No matter what era, to launch a large-scale campaign, it is necessary to carry out all kinds of preliminary preparations, absolutely not to say that the commander on a whim said to fight, especially in the contemporary war, which has entered the firepower advantage, due to a large number of technical weapons and equipment, the consumption of ammunition is also increased exponentially.

And this leads to the fact that when launching a large-scale battle, it is necessary to prepare a large amount of ammunition supplies in advance, especially the feed needed for mules and horses.

Today's army is not the era of cold weapons, when cold weapons have stuttering, but now with the reinforcement of a large number of weapons, especially the number and weight of artillery and rapid-fire increases, not only the artillery itself needs more horses to pull, and the consumption of shells has also greatly increased, so that the logistics horses for transporting shells have greatly increased.

In the armies that have always relied heavily on mules and horses, the increase in mules and horses represents an increase in fodder, and horses can eat much more than people, and in ancient times, those regular troops with a considerable number of cavalry, horses ate much more feed than people.

Although modern armies have rarely played large-scale cavalry group charges, in fact, the number of horses in the army is not a lot, compared to the Feng army itself, for example, although a standard infantry division only has about 700 mounted horses (cavalry, officers), but there are also more than 2,000 logistics horses, which adds up to more than 3,000 mules and horses to eat more than a good army soldiers!

A large number of military horses and the food and fodder eaten by the personnel are a huge pressure on the army's logistics system, but this pressure is much smaller than that of ammunition.

In these years, the rate of fire of weapons has far exceeded that of the Franco-Prussian War, don't look at the many warlords in China today, the civil war seems very naïve, can not be on the international stage, but in fact, the intensity of firepower and ammunition consumption of the warlord war in China has far exceeded the Franco-Prussian War of that year.

Except for a slight deficiency in large-caliber artillery, small- and medium-caliber artillery, machine guns, and bullets are actually not much different from those of the Russo-Japanese War.

Especially in the Zhifeng War between Wang Yingkai and Zhao Dongyun, in a Tangshan Campaign, the Feng army fired an average of more than 300 shells per artillery.

Coupled with the subsequent Langfang Campaign, Jingshi Campaign, and Bazhou Campaign, that is, within a month and a half of entering the customs, the Feng army fired more than 500 shells per artillery.

And the number of shells in the reserve of the Feng army before the war was only 700 rounds per gun.

It can be said that the Zhibong War in just over a month has been at the peak of the contemporary domestic army, although it is not comparable to the fact that the German army destroyed more than 1,000 shells in a month and a half after the start of the First World War in history, but it is not much worse than the period of the Russo-Japanese War.

However, the peak state of the Zhifeng War lasted less than two months, and with the victory of the Feng army at Zhili and continued southward, the intensity of the battle of the Feng army began to decline rapidly, and the Feng army fired no more than 50 shells each in the Battle of Jinan, and other small and medium-sized battles rarely had large-scale artillery bombardment.

The main reason for this is not that the artillery of the Feng army has been reduced and the density of fire has decreased, nor is it that the enemy such as the Lu army and the Anhui army on the opposite side will be defeated without fighting and firing a few shells at will, but because as the Feng army moves south, the supply line is getting longer and longer, especially there is no railway in Shandong, and the supply line of six or seven hundred kilometers long is far beyond the supply capacity of the contemporary Feng army, or even any modern army.

According to the logistics capacity of the army in this era, the critical distance of logistics supply of a standardized modern army is also about 50 kilometers away from the railway/sea supply depot in theory. Their critical distance is at most more than forty kilometers, and the Feng army may be even worse.

The nearest railway supply stations of the Feng army were in Langfang and Tianjin, and then they relied on the canal and transported south on foot, and the whole process was called a tragedy. It was naturally impossible to rely on the army's own baggage transportation, and it was a large number of civilians hired and conscripted by the Quartermaster Department to keep this long supply line running.

The Feng army fought on the Shandong front with only more than 30,000 troops, but the Quartermaster Department, which provided them with logistics and transportation, had more than 40,000 people.

The distance of the supply line will undoubtedly make it more and more difficult for the Feng army to get supplies, although the generals of the Feng army on the front line will also requisition supplies on the spot, but all that can be collected is food and fodder, but shells and bullets can never be collected from the people.

As a result, the front-line troops could use fewer and fewer shells and bullets to fight, and only then did the fierce Cheng dù of the series of battles in Shandong appear far lower than the Zhifeng War.

This is not because the two armies fought more desperately, but at that time, everyone was fighting at home, and there was also the Jingfeng Railway along the way to provide logistics transportation, so there was no shortage of all kinds of materials, especially shells and bullets, so that the Tangshan Campaign could be fought in such a fierce battle.

In the face of the difficulties in logistics and transportation, especially in the direction of Shandong and northern Jiangsu, the supplies obtained by the Feng army are becoming less and less and more difficult, and in order to solve the logistics and transportation problems in this direction, the plan adopted by the Feng army is to transport the sea.

