After Bailiyan entered the city and settled Mooney, he immediately came to the west gate, but the difference was that Du Ruixun stood at the head of the city, he hid in the watchtower with the help of the artillery observation mirror, overlooking the Jiangquan City in the distance, and Wu Bin and Du Ruixun's every move was unobstructed.

"Jiang Jie, how far is my east bank from the Guards' artillery position in a straight line?"

"It is about 920 steps away from the artillery position of the guards in the south of Jiangquan City, 896 steps away from the artillery position at the east gate of Jiangquan City, and about 950 steps away from the artillery position of the outer guards in the north of the city.

Jiang Jie narrated truthfully, Bai Liyan nodded and said:

"Tomorrow, at the end of the day, each group of mortar detachments will control the lights, enter the preset positions by the river first, correct the Zhuyuan, and start the shelling at six o'clock, first hit half of the base, and at the same time the breech guns will follow up to their respective preset positions to cover the guards."

"The last general commands!"

As he spoke, the soldiers outside the building came to report:

"Qi Qi Jiang Dadu, the southeast corner of the watchtower came to report, there is an abnormality in the water village of the guards."

When Baili Yan heard the news, he immediately turned his observation mirror and turned to the Weijun Water Village at the mouth of the Biqing River in the southeast, which showed that the Wei ships moved back and forth in and out, but they were always entrenched near the inside and outside of the Water Village, and it did not look like a war preparation.

Du Ruixun is worthy of being a famous general in the West Sea, and when he saw Ben Shuai enter the city, he immediately reacted. Jiang Jie immediately ordered General Chen Qu that the Patriotic Navy intended to retreat into the Biqing River to set up defenses, and the Navy Navy was not allowed to enter, and it was necessary to guard the mouth of the Biqing River and not let it out of the river. ”

"No!"

Du Ruixun deliberately pulled the navy back to the depths of the Biqing River, intending to retain the main force of the navy to avoid being shelled by the Xianguo navy.

In order to enhance the density of firepower, most of the guns of the sail warships were arranged on both sides of the ship's side, so after the Xian warships entered the Biqing River, it was difficult to carry out line artillery bombardment of many warships across the river, and there was no firepower advantage at all.

When Bailiyan returned to the city, Old Mooney was suspicious, and he didn't see any pre-battle state of the Xian army, more like an ordinary army moving defense.

"What about your army and artillery, why can't you see anything?"

Mooney asked urgently, and Bai Liyan smiled and said:

"Hehe, don't worry, the artillery and the army will be back tomorrow."

"Tomorrow! Shouldn't you put your army on the riverside to confront each other, so that you are not afraid of a sneak attack by defending the country. ”

"It's best for them to cross the river, but it's a pity that they won't cross the river."

Mooney had fought countless battles across the river with Bailiyan and knew the importance of the beachhead. In order to prevent the enemy from sneaking up or even landing in an all-out way, it is necessary to deploy heavy military groups along the river, hold on to all possible landing sites, and extinguish the enemy on the beachhead.

Of course, there are three prerequisites. First, who will attack and who will defend, whether the two sides will cross the river and land, second, the allocation of troops between the two sides, and third, the military structure and mode of operation.

Since the confrontation between the Wei and Xian armies in July, no one has taken the initiative to fire a single artillery, and the Wei army has not made any preparations for preliminary operations, so the Wei army has no intention of crossing the river to land on the ground.

The troops of the two sides did not know the details of the Xian army, but the Xian army knew that the entire strength of the guard army was disposed of, the enemy was clear and we were secret, and Du Ruixun did not dare to cross the river easily, and the small-scale landing attack was not enough to lure the Xian army into a big move.

Because the terrain on the west bank side of the guard army is slightly higher than that on the east bank side of the Xian army, the east bank is prone to flooding, and the terrain formed over the years has caused the east bank to have far fewer landing sites than the west bank, so the defense army has almost no extra choice under the existing technical conditions.

