It is precisely because they are also equipped with these long-range artillery that they will pay more attention to preventing long-range artillery attacks when they deploy positions on the north bank of the Mihe River, especially when deploying artillery positions.

But what they didn't expect was that this time, the Daheng Unification Army on the opposite side, in order to completely suppress the artillery units in the Jingzhou Allied Army at the beginning of the battle, especially the 100-mm field guns, 120-mm field guns, and 150-mm howitzers of the Jingzhou Allied Army, which were very threatening.

A large number of long-range artillery pieces were deployed to prepare for a preemptive strike, and in addition to the traditional 100-mm field guns or 120-mm field guns, 36 150-mm cannons and three train guns were directly used.

Among them, the 53-year-old 150-mm cannon is actually the shore version of the navy's 150-mm and 30-caliber naval guns, the whole gun weighs more than 10 tons, and the maximum firing range reaches a terrifying 12 kilometers!

Even in order to guide this artillery to carry out artillery bombardment, the Daheng Unification Army specially made a tethered manned hot air balloon, and used the hot air balloon to send the artillery observer into the sky, and condescendingly observed the target to guide the heavy artillery to carry out the shelling.

For this Mihe Battle, the Daheng Unification Army took out a lot of things at the bottom of the box.

The whole army has only 200 mm and 20 times the caliber train guns, and the whole army has only 36 of the more than 50 150-mm cannons, and as for the 100-mm field guns, 120-mm field guns, and 150-mm howitzers, there are even more.

Moreover, in order to better guide the artillery units to carry out long-distance artillery bombardment, the Daheng unified army also used artillery hot air balloons on a large scale for the first time, and after the battle began, hundreds of hot air balloons were lifted into the air, carrying artillery observers to search for important enemy targets and guide artillery shelling targets. At the same time, ample ammunition was prepared for these guns!

As a result of this operation, the Daheng Unification Army destroyed a large number of important enemy targets within the first hour of the start of the artillery bombardment, especially a large number of enemy artillery positions, which were subjected to targeted large-scale artillery bombardment.

In addition, long-range artillery shelling was also carried out on high-value targets such as enemy headquarters, barracks, warehouses, etc., which had been discovered, and caused a large number of enemy losses.

It has to be said that although the Jingzhou coalition army has been equipped with a large number of breech-loading rifled artillery, the war habits of many generals are still the same.

This can be seen from the fact that many of the headquarters of the Jingzhou coalition forces, although they are deployed in the rear, have not even carried out any cover-up.

Perhaps they thought that their headquarters was still several kilometers away from the Mihe front, and that there could be no real threat, and that there was no need to take protective measures.

As a result, these headquarters were named by the 150-millimeter cannons in the Daheng Unified Army!

Within an hour of the start of the war, the army's 36 150-millimeter cannons launched a fierce artillery bombardment on high-value targets within 7,000 to 12,000 kilometers, destroying a total of nine enemy long-range artillery positions, two barracks, 13 definite command centers, and a large number of unclear enemy command headquarters and warehouses.

So much so that the Jingzhou coalition army fell into the inability to prevent long-range artillery from counterattacking, and even a large number of troops lost command and contact.

At 10 o'clock in the morning, after an hour of heavy shelling and countless shells, Liang Chenglei officially ordered his troops to cross the river.

As the pioneer of the whole army crossing the river, the 16th Brigade of the Eighth Division under the jurisdiction of the Third Army took the lead in carrying a large number of bamboo rafts and wooden rafts to rush out of the beachhead and directly cross the river with wood pulp!

At the same time, the engineering units in the rear, braving enemy artillery fire, entered the beachhead and began to lay pontoon bridges.

Once the 16th Brigade successfully crossed the river and established a beachhead, it would be able to better cover the engineering units to build pontoon bridges.

Once the pontoon bridge is built, artillery and other heavy weapons and a large amount of supplies will be transported across the river.

As for the crossing of the river by the soldiers, it was even simpler.

Here is the Wuyu ferry, the most suitable ferry for crossing the river within hundreds of kilometers up and down the Mi River, the water flow is gentle, and it is not wide, it is only more than 300 meters to die, and the river beach is gentle and strong......

The soldiers could paddle over any raft, just like the 16th Brigade now......

If you can swim, you can even swim straight to it!

Even if you don't have it, just hold a piece of wood and you can still row over!

Therefore, the most difficult thing to cross the dense river is not the crossing of the soldiers, but the timely crossing of the river with heavy weapons such as artillery and a large amount of logistics.

That's why it's necessary to build a pontoon bridge!

In order to quickly build pontoon bridges, the sight of the engineer units prepared a large number of specially made small boats

Even in order to save time, the upper part of these boats has been laid with planks in advance, thrown down when they reach the river, and then fixed.

Once one by one is fixed, a small pontoon bridge is completed.

Of course, this kind of pontoon bridge built urgently under enemy artillery fire is very small, and can only pass through personnel and light artillery, as for those four-wheeled heavy carriages full of supplies or artillery that cannot move several tons, it is necessary to wait for the subsequent large pontoon bridge to be successfully built before passing.

In addition to the front-line combat troops, a large number of technical personnel were specially dispatched to set up a special plan for crossing the river, design the pontoon bridge, and even the order of crossing the river in the middle and later stages of the river was carefully calculated.

Avoid the chaos on the beachhead.

After all, this time, the Daheng Unification Army planned to cross the river from Wuyu Ferry with at least 50,000 troops in a short period of time, and it was not so easy to transport so many people and the corresponding heavy weapons and baggage across the river in a short period of time to ensure that the troops would maintain their combat effectiveness after crossing the river.

When the officers and men of the 16th Brigade crossed the river directly on a large number of rafts and boats, the two river warships also ventured close to the trestle of the ferry, and began to hoist a number of 150-mm light howitzers prepared with steam lifting devices attached to them.

After the transfer, they will brave enemy artillery and beachhead interception fire, and rush directly to the trestle on the other side of the river.

This was to allow the troops crossing the river to obtain heavy artillery in the early stage.

After all, the construction of a large pontoon bridge cannot be completed in a short period of time, and what the troops after crossing the river in the short term need the fire support of a large number of artillery units in the rear, but as the troops crossing the river leave the beachhead, the fire support in the rear may be insufficient, so it is also necessary to adopt some special means to transport some heavy weapons to the troops crossing the river in the early stage.