In this battle, the three divisions of the Yangzhou Army suffered a total of more than 5,000 casualties and 3,000 casualties, and the five divisions suffered the heaviest casualties, reaching nearly 3,000 people.

Hearing this number, Luo Jian felt that his heart was dripping blood.

The troops rested in Anqing for two days, and Luo Jian ordered to collect as many medicinal materials as possible in various prefectures and counties in Anqing to treat the wounded soldiers, but the hot weather and backward medical treatment still caused the more seriously injured soldiers to sacrifice more than 500 people one after another.

Although Luo Jian thought that the casualties were too great, Huang Degong and other generals thought that this was a big victory, and the Yangzhou army finally solved Zuo Mengeng's troops at a relatively small cost, and now the threat to the west of Nanjing and Yangzhou was finally lifted.

The collected civilian ships and the ships that captured the Zuo Army's sailors had already escorted the captured grain, grass, gold and silver back to Yangzhou.

Luo Jian decided to leave the Fifth Division, which had suffered heavy casualties, to garrison Anqing, and asked Weng Zhiqi to recruit troops on the spot to expand the troops, and to restore the combat effectiveness of the Fifth Division as soon as possible.

Hearing Luo Jian's decision, Huang Degong called his brother-in-law Weng Zhiqi aside for a long time and confessed, in the final analysis, it came down to one meaning: "What to do in Yangzhou, what to do in Anqing, if you have a business trip, even if most of the governors don't clean you up, don't blame Lao Huang for killing his relatives when the time comes!" ”

Huang Degong refused to return to Yangzhou, and wanted to lead his troops to continue the march in the direction of Tongcheng, his intention was to attack and advance from the direction of Tongcheng, Shucheng and Hefei, and return to Luzhou after occupying Hefei, and then get on the ship from Luzhou and return to Yangzhou.

Luo Jian was also quite moved when he heard this suggestion, the defense of the Qing soldiers along the way was extremely weak, and it was not very difficult to complete the battle goal.

But after thinking about it calmly, Luo Jian still did not adopt Huang Degong's suggestion.

First of all, after these territories are taken, someone must defend them, and the three divisions in Yangzhou are all mobile combat forces, and now the five divisions are left to defend Anqing, which is a last resort, and the others can no longer draw teams to defend the newly occupied territory.

Secondly, the hot weather did not abate in the slightest, and when the troops left the Yangtze River, there was no sailor to transport grain and grass, and their baggage was bound to be extremely large, and the speed of the march was bound to be greatly reduced, so that the time spent to achieve this campaign goal would also be greatly increased.

The battle outside Anqing had a great impact on Luo Jian, and although the combat effectiveness of the Yangzhou army after intensive training exceeded that of ordinary troops of the same era, the huge casualties still made Luo Jian unbearable.

Calculating the time to leave Yangzhou, more than ten days have passed, worried that the situation in Yangzhou will change, Luo Jian decided to leave for Yangzhou tomorrow.

After discussing with the officers for a long time, Luo Jian decided to leave a regiment of the Fourth Division to return by land, first, to eliminate the rout of the Left Army, and second, to recruit troops along the way.

Sitting at the bow of the boat, Luo Jian kept thinking about whether his thinking was wrong.

Because of the relatively complete technical information at hand, Luo Jian and Liu Weimin both wanted to directly manufacture advanced equipment beyond this era as much as possible, but a blank industrial base made all this extremely difficult.

Although some artillery pieces have been pieced together now, the quality of these artillery pieces has not been tested by high-intensity battles, and Luo Jian has no bottom in his heart.

Although the battle with the left was won completely this time and the battle goal was achieved, Luo Jian still felt panicked in his heart.

The combat effectiveness of the left is not very strong, this is well known, but it is such an army that has let itself suffer such great losses in the first battle, and in the next confrontation with the elite Qing soldiers, if a similar battle occurs again, I am afraid that the losses of the Yangzhou army will be difficult to bear.

What scared Luo Jian was that if Zuo Mengeng didn't go out of the city to face the battle, but relied on the city wall to defend, what the siege battle would look like, and what the casualties would be, Luo Jian couldn't think about it.

Luo Jian, who was anxious, did not go back with the sailor fleet, but asked Huang Fei to arrange a few clippers, and it took only three days to rush to Guazhou with the escort.

landed in Guazhou, Luo Jian went directly to Liu Weimin's office.

