On horseback, Zhu Qinglan, the commander of the Second Army, was discussing with his chief of staff how to launch an offensive against Badong County.

With the blessing of the Sichuan-Han Railway, which was half completed, Yangshan's First Army and Zhu Qinglan's Second Army could arrive at Kaixian by train, and then march from Kaixian to Wuxi.

After a week's march, Zhu Qinglan's 3rd, 7th, and 8th Infantry Divisions finally arrived in Wuxi County, and after a short rest, the 2nd Army, as the vanguard, advanced to the position of Badong County.

"The location of Padang is very critical, as long as we can take it, then the subsequent reinforcements and ammunition supplies can be transported by water..." Now that Yangshan's second division is still resting in Wuxi County, Zhu Qinglan naturally hopes that he can enjoy the merits of taking Badong alone.

Looking at Zhu Qinglan's appearance, Wang Yixian hurriedly reminded on the side. "But Commander, we also have to be careful of Tang Qianming's fleet. I heard that Tang Qianming's fleet was in the limelight during the Battle of Hukou, so we should be careful about them..."

Hearing Wang Yixian's reminder, Zhu Qinglan also nodded. "It's a pity that the dozen or so shallow water gunboats newly purchased by our National Socialist Party have always been precious, and they don't want to take out this campaign at all, otherwise there is no need to beware of his Tang Qianming's small fleet. But don't worry too much, Tang Qianming's small fleet was able to make a big splash at the beginning, it was entirely because he Li Liejun didn't have basic artillery at all, so he was suppressed by Tang Qianming's small ships, and what about our second army? Not only are the soldiers strong and strong, but there are more than 200 artillery pieces of various calibers in the three artillery regiments alone, and there are 36 guns of 120 calibers alone. Although Sichuan can be self-sufficient in terms of steel, and some relatively basic machine tools and equipment can also be produced by itself, there are still a lot of raw materials to be imported through the outside world, so in order to ensure the smooth and safe flow of the Yangtze River Basin, Yan Guang ordered fifteen shallow water gunboats from the Germans through Riddle.

It is said that it is a shallow water gunboat, but in fact, the displacement of these fifteen warships has reached 800 tons, which is simply Yan Guang let the Germans build according to the standards of destroyers, the difference is that these fifteen shallow water gunboats cannot use torpedoes, but even so, when fully loaded, the displacement of these fifteen shallow water gunboats exceeds the displacement of the Flying Eagle, the flagship of Tang Qianming's fleet. At the same time, each gunboat was equipped with four 120-caliber guns in the front and rear, eight 75-caliber guns on the sides, 12 rapid-fire 37-caliber guns, and a varying number of German-made Maxim machine guns.

In short, the word "hedgehog" is the best adjective for these shallow gunboats.

Although it is necessary to stuff a lot of weapons directly into it, it must be a little inappropriate for these gunboats with a full load of no more than 1,000 tons, but their main task is only to be responsible for the safety of the Yangtze River basin, and the scope of their activities is limited to the Yangtze River.

After learning that Yan Guang planned to order fifteen shallow gunboats, in addition to the Germans, he himself had also approached Yan Guang, hoping to win the order for these fifteen gunboats. However, it is a pity that although the price of the gunboat of the same level was much cheaper than that of the Germans when he undertook the construction of the gunboat of the same level (the 550-ton Jiangli gunboat was only 300,000 yuan, that is, 300,000 silver dollars, the price in 1909), but Yan Guang knew very well what the quality of the German-made warships was, after all, the later Battle of Delan proved everything, so although the price given by the book was much cheaper, in the end, Yan Guang still ordered these fifteen shallow gunboats in Germany.

It will definitely be a bit troublesome to order so many gunboats, but fortunately, there was also a Yucheng naval division in Sichuan in the past, and there were also many steam iron-hulled gunboats in the naval division, so there is no need to worry that no one will drive these ships.

After ordering these shallow-water gunboats, Yan Guang originally planned to send some students to Germany to study, after all, the quality of Germany's navy and army is very good (Deland proves everything, but unfortunately the German navy is weak and Britain is too much), but considering that World War I will break out in a year, it will not be easy for students to come back from Europe at that time, so they can only give up. However, even so, Yan Guang still established a naval school in Yucheng, and asked Riddle to help hire many retired officers of the German Navy to teach.

In addition to ordering shallow water gunboats and establishing a naval school, Yan Guang also bought a lot of shipbuilding equipment from Riddle, preparing to open a shipyard in Yucheng, not only that, Yan Guang also asked Riddle to help hire some German designers to train China's own designers, and now these designers are designing a new destroyer with a displacement of 1,000 tons and a new light cruiser with a displacement of 3,000 tons with the help of German designers. Construction will be carried out only after the completion of the shipyard that started in Chongqing.

As for why Yan Guang didn't send a fleet to help in the war?

