Although the Tang Dynasty is very similar to the traditional feudal dynasty in terms of etiquette, especially in terms of the emperor system, in the eyes of outsiders, the Tang Dynasty is still very different from the traditional dynasty.

Not to mention anything else, there are more than a dozen ministries in the cabinet of the Tang Dynasty alone, and this kind of thing has not been seen since ancient times.

In addition to the traditional six ministries, the Tang Dynasty also had a Ministry of Taxation specializing in finance, industry and commerce, a Ministry of Agriculture specializing in agriculture, animal husbandry and forestry, a legal department specializing in law formulation, litigation adjudication, prison management, and legal aid, and a Ministry of Public Security and Patrol.

And recently, Li Xuan has been preparing to separate commercial affairs from the Ministry of Taxation and establish the Ministry of Commerce.

The difference between these central cabinet institutions is enough to prove the difference between the Tang Dynasty and the traditional dynasty.

Not to mention the military system of the Tang Dynasty, in the military system, the Ming Dynasty completely implemented the separation of military and government, not only the difference between civil and military, but also the implementation of strict separation of military and political, military orders, logistics and other departments within the army.

One of the most obvious signs is that the army cannot recruit soldiers on its own, and the soldiers' salaries are no longer directly paid to the superior officers as in the ancient army, and then the officers are paid to the soldiers, but by the special salary department under the Privy Council specially dispatched personnel to pay the soldiers, so as to prevent the officers from interfering in the soldiers' salaries and avoid the occurrence of empty salaries.

All these things reveal the difference between the Tang Dynasty and the traditional dynasty!

However, this does not affect the fact that the Tang Dynasty is still a traditional feudal dynasty, and its centralization, or the centralization of the emperor's power, is even greater than the traditional feudal network check in the past.

Moreover, the Tang Dynasty did not set up any positions such as six departments in the matter, and the ministries did not have the right to directly reject the power of the emperor's holy decree.

At the same time, there is no formal decree in the Tang Dynasty, as long as it is Li Xuan's decision, it is a holy decree, and as for the decision of the cabinet, it is an ordinary official document.

Li Xuan, who controls military and political affairs and has no restraint in the slightest, his power can be described as amazing!

In other words, the centralization of power in the Tang Dynasty and the centralization of the emperor have basically reached the peak of the feudal dynasty, and it is not weaker than the middle of the Qing Dynasty in later generations.

And this mode of highly centralized power of the emperor, that is, let Li Xuan do whatever he wants, although most of the time he will let his courtiers cover and will not end easily, but when he really wants to do something, almost the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty can't stop him.

This is true for the storming of Wuzhou, and the same is true for the armed Liuzhou Independent Regiment!

After such a change, the number of Liuzhou Independent Regiment has not changed, and the establishment has not changed, but the officers have been replaced by officers from the Martial Arts Hall and the Imperial Academy, and the equipment has also been greatly improved.

Liuzhou Independent Regiment, in addition to the two assault battalions temporarily pulled out, the Tang Dynasty for the Wuzhou attack, a total of 2,500 troops prepared a total of 2,500 assault troops, these two thousand five hundred people, the heavy armor of the people is up to 600 people, all the heavy armor sword and shield soldiers, heavy armor spearmen, and even archers and grenadiers are wearing armor.

At present, 2,500 people are undergoing intensive targeted training!

At the same time, the 1st Engineer Battalion of the Tang Army also carried out intensive construction, in order to avoid the destruction of the Ming army, they were digging tunnels from multiple directions at the same time.

And the logistics department is also stepping up the transfer of gunpowder from the rear!

On the fourth day of the first month of February, it has been seven days since it was determined to launch a strong attack, and in these seven days, the Tang Dynasty Division and the Ming Army have launched a battle of wits and courage, in order to provide strong conditions for the follow-up attack, the Tang Dynasty Division has been based on the garrison, and has launched a number of exploratory attacks, although it has suffered certain casualties, but it has also exposed their artillery to the Ming Army, and the heavy artillery of the two artillery battalions in the rear is the first time to carry out targeted strikes.

In order to achieve results, the artillery of the artillery battalion often concentrated multiple artillery shells on one gun position of the Ming army.

In addition, during the excavation of the trenches, the Ming army also fought back, but the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty in the trenches naturally did not just take a beating and did not fight back, but would also use muskets, bows and arrows to counterattack.

However, this kind of fighting, in which both sides have cover, will not cause large casualties.

However, these tentative attacks and counterattacks were relatively frequent, and although the Tang Dynasty itself suffered many casualties, the Ming army at the head of the city was not very comfortable.

Because the medium and long-range firepower is far inferior to that of the Tang Dynasty, whenever the Ming army tries to come out of the city to counterattack with bows and arrows and bowl guns, it will always suffer more or less casualties.

If the fighting continues like this, I am afraid that it will further cause the morale of the defenders in the city to fall.

