The First Battle of Susong was very important for the Tang Army, and it was equally important for the Ming Army to supervise the standard!

Because this place is the bridgehead for the Ming army to supervise the second army against the hinterland of Hubei!

Once this place is lost, then the follow-up Tang Army will be able to pass through this place continuously, and then enter the hinterland of Hubei, and then the governor of Hubei will be passive, so the Ming army will also spend a lot of effort in order to defend this place.

As a result, the Tang Army invested heavily in order to conquer this place, and the entire Second Army was sent to all of them!

On the first day of the general offensive, the 3rd Infantry Division, the absolute main force of the Second Army, launched two division-scale charges, and under the cover of numerous artillery pieces, began to storm Susong!

In this battle, the artillery of the Tang Army, especially the many howitzers, once again played a major role, in this kind of offensive operations, there is nothing more powerful howitzers than the powerful howitzers can kill and injure a large number of enemy troops, shake the morale of the enemy army.

These heavy howitzers also gave the most powerful support to the 7th Infantry Regiment at the most dangerous time for the 7th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division!

In the first round of the day's general attack, after the 7th Infantry Regiment initially opened a gap in the 3rd Assault Battalion, the commander of the 7th Infantry Regiment, Colonel Qi Shoulin, decisively led the officers and men of the whole regiment to launch a fierce attack.

In just half an hour, it occupied the 100-meter city wall in front of it, but then the Ming army organized a large number of troops to counterattack, and regardless of the life and death of the Ming army inspectors who were still fighting with the Seventh Infantry Regiment, they directly used a large number of shotguns to cover this section of the gap.

Forcefully suppressed the offensive momentum of the 7th Infantry Regiment!

At this time, Qi Shoulin directly asked for support from the howitzer battalion troops in the rear, and sent back clear artillery parameters, and then the howitzer troops carried out a covered artillery bombardment on many scattered artillery positions ambushed by the Ming army in the city through a large angle of curved fire!

Despite the low accuracy of this covered shelling, the huge explosion prevented the enemy from continuing to intercept the shelling, and then the 7th Infantry Regiment launched another onslaught!

A large number of flintlock musketeers wearing cuirasses and helmets no longer insisted on using line formations like field battles, but launched attacks on a team scale, boldly using bayonet charges and other means to successfully clear the surrounding Ming troops, and even fought a counterattack, destroying many scattered artillery positions of the Ming army.

Thanks to the brave fighting of the 7th Infantry Regiment and the 3rd Assault Battalion, the 2nd Army finally succeeded in opening a large section of the gap, and then the other units of the 3rd Infantry Division quickly followed and continued to advance!

By the afternoon, the three main infantry regiments of the 3rd Infantry Division had all successfully entered the city, and began to receive the rest of the 2nd Army into the city.

However, the Ming army in the city was completely defeated without the loss of a section of the city wall, and at this time they fully let the second army see what is called the battle of trapped beasts.

After the first wall was lost, they pushed into the city, where there was the inner wall that they had newly built in the last year, the second wall, and between the first and second walls, there were numerous strong fortresses, which were often supported by a shotgun and a number of musketeers.

This mode of battle, which was not a street battle, but a pure fortress battle, caused a lot of trouble for the Second Army.

But it only caused some trouble, and when the tens of thousands of main forces of the Second Army broke into the first wall and continued to attack the second wall, they continued to use their firepower superiority.

They even directly pulled the field artillery from outside the city into the city, found a fortress or defensive position of the Ming army, and immediately carried out artillery bombardment!

Although the five-pound field guns equipped by the Second Army in large quantities are not lethal to the city walls several meters thick, they can be used for such small fortresses.

The fire support points of these small fortresses of the Ming army, that is, ordinary masonry structures, cannot be as thick as the city walls, so these small fortresses support each other, but when the second army directly pulls out the artillery and directly carries out accurate artillery shelling at a distance of one or two hundred meters, it is often possible to achieve one cannon at a time.

And the capture of these small fortresses is only a microcosm of the Second Army's use of firepower superiority!

In this offensive operation, the role of all kinds of artillery and even grenades and even flintlock pistols of the Second Army was fully reflected!

If the tactical role of the flintlock pistol is only ordinary in this kind of battle, then the grenade and the grenade, two weapons that can explode, play an irreplaceable role.

Today's grenades are no longer the standard for grenadiers, and the Datang Army will use grenades on a large scale in a few important battles, or defensive operations, especially when it comes to defensive operations, the requirements are not high, just light the fire and throw it out, you don't have to be as demanding as the grenadiers.

