readx; On the Yangtze River, three huge warships cautiously sailed upstream along the river, and these three warships were the Changle-class gunboats that the Nationalist Army had only commissioned in the first half of the year. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

After Chen Jingyun established the Generalissimo's Office, it was set up with the Commander's Headquarters and the Government Affairs Yuan, and the original Navy Department became the Admiralty, and Sa Zhenbing became the Chief of the Admiralty. Naturally, the original Nationalist Army and Navy were all transferred to the Nanjing Provisional Political Axe, and there was no change in the establishment, ships, and personnel appointments. The First Fleet was mainly composed of four cruisers, the Haiqi, Haichou, Hairong, and Haichen, supplemented by five small 400-ton destroyers that had returned to China one after another, and the original destroyer Flying Eagle.

The Second Fleet gathered a large number of gunboats, including five gunboats of the Changle class, Jiangzi-class gunboats, Chuzi-class gunboats and a number of remaining gunboats, some of which had been forced to retire and divert military funds for the cost of other warships. The positioning of the Second Fleet and the First Fleet is different, the First Fleet is a cruiser fleet for ocean-going operations, and the main fleet is concentrated in the Jiangyin base and the Shanghai base, and is active in the Yangtze River part east of Nanjing, the Yangtze River west of Nanjing is a huge threat to the warships of the First Fleet, the water depth and other river obstacles are a huge threat, and the ocean-going destroyers of the same size have a much deeper draft than the gunboats of the same type, so if it is not necessary, the main force of the First Fleet will not easily advance along the west of the Yangtze River, and it is not the army heavy artillery of the Beiyang Army that is afraid. Instead, he was afraid that he would run aground and cause damage to the ship.

However, the Second Fleet was equipped with gunboats, and with so many gunboats, the inland river cruising and other tasks were naturally entrusted to the Second Fleet. There are three river systems under the control of the Nationalist Army, namely the Yangtze River, the Pearl River, and the Min River, of which the Min River is not a big river, and it cannot be driven into large warships, so the Second Fleet only stationed a gunboat detachment in Fuzhou Harbor, and the Fourth Gunboat Detachment has only two gunboats of less than 300 tons, the Ganquan and the Wufeng. However, Fuzhou also has a training fleet, that is, the Third Fleet, and three training cruisers that have only entered service this year, which are more than 32,500 tons. Fortunately, the strength of the navy in the Yangtze River is acceptable, and the Beiyang Army has now completely lost its navy, so the Admiralty will leave these three big guys of the Third Fleet in Fuzhou to do their own work: training naval officers and men!

In the Pearl River, the Admiralty did not leave too many troops, and only deployed a fifth gunboat detachment in Guangzhou, which had four gunboats ranging from 500 to 800 tons, namely the Lianjing, Fu'an, Jianwei, and Jian'an.

Neither the Pearl River nor the Minjiang River had much naval strength, and that was because the Yangtze River held back too many naval forces. Needless to say, the First Fleet is the main fleet cruising the Yangtze River, and at the same time, it is also the most important weapon to ensure that the Nationalist Army crosses the river from southern Jiangsu, and it is also an important factor in preventing the Beiyang Army from crossing the river in southern Jiangsu. The Second Fleet also deployed five Changle-class gunboats of the First Gunboat Detachment, six Chuzi-class gunboats of the Second Gunboat Detachment, and four Jiangzi-class gunboats of the Third Gunboat Detachment on the Yangtze River.

In addition to the four Jiangzi-class gunboats to be deployed to Jiujiang, there are also five Changle-class and six Chu-class gunboats to be used as the navy's naval presence in Wuhu, Anqing, and other southern Anhui regions, and when necessary, the navy will also dispatch the First Fleet to venture into the middle waterway of the Yangtze River. As for now, it has not yet reached that point, and the navy is naturally reluctant to let a few capital ships run aground into the middle of the Yangtze River. Therefore, when the Nationalist Army launched the plan to cross the river, the most important naval fire cover was to come from the First Gunboat Detachment and the Second Gunboat Detachment, five Changle-class and six Chuzi-class, a total of 11 gunboats.

