The defense line of Chongguang City does not mean that there is only one lonely Chongguang City, but a defense line arranged along the canyons on the east and west banks of the Luo River.

On the west bank of the Luo River, there is only a short section, about 1,000 meters, and the terrain is complicated.

On the east bank of the Luo River, it is wider, about 4,000 meters, and the middle terrain of the 4,000-meter defense line is relatively high, and the Chongguang Fortress is located.

Therefore, the Chongguang Fortress refers to an entire defense system, not just a Chongguang Fortress.

The target of the 1st Division's roundabout attack was the eastern defense line of the Chongguangcheng fortress.

As long as the first division can break through the eastern defense line, then it can directly open the passage and let its own cavalry troops bypass and go deep into the hinterland of Guang'an, not to mention, it can also directly cut off the connection between Chongguang City and the hinterland of Guang'an, and surround Chongguang City.

However, this was not the strategic goal of the 1st Division, the absolute main force, to detour the eastern defensive line.

The purpose of the 1st Division's detour to the eastern side of the line was simple, to capture the side of the place near the Nanzi Mountains, where there were several strategic high points that could be used to deploy artillery.

According to the artillery director's prediction, once artillery is deployed here, it will be able to cover a number of strategic points in the attack on Chongguang Castle, so as to support the infantry units in launching a final general attack.

As for the siege of the fortress of Chongguang Castle, it does not make any sense!

This kind of fortress has hoarded a large amount of supplies, and they can still support it for several months or even more than half a year simply by encircling and cutting off their logistical supply lines.

After really surrounding and fighting for several months, Xu Teng's army had already been killed.

In the battle plan drawn up by the General Staff, only five to ten days were given to take the fortress of Chongguang City.

In fact, it is also possible to break through the eastern defense line and ignore the Chongguangcheng fortress, leaving a certain amount of troops to surround the Chongguangcheng fortress, and other troops can directly bypass and go deep into the hinterland of Guang'an, but in this way, their own logistics supply lines will be easily cut off.

There are tens of thousands of enemy troops in Chongguang Castle.

So the best way, and the only way, is to take down this fortress of Chongguang City.

The First Division, led by Xu Zhongshu himself, was very fast, and they had arrived at the predetermined combat location about an hour after the battle began.

After seeing the 1st Division return to its position, the artillery units in the rear once again launched a heavy shelling, and this time the heavy shelling was concentrated on the eastern defensive line.

The intensive shelling of more than 200 artillery pieces gave great support to the attacking troops of the 1st Division.

The enemy's infantry lines, which were hit by artillery and could not raise their heads, could not be stopped at all and put up effective resistance.

In fact, not to mention being suppressed by artillery so badly, even if it is not suppressed by artillery, it is difficult for the infantry of the opposing side to resist the attack of the first division!

Why?

Because they were simply not adapted to the offensive of the 1st Division.

Even these troops are equipped with a lot of Fuyuan muskets and Fuyuan breech rifles, but their tactics are still old-fashioned line tactics.

There were even front-line officers who stupidly led their troops in a dense formation to meet the battle, only to be killed and wounded down after a burst of intensive fire from the infantry of the 1st Division lying on the ground.

More enemy troops hid in the trenches and shot at resistance, but this scattered resistance could not stop the movement of the 1st Division at all.

The front-line troops of the 1st Division frequently launched various roundabout attacks!

This kind of roundabout attack is not a regiment, battalion, or other large-scale unit, but a roundabout attack is carried out in a company, platoon, or even a squad unit.

Usually the frontal forces maintained the suppression of fire, and some of the troops launched strikes from the flanks in a roundabout way.

As we fought, the enemy forces on the eastern defense line found that most of their own defense line had been captured, and even many troops were in a situation of being surrounded by many sides.

Naturally, these Guang'an troops would not allow themselves to fall into an encirclement, so they would organize a retreat.

A company retreated, a battalion, a regiment successively lost almost all of the eastern defense line in this process of being caught in an encirclement and then retreating!

About two hours after the 1st Division launched the attack, Xu Zhongshu reported that our division had captured most of the enemy's positions and was pursuing the enemy and preparing for a counterattack on the enemy's flank.

This effectively meant that the 1st Division had captured the eastern defensive line.

The 1st Division, under the strong cover of the artillery units, captured the eastern defensive line, and the artillery units immediately took direct action, and the 1st Artillery Battalion and the 2nd Artillery Battalion under the 1st Heavy Artillery Regiment, which had been prepared in advance, began to rapidly move to the front line.

In order to ensure the mobility of these artillery units, a large number of horses were drawn from the troops, so that each artillery piece had an abundant or even seriously overstaffed ration of service horses to ensure the speed of mobility.

In order to haul the 150mm howitzers of the 1st Heavy Artillery Regiment faster, even the more delicate Lar horses were pulled up by hundreds.

Originally, these ralmars were not very adapted to the climate of Nanhai Prefecture, and it was more troublesome to feed them on weekdays, and they had to be even more careful when using them, but now, the artillery units did not take care of them too much.

Directly let hundreds of lal horses act as the main service horses for towing heavy artillery, and pull these two-ton guns to advance on the field.

On the route planned in advance, even in order to speed up the speed and let the artillery and ammunition trucks pass, the accompanying sappers even carried wooden piles, steel beams, steel plates and other materials for erecting small-scale temporary bridges.

Along with these artillery units, there was also the baggage regiment of the 1st Division, and the officers and men of the baggage regiment carried hundreds of four-wheeled freight wagons and carried dozens of tons of supplies to replenish the supplies of the 1st Division.

Most of them are ammunition!

The 1st Division had spent a lot of ammunition in the previous attack!

Needless to say, the Luo'an III rifle is equipped with all-metal bullets, which is easy to use, but the consumption of bullets is also quite fast, according to the report of the first division itself, they have consumed at least 150,000 rounds of ammunition in the previous more than two hours of fighting.

Many of the troops who act as sharp knives and always fight on the front line have wiped out all the bullets they carry, and they need the support bullets of superior troops and even friendly forces.

In addition, there is a very expensive item that is the shells of the 80mm light mortar gun!

The 1st Division was the first unit in the whole army to be equipped with 80-mm light mortars, and this 80-mm light mortar was a completely different concept from the 120-mm light mortar used in the past.

This is not to say that there is much difference in their guns themselves, in fact, they are still front-loading smoothbore short-barreled ultralight guns, which weigh only a few tens of kilograms.

The difference between them is the shells!

The 80-millimeter light mortar uses an integrated fixed-cone shell with a firing fuse at the bottom of the shell, and the shell can be fired by gravity after the shell is lowered from the shell.

Moreover, the tail of this shell also has a tail fin, which greatly improves the stability of the shell's flight, and thus brings greater effective range and accuracy!

What happens when such barrels, gun carriages and shells are combined?

Mortars appeared!

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