In order to support a series of operations of the army, all the active warships of the imperial navy were widely active in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and even sent a detachment south to Fujian to support the military operations of the Third Army in Fujian.

In order to cover the crossing of the river by the First Army and the Fifth Army and the subsequent attack on Yangzhou, the First Fleet of the Imperial Navy, led by Lin Dabiao, the chief of the Admiralty of the Supreme Command, has been accompanying the army in its operations.

At present, along the Yangtze River outside Yangzhou, there are four capital ships of the First Fleet and 12 river gunboats, and when the army is advancing along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to the capital city of Yangzhou, the detachment of six Xingwu-class gunboats sent by the navy only enters the canal.

Although the water depth of the canal is not too high, the Xingwu-class gunboats were originally gunboats specially built for inland river operations, and their draft is quite shallow, so although they are inconvenient to move after entering the canal, they will not run aground.

As for the warships of more than 500 tons, such as the Zhentai personally commanded by Lin Dabiao, although it was said that they could barely sail into the canal, the Zhentai and others were originally sea ships with extremely deep drafts, and in order to avoid unnecessary losses caused by grounding, the navy did not send large warships.

However, there are only six Xingwu-class gunboats, and their firepower is also very powerful!

Although the Xingwu class is equipped with only one twelve-pounder gun, the caliber is not larger than the army's twelve-pounder field gun, but the gap between the two is quite large.

Army artillery is limited by mobility and cannot be built too heavy, requiring a trade-off in performance and weight, but naval artillery is not too limited.

Therefore, generally speaking, the naval guns of the same caliber are much longer than those of the army in the barrel, and the longer and thicker the barrel, the more propellant they can be charged, so that the shells can be fired farther.

This detachment went north along the canal and successively carried out intensive artillery bombardment of the Qing army's batteries on the Balipu and Sanchai rivers, which favorably covered the Fifth Army's northward offensive.

Just when the detachment of the navy and the Fifth Army went straight to Yangzhou along the Jinghan Grand Canal, on the west side of the canal, the First Army was also cleaning up the Qing army's strongholds on the periphery of Yangzhou, and at the same time quickly advancing towards Yangzhou City.

Beginning on June 20th, the first army conquered Qinjiaqiao, and the next day conquered Xuejialou, and then marched to Jiangwangmiao, it took only three days, the first army's troops have been directed at Yangzhou City, and stationed troops outside the west gate of Yangzhou City.

On the other side, the Fifth Army, with the cooperation of the naval detachment, successively conquered a series of Qing army strongholds in the south of Yangzhou City, such as Balipu, Sanchaohe, Guijiazhuang, and Yangziqiao, and then stationed troops in the area of Huangnigou on the east side of Yangzhou City.

At this point, the two Chinese armies of the First Army and the Fifth Army have completely surrounded Yangzhou, and the next step is to launch a tough attack on the Qing army cowering in Yangzhou.

The reason why the Chinese army took a series of peripheral offensives outside Yangzhou so quickly was that in addition to the strong combat effectiveness of the Chinese army itself, in fact, what was more important was that the Qing army originally planned to abandon these peripheral areas and defend them one by one.

The Qing army originally transferred the main force of the Qing army from the peripheral strongholds such as the Sanchao River back to Yangzhou City, and only a small number of troops remained.

Seeing that the Qing army had retracted most of the main forces back to Yangzhou, it was foreseeable that they would encounter stubborn resistance when they finally attacked the city, so Shi Qingxuan, who was in charge of attacking Yangzhou, was not in a hurry, and after surrounding the city, he spent a lot of money to pull down many of the army's own artillery outside Yangzhou.

At the same time, he also asked the Navy for help, so that the Navy also brought a number of 64-pound short-barreled mortars.

Then dozens of large-caliber artillery pieces were used to shell Yangzhou day and night!

On the 23rd, outside Yangzhou City, Shi Qingxuan looked at the west city wall of Yangzhou that had been broken by artillery in the distance and knew that it was time for the infantry to go up and fight.

After all, although the artillery of the Chinese army is strong, to be honest, the damage to the enemy behind the fortified city is limited, and if you want to conquer Yangzhou City, you must send a large number of infantry units to attack directly.

It didn't take long for a Chinese Army officer wearing the rank of lieutenant colonel on his shoulder to pull out his saber behind a breastwork wall outside the West City Gate, and he was Lieutenant Colonel Chen Haijing, the commander of the First Auxiliary Defense Division.

"Command, charge the whole army!"

With just a simple order, the soldiers of the 1st Auxiliary Defense Division under his command crossed the breastwork and other simple fortifications under the urging of various officers, and then rushed to the Yangzhou city wall hundreds of meters away.

At the forefront were the cold-armed troops armed with swords and shields, wearing gray uniforms, brandishing swords and shields and rushing forward with all their strength.

At this time, the Qing army on the city wall did not know where to push out a piece of artillery, and then ignited the artillery shelling of the soldiers of the auxiliary defense army outside the city, and a number of solid round cannonballs flew through the air, and soon fell into the military formation of the first auxiliary defense division, and then ploughed out a flesh passage without accident.

