On the side of the Quyang Prefecture army, there are also rear-loading rifled guns, although the performance is very scummy, and the number is very small, but people have it, and they still have a lot of front-loading rifled guns.

Whether it is a rear-mounted or front-mounted rifled gun, or even a large-caliber smoothbore heavy gun, it can completely block the Luo River, and even shell the port of Dongcheng District.

Therefore, it is not enough to attack Qingde City and fight a Dongcheng District, but also a larger Xicheng District.

Of course, at that time, our side will have a powerful artillery firepower, even if there is no cover of the river fleet, but it will be enough to force the river to cross the river, and the overall problem of attacking Xicheng District is not a big one.

But now it seems that the other side wants to use the huge urban area and many complex buildings in Dongcheng to resist, even if it can't hold it in the end, it can delay for a long time, and finally wait for reinforcements from the northern states to arrive.

Now the northern states are not idle, they have always been organizing coalition forces, not only in the north of Zisheng Prefecture, but also in the north of Quyang Prefecture, but in order to avoid reinforcements in batches, they were finally eaten up in batches, and tens of thousands of people in the early stage did not have the courage to go south, and it is estimated that it will take at least 100,000 or even more coalition troops to have the courage to go south.

Now Quyang Prefecture is trying to delay time and drag it out until the northern states organize a large-scale coalition army to move south.

And in the huge Quyang Prefecture, there is no place more suitable for resisting the Southern Navy than Qingde City.

And the main urban area of Qingdecheng is in Dongcheng District, so it is impossible for them to give up Dongcheng District easily.

There is not much difference between giving up Dongcheng District and directly giving up the entire Qingdecheng.

Once they lose Qingde City, they will not be able to find a second suitable place to resist and hold back the pace of the Southern Navy.

One wants to hold on to the city to delay time, and the other wants to take Qingdecheng, a key city in transportation strategy, and open up the transportation network of the four states, and a big war is inevitable.

In fact, to really talk about it, the strategic goal of the South China Navy is not to capture any place or how much land to seize, but to open up the Luo River channel and link the Luo River shipping system with the Quyang Prefecture railway network and Zishengzhou railway network.

Therefore, Qingdecheng itself does not have much strategic value for the Southern Navy, and it is purely because this is the starting point of the Quyang Prefecture East Line Railway, and only by taking this place can it directly contact Luohe shipping.

With the strength of the South China Navy, after opening up the Luo River, the inland river fleet of the Nanhai Prefecture Fleet will be able to go up the river, and at that time, those small gunboats in Quyang Prefecture alone will not be able to stop the inland river fleet of the Nanhai Prefecture Fleet.

As a coastal state, Nanhai Prefecture has always paid more attention to the navy, even in the era of feudal town melee, the fleet of Nanhai Prefecture was maintained at a relatively high level, and then integrated the Dongding Prefecture Navy, after the two were added, the overall strength of the Nanhai Prefecture fleet should be regarded as the most powerful in the navy of the eastern coastal states of Daheng.

Not only is the ocean-going fleet powerful, but in fact their river fleet is even larger.

In the past, whether it was Guang'an or Luo'an, or Hetai, Anlong, Luohai and other counties, they were all large scale inland river artillery fleets under their command.

Now that these inland river warships have been integrated, a large fleet of river warships has been formed, and it is no problem to crush the river fleet in Quyang Prefecture in the north.

The problem is that the Luo River Gorge is blocked, and this powerful inland river fleet cannot go north.

Considering many circumstances, the Southern Navy must take the Dongcheng District of Qingde City, and then divide the troops, part of which will stay in the north, and part of which will go south along the river, outflank the enemy forces in the Luohe Gorge with the First Army, and finally open up the huge bone spur stuck in the throat of the Southern Navy!

As long as the Luohe Gorge is opened, then the entire transportation line can be completely opened, which not only brings convenience in the transportation of logistics and materials, but also means that the four states under Lin Ziran's control can be linked, instead of needing to make a big bend like before.

The strategic goal of the Southern Navy is clear, and Quyang Prefecture is probably not stupid, so it should be able to see the importance of the Luo River channel and understand the importance of Qingde City.

This is what they can see from the deployment of heavy troops in the Dongcheng District of Qingde City!

If they are a little short-sighted, then they will directly abandon Dongcheng District, retreat to Xicheng District, and rely on the Luo River for defensive operations.

The artillery of the South China Navy is all rear-loading rifled guns, and it is completely capable of crossing the 2,000-meter-wide Luo River to launch an artillery bombardment operation against Xicheng District.

The troops have arrived and deployed, and they will need to prepare for another two days, mainly waiting for the arrival of logistical supplies, especially artillery shells.

Every time the South China Navy wants to launch a large-scale campaign, it needs to take great pains to reserve a large amount of ammunition in advance and mobilize special transportation and supply routes for high-intensity transportation and supply.

In order to maintain the operation of the main force of more than 100,000 troops in Qingdecheng, the logistics department of the South China Navy not only used the captured locomotives and train wagons for railway transportation, but also mobilized more than 200,000 civilian men and engineer divisions of various types in the rear, not only manpower, but more importantly, a large number of horse-drawn carriages.

Almost at all times, countless people are working on this transportation line, and countless horses pull transport wagons to and fro, transporting artillery shells and other supplies to the troops on the front line.

And this number is only limited to the section of the supply line from the end of the Zishengzhou West Line Railway to Qingde City.

A supply line of more than 340 kilometers is not so easy to maintain!

At the same time, it is expected that when attacking the eastern part of Qingdecheng City, the consumption of ammunition will be very large under the large-scale operation, so the southern navy would rather postpone the attack for two or three days than rush to attack.

Taking advantage of the time to wait for supplies from the rear, the South China Navy, which had been running for a long time, could be regarded as having a rare time to recuperate, although it was only two or three days, but it was also a rare and precious rest time for the officers and men of the South China Navy who continued to fight.

At the same time, Lin Ziran himself was not idle, and he was rushing around to inspect the troops on the front line every day.

Lin Ziran's inspection, the goal is not to inspect the terrain, tactics and the like, in fact, these professional things are the responsibility of the staff officers of the General Staff, so he doesn't need to worry about it.

Lin Ziran's inspection, more seriously, should be condolences, he went directly to the grassroots level, directly to the front-line trenches to comfort the ordinary soldiers.