"Chief, how did you get here?" As busy as ever, the desk was piled up with various drawings and materials, and the shirtless Liu Weimin jumped off the chair.

Seeing that Luo Jian's face was not very good, Liu Weimin stepped forward and asked with concern: "Chief, isn't this battle a big victory?" Why are you feeling a little wrong? ”

The news of the Anqing battle had already been reported to Yangzhou by a fast horse, and the news of the complete victory made Yangzhou optimistic, and Shi Kefa and Ren Minyu were ready to meet the triumphant division.

"The battle was won, but the casualties were too great for us to bear!" Luo Jian told Xiao Liu the number of casualties, and Xiao Liu suddenly fell silent, took out half a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, took one and handed it to Luo Jian.

"Sit down, chief, I'll pour you a glass of water." Xiao Liu pulled over a chair and poured Luo Jian a glass of water.

Luo Jian walked to the door and said to the guards outside, "Don't let anyone in!" With that, he closed the door.

"Chief, I don't think there's too much to worry about, this time we are on the offensive, and it is understandable that the casualties will be larger, and then we will take defense as the main purpose, and the casualties will be reduced."

Liu Weimin carefully comforted Luo Jian, stepped forward and helped Luo Jian light the cigarette with the lighter in his hand.

"Xiao Liu, have you carefully studied the shotguns and firearms of the Ming army before?" Luo Jian didn't answer Xiao Liu's words.

"Not really, I used to think that these things didn't work at all, and I didn't care too much." Xiao Liu scratched his head a little embarrassed.

"Do you know the Minnie gun?" Luo Jian asked.

"You know, it's a front-loading gun, and it also uses black medicine, and the rate of fire is extremely slow." Xiao Liu didn't care a little.

"But it has a long range, is much more powerful than shotguns and firecrackers, and reloads faster than shotguns and firecrackers." Luo Jian reminded.

"Chief, you mean let's get the Nimi gun out first?" Xiao Liu asked with some confusion.

"If you don't get this thing, can you make a ninety-five rifle now?" Luo Jian said with a smile.

"Chief, wait until I think about it..."Xiao Liu grabbed his head and pondered for a while.

"Flintlock pistols, spring steel sheets, Nimi bullets," Liu Weimin said to himself.

"Okay! Chief, it's not too difficult to get this thing out, but the production of the barrel will be a little slow, the small-caliber seamless steel pipe is stuck, and I can't get it out with the current technology, so I can only rely on the old method, but we have made some primitive machine tools, and the speed is much faster than before. ”

Liu Weimin said excitedly, picking up the information on the table and looking at it as he spoke.

"How many cannons are there now?" Luo Jian asked.

"Twenty-four doors, this thing is simple, as long as you get out of the steel pipe, everything else is all manual, with the original machine tool, it's not too difficult. The production of shells is somewhat slow, and at the moment there are only more than a thousand shells, which are still being made overtime. ”

"By the way, chief, I solved the passivation problem of **, and this fuse has been made."

"Oh, that's good news, is it enough?"

"It's enough, I found more than a dozen people to make nitric acid every day, and asked the glass factory to get a batch of glass cylinders, which has increased the efficiency a lot, and it is definitely enough to get only the fuses of the shells."

"The artillery must be fully produced, and if the casualties are to be greatly reduced in the next battle, this artillery must play a big role. By the way, how did Yan Yingyuan get the artillery? ”

"I said chief, this famous person in history is definitely not blown out, this guy has hardly slept for more than half a month, and he has been thinking about how to fight, use, and transport this artillery all day long, and he is simply obsessed."

"Has anyone from Jiangyin arrived?"

"It's been more than a week, and more than 300 people, all of them seventeen or eighteen years old, have been tossed by Yan Yingyuan so that they want to die!"

Xiao Liu's words made Luo Jian secretly amused, and he said in his heart that Yan Yingyuan's ability is probably more than that, his organization and coordination ability is what Luo Jian values the most, but his previous position was too low, and he was suddenly promoted too high, I am afraid that others will be very unconvinced.

Arrange Yan Yingyuan to form an artillery corps, Luo Jian is carefully considered, this artillery unit is currently small and the number is not large, and it will not be valued by other generals, but the artillery unit is precisely the branch of the Yangzhou Army that will be fully developed in the future.

