As if there was a great tacit understanding between the two sides, the Qing army under Seng Lingqin and Shi Qingxuan's first army both buried the pot early and cooked rice early on the morning of October 26.

On the side of the Chinese army, the artillery has already pulled the artillery up two small hills with horses, and many artillery are waving hoes and shovels to build artillery positions nervously.

This ramp is used to counteract the backward force of the gun after it is fired and to quickly restore the gun to its original position!

When the artillery built the artillery position, before the outbreak of the war, the people in the rear also hurriedly carried a large amount of gunpowder and shells onto the artillery position, and then piled up near the artillery.

The artillerymen were busy on the top of the hill, and a large number of infantry at the foot of the mountain were already in formation under the command of the army, and these soldiers with guns lined up one phalanx after another.

Next to the infantry, Wang Luyun and the cavalry of the Second Cavalry Regiment were leading the war horses to slowly move forward, in order to keep the war horses in the best physical strength to meet the battle, the cavalry was strictly forbidden to ride horses before the war.

When the soldiers of all branches of the First Army were making preparations before the battle, the senior generals of the First Army were also called together by Shi Qingxuan, and then discussed the next battle plan.

In the tent room, a detailed map of a five-kilometre radius urgently drawn at dawn was placed on a wall shelf, drawn by the mapping staff, not only with country roads and streams, but also with contour lines on the hills.

"Look. Here, and here there are two small heights, although they are a little out of the way from our army and the enemy. But the two hills were practiced together, and behind them was a gentle field. ”

Song Xiangtang pointed to the two small hills on the edge of the map with his baton and continued: "If our army can deploy a unit here and attack the enemy's flank from there when the battle is fierce, it is very likely to establish a miraculous feat and destroy the enemy's flank!" ”

Shi Qingxuan said: "If you transfer troops here, it will be too far away from the main force, and it will be difficult to support each other!" ”

At this time. Wang Lu Yun, who rarely spoke in military meetings, spoke: "If it's infantry, the distance is farther, but if we let the cavalry go." Just three or four kilometers is not a worry! ”

Shi Qingxuan also nodded when he heard Wang Luyun say this, and agreed with Wang Luyun's statement.

He knew that Wang Luyun rarely spoke at military meetings, and at the same time, he could be regarded as a relatively unusual person in the Chinese army. This Wang Lu Yun is a big boss. In his early years, he was a bandit in the green forest, and later he was the head of the courtyard of the Lin Mansion, after being brought to Yu Shengjun by Lin Zhe, he has always fought with cavalry, although he also tried his best to keep up with the pace of other officers, but first of all, the cultural level is really limited, and he can't even read the words, so among the many senior generals of the Chinese army, he is becoming more and more unsociable.

But Wang Luyun shouldn't think that he is a marginal character. Wang Luyun was not only one of the only three cavalry regiments in the Chinese Army, but he was also the cavalry commander of the Chinese Army. With the rank of major general, he is the premier cavalry general in the Chinese army.

Although this speech is rare, if you are not sure, Wang Lu Yun will not speak indiscriminately!

Immediately, Shi Qingxuan said: "If the Second Cavalry Regiment is deployed here, it is okay, but in this case, our infantry phalanx will have to move forward five hundred meters before the scheduled battle location, otherwise it will be difficult to cooperate!" ”

When Shi Qingxuan, Song Xiangtang, Wang Luyun, Xu Pengan and other senior generals of the Chinese army were discussing the follow-up war, the Qing army was also making intense preparations.

A large number of Qing soldiers had already lined up the formation, and then slowly pressed forward, and on the periphery, the four thousand cavalry were divided into two teams, one on the left and one on the right.

Not long after, the Chinese army in front of the Qing army also began to move, tens of thousands of people were divided into dozens of small phalanxes, and the small phalanxes formed large phalanxes, forming the basic formation of the middle army, the left wing, and the right wing.

Thanks to the plain terrain of northern Jiangsu, the area where the two sides are fighting is very plain, with only some gentle hills, but these hills are difficult to exist as strategic or tactical strongholds, at most they slightly block the view of the enemy at a distance, but if they get closer, these hills will not become an obstacle to the battle between the two sides.

On the whole, the area where the two sides are scheduled to fight is a vast plain, with a few small streams and gentle hills in between.

At this time, if you look down from the sky, then you will find that the Qing army and the Chinese army are lined up in a huge phalanx one after another slowly approaching, and on both sides of these infantry phalanxes, there are cavalry passing back and forth from time to time.

On the two gentle hills behind the infantry phalanx of the Chinese army, there are more than 40 twelve-pounder field guns and large-caliber mortar guns, the distance between the two sides was originally only about two thousand meters, and now the Qing army is close to several hundred meters, the artillery of the Chinese army is to start firing continuously, the twelve-pounder field guns mainly fire solid shells, and the large-caliber mortar guns are to fire grenades and grenades.

Of course, the Qing army on the opposite side also has artillery, although their artillery does not have any new foreign artillery, but even the old artillery is also a cannon, strictly speaking, there is no generation difference in performance compared with the artillery of the Chinese army.

