Of course, in fact, there is still a difference between the military uniform of the Datang Navy and the military uniform of the army, for example, the officer uniform of the Navy does not have a stripe representing the military rank on the cuffs, but an epaulette representing the military rank on the shoulder.

This situation is just the opposite of the navy and army in later generations, the cuffs of the army in the Tang Dynasty only have stripes representing military ranks, while the navy does not, and in the armies of later countries, the cuffs of the navy have stripes representing military ranks, and the army does not.

In addition to the difference in cuffs and epaulettes, there is also a clear difference: the pants of the Navy soldiers are not red pants, but navy blue pants that are the same as the jackets.

The reason is very simple, the navy dislikes the army's blue clothes and red pants are too ugly, and Lieutenant Colonel Bao Yifen, director of the Navy Department, once commented on the military uniforms of army soldiers in a joking tone on a private occasion, saying that if there is one word to describe the military uniforms of army soldiers, that is: ugly, if you use two words to describe it, it is 'very ugly', if you use three words, it is 'very ugly'.

On the one hand, they feel too ugly, and on the other hand, the soldiers of the navy do not need to be like the army, they need soldiers to wear bright and conspicuous clothes in order to distinguish friend and foe on the battlefield with thick gunsmoke, so the soldiers of the Datang Navy are the same as the navy, whether it is a shirt or pants, they are all unified in navy blue.

The battle for military uniforms between the navy and army of the Tang Dynasty was actually in front of Li Xuan for a time, but Li Xuan was too lazy to take care of these trivial matters, he was more concerned about the improvement of the actual combat effectiveness of the troops, he didn't care about the navy's uniforms, he was more concerned about the design of the navy's new warships.

After discussing with the shipbuilders of the Ministry of Industry, the group of turtles in the navy quickly came up with a second design plan, not soon, Li Xuan is about to lead the army to the east, but there is not much time left for the navy to slowly design the plan, it must be determined as soon as possible, otherwise, after Li Xuan leads the army eastward, there is not so much time and mood to deal with these messy things in the navy.

They didn't know that in fact, Li Xuan was more concerned about the development of the surface power of the Tang Dynasty than the navy itself!

This is not only because the army needs to use river transportation to advance eastward, but also because the Liangguang region is a coastal area, especially the Pearl River water system directly connected to the South China Sea, and after entering Guangdong, it will definitely need to fight with the sailors of the Ming Dynasty.

And the strength of the sailors of the Ming Dynasty was still quite strong, not to mention the Zheng He fleet in the Yongle period, which was the largest fleet in the world back then, enough to beat any other country's navy at that time!

Even today, in the forty-second year of Zhengde, the power of the Ming Dynasty's sailors is still not to be underestimated!

Although the current Ming Dynasty naval forces are being overwhelmed by the Japanese (PS: at that time, the word did not refer to the Japanese themselves, but to the pirates in the East Asian seas at that time), the rebellion of the Japanese is getting more and more serious, and some of the particularly bold Japanese have dared to go ashore and plunder deep into the hinterland.

But even so, the Daming Navy Division can still divide enough strength to repeatedly crush the Datang Navy 10,000 times, not to mention the Daming Navy Division, even if it is a random small pirate gang, it can beat the current Datang Navy!

Although the Tang Dynasty has not officially entered Guangdong now, as an ambitious emperor, Li Xuan will sooner or later lead a large army into Guangdong and seize Guangzhou, and it will definitely be inevitable to fight with these sea forces at that time.

Therefore, even if the current Datang Navy can only nest in the Liujiang River, a tributary of the Xijiang River, Li Xuan also needs to take precautions and develop surface forces first.

At least in the future, we must be able to guard the door of the Pearl River Estuary!

When he saw the newly submitted warship design of the Datang Navy, he found that these naval buns had finally opened up and knew how to strengthen the firepower of the battleship.

After looking at several of these ship types, Li Xuan picked out four of them, thinking that some could be built in small batches first, and then see if the specific use cases were large-scale construction of equipment.

Of these four ship types, the first is the main battleship that the officers of the Tang Navy are scheduled to use in the Xijiang Valley!

Although the overall shape of the ship still has a strong shadow of a traditional river warship, it is already very different, because it is designed with six gun emplacements on the head, and it is enough to install 800 catties of guns.

There is a gun emplacement in the bow that can be equipped with an 800-pound gun, and then there are two gun emplacements on the left and right sides of the ship that can be equipped with a gun emplacement of about 300 catties.

Five artillery, including an 800-pound gun, plus four 300-pound small cannons, this firepower is already unprecedentedly powerful in the small inland river of the Xijiang River Basin, at least Li Xuan feels that in the Liujiang River Basin, and even in the Xijiang Basin, this battleship is estimated to be the most awesome battleship, so Li Xuan specially gave this class of battleship a mighty and domineering name: Weilong!

