In the face of the Ming army in Kaifeng City, they had to defend the city with all their hearts, and even did not hesitate to use many houses in the city as battlefields, which made Fang Xitong a little angry!

After arriving in Kaifeng City, the first day of the tentative attack, that is, the loss of more than 200 people, although more than 200 people is nothing for the Fourth Army to reach tens of thousands, but to be honest, Fang Xitong has not fought such an awkward battle.

In the past, it was either a frontal battle in the field, an encounter, or a siege war, and the siege battle generally took place at the head of the city, often after their own side captured the city, the defenders in the city collapsed, but this time, the Ming army in Kaifeng City did not send the focus of resistance to you at the head of the city, but put it in the city.

This made the Tang army, which was accustomed to opening and closing, fight, shrinking back and shrinking, the vital heavy artillery firepower had no effect at all, and the muskets were not very useful, because the Ming army was not a head-on confrontation at all, they were all ambushed, and the scale of the battle was relatively small, they were all skirmishes between dozens or hundreds of people.

However, although the fight is a little awkward, Fang Xitong will not give up, let alone be brutal, although the soldiers of the Tang Army are also cannon fodder in the eyes of high-level generals, but cannon fodder cannot be sacrificed casually.

Therefore, Fang Xitong directly pulled the artillery outside the city into the city, and directly assigned grenades to the front-line troops on a large scale, regardless of whether these ordinary soldiers were grenadiers or not, they were directly attached on a large scale.

And then the tactics of steady progress were arranged!

Instead of risking their direct passage through those streets, they tried to force the surrender of the Ming army in the city by controlling the main passages, but advanced step by step, compressing the space for the Ming army in the city, and then gathering and annihilating them.

Fang Xitong didn't believe it, this Kaifeng City was so big, and he relied on heavy firepower to advance step by step, and their Ming army could not stop it!

So starting the next day, there was a rumbling of artillery in Kaifeng City, and it was accompanied by a very dense explosion!

At this time, the long-barreled field artillery was used by Fang Xitong as a direct-aim artillery for demolition!

When they found that the Ming army was hiding in some houses, they didn't say a word, they directly pulled out field artillery and bombarded the courtyard walls and doors, and then the infantry did not rush up in a stupid formation, but relied on the houses on both sides as cover, and then threw grenades after approaching dozens of meters.

At the same time, the short-barreled howitzer is also used as a long-range artillery for in-depth strikes, and its curved trajectory is quite useful in this kind of complex terrain street warfare, but it is still a little inconvenient to use, because the weight is too large, when Fang Xitong commanded the troops to attack the city, it was already a handwritten letter, and strongly requested the rear to develop and provide a howitzer with light weight and moderate power, which is best controlled below nine catties, and the overall weight should not exceed 100 kilograms, and it needs to be able to maneuver quickly.

This kind of requirement is actually the requirement of later generations for mortars!

A large number of artillery and grenades, coupled with the attack of the squad, and the use of fire when it is stubbornly resisted, finally opened up the situation for the Fourth Army!

In particular, the bombardment of artillery, so that the buildings in the city are like paper paste, can not be used as a defensive place for the Ming army at all, here it is worth mentioning that most of the buildings in the city of China are brick and wood structures, easy to catch fire, not to mention, and the defense against shells is almost zero.

The Fourth Army did not dispatch a large number of heavily armored troops to carry out hand-to-hand combat clean-up operations as expected by the Ming Army, but directly used artillery, grenades and other firearms as the main offensive firepower, and the main force of offensive operations was not assault battalions, or even spearmen, but those ordinary musketeers, especially grenadiers!

This kind of offensive method was also unexpected, let alone unseen, by the Ming army!

As a result, their stubborn strategy inevitably failed!

As block by block was captured, more and more Ming troops were killed and wounded, and in the end, the remaining thousands of Ming troops were compressed into a few small blocks.

After two more days of attacking, Fang Xitong finally ran out of patience, he directly ordered the troops to launch a large-scale fire attack, and that night, a large number of rockets were fired at many buildings where the Ming army was hiding.

This time, the Ming army hiding here finally couldn't hide, and began to break through, and then crashed headlong into the encirclement of the Fourth Army!

It took the Fourth Army a full five days to take the entire Kaifeng City, with more than 1,000 casualties, while nearly 20,000 Ming troops in the city, including thousands of new troops, were killed more than 5,000, and the rest were taken prisoner.

Although Kaifeng City was taken, the casualties of up to 1,000 people also made Fang Xitong frown, if he could, he would rather take the siege method to solve the battle, in this way, in a month or two, he would be able to starve all the Ming troops in the city to death, and his own casualties were enough to control less than 100 people.