Seng Lingqin went south, and the training army to which he belonged also went south with a lot of artillery, not to mention the small-caliber mountain splitting artillery, the role of these mountain splitting cannons is actually the same as the four-pounder infantry guns in the Chinese army, they can only be pushed to the front line and fight directly with the infantry.

At this time, the artillery deployed in the rear and also began to shoot was more than 3,000 catties of artillery in the Qing army, and because of the very heavy weight of these artillery, the Qing army did not bring much all the way south, and there were only a dozen guns.

However, after these dozen or so artillery pieces continued to fire, although most of the shells fired at the level of the Qing gunners missed, the Chinese army on the opposite side had tens of thousands of people, and they could get hits when they hit the dense phalanx, so the Chinese army also began to suffer casualties.

Any solid shell hitting the infantry phalanx of the Chinese army can take away the casualties of more than ten soldiers. However, the casualties of more than a dozen people were not even a little wave for the Chinese army.

On the contrary, the artillery bombardment of the Chinese army caused great pressure on the Qing army on the opposite side, and more than 40 artillery pieces fired together. Whether it was the solid shells fired by the twelve-pounder field guns, or the grenades and grenades fired by the mortar guns, they all brought great casualties to the Qing troops on the opposite side.

If solid bullets are okay, those Qing troops on the other side have also seen it, but in the face of a large number of grenades that exploded overhead or grenades that exploded on the ground, it caused some riots in the Qing army.

Monk Lingqin, who was riding on a horse, watched the troops in front of him continue to suffer casualties, and he was also a little anxious in his heart. It's not okay to be beaten like this, those training troops are okay, and it is estimated that they can hold on. However, it is difficult to say about those green battalions and eight banners and other regimental training troops, and if they don't do it, they will collapse without a fight.

"The firearms of these rebels are really sharp, look at their cannons are more than 3,000 catties, and the number is two or three times more than ours!" Nader looked at the falling shells in front of him. There was a hint of melancholy on his face.

However, Du Xing'a said: "It's okay. It's just a little shelling, not enough to shake the foundation of our army! ”

Although he said so, Du Xing'a watched his own training soldiers fall one after another, but his heart ached!

These training soldiers he trained are not cheap cannon fodder, but they are all elite soldiers who have spent countless money and food to train.

Including Duxing's training army, almost all of the new army in China follow Yu Shengjun's example, and the cottage is naturally from the inside out, so these new army soldiers of the Qing army. is also the same as Yu Shengjun, recruited from the good family. When recruiting soldiers, they have to pay a settling-in allowance, and then the military salary must be paid in full and on time every month.

But today's battle is a decisive battle related to the belonging of northern Jiangsu, even if Du Xing'a is heartbroken by the loss of the training soldiers under his hands, he has to grit his teeth to hold on.

And I have to say that the new army trained by Du Xing'a and Nader and others really learned some of the skills of Yu Shengjun in the early days, putting aside the military system, dress and the like, just now facing the fierce shelling of the Chinese army, and being able to continue to advance in formation when suffering continuous casualties, this is enough to show that these training troops organized by the Qing court are not comparable to the Eight Banners Green Battalion.

Otherwise, if you look at the soldiers of the Green Battalion and the Eight Banners who were also shelled, they were already scattered in formation, and some of them even secretly wanted to run back, but they were directly beheaded by the overseers behind them, and then driven forward by the generals.

The artillery bombardment on both sides continued, and the large armies of both sides slowly approached, from the previous two thousand meters, to one thousand thousand meters, to one thousand meters, to five hundred meters.

Because both sides wanted to get the support of their own artillery fire, so the two sides had a tacit understanding not to go too fast, but stopped when they approached the center line, at this time, the distance from their artillery was about a thousand meters or so, although this distance is still a little far for artillery, but it has been able to give full play to the firepower.

After the distance between the two fronts was about 500 meters, I saw rows of infantry phalanxes of this kind of small artillery, the Chinese army pushed out four-pounder infantry guns, and the Qing army on the opposite side pushed out three or five hundred catties of mountain splitting guns.

First of all, on the side of the Qing army, the trainees with smoothbore guns continued to line up in a neat and dense three-row horizontal line to continue to approach, but some soldiers with cold weapons such as the Eight Banners Green Battalion on both sides had already made all kinds of strange screams, and then rushed towards the left and right flanks of the Chinese army.

At this time, I saw the Royal Army soldiers on both sides of the Chinese Army quickly reloading under the officer's command, and then raised their guns!

"Aim, fire!" After the crackling sound sounded, the Qing troops who had rushed to about 300 meters fell in an instant.

After the fire, the Royal Army soldiers continued to reload, and then the three musket regiments belonging to the three auxiliary divisions also opened fire at about a hundred meters!

With the sound of gunfire, this decisive battle on the plains between the Qing army and the Chinese army was already endless, and there was no way to change the strategy.

For Seng Lingqin and Shi Qingxuan, this battle is either won or lost, there is no third possibility! (To be continued......)