Liu Changyou's self-confidence comes from a deep understanding of his own army, and in this regard, Li Hongzhang has been busy with government affairs and diplomacy recently due to time constraints, and has not yet had time to really contact the Japanese dispatch army, so he has a very superficial understanding of the strength of the Japanese dispatch army, and he looks at it according to the standards of the ordinary national defense force or expeditionary force in China.

In the Chinese Empire, the Praetorian Guard is the real elite force, but it is too mysterious, whether it is weapons and equipment or training, it is strictly secret, even Li Hongzhang does not know the details, he only knows one thing, that is, the Praetorian Guard has far surpassed the armies of the Western powers, at least in terms of weapons and equipment.

Comparatively speaking, due to the large base of the Wehrmacht, and the fact that the Wehrmacht had to be stationed in other places, had a lot of contact with the localities, so Li Hongzhang still had some understanding, and in addition, he had had a lot of contact with the Expeditionary Force before, and had witnessed their combat effectiveness, so he copied the situation of the Expeditionary Force to the Wehrmacht.

It should be said that Li Hongzhang's comparison is not unreasonable, because if we only look at the weapons and equipment, then most of the weapons of the expeditionary force and the national defense force are similar, that is, in terms of light weapons, they all use rear-loading rifled rifles with paper-shell fixed ammunition, and in terms of heavy firepower, they generally use front-loading rifled guns.

However, due to the special circumstances of the expeditionary force, after all, it was going to be transferred to the Americas to participate in the war, so the army was equipped with a lot of rapid-fire weapons in advance, such as the 56 light machine gun.

But it is a pity that this kind of machine-gun weapon is also a strictly secret thing in the expeditionary force, at least it cannot be sued to Li Hongzhang.

Therefore, Li Hongzhang has always made a mistake in evaluating the strength of the expeditionary force and the national defense force, that is, he thinks that the expeditionary force or the national defense force is stronger than the armies of the West, but the strength is very limited, and at most it is slightly higher.

But in fact, not to mention the Praetorian Guard, it is the elite of the expeditionary force and the Wehrmacht, because the weapons are too advanced. In terms of combat capability, it has far surpassed the armies of Western countries, even the strongest elite of the British army.

It is precisely because Li Hongzhang has problems with his assessment of the strength of the National Defense Force, and because he is too worried about the consequences of defeat, that he is too cautious and suffers from gains and losses, which is completely different from Liu Changyou, who understands his own strength.

From this point of view, the Chinese Empire has done a good job of keeping secrets of new weapons, at least in terms of secrecy, and even concealed it from its own people. Although this is a good thing in some aspects, sometimes it is not necessarily a good thing, such as Li Hongzhang, who has reservations about the strength of his army.

Maybe I have to say that when the expeditionary force led by Shi Dakai fought against the Japanese before, Li Hongzhang also saw it, although he didn't know the details of the machine gun, but compared to it, he had seen it, how could he have such a big deviation in his understanding of his own troops?

The reason is simple. It is true that Li Hongzhang had seen the expeditionary force attacking the Japanese, but he had mostly observed it from a distance, and he did not know the details of the battle, let alone really understand the firepower of the machine gun.

To know. During the expeditionary force's attack on the Japanese, the Japanese troops they faced were too weak, and machine guns were used at most times except during the attack on the port of Yokohama. Because artillery and rifles alone are completely sufficient.

It is precisely because the number of times the machine gun is used is very limited, and Li Hongzhang is watching from a distance, that the true power of this weapon is not clear. At most, I've heard the name, and I probably know that there is such a thing.

In addition, Li Hongzhang has indeed seen the situation when the expeditionary force is fighting against the Japanese, but he has not seen the situation of the Western army fighting against the Japanese, so in his mind, the Western army should not be too bad, at least the artillery of others should be very strong.

In short, it is okay to say that Li Hongzhang is still a little afraid of Westerners in his bones, or that Li Hongzhang has a limited understanding of the strength of his own army, anyway, he is very hard and proud when facing the Japanese, but when it comes to Westerners, he always has a little drum in his heart, and he always has a little lack of confidence.