The first ship is the Weilong, and the follow-up ships are collectively referred to as the Weilong class.

Of course, in order to install so many guns, this kind of battleship also paid the price of being bulky, relying on the sail to turn in inland rivers and other poor maneuverability, while the center of gravity is slightly higher, and the ability to resist wind and waves is poor!

However, it does not matter if the maneuverability is poor, because the ship will also have a large number of oars, and in inland river operations, it is not enough to rely on sails alone, and it is necessary to use sail pulp at the same time.

This is the main inland river warship, the volume is huge, the firepower is huge, of course, the cost is also expensive, not to mention anything else, the five guns above alone are not cheap.

This is also destined to be equipped with too many of the main warships of this inland river!

If you want a large number, you have to have a second design of the battleship, this battleship is much smaller, you can only install a small cannon of 300 catties in the bow and stern, but the advantage is small in size, fast speed, flexible steering, and cheaper.

These two are warships, but the remaining two are not warships, they are both transport ships, and these two transport ships are said to be newly designed, but in fact, they are only slightly changed from the existing civilian transport ships.

The first type is relatively large, and it can transport more than 150 troops at a time!

The second is smaller, which can transport fifty troops!

All four boats have the same characteristics, that is, they have a shallow draft, and they have traditional hard sails at the same time, as well as pulp, which is a combination of sail pulp.

Li Xuan felt that these four types of ships could be built appropriately, first see how the specific use is, and then decide whether to build them on a large scale!

And following the example of army equipment, Li Xuan also set the model for naval equipment, the main battleship was stereotyped as the Weilong class, and the secondary warship was stereotyped as the Canghai class, as for the two kinds of transport ships, there is nothing special, so they will not be given special titles.

After deciding on the specific ship type, Li Xuan didn't care about the follow-up, because the next thing was the matter of the navy, the Ministry of Taxation, and the Ministry of Industry, and these officials would naturally negotiate on their own, and then purchase or build it themselves.

If they even had to trouble Li Xuan for these things, Li Xuan didn't mind changing a group of people to become officials!

These things can't be done, what's the use of Datang waiting?

After dealing with this file of the navy, Li Xuan also put the focus of attention back to the army!

After urging the people of the Ministry of Industry and the Logistics Department to distribute the last batch of artillery from Xingquan Mansion to the First Artillery Battalion, so that the five-kilogram field guns in the First Artillery Battalion reached twelve, and the seven-kilogram field artillery reached three, Li Xuan once again led the army to march in person!

The night before departure, Li Xuan had a family banquet with Empress Dowager Bai and Empress Dong as usual, and everyone was accustomed to Li Xuan's personal expedition, but they just told him to be more careful, not to take risks easily, and put himself in danger.

Li Xuan didn't care about this!

Just kidding, if the situation is not good, he must be the first in the whole army to escape, and a fool will put himself in danger!

If the eastward advance fails, you can do it a second time, and if the army is defeated, you can re-recruit and train, but you lose your own life, and there is no second chance to start again.

But it's impossible to say for sure, I can cross it once, maybe I can cross it a second time, but although Li Xuan sometimes thinks so, he doesn't have the courage to give himself a shot, and then see if he will cross a second time!

After pacifying his family, Li Xuan officially took many Hanlin members of the Hanlin Academy, as well as some officials such as the cabinet and the Privy Council, to board the ship and head south the next day.

Accompanying Li Xuan to the south were the 3rd Infantry Brigade, the 4th Infantry Brigade, and many auxiliary troops, such as two artillery battalions, two cavalry battalions, etc., as well as a larger number of garrisons

They will join Hao Bonian's 1st Infantry Brigade after heading south to Xiangzhou!

Later, the army will leave nearly 10,000 troops such as the Third Infantry Brigade and an artillery battalion in Xiangzhou to defend in situ to prevent the Ming Army from advancing west to attack Liuzhou, while Li Xuan himself will continue to lead the main force of the First Army and the Third Army to continue westward along the Xijiang River!

Where to go?

Go guests!

Because there are nearly 10,000 Ming troops there who can threaten the Tang Dynasty at any time, Li Xuan is not willing to lead the army eastward, and there are still tens of thousands of Ming troops who can threaten his rear, so before advancing eastward, he has to annihilate the Ming army of the guests.

And it's not enough to simply conquer the guests, they must be completely annihilated, at least they must be defeated, otherwise it is not of much strategic significance to simply take down the guests, and this Ming army can still threaten their own rear at any time.

Otherwise, Li Xuan would not have led the main force westward, which was obviously a posture of an all-lion fighting rabbit!

Li Xuan led the army to leave Liuzhou, and then went south along the Liujiang River, which naturally could not be hidden from the spies of the Ming army!

Li Xuan and the others hadn't set sail south yet, and the fast horses of the Ming army spies were just crazy and rushed towards Wu Xuan!