Wang Chaohong's self-confidence does not come from nothing, but is based on the strength of the Tang Army itself!

Since the real rise of the Tang Dynasty and the sweep of Zhengtai County, the army of the Tang Dynasty has never been afraid to fight the Ming army head-on in the field, and many times it has won more with less.

This situation reached its peak when it entered Liangguang and went north to Huguang!

When the Tang Army marched into Liangguang, the Huguang Ming Army rushed to Xingquan Mansion and once besieged Xingquan Mansion, although it initially relied on the absolute superiority of troops to achieve great results, and even once captured Zhengtai County, the land of Longxing of the Tang Dynasty.

But then it was attacked by the Fourth Army of the Tang Army in Huguang, and then fought two field battles in a row, and more than 30,000 Ming troops were wiped out successively, and even almost surrounded more than 30,000 Ming troops who marched into Xingquan Mansion.

However, although it did not surround this Ming army, it was also frightened that this Ming army fled north in embarrassment, and the siege of Xingquan Mansion was lifted!

In last year's autumn and winter offensive, the Tang Army went north to Huguang on a large scale, when the Ming army had planned a large-scale, mobilized force of more than 100,000 people to take the initiative to counterattack operations, and the two sides conducted several large-scale battles around Yizhang, Chenzhou, Guiyang, Hengyang and other places in an area of hundreds of miles.

The result?

The Ming army has never won even once!

More than 10,000 Ming troops in Chenzhou were intercepted by the predecessor of the Fourth Mixed Regiment, that is, the Provisional Fourth Regiment, and the more than 10,000 Ming troops were defeated by the Provisional Fourth Regiment, which had less than 4,000 people.

Yizhang's 8,000 army went out of the city, preparing to cut off the grain route of the Tang Army in the north, but the result was also outside Yizhang City and intercepted, after the outbreak of a major war between the two sides, the 8,000 army was annihilated!

The thousands of Ming troops who reinforced Yizhang from the west were also intercepted a few days later, and the whole army was also annihilated!

More than 10,000 Ming troops attacked in Guiyang Prefecture were also intercepted by the main force of the First Army, and directly lost half of their troops in the field head-on battle, leaving only half of the remnants to flee back to Guiyang Prefecture in disarray.

And this series of wars, the result is that in the end, Yizhang, Chenzhou, Guiyang Prefecture and other places were captured by the Tang Army, and the Ming army suffered heavy losses, so it had to retreat to Hengyang and Changsha, and gave up the huge area south of Hengyang.

This series of field combat tactics, so that the Ming army was afraid, the original Guangxi governor Wei Yan said that 'the Tang thieves are invincible' is widely spread in the Ming army in private, and also reached a consensus, that is, if there is no absolute necessity, that is, do not fight with the pseudo-Tang thief army!

Therefore, later, the Ming army avoided field battles with the main force of the Tang Army, but firmly implemented the tactics of defending the city, which slightly stifled the fierce offensive of the Tang Army and gained a firm foothold in Huguang and Jiangxi.

However, when the Ming army began to be a shrunken turtle, and began to train the army on a large scale and build guns, the Tang Army invested great enthusiasm in studying various city-breaking tactics in order to pry open these turtle shells.

And the most enthusiastic is the large-scale equipment of heavy artillery, the nine-pound field artillery began to be equipped on a large scale, not to mention, but also came up with heavy howitzers, a large number of field artillery and heavy howitzers, outside the city of the Tang Army siege the city of the sharp weapon!

And in one fell swoop, he broke through the bridgehead of the Ming army in Jiangxi, and all kinds of fortifications were perfect, and there were a large number of artillery to help the city of Luling in Ji'an.

And all of the above can prove that the Tang Army has a great advantage in the field of field operations, except that the number of cavalry is inferior to that of the Ming army.

Among them, the 1st Infantry Division is the leader in this kind of frontal battle in the field!

The core and main force of the forward troops under Wang Chaohong is the first step corps of the First Infantry Division, which is a well-deserved ace unit in the Tang Army today.

Relying on the first corps that was fully manned, but also strengthened by artillery, cavalry and other arms, and it was a defensive operation, Wang Chaohong was confident that he could keep the enemy out of the battery.

And he doesn't need to defend alone for long, he only needs to hold it for three days!

Three days later, the 3rd Mixed Regiment, which was pursuing from the direction of Hengyang, was able to arrive, and at the same time the main forces of the 1st Army were also able to arrive.

When the time comes, the Hengyang Ming army of nearly 30,000 people in front of him, let alone going to Changsha, will not be able to escape even if he wants to.

Obviously, the Hengyang Ming Army also knew the crisis it was facing, so it didn't delay much, it abandoned the ship and landed ashore overnight, and then rushed directly to the position of the forward troops of the First Army in the night, and at the same time began to build artillery positions to prepare for a strong attack!

Early the next morning, this small plateau on the edge of the Xiangjiang River sounded with dense rumbling cannons!