Finding that Li Hongzhang still had concerns, Liu Changyou simply personally arranged a battalion-level military exercise and invited Li Hongzhang to visit, so that he could really see the strength of the Japanese army.

Although the Japanese dispatch army is a national defense force sequence, the overall weapons are still based on the Hua 2 rifle (imitation Sharps rifle) and the Hua 2 field gun (imitation Napoleon gun), but because of the special situation, the weapons and equipment are a little better than the general national defense force, that is, some new weapons have been added.

There are not many so-called new weapons, namely grenadiers, 56 light machine guns and grenades.

In the Japanese dispatch army, each soldier had four grenades, a company had a grenadier squad, and a battalion had a light machine gun company.

Don't mention the grenadier squad, this one is customized, and it is the same as in the Praetorian Guard, all of them are 16 people in a squad and equipped with 4 grenadiers.

As for the light machine gun company, this is an independent formation, to put it simply, a machine gun company has 150 people and 15 light machine guns.

Specifically, a company was divided into three platoons, a platoon of fifty people, ten of whom were a squad, each squad was armed with a light machine gun and twenty revolvers.

In other words, a battalion had only fifteen light machine guns.

After all, the 56 machine gun firepower is too fierce, the ammunition consumes too much, and the bullets used cannot be used in conjunction with the Hua 2 rifle, so they have to be transported separately, so they are equipped in one battalion and belong to the troops under the direct command of the battalion commander.

What Li Hongzhang visited was mainly the firepower of the machine gun, and it was Liu Changyou who wanted him to strengthen his confidence in his own troops.

After seeing the demonstration of the machine gun at close range, Li Hongzhang was quite shocked, and after hearing that every battalion was equipped, he really increased his confidence in the Japanese dispatch army a lot, and agreed to Liu Changyou's plan to send troops.

From this aspect, it can be seen that although Li Hongzhang does not care about military affairs, he still has the greatest power in Japan, and he has the final say on whether to start a war against a certain force, but he does not care how to fight it.

However, in order to justify his own troops, Li Hongzhang found Sheng Haizhou again, and asked Sheng Haizhou to "hire" a division of the Japanese Dispatch Army in the name of mercenaries, and then began the second campaign against the Choshu Domain.

As for the candidates to send troops, Liu Changyou himself could not move, so he chose his own descendant troops, that is, the first division of the Japanese dispatch army led by Liu Kunyi.

Liu Kunyi is twelve years younger than Liu Changyou, but he is actually Liu Changyou's uncle of the same sect. Of course, due to the different statuses, Liu Kunyi will definitely not play a score against Liu Changyou, usually Liu Kunyi is the only one who looks forward to Liu Changyou.

In his early years, Liu Kunyi followed Liu Changyou to fight on the battlefield, and he was also a tiger general, and he was the backbone general of Chu Yong, and later Liu Changyou led his troops to defect to the Imperial Army, Liu Kunyi still followed Liu Changyou around, until Liu Changyou was promoted to the Ministry of Defense. only separated from Liu Changyou.

However, when Liu Changyou formed the Japanese Dispatch Army, he immediately transferred him, a subordinate of his uncle from the same sect, and promoted him to the commander of the first division, and the other division commanders were basically the original Chu Yong generals.

For example, Jiang Yili, the mayor of the Second Division, and Liu Mingdeng, the commander of the Third Division, were all from Chu Yong in his early years.

In fact, there is not much difference in strength between the three divisions of the Japanese Dispatch Army, but Liu Kunyi has the most combat experience. In addition, his first division was stationed in Kagoshima Port, which was the closest to the Choshu Domain, and there was a small fleet stationed there, so he was sent there. It's not because he's his own little uncle.

Speaking of which, the first division was originally selected to be stationed in Kagoshima Port, mainly from a strategic point of view, but in fact since the expeditionary forces burned Kagoshima. It was largely deserted, and most of the survivors had gone to live elsewhere, such as Sakurajima.

