The matching of positions and ranks in the new army of the Tang Dynasty is quite strict, and each position has a corresponding military rank.

For example, the lowest-level platoon commander is a second lieutenant as standard, and may also be a warrant officer, but usually speaking, the students of the martial arts school are warrant officers, and after they enter the army, they are generally awarded the rank of second lieutenant, and in reality, there are very few warrant officers who hold substantive officer positions.

The vice-captain is a lieutenant, a second lieutenant.

The captain is paired with a captain and a lieutenant, which depends on the type of military and the officer's own situation, generally speaking, most of them are captains, especially the captains of the musket team in the main force, basically all of them are captains, and there will also be some senior lieutenants, but there is still a lack of military merits and the officers who are promoted to captains serve as captains.

The deputy battalion commander is a captain and a major, but there is very little major in this position, at least at present, all the deputy battalion commanders in the Datang New Army are all captains, and the reason why the restriction of major is also set up is because of the temporary promotion in the future, but it is prepared by the situation of not transferring positions.

The battalion commander is a major and a lieutenant colonel, and most of them are standard majors, and the establishment of a lieutenant colonel is also for temporary promotion, but it is prepared without transferring positions.

The deputy regiment commander is a major and lieutenant colonel as standard, and the position of this deputy regiment commander is similar to that of the battalion commander in terms of military ranks, basically all of them are majors, and a small number of lieutenant colonels.

The regiment commander is a colonel and a lieutenant colonel, but many lieutenant colonel regiment commanders are often transitional, and they will be promoted to colonel after a month or two of transition.

The chief of staff of the regiment is a major and a captain as standard.

The deputy brigade commander is equipped with a colonel, lieutenant colonel,

The chief of staff of the brigade is a lieutenant colonel and major as standard.

The brigade commander is a major general and lieutenant general as standard, but the situation of the lieutenant general is also unlikely, just to prevent accidents.

Although Song Tianbiao and Chen Keqiao are both lieutenant colonel commanders, and they are both transitional officers, it will not take long for them to be promoted to colonels, but in fact, there is still a big difference between these two people.

Chen Keqiao is a lieutenant colonel who rose directly from the position of battalion commander, and he served as the commander of the first step corps from the beginning

And the particularity of the first corps has also been decided, Chen Keqiao has become a candidate for the next brigade commander in His Majesty Li Xuan's mind, it is estimated that it will not be long before he will be promoted to colonel, and when there is a major general position, such as the third brigade, he will directly become a major general brigade commander in one step.

This kind of promotion speed, even in the Tang New Army in the era of great expansion, is quite rare, it is estimated that if it were not for the sake of avoiding gossip, Chen Keqiao would have been promoted two levels in a row and directly promoted from major to colonel.

Compared with Chen Keqiao Jian in the emperor's heart, Song Tianbiao thinks that he is still slightly worse, although he also served as the battalion commander in the army for a short time before he served as the deputy director of the Operations Department, but the service time is too short, only more than a month, and he did not get any credit for the war during the period.

Transferred to the Operations Division, because he made a lot of efforts to formulate the battle plan for the march into Liping Province and the Battle of the Tonggu Acropolis a few days ago, it can be regarded as a contribution, but this merit is inferior to the battalion commanders of several main infantry battalions.

If it weren't for the fact that he had previously held the position of deputy director of the Operations Department, and at the same time had excellent grades in the Imperial Academy, excellent military theoretical quality, and Zeng Ziwen's strong recommendation, he really wouldn't have been able to stand out from the competition of a group of battalion commanders of the main battalion and become the second commander of the Third Infantry Regiment.

In this process, his old boss Zeng Ziwen made a great effort!

Because Zeng Ziwen has always served in the Operations Division, and it seems that His Majesty has no intention of putting him in the field army, although Zeng Ziwen is promoted and deeply trusted by His Majesty, but there is no sense of security without troops under his hands.

That's why he promoted some of his old subordinates and tried to establish a greater influence in the field troops.

Otherwise, over time, Zeng Ziwen may be left behind by Hao Bonian, Li Chunjing, and Fang Xi.

Whether it is from his own future, or because of Zeng Ziwen's recommendation, or because of His Majesty's appreciation, these all made him feel great pressure.

Now that he has the opportunity to act as the vanguard of the whole army, this combat opportunity must be indispensable, and what he has to do is to fight the follow-up battle beautifully, so that no one can pick out the thorns, especially the battalion commanders of several main battalions who competed with themselves before in the Third Infantry Regiment, they must not let them find fault, otherwise, I am afraid that I will not be able to do it for long and will be pulled down.

With a lot of pressure, he was extremely cautious even looking at the military map, and now he knew that there were at least a thousand Ming troops in Lipingfu City in front of him.

But to be honest, the thousand-strong Ming army in the city of Liping Mansion is not in his eyes, and although his Third Infantry Regiment is not as good as the First Infantry Regiment and the Second Infantry Regiment, it also has more than 2,000 people.

And in the battlefield of the Acropolis of the Bronze Drum before, it can be regarded as having experienced a bloody battle, even if it lacks guns and artillery, but the combat effectiveness is still there.

He is more concerned about the main force of the Ming army behind the forward of the Ming army!

