On June 10, the warships of the British and French forces carried out a large-scale artillery bombardment of the Wusong Fort, and the Chinese Empire used the shore defense guns on the Wusong Fort to fiercely return fire on the invading enemy fleet.

The shelling of more than 200 guns by both sides was the largest battle between the fleets and the coastal defense artillery on the ground in the Far East since ancient times.

The two sides fought back and forth for most of the day, and it was not until the afternoon that the Anglo-French fleet slowly retreated and retreated to the lower reaches of the mouth of the Yangtze River.

In this long artillery battle, which lasted nearly ten hours, the British and French forces bombarded the outer wall of the Wusong Fort near the river to a very dilapidated point, destroyed many artillery pieces of the Chinese army, and also hit a bunch of ammunition of the Chinese army, causing a large number of casualties on the part of the Chinese army, but the losses of the British and French forces themselves were not small, they were sunk by the Wusong battery artillery who were struggling to counterattack on the same day, an old sail 1,000-ton cruiser was sunk, and two steam gunboats of five or six hundred tons were sunk, and there were even more wounded.

In the evening, Liao Yizhai and others and Su Xuanbin and other middle and high-ranking officers of the navy gathered together, and just by looking at the faces of these people, we knew that they were quite satisfied with today's battle, and many of them were relaxed.

"Today's losses in the First World War have been preliminarily counted, six officers and eighty-six soldiers were killed in battle on the part of our navy, another thirteen officers were wounded, and two hundred and twenty soldiers were wounded! Four guns were destroyed and could not be repaired: one 120-mm rear-loading gun, one 32-pounder front-loading gun, and two 24-pounder front-loading guns. Five other guns were damaged to varying degrees, but after being inspected by engineers. Think it can be fixed in a short time! ”

When Su Xuanbin said these words, he was in a good mood. Although the losses in the First World War today were not small, the outer walls of the fortress were beaten to pieces. However, the interior of the fortress was not seriously damaged, and the above losses were exchanged for optimistic results.

"It has been confirmed that we have sunk one of the enemy's sail cruisers of about 1,000 tons and two steam gunboats of about 500 tons, and damaged at least ten or more enemy ships, and according to our estimates, the casualties of the enemy in this battle should have exceeded ours, at least more than 500 casualties!"

In the naval battles of these years, whether it was a duel between fleets or between fleets and batteries, in fact, combat losses could not be judged by the destruction of ships. Because the naval guns of these years were actually limited in power and hit rate, it was actually difficult to sink the opponent when it was a long-distance shelling, and the purpose of the shelling was to a large extent to kill and injure the enemy's living forces.

And this is also the reason why grenades are rampant in contemporary times, because although the grenade explosion cannot bring fatal casualties to large warships, the explosion can kill and injure a large number of enemy personnel and cause a fire at the same time.

In the same way, this is also the reason why the British and French fleets used grenades on a large scale when they bombarded the Wusong Fort, because the solid ball shells faced this turtle-shell-like fortress battery. Even if tens of thousands of artillery shells are smashed, it will have no effect, and for this kind of half-buried gun position, the most effective thing is to use large-caliber grenades to directly kill and injure people. Of course, if the impact of the explosion could destroy the artillery itself, it would be a bonus.

"Although the damage in today's battle is not bad, we should also consider that if we continue to fight, we will soon be understaffed. At that time, if there is not enough artillery, even if the artillery is intact, it will not be of much use, and now it is not to report to the army. Let them draw a certain amount of artillery to replenish it! "It was a naval colonel who was about thirty years old. The same is one of the operational staff officers.

However, as soon as his words fell, Su Xuanbin shook his head lightly: "Now we can still maintain it, and it is not too late to ask for the support of the army when the follow-up situation changes, and after today's battle, the enemy army should also have seen the strength of our Wusong Battery, if their commander has enough sense, he should not continue to fight with us like today, and use the fleet and the battery to fight against each other, the fleet side will suffer a loss after all!" ”

Hearing Su Xuanbin say this, although the colonel still wanted to say something, he didn't continue to open his mouth, but sighed in his heart, at such a critical juncture of the war, the top brass of their own navy first considered not how to increase the strength of the battery, but thought about not losing face in front of the army.

Liao Yizhai on the side had already expected Su Xuanbin's words, if the navy was willing to ask the army for support, he would have spoken earlier, why not use some recruits who have just been trained for less than three months to operate heavy artillery battles, and when the mountains and rivers are exhausted, Su Xuanbin and these high-ranking naval officials will definitely not bow to the army and admit that the navy is inferior to the army in terms of gunnery.

Although there is no too obvious dispute between the navy and the army in the contemporary Chinese Empire, there are already some signs, for example, when recruiting students from military academies, army officer cadets and naval officer cadets are-for-tat in order to compete for excellent students.

In addition, in the competition for weapons and equipment, the army has proposed that the Linde Machinery Factory and other ordnance companies should allocate part of their production capacity to produce small- and medium-caliber, that is, breech-loading rifled guns of less than 12 pounds, to reinforce the army's firepower, but the navy has repeatedly delayed this promotion of the army on the grounds that there is a serious shortage of naval artillery.

As a result, the current army does not have a single breech-loading rifled gun!

The same situation also appeared in the case of rear-loading rifled rifles, and the Navy's desire to equip its own Marine Corps with rear-loading rifles was also met with strong opposition and protests from the Army.

