Chapter 301: Go South! South!
When this Qingshan 75-mm rear-loading gun arrived, it basically announced that the preparations of the Sixth Division in Pingdan County were basically completed.
This artillery was accompanied by other field artillery of the 1st Artillery Regiment, and even a heavy artillery battalion of the Heavy Artillery Regiment was pulled over.
There are even more other ammunition.
Even the troops had an additional 4th Infantry Regiment.
Up to now, because of the surrender of 10,000 people under Li Kun's command, the total strength of the Sixth Division has directly increased by more than 10,000 people in just over ten days.
The units include more than 15,000 people, including four infantry regiments, one field artillery regiment, one heavy artillery regiment, one cavalry regiment, and one baggage regiment directly under the headquarters.
In addition, there are four mixed regiments plus one mixed brigade.
The total strength of the army has already exceeded the 30,000 mark, and these 30,000 troops are all regular troops, and there is no situation where there are too many new soldiers.
Among these 30,000 people, there are 5,000 people in the first mixed regiment and the third mixed regiment deployed in Nan'an County, and Nan'an City is the core of the northern defense line.
On the east bank of Lingchang, the Second Mixed Regiment and the Fourth Mixed Regiment were deployed with a total of 6,000 troops, and the area on the east bank of the Luo River also needed to directly face the troops of Jianminggang, and it had been reported that Jianminggang continued to increase its troops to more than 5,000 people in this area.
Therefore, it is also difficult to mobilize the 6,000 people in this direction, once they move, they will kill them directly from the east bank of Lingchang, and go straight to Lianguan County and even Sanyang Town and Qingshan Town, which are two very important strategic points for Lin Ziyan.
In the hometown of Sanyang Town and Qingshan Town, Lin Ziran also left troops to arm, but there were not many troops, only an infantry battalion was left in Sanyang Town for deployment, and at most there were recruits who were being trained in the new barracks to cooperate with the battle.
However, the defense of Sanyang Town and even other hinterlands in Lianguan County actually had to rely on the artillery fleet, and the Sixth Artillery Fleet already had five small and medium-tonnage ironclad ships in the inland river plus two modified ironclad ships.
A total of seven ironclad ships want to take the initiative to go south to find trouble for Jian Minggang, but if it is only with the support of the army artillery on the shore, it is still possible to block the Luo River, after all, the ironclad fleet under Jian Minggang is actually not bad, they are all some small and medium-tonnage inland river ironclad ships, and they also have to deal with the northward movement of the ironclad ships under Li Dingjun.
When it arrived at Pyongdan City, the Sixth Artillery Fleet was also directly based on Pyongdan Port, and with the cooperation of the Third Heavy Artillery Battalion and other field artillery, it directly blocked the entire Luo River.
In terms of inland river operations, Jian Minggang could not take any advantage, even if there was no Sixth Artillery Fleet under Lin Ziran, the inland river fleet under Li Dingjun would be enough to suppress the Luoan fleet under Jian Minggang.
In this situation, Lin Ziran transferred all the troops that could be transferred to Pingdan City.
Therefore, at present, in the area of Pinkdam City, a total of 18,000 men of the 6th Division (excluding the officers and men of the 6th Artillery Fleet) are gathered.
Among them, 13,000 were officers and soldiers of the headquarters of the Sixth Division, and the other 5,000 were the troops of Xiao Xiangyu, who had just defected to Cheng and were now organized into the Fifth Mixed Brigade.
With the superiority in troops, the heavy equipment is basically complete, and the ammunition reserves are sufficient.
The most important thing is that the bullets with paper shells and metal bottoms for the Aoyama breech-loading rifle have also arrived, along with about 1,000 newly modified breech-loading rifles.
The technical difficulty of modifying the rear-loading rifle at the Tsingshan Machinery Factory is not high, and the modification production line was established early, so the modification speed is very fast, and if the design capacity is fully utilized, more than 5,000 can be modified in a month.
Today, more than 3,000 have been refitted, all of which are in Pyndan City.
In addition to equipping the First Infantry Corps, the garrison battalion was also equipped with these breech-loading rifles, and some were assigned to some light infantry companies of other units.
The original light infantry companies have also been redressed one after another, and these light infantry companies are originally playing new light infantry tactics, and if they change their weapons, they only need to be a little familiar with the new weapons.
Therefore, there are currently about 35,000 soldiers equipped with Aoyama breech-loading rifles!
After all this was prepared, Lin Ziran finally gave the order to launch an attack on the defending forces of the county guard in front of him!
If Lin Ziran didn't give the order to launch an attack and put pressure on the county guard, it was estimated that Zhao Song's side would be completely finished.
Although Zhao Song's side fought very tenaciously and caused great casualties to the attacking army of the county guard, Jian Minggang directly forced forward regardless of the casualties.
In this case, Zhao Song's life is very difficult.
The 30,000 troops in the county guard in the northwest were wounded, and Zhao Song's more than 20,000 troops also lost nearly half, and Lin Ziran knew that he couldn't wait any longer.
If you wait any longer, you will not be watching a play, but you will have to face the tens of thousands of troops of the county guard alone.
On March 28, outside the city of Pingdan, Lin Ziran climbed a hill with Wu Guanlin and other generals, holding binoculars to observe the entire battlefield.
About 2,500 meters in front of them was the defensive line of the Jianming Gang Division, which, after several reinforcements, had at least 13,000 men, and a dense artillery force, which was estimated to have at least 70 field guns or howitzers of various calibers.
The reason why there is more artillery here is purely because Jian Minggang wants to make up for the lack of infantry firepower with more artillery power.
People got the news that Lin Ziran was equipped with a rear-loading rifle, and they had previous experience in fighting with the South China Sea New Army, so they knew that although this rear-loading rifle was easy to use, as long as they were cautious when fighting, avoided direct fire between infantry, and used artillery as the main means of attack, they could still curb the tactical advantage of rear-loading rifles to a certain extent.
And in front of the headquarters of this thirteen thousand Jianming Gang, it is naturally the Sixth Division under Lin Ziran!
The 10,000-strong divisions of the Sixth Division were divided into divisions on a front about a kilometer wide, and in the rear of the infantry units, there were also a large number of artillery units.
At the same time, the 1st Cavalry Regiment and the 5th Mixed Brigade were located on both sides of the battle line.
It is worth noting that on the left flank of the battle line, the First Advance Corps was deployed here, not only the First Battalion, but also the garrison battalion was attached here.
Not only the infantry, but almost half of the artillery force was also deployed in the vicinity.
The 6th Division deployed these two units with breech-loading rifles and semi-artillery forces on the left flank, and its tactical intention was already very obvious, that is, to try to concentrate superior firepower on the left flank in order to achieve a breakthrough on the left flank and finally win the whole battle.
It is worth mentioning that the Castle Peak rear-loading gun in the experimental artillery company will also participate in the battle today.
The task of this test gun today is to carry out precise strikes on the enemy's artillery positions with ultra-long range and high accuracy!
And then it is true, the infantry units on the front line have not yet begun to move, and the other artillery units have not yet fired.
This test artillery is already the first shot to fire today's big battle!
Under the guidance of the artillery observers, the first shell fired by the members of the experimental artillery crew landed on a field artillery position at the headquarters of Jianming Gang!
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