The scouts on the east bank of the Lanjiang River also took the risk of stealing a few items and sent them back that night.

Looking at the few things that the Ming army had prepared in large quantities in front of him, Li Xuan was a little speechless.

These Ming troops are really interesting enough!

The few things in front of Li Xuan are quite interesting, first of all, it is a rather exaggerated shield, it is not too suitable to say that it is a shield, because this thing is a person high, almost fifty centimeters wide, and behind it is several thick wooden boards, and a layer of iron is nailed to the outside of the wooden board, and a layer of cotton armor is covered with the iron sheet.

In addition to the wooden board used as a support at the back, the combination of iron sheet and cotton armor is basically the combination of cotton and iron armor equipped in the Datang New Army.

But the weight of such a huge shield is also quite exaggerated, I am afraid that it weighs hundreds of pounds, and it is impossible for the strongest soldiers to carry this thick plank to walk far, and it is estimated that they will have to lie down tired after walking ten meters.

After all, this kind of giant shield cannot be carried on its back, it can only be carried with both hands, which is quite a high physical requirement for soldiers.

In addition to this exaggerated giant shield, there is also a small shield, which is obviously modified from the single small round shield of the Ming army before, and it has been thickened a lot.

Then there is a kind of wheelbarrow, said to be a wheelbarrow, but in fact it is more suitable for a chariot, the front section of these wheelbarrows includes iron and cowhide, etc., and there is a large front baffle, depending on the thickness of its iron plates, it is estimated that the defense is better than those hand-held shields.

These three kinds of defensive shields made Li Xuan quite speechless, just looking at the materials used in this shield, he knew that the cost must be not small, at least much more expensive than the muskets equipped by the Datang New Army.

But did these Ming troops think that they would be able to hold off their own musket volleys with these?

You must know that after the Ming army went ashore, it was only thirty meters away from the defense line of the Datang New Army, and the Ming army would advance, and at this distance, the fourteen mm muskets equipped by the Datang New Army could even make a hole in the plate armor made of stainless steel, and the defensive shields made of these thin iron sheets, cowhides, cotton armor, and thick wooden boards could block the bullets of their own muskets?

Just kidding!

Sure enough, the next day, Li Xuan personally asked the guards to hold muskets to test these defensive equipment of the Ming army with live ammunition.

The defensive power of these defensive equipment at a distance of fifty meters is quite good, except for the small shield that has been penetrated, the giant shield and the shield car are intact, but when they step forward to thirty meters, even the giant shield can't bear it.

At a distance of twenty meters, even the baffle on the shield car couldn't stop the bullets!

In other words, even if the Ming army spent a lot of money to build and equip these things, it was still unlikely that they would be able to block the muskets of the new army of the Tang Dynasty from firing between twenty and thirty meters.

If the shield or armor could block the bullets, the West would not have played the line of troops for hundreds of years and lined up to be shot, and the armor would not have withdrawn from the stage of war.

Not to mention, the Datang New Army is not only preparing to concentrate on the Ming army on the beachhead, but also grenades and artillery.

And the power of artillery and grenades is not something that a shield or armor can resist.

Thousands of grenades, and they were thrown on the head of the dense Ming army on the beach, it is very likely that the scene of the last battle of the Lanjiang ferry will be repeated, and the Ming army will be stunned at once, killing and wounding thousands or even thousands, and finally the whole army will collapse.

And the Ming army knew that the new army of the Tang Dynasty had grenades and artillery, how could they guard against this?

In this regard, Li Xuan was quite curious, but it was a pity that the scouts of the new army of the Tang Dynasty did not find out the relevant preparations of the Ming army.

However, in the afternoon of the next day, the spies on the other side of the river brought back a not-so-good news, and the Ming army on the other side of the river actually brought a lot of artillery.

I heard that there are more than a dozen bowl-mouth cannons, and other messy artillery, or it can't be regarded as artillery, but there are also twenty or thirty larger guns.

And the appearance of this batch of artillery instantly made many officers of the Datang New Army feel the pressure.

Once these artillery pieces are close to the shore, even if they have a short range and slow rapid fire, they are enough to pose a serious threat to the new army of the Tang Dynasty.

Therefore, Zeng Ziwen of the Operations Department of the Privy Council and several staff officers agreed that at the beginning of the war, these artillery pieces must be killed as soon as possible, and as for the ordinary infantry of the Ming army, the threat was not too great.

After all, the fortifications that the new army of the Tang Dynasty spent three months building were not in vain, and they were enough to resist the attack of the ordinary infantry of the Ming army.

The only thing that could pose a threat to the new army of the Tang Dynasty was the artillery of the Ming army and a large number of archers.

The power of artillery is so powerful that it cannot be prevented, and it can only be a preemptive strike.

As for the many archers of the Ming army, this is not easy to do, and it can only be a passive defense.