Xu Shan gasped and ran forward desperately, just when he just stepped over a wooden railing, he looked up and saw a small black dot on the ground in the distance directly stirring up and rolling over, and before he had time to think about it, he immediately instinctively rolled to the left, and then half-squatted behind a small mound.

However, several comrades-in-arms next to him and in the rear were hit by the falling solid-ball shell, one of his arms was smashed, and the other was directly shattered in the chest.

Although the muzzle velocity of the solid-ball shells of this era was not high, so that a clear flight trajectory could be seen, the speed of the projectiles was even more slow after they landed, as if they could be stopped by stretching out their hands.

But this is all people's delusion, in fact, even if the speed of the cannonball is slow, it is still a cannonball, after the solid ball cannonball hits the ground, it is better if it falls on the soft ground, because the soft ground will attract a lot of kinetic energy of the solid cannonball, thereby reducing the lethality of the solid ball cannonball.

But if it falls on hard ground, then the lethality of the solid ball shell will rise sharply, and it will form a leap forward, and the place where it passes is basically to meet the gods and kill the Buddha, and a twelve-pound solid ball shell can run through the entire column of the infantry company, and it is a death if you touch it casually, even if you want to be injured and not die.

Xu Shan looked at the two comrades-in-arms who had only breathed out but not intake, and he knew that these two people were dead, and if he looked farther, he could see that the entire battlefield was full of gunsmoke, and the rumbling cannon was mixed with gunshots, shouts, and ** sounds.

At this moment, the courage he mustered before setting off had disappeared, and Xu Shan's only thought left was to live, so he hid behind a small mound and no longer had the courage to go out and continue to move forward.

But it didn't take long for him to see the gong ringing behind him, and the officers were also shouting: "Retreat, retreat!" ”

When he looked up again, he saw that the phalanxes that were rushing to the front had already spread their feet and ran backwards, in this case, Xu Shan didn't have to think about it, he just got up and ran back.

After running through the crowd for more than ten minutes, he stopped with the crowd.

At this time, in front of them, there were rows of Royal Army soldiers wearing light clothes and holding bayonets, Xu Shan knew very well that if his people continued to retreat, these people would definitely shoot without hesitation!

Next, he saw his division commander and regiment commander come forward, and then he was scolded loudly by the general who seemed to be a bigger officer, and he couldn't raise the head of the division commander and the regiment commander who scolded them.

But after a while, after their division commanders and regiment commanders came back, while reorganizing the team, they were also scolding several other middle-level officers of the First Auxiliary Defense Division, scolding and scolding, and soon Xu Shan saw a small group of Royal Army soldiers with foreign guns pulling out more than a dozen people from the crowd.

A major regimental commander said that these people were people who had retreated without receiving the order to retreat, and that if it had not been for their unauthorized retreat, they would not have caused the final collapse and forced the whole division to retreat.

In order to strictly enforce military law, the people of the supervising team did not hesitate to kill these dozen or so routs who retreated privately on the spot!

Xu Shan, who saw it, was panicked, these people were really unlucky, even if they ran away, they couldn't run away first!

Xu Shan has been in the Chinese army for more than a year, and he can be regarded as a veteran, he knows very well that the Chinese army is very strict about retreating without authorization, and if he retreats without an order, he will be killed on the spot in front of the battle.

In the first two years, it was impossible to kill thousands of people in the large-scale collapse of the troops of the Auxiliary Defense Division, but those who ran first and the fastest would basically be killed in front of the battle, and when they attacked Zhenjiang last year, a regiment of the Tenth Auxiliary Defense Division retreated without authorization, and as a result, half of the more than 1,000 people were shot, which shows the strictness of the military law of the Chinese army.

After staying in the auxiliary defense army for a long time, Xu Shan also realized several methods, that is, when charging, you can't be at the front, and you can't be at the last, it's best to be in the middle.

If you hit well, you will continue to rush, and if you hit badly, stop and find a place to save your life, but you will not run back directly.

If the front is knocked down, then you will run back together in the middle.

In this way, he will not be killed by the enemy because he rushes to the front, and he will not be killed by the Overseer because he is at the rear, and he will follow the crowd when he retreats.

As for being killed or wounded by enemy shells during the attack, it was a matter of pure luck, and there was no way to avoid it.

The charge in front of him was not killed by the Qing army, at most it was killed and wounded by the artillery of the Qing army, of which less than fifteen were directly killed, and the others were lightly and seriously injured, but after retreating, they were directly killed by the supervising team more than ten on the spot, that is to say, in this battle, the supervising team killed more soldiers of the auxiliary defense army than the Qing army!

After executing the soldiers who had broken down and fled first, the officers of the 1st Auxiliary Division once again formed a team to boost the morale of the defeated soldiers and try to get them to attack again.

In order to cover the second attack of the First Auxiliary Defense Division, the artillery in the rear also carried out covering fire on the Qing artillery on the city in time, and seeing that a large number of Qing troops on the city were killed and wounded by their own shells, the morale of the First Auxiliary Defense Division was restored, and one by one under the urging of the officers launched a second attack.

Xu Shan was also the same as last time, carrying his waist knife and shield to follow the large army and rush forward! (To be continued.) )