Qiming 1158

Chapter 1052 War is the best catalyst for talents

When Xu Tong's words fell into Zhang Yuejing's ears, Zhang Yuejing truly felt that Xu Tong was unusual.

In fact, the plan for the reform of the military's combat mode was proposed by Su Yonglin at the end of the fourth year of Hongwu.

At present, this draft is being consulted among the senior generals of the Ming army, and is being discussed in secret at the high-level meeting of the staff headquarters, and is also handed over to the accounting department for mathematical calculations.

Su Yonglin decided to start from the Shenji Camp to change the way the army fights.

He needs military generals to give their opinions, and planners to provide mathematical support to build a brand-new military phalanx model, a musket phalanx that can maximize the power of arquebuses in the age of arquebuses.

How to allocate the number of musketeers, lancers and crossbowmen, how to arrange the positions of musketeers, lancers and bowmen, these are all sciences, all of which require calculation of a large amount of data and mathematical support, not just a pat on the head will appear.

All effective military phalanxes and combat methods in history are backed by mathematical calculations.

Su Yonglin also pointed out that at the moment of the birth of new weapons, although the enemy was not equipped with artillery and muskets and could not cause equal damage to the Ming army, the Ming army could not rest on its laurels and had to change the way the army fought.

Su Yonglin began to propose a change from the solid phalanx in the era of swords, spears, swords and halberds to a hollow phalanx, and began to design how to maximize the power of firearms.

The current phalanx of firearms is useful, but the design goal of this phalanx is to target the cold weapon army. Once the opponent is also equipped with muskets and artillery, the current phalanx cannot continue to be used, and changes must be made to adapt to the times.

It is inevitable that the Ming army will be fully weaponized. Although the enemy does not know when they will be equipped with muskets and artillery, it is only a matter of time.

Instead of passively making changes, it is better to take the initiative to reform and keep the pulse of the times.

Zhang Yuejing looked at Xu Tong, and felt more and more that this young man not only has tactical ability, but also strategic vision, and is a rare military talent.

"What was your origin? What did you do first?"

Zhang Yuejing asked curiously.

Xu Tong was stunned for a moment.

"Ah? Oh... I'm from Hebei, born as a tenant farmer, and joined the army in Hebei. I followed the chairman and participated in the battle to encircle the central capital of Yanyun. Later, I became the leader of the squad and the platoon, and then I joined the Revival Society, and then I was transferred. Follow Director Zhao and go south to open up a base in the Southern Song Dynasty."

"In other words, you didn't read a book before joining the army?"

"How could it be possible to study? I did my best just to not starve to death. Fortunately, my family is only a family of three, and I can barely eat and eat. I didn't starve to death. How can I study?"

Xu Tong smiled helplessly: "I learned reading and writing in the army, and the rest were learned in the revival meeting. Otherwise, I would be blind now."

Zhang Yue nodded his head.

"Me too, so have you studied the military before?"

"I learned a little bit in the army and in the Renaissance Society, and my grades were not bad. Then I entered the military affairs department of the Renaissance Society as an intern. I worked for half a year, and just turned into a regular, and then I was selected to go south."

Xu Tong smiled: "I was a little scared when I made the decision to go south, but now I feel that it was the right decision. Without this decision, I might not be able to grow up to now."

"Indeed, war is the best catalyst for talent."

Zhang Yuejing said with a smile: "This is what the chairman said to me. Although we are not young, we have experienced enough wars. In this way, we can accumulate more war experience and become more advanced at a faster speed. Qiang, Comrade Xu Tong, you are very good, and I feel that your development will be very good in the future."

"This is not the most important thing. The most important thing is to be able to do something for Daming, the Fuxing Association and the suffering people in the Southern Song Dynasty, so that they will stop suffering."

Xu Tong sighed: "Don't you know that these bastards have done us a lot of trouble in order to keep the walls clear, and I hate it when I think about it! I can't wait to rush into the city of Xiangyang and give Wang Yan to him. Ripped apart!"

Xu Tong told Zhang Yuejing what Song Jun had done before they arrived, and frowned at what Zhang Yuejing said.

