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In the first three days after arriving in Jiujiang City, the Chu army basically spent their time building frontline trenches, testing firepower, and building long ladders and shield vehicles for siege.

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They did not even rush to attack the Ming army's trenches, fortresses and other defensive nodes outside Jiujiang City.

At the meeting, Xu Zhixian introduced in detail what he has learned so far about the Ming army’s defense situation: “Based on the intelligence we have received before, coupled with the information obtained from observation and fire reconnaissance in the past three days, we can currently confirm that Shi Kefa’s men

Anlu's new standard army is in Jiujiang City, and all the main forces are in the city."

"The new standard army of the Ming Dynasty that we detected in Hukou before can basically be confirmed to be the new standard army under the command of Governor Yingtian, and not part of the Anlu new standard army as we previously thought."

"In other words, the entire Anlu New Standard Army is currently deployed in Jiujiang City. It is estimated that the number is between 6,000 and 8,000."

"In addition, there are about 25,000 Ming military camp sentries in Jiujiang City, and the last few thousand are young and strong civilians!"

"The total strength of the puppet Ming army in the city is about 35,000."

"The puppet Ming army in the city deployed a total of about fifteen heavy Hongyi cannons on the top of the city. It is reported that this batch of Hongyi artillery was urgently transferred from some forts and naval forces along the Jiangnan coast. The smallest

There are also heavy artillery of five kilograms, and many of them are nine kilograms and ten kilograms."

"They also deployed a group of larger-caliber general cannons and Franco machine guns on the city head. The overall firepower on the city head is not weak."

"What's even more noteworthy is that the puppet Ming army also deployed more than a dozen two-and-a-half-pound field cannons on the protruding fortresses outside the city wall. As expected, these two-and-a-half-pound field cannons are the new standard of Anlu.

The army’s field artillery.”

"These two-and-a-half-pound field artillery, combined with a large number of small and medium-sized Folang machines, attack artillery, tiger squat artillery, etc. in the puppet Ming army, will create a great threat to our army when clearing the protruding fortresses and trenches in the city.

!"

"In addition, in the previous fire test attacks, we have successively discovered that the puppet Ming army has deployed at least two new standard troops equivalent to our regiment level in trenches and other defenses outside the city."

"Judging from the artillery deployment of the puppet Ming army and the deployment of the New Standard Army, we can basically conclude that they want to use various trenches, forts and other fortifications outside the city, and then cooperate with the heavy artillery firepower on the city to intercept us.

."

When Xu Zhixian said this, Li Chengtong on the side answered: "These puppet Ming troops are quite self-aware. They know that it is impossible to block our fierce attack by huddled within the city wall!"

"Huh, if they don't have protruding defenses outside the city, when our forty-eight-pound mortar can smoothly move forward and attack, the mere city wall can't stop us."

Luo Zhixue said: "It is reasonable to never underestimate the enemy. We are making progress, and they will also learn and make progress."

During the battle between the Ming army and the Chu army, there were several very obvious stages.

In the early days, that is, before the Battle of Zhongxiang.

The Ming army basically regarded the Chu army as bandits, well, at most they were slightly stronger bandits, so their tactics were basically based on field combat and taking the initiative to attack.

Chen Yongfu led his troops to attack and suffered a disastrous defeat in the battle of Zhaozhuang. Chen Yongfu surrendered.

Lu Xiangsheng wanted to attack Xinye, but was intercepted by the Chu army. In the end, he was defeated miserably in the Battle of Sanyuanzhuang, and Lu Xiangsheng died in the battle.

After Zuo Liangyu and He Renlong failed to siege Yuzhou, they finally set up positions with the Chu army in the eastern suburbs of Yuzhou and had a face-to-face battle. The result was a disastrous defeat. He Renlong surrendered on the spot, and Zuo Liangyu was defeated and retreated to Ye County.

After these three large-scale field battles, the Ming army basically saw the strong field combat capabilities of the Chu army, so it began to change its strategy and focused on city defense.

However, the Ming army during this period still relied on traditional city defense operations, that is, it mainly relied on the city wall for defensive operations. At the same time, the Huguang Ming army during the campaign failed to obtain a large number of Hongyi cannons.

Therefore, in a series of subsequent battles such as the Battle of Zhongxiang, the Battle of Hanyang, and the Battle of Wuchang, the Ming army discovered that their traditional city defense tactics were not reliable at all.

There are many reasons for this, the most critical of which is the large-scale use of mortars by the Chu thieves and the tactics of blasting and heavy-armored commandos.

Facing the exploding mortars, the Ming army's traditional city walls did not provide much protection.

Faced with the siege mode of the blasting and armored commandos, it was difficult for the Ming army to organize an effective counterattack when they were completely suppressed by artillery.

After this series of failures, Yang Sichang proposed to form a new standard army. At the same time, in view of the huge threat of Chu army's large number of field artillery and mortar artillery in siege operations, he improved the defensive tactics in a targeted manner and began to build a large number of buildings around the city wall.

They even took the initiative to leave the city wall, dig trenches outside the city wall, and build fortresses and other tactical nodes to resist the Chu army's artillery superiority.

This tactic was used on a large scale for the first time in the Battle of Linxiang, and was continued in the Battle of Changsha.

Although the Ming army still failed in these two battles, it is undeniable that this defensive tactic did bring greater trouble to the Chu army.

And until the Ming army has no better way, they can only continue to do this.

You can't fight the Chu army in an open field battle, or stay stupidly on the city wall and get bombed, or simply hide behind the city wall and wait for the enemy to rush to the city.

