Everyone, including Li Xuan, was already looking forward to crossing the Lanjiang River and marching into Xingquan Mansion.

Before, it was because of the weak strength, and there were tens of thousands of Ming troops blocking the way on the other side of the river, but now, the situation is different.

Through today's daytime battle, the main force of the Ming army was lost, not only the more than 2,000 Ming troops on the side of the No. 2 ferry were defeated, but at noon, the main force of the Tang army that had crossed the river to attack the Lanjiang ferry was routed, and troops were sent to pursue the lower reaches of the Lanjiang River, that is, due north, and they wanted to catch up and defeat the more than 1,000 Ming army guards who had crossed the river from the No. 3 ferry before.

In addition to the more than 1,000 Ming troops at Ferry No. 3 that needed to be defeated, troops were also sent to the No. 2 Ferry in the south to continue to pursue the Ming army that was routed by Hao Bonian in the morning.

There are a lot of remnants of the Ming army staying in these two directions, and if they are not completely defeated in time, they may cause trouble to the new army of the Tang Dynasty in the future.

But these are all follow-up small-scale wars, and they can't affect the overall situation.

Since the moment Song Zhiwen ordered the retreat, the second Lanjiang Battle had come to an end, and more than half of the tens of thousands of Ming troops had been lost, and the 3,000 recruits as the main force were only a few hundred.

Even though Song Zhiwen still has more than 2,000 guards and almost the same number of young men under his command, but relying on these cannon fodder troops, it is definitely not the opponent of the new army of the Tang Dynasty, as long as he crosses the river to defeat these thousands of remnants of the Ming army, then the entire Xingquan Mansion is at his fingertips.

Another very important point is that after the elimination of these tens of thousands of Ming troops, it is impossible for the Ming army to gather large-scale forces to attack again in a short period of time.

After this battle, Xingquan Mansion's own strength has been exhausted, and even the guards of the surrounding prefectures and counties have been annihilated.

If the Ming army wants to gather a large army to attack, it is no longer possible to rely on the strength of Xingquan Mansion and even the surrounding prefectures and counties alone, and it must be led by the governor of Guizhou and concentrate tens of thousands of troops to attack.

And this kind of thing, just the political bargaining will have to waste a lot of time, not to mention the difficult mountain roads in Guizhou, when they gather from all over the country and go to Xingquan Mansion, it will be several months later.

And with these few months, it is enough for Li Xuan to take the entire Xingquan Mansion under his control, and use the population and materials of Xingquan Mansion to expand the Tang New Army on a large scale again.

Relying on one Zhengtai County, the Tang Dynasty will be able to pull out an army of nearly 4,000 people, and if it relies on the entire Xingquan Mansion with a population of more than 30 people, it is entirely possible to pull out a new army of 10,000 people.

From a military point of view, the time is ripe to attack Xingquan Province!

From a political point of view, the Tang Dynasty has been established for several years, even if the previous year or two were playing family games, but they can't always nest in the ravine.

Not only Li Xuan yearns for the prosperity on the Qinhuai River in the south of the Yangtze River, but Fang Dongquan and Chen Butcher are also yearning for the outside world, they can't wait to get out of the mountains, out of Zhengtai County, and see the vast world outside.

Crossing the river and attacking Xingquanfu City has become the consensus of Li Xuan and many generals, but how to fight? How to deal with a larger-scale counterattack by the Ming army after the battle?

In this regard, Zeng Ziwen put forward a series of countermeasures, after occupying the city of Xingquan Mansion, he immediately began to expand the army, recruiting new soldiers from the entire Xingquan Mansion, and this time the scale of the expansion is to expand the new army of the Tang Dynasty to more than 10,000 people!

In addition to the expansion of troops, Zeng Ziwen and other generals also put forward some suggestions for improving existing weapons, such as equipping them with heavier muskets of larger caliber and equipping battalion artillery.

These improvements were made at the previous post-war summary meeting.

After every large-scale battle, the Datang New Army would always hold a post-war summary meeting to discuss the gains and losses of the battle, and this has gradually become a tradition of the Datang New Army.

In today's post-war summing up meeting, there were not too many major problems, because after all, although the battle was hard this time, the performance of the various units was actually quite good, and there were no major mistakes.

However, although the performance of the troops is good, it does not mean that there are no flaws.

First of all, for the first time, the troops felt that the existing performance of the musket was insufficient, according to the reason, the performance of the musket equipped by the Datang New Army has been regarded as the top in contemporary times, but there are still many problems, such as the rate of fire is too slow, and the success rate of ignition is too low.

In the face of a massive enemy charge, the strength is outwhelmed!

Li Xuan is naturally clear about this problem, but he also knows that this problem will not be solved for a while, because now the muskets of the Datang New Army have basically squeezed out all the contemporary technological potential, from ammunition to the design of muskets, there is nothing much that can be improved.

The only thing that could improve and greatly improve the performance of the musket was the firing mechanism, which was to replace the arquebus firing with a flint firing.

But this involves a seemingly inconspicuous but in fact unsolvable problem: springs.

