After Li Xuan, who was sitting on the dragon chair, said this, he just stopped talking.

He has been the emperor for so long, and he also knows when to speak by himself and when not to speak, and the next time does not belong to him, but to the many courtiers below.

They would have extensive discussions and even debates about how to attack Canton, and as with every important strategic meeting of the Imperial Palace, the scene would be quite intense, and each would have his own opinions, and there would be a heated debate about it.

As for the unified argument, there are almost no such things, and basically there will be a variety of strategies that are proposed, and this is actually deliberate by Li Xuan, if there is only one strategy, what else to discuss, just implement it directly.

In such a major battle, it is necessary to take into account all aspects, put forward all kinds of ideas, and then choose the best plan.

Even Li Xuan himself will not easily make a decision on his own, but will fully listen to his opinions, and finally make a final plan and order his courtiers to implement it.

However, before the formal discussion, Colonel Li Xinzhong, chief of staff of the 1st Infantry Brigade, who had been on the front line in Guangzhou and was familiar with the situation, would give a detailed account of the current situation in the Battle of Guangzhou.

I saw him stand up from the rectangular table below, then first bowed slightly to Li Xuan, and at the same time walked to the huge battle map of Guangzhou and the surrounding areas under the rectangular table with a baton in his hand and said: "Your Majesty, all my lords and colleagues, at present, our army has completely surrounded Guangzhou City from the land, and now our army's strength is deployed as follows:

To the north of Guangzhou is the direction of our army's main deployment, including the 1st Infantry Brigade, the 1st Artillery Battalion, the 14th Garrison Regiment of the 7th Garrison Brigade, the 1st Cavalry Battalion and other troops, the main force of the 3rd Garrison Brigade to the east, and the 4th Garrison Brigade to the west. In the direction of Nancheng, because it was too close to the Pearl River and was within the range of the enemy's naval artillery, our army did not deploy troops in Nancheng.

In addition to the units of the First Army and the Third Garrison Brigade, the units of the Guards Army and the Liuzhou Independent Regiment are currently hoarded in the north!

The task of maintaining the supply lines of our army in the rear is mainly the responsibility of the baggage units of all departments of our army, including the first baggage regiment under the First Army and the baggage regiment of the third garrison brigade. In addition, in order to guard against the arrival of the Ming army in the eastern part of Guangdong, the two garrison battalions of the 3rd Garrison Brigade of our army were deployed 20 miles northeast of Guangzhou.

The defense tasks on the front line of Zhaoqing will be handed over to the Fifth Infantry Brigade and the Antelope Gorge Independent Regiment.

Among the above-mentioned units, the front-line troops participating in the siege of Guangzhou included 11,000 regular troops and more than 20,000 garrison troops. There are 3,000 troops on the periphery, 5,000 troops in the rear to maintain the supply line, and 10,000 troops in the rear. ”

The above-mentioned troops are actually the main forces of the Tang Dynasty in Guangdong at present!

In Guangdong, the strength of the Tang Dynasty's division includes the First Army, the Third Garrison Brigade, the Fifth Infantry Brigade, the Liuzhou Independent Regiment, the Antelope Gorge Independent Regiment, the Guards and other troops.

However, not all units were able to participate in the Battle of Guangzhou, among which the Fifth Infantry Brigade had not yet been formed, at most it was only in the rear to defend Gyeonggi, and the Antelope Gorge Independent Regiment was a garrison force that could not be moved.

The 3rd Garrison Brigade and the Liuzhou Independent Regiment all arrived in Guangzhou, of which the 3rd Garrison Brigade was mainly responsible for the battle in the east, including attacking the eastern wall of Guangzhou and defending the east of Guangzhou.

The guards are naturally Li Xuan when he arrives there, and they go there.

The troops of the First Army were more divided, with the main force of the First Infantry Brigade, the First Artillery Battalion, and the First Cavalry Battalion under the city of Guangzhou, while the two garrison brigades and a provisional regiment to which they belonged were relatively scattered.

The 1st Provisional Regiment is currently on the front line of Shaozhou Prefecture, relying on a force of less than 3,000 people to support the war on the northern front of Guangdong.

The Seventh Garrison Brigade took over the tasks of the previous Fourth Garrison Brigade and is currently stationed in the western coastal areas of Guangdong, including the southern coastal areas of Leizhou Prefecture, Zhaoqing Prefecture, and the southern coastal areas of Guangzhou Prefecture, among which Foshan is also included.

Even though it was necessary to garrison a large area, in order to support the Guangzhou Campaign, the Seventh Garrison Brigade still transferred a garrison regiment to join the Guangzhou Campaign.

It can be seen from this that in the first battle of Guangzhou, Li Xuan had actually pulled down all the troops that could be mobilized under the city of Guangzhou, and if he couldn't defeat the city of Guangzhou, then he had no choice but to delay for a few more months and wait for the Fifth Infantry Brigade to become an army and even train more troops before making plans.

Colonel Li Xinzhong immediately talked about the deployment of the Ming army, and the deployment of the Ming army was quite simple, because the areas around Guangzhou were already controlled by the Tang Dynasty, and the Ming army was basically hiding in the city to defend it, even if they had a water division to come and go freely, but they did not dare to land easily.

