manufacture artillery with a larger caliber and greater power, but due to the technical level, it can only produce nine-kilogram cannons at present, and even fourteen-kilogram cannons cannot be mass-produced now.

But whether it is the army or the navy, the need for large-caliber artillery is extremely urgent, especially the army, they urgently need large-caliber artillery to break through the turtle shell of the Ming army: the city wall!

In actual combat, it was found that whether it was a seven-kilogram field gun or a nine-kilogram field artillery, although the power of its projectile was amazing in the field, it was still powerless for the city wall that was casually seven or eight meters thick or even more than ten meters.

Li Xuan has always been very concerned about the development of armaments, so he instructed the Ministry of Industry to develop grenades and short-barreled heavy artillery.

The grenade, that is, the flowering bomb that can be launched, but the fuse problem and the launch problem are relatively difficult to solve, because to explode after the grenade is launched, there must be a fuse, and with Datang's current technical capabilities, it can only use the fire rope fuse.

Before the shell is fired, the gunner will light the fuse and then fire it, but this brings another problem of the shell rolling, so this grenade cannot be used on a cannon with a long barrel.

Although the Ministry of Industry is developing more advanced fuses to replace the arquebus fuze, it will not be possible to succeed for a while.

Because these current grenades can only be used on short-barreled artillery!

To this end, the Zhaoqing Arsenal is the first to develop a howitzer, the weight of the test sample gun is not heavy, but the caliber is relatively large, can fire nine catties of shells.

Because of the short barrel, in order to allow the shell to obtain enough muzzle velocity to ensure the range, the barrel is made very, very thick, and finally a short and thick howitzer is formed.

In order to save costs, iron was even used instead of bronze, because the price was extremely low.

Subsequently, according to this howitzer, the Zhaoqing Arsenal continued to increase and thicken, and finally came up with a heavy howitzer of 24 catties or even 48 catties.

After the army learned of these howitzers, it can be said that it was ecstatic, and directly placed a batch of large orders, and at the same time, because the autumn and winter offensive was imminent, it directly pulled away the sample guns used for testing in the Zhaoqing Arsenal, and then transferred the backbone and artillery officers from the artillery units, and it only took half a month to establish this heavy artillery battalion, and then urgently transported it to the Jiangxi front.

The Datang Army is going to use Nanchang, which was built by the Ming Army and is the same as Tietong, to test the actual combat effectiveness of these heavy howitzers!