The Xian army only needs to focus on stationing in a few areas, and the main force is deployed on the second line, Du Ruixun with the existing technical conditions, can not afford to transport hundreds of thousands of main forces across the Sishui River in a short period of time, and the guards who rush to land on the beach will become the food in the mouth of the Xian army, which can be eaten and wiped clean at any time, and can even sit and wait for Du Ruixun to gain a firm foothold in a large reinforcement, and then reduce it in one fell swoop.

In the end, the military doctrine, combat system, and army structure of the Xian army have undergone a fundamental change, and it basically has all the structures of a modern army, and is equipped with thousands of miles to and from the center of the army to transmit messages, and the town army is also equipped with tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of war horses, and if there is something happening on the first line, the second-line garrison corps can arrive at the landing site at any time and wipe out the landing guards on the beachhead.

All in all, the Wei army was still an army under the leadership of the traditional aristocracy of the "Shang and Zhou dynasties", and the Xian army was a "modern" army in the mid-to-late nineteenth century.

The next day, at six o'clock in the morning, Bai Liyan and Zhou Kong went to the West Gate Tower to watch the battle, and at the same time someone informed Mooney.

"It's a lot of fog on the river." Zhou Kong said, reaching out and wrapping the fur on his shoulder.

At this time, Bailiyan said:

"In autumn, the temperature difference between day and night is large, and the water vapor on the river surface is abundant, which is easy to atomize. The latitude of the old land of Sun Guo is a little higher than that of Xianguo, the altitude is also one or two thousand meters higher, the temperature at night is much lower than that of the day, and it is not surprising that there is fog on the river. ”

While the two were talking, Xiao Lianzi pushed the door in with snacks and refreshments:

"Master Hou and Mrs. Hou should use some refreshments first."

"Come and sit together, don't tire yourself out."

Zhou Kong pulled the little lotus seed to sit down together, and the little lotus seed said with a smile:

"I'm not tired, I'm not tired, but Mrs. and Hou Ye are in charge of military affairs, but they can't be busy."

"Look at you, you're going to lie now." Zhou Kong smiled, and still pulled Xiaolianzi to eat together.

At this time, Bai Liyan interjected:

"It's really hard for you women to join the army together, and it seems that some rules will have to be changed in the future."

"Hou Ye is serious, and Xiao Lianzi is also worried that her husband is tired of saddle horses outside, and no one will lose her dignity by serving her. Master Hou, you also know that Jiang Jie likes to dance with knives and guns, and he doesn't care about anything else, if there are fewer people around to serve, it is always inconvenient, and I can only rest assured if I am by his side. ”

"Well, Jiang Jie does have this problem, he is absent-minded about other things, and he hasn't changed it after following Benhou for many years, it seems that I haven't trained him well."

Bai Liyan affirmed the situation of Xiaolianzi's reaction, Jiang Jie followed him for many years, and did find that he had a serious bias in his hobby orientation, his slow response to perceptual objects, his strong interest in rational objects, and his attainments in military and theoretical application were very high, but his life was not satisfactory.

However, Jiang Jie is a breed that can give birth, married to Xiaolianzi for eight years, gave birth to four sons, plus his original wife Tao gave birth to three sons, Jiang Jie now has seven sons, but he is not very concerned about education, and he has to help him with Bailiyan.

On time, Jiang Jie rushed from the city to the city tower to report the news:

"Deputy Marshal Qiyu, the mortar team has gone out of the West Gate, and all the artillery of the military battalion and the headquarters of General Gao Pei of the Fourth Town Army and the 40,000 infantry army are still ten miles away from Pingliu County."

"Very good, continue to closely monitor the movements of the West Bank Guards, and report to me immediately if there is anything unusual."

"No!"

When Jiang Jie turned to leave, Xiaolianzi was a little disappointed and said:

"He's like that, he doesn't care about anything when he fights."

At this time, Zhou Kong said with a smile:

"Then you haven't given birth to four male dolls for him, which means that people still have you in their hearts."

"Madame really makes fun of people, he is like this, as soon as he climbs into bed and becomes a person, where do I do his master."