So. Because Kagoshima is very desolate, the life of the first division is the hardest, and it is precisely because of this place that Liu Changyou took the initiative to give up the first division to station, after all, Liu Kunyi's relationship with him is there.

Being able to fight independently, and being able to leave the broken place of Kagoshima, Liu Kunyi was of course very happy, and he didn't talk nonsense, ordered all the people, and then under the escort of the first small fleet of the East China Sea Fleet, he boarded the ship from the port of Kagoshima, where he was stationed, and killed directly to Yamaguchi Castle.

There was no difficulty in the landing process, although Yamaguchi Castle did not have a separate harbor, but there were also no coastal batteries, so it was no problem for large ships not to get close to the coast and then land with small sand boats with shallow draft.

Due to the swiftness of the action and the silence of the event beforehand, it was not until the first division of the dispatch army had landed and it was only twenty-five miles from Yamaguchi Castle that the defenders of Yamaguchi Castle discovered the invading army.

Although the Changzhou Domain was caught off guard at first, the Changzhou Domain reacted quickly after all, and quickly organized a group of 3,000 soldiers and horses to begin harassing Liu Kunyi's troops, but unfortunately the effect was not great, not to mention, and it also caused heavy losses.

This is not only related to the equipment of the Japanese soldiers, but also to Liu Kunyi's arrangement.

You must know that after Liu Kun and his troops landed in the territory of Yamaguchi City, they didn't care how you arranged it, and no matter how many people you had, they took care of themselves to divide the whole army into independent combat battalions with battalions as units, leaving enough space for combat and reaction between each battalion, and dividing the baggage evenly between different combat battalions, and then these independent combat battalions were connected end to end, and all of them advanced in the mode of battle formation.

It is conceivable that in this way, the speed of the march is naturally not fast, but it is better than the four levels and eight stability, plus there are many horses along the way, there are a large number of wolf dogs and hot air balloons in the army, and the weather has been good, it has always been sunny, there is no day of rain, so there is no opportunity to leave the other party.

After successive setbacks, the Choshu Domain no longer harassed, but urgently mobilized and reduced its forces into Yamaguchi Castle, preparing to defend this new crusading army.

Maori Kei is also a bit confident, and his confidence comes from the fortifications of Yamaguchi Castle.

In the early years, Mori wanted to move the main castle, so the construction of Yamaguchi Castle began early on, but due to time constraints, the scale of Yamaguchi Castle has not risen.

Originally, he planned to move to Yamaguchi Castle after a while, but the Chinese invasion and the changes in the shogunate sounded the alarm bells, and he quickly moved to Yamaguchi Castle, and then mobilized forces to rest the castle.

Because Saigo Takamori and others escaped when the Satsuma Clan was destroyed, they went to the Choshu Clan afterwards and brought first-hand information about the Chinese army to the Choshu Clan, so Maori Keiqin had a preliminary impression of the combat strength of the Chinese, knowing that the firearms of the Chinese army were very strong, even stronger than the Westerners.

It was precisely because he knew that the Chinese army had sharp firearms, so when building Yamaguchi Castle, Maori Keiqin listened to the construction of Saigo Takamori and Katsura Kogoro, slowed down the construction of the castle town, but thickened the city walls, and built more wooden towers, just to cope with the Chinese artillery and muskets.

While reinforcing the city walls. They also mobilized the common people to dig trenches and holes outside the main city, and also added a large number of wooden fences between the trenches and holes, making the potholes outside the city look like a labyrinth at first glance, and it is particularly difficult to even go out of the city and enter the city.

But not to mention, the Changzhou Domain's move of digging holes and trenches outside Yamaguchi Castle was really right, at least when Liu Kun and his troops came to the vicinity of Yamaguchi Castle, they faced this defensive position full of trenches and holes. It's a bit of a headache.

