Back on the Yamato, Ito looked out of the porthole in the conning tower and saw that many trees were still burning on the distant fort, and billowing smoke was rising into the sky, and some of the dust fell to the surface of the sea, and some fell to the Mikasa, which was already sitting low.

There was a creak, and Ito, who was standing in front of the window, looked back and saw his chief of staff walking in.

"Your Excellency, Commander, the statistics have been counted, and in yesterday's battle, we lost 1,230 men. Casualty. ”

"Don't say it, you go out first." As soon as he heard this number, Ito hurriedly waved his hand and motioned for the chief of staff to go down, and he was quiet.

I saw the chief of staff walk out. Ito Yuhyung picked up the telegram on the table and was quietly in a daze.

1,200 people, a battle is more than 1,200 people. In the past, this would not have happened at all, even in the two naval battles of the Yellow Sea that year, there were not so many losses.

Hey, hateful Ministry of Intelligence. In his grief, Ito once again blamed the Ministry of Intelligence for such a big loss in the Navy recruitment, and in his opinion, if the Ministry of Intelligence could send the news in time, he would not have lost so much.

It's too late, looking at the numbers above, Ito sat down in his chair again weakly. Looking at the sea in the distance.

Xinglong Town, Tianshui, Gansu Province, the temporary headquarters of the Western Advance Corps. The faint sound of gunfire in the distance did not affect Wu Peifu standing in front of the map, at this moment, he was turning the pen in his hand straight, and his brows were locked on Tianshui and Gangu.

After starting from Chencang, the army entered Gansu City within two days, however, what Wu Peifu did not expect was that Dong Fuxiang's action would be so fast, he actually entered Tianshui a day earlier than himself, and established a defense line based on the Wei River, and in the Gangu area, there were nearly 5,000 Qing army horse infantry stationed there, ready to support the Gan army at any time.

Wu Peifu has never dealt with the Gan army, but from the mouths of Liu Jun and Zhang Yi, they still recognize the combat effectiveness of the Gan army, after all, back then, when attacking Kulun City, the Gan army braved the bullets of the ******** army to impact upward, and tore a hole in the east gate. Then they stormed the city.

"Whether the Twentieth Army has arrived at the designated position." Turning around, Wu Peifu asked the staff officer standing behind him.

"The Twentieth Army has arrived in Maiji last night."

Brush, as soon as he heard that the 20th Army had arrived at the designated position, Wu Peifu quickly drew a circle with the pen in his hand, once the 20th Army arrived at the position, then his deployment would be completely completed.

According to the investigation, the front and rear battalions of the Gan army are now in front of them, which are the main force of the Gan army, and the ordnance used is Mauser rifles imported from Germany, and they also have five 75 mm camp guns.

For this small cannon. Wu Peifu obviously didn't put it in his eyes, because now in his hand, there is a Lushun cannon, this artillery was brought by Wang Shizhen when he entered Shaanxi. Now, the howitzer has been handed over to Wu Peifu's Western Advance Corps again.

Taking a deep breath, Wu Peifu grabbed his hat from the side, this time, he was going to the front line in person. Command the attack Tianshui attack campaign.

In the past few days, he has made a comprehensive breakthrough of the Qing army's peripheral positions, and the current Qing army is in the Weihe area, as long as the Weihe defense line is taken, it will be able to go directly to Tianshui City and take this Tianshui town.

Tieling, a very small village on the outskirts of Tianshui, the whole village is surrounded by mountains, and on the mountain east of Tieling, it is the highest place around, from here, you can see the position of the Qing army clearly.

"Damn, this Qing army is really good at playing trenches now, and there are even machine gun positions." On the top of the mountain, Luo Dacheng put down the binoculars in his hand, looked at the staff officers around him and said, Before the chief of staff could speak, Luo Dacheng saw that on the mountainside, Wu Peifu was walking up the mountain under the protection of several personal soldiers.

Yes, it seems that the attack is about to be made, otherwise the commander will not come to the front line, thinking of this, Luo Dacheng walked in front of Wu Peifu in a few steps and told Wu Peifu the general situation.

Wu Peifu can be regarded as the land handed over by Ding Ruchang, and Ding Ruchang has been able to progress so fast, Liu Jun has contributed a lot, therefore, Wu Peifu is also like Liu Jun, once there is a big war, he will personally arrive at the front line.

From Luo Dacheng's mouth, Wu Peifu already knew that after several attacks, the Qing army pulled the main force to Xi'an, Weihe, Weihe, and placed artillery in the woods behind.

"It seems that Dong Fuxiang has learned to be obedient." After Wu Peifu, who picked up the telescope to observe, put down the telescope, he turned his head to look at the black shell behind him, the cannon, the caliber of which was as high as 110 mm.

Lushun howitzer, the only thing in the Far East, in the entire Liaodong, there are only ten. Of these ten, two are in Pyongyang, four are in Heilongjiang, three are in Jilin, and one is in Outer Mongolia. This gate was brought into Baoji when Wang Shizhen attacked Li Yuanhong. Now that the Western Advance Corps is marching into the northwest, Wang Shizhen asked Liu Jun to transfer the artillery to Wu Peifu, and Liu Jun did not object to this matter, after all, Liu Jun has not thought about marching into the southwest now.

It's not that Liu Jun is unwilling, but there are no corresponding troops at all. The southwest region belongs to the plateau zone with complex terrain. And his own troops, almost all of them were soldiers from the plains, and they didn't know anything about mountain warfare at all.

Therefore, Liu Jun could only temporarily abandon the southwest and start with the northwest first, one is to completely control the places bordering Tsarist Russia in his own hands and deploy defenses, and the other is to let the soldiers practice their hands so that they can prepare for the southwest offensive in the future.

"It's not as good as our big guy." Luo Dacheng happily pointed to the one behind him that was several times larger than the other artillery pieces placed in front of the position.

"Lao Luo, the Twentieth Army has entered the designated position, and I have decided to launch an attack in an hour, striving to break through the Weihe defense line within today. Then the army approached Tianshui and fought a decisive battle with Dong Fuxiang. ”

"I agree." Luo Dacheng nodded fiercely.

"Okay, in that case." Speaking of this, Wu Peifu looked at the time, twelve o'clock at noon: "In an hour, I will see the shells explode in the Qing army's position." After saying this, Wu Peifu then walked into the artillery position not far away, after all, he had never seen how powerful this artillery was when it was bombarded, listening to Wang Shizhen, as soon as the artillery sounded, the surrounding land would tremble.

"Ready." The gun commander quickly waved the red flag in his hand. Howitzer artillerymen, after quickly loading the shells, plugged their ears and opened their mouths wide.

There was an earth-shattering bang, and Wu Peifu, who was sitting in the bunker, was suddenly frightened to the ground with the tea in his hand.

This is still a cannon.