Although Wu Guanlin likes to blow, sometimes he doesn't blow properly, but he is always a smart person.

So Lin Ziran didn't care about him anymore, and continued to watch the battle of the troops in front of him, and sighed at the same time: "It's not easy, I've been tossing for several years to engage in this new unit, and now it's finally formed!" ”

"However, now the first division is barely making do, and the new tactical training of other units still needs to keep up!"

Wu Guanlin said: "Don't worry, my lord, the training department has already had a perfect training plan, and we have improved it according to the training outline of the first step of the Corps, and then promoted it to the whole army!" ”

"It's just that there are fewer rear-loading guns now, and the troops can only be equipped with rear-loading rifles and mini rifles and even smoothbore guns for the time being, which has a certain impact on training and combat!"

Lin Ziran said at this time: "Don't worry about the equipment, now the Luo'an Arsenal can produce three thousand new South China Sea rifles in a month, Qingshan Machinery Factory and; The Luo'an Arsenal can be modified at least 7,000 Qingshan Type 2 rifles every month, which is calculated to be supplemented by tens of thousands of guns a month, even if the combat loss is some, but it can also quickly change the equipment of the troops, even if some troops do not have rear-loading rifles for the time being, but the training is advanced, and when the equipment arrives, it can form combat effectiveness faster! ”

Wu Guanlin said: "This is all thanks to the decision of the Lord to quickly take the county seat, otherwise we would not be able to get the intact Luo'an Arsenal, this arsenal has helped us a lot!" ”

Today, the troops under Lin Ziran are only equipped with more than 20,000 breech-loading rifles, of which the number of Nanhai rifles and Qingshan rifles is about half.

About 10,000 South Sea rifles were captured and subsequently produced by themselves, and they were distributed to the 1st Division after simple firing pin modifications.

The remaining Aoyama-2 rifles had about 13,000 strips.

Basically, all units are equipped with these Aoyama-2 rifles, but there are not many except for the second division.

The four infantry regiments under the Second Division have all been fully reequipped with Aoyama-2 rifles, and they are equipped with more than 8,000 rifles.

The rest were assigned to other units, but not to concentrate on the equipment of one unit, but to light infantry companies that were only attached to each unit.

Other units were still armed with mini-rifles and even smoothbore guns.

This is mainly because after changing the rear-loading rifle, the soldiers also need training to give full play to the power of the new rifle, and the original light infantry company is relatively simple, some of them are the light infantry under the original Lin Ziran, or the hunters in the original troops of various feudal towns.

Originally, it was a skirmish tactic, and although there is still a big gap between this skirmish tactic and the new light infantry tactic, it is much easier than directly changing from line tactics to a new type of light infantry tactic.

What's more, for the time being, the light infantry companies in these units are more important to provide infantry long-range fire support, precision strikes, well, to put it bluntly, for the time being, they are used as precision marksmen, used to specifically hit the opposing officer, and they will not play any new type of light infantry tactical combat on a large scale.

Therefore, at present, the troops under Lin Ziran's command, which are fully equipped with rear-loading rifles and adopt new tactical operations, are actually only the first and second divisions.

And these two divisions are also the main forces attacking the Dingjiang fortress at present.

Seeing that the advance of the first division was relatively smooth, Lin Ziran immediately ordered: "Let the second division also follow, and continue to kill and injure the enemy's defensive forces outside the city!" ”

At this time, it is necessary to take it down in one go, even if it is rushed forward now to bear a certain amount of casualties.

Once you get in, you'll be able to capture this northwest corner battery.

This north-west corner battery is the largest protrusion of the Dingjiang fortress facing the land, and from a defensive point of view, this huge salient can allow the enemy's artillery units to cover a wider area, whether to the east or south, to cover the entire front.

But in contrast, such a salient has also become an important breakthrough point for the attacker.

As long as this salient is taken, it will be able to pry open a huge hole in the entire Dingjiang fortress, and then capture the entire Dingjiang fortress.

It's just that Lin Ziran just ordered the second division to start moving, but someone suddenly came to report that there was something unusual in the enemy fleet!

"Fleet? Could it be that they are still planning to drive the ironclad ship to land? Lin Ziran was a little puzzled, what did the enemy fleet want to do at this time?

