In fact, the First Division was equipped with dozens of 80 mm light mortar guns, which belonged to four infantry regiments, but the gun crews of these light mortar guns themselves and the logistics reserves on the front line carried a total of nearly 5,000 light mortar shells.

Although the shells of these light mortars are slightly cheaper than the shells of howitzers, they are not much cheaper, and according to such a shell consumption, the finances of the Nanhai Prefecture will have to go bankrupt before taking Guang'an County!

But curse after curse, but still have to send these light mortar shells to the 1st Division.

Lin Ziran also sent a message to Xu Zhongshu, saying that there are only a few thousand mortar shells left in the back, you have to use it leisurely, otherwise these light mortars will be useless if you run out of shells.

Lin Ziran is a state order, and the commander-in-chief is still relatively subtle in his speech.

But the relevant officials of the logistics department were not polite, and after arriving at the position of the first division with these supplies, a logistics officer said in front of the officers of the first division who received the shells: "This shell is not a bullet, don't use the shell as a bullet!" ”

The officers of the 1st Division were so angry that they almost didn't fight on the spot.

But after such a fuss, it also let the officers and men of the First Division know that this light mortar has to be used sparingly, and it can't be used as before, one mortar cannon, and then a few hoops will shoot out the shells they carry.

After replenishing ammunition, the 1st Division was consolidating its position to guard against the enemy's counterattack, but their preparations were somewhat redundant, because the Guang'an Army on the opposite side had no intention of counterattacking at all.

There is no such strength to fight back!

The shelling that began in the morning had already caused a lot of casualties to the defenders of Guang'an, and there was also a rout, with losses of at least tens of thousands of people.

After the attack on the eastern defensive line, thousands of people were killed and wounded, and a large number of light and heavy weapons were lost.

Now the defenders of Guang'an only have 20,000 or 30,000 people left to defend by relying on the fortress of Chongguangcheng, and even if they want to counterattack, they do not have enough troops.

With the 1st Division stabilizing the defensive line, the heavy artillery units reinforced at the rear began to arrive at a number of high ground on the eastern position, and after setting up artillery, they began to shell the fortress area of Chongguang Fortress in the afternoon.

The artillery on the front and east sides shelled in unison, so that the fortress of Chongguang Castle was completely shrouded in explosions, not only the fortress itself, but even the military camps and warehouses in the city behind the fortress were subjected to intensive shelling, and the casualties were quite heavy.

This is not the point of despairing the defenders, the point is that they have never had the means to fight back.

So far, the South Navy has only engaged in a fierce battle with the defenders of Guang'an on the eastern front, and in the fortress itself, the soldiers of the South Navy are still more than 1,000 meters away, and they have dug trenches.

The infantry did not attack, but simply bombarded with artillery.

And the smoothbore artillery of the Guang'an defenders could not counterattack because of insufficient range.

This has led to a situation in which the Guang'an Army has been unilaterally beaten.

This situation can not only continue to cause casualties, but more importantly, it will cause a sharp drop in the morale of the military.

Before the Southern Navy officially launched an attack, in fact, the morale of the defenders of Guang'an was quite good, even ordinary soldiers thought that they were relying on a strong defensive line and fortress to defend the battle, and it would be easy to fight.

But after the South China Navy launched an offensive this morning, the way of fighting and the course of the battle were not expected by most of the Guang'an defenders.

Not to mention the rapid loss of the eastern defensive line, and in the process of loss, the defenders had almost no ability to resist, not to mention the continuous defeat and retreat, and suffered heavy casualties.

More importantly, the Guang'an defenders have not been able to come up with an effective countermeasure until now.

They didn't even know how to resist the attack of the South Navy.

In this case, not only the morale of ordinary soldiers is low, but even the middle and senior generals are worried.

They thought about it repeatedly, but they couldn't think of a way to resist the attack of the South China Navy.

If you want to resist the attack of the Southern Navy, then you need to counter the opponent's heavy artillery troops, if the opponent's heavy artillery units are allowed to continue to bomb like this, the fortress of Chongguang City will not last for a few days.

However, their smoothbore guns simply did not have such a long range and simply could not hit the rear-loading artillery positions of the Southern Navy.

Even many of their own artillery batteries have been almost devastated.

From the beginning of the afternoon, there was already a pessimistic atmosphere in the city.

And in the evening, when the enemy's artillery bombardment was getting more and more accurate, the casualties in the city were getting bigger and bigger, and even two munitions depots were hit, and then the explosions were caused, the atmosphere in the city was not just pessimistic, but already with despair.

That night, many Guang'an soldiers had quietly escaped from the defense line at night and fled towards the north.

Although there are no accurate statistics, at least a thousand soldiers quietly fled the front line that night.

It's just that because of the night, and most of these soldiers ran secretly, it didn't cause a large-scale collapse.

However, by the next day, even in broad daylight, there were already a large number of soldiers who had fled, and there were even cases where companies and battalion-level troops were separated from the battlefield in formation under the leadership of officers.

Because the fortress of Chongguang Castle during the day has completely turned into a hell on earth.

Taking advantage of last night, the Yugoslav Navy moved part of its heavy artillery units to the high ground on the east side, and moved some of its 75-mm field guns and howitzers forward.

By daytime, the total number of light and heavy artillery pieces of about 300 was already able to completely cover the entire city.

The intensive artillery bombardment brought even more heavy casualties, and their own side could only hide and could not fight back, which made many middle and lower-ranking officers have the idea of fleeing the battlefield.

In this battle, whoever likes to fight will fight, anyway, Lao Tzu will leave first.

In the evening, the 1st Cavalry Brigade, which monitored the direction of the north flank, reported that during the day, at least 3,000 defenders had retreated northward, and many of them had retreated in formation.

The 1st Cavalry Brigade, on order, did not attack the retreating enemy troops.

This was to give the defenders of the city hope of a successful retreat, and to shake their determination to hold on.

If the defenders in the city can't help but run away, then the Southern Navy will definitely go high.

Once there are no defenders, no matter how strong the fortress is, it will only be a dead city, and considering the large number of casualties caused by the strong attack with a large number of infantry, the Southern Navy would rather let them run away than surround them and let them resist to the end.

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