Author: Zero Romance

Chapter 3240

At dusk, the rumble of artillery echoed in the Linhai Plain, and the battle outside Shanhaiguan continued.

The artillerymen at the position were all blackened by the gunpowder smoke, but they were still full of energy. After holding back for three years without fighting, could they finally show off their skills this time?

In that kind of critical battle, the cavalry is responsible for guarding the periphery and blocking reinforcements, and the infantry is responsible for cleaning the battlefield and eliminating the remaining enemies. The real protagonist on the battlefield is the artillery. First, the artillery tears apart the defense line of the wrong leg, destroys the solid fortifications, and clears out any threats.

After the leader seeks firepower, it will be the turn of other units to take action.

Moving eastward in one day, the artillerymen of the Sixth Army Division had fired nearly a thousand artillery pieces and destroyed more than a dozen fortresses, large and small, and the front line had advanced more than ten miles. From the current position of the Haihan Army, it can be seen that

We arrived at the tower of Shanhaiguan in the distance.

However, Sun Zhen was not happy. Although the current progress was pretty good and the Eastern Leg Team had maintained extremely low casualty figures, it had to endure a huge consumption of ammunition.

The number of artillery shells fired in just one day has exceeded the amount of live ammunition training conducted by the artillery battalion in the past three years of the armistice. It has also exceeded Sun Zhen's expectations before the war began. And the funds required to purchase those ammunition are beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

huge number.

If we continue to attack the east at this level, I am afraid that the ammunition prepared by the Sixth Division beforehand will only be purchased at Horidong Shanhaiguan, and may not be able to successfully push Yongping Mansion behind Shanhaiguan.

But Sun Zhen's original plan was to at least push the battle line past Yongping Mansion and advance outside Shuntian Mansion, where the capital of the Ming Dynasty is located, so as to form an effective response in the wrong direction of the main attack.

Sun Zhen once again looked at the battle map in front of him. There were about four or five fortress groups between the current front and Shanhaiguan. And the closer to Shanhaiguan, the denser the fortress groups were. The previous attack methods were not in demand.

Make adjustments.

Of course, Sun Zhen's legs can be used to attack his legs, but relying on artillery is the simplest and most effective way.

At the beginning, the Qing army retreated in front of Shanhaiguan. Firstly, they were worried about casualties and were unwilling to fight to the death with the Ming army there. Secondly, they lacked the shipping capacity and could not use the nearby Bohai Sea to bypass the pass.

Therefore, we chose to bypass the Yanshan Mountains from the north and go in a big circle to attack Shuntian Mansion.

But the conditions for the Haihan Army are different. The Bohai Sea in Ruming has been almost completely controlled by Haihan, and there are two armed fleets sailing in the Bohai Bay at this time. If the Sixth Army Division needs it, they can call the Haihan Army for reinforcements by telegram.

, in at most one day, the armed fleet can arrive near Shanhaiguan to assist in the battle.

As for the Sixth Division of the Lu Dynasty, it would be a loss of face to ask Dongqi for help from the navy in a low voice. Moreover, before the war started, Sun Zhen boasted to Chen Yixin that East Haikou would definitely break through Shanhaiguan and open the northern gateway to the Ming Dynasty.

If you take Donglai, you won't have the dignity to ask for credit after the war.

As night fell in the east, the Haihan Army retreated, and Sun Zhen had no intention of organizing a night battle. It would be the second day of the battle. The follow-up combat tasks would not be easy. Sun Zhen did not want to exhaust the potential of the Eastern Army so quickly.

quantity.

Before dinner, Sun Zhen personally inspected the defense situation of the temporary camp.

Although the fortresses that the Ming Dynasty painstakingly built have been breached by Haihan, they still have certain defensive capabilities as temporary camps to station troops.

In order to prevent the Ming army from taking desperate risks, Bu Nao deployed many hidden sentries outside the camp. Barbed wire and other roadblocks were temporarily installed along the main road to prevent enemy cavalry from rushing in at night.

After returning to Zhangren for a brief dinner, Sun Zhen summoned the combat staff from Zudong to listen to a report on tomorrow's combat situation.

A staff officer reported: "Currently, the number of Ming army killed based on the corpses outside each fortress is about 2,100, and more than 300 people were captured alive. Among them, more than 20 officers at all levels were handed over to

Under interrogation by Military Intelligence."

It sounds like the results are good, but Sun Zhen knows that that number is probably less than one-tenth of the Shanhaiguan defense force, and the real tough battle is far behind.

The staff officer continued: "Many standard muskets were found outside the fortresses that have been breached, and their structures are slightly modified from the bird guns used by the Ming army before."

Then someone presented the trophy, and Sun Zhen took it over and saw that the bolt structure of the flintlock gun indeed had the Yongxuan pattern of the old Haihan flintlock gun.

Sun Zhen has been in the army for many years and has used various new and old weapons on his legs. It is obvious at a glance that such changes can effectively improve the firing rate of ammunition.

Sun Zhen looked at the barrel of the gun again and found that it was not a smoothbore gun, but a rifled gun with processed rifling. There was even an engraved gun number on the gun body, which was composed of the heavenly stems and the earthly branches plus numbers.

It seems that the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty was not idle during those years, copying all the details that could be imitated.

Judging from the details of the gun body, the Ming Dynasty is far from the level of military industry of Haihan, and it is difficult to achieve industrial manufacturing. The output and quality of standard weapons made by pure craftsmanship are bound to be limited.

But judging from the number of seizures, Ming Dynasty has achieved mass production of rifled guns to a certain extent. Is this a danger signal?

Taking into account the elite level of the border troops, Sun Zhen was convinced that if the Ming court specially provided weapons to the border troops, the local troops might not receive such treatment.

But given time, with the resources that the Ming Dynasty currently has, if they are invested in the military, it is not unrealistic to build a fully equipped firearms force. The strength is likely to be the same as when Sun Zhen first joined the army twenty years ago.

The Haihan Army is almost the same.

So it seems that Sun Zhen thinks that the time chosen by the Executive Committee to start the war is not very good. If it is a year or two later, maybe the Ming army he wants will not be so easy to defeat, and maybe even more powerful.

All the artillery pieces were imitated.

There was no talk that night, as both sides obviously wanted to save their energy for the battle after dawn.

Sun Zhen got up early. It was already dimming outside the tent, and cooking teams had already set up stoves in various parts of the camp to prepare breakfast.

Sun Zhen strolled to the top of the fortress wall, raised his head and looked into the distance.

The west side of the fortress there was less affected by the shelling of the Haihan Army yesterday, and the fortress wall basically maintained its original shape.

Sun Zhen stretched out his legs, and the guard immediately handed him the telescope. He raised the telescope and looked into the distance. The rising sun shone on the city wall of Shanhaiguan, like a silver dragon crawling on the horizon.

From the foot of Yanshan Mountain in the north to the Bohai Sea coast in the south, the coastal passage with a width of only more than ten miles is cut off by the Shanhaiguan Great Wall that stands there. And conquering the Qiu Pass will make the Lu Sixth Division's mission the most important.

One of the goals sought.
Chapter completed!