First, although the equipment of the Nationalist Army is absolutely the best in Asia, it has too little experience in actual combat, and it is only an ordinary bandit and bandit that they deal with in peacetime. At present, there are only two regiments in Beiyang and one division of the Hubei Army in Badong County, and the nearest Beiyang reinforcements are also far away in Wuhan, hundreds of kilometers apart. If in this case, the Sichuan Navy will also be used to help? It's too easy to win, but you can't learn anything useful.

Second, although Tang Qianming's fleet cannot be compared with the Sichuan Naval Army, it still has slightly more powerful ships such as the Flying Eagle and Jiang Li and Jiang Yuan, as well as torpedo boats such as the Lake Falcon and the Lake Eagle.

In Yan Guang's view, the first decisive battle between himself and Yuan Shikai will take place in Wuhan, and the main battlefield of the Sichuan Navy will also be in the three towns of Wuhan.

――――――――――

Hearing Zhu Qinglan say this, Wang Yixian was noncommittal.

After all, they had already conducted a detailed analysis of the Hukou Battle through the intelligence provided by the Military Intelligence Bureau, not to mention the gap in equipment and individual soldier quality between the Beiyang Army and the Jiangxi Army at that time. The most important thing that can make Tang Qianming's fleet indiscriminately exert silver power at the mouth of the lake is because Li Liejun does not have enough countermeasures in his hands.

If Li Liejun can have a regiment in his hands, no, even if it is a battalion of artillery troops, I am afraid that he Tang Qianming will not dare to be so unscrupulous in Hukou.

But then again, Tang Qianming's ability to be so ruthless to his former proprietor is also a topic of conversation and laughter within the National Socialist Party.

Just as Zhu Qinglan and Wang Yixian were discussing how to deal with Tang Qianming's fleet, a group of cavalry suddenly ran over in the distance.

When they ran to the front of Zhu Qinglan and Wang Yixian, a cavalry led by them turned over and dismounted and saluted Zhu Qinglan.

"Commander, Chief of Staff."

Zhu Qinglan recognized that this was a company commander of the reconnaissance battalion, so he hurriedly asked.

"How's the investigation going?"

"It's already in order, but because the Beiyang Army has a lot of machine guns on the periphery, we can't get too close to observe..."

"Machine guns?" Hearing the company commander say this, Zhu Qinglan and Wang Yixian both frowned. "How many machine guns did the Beiyang Army have?"

Because of its lack of actual combat experience, the Nationalist Army often held internal exercises, in which the Maxim and Madsen machine guns played a huge role. The staff officers of the General Staff once calculated based on the performance of the machine guns during the exercise, and believed that a Maxim machine gun could be equal to the strength of a battalion in defense.

As the army with the most machine guns in the whole of Asia, and probably even the world, under Yan Guang's suggestion, the National Social Army may have a deep understanding of machine guns, which is not as good as the current Germans, after all, although the guns were also in the limelight during the Russian War, but the real fierce wind was in the European battlefield of World War I.

It is precisely because they have a correct understanding of the machine gun that Zhu Qinglan and Wang Yixian will be like a great enemy.

"Because of the relationship between the Makqin machine guns, we didn't dare to get too close during the reconnaissance, but judging from the number visible to the naked eye, the Makqin machine guns arranged by the Beiyang Army don't seem to be very many, and it is estimated that there are only a dozen or twenty..."

"Twenty?"

Hearing this number, Zhu Qinglan and Wang Yixian breathed a sigh of relief, but they still nodded solemnly.

Of course, they didn't know that the Germans on the Somme had only deployed more than 200 Maxim machine guns, which cost the British and French troops nearly 60,000 casualties on the first day of the battle, and countless casualties in a normal battle. They only knew that the number of heavy machine guns was more than ten, and it could exert considerable power.

Twenty heavy machine guns are already quite a formidable deterrent for this era.

"Twenty Makqin..."

Zhu Qinglan and Wang Yixian glanced at each other, in the National Social Army, each division is equipped with 48 Makqin machine guns, and now the strength of the three divisions is 144, and the Beiyang Army is naturally unable to compare with them if it is purely compared to firepower. However, now that they are the attackers, and the Beiyang Army is the defenders, things cannot be calculated purely numerically.

"It seems that we can only find out the Beiyang fire point first, and then knock it out with artillery."

"That's all it can be..."

After listening to Wang Yixian's words, Zhu Qinglan also nodded.

Not long after, Zhu Qinglan had already led the second division to the outskirts of Badong County.

After coming to the periphery of Badong County, looking at the fortified positions formed by the Beiyang Army and the Hubei Army outside the county, Zhu Qinglan also knew that Badong County could not be defeated in one day, so he asked his soldiers to start building their own positions, and at the same time, the artillery of the artillery regiment began to be in place...

"Inform the reconnaissance battalion and ask them to raise the calibration balloon into the sky, and when the artillery regiment is ready, I will use the cannonball as a greeting salute..."

"Yes!"

(To be continued)