The armor coverage rate of the Ming army in the Central Plains is far inferior to that of the Chu army. In a real melee, the Chu army's heavy armored commandos can beat the crap out of them.

In these days of close combat, armor is king. Personal martial arts, courage and morale are all scum in front of armor...

However, the Ming army still made relatively large innovations in tactics during the defensive operations of Jiujiang City.

The biggest change is the large-scale use of Hongyi artillery.

The fifteen large Hongyi heavy artillery deployed on the top of the city are proof of this.

However, in the face of the increasingly shrinking Ming army and its continuous strengthening of artillery, the Chu army did not use the same old tactics. They also continued to improve their offensive tactics during the war.

For example, in terms of the use of mortars, in the past, the Chu army would just pull up to the front line and fire without hesitation, but now they will not. Instead, they will use the terrain, trenches, etc. to secretly send the lighter 18-pound mortars all the way.

Arrive at the front line, and finally use its high-angle ballistics to fire directly in the trench.

This kind of 18-pound mortar can maneuver and fire in the trench, and even the Ming army artillery deployed condescendingly at the top of the city cannot threaten them.

This tactical mode is actually somewhat similar to the mortar tactics used during World War II, but the actual difference is still very big.

The power of the mortar is far from comparable to that of later mortars.

At the same time, the Chu army also began to use grenades.

At the beginning, during the Battle of Linxiang, the Chu army used soldiers to make simple hand-thrown bombs and throw them into the enemy's trenches.

By the time of the Battle of Changsha, Luo Zhixue had already initially organized a group of grenadiers for siege operations.

It is worth noting that the grenadiers in the Chu army were not used in outdoor battles. They lined up and threw bombs at the enemy formation 20 or 30 meters away...

Well, it's not that they don't want to, but the Ming army didn't give them this opportunity... The Ming army hasn't had a serious field battle with the Chu army for a long time.

Therefore, the grenadiers in the Chu army are currently specially trained for offensive operations in positions.

In short, it is to throw bombs into the trench where the enemy is hiding on the opposite side!

As for why a group of grenadiers should be specially trained instead of directly distributing grenades to the infantry.

On the one hand, the power of grenades these days is limited. When they are light, they are too weak, but when they are more powerful, they are too heavy. Ordinary soldiers cannot go very far at all.

On the other hand, and a more important aspect, gunpowder is very expensive these days, and grenades are also very expensive.

It is impossible for the Chu army to distribute grenades to too many soldiers. If the entire army really wants to distribute grenades, the Chu army's military expenditures will simply not be able to support them.

For these two reasons, the Chu army could only select a group of elite infantry and train them specifically as grenadiers.

In addition to receiving training from musketeers, these grenadiers will also receive additional training in throwing grenades. They can basically be regarded as more elite musketeers with more diverse combat methods.

The front placement of mortars and the emergence of grenadiers were all measures taken by the Chu army to dig trenches in response to the Ming army's defensive operations.

But what's more important is that the Chu army was more frantically equipped with artillery, and tended to use large-caliber artillery.

In the past, the Chu army thought that two and a half kilograms of field artillery was very useful.

But now, the nine-pound field gun and the five-pound field gun have replaced the two-and-a-half-pound field gun and become the main field artillery of the Chu Army's army artillery. In particular, the number of nine-pound field gun equipment is increasing.

This kind of artillery is very powerful whether it is used in field battles or sieges.

At present, in the main force, even the two-and-a-half kilogram field guns have been gradually transferred to the infantry regiments.

Especially among the four main divisions currently attacking Jiujiang City, they are basically equipped with two and a half kilogram field guns. The artillery regiments of each division are only equipped with five kilogram field cannons and nine kilogram field cannons.

In addition to expanding the caliber of field artillery, another major measure taken by the Chu army was to expand the number of equipment for the 48-pound mortar.

In the past, the Chu army's mortar equipment was a mixture of eighteen-pound mortars and forty-eight-pound mortars, all deployed in independent mortar regiments.

But later, the eighteen-pound mortars were directly incorporated into the artillery regiments of each division, and each independent mortar regiment began to be equipped with the same forty-eight-pound mortars.

Now, the eighteen-pound mortars have been decentralized to regiment-level troops.

Because the generals of the Chu army discovered that in most offensive operations, the eighteen-pound mortar cannon weighed only more than three hundred kilograms. It was more convenient to maneuver on the battlefield than the two-and-a-half kilogram field cannon and the two-hundred kilogram short-robed cannon.

.Most of the time, we directly cooperate with the infantry on the front line, and the coordination level is directly at the battalion level.

This thing is more like an infantry support artillery than a two-and-a-half-pound field cannon. If it weren't for the particularity of the artillery unit, the Chu army generals would have wanted to distribute the eighteen-pound mortar cannon directly to each infantry battalion.

So now, the Chu army has begun to directly distribute light mortars such as eighteen-pound mortars to each infantry regiment in the Guards Division, the First Division and several other main divisions heading east. Each regiment has four guns.

The establishment of a sentry.

At the same time, the mortar battalion in the division's artillery regiment also began to add 48-pound mortars.

Generally speaking, the Chu army's artillery units are heading towards a larger number and larger caliber.

This led to the fact that even though the Ming army had tried its best to deploy artillery in Jiujiang City that even exceeded the number of artillery in several fortresses on the Liaodong front line, the number of artillery was still far inferior to that of the Chu army.

However, they were conducting defensive operations after all, and Shi Kefa and others knew early on that the Chu army would inevitably advance eastward, so they also started preparations early.

Jiujiang City has stored a large amount of food, ammunition, and even spare weapons.

The various fortifications inside and outside the city wall were deployed to a point where even the Chu army was in awe.
To be continued...