On the one hand, the armor is concentrated as much as possible on the front row of soldiers who may face the threat of enemy bows and arrows, and on the other hand, at the top of the breastwork, some thick planks are laid to prevent the Ming army's bows and arrows from being thrown.

I'm afraid that the Ming army will play with bows and arrows, and a large area of arrow rain will be covered, so that the defensive efficiency of the breastwork wall will drop by more than half.

Nowadays, both the Datang New Army and the Ming Army have begun to take targeted defensive measures.

And when the main forces of the two sides were making final preparations, the two sides had already begun to engage in small-scale contact and fighting.

From the third day onwards, the Ming army would send small troops to carry out smuggling landings at night, sometimes at the Lanjiang ferry crossing, sometimes at several other ferries.

Most of them were discovered by the monitoring personnel of the Datang New Army before they were close to the shore, and a skirmish broke out between the two sides.

In this process, there will naturally be no major problems at the Lanjiang Ferry.

However, after two consecutive battles, the 1st and 2nd Mixed Battalions both won, but because it was a sudden battle at night, it also caused some losses.

Even once again, the Ming army broke through the defense, went deep into the rear, and was almost at risk of being broken through by the Ming army.

This kind of frequent skirmishes continued, although the Ming army lost hundreds of people, but the Tang New Army also suffered a lot of losses, and the main force suffered no losses, but the first mixed battalion and the second mixed battalion combined lost nearly eighty people.

This made Li Xuan quite angry, these Ming troops did not dare to fight a decisive battle in a dignified manner, playing this kind of small-scale smuggling operation.

If this kind of fight continues, it will cause heavy losses to the 1st and 2nd Mixed Battalions.

The total number of their two mixed battalions is only 500 people, and they have lost 80 people in just a few days.

At this time, Zeng Ziwen made a suggestion that since the Ming army launched such a riotous smuggling operation, it was better for the side to rotate the troops, on the one hand, to allow the troops that had experienced the battle and suffered slight losses to have time to rest and recover, and on the other hand, to allow those troops that had not been tested in battle to have the opportunity to experience actual combat and accelerate the growth of these new troops.

As soon as he heard this, Li Xuan also felt that it was feasible, and immediately rotated the troops of the two mixed battalions and the troops of the main battalion.

For example, the original musket team of the 1st Mixed Battalion was transferred to the 2nd Infantry Battalion, and the musket team of the 2nd Infantry Battalion was transferred to the 1st Mixed Battalion, and its spear team, sword and shield soldiers, archers and cavalry were also rotated.

In other words, in addition to the establishment and a few people in the battalion headquarters, the other units of the first mixed battalion will be rotated.

The same is true of the second mixed battalion!

And in this way, it has indeed played a great effect, although the two mixed battalions are still frequently fighting with the Ming army, and sometimes even two or three battles a night, to be honest, losses are inevitable, but the number of Ming troops they killed and injured is more, and the most important thing is that the combat effectiveness of these two mixed battalions has always been maintained.

As for those troops who were rotated to the Lanjiang ferry to rest and prepare for battle, they were to supplement the recruits sent from the rear and continue to carry out training.

In this way, although we can see reports of casualties ranging from a few to dozens of people every day, the two mixed battalions of the Datang New Army have always maintained their combat effectiveness.

To be precise, all teams and battalions have maintained their combat effectiveness.

It can not only block the Ming army's riotous sneak attack across the river, but also maintain the combat effectiveness of the troops, and even quickly improve combat experience, in this regard, Li Xuan thinks Zeng Ziwen's proposal is really good.

But this also had a consequence, and every day dozens of recruits were sent to the rear to replenish the troops.

Fortunately, the recruitment of recruits by the Datang New Army has been uninterrupted, and now although Zhengtai County's age is qualified, and the soldiers who voluntarily join the Datang New Army have almost joined the Datang New Army, there will still be a small number of people who come to recruit every day.

After a month of basic training in the recruit battalion under the Operations Division, they are supplemented to the units that are lacking, and then trained together with other soldiers in the unit, and grow rapidly through the mode of bringing the old with the new.

Now Li Xuan no longer plans to set up a new army in the short term, and these recruits who are still in the new barracks are just to make up for the battle losses.

Every time a recruit is added to the main force, it means that a soldier is killed or wounded!

This may sound very cruel, and people with a little bit of a virgin's heart will let out a lot of sighs, saying that Li Xuan and many generals of the Tang New Army are too cruel, have no humanity at all, and take the lives of dozens of people every day to consume.

But this is war, a war to the death, and war is meant to kill the enemy by all means, because if you don't kill the enemy, it will be you who will die.

As for human nature, there is no humanity in war!

And Li Xuan and they are playing rebellion, how can there be immortals in rebellion, for Li Xuan, as long as it is not himself who dies, it will be fine!