On May 4, at dawn, the Southern Navy on the front line of Guang'an City suddenly launched a large-scale artillery bombardment.

From a number of artillery positions, a total of about 200 artillery pieces began to carry out intensive shelling at 5:30 a.m., and in the dense artillery bombardment, the 1st Division, which undertook the task of the first stage of the counteroffensive, began to launch counteroffensive operations.

However, at this time, Lin Ziran, Xu Zhongshu and other senior generals did not focus on the seemingly large-scale counteroffensive outside Guang'an, but on the attack of the Second Army on the left flank.

About eight kilometers away on the west side of Guang'an City, Zhang Hanqiu, the commander of the Second Army, led his troops to launch a large-scale onslaught!

After intensive artillery bombardment, the infantry of the 2nd Army began to attack.

The large-scale counteroffensive of the Second Army allowed the officers and men of Quyang Prefecture to see for the first time how the troops equipped with breech-loading rifled weapons and adopting new tactics launched an offensive.

It is not that the traditional line formation moves forward slowly, and even in the early stage of the defending troops, there are not many soldiers of the Southern Navy, because the offensive queue of the Southern Navy is very scattered, and they all use the terrain to move forward quickly, and they will not be stupidly exposed to the firepower of the defending troops.

At the same time, they will organize fire to suppress the enemy's defensive positions, and the 75-millimeter howitzers will shell the enemy's defensive positions two or three kilometers away.

When the infantry advanced to about four or five hundred meters, they began to fire rapidly using rapid-fire mortars assigned to infantry battalions.

In just one minute, more than a dozen or even more rapid-fire mortar shells may fall from a target trench of several tens of meters, and at this time, the infantry will charge with their guns in hand.

At this time, the enemy infantry is often unable to resist.

They were first shelled by intensive long-range artillery, then by medium-caliber howitzers, and then by rapid-fire mortars.

When they were shelled, they had already suffered a large number of casualties and their morale had fallen, and when they were rushed by the infantry of the South China Navy, they often collapsed without a fight.

Occasionally, the enemy on some fronts resisted, but the attacking infantry would also throw a large number of grenades in the final stage, that is, when twenty or thirty meters away from the enemy's trench, the power of this grenade is naturally not large compared to the artillery shells, but this is still not something that the infantry can resist, and there are many of these things, and when thrown at the same time, they can often be thrown directly into the enemy's trench and explode.

After this series of explosions, after the infantry of the Southern Navy launched a charge, they basically directly used their bayonets to solve the last enemy.

This large-scale counteroffensive is somewhat different from the previous offensive mode of the South China Navy.

In the past, the Yugoslav Navy actually rarely launched direct charges, and more often relied on artillery bombardment, and at the same time, it used the range advantage of rear-loading rifled rifles to completely defeat the enemy at an unexpected distance of 100 meters.

However, as the enemy army gradually used the Fuyuan musket or similar high-quality smoothbore guns to modify the external breech-loading rifled rifles, and gradually equipped them with rear-loading rifled rifles, and at the same time the enemy began to dig trenches on a large scale, in fact, it was already relatively difficult for the Southern Navy to gain an advantage in infantry firepower when attacking operations.

This point had already appeared in the previous battle of the north and the subsequent battle of the eastward expansion, when the reason why the southern navy was still able to win was more purely based on tactical superiority.

This situation also further allowed the South China Navy to strengthen the training and improvement of infantry tactics, and the equipment of a large number of grenades and rapid-fire mortars is the product of this situation.

What to do if the enemy begins to hide in the trenches?

Hit the enemy with warp fire!

Rapid-fire mortars and grenades are such warp firepower.

Of course, the artillery superiority of the South Korean Navy is still obvious.

When this counteroffensive was launched, the artillery units of the South China Navy carried out a devastating surprise attack on the enemy's artillery based on the previous reconnaissance information, using the ultra-long range of its own artillery.

The first large-scale artillery bombardment in the early hours of the morning, especially in the first fifteen minutes of intensive shelling, except for some 75-mm howitzers that directly supported the infantry and bombarded the enemy's infantry lines.

In fact, a large number of long-range artillery, including 75-mm field guns, 100-mm field guns, and 150-mm howitzers, are not shelled targets by the enemy's infantry defense line, but artillery positions, headquarters, ammunition warehouses, etc., deployed by the enemy behind the infantry defense line.

Although the army in Quyang Prefecture learned the lessons of other armies, it did not dare to directly deploy a large number of artillery pieces in the open air and expose them to the firepower of the Southern Navy.

However, a large number of their smoothbore guns were limited by the range limit, and it was impossible to really retreat to the back, at most hundreds of meters away from the infantry line, or simply conceal themselves.

The same is true of its headquarters and ammunition warehouses, which are already several kilometers away from the front line, but they still underestimate the effective range of the 100-millimeter field guns of the Southern Navy.

The 100-millimeter field gun equipped with the South China Navy is a long-barreled gun with a 30-caliber barrel, and its effective firing range can reach 7,500 meters.

To put it bluntly, in fact, almost all the defense lines deployed by the Quyang Prefecture army outside Guang'an City, including the artillery positions and the temporary material warehouses and headquarters in the rear, are all within the effective strike range of this artillery.

The only thing that is more troublesome is that it is impossible to shoot directly at such a long range, and can only use curved aim shooting, which also requires relatively high technical requirements for artillery bombardment, and more importantly, it is necessary to know the specific direction of the target in advance, so as to be able to calculate the shooting elements and carry out long-range shelling.

For this counterattack operation, the strategy of the artillery of the South China Navy was still simple, and they carried out saturated and covered artillery bombardment on all the detected enemy artillery positions, suspected enemy artillery positions, ammunition warehouses, and command headquarters, so as to knock out the enemy's artillery fire as soon as possible and reduce the pressure on the infantry when attacking.

At the same time, knock out the enemy's warehouses, traffic nodes, headquarters.

In this counteroffensive, the artillery superiority of the South China Navy is still the strategic advantage of the South China Navy.

Relying on the absolute superiority of artillery firepower, the Second Army, which launched a roundabout attack on the western flank, successfully broke through the enemy's first line of defense in the morning of the same day and advanced rapidly.

The reaction of the Quyang Prefecture side to all this was panic!

It is not that they did not expect that the South China Navy would counterattack, but they did not expect that the South China Navy's counteroffensive would be fought in this way.

They also thought that the Southern Navy, supported by their breech-loading rifled guns, would charge the infantry in a straggler formation, and the infantry would advance towards their own trench defenses, firing a large number of bullets.

In this regard, they were prepared, the thick field trench defense system was prepared to resist the enemy artillery, and they were also equipped with a lot of rear-loading rifled rifles, if they really fought, they were confident that they would not be too inferior in infantry firepower.

But they did not expect at all that after the battle began, before they saw the large-scale dense formation attack of the South China Navy, the western defense line would completely collapse and be crushed alive by the enemy's superior artillery firepower!

The expected intensive exchange of infantry from both sides did not materialize at all.