About five kilometers east of Nanyun Port, the front line of the eastern defense line, this place is not strictly speaking the boundary line between Luohai County and Anlong County, and the boundary line between Luohai County and Anlong County is about eight kilometers to the east.

However, because this place is a series of hills and hills, it is the only area in the surrounding area that is more suitable for deploying a defensive line, so the eastern defense line of the Southern Navy is set up in this area.

The entire defensive line was about six kilometers wide, with battery batteries on several hills as the core, supplemented by field trench fortifications in the middle.

In fact, this section of defense line of only six kilometers is not very long, and if the Hetai army wants to attack, it can completely bypass it.

However, if they go around, they will not be able to open up and use the South Canal to transport baggage, so they can only rely on land transportation.

What's more, if you ignore the defense line of Nanyun City, it is equivalent to leaving a big nail behind you, and the defenders here will be able to cut off the logistics supply line of the Hetai army in minutes.

For an army that uses thermal weapons on a large scale, the serious consequences of being cut off from logistical supply lines are self-evident.

More importantly, Xu Teng did not find that there were a large number of reinforcements from the Southern Navy, facing the defense line of Nanyuncheng with less than 20,000 people, and the army led by his own side was 100,000, even if he had to divide 20,000 or 30,000 troops to contain the 8th Division of the Southern Navy in the north, he could also concentrate at least 70,000 troops to attack Nanyuncheng.

70,000 troops, pull out the nail of Nanyun City, and easily annihilate 10,000 enemy troops, no matter how you look at it, this kind of thing can be done.

Xu Teng was very confident, even if he knew what rifled guns with a long range and a large number of rear-loading rifled guns in the Southern Navy.

But now, he Xu Teng has not been idle for so long in the past, although there is no large-scale arsenal under his command and it is impossible to produce brand-new rear-loading rifled guns, but there are still medium-sized arsenals.

However, like the feudal towns of Guang'an County and Hexi County, he could use the relatively new Fuyuan musket on hand to convert it into a breech-loading rifled gun.

As for the breech-loading rifled gun, there is no way to do this.

The technical difficulty of the breech-loading rifled gun mainly lies in the steel barrel, and this in turn involves steel smelting.

Even if Lin Ziran controlled Luo'an County and had the Luo'an Arsenal before, he could only build a small number of rear-loading rifled guns by hand, and Hetai County under Xu Teng's control did not have this strength, and he didn't even have an advanced large-scale steel plant under his hands.

However, many people can always think of it, Xu Teng recently imitated the front-loading rifled guns produced by the Nanzhou Machinery Bureau before, and asked the arsenal under his command to imitate the production of twenty or thirty front-loading rifled guns.

Although the barrel quality is not good, the barrel life is very low, the rifling is easily worn out, and the effective range of these front-loading rifled guns after rifling is worn is even inferior to the original smoothbore guns.

But something is better than nothing.

These front-loading rifled guns are barely usable, and the effective range can reach three or four kilometers.

In front of this critical problem, the rate of fire is very slow, and the low life of the body tube is not a problem.

But these front-loading rifled guns are still not a source of confidence for him!

The source of his confidence is his absolute superiority in troops, as well as experienced soldiers.

His Hexi Army has been confronting the troops of Dongdingzhou on the Hetai defense line all the year round, and in the past many years, it has been able to get support led by the Nanzhou Bank, with good food, high training intensity, and quite good armament.

In Xu Teng's view, although the equipment advantage of the Southern Navy is stronger, the equipment is also to be used, as long as their tactics are appropriate, then they can completely offset their weapon advantage.

Before marching westward, he and many of his generals pondered and meditated, made a variety of tactical plans and conducted training for the superiority of the Southern Navy's rear-loading rifled guns.

One of the most important points is to completely abandon line operations!

From the analysis of the battle examples of the South China Navy obtained from various sources, they concluded that the performance advantage of the rear loading guns was only one of the reasons why the South China Navy won successive battles, and more importantly, they also used a completely new tactic, that is, the tactics of skirmishers.

To this end, they also delved into skirmisher tactics and proposed their application.

In the past few months of Lin Ziran's campaign, Xu Teng has not been idle, busy modifying Fuyuan muskets, busy formulating new tactics, and busy training troops.

Now, it's time to test the results.

When Xu Teng was about five kilometers away from the defense line of Nanyun City, he had already let the attacking troops disperse and maneuver, while the cavalry and reconnaissance troops stepped forward to intercept the opponent's small reconnaissance force.

Even if the South China Navy has rifled guns with a long range, if its own side spreads out and intercepts the enemy's reconnaissance troops, what if the opponent's artillery can hit four or five kilometers away?

Shao Bing and the others were stupid before, and they actually fought in a dense formation, this is not to use other people's artillery as a target!

The more than 20,000 troops that acted as the vanguard did not suffer any large-scale artillery casualties on the road, and it was not that the artillery of the South China Navy did not open fire to intercept them, but that the forward units of the Hetai Army were divided into many units and advanced simultaneously on a front of several kilometers, and these troops were all in a straggler formation.

This is separated by several thousand meters, and with the help of the terrain to hide maneuvers, the artillery of the Southern Navy does not even know where the enemy's main forces are......

Therefore, the shelling effect is not very good!

Wang Dao, the commander of the Seventh Division on the front line, that is, Scar, was a little surprised when he looked at this scene: "Isn't this our tactic?" Did they go to school? ”

That's right, the South China Navy has been fighting for most of the past six months, and this is how the infantry units have fought, adopting a straggler formation and moving forward quickly with the help of the terrain, which can effectively reduce the threat of enemy artillery bombardment, and at the same time can also adopt a more flexible attack.

However, Chu Weiming, the chief of staff next to him, said: "Although they are all skirmish formations, they are still not quite like ours, division commander, you see, although their formations are loose, they lack organization and flexibility, and most of them are carried out in company units, which is the same as the straggler formation adopted by the previous hunters." ”

"And our formation looks scattered, but in fact it is very closely connected, and each squad and platoon are coordinated with each other, when attacking, the positions and distances of each unit are particular, and their words are more simply distanced!"

Chu Weiming continued: "I'm curious, if the fight starts next, how can their company commander command such a large group of soldiers!" ”

He is not talking about a whole bunch, but a large area, the former referring to the quantity, the latter to the distance.

In the era of line columns, a company commander could directly command the entire infantry company, because the infantry line column during the operation was only twenty or thirty meters.

However, in the era of skirmishers, especially when equipped with rear-loading rifles and began to fight with the help of terrain or trenches, the combat width of this infantry company could reach hundreds of meters or even farther, and a single company commander could not directly command.

It does not mean that a few more officers can be commanded by random temporary arrangement.

There is also a question of staffing and more detailed tactics.

Chu Weiming's conjecture was quickly confirmed, although the Hetai army on the opposite side adopted a straggler formation and approached the defensive line with the help of the terrain to avoid a large number of blows during the march.

But when the opponent approached hundreds of meters and the two sides began to enter the range of rifles, the opponent's line, which looked like a decent infantry skirmisher, instantly exploded like a bubble!

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