This time, the Hengyang Ming Army obviously wanted to kill it in one go, and directly moved out more than 20 five-pound and seven-pound field guns, and almost hundreds of various types of shotguns (bowl-mouth guns, Franc machines), and even because of the hurry, many artillery pieces did not even build any artillery positions, so they opened fire

On the forward side of the First Army, there was a temporarily reinforced artillery battalion, which had six five-pound field guns, six seven-pound field guns, and nine five-pound field guns belonging to the cavalry detachment.

That's a total of twenty-one field guns!

The field artillery on the Ming army's side is also mainly five-catty, supplemented by some seven-catty field artillery, and the total number is higher, almost more than 40 pieces.

The field artillery pieces of the two sides combined, almost 60 meters, shelled each other from a distance of four or five hundred meters, and the solid shells kept flying over the open space of the two positions, and then fell into the other side's positions!

However, after the shelling for more than half an hour, the faces of the generals on the Ming side were a little unpleasant, because although their own artillery was more, they were not good at accuracy.

After most of the hour, two pieces of artillery exploded on the spot!

And this is not the most important thing, the most important thing is that the shelling of their own side did not cause any practical damage to the pseudo-Tang thief army on the small high mountain!

After the shelling began, the infantry of the puppet Tang thief army hid in those trenches, and although their own artillery bombardment continued to have shells falling into their positions, there was no actual result.

The opponent's artillery position is also very solid, and in front of each artillery piece is a thick annular civil fortification, and the shells are blocked.

Unless you are very lucky and hit one of the ring fortifications in a row, so that you can inflict damage on the puppet Tang thief artillery behind the fortifications!

These pseudo-Tang thief armies have even begun to be shrunken turtles!

The effect of their own artillery bombardment was not great, but the artillery bombardment of the thief army caused a lot of casualties to their own side, although at this time their own brigade of infantry was still behind, only the artillery of more than 40 field guns in front of them came forward to fight, but even these artillery were also killed and wounded.

And the casualties are still hours, but if the shelling is fruitless, then it will be difficult to provide cover for the subsequent infantry attack!

But there is no way to do this, the shelling is fruitless, you can't continue to waste ammunition and waste time, the battle always has to be fought!

Immediately, the Ming army moved, and the infantry of the brigade began to line up, and in front of these brigades of infantry, there were many shotguns of various types!

In this battle, in fact, the largest number of artillery on both sides was the shotguns of both sides.

On the side of the Datang Army, because the two-pound shotgun technology is mature, and it is generally cast iron, the cost is very low, although the firing range is only 150 meters, and the lethality can only be said to be average, but it can't stand cheap, so it has always been to increase the scale of equipment.

In the earliest period, an infantry regiment was only equipped with six two-pound shotguns, but later it was increased to eight, and when it came to the reorganization period, according to the latest establishment of the Tang Army, an infantry regiment has set up an expanded infantry artillery team, with nine two-pound shotguns and three three-pound shotguns, a total of twelve shotguns!

These shotguns, the two-pound shotgun is only a few tens of kilograms, and the three-pound shotgun is only a hundred kilograms, and the barrel and base can be split, so that they can completely accompany the infantry to maneuver at any time.

And that's it, in fact, the Tang Army is not satisfied, they are still preparing to equip the infantry regiment with those small and medium-caliber short-barreled howitzers, but unfortunately the technology is not up to par yet.

In fact, not only infantry regiments will be equipped with shotguns on a large scale, but also the army's baggage, artillery, cavalry and other arms will be more or less equipped with some shotguns to serve as auxiliary firepower.

Two catties of shotguns, three pounds of shotguns, but at present, in the Tang Dynasty, the navy, army and the guards are equipped with the largest number of artillery, in terms of quantity, it is much more than field artillery, in this forward army, two catties, three catties of shotguns combined, reached more than 30.

The same situation actually happened in the Ming Army, and there are more, on the one hand, the Ming Army itself is equipped with a large number of shotguns such as bowl guns, in addition to the last two years, a lot of new things have been made, although it is still called a bowl mouth gun, but in fact, it is still impossible to get rid of the division of the Tang Army's ordnance standards, although they are copied from the establishment to ordnance and even to tactics.

The shotguns in the new army of the supervision standard have a one-pound bowl-mouth cannon, a two-pound bowl-mouth cannon, a three-pound bowl-mouth cannon, and even a five-pound bowl-mouth cannon, which is much more diverse than the shotgun of the Tang Army, and the number of equipment is also more.

The reason for this is not because they like these bowl guns, but because they can't get more field guns, so they can only retreat to build and equip more shotguns.

The large-scale production of field artillery is a big problem even for the Tang Dynasty Ministry of Industry, which has now initially adopted machinery, not to mention the Ming Dynasty, which can only produce by hand!

After all, relying solely on craftsmen to build by hand, even if it can be mass-produced, it is not a matter of a few months or even a year or two, and the Ming army will not be able to get a large number of field artillery in a short period of time.