Although the Changle-class gunboats were specially designed and built as inland river gunboats, the draft of the Changle-class is actually not shallow, about 2.5 meters, plus a displacement of nearly 800 tons, it is more than 60 meters long and 9 meters wide. If such a size looks very small on the sea, then the Yangtze River basin east of Nanjing is enough for the Changle-class gunboats to gallop at full speed. However, as soon as the Yangtze River waterway passed through Nanjing, it suddenly became narrower, and the water depth was not high, and more importantly, there were many reefs in these channels, so that even if a gunboat like the Changle class could drive in, it was also cautious and slowly moving upstream in order to avoid running aground.

Admiral Jin Hongye, commander of the 1st Gunboat Detachment, stood on the command platform of his captain Le, looking down at an order in his hand. This order was sent directly to the Changle by the Admiralty last night, ordering the 1st Gunboat Detachment, which was near Wuhu at that time, to continue westward, to cooperate with the army to cross the river, and to provide fire support to the army. After receiving the order, Jin Hongye knew that the much-rumored plan to cross the river had finally begun, although Jin Hongye himself did not know where the main direction of the national army's attack was, but now it seems that Wuhu must be one of them.

After receiving the order last night, Jin Hongye led the first gunboat detachment westward to the designated place, but Liu Hongye's luck was a little worse, just -- not long after, a gunboat accidentally ran aground, forcing Liu Hongye to abandon the gunboat and then lead four Changle-class gunboats to continue westward, but in the morning, a gunboat due to carelessness, collided with a passing cargo ship, even the loading was forgotten, but also knocked out a big hole in his bow, not only the front main gun was damaged, and even the hull was flooded. This made Liu Hongye angrily scolded his mother: "This group of recruits is completely dereliction of duty, dereliction of duty ......"

Liu Hongye himself was born in the Fuzhou Shipbuilding School, and then went to the United Kingdom to study for several years, interned on the British * ship, and after returning to China, he served on the Haiqi, the first cruiser of the former Qing Dynasty. After the large-scale service of the Changle-class gunboats, he Liu Hongye became the captain of the Changle. Subsequently, when the First Fleet and the Second Fleet were divided, the Second Fleet set up five gunboat detachments based on the principle of a number of gunboats of the same type, and the five Changle-class gunboats were also divided into the first gunboat detachment.

Liu Hongye's education and service experience can be regarded as a microcosm of the current middle and high-level admirals in the Chinese Navy, almost all of them are almost the same model. However, among the many grassroots naval officers in the navy at present, there are a large number of low-quality officers, and the Chinese navy is now in the stage of large-scale expansion, and more than 10 warships have been put into service this year, and these are all large ships that need many naval officers to drive these warships, and although the navy of the national army has inherited the entire Chinese navy as a whole, there are only so many qualified naval officers trained in the pre-Qing era, and if there is too much expansion at once, it will not be able to meet the shortage of many senior officers at all. Not to mention, the warships ordered by China in the United States are about to return home, and a few of them have even been launched for outfitting sea trials, for which the Chinese Navy has sent a large number of naval personnel to the United States to receive warships. As a result, the navy, which already lacks qualified officers and men, is even more short of manpower.

As a last resort, the Admiralty also used a large number of students from the Fuzhou Naval Academy, and even pulled out those students who had not yet graduated to serve in advance. Naturally, the quality of naval officers who have not undergone training and advanced studies in the navies of the great powers is naturally not any better.

Liu Hongye has many such grassroots officers under him, and the skills and quality of these people make Liu Hongye extremely dissatisfied, but he is dissatisfied, and he has no way to change the status quo.

After a rough journey, Liu Hongye finally led the remaining three Changle-class gunboats to arrive at the designated location, and in front of them, there were already six Chuzi-class gunboats of the Second Gunboat Detachment of the National Army waiting. When Liu Hongye arrived, Lu Jiannai, the captain of the Second Gunboat Detachment, was Liu Hongye's classmate, not only a graduate of the same period of the Fuzhou Shipbuilding School, but also the same period when he studied in the UK, and even when he went to the British Fleet for an internship later, it was still a period, so the two of these classmates for more than ten years naturally couldn't help but say a few words of greetings after seeing each other, and when Lu Jian learned that the two gunboats led by Liu Hongye had lost their combat effectiveness because one was stranded and the other was hit, the boss who opened his mouth made Liu Hongye's face flush. In the end, he snorted coldly and walked out.

