Since the end of the last battle of Lanjiang Ferry, Li Xuan has been preparing for the next attack of the Ming army, for which he occupies almost the entire Zhengtai County, using all the resources he can find in Zhengtai County to expand his army.

Even at the expense of paying a high price, he purchased various military strategic weapons such as iron, copper, saltpeter, sulfur, and lead from old man Sun and other bold merchants, while a large number of other cloths, grain, and salt were also purchased.

For this reason, the Tang Dynasty spent nearly 20,000 taels of silver accumulated in the past year, not only the silver was spent, but also the many soft things obtained by the copyist, calligraphy and painting were also sold at a cheap price, just to buy more strategic materials.

And at such a high price, the materials obtained are also quite rich, using these materials, in the past three months, the workshops of the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty have almost started working at full strength, and these materials have been consumed in just three months.

You must know that since the Tang Dynasty moved to Xikou Village, the weapons workshop of the Ministry of Industry has expanded several times. The total number of craftsmen and ordinary workers has reached nearly a thousand.

In the past three months, this 1,000-person Ministry of Industry Weapons Workshop has created a total of 500 catties of artillery, more than 800 muskets, 1,000 grenades, and more than 3,000 spears with steel spearheads for the Datang New Army, and converted the captured cotton armor of the Ming Army into more than 300 pairs of cotton iron armor.

Other cold weapons such as bayonets and waist knives are also in large numbers.

And gunpowder, bullets, shells, bows and arrows and other expendable materials are also a large number.

If you add the various weapons that existed before, by today, three months later, the Datang New Army has barely completed its full strength.

Each of the four infantry battalions had two fully loaded musket corps, and the two mixed battalions each had a musket corps, a full ten musket corps, with a total of 1,000 musketeers.

The newly formed grenadiers were also armed with muskets and grenades.

The artillery team has one 800-pound Italian cannon and five 500-pound battalion guns.

Even the vehicles used by the baggage team to transport the baggage are hundreds more.

Only the cavalry team is not yet formed, because there is no way to collect so many qualified war horses here in Zhengtai County, and at present, there are only about 100 horses available for riding in the new army of the Tang Dynasty.

Li Xuan's guards took up more than twenty of them, yes, Li Xuan had already upgraded his guards to mounted infantry, not to take them to charge, but to take him to run faster when he was defeated.

In addition, the two mixed battalions were each equipped with five cavalry.

Then there are the mounts of officers above the squad.

In this way, there were less than seventy horses left for the cavalry in the end, but the quality of these seventy horses was the best.

The horses used by the other officers and Li Xuan's guards were at most able to be ridden, and they were mainly collected from the people.

However, the more than 60 horses of the cavalry team can barely be regarded as war horses, and most of these war horses were captured from the Ming army.

From weapons to ammunition, from soldiers to officers and the training of troops, Li Xuan thought that he had exhausted all his efforts, and this new army of 3,800 people in the Tang Dynasty looked decent at present, at least during training and exercises.

But most of the 3,800 were recruits, and nearly 2,000 had never been on the battlefield.

Whether this can be used in a real battle depends on whether God gives face.

If you can fight a few small battles first, let these recruits see blood and boost their morale, they should be able to use it when they reach the decisive battle with the Ming army, but now that the Ming army has tens of thousands of people, Li Xuan is a little worried that these recruits will not be able to withstand the huge pressure on the battlefield.

When it was discovered that another 5,000 Ming troops had come to the east bank of the Lanjiang River, so that the total number of Ming troops on the east bank of the Lanjiang River had reached 10,000 people, Li Xuan had already strengthened the vigilance of the whole army, sent more scouts to secretly cross the river, and monitored the movements of the Ming army on the other side of the river for twelve hours.

If the tens of thousands of Ming troops want to do something, the movement will definitely not be small, and it is almost impossible to hide from the scouts.

As for the Ming army occasionally sending small-scale troops to other places, it is possible to hide the surveillance of the scouts of the new army of the Tang Dynasty, but this is not important, the Ming army of dozens or hundreds of people sneaked away, and it will not affect the overall situation.

Even if they wanted to send hundreds of people to secretly cross the river from other places, the Datang New Army had set up manpower to monitor several other ferries suitable for crossing the river, and the first mixed battalion and the second mixed battalion were upstream and downstream.

It is almost impossible for the Ming army to secretly cross the river on a large scale.

Whether it is a partial division or the main force, if the Ming army wants to cross the river, it must first pass the Datang New Army!

In addition to strengthening the monitoring of the Ming army, Li Xuan also ordered the troops to step up targeted defensive combat training.

As for the fortifications, there is no need to repair them now, because in the past three months, Li Xuan has already asked the auxiliary troops, especially the more than 400 Ming troops of the garrison battalion, to dig pits and repair the walls every day.

Today's Lanjiang ferry, which is suitable for crossing the river and landing on the shore of about 500 meters, has been completely covered by the breast wall of the Datang New Army, and this breast wall has been repaired higher and higher, before it was only more than one meter or two meters, but now, the breast wall has been repaired to more than three meters.

It's almost a wall!

On top of the breastwork, there are also six large and small forts, as well as more than 20 arrow towers.

In the distance of more than 30 meters from the breastwork to the river, there are many obstacles that block the advance of the Ming army, and many sharpened wooden poles and bamboo poles are laid on the shallow talk of the river, and many distance horses and other objects are arranged on the river beach.

Those bamboo poles and stakes were designed to delay the landing of the Ming army, so that they could have more time to shoot the Ming army who were still on the raft and had not yet landed.

The distance from the horses and other objects was to prevent the Ming army from charging in formation and forcing the Ming army to take the initiative to disperse the formation.

This distance of more than 30 meters is enough to become the burial place of the Ming army, once the fight starts, the blood of the Ming army is enough to stain the entire river beach!

The first breastwork and the riverbank fortifications were only the first fortifications, and fifty meters behind the first breastwork there was a second circular breastwork.

This is just in case, if the Ming army breaks through the first line of defense against the chest wall, the new army of the Tang Dynasty will withdraw to the second ring of the chest wall and continue to resist.

Such fortifications, even in World War II, are not weak.

If there were a few more heavy machine guns on top, it was estimated that the 10,000 men of the Ming army would be put down by all the machine guns before they landed on the shore.

Today's Lanjiang Ferry has become a real fortress!

However, the new army of the Tang Dynasty was well prepared, and the Ming army on the opposite side was obviously prepared, and they were busy after arriving, and they also came up with some strange things.

These things know at a glance that they are specially aimed at the firearms of the Datang New Army!