"To actually do such a thing, it seems that they are ready to stick to it for a long time, so they accept young women to be ravaged by the army, so as to vent their grievances, and transfer the contradictions within the army by exploiting young women, how vicious ...Do you have enough food there? Do you need support?"

"At present, we can still support it. Director Zhao is arranging to send those refugees to the rear and send them to our base for resettlement. There are enough people there to take care of them for a while."

Xu Tong said slowly: "Last year's bumper harvest, we still have enough grain reserves, saving a mouthful of grain per person is not a problem to support the next autumn harvest, so we don't need support at the moment."

"well done."

Zhang Yue nodded, showing a look of reminiscence.

"It looks like that kid Yucheng has grown up very well now. Yucheng was a complete stunner back then. He did a lot of naive things and almost gave up his life, but now he has become mature."

"Stunned blue?"

Xu Tong thought about Zhao Yucheng, who looked mature and steady, and asked curiously, "Did Director Zhao also do very naive things back then?"

"That's natural. You joined the army in Hebei. You don't know what happened before. That kid Yucheng has done a lot of naive things, or the chairman taught him to teach him. These... wait for this battle. I'll talk to you slowly after I'm done, in fact, there is something to talk about."

Zhang Yuejing patted Xu Tong on the shoulder and said with a smile, "But don't tell me, although that kid Yucheng is your superior now, I don't think your future development will be worse than his."

"what?"

Xu Tong thought about that picture, and suddenly showed a wry smile.

"Director Zhao is one of the people I admire. I don't dare to ask for such a thing. I can only say... Well, I hope my future actions are worthy of your expectations today."

Xu Tong nodded and gave Zhang Yuejing a solemn salute.

Zhang Yuejing said nothing.

He clearly felt the enormous energy in this young man - even though this "young man" was only five years younger than him.

The time soon came to the second day. On the eighth day of the fourth month in Hongwu five years, Xu Tong returned to his army in the early morning to do his own business.

Zhang Yuejing gave an order, and He Feihu led the Shenji Battalion to attack again.

Song Jun's military village was completely unable to resist the artillery bombardment of the Ming army, which was destined, so Zhang Yuejing felt that there would be no surprises today.

However, anything can happen on the battlefield. No, the Shenji camp has already set off, and the Ming army sentry reported that there was no one in the Song army camp outside Fancheng.

The Song army completely retreated.

Seemingly aware of the strength of the Ming army's artillery and the difficulty of a head-to-head confrontation, the Song army voluntarily gave up the delaying operation on the third day, and chose to withdraw the fresh army to Fancheng, strengthen the defense of Fancheng, and use Fancheng's tall and thick city walls and wide moat. against the Ming army.

"That's how they are wise."

After Zhang Yuejing heard the news, he nodded and said nothing. Instead, he arranged for the army to attack in an all-round way. While demolishing the Song army's stronghold, he moved the Ming army's position forward, closer to the main body of Fancheng.

Soon, the main force of the Ming army arrived at the foot of Fancheng City. Looking at the tall and solid Fancheng city tower and the wide moat, Zhang Yuejing couldn't help but sighed at the huge advantage of artillery.

If there is no powerful artillery, if the Ming army still competes for Fancheng with the Song army in the traditional way, it is estimated that it can really fight for several years, until the Song army runs out of food.

That would be too expensive for the Ming army.

The appearance of artillery gave them another possibility, giving the Ming army a lot of possibilities to reduce the war time.

Zhang Yuejing nodded to He Feihu, and He Feihu lined up the 25 general cannons he brought this time around the entire wall of Fancheng, with all the troops behind the general cannons.

He was going to use the Great General Cannon to open the eyes of Fancheng's city wall. No matter how many days of bombardment, he would always make Fancheng's city wall crumbling.

They will not take the initiative to attack, nor will ants attach themselves to the city. That kind of attack is too low-level and will cause too much damage, exposing its soldiers to the coverage of the Song Army's arrows.

In addition to the effective range of the Great General Cannon, the most long-range weapons of the Song army could not cause any effective damage to the Ming army, and could only stare blankly unless they took the initiative to attack.

(End of this chapter)