prosperous age

Chapter 1151 Encounter
"Marshal, General Wang has led his troops into the city."

Outside Ruibo City, Li Chengliang was riding on a tall horse, and in front of him a messenger was reporting on the battle situation at the front.

"Come here, notify Qi Jimei immediately and have him lead his troops there. The target is Ava City. They must arrive as soon as possible at all costs."

Li Chengliang did not have the smile on his face as he should have because of the destruction of the city, but spoke seriously.

He had already met Zhang Tou, and also knew that his eldest son Li Rusong, whom he valued the most, had actually led his second son Li Rubai to launch a surprise attack on Ava City, intending to block the Burmese King Mang Yinglong there.

How many people are around him?

At most, there were less than 40,000 people, but Mang Yinglong had at least 60,000 to 70,000 people around him, including a group of war elephants.

With such an army, Li Chengliang was very worried that his two sons would not be able to withstand the attack of the Burmese Army.

After all, the other side is running for their lives, and when the battle gets to this point, they really have to fight to the death.

Therefore, Li Chengliang ordered his troops to speed up the pursuit again, and when faced with the obstruction of Ruibo City, he did not delay at all and directly led his troops to attack the city.

As they were preparing to attack the city, Li Chengliang sent out Qi Jimei, who was by his side, to integrate the three frontline troops and put him under his command, and ordered him to lead the army straight to Ava City for support.

These three groups of people, two lieutenant generals and one guerrilla, have a total of seven to eight thousand soldiers under their command.

After them, Li Chengliang would lead the Ming army that was arriving from behind to speed up their advance and reach the battlefield as soon as possible.

At this time, he did not know that the Burmese king, whom he had always wanted to capture, had been captured alive by his son, knocked unconscious and brought into the city of Ava.

The Ming army outside the city began to move. Following Li Chengliang's order, none of the Ming army generals dared to delay and had to carry it out immediately.

They already knew that the city of Ava ahead had been occupied by Young Master Li and his troops, blocking the Burmese king's escape route.

If we chase faster, perhaps we can capture the Burmese king outside the city of Ava.

During this period of pursuit, the Burmese army fled in a panic and they were exhausted from the pursuit.

Only by catching Mang Yinglong as soon as possible can they end this chase and rest for a few days.

There were constant shouts and cries of killing in the city. Qi Jimei ordered the gunners to clear the way and force their way in, to break through Ruibo City and get out from the south gate.

It's not that it's impossible to go around the city, but the surrounding terrain is restricted. Infantry and cavalry can pass through easily, but carriages cannot.

The Ming army was now extremely dependent on baggage for fighting. A large number of artillery, shells and gunpowder needed to be transported by horse-drawn carriages, instead of just giving soldiers some dry food and allowing them to set off.

It should be said that with the popularity of firearms, the original war model has changed imperceptibly.

The army's reliance on logistics has greatly increased, to the point where destroying logistics is equivalent to restricting an army's firepower, making it completely unable to exert its power.

In the famous turning point battles of World War II, whether it was the Battle of Stalingrad or the Battle of Moscow, the German army ultimately lost due to logistics.

The logistics were not well prepared and there was no time to deliver cold-resistant items to the front line, so the attack had to be suspended. In the end, the enemy counterattacked and the offensive turned into an encirclement.

Although the firearms of the Ming Dynasty today are not as powerful as those of Western countries, the ratio of equipment is close to three to one, which has long exceeded the four to one or even five to one ratio of European armies of the same period.

Yes, even though European armies were the first to be equipped with firearms on a large scale, large-scale equipment actually only increased the proportion of firearms personnel by 20%.

It's just that their commanders realized the power of firearms, so the country was willing to invest money in research and development in this area, which was proactive.

Once the research results are achieved, they will soon be equipped and used by the troops.

However, the shortcomings of European countries, such as their small size and poor population, were fully exposed at this time. They lacked resources and the industrial age had not yet begun, so their productivity was extremely low.

Although the productivity of the Ming Dynasty was not much stronger than that of European countries, it was strong in national strength and had vast territory and abundant resources, which was absolutely considered a superiority in that period.

With resources and population advantages, we can naturally achieve large-scale production and equip troops.

What's more, the professionalization of the military in the Ming Dynasty was no later than that in Europe, and was even more thorough, with the army being made hereditary.

Although the household registration system has its shortcomings, the fact that they have been military households for generations also allows their children to receive some military skills training when they are still young, so they can quickly get started after joining the army.

At least, they are very clear about military discipline.

It can be said that if other factors are not taken into consideration, the Ming Dynasty still completely crushed European countries in this era.

In the Ming Dynasty, the research and development of firearms was more of a personal preference. Scholars who were interested in firearms would conduct their own research in this area and then hand it over to the government.

