This Third Division of the Beiyang Army was completely different from the Zhu Rui Third Division he had encountered before, not to mention the ruthlessness, just based on the standardized military movements shown by the opponent when he charged, it was said that it was incomparable to other warlord troops.

At present, the Beiyang Army is at its peak, and the Third and Fifth Divisions, which are descendants of the Beiyang Army, still maintain the equipment and establishment of the former New Army, and the quality of this regular army is incomparable with other warlord units that have been temporarily pulled up.

The artillery of both sides is still constantly shelling, and at this moment, the national army is not only equipped with mountain artillery and field artillery for shelling, but also a large number of mortars for shelling, so for a while, the front-line artillery strength of the national army has been greatly strengthened, which makes Tang Tianxi and Zhang Muhan and others who are watching the battle in the rear a little surprised.

"There are at least two battalions of artillery here, although the caliber is a little smaller, but how can there be so many?" Zhang Muhan didn't quite believe what he said, this battalion is eighteen, but this eighteen is not on the entire front, but only one of them, the Beiyang Army also concentrated a battalion of artillery for artillery support for this tentative attack, but they never thought that the artillery density of the national army would far exceed them.

"Didn't you say that the artillery regiment of the National Army only had thirty-six guns, how could this be? Did they shoot all the artillery here? Zhang Muhan couldn't figure it out, and Tang Tianxi couldn't figure it out either.

Did the Nationalist Army really transfer two battalions of artillery support in this small section of the defensive line, no. The reason why Zhang Muhan and Tang Tianxi had the illusion was because of the presence of a large number of mortars in the national army.

This time, the 13th Regiment did not get much artillery support, only one battalion of 12 guns, that is, eight guns, but the 13th Regiment itself was equipped with a lot of mortars, there were six 80 mm mortars, and then each battalion also had six 60 mm mortars, plus the mortar rate of fire was relatively fast, and the mortar was light and mobile, and it often shifted its position after a few shots, so it created the illusion that the Beiyang Army on the opposite side had a large number of artillery support.

The artillery of both sides shelled fiercely, but the artillery damage suffered by both sides was different, the national army was hiding in the trenches to defend, so although facing the fierce shelling of the Beiyang Army, it did not suffer too much losses, while the Beiyang Army was in a state of offensive charge, and suffered a lot of casualties after suffering intensive artillery strikes in the open field.

Although the Beiyang Army of this battalion is still continuing to advance, and the forward troops have entered the infantry combat distance of three or four hundred meters, Tang Tianxi, who is in the rear, frowns more and more.

When the Beiyang Army rushed closer and closer, the light and heavy machine guns on the National Army front also began to be suppressed from a distance, and as soon as the machine guns were fired, the Beiyang Army in front was completely suppressed, this is, the commander of the Beiyang Army on the front line had to order to find cover, and then the soldiers began to shoot at the National Army.

Tang Tianxi looked at the front-line troops being suppressed, and his face was dark: "It seems that the weapons and equipment of the national army are better than we imagined, and the artillery is at least not inferior to our army, and the machine gun is far superior to our army. ”

Tang Tianxi didn't have the concept of light and heavy machine guns now, and he didn't look at them carefully just now, so he regarded the light machine guns attached to the national army battalion as heavy machine guns, and the heavy machine guns that the regiment headquarters strengthened the battalion, Tang Tianxi counted the number of eight heavy machine guns. And the Beiyang Army is now a division equipped with twenty-four heavy machine guns as standard, so it can't even compare with the other party's total regiment. In fact, he also miscalculated, the Nationalist Army's heavy machine guns in one division are only eighteen, which is much less than that of the Beiyang Army, but the Nationalist Army is equipped with a lot of light machine guns, and the number of the two adds up to forty or fifty.

He roughly estimated the weapons and equipment of the national army in his heart, and then pondered for a while and said, "You are ready to cover and let the battalion in front withdraw!" ”

Since it is a test of firepower, then the battalion in front of it has already completed its mission, and it is useless to continue to spend it there, and maybe there will be greater casualties, so it is better to withdraw directly.

After Tang Tianxi gave the order, the Beiyang Army once again carried out a large-scale artillery bombardment, and then several battalions in front launched an attack at the same time, but this time they were not really charging, but making a false statement, and at this time the battalion in front also began to retreat slowly.

When watching the battalion of the Beiyang Army quickly withdraw under the cover of a large number of Beiyang Army, Xu Jingqing, who had been watching the occupation, sighed: "This Beiyang Army is really a strong enemy!" ”

After sighing, he immediately sent a telegram to the division headquarters, describing this short confrontation in detail, and reminding the division commander Chen Weihua to pay careful attention to the Beiyang Army.

After reading Xu Jingqing's telegram, Chen Weihua immediately forwarded it to the Hangzhou Command, so that the Hangzhou Command had a more intuitive feeling of the overall strength of the Beiyang Army, after all, the Nationalist Army's impression of the Beiyang Army was hearsay before, and there was no actual contact at all, and now Xu Jingqing's 13th Regiment and a battalion of the Ninth Regiment of the Fifth Brigade of the Third Division of the Beiyang Army had a head-to-head confrontation.

This confrontation also marked the official engagement of the Nationalist Army and the Beiyang Army.

Tang Tianxi also sent a relevant battle report to Cao Kun, and emphasized that the Nationalist Army was equipped with a large number of machine guns and small-caliber rapid-fire guns, although the other side was inferior to our army in terms of medium and large-caliber artillery, but in the small-caliber rapid-fire mountain artillery, they had a great advantage, especially when it came to close artillery support for the infantry.

