After the First Artillery Fleet went north along the river, it was not very smooth, they were strongly intercepted by the Jingzhou River Fleet, only in the most downstream section of the Jinghe River more than 10 kilometers, the First Artillery Fleet fought two battles with the enemy fleet, almost against the firepower of the opponent's coastal batteries, and the enemy River Fleet, and finally relied on its own warship superiority and firepower to forcibly defeat the enemy fleet, and then broke through the blockade and continued to go north.

In just the two battles at the mouth of the river, the First Artillery Fleet of the Daheng Unification Army was burned and sunk one after another, and the other two were forced to rush to the beach because of serious water ingress, adding up to the end of four river warships.

In addition, three ships were heavily damaged, and more than a dozen were lightly damaged.

More than 400 people were killed or wounded.

The First Artillery Fleet suffered greater losses in only two battles at the mouth of the river than in the main fleet's blockade of the Quping Naval Base.

There is no way to do this, the Jingzhou River Fleet and the estuary battery are not furnishings, and they are equipped with a small number of breech-loading rifled guns, plus they are fighting on the river, and the river is narrow, so they can only rush up with the enemy's firepower.

However, after the First Artillery Fleet paid a large price, it was not without gains, and in the two battles at the mouth of the river, the First Artillery Fleet suffered considerable losses, and the enemy fleet suffered even greater losses.

Twelve river warships deployed by the enemy army at the mouth of the river were dealt a devastating blow!

After two battles, four ships of the enemy fleet sank in the water, two abandoned ships due to fire, one ran aground and finally surrendered, two ships surrendered after rushing to the beach, and three ships fled north!

After breaking through the blockade of the enemy fleet in the area around the estuary, the 1st Artillery Flotilla continued to advance, but after continuing to advance for several tens of kilometers, it was blocked again.

They were blocked at Donghe Pass, twenty kilometers southeast of Jingshi.

Donghe Pass, this place is the first river pass of hundreds of kilometers downstream of the Jing River, when the Jing River flows here, there are hills on the south bank suitable for building forts and fortresses, and at the same time, the river section here is narrow and easier to block with artillery.

Therefore, Donghe Pass has always been the focus of the defense of the Jinghe, the history of the fort fortress is more than three hundred years, in the rise of the Sixth Dynasty, when the guns were just popular, it was already the beginning of the construction of the fort, at this time a large number of artillery was deployed here, even if most of them are still smoothbore guns and front-loading rifled guns, only a very small part of the rear-loading rifled guns, but the shells of large-caliber smoothbore guns are also able to sink these inland river warships.

In the face of such a formidable battery, the First Artillery Fleet tried to attack at night at the beginning, anyway, they only needed to break through to reach the Beijing Division, not necessarily to kill all the enemy batteries along the way.

But this hard break is that a ship is sunk, and finally forced to abandon the hard break strategy.

How did they get through here in the end?

It was the army that opened the passage for them!

Because the Dongheguan Fort is on the south bank of the Jinghe River, not far away is the Jingzhou Front, in order to meet the First Artillery Fleet, Liang Chenglei sent a full infantry army over, marched for a day, prepared for a day, fought for a day, and took nearly three days to take down this battery, and by the way, he also used the fort to cooperate with the Navy's First Artillery Fleet to force the seven remaining inland gunboats of the Jingzhou side to surrender.

Although this Dongheguan Fort is strong, it is to defend the enemy fleet along the river, but the land defense is not very good, there should be at least tens of thousands or even more troops stationed here, but now the capital area is full of troops, they can't deploy too many troops here, only seven or eight thousand people are stationed, and the overall defense force is not even as good as the Jingzhou Machinery Bureau.

Liang Chenglei mobilized an army of nearly 60,000 people, and it took only one day to take it down.

After passing through the Dongheguan Fort, the First Artillery Fleet arrived at the Beijing Division.

At this time, five of the 34 inland river and coastal warships before departure had been sunk, and the other four had been severely damaged and lost their combat effectiveness......

However, in the Battle of Dongheguan, they accepted the surrender of seven river gunboats from the Jingzhou side, and after this replacement, these seven river warships also joined the fleet to continue to fight north.

So it can barely be said that the strength has not been damaged.

However, it doesn't matter anymore, more than 30 warships or more than 20 or only more than 10 warships, in fact, it doesn't matter, they can all cooperate with the army to blockade the Jinghe River, and then cover the army's crossing of the river.

Because most of the river flotilla sent to aid by the Jingzhou side and the many river gunboats sent by Pingnan Prefecture to aid have been completely wiped out in the two Hekouba battles and the Dongheguan battles, the sunken ones, the burned ones, the beach-rushing ones, the surrendered ones, the medium- and large-tonnage river warships were all wiped out, and only a small number of small-tonnage river warships remained.

In addition, the Jingzhou Front of the Daheng Unification Army had already built a coastal artillery position along the Jinghe River in the north of the Beijing Division, completely blocking the possibility of the northern local fleet going south.

In this case, relying only on a few small and medium-tonnage inland river warships currently existing in the Beijing Division, it was simply impossible to resist the attack of the First Artillery Fleet of the Daheng Unification Army.

Therefore, after the arrival of the First Artillery Fleet, Liang Chenglei immediately ordered the Second and Third Cavalry Corps and the 18th Division under the Sixth Army to cross the river, in order to complete the strategic encirclement of the Beijing Division and completely cut off the connection between the Beijing Division and the rest of the north.

The operation of crossing the river was very smooth, and the enemy did not even have the courage to send the few remaining gunboats of small and medium-tonnage to intercept them, nor did they send troops to intercept them on the beachhead, but sat back and watched the troops of the Jingzhou Front of the Daheng Unified Army successfully cross the river.

In fact, they can't stop it even if they want to!

In order to cover the crossing of the river by more than 60,000 people, Liang Chenglei placed more than 100 artillery pieces on the riverside, and in addition to the artillery of the troops crossing the river themselves, there was also a field heavy artillery regiment of an independent artillery regiment to provide support.

At the same time, it also coordinated the fire support of the First Artillery Fleet of the Navy, although the river gunboats in the First Artillery Fleet were not relatively small in tonnage, and at the same time the maneuverability was very poor, and most of the ships were shallow gunboats, with shallow draft and very poor seaworthiness.

But the protection capabilities, as well as the firepower, are generally not bad.

More than half of the more than 30 inland coastal warships are ironclad ships, and some of the new capital ships even have waterline armor belts and sturdy turrets.

In terms of firepower, it is also relatively strong, even if it is a river gunboat with only a few hundred tons, it is often equipped with 150 mm naval guns.

The firepower in the entire First Artillery Fleet is actually very powerful.

It was enough to provide strong fire support for the troops crossing the river.

The army and navy coordinated with each other in their operations, and more than 100 army artillery pieces and more than 20 gunboats were placed on the section of the river crossing.

After the two cavalry corps and the 18th Division crossed the river, the 18th Division stabilized the rear passage, while the 2nd Cavalry Corps and the 3rd Cavalry Corps attacked directly to the north, and it took only three days to be strategically surrounded by the urban area on the north bank of the Beijing Division.

As a result, the Jingzhou Front Army of the Daheng Unification Army has completely completed the strategic encirclement of the Beijing Division!

With the arrival of more heavy equipment and logistical materials such as 200-millimeter train guns, especially the logistics transport formation composed of four large cargo ships escorted by the navy, it successfully arrived at the Jingshi River section and transported a total of more than 10,000 tons of various materials.

After everything was ready, on July 6, Liang Chenglei ordered an attack on the southern city of the Beijing Division!

This completely opened the prelude to the general offensive of the Beijing Division!