Of course, whether it can be accepted by the court and organized for production in the end depends on this person's influence in the court.

Many times, such research and development only remains at this stage and ultimately cannot actually enter the military.

Many weapon illustrations that later generations saw in ancient books, especially various strange firearms, were actually only produced in one or two batches, and then they were no longer produced and directly discarded.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that most of these things are flashy and impractical. In fact, there are only two types of firearms in this era that can be continuously produced, namely muskets and cannons, and the others can only be eliminated.

As the main department responsible for weapons research and development, it actually did not have a deep understanding of firearms and had never organized any research work.

Previously, Wei Guangde asked them to develop the General Cannon, but it was a mess in the end and no results were achieved. It was not until Yu Dayou got the cannon-making technology from Haojing that they improved it.

It has to be said that the ancient Chinese seemed to have a great talent for improvement. At that time, the performance of copycat products was better than the original ones.

Li Chengliang watched as teams of soldiers entered the city, followed by horse-drawn carriages carrying supplies. He seemed to have realized the importance of the carriages.

Li Chengliang called the clerk and said, "You should immediately draft a letter to the Ministry of War, saying that our army is now extremely dependent on logistics, and we need the court to prepare carriages with larger loading capacity and more flexibility, such as the four-wheeled ones."

"A carriage?"

The clerk was stunned. He seemed to have never heard of the existence of a four-wheeled carriage.

"Just write it down. Someone in the capital should know about it."

Li Chengliang waved his hand impatiently and asked him to go down and draft the official document immediately.

In fact, four-wheeled carriages were indeed rare in ancient China. It was not that no one had thought of it, but China's terrain meant that they could not be used.

Sixty percent of Europe is flat terrain, especially Western Europe, which is almost entirely flat, very suitable for four-wheeled carriages.

So in the 13th century, Europeans figured out the steering problem of four-wheeled carriages, and four-wheeled carriages began to become popular in Europe. In fact, before the 12th century, there were only two-wheeled carriages in Europe.

The way Europeans solved the problem of steering a four-wheeled carriage was actually very creative. Simply put, their four-wheeled carriage was actually two two-wheeled carriages connected together, so that the front set of wheels became steering wheels, allowing the carriage to turn freely and adapt to different roads.

China also has four-wheeled vehicles, but not many. Most of them are pulled by oxen and steer by the brute force of the oxen.

Since it is so troublesome, its scope of use is naturally narrower, and it becomes less common over time.

China has a complex terrain and poor transportation conditions in ancient times. The so-called main roads were nothing more than winding, uneven loess roads. It was difficult for two-wheeled carriages to pass, and four-wheeled carriages were even more difficult to pass. It was very impractical.

Perhaps only the straight roads of the Qin Dynasty could meet the needs of four-wheeled carriages, but unfortunately the straight roads were basically abandoned during the Han Dynasty.

Except for North China and Northeast China where there are many plains, other regions of China have complex terrain, with many hills, mountains, plateaus, deserts, Gobi and even swamps and wetlands. Even two-wheeled carriages cannot pass through these areas, so there are naturally no four-wheeled carriages.

The difference between a four-wheeled carriage and a two-horse carriage lies mainly in the carrying capacity and comfort.

A two-wheeled carriage has a simple structure, usually consisting of two wheels and a shaft, and is suitable for traveling on flat or relatively flat roads.

Two-wheeled carriages are relatively flexible when turning and are suitable for short-distance transportation and light cargo. However, the loading capacity is relatively small. Usually, a healthy adult horse can pull a common two-wheeled carriage in rural areas on a flat road, and its loading capacity can reach 1000 kilograms.

The four-wheeled carriage has a complex structure, including a bogie and four wheels.

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Although the carriage is larger and has a greater load capacity, it is longer and more complicated to operate, making it suitable for driving on relatively flat roads.

Four-wheeled carriages are difficult to operate on complex terrain and require more livestock to pull them, which is also one of the reasons that limit their use.

However, the design of the four-wheeled carriage allows the carriage length to be more than twice that of a two-wheeled carriage, with a greater cargo capacity and a smoother ride.

During Napoleon's expedition to Russia, the baggage train mainly used ordinary four-wheeled carriages and Comtois carriages. The ordinary four-wheeled carriages had a load capacity of about 30 quintals, or 3 tons, while the Comtois carriage had a load capacity of more than 1.2 tons.

In China, the largest two-wheeled carriage has a load capacity of about 1.8 tons and requires nine horses to pull it. There are also carriages with seven horses that can carry 9 tons of cargo, which is already the limit of the two-wheeled carriage.