Shelling your own side?

Just kidding, unless their ships have legs or wheels or something that can drive them to land, they don't expect to threaten their own side.

Instead of attacking on the edge of the Luo River, they chose the northwest direction, which was more than a thousand meters away from the river.

In those years, the smoothbore guns they were equipped with, and the smoothbore guns on battleships were more difficult to hit accurately than the guns on land, so they could not shell land targets more than 1,000 meters away.

When the Luo Navy attacked the Dingjiang fortress before, it directly pulled the battleship closer to within 500 meters for artillery bombardment, otherwise it would not be accurate at all.

And Lin Ziran knew in advance that the other party had the support of the Luo Hai Navy, and the strength of the fleet was much stronger than the Luo An fleet under him.

Therefore, although Lin Ziran brought most of the main warships of the Luo'an fleet over, he didn't think about relying on the fleet to launch any attack, more precaution.

On the one hand, it is to cooperate with the artillery units on land to block the Luo River, so that the Luo Hai Fleet will not go up the river and enter the upper reaches.

On the other hand, it is necessary to prevent the Dingjiang fortress from being attacked for a long time and forming a relatively long war of attrition, and then it is possible to use the fleet to attack the opponent's supply transport ships, or to contain the opponent's fleet, so as to provide indirect cover for the troops forcibly crossing the Dingjiang River.

But these are all reserve plans, and at present, Lin Ziran's plan is to take the Dingjiang Fortress first, and take the fleet south with him just in case.

He didn't even intend to attack in the area near the river.

So, why did the opposing fleet move? What do they want to do?

No matter what the other party wanted to do, Lin Ziran quickly ordered: "Order the fleet to raise its vigilance, once the other party tries to go north, no matter what they want to do, contain them first!" ”

"Order the test artillery battalion to prepare to support the fleet to block the Luo River!"

"Order the 3rd Heavy Artillery Battalion of the 2nd Heavy Artillery Regiment and the 3rd Artillery Regiment to be ready to block the Luo River at any time and shell the enemy fleet!"

In order to prevent any changes in the opponent's fleet, Lin Ziran was also prepared.

The position of the experimental artillery battalion was selected to be able not only to shell the northwest corner battery, but also to shell the Luohe River; in fact, with the effective firing range of four or five thousand meters of the experimental artillery battalion, the entire Dingjiang fortress, as well as the Luohe River in the east and the Dingjiang River in the south, were all within the range of their firepower.

Although so far, the experimental artillery battalion has not shelled targets four thousand meters away in actual combat, it does not mean that it can't!

Now, the artillery in the experimental artillery battalion needs to take advantage of their range advantage to the limit!

You don't need to move your position, you can directly turn the muzzle of the gun on the spot, and you can block and shell the Luo River in the east!

Soon, the order was transmitted to Tian Yaping, the commander of the experimental artillery battalion.

After receiving the order, Tian Yaping immediately said: "All companies stop shelling, adjust their artillery positions to face Luohe, and prepare for battle according to the prediction of Zhuyuan!" ”

"The lookout guards keep a close eye on the river, and the enemy fleet must report immediately!

As soon as Tian Yaping gave the order, the gunners of the experimental artillery battalion were busy adjusting, and soon, the seven rear-loading guns were facing the southeast direction, which was the Luohe River.

At this time, the artillery staff officer on a wooden watchtower more than ten meters high finally saw the enemy warship emitting faint white smoke on the surface of the Luohe River in the southeast, and immediately shouted: "I saw their battleship, the direction is seventy-five, the distance is three thousand nine, and the enemy fleet continues to leave the port!" ”

After hearing this, Tian Yaping naturally did not hesitate, and directly ordered: "Immediately measure the detailed Zhuyuan and prepare to shoot!" ”

But at this time, the artillery staff officer on the top of the watchtower shouted downward: "Battalion commander, something is not right, they are not in the right direction!" ”

How is it wrong?

Tian Yaping also took out a small monocular to observe, this time, it was still a little blurry, and then he simply climbed on a few superimposed ammunition boxes, so that he could see more clearly.

It's really wrong!

It seems that the other party's ships are not going upstream, but downstream!

What's going on?

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