At the beginning of the battle, it was quite good when it was attacked by enemy cavalry, although the enemy cavalry was quite numerous, and it was attacked with breech-loading rifles.

However, the cavalry regiment under Cui Xiangde was also equipped with Nanhai rifles, and the infantry under his command were also equipped with rear-loading rifles, so they suffered certain losses at the beginning, but after stabilizing their positions, there were no losses.

But when the enemy infantry and artillery came up, everything was different.

I haven't seen the enemy's infantry rushing up in formation, and our artillery positions have been shattered!

Cui Xiangde saw his artillery regiment with his own eyes, and it was destroyed by the enemy's long-range artillery without firing a single shot!

Under the heavy casualties of the artillery, even if most of the artillery remained intact, it could not play any role.

After losing artillery support, Cui Xiangde immediately asked the infantry units to rely on the terrain and even dig trenches on the spot to resist.

He didn't stupidly follow the line of battle, just let the troops line up in a dense formation, and then rush forward with a gun.

But even so, it couldn't stop the onslaught of the Luo An garrison on the opposite side!

Holding on for only a few hours, Cui Xiangde's Fourth Division was already suffering heavy losses and was difficult to support, and by the afternoon of the same day, the left flank was broken through by the enemy and formed a roundabout encirclement, then the defense line built by the entire Fourth Division on the spot was completely collapsed.

In less than a day, the Fourth Division was finished!

Cui Xiangde didn't even have time to lead his troops to kill the Luo River, and cooperated with the fleet, but in the process of advancing eastward, he was intercepted by the troops of the first division, the first cavalry brigade, and the first battalion of the experimental artillery regiment in the Luo'an garrison, and then completely ended in this field encounter.

In the evening, Cui Xiangde saw that the troops had collapsed and were surrounded, and he was forced to order the whole division to surrender to avoid meaningless resistance and increase casualties.

Even if he ordered to surrender, Cui Xiangde still failed to understand how he was defeated, and he was defeated so cleanly, without the slightest suspense, and even without the slightest unwillingness.

He was desperate to know why?

Why is the opponent's artillery unit able to knock out its own artillery regiment from a distance, and why is the opponent's artillery fire so powerful when it bombards the defensive line, it can't be with dozens of heavy mortars.

And why is the opponent's infantry combat method so weird, from the beginning to the end, Cui Xiangde has never seen the opponent's infantry line attack, they are all hiding all the way, and they look scattered.

However, no one will give him an answer, because after surrendering, he became a prisoner of war, and then he was thrown into a prisoner of war camp with the other officers under his command, and was escorted back to the rear that night, and if nothing else, he should be like the other captured Luo naval officers in the northern defense line.

was imprisoned in a prisoner of war camp and contributed to the infrastructure construction of Luo'an and Luohai counties!

When Cui Xiangde was imprisoned in a prisoner of war camp, his opponent Xu Zhongshu just hastily accepted his surrender and then went about his business.

Xu Zhongshu was busy, and led the First Division to fight south along the way, there had just been a big battle in front of him, and now he was quickly moving south and running over to intercept the Fourth Division.

After these two battles, the casualties and ammunition consumption of his first division were also relatively large, and they urgently needed to be replenished.

"Division commander, this time we have sacrificed more than 200 soldiers, plus more than 300 wounded, the strength of this battalion is gone!" Dr. Ge Yongbing, the chief of staff under Xu Zhongshu, looked quite worried at this time: "When we went south, our first division was also the main force of the attack, and the first regiment was the arrow of the whole army, and the casualties were not small, there were more than 800 casualties before and after, and the two combined suffered more than 1,200 casualties!" ”

Xu Zhongshu listened and said: "Regarding the supplement, this official will naturally report to your lordship, rest assured, our first division is the main force of iron fighting, and no one will miss us if there is less replenishment!" ”

Doctor Ge Yongbing said: "It's just that it's easy to replenish soldiers, but I'm afraid that they will directly supplement the current batch of recruits who have surrendered to Cheng!" ”

"Commander, you know, although most of the recruits are veterans and have basic tactical literacy, in the final analysis, they are still not as good as the recruits we recruit and train ourselves!"

"If the top really wants to directly replenish more than 1,000 recruits, I'm afraid it will have a relatively big impact on our combat effectiveness!"

Hearing this, Xu Zhongshu also frowned, but he still said confidently: "I will personally write to the adults and strive to supplement the trained recruits from the Training Division!" ”

Xu Zhongshu is also clear that if you want to talk about recruits, they must be directly recruited recruits, and they are good after perfect training, because these recruits are trained according to the new tactics of the Luo'an garrison from the beginning, and they adapt very quickly, as long as they take a few months or fight a few battles, then they can become qualified veterans.

As for those recruits who surrendered, although most of them were veterans, and the quality of individual soldiers was not bad, their previous training was all line tactics, and their acceptance of new infantry tactics was even worse than that of pure recruits.

Besides, the old fritters in these feudal towns are not easy to bring.

But even so, most of the troops needed for the expansion of the Luo'an garrison are still Chengcheng recruits, not those newly recruited pure recruits.

Because the population resources are close to scarcity, qualified soldiers have long been recruited, and if you don't have to surrender to recruit soldiers, there will be no one to use.

In this regard, the Luo'an garrison is also very helpless, so it can only be selected in detail, and then after selection, these defective recruits will be trained to adapt, and some old fritters will be eliminated in the training process, and the rest will be supplemented to the troops.

In the past few months, the reorganization of the Luoan garrison has actually done just that.

But this kind of situation, which took months to reorganize, can only be placed in peacetime, and now, when the army goes south, there will always be casualties in the war.

At the same time, tens of thousands of prisoners of war were captured, and most of these prisoners of war soldiers were willing to continue to serve as soldiers to eat food, so sometimes they would directly select some of the troops to supplement the troops.

However, Xu Zhongshu wanted to strive for as many recruits as possible to maintain the combat effectiveness of the First Division.

In this regard, Lin Ziran did not refuse Xu Zhongshu's request, and he still attached great importance to the first division.

With so many troops under his command, the first division is the most capable of fighting, and at the same time has the most combat experience, and the officers in it are all from the camp academy, and many people are shameless and directly call Lin Ziran a teacher.

How to say it, the first division is actually Lin Ziran's hardcore descendant troops!

Therefore, even if Xu Zhongshu didn't say anything, Lin Ziran would try his best to maintain the combat effectiveness and purity of the First Division.

()