After returning to the Changle, Liu Hongye was still a little upset, but he was annoyed, and soon he received an order from the command of the Second Army on the Wuhu side to let the naval ships carry out long-distance artillery bombardment in such and such directions. After Liu Hongye received the order, he did not dare to slack off, and after discussing with Lu Jian for a while, he simply established a plan for the bombardment, and then the nine gunboats anchored on the river had already opened fire on the north one after another. The main gun on the Changle class is a 105 mm naval gun, and the main gun on the Chu class is two 120 mm naval guns (the naval gun models are varied, and the description of the three-inch, four-inch, and five-inch guns in the previous article is inaccurate, and accurate numbers will be used in the future), it is worth noting that these Changle-class naval guns and the naval guns on the Chu-class and even the Jiang-class are all made naval guns, so there will be 105 calibers, 120 calibers, not standard inch calibers! At present, after obtaining a large amount of technical information, the Shanghai Arsenal has begun to imitate the American-style four-inch naval gun, and the Southeast Iron and Steel Plant has also trial-produced relevant special steel according to the requirements of the Arsenal.

Compared with the relatively smooth progress of land artillery, the development of naval naval guns is particularly difficult. Although the current army cannon is not easy for the Fuzhou Arsenal, and the 75-mm field gun has not been mass-produced until now, the caliber of the naval cannon used by the navy is higher than that of the army field artillery, and the dynamic is 40 times or more than 45 times, which is extremely strict for the requirements for the barrel of the artillery. Although it is difficult, this difficulty will not last long, because based on the Sino-US military aid plan, Chen Jingyun has used a large amount of loan funds to purchase a large number of weapons, especially the technical patents of artillery, and the patents of various special steels required to manufacture artillery have also been purchased, so as long as the Southeast Iron and Steel Plant imitates the production according to the drawings delivered by the United States, it can imitate a large number of special steels, and the Fuzhou Arsenal can also use these raw materials to carry out relevant imitation production. Now for the Southeast Iron and Steel Plant, Fuzhou Arsenal and Shanghai Arsenal, what is lacking is not the technical drawings, but time, they need time to install and debug the purchased equipment, the Southeast Iron and Steel Plant now has technical drawings in hand, just waiting for a large number of equipment to be installed and expanded for production, now what they lack is time. After all, to build a large steel plant and a large arsenal, it takes not a day or two, but a year, even two years, or more than three years.

Now, the main guns of the Chuzi class and the Changle class and a considerable number of three-inch secondary guns are based on the target instructions provided by the army, and carry out long-distance artillery bombardment, these naval guns are all high-caliber cannons, and the firing range is much larger than that of the army's artillery. And in a valley outside everyone's sight, the explosion of an artillery position of the Beiyang Army made the commander of the artillery battalion under the ** Brigade of the Third Division of the Beiyang Army tremble, and the ** Brigade of the Third Division was deployed in the front line, just across the Yangtze River from Wuhu, and if the National Army wanted to cross the river from the direction of Wuhu, then the first thing to encounter was this ** brigade.

Due to the intelligence reconnaissance ability, Feng Guozhang now does not know where the national army has gathered the main force, although it can be guessed that the national army is either in southern Anhui or southern Jiangsu, but this section of the distance is so long, where is the place to cross the river? Feng Guozhang didn't know, and the ** Brigade of the Third Division naturally didn't know, across the Yangtze River, they didn't even know how many people there were in the National Army on the other side.

The headquarters of the Second Army had already learned the approximate location of this ** brigade through aerial reconnaissance, and had detected the location of their artillery battalion a few days ago, and Ma Cheng did not shell them across the river at that time, because the distance was too far, and all the subordinate units of the Second Army were equipped with 75-caliber artillery, of which the field artillery had a firing range of only 6,000 to 7,000 meters, and the mountain artillery was only 4,000 or 5,000 meters lower. Therefore, Ma Chengcheng waited until the day of the general attack, using the naval artillery as the main force, and then the army's field artillery to carry out intensive bombardment, and cut off this artillery battalion at one time, so as to eliminate the biggest threat to the battle plan of crossing the river and obtain a safe guarantee for the safe crossing of the river by the army.

