The battle on the South Zicheng side began at noon when the South Navy's large-scale artillery bombardment was launched, and then at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, when the infantry units of the South Navy stepped forward, and after the infantry battle between the two sides took place, the battle became more and more intense.

Relying on its absolute artillery superiority, the South China Navy completely suppressed the rear-loading artillery and a large number of front-loading artillery on the side of the Zisheng Army, providing strong support for the infantry units.

By 5:10, some of the 150-mm howitzer units even began to take the initiative to advance to provide more direct artillery fire for the attacking troops.

The 150-millimeter howitzers equipped by the South China Navy are called howitzers, but in fact, in order to keep up with the troops for field maneuvers, the marching weight is controlled below three tons, in this case, the barrel cannot be too long, otherwise it will be too heavy to carry out field maneuvers.

And the barrel is not long, so this effective range is naturally a little worse.

At present, the 150-millimeter howitzer of the improved model is still equipped with 11 times the caliber of the barrel, and the effective firing range is about 4,300 meters, which is an increase from the effective firing range of the initial model of 4,500 meters, but it is still relatively short, and it does not have the effective firing range of 5,500 meters of the 75-millimeter field gun.

In the case of a relatively close range, in order to get a better effect of artillery strike, it is necessary to deploy closely.

After the enemy's counter-artillery was suppressed, the independent artillery regiments, part of the 150-mm howitzers in the artillery brigades, began to be deployed in advance.

And at about five o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, they successfully arrived at the preset position and carried out a large-scale artillery bombardment.

When these 150-millimeter howitzers began to directly bombard the positions of the enemy's infantry lines, they led to a sharp increase in the rate of infantry casualties in the enemy's positions.

At about six o'clock in the evening, a brigade of infantry of the Southern Navy, with the support of artillery, broke through a section of the enemy's position on the left and initially cut off the connection between the defenders in Nanzi City and the enemy forces on the left side of the periphery.

That night, due to the influence of the line of sight, although the offensive of the South China Navy was still continuing, the intensity had been greatly reduced, and more often it was just a general fire coverage of the enemy forces in a certain direction.

The fighting on the frontal battlefield was temporarily subsided for a short time.

But the other unit responsible for the detour, the 2nd Division, was still in action.

As the core and main force of the offensive force on the northern front, the combat mission undertaken by the Second Division was not to directly attack South Purple City, but to outflank them in a roundabout way.

The South China Navy has always liked to let the second-line troops carry out frontal attacks, and use the first-line core and main forces to outflank them in a roundabout way.

In some battles in the past, the First Division often undertook this kind of combat mission, and now the First Division is stationed in the Luohe Gorge on the northern front of Nanhai Prefecture, and among the many troops in the Eastern Expeditionary Army, the most powerful combat effectiveness is naturally the Second Division.

From the beginning of the Battle of Hetai, the combat mission undertaken by the Second Division was to carry out a roundabout outflanking.

Now is no exception!

The 2nd Division's roundabout outflanking was on the enemy's flank, and although it also launched an attack during the day, it did not invest much energy, in order to create a false impression that the enemy was in the direction of attack on the front and on the left.

After dark, the Second Division relaunched a large-scale offensive and launched the largest night offensive since the founding of the South China Navy.

This is also the reason why the Second Division is allowed to take the initiative on the right side, because night offensive operations pose a great challenge to the organizational ability of the troops, and among the many South China Navy units here, only the Second Division, an old main force in the South China Navy, can barely possess this ability.

As for the other troops, I am afraid that after launching an attack, they will not even be able to distinguish where the enemy is and where their own people are, and it is estimated that the fight will be chaotic when the time comes.

After launching a large-scale attack at night, the 2nd Division really posed a great threat to the enemy forces in front of it.

Night battles, whether offensive or defensive, are a great test of the troops' organizational ability.

In particular, the current mode of engagement between the two sides is not the line operations of the past, but skirmisher operations, and the width of a division can reach four or five kilometers.

It's a pity to say that if there is no such feudal town force facing the Southern Navy, it will still stupidly use the line combat method, and it will all become a skirmisher combat mode.

After all, everyone's eyes are not blind, and the relevant combat examples of the South China Navy in Nanhai Prefecture in the past two years have already been concerned and even studied by the major feudal towns, and finally they have basically come to a conclusion that in front of the troops equipped with rear-loading rifles, they continue to fight in line formation, whether it is defense or offense, it is suicide.

The rate of fire of the rear-loading rifle is more than 10 rounds per minute or even higher, which is enough to shoot out the previously unimaginable barrage, and after being equipped with the rear-loading rifle, you can also reload and fire on your stomach, and you continue to stand in a team stupidly to meet the battle in a dense formation, and it is estimated that even the shadow of the enemy has not been seen, and it is harvested by a large number of bullets.

It's not suicide what it is!

In the past year, many feudal towns have invariably abandoned line tactics and have instead shifted to skirmishers.

But it is also very difficult to think about the straggler formation into a complete tactical system, they imitate and refer to the Southern Navy, but it is impossible to learn it completely.

The tactics of the Southern Navy are not just skirmisher tactics, but a new type of tactics, from infantry and artillery coordination to infantry tactics, which is a complete set, and it has been studied and implemented since Wu Guanlin arrived in Qingshan Town, which has been several years before and after.

During this period, adjustments and improvements were made according to each campaign, not only in terms of tactics, but also in terms of organization and even logistics.

The infantry battalions and regiment-level units in the Southern Navy have even set up rapid-fire mortar artillery, infantry artillery, logistics units, and other auxiliary units.

Therefore, when the Southern Navy was fighting, what those feudal towns saw may have been only infantry fighting in skirmish formations, but in fact, there was a complete set of tactical theories behind it.

If the other feudal towns want to learn, it is not enough to build a straggler formation, but it is necessary to completely tear down and rebuild the existing troops, and carry out a comprehensive reform in terms of troop formation, equipment, command system, logistics system, tactical concepts, etc.

How to say it, even if you want to copy the Southern Navy, it is not so easy.

At least, it will take time!

Zi Shengjun is actually enough to keep up with the times, they have already carried out skirmisher tactical training according to the internal situation in Nanhai Prefecture half a year ago, and began to equip rear-loading rifles in batches, and now even rear-loading artillery has been partially equipped.

Moreover, they have also made certain improvements to the organization and command system of the troops, but the time for innovation is still relatively short, and the reality cannot give them enough time and strategic security space to push the whole army to start over.

This also leads to the fact that, on the surface, it seems that both sides are using skirmisher tactics, but the things inside are very different.

This difference is even more obvious in actual combat.

After the 2nd Division launched a night attack that night, although the command of the operation was somewhat reluctant, many troops did not even know where to run while walking.

But they still managed to attack.

And the Zi Shengjun on the other side performed even worse!