Most of the artillery used by the Qing army was a "light" camp gun with a caliber of less than 57mm, although it was generally newer, but due to the limitation of caliber, the power was far inferior to that of the 70mm gun used by the Japanese army.

Moreover, these steel cannons cannot be disassembled and transported, and their own weight is relatively large, in the mountainous North Korea and the adjacent Changbai Mountains of China, it is far less useful than the Japanese 70mm bronze mountain guns, which weigh only 256 kilograms, and can be disassembled into three main parts and transported separately.

Although the accuracy of the new steel cannon is much higher than that of the bronze cannon used by the Japanese army, due to the backwardness of optical ranging technology and artillery tactics in the world, the effective firing range in actual combat is not much farther than the latter, and it does not reflect much advantage.

The easy smoothing of the rifling of bronze cannons is a major flaw, but it can be solved by simply bringing enough barrel lining, while the defect of steel cannons being too heavy is not a good way to solve it.

However, it is impossible to steal the city after that, even if these cannons will seriously slow down the speed of the march, he will have to bring them immediately, which makes him quite helpless, who has always paid attention to the speed of the march.

And when Lijian Shangwen asked his subordinates to practice with these new artillery pieces for a period of time, and found that most of the captured shells could not explode, he didn't know what to say.

These new guns were fast and supposed to have a big advantage, but if they didn't blow up a shell, they might as well use their own old bronze cannons.

Historically, this problem was easy to solve, and it was enough to have qualified ammunition from within Japan (the Japanese Navy was equipped with a large number of artillery pieces that used the same ammunition), but in this time and space, unless the Combined Fleet can defeat the Beiyang Naval Division and regain sea supremacy, so that convenient and cheap shipping can be restored, this is simply an unrealistic delusion.

After realizing that this problem could not be solved, Li Jian Shangwen could only comfort himself like this in the end, "Forget it, it's better to have artillery than no artillery, and besides, the Qing army also uses such artillery and ammunition, at least our army will not suffer."

After receiving the good news from the Japanese army in Wonsan, the Japanese army headquarters immediately ordered the Combined Fleet to go to sea to carry out the second step in the plan of Imami Sang-moon -- to lay mines outside the port of Incheon and cut off the supply of the Qing army in Seoul.

Since the training was far from complete, the Japanese Combined Fleet at this time did not dare to engage the Beiyang Naval Division, but if it was only mine-laying in the past, there was still no pressure.

After all, the Japanese ships had an obvious speed advantage, and they could escape if they couldn't beat them, and the Beiyang Naval Division, on the one hand, did not dare to divide their troops, fearing that they would be broken by the Japanese army, and on the other hand, the warships generally had poor endurance and could not stay outside for a long time, so in fact it was impossible to completely block the Yellow Sea and let the Japanese Navy have no gaps, and the four high-speed cruisers sent by the Japanese army could always find an opportunity to sail outside the port of Incheon to lay mines.

As soon as this mine was laid, the Beiyang Naval Division suddenly exposed a fatal flaw -- the types of ships were incomplete, and there was a huge fleet, and there was not even a special minesweeper (in fact, at this time, including the great powers, the minesweeping work was generally neglected, but the Western powers had a strong industrial base and could quickly design and build it when necessary, while China at the end of the Qing Dynasty had no such possibility)

You must know that since the appearance of mines, demining has always been a worldwide problem, even if there are professional mine-sweeping units, it is not easy to remove the mines laid by the Japanese army in a short period of time, not to mention that the Beiyang Naval Division sent to clear mines is only a few two knives?

By the time they cleared the mines, they didn't know that it would be the Year of the Monkey, so the supply route from the port of Incheon to Seoul had been cut off completely.

Although there is far more than one port in North Korea, because of the location of the port, the port of Incheon is such a one, and the Qing army in North Korea actually has only two choices

"If the commanders of the Qing army are bold enough, they can go south to Jeolla Province, so that they can continue to receive support from shipping, and Jeolla Province is the main grain producing area of Korea, and if they control it, the Japanese army and even the food supply in Japan will have a big problem sooner or later, and Japan will have a population boom since the Meiji Restoration, and it will not be self-sufficient in food for a long time, and if there is no food in Korea, there will definitely be a great famine." Although it was necessary to directly face the main force of the invading Japanese army after entering Jeolla Province, it was not easy for the other side to fight due to supply difficulties. In addition, Jeolla Province is backed by the sea, so if you can't do it, you can get out of it by sea. As for the Japanese army's mine blockade, it is still somewhat useful for a large port like Incheon Port, and those small ports in Jeolla Province have a very limited water depth even outside the port, and those new cruisers of the Japanese army cannot drive into it at all, and if they want to seal it, they can only lay mines in the deeper water area outside, and the number of mines that need to be laid will be dozens of times or even more, no matter how cheap the mines are, the price will not be small, and it is difficult for Japan to get so many explosives now." Li Hui said according to the "venture capital company" The information sent back looked at the map of North Korea and analyzed.

However, Li Hui immediately shook his head and sighed again, because the Qing army would definitely not choose this route, "But the commander of the Qing army is not Gao Shanji, I'm afraid it will be difficult to have such courage, so they will definitely choose to go north, if they can recover Pyongyang, it is best, even if not, there are some ports in the north of Hwanghae Province and Gyeonggi Province, which is enough for the remnants of the defeated army to withdraw to the country." If you choose this route, you will be giving up Jeolla Road to the Japanese, and it will only be a matter of time before the Donghak rebel army is completely destroyed, and as long as the Donghak rebel army is completely wiped out, although the land transportation is still not as efficient as the sea transport, if it is captured, it should be enough to support the Japanese army to move north."

Sure enough, as Li Hui expected, after a transport ship sank after a mine hit and realized that the port of Incheon had been blocked by mines, the Qing army in Seoul immediately put aside their previous hesitation and decided to go north to recover Pyongyang.

However, by this time, more than ten days had passed since the fall of Pyongyang, and more than ten days had taken on the subsequent preparations and marches, and by the time the Qing army approached Pyongyang, Immediately saw that Shangwen had received enough reinforcements, and the number of troops available in his hands had increased to more than 5,000 men.

In addition, Song Qing and Yiketang did not expect that the Japanese army would abandon Pyongyang and concentrate all their forces to go south to fight a decisive battle with it.

By the time Song Qing and Iketanga fled to Haizhou in embarrassment, there were less than 7,000 Qing troops left in the dynasty with a maximum strength of more than 30,000, and the elite of the Qing army that remained after the break was almost wiped out, and their main general, Gao Shanji, also committed suicide and martyrdom after his subordinates were killed and wounded