Since there was nothing to pay attention to for a while, Liu Kunyi had no choice but to set up camp on a hill on the periphery, and then found Jiang Zhongyi, deputy division commander and commander of the first regiment, and Hao Lianzhong, chief of staff of the division, to discuss countermeasures with them.

"Weigen," Liu Kunyi looked at Jiang Zhongyi first, "Don't talk nonsense, do you think what should we do in this situation?" ”

"It's hard to say." Jiang Zhongyi looked at Yamaguchi Castle not far away. "This city is nothing, but there are trenches and traps all over here, and if you go straight in, you will lose a lot. So, let's be on the safe side and send people to fill in these trenches little by little. ”

"I don't think that's going to work." Hao Lianzhong shook his head, "Such a large area of trench array. Presumably they must have arranged for the dead in it, and if we want to advance unharmed, we must arrange guards. It takes a lot more time. After a long time, not to mention in case of changes, our supplies alone will be a big problem. You know, we don't have much food to bring this time, everything has to be transported to the rear, once it is delayed for a long time, it will not be good for us. ”

"That's right." Liu Kun nodded in agreement, "Originally, our attack on Yamaguchi City this time was with the intention of smashing Huanglong directly and fighting quickly, if it takes too long, it will not be interesting." ”

"But if you don't fill in the outer trench traps first, is there any other good way? Could it be that he just rushed in regardless of it? That's too risky, isn't it? Jiang Zhongyi said.

"This ......" Hao Lianzhong frowned, and after thinking about it, he didn't have much to pay attention to, so he shook his head and stopped talking.

"How's the fire attack?" Liu Kunyi suddenly said, "I heard that most of their cities are wooden buildings, and if we set fires, we will use that new type of burning. Burn. Bullets, maybe it will be useful, right? ”

"No." Hao Lianzhong shook his head first, "Even if you want to use it. Burn. We must also approach the opponent's city first, but now we have to cross the outside trench position, those trenches are all earth and stone, and the fire attack may not have much effect.

If you want to attack and set fire to Yamaguchi Castle outside the trench...... With all due respect, this trench array is more than fifteen miles old, and at such a distance, our artillery range is not enough, and even if it is barely reached, the shooting effect will not be very good.

We bring the burning. Burn. The bullet effect is good, but the price is too expensive, and the quantity is small, if it misses, it will be too much to lose, don't you say? ”

"Since this distance can't be set on fire, how about smoking?" Jiang Zhongyi said, "I see that the wind here is blowing from here to the mountain pass city, why don't we light fire and smoke more at the wind outlet and smoke them?" ”

"Smoke?" Liu Kun took a look at Hao Lianzhong.

"This method can be tried." Hao Lianzhong nodded, "At least, we can use the smoke method to find out where there are people hidden in those trenches." In other words, we can light the fire and smoke first, and then the troops will advance slowly, and wherever we hear a cough, we will shoot at it.

With such a large area of trenches, with the power of this small Choshu Domain, it is impossible for all places to have Tibetans, right? It must be false and real, what we are afraid of is not the trench, but the dead soldiers hidden in the trench, as long as we know in advance where there are people, it is not a problem. ”

"Okay, let's do it!" Liu Kun nodded.

Soon, Liu Kunyi's first division detached a part of the people, set fire points around the main attack site, and then threw wet firewood and horse manure and other materials at the fire point to create thick smoke.

Smoke from one location may be nothing, but if 3,000 people are together and set off smoke in multiple locations at the same time, the situation is different.

As Jiang Zhongyi said, the wind here is blowing towards Yamaguchi Castle, and the wind speed is not large, but the second-level wind, that is, the feeling of a light breeze blowing on the face as the saying goes.

With a light breeze blowing in the face, the wind speed will not exceed 4 kilometers per hour, so much smoke is ignited, and the firing point is low, so it will naturally drift slowly towards those trench traps.

Large-scale smoke like this would be better if it had been prepared in advance. But if you don't prepare, it's impossible not to cough at first smell, so soon coughing sounds came everywhere, and naturally they were all those dead soldiers of the Choshu Domain who were hidden in advance.