Find them and look for a chance to win the battle, so that you can be worthy of the title of forward general!

I analyzed it for a long time on this hand-drawn and rudimentary map, trying to analyze the main force of the Ming army from the current situation.

But after analyzing for a long time, I still don't have a clue!

Song Tianbiao frowned and said: "Let the reconnaissance troops increase their reconnaissance efforts, especially the reconnaissance cavalry troops, expand the scope of investigation, be sure to find out the main force of the Ming army as soon as possible, and let the troops maintain their realm during the march and be ready to fight at any time!" ”

If he doesn't find out the main force of the Ming army for a day, he can't put his mind at ease at all, and he will even worry that the main force of the Ming army will be ambushed somewhere in front of him.

The closer you get to the city of Liping, the more dangerous it is!

As a striker, he had to be cautious, after all, there were no friendly forces in the vicinity that could support him in time.

The closest friendly army to him is the 4th Infantry Regiment, but now the 4th Infantry Regiment is actually an empty shelf, only one 10th Infantry Battalion can withstand a battle, and the other new 11th Infantry Battalion and 12th Infantry Battalion are all new troops, and now there are only 100 recruits, and there is no combat effectiveness at all.

And some later, is the Seventh Infantry Regiment, this Sixth Infantry Regiment has some regular army troops, but there are only more than 100 people, the remaining five infantry battalions are all garrison battalion troops with pure cold weapons, and they are also the Ming Army prisoner infantry battalion that has just been established for a few days, these soldiers are still Ming soldiers a few days ago, so that many people are still wearing Ming army clothes now, but in order to distinguish their identities, they are tied with a white strip of cloth on their arms.

Because the nature of the garrison of the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Infantry Regiments does not quite match the existing five main infantry regiments, in order to unify the numbers, the Operations Division has already suggested that His Majesty rename these three infantry regiments the First Garrison Regiment, the Second Garrison Regiment, and the Third Garrison Regiment.

But it's not yet final!

But this also shows one point, that is, the high-level generals actually do not trust the troops composed of these Ming army's surrendered troops, even if the middle and senior officers in these surrendered troops are all officers who have been transferred from the main force of the Tang New Army.

Therefore, in Song Tianbiao's heart, the reinforcements behind him are actually only a 10th Infantry Battalion, and the other two new infantry battalions and the 7th Infantry Regiment are actually useless.

"Alone, how can you not be cautious!" This is Song Tianbiao's true thoughts.

When Song Tianbiao and the others led the army to continue to advance, the main force of the Datang New Army in the rear did not stop, but because the main force had a large number of troops, and also brought a large number of baggage and artillery troops, the speed of the march was naturally not fast, and the Third Infantry Regiment was more than ten miles behind the forward.

This time to the south, Li Xuan brought all the main forces of the Tang New Army over, even a regular army infantry battalion that was originally chasing the Ming Army, is now chasing behind.

The troops that took over the main force stationed at the Tonggu Acropolis and then guarded against the Ming Army on the North Road were the first garrison battalions belonging to the Sixth Infantry Regiment, but there was only one garrison battalion.

This first garrison battalion is also an old Ming army that has surrendered for a long time, and most of the soldiers were locals of Xingquan Mansion before, so there is no need to worry too much about them falling to the Ming army, but if it is replaced by those Ming troops who just surrendered a few days ago, maybe they will rebel the next day.

However, even if there was a first garrison battalion stationed on the Tonggu Acropolis, it would be very dangerous if the Ming army in the north gathered thousands of people to counterattack.

However, at this time, Li Xuan didn't care about the gains and losses of the Tonggu Acropolis, he wanted to mobilize all the troops that could be mobilized to meet the Ming army on the West Road, how could he care about whether the Tonggu Acropolis would fall.

Besides, the place of the Tonggu Acropolis has now run out of ordinary people, and it has become a purely military city, and it is not a traffic artery, a place where the Ming army must pass.

The reason why the new army of the Tang Dynasty still left 500 people to garrison the Tonggu Acropolis was to let the Tonggu Acropolis serve as an outpost to prevent the Ming army from moving south, and not requiring them to resist for a long time, at least to play a warning role, if it could delay the pace of the Ming army southward for a few days, it would be better.

Otherwise, Li Xuan would not have put more than 500 precious troops on the Tonggu Acropolis.

"Your Majesty, it's too slow to rush like this now, and the speed of the artillery battalion has seriously slowed down our march!" On the march, Hao Bonian looked at the artillery units that were slowly advancing behind him, revealing a trace of worry.

"The previous forward reconnaissance force has sent news, indicating that the army has captured the city of Lipingfu, if nothing else, I am afraid that the main force of the Ming army is not far from the city of Lipingfu now, if these main forces of the Ming army are also stationed in the city of Lipingfu, then we are afraid that we will launch a strong attack, these casualties may be relatively large!

Moreover, if these Ming troops rely on the city of Liping to fight a long-term war of attrition with us, it will be even more unfavorable to our army's follow-up strategy! ”

After hearing this, Li Xuan also showed a hint of contemplation: If these Ming troops fought a protracted war of attrition with themselves, it would be a troublesome matter!

And it's a big trouble enough to kill!