In the Battle of Susong, the 7th Infantry Regiment alone used more than 5,000 grenades, and for this reason, in each infantry platoon, two strong musketeers were specially selected to be responsible for throwing bombs, and relevant training was also carried out before the battle.

The entire Second Army, in this battle, consumed a total of more than 30,000 grenades, almost all the grenades carried by the army!

As for the grenades, there are currently only 24 catties and 48 catties, of which 24 catties are the mainstay, and from the preparation of artillery fire before the general attack to the completion of the siege, a total of more than 3,800 rounds of howitzers have been consumed.

As for the five-catty, nine-catty, and fourteen-catty solid shells, there were even more, with a total of more than 20,000 rounds, although most of them were solid shells of five-catty field guns, and only about one-third of the nine-catty shells were made, and the fourteen-catty ones were only a few hundred.

However, a large number of solid shells still played an irreplaceable and important role in the battle of Susong!

By the time the Second Army completely captured the inner city of Susong and completely defeated the defenders in the city, and the more than 3,000 remnants of the Governor in the city were desperate and chose to surrender, the Second Army actually almost exhausted the ammunition carried by the army.

But the Second Army consumed so much ammunition, but Li Xuan in the rear was not the slightest unhappy, but felt extremely happy!

Because he saw a very key word from it, that is, 'firepower superiority', the Datang Army has been playing with guns for so many years, although it has always been said that the guns are sharp, the Ming Army said that the reason why the Datang Army is so powerful is purely because of the sharpness of the guns.

But within the Tang Army, Li Xuan himself has never seen it that way, the guns are sharp, this is correct, but if you want to say that the Tang Dynasty won the war by relying on guns, then it is nonsense!!

Are there fewer guns in the Ming army?

Especially Zhang Yue's supervision, there are a lot of guns, and the current Zhang Yue's supervision, its equipment level is no less than the early Tang Army, and even stronger than the Datang Army in the Guizhou era and the Guizhou Liangguang and Three Provinces era, when the Tang Army was not even enough arquebuses.

However, did such a superintendent win when he fought against the Tang Army?

No!

They have never won a single battle in a large-scale battle!

Why?

Because when both sides are equipped with many guns, the more than 200,000 troops of the Tang Army need to spend more than 20 million taels of military expenditure a year, and the governor now has more than 100,000 people, but the annual cost is only five or six million taels of silver!

Why is there such a big gap here?

Because there is a huge gap between the two sides in terms of equipment costs, training costs, food costs, salary costs, etc.

In terms of food and salary, being a soldier in the Datang Army not only allows you to eat enough every day, but you can also support your family, but what about the superintendent? Even if the soldiers in the main army want to eat enough every day, it is impossible, let alone expect to take the money to support their families.

Equipment and training, the Datang Army will basically issue the equipment needed to all soldiers in need, such as plate armor, even if it is a musketeer, now you can equip a cuirass.

And now the standard waist knife in the army is almost all steel knives.

Live ammunition training is carried out at two ends for three days, whether it is a musketeer or a gunner, their loading and shooting proficiency are fed with ammunition, especially the artillery commanders, when they are not given live ammunition training, they must be able to shoot accurately by relying on simulation training alone.

Whether the artillery in these years can be fired accurately or not depends heavily on the experience and intuition of the gun commander.

It's not about talent or anything like that, it's just experience and intuition.

When the artillery commanders want to hit what target, although there are also some theories, but to put it bluntly, the theories of these years are relatively nonsense, the theory is correct, but in most practical situations, the artillery does not shoot according to your theory at all, and theoretically it is clear that it can hit the enemy, but it is just missed.

There's no way, the accuracy of artillery in these years is so scummy, no matter how advanced the theory is in the current artillery, then you have to be blind.

Therefore, it can only rely on the personal experience and intuition of the artillery commanders.

This is also in the Tang Army, why the artillery commanders rarely have transfers, the artillery commanded by a gun commander will basically not change, at the beginning of the charge of this artillery, then in the future it will be this one, unless the artillery is scrapped, otherwise it will not be easily changed.

Because the same artillery commander, the same five-kilogram field gun, the artillery commander controls the habitual five-kilogram field cannon, and he can hit hundreds of shots, but if he changes to another five-kilogram field gun for him, then he has to be blind, and he can hit the approximate target.

But if you want to accurately hit a small and medium-sized target at a distance of three or four hundred meters, you basically don't count on it.

It takes a while to get used to it!