The most important technical difficulty of the flintlock pistol is this small spring, and the requirements for steelmaking technology of this thing are quite high, and with the technical ability of the workshops under the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty, it is impossible to get it out at all.

Without springs, it is impossible to make a flint firing mechanism, and it is impossible to upgrade the existing arquebus to a flintlock gun, and it is difficult to improve the performance of the existing musket.

In this regard, those generals also knew, and proposed another solution, that is, to continue to increase the caliber of muskets, in order to obtain greater range and power, to counter the Ming army's thicker, more bulletproof shields that may appear in the future.

Li Xuan felt feasible when he heard this proposal, the caliber of the existing musket of the Tang New Army was not large, only fourteen millimeters, which could only be said to be slightly larger than the iron cannon of the Japanese and the shotgun equipped by the Ming Dynasty in history, and it could barely be regarded as a medium-caliber musket.

However, at the same time, the Europeans were equipped with much larger muskets, especially the Spaniards, which could reach 20 millimeters, and were very effective against heavy plate armor.

When the Ming army charged before, they had already used a large number of heavy giant shields and even trolleys to fight against the muskets of the Tang army, and it was difficult that they would use larger and thicker these giant shields in the future, even if the mobility of these giant shields was too poor.

Li Xuan decided to be prepared first, and first build a batch of heavy muskets with a caliber of 20 mm!

After deciding to build a batch of heavy muskets, Li Xuan also thought about improving the existing artillery!

Through this actual battle, Li Xuan discovered that the six existing artillery pieces of the artillery team, whether it was an Italian gun weighing 800 catties or five 500 catties of artillery, still had the fatal disadvantage of being too heavy and unable to maneuver quickly.

Although these guns have good range and power, they are all front-loading cannons, and the weight is still too great.

When Li Xuan saw those old and antique bowl cannons of the Ming army, he felt that he must also have an artillery that could accompany the infantry to maneuver quickly.

Last night, when Hao Bonian led his troops to reinforce the No. 2 ferry, it was because the weight of the artillery was too large that it could not be quickly reinforced, resulting in Hao Bonian leading the army to fight, unable to get artillery support, and could only rely on grenades and pure bayonet charge.

And this is also the main reason why Hao Bonian's department suffered a lot of casualties!

The new army of the Tang Dynasty must have a light artillery that can accompany the infantry at any time, and it is a light artillery directly under the jurisdiction of the infantry battalion.

It must be able to be carried directly by horses and other livestock, so that soldiers can carry it in an emergency, and it cannot be pulled by multiple horses, as is the case with the current six cannons, and it cannot be maneuvered in an emergency, or in mountainous and muddy areas.

Arriving at the battlefield, to be able to maneuver with the infantry formation, it is necessary for the soldiers to be able to push the artillery alongside.

Under the premise of satisfying rapid maneuvering, other performance data can be as good as possible.

In addition to these two, there are other suggestions, such as armor for more spearmen, but these are secondary and not as impactful as the first two.

After the post-war memories of this day, the Datang New Army was once again running rapidly!

Several units with relatively large losses began to accept new recruits from the rear on a large scale, and to replenish the lost muskets and other weapons.

Try to restore the Datang New Army's previous combat effectiveness, but it is impossible to get there as soon as possible, at least before the Datang New Army launches the battle to cross the river.

Both recruiting and training takes time, and the rate at which weapons can be produced is limited.

And this time is not in time to catch up with the river-crossing operation formulated by the Datang New Army.

In order to strike while the iron was hot, Li Xuan decided to cross the river in a hurry, just five days later!

These five days are the time for the Datang New Army to finally resume replenishment, and how much can be replenished!

In the next two days, Li Chunjing, the commander of the second mixed battalion who led the army to pursue the enemy at the No. 3 ferry, pursued and routed the Ming army, killing more than two enemies and capturing more than 500 people, and the remaining hundreds of Ming troops were completely dispersed, and he escorted the prisoners back that day.

Fang Xitong, the first mixed battalion who led the army to pursue the remnants of the No. 2 ferry, sent someone to report that the remnants of the Ming army in the south had already been completely dispersed, and many of them had become stragglers, and it was difficult to pursue them one by one.

In this regard, Li Xuan can only put them aside first, anyway, a little straggler will not affect the overall situation, at most it will cause some trouble to local security, and let the thief hunting camp slowly sort out and eliminate it in the future.

Now, Li Xuan is setting his sights on Zhengtai County!

Before officially crossing the river to attack Xingquanfu City, he still had to take down the county seat of Zhengtai!

For this reason, he sent someone to Fang Xitong to give an order, asking him to immediately lead the troops to Zhengtai County and take Zhengtai County, and in order to catch up with the battle of crossing the river a few days later, Li Xuan only gave him two days.

It didn't take long for Su Jiakang in Zhengtai County to hear that a large number of pseudo-Tang thieves had come from outside the city, and when he was about to attack the city, the whole person couldn't stand, he sat down on a chair, and his eyes were full of despair.

The mouth still muttered: "What to do, what to do?" ”