It's a pity that he didn't have so much time, and the order Li Xuan gave him was to take Kaifeng, take Luoyang, control the whole of Henan, and then march into Shanxi and Shaanxi.

There's no way he's going to waste months in just one Kaifeng City!

But it's good to say, it's finally taken down!

After capturing Kaifeng, Fang Xitong continued to lead the main force of the Fourth Army to the west, and his next target was undoubtedly Luoyang, Henan Province, and his route of march was basically to advance along the Yellow River, and some of the tributaries of the Yellow River Valley were also his offensive targets, but they were not the main targets.

Nowadays, for the Tang Dynasty, it is important to quickly control the important cities of Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi, especially the strategic points, such as Kaifeng, Luoyang, Chang'an, Tongguan, and then go north to Shanxi along the tributaries of Fenshui, and control Pingyang, Taiyuan and other places.

In such a huge area, there is only one Fourth Army, and the current Fourth Army is only two infantry divisions, with less than 30,000 troops, so the pressure is still not small.

What Fang Xitong hopes now is that the rear can replenish him with new troops as soon as possible, and then send a certain amount of garrison troops to Henan, preferably a mixed regiment to garrison, so that he can free up his hands to fight.

In addition, he also hoped that the Third Army in the north and Zhili could solve the Youzhou war as soon as possible, and then divide troops to support him, at least Datong was a little reluctant to rely on himself.

The more he waited, the more dispersed his Fourth Army became, and perhaps after taking Tongguan, he would be able to draw troops from the north, at most only one division, and by the time he reached Datong, it was estimated that there would be 5,000 troops.

Where did the rest of the troops, you ask?

You have to stay in the rear city, and you have to leave a certain number of troops to garrison the city, otherwise you can occupy it with a cat or a dog, and there are a lot of careerists in these years, especially in Shanxi, Shaanxi and other places, there have been many riots in recent years.

In the past, it was the Ming army that dealt with all kinds of rebellions set off by these careerists, but now, this kind of task falls on the Tang army!

So the more he goes to the back, the less troops Fang Xitong can use to fight on the front line, there is only one way to solve this kind of problem, that is, to send him more troops from above, one mixed regiment is not enough, two are not enough, to control such a large area, at least three or four mixed regiments must be obtained.

Not to mention the rest, just in this part of Shaanxi, there are so many rebellions of all kinds, and in order to maintain the local situation, at least two mixed regiments must be formed and stationed separately in each important place, otherwise it will become a big trouble if you are not careful.

The suppression of the local area requires too many troops, which has always been the reason for restricting the Datang Army, the Datang Army has a small number of troops, and when the local area needs a large number of troops, there are even fewer troops that can be drawn out to participate in front-line operations.

But there is no way to do it, what Li Xuan can do is to continue to expand the number of mixed groups, and ask the Privy Council to vigorously develop the militia organization.

Li Xuan's expectation was that ordinary local bomb tasks, such as dealing with small-scale riots, were best handled by the militia, while mixed regiments were dispersed and garrisoned in various important places, such as strategic points and transportation hubs.

In this way, we will be able to suppress all localities under the condition that the regular army has relatively few troops, and we will be able to draw more main forces to participate in front-line battles.

It's just that now the militia organization of the Tang Dynasty, although it has also developed for a few years, is still not a climate, and it is better in a southern province, especially in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Guizhou, the three provinces that have been controlled by the Tang Dynasty for the longest time, because there are many retired soldiers in these three places!

The Tang Dynasty and the Ming Army have been fighting for many years, and now it has been six years since Xuanping, and many soldiers have been in the army for many years, and it is impossible for the Tang Army to keep letting soldiers fight and not let them retire.

In the past few years, there was no way, there were few troops, and there was a shortage of soldiers, but in the past two years, the area controlled by the Tang Dynasty has become larger and larger, and the treatment of serving in the army in the Tang Dynasty has been quite good, so the source of recruits has always been worrying, and a large number of recruits are recruited every day.

Therefore, after marching into Jiangnan, the Tang Dynasty Wang Shi officially determined the retirement and demobilization system!

Private 1st and 2nd class retired after three years in the army, of course, it is currently in a time of war, so the retirement time is postponed by one year, that is, the soldier's service period is four years.

The service period of non-commissioned officers is five years, and they will be retired after five years, and it is currently a war period, and non-commissioned officers are the backbone, so although there is a retirement system, unless you take the initiative to apply, you will not take the initiative to arrange retirement.

As for officers, although a system of demobilization and demobilization has also been established, it has not yet been implemented, and the retirement system is of little practical significance, because it is stipulated that officers should not retire until they are 50 years old, and school officers are 60 years old, and for generals, they are 70 years old.

God is pitiful, the average age of the officers in the Tang Dynasty Division is only in their twenties, and they want to retire for decades.