Now the artillery of the navy has begun, and the Second Army has also concentrated the field artillery battalions of various divisions, and then carried out intensive artillery bombardment on the artillery battalion of the Beiyang Army on the opposite bank. The artillery bombardment, which lasted for up to half an hour, has completely turned this artillery position into ruins, even though half of the artillery is still intact, but the gun position has been blown up, and even a small number of ammunition has been caused to detonate, and more importantly, this artillery position has been known to the national army, if it is not transferred, then the national army can carry out an artillery bombardment here at any time. Moreover, judging from the explosive power of the falling shells, the opponent could never be the 75 guns commonly used by the army, but four-inch and five-inch guns, and the range of these naval guns was much farther than the commonly used army 75 guns, so it was not feasible to counterattack on the spot.

Therefore, the commander of the artillery battalion of the Beiyang Army was also decisive, and immediately ordered an emergency transfer, and the twelve mountain guns that were still intact were collected and transferred in a puff of smoke, preparing to reach the next spare artillery position.

At the same time, in Wuhu City, Ma Cheng, the commander of the Second Army, said with a cold face to the generals below: "This battle is related to the survival of our national army and the unification of China. The marshal handed over the task of the main attack to our Second Army, which is a trust in our Ma Cheng and all the monarchs here! Please do not disappoint the marshal's expectations and do your best to win this battle! ”

Many generals of the Second Army below naturally echoed it, and more people looked forward to it with excitement, looking forward to adding a gold star to their epaulettes in this battle.

Chen Jingyun has already released his words, and he has prepared the rank of general to all the generals in this battle! Just waiting for you to make meritorious contributions to get this military rank, the rank of general is taken out, then the rank of lieutenant general will be more, in every large-scale war, it is when Chen Jingyun gives his generals a big promotion, and it can be expected that in this war, the national army will have a lot of generals, lieutenant generals, and at the same time, a large number of capable officers will also be promoted to major generals and enter the national army general sequence.

Previously, Chen Jingyun's military rank was general, in order to avoid having the same military rank as his subordinates, and in order to be able to distinguish the gap with Tang Jiyao and Lu Rongting, Chen Jingyun announced the establishment of a marshal among generals without shame, and awarded this military rank to himself.

In this way, Chen Jingyun's position is generalissimo, and the military rank is marshal. Many people changed the title of Chen Jingyun to marshal, and the previous word commander was no longer used in public except for the fact that he held Chen Jingyun's lineage and was a relatively close general, and occasionally talked about it in private.

Chen Jingyun himself promoted himself to marshal, in order to give up the rank of general to his subordinates, otherwise he would be a general one day, and the generals below would not be promoted to general for a day. And Chen Jingyun's move makes it clear that the position has been vacated for you, and whoever can be the first to become a general depends on your own creation.

The eyes that can stare at the position of generals are nothing more than the lieutenant generals in the national army, especially a few people such as the four army commanders and the three commanders, and more major generals are staring at the lieutenant generals.

After the naval and artillery units launched the artillery bombardment, a regiment under the Ninth Division had already boarded a ship under the cover of the navy and was preparing to cross the river, followed by a large number of engineering troops, and the engineers needed to quickly erect the pontoon bridge with various materials that had been prepared for a long time, and only after the pontoon bridge could they be able to meet the large army to cross the river, after all, in addition to 50,000 or 60,000 people who wanted to cross the river, there were also a large number of weapons and baggage, and it was impossible to transport them all by boat. Moreover, in addition to the troops themselves, there are also a large number of civilians organized by the logistics department in the rear, and these civilians will also follow behind the troops to transport logistical supplies for the front-line Nationalist combat units.

When the high command put forward the plan to cross the river, it even proposed to build a permanent bridge directly on the Yangtze River, but it was abandoned due to the huge project and the great technical difficulty, and the only way to do so was to choose a reinforced pontoon bridge for the transportation of logistical supplies.

More than 2,000 people from a regiment of the Ninth Division took small wooden boats and other small wooden unarmed boats to the opposite bank under the cover of the navy, although they encountered a certain degree of resistance, but the resistance of the ** Brigade of the Third Division of the Beiyang Army was not great, obviously they also knew that it was very unfavorable for them to fight the Nationalist Army with naval artillery support on the shore, so the focus of defense was not on the riverside, but in the towns north of the Yangtze River.

The 92nd Regiment of the 9th Division set up a beachhead and began to cover the erection of pontoon bridges by engineering units!

The battle plan for crossing the river, which the National Army had been preparing for many months, finally began at this moment, and the moment the pontoon bridge was erected, it was the time when the main force of the National Army waved its troops north!