"Small-caliber rapid-fire guns?" Cao Kun looked at this report and didn't understand it very well: "Even if they are all equipped with 57 mm rapid-fire mountain artillery, it is impossible to achieve such a large number!" ”

On the same day, he led the main force of the Third Division to the periphery of Zhenjiang and joined the Fifth Brigade, and that night, he sent a regiment to try to raid, and the 11th Regiment of the Nationalist Army had a fierce night battle.

The Beiyang Army wanted to get off to a good start, and the previous victory record of the Beiyang Army made them full of confidence, even in the face of the fierce firepower of the National Army, they still launched continuous offensives. As for the Nationalist Army, the commander of the 11th Regiment has received Chen Weihua's death order, if the 11th Regiment loses its position, then he Chen Weihua will personally shoot him.

After a night of fierce fighting between the two sides, Cao Kun found that his 10th Regiment had suffered six or seven hundred casualties, such a large casualty made him unexpected, and even wondered at first that the report sent below was wrong, and then when he personally went to the 10th Regiment to inspect, when he saw the wounded soldiers in patches, he turned his head to Tang Tianxi and said: "It seems that what you said yesterday was right!" ”

In the face of the fierce attack of the Beiyang Army, especially the shelling of dozens of 75-millimeter artillery pieces of the Beiyang Army, the Nationalist Army suffered heavy casualties, and the 11th Regiment, which faced the main attack last night, suffered more than 400 casualties. This is still the result of relying on fortifications to defend and wait for work, and if it is a frontal encounter, I am afraid that the casualties of the first division will be even more serious.

In addition to the casualties of soldiers, the consumption of ammunition is even more, especially in terms of artillery shells, in the previous engagement, the shelling of both sides has hardly stopped, and although the rate of fire of a large number of mortars assembled by the national army is fast enough, the consumption of shells is not ordinarily large.

Therefore, after only one day of fighting, Chen Weihua had already personally sent a telegram to Chen Jingyun asking for help, especially asking for a large amount of ammunition supplies.

Although Chen Jingyun did not go to the front line, he already felt the pressure of the front-line troops from Chen Weihua's words, and immediately asked Sun Guangliang to give priority to replenishing supplies from Zhenjiang. Sun Guangliang is also under a lot of pressure on the matter of supply, before the national army in northern Zhejiang reserved a large amount of ammunition, according to the logic is enough, but now the four divisions of the national army have entered the southern Jiangsu region, the southern Jiangsu region is densely covered with water networks, transportation is inconvenient, especially the second and seventh divisions in the land direction occupy a large number of the national army's logistics and transportation forces.

The 1st and 4th Divisions in the direction of Zhenjiang are better, after all, there is a Nanjing-Hangzhou Railway and Shanghai-Nanjing Railway that can be used, which is much more convenient for transporting supplies. It's just that now the logistics system of the Nationalist Army is already operating at full capacity, and the logistical supplies of the first and fourth divisions have been accurately calculated, and if the supply volume is suddenly increased, the normal operation of the logistics system of the Nationalist Army in southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang will be disrupted.

However, the pressure on Zhenjiang is so great, even if there are many troubles in the logistics system, Sun Guangliang can only hold on and say: "No problem, I'll arrange it!" ”

The pressure on the 1st Division on the Zhenjiang side was very high, and Chen Jingyun soon ordered the 4th Division and the 3rd Jiangsu Division to support the 1st Division and share part of the pressure.

At the same time, Sa Zhenbing's naval fleet was ordered to carry out artillery bombardment of the Beiyang Army on the army.

On the morning of the 27th, Sa Zhenbing's naval fleet carried out a large-scale artillery bombardment of Cao Kun's Third Division in accordance with the guidance of the army, and the naval artillery bombardment was much more ferocious than that of the army; in addition to the eight-inch guns of the Haiqi, there were also six guns of the other three cruisers, as well as a large number of four-inch guns and three-inch guns, and the intensity of the artillery bombardment of this fleet far exceeded that of the army artillery, especially those 150 mm and 200 mm large-caliber naval guns, which were a major blow to Cao Kun's Third Division.

So much so that Cao Kun had to move ten miles to the south in order to avoid artillery strikes on the Laizhijiang River.

From the 27th to the 28th, the 3rd Beiyang Division launched another large-scale attack on the 1st Division of the periphery defenders of Zhenjiang and the 3rd Division of Jiangsu, and on the night of the 27th, a regiment under the 3rd Division of Jiangsu was routed one after another, and Dong Hong was simply unable to stop the collapse of his troops.

The defeat of the Jiangsu 3rd Division allowed Cao Kun to quickly seize the opportunity and forcibly break through the position of the Jiangsu 3rd Division, and then attempt to form a cross-faceted attack on the 1st Division of the Nationalist Army on the flank.

In order to avoid falling into a semi-encircled state, Chen Weihua ordered to abandon the original position and organize a retreat, and in the process of transferring, he was pursued by the cavalry regiment of the Third Division of the Beiyang Army, suffered heavy casualties, and lost a large number of heavy weapons and equipment.

When the 4th Division of the 29th National Army came with urgent reinforcements and the 1st Division regained its position, only one and a half of the three divisions defending Zhenjiang remained. The 3rd Division of Jiangsu has been completely defeated, even Dong Hong does not know where to run, the 1st Division, the main force of the Nationalist Army, has suffered heavy losses in the process of retreating, if it is not for the reinforcements of the 2 regiments of the 4th Division, then it is still a question whether the 1st Division can return to Zhenjiang.

In the battle between the Beiyang Army and the National Army in the direction of Zhenjiang, the first [***] scale of the battle, ended in a crushing defeat of the National Army!