As soon as the cough came out, the spies who had been masking their faces with wet wipes in advance received it, and then they marked these places, and with a little guidance, they immediately fired a cannon fire.

At the same time as the artillery was fired in the rear, they also sent a battalion of troops. Cover your face with all the wipes and move forward with smoke in the air.

The men walked straight to the place where there were sounds, some of them holding rifles and guarding, some of them holding long wooden poles, and kept poking the ground to see where there were traps. That's right, the duty of this battalion is to find paths.

Of course, even if you wear wet wipes, you will be stuck in thick smoke after all. Although the cough is almost bad, the eyes will also be uncomfortable, so their pathfinding operation actually does not last long, at most fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes is enough, though. Because they are only the first wave, and when fifteen minutes are up, they will stop, and a battalion will quickly run in behind. Take over their movements, and wait for the follow-up battalions to fully take over and continue to explore the way forward. The battalion that had previously explored the path would quickly withdraw along the original path to rest.

Although the speed of using this method of releasing smoke and rotating pathfinders is still not fast, it is safe enough, at least it cuts off the possibility of a sneak attack by the defenders of the Choshu Domain, because it is impossible for them to quickly approach and launch an effective attack in the thick smoke.

Sure enough, because when the smoke was released before, many people's coughing voices had exposed the ambush location of the Changzhou Domain's ambush army, and they were subjected to continuous artillery attacks, so they could not carry out an effective ambush on the Chinese who were exploring the way, and could only force out to attack, but this kind of sudden attack, in the face of the guarded pathfinder battalion, there was no threat at all.

As a result, Liu Kunyi's troops advanced smoothly to Wuli without any losses, and established a defensive position in this small advance area.

In other words, the salient that Liu Kun advanced into was only ten miles away from Yamaguchi City, which was less than five kilometers away, and this position was already within the best range of the Hua 2 field gun.

You must know that the long-range range of the Hua 2 field gun is 6,000 meters, that is, 6 kilometers, and the accuracy of hitting places within a range of 5 kilometers is still quite good.

Finding that the salient had advanced to a place where there was enough artillery to attack the city, Liu Kunyi decisively put in an artillery company, and eighteen front-loaded field guns fired solid bullets first, and finally fixed the shooting Zhuyuan, all of which were used to burn. Burn. Play.

Burn. Burn. Bullet is condensation. Solid. Steam. Oil. Bullets, needless to say, can burn even on stones, and there are indeed many wooden buildings in Yamaguchi Castle, plus there is wind now, once a large number of this kind of burning is projected on Yamaguchi Castle. Burn. Bounce, the effect is absolutely needless to say.

Sure enough, with the burning. Burn. The fire of the bullet, the distant Yamaguchi Castle immediately burst into flames, and showed a growing trend, and seeing the fire in the city, the artillerymen were even more excited, and continued to fight hard to load and fire, and strive to burn all the bullets. Burn. The bullets are all out.

After all, Liu Kun said that if you want to fight, you will fight hard, so you want the artillerymen to burn it. Burn. Bounce, do not give the other party a chance to breathe.

In this way, with the fighting of the artillery of the salient, the burning. Burn. One after another, the bullets entered Yamaguchi Castle, and the fire became more and more vigorous, and finally the entire Yamaguchi Castle became a large torch, and even from so far you could feel the heat of the Yamaguchi Castle fire, and you could also hear the miserable cry inside.

"Hahahaha!" Looking at the fire in Yamaguchi Castle in the distance, feeling the heat rushing to his face, and then reflecting the sunset behind Yamaguchi Castle, Liu Kunyi suddenly laughed happily, "Hide, you try to hide again?" There's nowhere to hide now, right? Hahahaha...... Originally, if you dared to fight with me, I might have let you go, and defeated you and captured you, but you shrank back and did so many disgusting things...... Hmph, that's what happens to cowards! It deserves to be a roast pig! What a roast pig, what a roast mouse! Burn you damned rats! (To be continued......)