The more Xiao Lianzi spoke, the redder her face became, and Bai Liyan saw that the atmosphere was a little delicate, so she stood up and prepared to leave:

"You two keep talking, I'll go out and have a look."

"You should also be careful, it's cold and windy outside, don't blow it."

"Hmmm......"

Baili Yan picked up a fur robe and draped it over her shoulders, then turned around and walked out of the city tower, came to the east behind the female wall of the city, and took out the twelve-fold binoculars to look at Jiangquan City on the west bank.

In the mist, the lights of the city on the opposite bank were faintly visible, and the artillery positions of the guards on the north and south wings outside the city were undoubtedly exposed.

Due to technical constraints, the bronze cannons of the princes of various countries are very primitive and backward, not only the range of the artillery can only rely on increasing the thickness and weight of the pipe wall to enhance the chamber pressure, pushing up the amount of gunpowder loading, and its overweight artillery transfer is a cumbersome and troublesome work, which not only restricts the use and transfer of artillery, but also can not be temporarily arranged in advance.

On the other hand, the light and heavy artillery used advanced metal gun mounts and wheeled structures, which facilitated the traction and transfer of carriages and horses, greatly shortened the time required for artillery to arrange positions, and could launch an offensive by surprise, and could also evacuate at any time, which was also the reason why Du Ruixun could not see the Xian army arranging artillery positions by the river from beginning to end.

Around the end of the hour, old Mooney was late, and there was still some resentment in his heart:

"Wake me up so early in the morning just to see you play tricks?"

Bailiyan handed the telescope to Mooney, pointed to the other side, and said:

"In another five quarters of an hour, the other side will be in a sea of fire, just watch."

Mooney took the telescope high, and was skeptical of Bailiyan's statement:

"You don't want to bombard the guards with gunboats across the river, their cannons are on land, although less than yours, but they are much better than the ships that fire from the ships, and the wooden ships are no stronger than the earthen walls."

"You're quite right, so I won't use naval guns, which is obviously unwise."

The ship gun will shoot laterally because of the recoil, and at the same time, the fluctuation of the water surface will also aggravate the accuracy error of the projectile after discharge, and the inherent accuracy defect of the breech gun, after superimposing the above factors, the accuracy of the shelling is much worse than that of the gun mounted on the ground and fired.

No matter how sophisticated the artillery of the Xian Army was, and how shoddy the artillery of the Guards was, it could not avoid the technical bottlenecks of the breech guns.

Although the water surface fluctuations of inland rivers do not have a significant impact on the accuracy of artillery, unlike navigation in the sea, the flow direction of inland navigation has a greater impact on ships, so the ship's firing moves downstream, and if a solid projectile is fired, the accuracy and hit rate will be very poor.

Before the advent of breech-loading guns, breech-loading guns were not very effective against land-based fire. Because the wooden battleship was far less powerful than the earthen wall masonry, and the best engagement distance of the breech gun's guns was less than 500 meters, it had to be fired at close range, and the fixed fire on the ground was fatal to the wooden warship.

Although the range and accuracy of the guards artillery were not satisfactory, the destructive power of the longitudinal line fleet was very amazing when dealing with surface ships that were all within easy reach, and the dense firing of solid projectiles in artillery phalanxes was very amazing.

Of course, the Xian army can now fully afford such losses, and the naval guns can use the ships to line up in a line, fire indirectly down the river, and use shrapnel shells and flowering shells to fire salvos on the land, and make up for the lack of accuracy with a dense barrage.

However, he still has to brave the threat of shore fire artillery to cross the shelling area, and now even if he suffers heavy damage and loses a 10,000-stone ship, Bailiyan is reluctant. If it is replaced by an inland river warship of 5,000 or 3,000 stones, the effect will not be obvious, and it will also become a target for shore defense artillery.

Therefore, naval artillery fire on land should be hidden from the shore fire force, and it is not wise to use fragmentation grenade shrapnel to kill land fire, and it is not wise to rampage paper in inland rivers.