Because of the road conditions, each of Li Chengliang's carriages could only carry about one ton of stuff, which was actually about seven or eight stones. When encountering a slightly steeper slope, he would need to increase the number of horses or use soldiers to push the carts.

In short, he had already felt that the Ming Dynasty's horse-drawn carriages seemed to have limited the Ming army's attack speed.

Since the beginning of this pursuit, Luo Rufang and Mu Changzuo have mobilized all the mules and horses they can, but logistics are still not guaranteed.

This made Li Chengliang start thinking about solutions, and one of them was the four-wheeled carriage in Haojing that he learned about during a chat with Wei Guangde.

The people of the Ming Dynasty were not actually very interested in the four-wheeled carriage that appeared in the Haojing. They were just amazed at the size of the carriage and the comfort of the ride, and did not consider military needs.

Even Yu Dayou, who had not personally led troops into battle and experienced the difficulties of transporting logistical supplies, had never thought about this.

Perhaps Qi Jiguang would have had other ideas after seeing it, but although he had also suppressed the Japanese in Guangdong, most of them were in Chaozhou and other places, and he had never been to Haojing, so naturally he had never seen it.

The reason why Qi Jiguang might be interested in the four-wheeled carriage is naturally because of the chariot battalion that Qi Jiguang vigorously developed.

Why a side-carriage? It was to reduce weight. In fact, most of Qi Jiguang's vehicles were two-wheeled, and there were some four-wheeled vehicles in the baggage camp, but steering was still a problem, which meant that they had to rely on horsepower and manpower to force steering.

Such a chariot naturally has many restrictions on its route of movement.

Qi Jiguang knew this, but had no solution, so if he saw Haojing's four-wheeled carriage, he would definitely be very interested in introducing it to the Ming Dynasty.

Wei Guangde, naturally, did not know that the Ming army was already troubled by logistics and transportation at this time. He just told Li Chengliang about things happening in various places as if it was something new.

In his eyes, they were all carriages, two-wheeled or four-wheeled, so there didn't seem to be much difference.

Li Chengliang believed that after this document was delivered to the Ministry of War, Wei Guangde would definitely see it and then think of the four-wheeled carriage on the other side of the trench.

Although he could not catch up in Myanmar, the Ming army used four-wheeled carriages to transport supplies, so there would be fewer restrictions in future wars.

As for the discomfort caused by the terrain, that was not his concern but a problem that the generals in charge of logistics needed to consider.

Choose the right route.

It was half a day later when Li Chengliang entered Ruibo City.

At this time, even if you stand at the south gate of Ruibo City, you can't see the exhaust of Qi Jimei's army.

Qi Jimei really didn't dare to delay. Last time, Li Chengliang had let him go because of his elder brother's attitude, so this time he led his troops and marched quickly southward, hoping to reach Ava City as soon as possible.

However, twenty miles outside Ruibo City, more than ten scouts ahead suddenly reported back that a large number of Burmese troops were heading towards them.

Qi Jimei was shocked to hear that the Burmese army had counterattacked here. He thought that he must be fighting with the Burmese army outside the city of Ava. At this time, his team was stretched too far, and it was impossible to quickly gather three troops into a military formation.

"Quick, form a formation and block the attack immediately."

Qi Jimei did not hesitate, nor did he dare to give the order to retreat and gather troops. He directly ordered the vanguard to begin gathering and deploying troops on the spot, preparing for a head-on confrontation with the Burmese army.

Having learned from previous lessons, Qi Jimei prepared more than 40 falconets in the front army. Although they did not carry much ammunition, they could still fire three or four rounds. These ammunitions were enough to fight war elephants.

When the Ming army's vanguard of more than 2,000 people completed their formation, the Burmese army appeared in front of them at the end of the road.

Qi Jimei was not a rookie on the battlefield. He had participated in the suppression of bandits in Guizhou and had fought against the Burmese army in Yunnan. What he saw at this moment were not the Burmese army rushing over to fight, but a group of dogs that had lost their homes.

"Fire, rapid fire, musketeers ready."

Qi Jimei calmed down immediately and gave a loud order.

"bang bang bang"

Immediately, intensive artillery fire rang out, and countless bullets flew towards the Burmese army rushing over from afar. A bloody mist rose in the Burmese army ranks, and broken limbs and arms fell everywhere.

The Ming army gunners quickly unloaded the cartridges to fire faster, and then fired again.

When six consecutive cartridges were fired, the "attack" of the Burmese army on the opposite side was also repelled, and it was not even the turn of the musketeer to fire.

"Tell them to surrender."

Qi Jimei then spoke to the few personal soldiers around him who were escorting the people.

These people were Burmese soldiers who chose to surrender early on. Those who understood Chinese culture stayed in the front army and were responsible for speaking to the Burmese soldiers.