However, Li Xuan didn't plan to wait too long, today the engineer battalion reported that they had successfully dug two tunnels to reach under the wall of the Ming army, and the gunpowder had been laid, as long as His Majesty gave an order, it would immediately blast the scheduled city wall!

Li Xuan nodded after hearing this, and then said, "The soldiers of the engineer battalion have worked hard, and their sacrifices will be more rewarded!" ”

In order to dig tunnels to blast the city walls, the engineer battalion paid a lot of price!

After all, there is movement in digging tunnels, and the movement is not small, the Ming army found it many times and then carried out corresponding countermeasures, such as digging tunnels in reverse, sending dead soldiers to intercept and even blow up tunnels, and even pouring fire oil and setting fire.

In addition, in the process of digging the tunnel, because of the hurry, the tunnel is impossible to dig very strongly, and several tunnels collapsed before and after, so that the sappers who were digging inside were killed and injured.

In addition, although the direction of the tunnel has been carefully calculated by the staff officers, it is still inevitable that there will be mistakes, and several times the wrong direction and height are dug up, resulting in the tunnel that has been dug up with great difficulty is useless at all.

However, all this effort is now in exchange for a reward, after seven days of hard work by the engineering troops, finally succeeded in digging two tunnels and successfully buried gunpowder.

And after the gunpowder was successfully planted, it means that the most important pre-war preparations for the storming of Wuzhou have been prepared!

Next, it's time to officially launch the Wuzhou offensive and grab the monthly pass in Wuzhou!

On the night of that day, Li Xuan officially issued an order to all his subordinates to launch a strong attack early tomorrow morning!

This night, the civil and military officials of the Ming army in Wuzhou City are still the same as usual, this is carefully calculated, it has been more than ten days since the puppet Tang thief army besieged the city, and after the initial panic and discomfort, they are also slowly adapting to the atmosphere of war.

Anyway, the puppet Tang thief army outside the city can't get in, so they stay in the city and guard it with peace of mind, anyway, Wang Yue and Wei Yan and others also know that the imperial court has sent Zhang Yue south to supervise the division, although they don't know what Zhang Yue will do after he goes south, but he knows that Zhang Yue is indifferent in the face of the siege of Wuzhou City, it is impossible to be indifferent, three or five months at the latest, or one or two months at the earliest, it is estimated that the reinforcements from the imperial court will come.

When the time comes, these adults, who have held Wuzhou, blocked the puppet Tang thief army to the west of Wuzhou, and trapped the thief army in the central and western parts of Guangxi, will definitely be able to make a war exploit.

It's just that Wang Yue didn't know that although Zhang Yue went south, he didn't come to Liangguang, and after going to Huguang, he didn't say that he would raise troops to rescue Wuzhou at the first time, but directly sent troops to fight Xingquanfu, on the one hand, he wanted to take Xingquanfu, the land of Longxing, the pseudo-Tang thief army, so as to get a certain score politically, and in addition, it was very important to try to force the puppet Tang thief army to withdraw from Wuzhou and return to Guizhou north by attacking Xingquanfu and even eastern Guizhou. Then take this opportunity to completely trap the puppet Tang thief army in Guizhou and Liuzhou Mansion.

If this strategy is put in military terms, it is to encircle Wei to save Zhao, and even ignore the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in Wuzhou City for this reason, which can be said to be a rather vicious strategy!

But Wang Yue and Zhang Yue didn't expect that Li Xuan was more decisive and resolute than they imagined, or in other words, Li Xuan was more ruthless than they imagined, he was more vicious than Zhang Yue, he would rather sacrifice a large number of garrison troops and other cannon fodder soldiers, rather than just retreat from Wuzhou City in such a gloomy manner!

It's not that Li Xuan has to attack Wuzhou, but the situation has not given him any other too good options!

Withdraw from Wuzhou, and then return directly north to fight against Hu Guangming's army? Let's not mention whether such a choice is good or not from a military point of view, but from the point of view of military morale and material supply, it is absolutely unacceptable.

Since the Tang Dynasty officially fought with the Ming army, that is, the attack on Zhengtai County, it has not tasted a hundred in large-scale battles, and the continuous victory is an important part of the civil and military officials within the Tang Dynasty to regain confidence in the future.

Because this made them see the possibility that the Tang Dynasty might be completely defeated, and the possibility was not small!

In addition to the political influence, there is also a very critical point is the supply of materials, the Tang Dynasty raised so many large armies, but it could not provide sufficient military rations, and it had to rely on a steady stream of seizures.

Now the army has less than half a month of grain stockpile, even if the tax department at the back is using all means to collect grain and transport it through the logistics department, but the territory they occupy is a little bigger, and the Ming army took almost everything away before withdrawing from Wuxuan and Xunzhou Mansion.

So even the most optimistic estimate, the Tang Dynasty will run out of food in two months!

During the transition period of spring and summer, the grain was cut off before the summer harvest arrived, which could basically announce the demise of the Tang Dynasty, and there was no food to eat, and the tens of thousands of troops would collapse in minutes.