The Ming army in the city has a total of more than 20,000 people, and has a lot of artillery and muskets, and the city of Guangzhou is also relatively strong, and it is not easy to fight.

In addition, a key point is that although the Tang Dynasty is a scumbag of the navy, it is unable to completely blockade the Pearl River, which leads to the inability to cut off all kinds of reinforcements that Guangzhou City can obtain.

Soldiers, food, ordnance, etc., the Ming army can be replenished through the Pearl River far away, and Wang Yue also relied on the Pearl River lanes to replenish, otherwise, it would be impossible for him to increase his troops from only a few thousand remnants to more than 20,000 people from the previous one.

And it is impossible for the city to remain calm now, thinking that they are not short of food, all kinds of weapons, and even lack of escape channels, so they are very calm, which also makes it more difficult for the Tang Dynasty to attack the city.

When Colonel Li Xinzhong gave a detailed account of the deployment of troops on both sides and introduced the city defense of Guangzhou, Colonel Lei Wan, deputy director of the Operations Department, said: "Since the navy is unable to blockade the Pearl River, why hasn't the army's artillery tried to blockade the Pearl River? ”

At this time, Lieutenant Colonel Feng Wenying, the new commander of the First Artillery Battalion, said: "Our battalion has tried to set up field artillery on the riverside to block the river, but the scene of the Pearl River in Guangzhou is too wide, and our artillery cannot completely cover the river, and the enemy has a lot of naval guns, and in the artillery battle, our artillery firepower is not enough to gain the upper hand!" ”

Although the army artillery of the Ming army is not good, but the artillery of the Ming army is still a lot, so many heavy artillery in the Ming Dynasty, almost all of them are equipped by the coastal naval divisions, especially the Franc machine artillery, in fact, more than 300 pounds of Franc machine guns are basically concentrated in the city heads of the major cities and the bow of the sailors.

The largest self-produced artillery of the artillery battalion of the Tang Dynasty Army is only a seven-pound field gun, and there are a few nine-pound heavy guns (12 pounds) purchased from outside.

However, although it has a range advantage over the shotguns widely used by the Ming army, it is actually difficult to sink the enemy ship for a while and a half, but the enemy ship can rely on the cover of the hull to get close to the fight, after all, the sailor generals of the Ming army are not fools, although they mainly play broadside battles and fire attacks, but they can also play artillery! It's okay to hit with a shotgun if you get closer.

The more than 20 field guns of a mere artillery battalion, ranging from 12 pounds to 6 pounds, played artillery battles with the fleet of the Ming Army's naval divisions, which was basically an act of seeking death, unless it was in a natural waterway pass like Antelope Gorge, and at the same time it was still possible to protect itself with batteries.

At this point, you might say that the artillery is deployed far from the shore, but that makes it even more impossible to cover the river.

The effective range of artillery cannot cover the surface of the river, so what a blockade!

Therefore, the army artillery unit of the Tang Dynasty Wang's division decisively gave up after trying to block the Pearl River for a few days.

After Colonel Rewan asked, he quickly closed his mouth, since the artillery battalion said that it couldn't be done, it must not be done, otherwise they would have done it a long time ago.

The next discussion is not a discussion of the whole plan, but a discussion of some details, such as how to deal with those heavy artillery on the head of Guangzhou, especially the dozen or so naval guns purchased by Wang Yue from the foreigners, the power is not small, those twelve pounds of naval guns can be larger than the largest 1,200 catties (seven catties, nine pounds) field guns that the Tang Dynasty can produce by itself, these naval guns purchased from the foreigners, the power is quite great.

In the entire Tang Dynasty Division, only the five nine-pound (twelve-pound, 2,300-pound) naval guns in the First Artillery Battalion can compete with them, why? Because in fact these guns were originally of the same batch.

These twelve-pounder naval guns were actually naval guns that were dismantled directly from several armed merchant ships by a group of Portuguese, and then very interestingly purchased by the Tang Army and the Ming Army respectively, Wang Yue quickly bought four, and the Tang Army later snapped up five at a high price.

"I think it's better to conduct an artillery battle in the early stage, using our seven-kilogram heavy artillery and purchased nine-pound heavy artillery to destroy the heavy artillery on these cities one by one!"

The purchase of nine-pound heavy guns is actually the same kind of goods as the twelve-pound naval guns on Wang Yue's hand, all of which were purchased from foreigners.

After arriving near Guangzhou, the Tang Dynasty had already tried to contact the foreigners and even the nearby pirates, the purpose was very simple, that is, to purchase artillery or muskets to make up for the lack of gun production in the Tang Dynasty itself.

However, in recent years, there are not no foreign merchant ships active near Guangzhou, and they are basically armed merchant ships, but high-powered naval guns are not so easy to find, and even if they are found, people are not willing to sell them.

If these armed merchant ships don't have naval guns, they will be a living target when transporting goods, and they will be completely finished if they are targeted by pirates.

But sometimes, compared to money, money is more lovely, so there are still armed merchant ships that put the naval guns and even artillery used for self-defense on the shelves, and then sell them to the Tang Army and Wang Yue, and the money they make makes them shout again and again: The Far East is really full of gold and silver, so it is almost like shouting 'people are stupid and money comes quickly'!