"Chief, the number of craftsmen is still too small, can you find some more?"

"I will take this matter to heart, and when I go back to Yangzhou, I will discuss with the supervisor and try to recruit some from the people. The production of artillery could not be relaxed, and I saw that the ships of the naval division were also full of backward Francos, and if possible, they had to be replaced as soon as possible. ”

"Chief, I'm afraid this is going to the next step, at present, we are mainly preparing for the autumn operation, and the production process has not had time to optimize the combination, at present, it is just a simple assembly line production, and the efficiency is not very high."

Seeing that Xiao Liu's mind was still very clear, Luo Jian was happy from the bottom of his heart.

"You also have to pay attention to your body, don't exhaust yourself, the military production is all up to you. How is Chen Zilong doing here? ”

"This guy is similar to Yan Yingyuan, he runs around guarding various workshops during the day, he can't stop, and at night he lights the oil lamp with the information, and he is currently half an expert, and he is in charge of the production of steel mills and gun barrels, so keep an eye on it, chief, you can rest assured."

"That's good, let's go, you can rest too, let's go see Yan Yingyuan training artillery together."

Luo Jian and Xiao Liu took the escort to the artillery training ground, and the scene they saw on the training ground made Luo Jian a little moved.

At the training ground under the scorching sun, Luo Jian estimated that the temperature would not be lower than 35 degrees, and saw that three or four hundred people on the training ground were shirtless, all of them were tanned, more than 200 people were practicing fixed artillery around the twenty-four guns that had left the factory, and the others were training in combat with equipment.

Since there is no steering machine and high and low machine, the up and down adjustment of the firing angle of this gun is achieved by adding or subtracting wooden blocks padded with the stationer, and the adjustment of direction is more difficult, and it is necessary to move the stationing hoe behind it.

Standing in the shade of a tree and watching for a long time, Luo Jian felt that this artillery was still too simple.

However, the humble also has the advantage of being simple, that is, it is quick to learn, and seeing that Yan Yingyuan and the soldiers are already more proficient in operation, Luo Jian feels that he can let them play in the next battle.

Someone told Yan Yingyuan that someone was coming, Yan Yingyuan looked up, and did not come over immediately, but waited for the soldiers to finish a complete action, and then shouted "All rest!" He walked towards Luo Jian.

"Congratulations, Governor, you have won another great victory!" Yan Yingyuan did not go to Yangzhou to receive training in the army, so he still hugged his fists and bowed his hands.

"Brother Liheng, you're doing well here, have you ever shot live ammunition?"

"Metropolitan Governor, this cannonball is too expensive, I don't know how much silver it will cost to shoot this one, and I can't bear to shoot a few shots."

Yan Yingyuan said with some regret that this place is close to the factory, and he has already gone to see the entire production process of the cannonballs, and knows the difficulty.

"This can't be reluctant, if it is wasted on the training ground, it is better than wasted on the battlefield, Brother Liheng, you have to understand this truth."

Luo Jian let Yan Yingyuan under the shade of the tree, found a few stones, and everyone sat down.

"I understand this truth, but now we can train without live ammunition. As for the question of fighting accurately, we learn as we fight on the battlefield. ”

"Hehe, when our production is on the right track in the future, the technology will also improve, and the production of artillery shells will not be difficult."

"By the way, Governor, when will this artilleryman's horse arrive? I want to pull them out to practice, and it's not a problem just to practice at this training ground. ”

"I'll arrange it when I go back today, you can't master the technology of this artillery alone, you have to train a group of more commanders and skilled gunners, Brother Liheng, don't underestimate the artillery, in the future, those division commanders will beg you." Luo Jian said with a smile.

"And at present, my production capacity is limited, and when it slowly develops in the future, artillery will become a special branch, Brother Liheng, by then you will be a general in charge of your own affairs, and your vision cannot be small."

"Dadu Governor, I'm also thinking about it these days, why did you go to Jiangyin to find me a little canon, I can see the future of this artillery, but I don't know why Dadu Governor wants to promote me."

Yan Yingyuan thought about it, and finally said the words that had been stuffed in his heart for a long time.

Luo Jian and Liu Weimin looked at each other and smiled, Luo Jian said with a smile: "Brother Liheng, there is a providence in the dark, we have taken a fancy to you, what do you say?" ”