The two Japanese and Italian counterparts still fought bloody battles for their respective forces in the Far East.

A month after the fighting in Shandong subsided, a new war sounded in Liaodong.

Located in Haicheng near Liaoyang, this was the front line of the Japanese army in Liaodong. It is also the place where the first battle of the 1st Guards Division in Liaodong began.

The 1st Guards Division is now different from that in Shandong, and it currently has three infantry regiments. (The 4th Regiment was asked to guard the task force at Weihai, and Vice Admiral Álvaro was not worried about the capabilities of the Qing army.) ）

Unlike Shandong, the size of the artillery of the 1st Guards Division continued to increase. At present, in addition to the 72 small and medium-caliber guns of the division, there are 55 more large-caliber guns, ranging from 120 mm to 240 mm (two 240 mm siege mortars), cannons, howitzers and other artillery figures can be seen.

I feel that the 1st Guards Division is about to become the 1st Guards Artillery Division, full of all kinds of artillery.

In fact, this can also be understood, under the premise that the Qing people pay the bill, all kinds of artillery that the army has and is developing with sample guns need to be tested. There is no more realistic scenario than the battlefield, so this also led to the increasing number of artillery of the 1st Guards Division.

Of course, the artillery is very comfortable for the next battle, and the fortifications carefully designed by the Japanese army have been reduced to ashes under the shadow of these artillery.

In front of the 1st Guards Artillery Division in the trenches, the Japanese army's own artillery was simply not enough. Not to mention that in the Japanese army, it was more of a bronze cannon that was behind the times, and this was still an imitation of the Italian 70 mm caliber mountain gun, which only had a maximum range of 3,000 and 5,000 meters.

In the final analysis, the Japanese army stubbornly chose to make its own guns, because they couldn't make their own cannon steel, so they could only make do with bronze cannons first.

And the Qing army was defeated by the Japanese army, which was inferior to its own in all kinds of weapons, and became the captain of a transport brigade.

However, when encountering the Italian army, the Japanese army's little possessions were not enough, although the Japanese army also had a small number of long-range artillery, but compared with Italy's huge long-range firepower, it was a younger brother.

After several encounters, the Japanese long-range artillery died down, and even the Japanese defenders fell to their knees in the face of extravagant shelling.

Dense shells loaded with TNT destroyed the Japanese positions. Then, under the cover of the Italian army, the Qing officers and soldiers roared and rushed towards the enemy position, which had few enemies.

Not to mention, after several such battles in a row, the morale of the Qing army also rose. From the beginning, you can only fight a few remnants of the enemy, but now you can launch an attack on the enemy's position.

Of course, this was carried out with the support of hundreds of artillery pieces of various types of artillery of the 1st Guards Division.

Once they left these accurate artillery, the Qing officers and soldiers were still like that, feeling like they were suffering from artillery dependence.

However, regardless of whether the Qing army suffered from artillery dependence or not, the battle in Liaodong was carried out in an orderly manner. The Italian-Qing coalition is driving the Japanese army out of Liaodong step by step, and although it may be a bit long, the situation is beyond doubt.

I didn't see that every week there were ammunition carriers rushing from Italy to Tianjin, and this was the guarantee of their victory. Although the price of Italian ammunition was increased by 20% due to the urgency of the time, the timely delivery of ammunition was indeed a guarantee of the war.

Well, here it is necessary to say more that one weekly ammunition carrier ship, half of which is delivered naval ammunition.

The restored task force now consumes a lot of ammunition every week, and they need to routinely patrol the Tsushima Strait, and ships passing in the Tsushima Strait are often seen shelling the ports on both sides of the strait, and basically every time they come back, the ammunition on the ships is very depleted.

To this end, the Navy also asked the transport ships to bring spare gun barrels, ready to replace the 356 mm main gun barrels that are approaching the limit of use.

Thanks to Italy's efforts, the 50 million taels of silver borrowed by Li Zhongtang were being consumed at a rate far greater than before.

"Dong Weng, the battle can't be fought like this again."

Zhou Fu, who rushed back to Tianjin from Liaodong, couldn't help but complain as soon as he entered the governor's yamen.

"The daily consumption of artillery shells alone is thousands of rounds, and tens of thousands in the face of a major war. Just transporting these shells required more than 10,000 strong men. Not to mention that with other materials, the civilian power outside the customs has been exhausted, and the money will not be enough if it continues like this. ”

Well, Lord Zhou's last sentence is the key, thinking about how many grievances Li Zhongtang has borne in order to borrow these 50 million taels of foreign debts, and how many people have been secretly accused.

That's why the money was spent too quickly, which made Zhou so anxious.

However, compared with Zhou Fu's impatience, Li Zhongtang, as the party concerned, is much slower and more reasonable.

"How many taels of silver do you consume per month now?"

"The monthly consumption of personnel, grain, grass, ammunition, etc., in Liaodong, requires nearly four million taels of silver."

Li Zhongtang nodded when he heard this, "With the nearly three million taels of silver required in Shandong, this month is almost seven million taels, and the money in hand can be managed for more than half a year, it's okay!" ”

Seeing that the benefactor was not in a hurry at all, this was not a hurry.

"My lord, the Italians are so extravagant and wasteful, and they must be stopped."

"So what do you think should be done?"

"Ask the Italians to save ammunition, we can't afford to supply it."

"What if people ignore it?"

"If you ignore it, you ........."

At this time, Zhou Fu realized that they couldn't do without the help of people.

"I know why I just asked, now I, Li Eryin, have invited someone to help me and let the court take a look. If you turn your face with someone because of this, you can be planted in an instant. ”

Hearing this, Zhou Fu couldn't help but say. "Such a major event of the country has been taken advantage of by the Italians, so that we can't stop it, we can't leave them, it's really a good calculation!"

"It's not wrong to say that it's calculated, it's just a process of mutual calculation, and I don't have enough skills to count the other party, so there's nothing to say. Now we can only hope that this battle will not be too ugly. ”

It was obvious that Li Zhongtang was more sober-minded, and he knew that he couldn't solve this matter at all. Everything depends on the face of the Italian people, but at that time, only the Italian people could save themselves, even if it was poison, he had to drink it.

But beyond that, he also sees hope. I saw Li Zhongtang take out a fold and spread it out. "This Yuan Weiting is not bad, his mind is flexible, he knows how to watch and listen more, this does not give me the idea of wanting to use Western-style military training methods and train new-style troops."

Of course, Lord Zhou knew about this Yuan Xiangcheng, as a person who was favored by Lord Weng, how could he forget it, besides, the two had also worked together in Shandong.

"What do you think about this?"

"I don't know, I heard him say that he has recruited a general of the Italian army in Weihaiwei, and he is willing to teach the Italian forbidden army the method of military training."

"That's not bad, there is such an opportunity!"

"So I thought, let's let it follow the Western-style army formation method first, and train a group of men and horses first, so that I can wait to see the results."

"Your Excellency is wise!"