Although it is said that after the sea reaches Haizhou and other ports, there is still a transshipment distance of more than 100 kilometers from the front-line troops, which is far beyond the critical distance of the Fengjun's logistical capacity, it is much better than picking up horses and transporting them all the way from Tianjin.

The high command decided to open up a seaborne supply line, and the front-line troops naturally carried out the plan, and the implementation of this plan was carried out by Wu Peifu of the 19th Brigade of the 10th Division under the jurisdiction of the Second Army under Xu Bangjie's department.

Gold will shine there, this sentence is used in Wu Peifu is not enough, this person started from a small artilleryman, step by step from artillery platoon commander to team officer, after being promoted to battalion commander, the head of the artillery regiment of the tenth division, the second army was established after entering the customs operation this year, and Xu Bangjie, the commander of the tenth division, concurrently served as the commander of the second army, but after the Jinan Campaign, with the first mixed brigade and the second independent heavy artillery battalion also joining the second army's combat sequence, the scale of the second army became much larger than the original. This Xu Bangjie naturally did not have the energy to continue to serve as the commander of the 10th Division.

Therefore, Zhao Dongyun officially promoted Ren Cungao, commander of the 19th Brigade, to the commander of the 10th Division, and awarded the rank of major 'general plus lieutenant', and at the same time transferred Colonel Wu Peifu, commander of the 10th Artillery Regiment, to the commander of the 19th Brigade and promoted to major general.

Wu Peifu can also be regarded as the second senior general from artillery in the Feng army after succeeding Cungao. Although there are all branches of the army in today's Feng army, in fact, most of the senior generals are from infantry. The Feng army now has more than 200,000 people, not to mention hundreds of generals above the rank of major general, but there are dozens of them. However, there are only three cavalry backgrounds, namely Meng Enyuan, Hua Zhenji, and Lu Chengtong, among which Hua Zhenji and Lu Chengtong still serve in the First Cavalry Brigade and the Second Cavalry Brigade, and people from other branches of the army in these two positions are really difficult to grab. The second is that there are only two senior generals from artillery at present, one is Ren Cungao, the commander of the former third town artillery standard, and the second is this Wu Peifu.

It is more difficult for an artillery officer to cross the threshold of a major general than that of a cavalry officer, because there are still two cavalry brigade commanders above the cavalry that can be used as a channel for promotion, but for artillery officers, if they want to be promoted from the position of colonel of the artillery regiment to the rank of major general, they can only compete with other infantry colonels for positions such as the commander of the infantry brigade and the chief of the headquarters of the command, which is quite difficult.

It is not surprising that the commander of the infantry regiment in the Feng army has been promoted to brigade commander, but so far the commander of the artillery regiment has been promoted to the commander of the infantry brigade, only Ren Cungao and Wu Peifu have been promoted.

To tell the truth, Wu Peifu was also a little surprised by his promotion, if it weren't for Ren Cungao, a former boss, who vigorously promoted him and strongly recommended himself to the president, I am afraid that he would not have had the opportunity to become the commander of the 19th Brigade.

It's just that he doesn't know that his name is still relatively loud in Zhao Dongyun's heart, although he doesn't have much feeling for the so-called historical celebrities after coming to this world, but since he knows that he has Wu Peifu under his hands, and although Wu Peifu in this time and space lacks some experience in the original time and space, he still shows good military talent, so Zhao Dongyun has no reason not to reuse him.

Since being promoted to the commander of the 19th Brigade, under the leadership of the old commander Ren Cungao, Wu Peifu led the 19th Brigade from Jinan all the way south, and successively conquered many prefectures and counties in Tai'an, Qingzhou, and Yizhou.

Since the Battle of Jinan, the remaining Lu army in Shandong has actually been negligible, especially after the Tai'an direction once again annihilated more than 3,000 Lu troops, the Lu army that Zhang Huaizhi brought back to Shandong has actually been wiped out, and even Zhang Huaizhi himself fled back to Anhui with hundreds of personal guards after Jining was breached. In this case, although Wu Peifu's 19th Brigade, which marched along the southeast direction, also fought a few skirmishes with the remaining Lu army and the local armed forces in Shandong, they were all enemy troops of only a few hundred people, and they were all defeated in one blow.

This came all the way from Tai'an to Yizhou, as it said, to attack the city and pull out the village, but it was better to say that it was a direct armed march.

However, as soon as he defeated the local troops organized by hundreds of local officials in Yizhou, and took control of Tancheng in Yizhou, he received an order from the division headquarters, and Ren Cungao ordered him to lead the 19th Brigade to the east to conquer Haizhou and reach the seaside port, and also said that the engineering troops sent by the headquarters must arrive in Haizhou and directly take control of the coastal port.