As for the coastal defense units of the navy, the army proposed that the coastal defense artillery units in the gold forts of Wusong, Jiangyin, and Fuzhou be placed under the jurisdiction of the army, so that the navy could concentrate on fleet operations, but the navy strongly opposed it.

The Navy and the Army are inherently armed forces with many interests, which have nothing to do with that country or what system they use, and the dispute between these arms is common to the whole world.

Although the dispute between the navy and the army on the part of the Chinese empire is not obvious at present, the accumulation of many small contradictions and conflicts is enough to break down the relationship between the navy and the army. At least for now, the top echelons of the Navy are reluctant to show weakness to the Army on the issue of shore defense artillery.

While the high-level officials of the navy were discussing today's artillery battle affairs, Bing Qusong was also talking with several high-ranking army generals. Of course, they didn't have a formal meeting like the Navy, but a few people chatted over tea.

Relatively speaking. The rules of the army are much less than those of the navy, and the etiquette in all aspects is not as good as that of the navy, which can be seen from the fact that the officers of the navy still wear full-body winter dresses and white gloves when directing artillery battles today.

Although this army was almost trained according to the British colonial army in the early days of its establishment, as time passed, the breath of the British army on them became weaker and weaker. However, the traditional atmosphere in China is increasing.

Those army officers are all the same when they usually talk, and they often have nothing to do, what to climb high and drink and be elegant, why? Because these officers are all traditional scholars, and they are all half-baked scholars, the sour smell on their bodies is still difficult to hide even if they wear new military uniforms.

And to be honest, although these officers have all abandoned literature and joined the military, to be honest, most of them still regard themselves as literati in their hearts!

This Chinese army, in its bones, is an army with a group of scholars as the backbone. This is not surprising.

But there are also some advantages to scholars leading the army, such as saying that most of these scholars have read books all their lives, and the Confucian thinking of loyalty to the monarch is deeply rooted in the bone marrow, for the empire and the emperor. Even if their feet were trembling, these young scholars would still lead the soldiers to charge like crazy, compared to pure martial artists. They may be less bloody, but they are more stubborn.

"I think there was a lot of damage on the navy side today. At least four hundred were killed and wounded, because there were too many wounded. Their own medical staff are not enough, and some of them are sent to our military hospital! It was Lin Mao who spoke, and he continued: "There are only more than 3,000 people under this Su Xuanbin's hands, less than 4,000 people, and they will be reduced by one-tenth of the staff on this day, I'm afraid they won't be able to last a few days!" ”

Bing Qusong at the top said: "Today's damage to the navy is a little bigger, but those foreigners on the other side are not comfortable, although we are not proficient in naval affairs, but we can also see that those foreigners suffered losses in today's war, and the foreigners should not continue to fight like today!" ”

At this time, Zhu Jianjia, chief of staff of the Seventh Army, also spoke: "I also think so, after today's war, the foreigners should not continue to storm the fort, I think they have a great possibility to bypass the Wusong Fort, and then land along the river to the west of the Wusong Fort, and then attack the Wusong Fort by sea and land to try to conquer our Wusong Fort!" ”

"How likely is it that they will go directly west to Jiangyin?" Bing Qusong asked.

Zhu Jianjia said: "There is a possibility, but the enemy army should not easily advance westward between the hardships of our Wusong Fort, after all, it is impossible for them not to know that the Jiangyin Fortress is larger than the Wusong Fort, and it is more difficult to defeat it." And for them, it is the best way to take Shanghai first, and then go west along the river after using Shanghai as a supply base, and it is too risky to venture directly into Jiangyin. ”

As expected by Zhu Jianjia and other Chinese army generals, Xima said to Count Ergin and Gro and others with a bitter face that night: "It is very irrational to continue the assault, and I seriously suggest that the shelling of Wusong Fort should be stopped and the enemy fortress should be conquered by detouring and landing!" ”

Count Ergin also frowned at this moment, today's battle made him have a more intuitive feeling of the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army, as early as in Guangzhou, he knew that the Chinese army he needed to face was not those cowardly Qing army, but the first modern army with perfect organization and weapons and equipment not inferior to the Western army.

Although Count Ergin was confident that he would have an advantageous exchange ratio in the battle with the Chinese army, this advantage was not overwhelming, and it was impossible to send a few thousand people to land at random to drive tens of thousands of Qing troops to run away as he had done with the Qing army in the past.

It was this attitude that made him take the initiative to stop the siege after the first battle of Guangzhou, and waited until the arrival of reinforcements before he personally led an army of 20,000 to launch the second battle of Guangzhou and successfully captured the city.

Now under the Wusong Battery, the British and French fleet and the enemy's battery shore defense artillery engaged in a ten-hour battle, the battle was so tragic that even he, a person watching the battle in the rear, could perceive it, but what he did not expect was that under the intensive artillery bombardment of the allied fleet, the firepower of the opponent's battery has not weakened, and there has been no collapse.

And all this has proven that the method of trying to break the fire of the battery by means of forcible artillery bombardment, and then cover the landing of the infantry, will not work.

Since this road was impassable, the Count of Ergin had to carefully consider Sima's proposal, which was to bypass the frontal fire of the fort and land and attack it to conquer the fort. (To be continued......)