After the Nanyang Army completely annihilated the French indigenous colonial army, it began to send Annam and Chinese intelligence agents to infiltrate the strongholds occupied by the French to reconnoiter the French army's defense intelligence.

On March 24, with the help of information obtained from more than 300 intelligence officers, the Nanyang Corps drew up a map of the French army's defense, including roads, obstacles, fortifications, etc.

"Hanoi's city walls are divided into two layers, the inner city is a quadrangular city-state surrounded by brick walls up to 5 meters high, 300 meters in length and width, and the walls are intersecting

Bamboo stakes, which protrude outwards about 2 meters wide, can block the enemy from ascending the city. The upper part of the wall was about 10 meters wide, and four batteries and bunkers for the defenders were erected on it.

In the middle of each of the four sides of the castle is a brick bridge spanning the moat and leading to the center of the semicircular arrow tower, which is guarded by a bamboo gate at the entrance and a large wooden one

The gate passes through a semicircular arrow tower and the castle, and the east gate of the castle has been closed with bricks. The castle is surrounded by a moat about 20 meters wide and 3 meters deep (1 meter of which is filled with muddy water), and an 8-meter-wide dirt road between the moat and the castle wall, and the slope of the river is extremely steep and made of bricks and stones.

Within the castle, there is a tower that rises 18 meters high

Standing in it, you can overlook the scenery in the distance from the top of the tower. It is the commanding height of Hanoi City. ”

Everything was ready, the troops of the Nanyang Legion were assembled, and Liang Xing, the head of the intelligence department of the Nanyang Legion, briefed everyone on the defense of Hanoi City.

Liang Xing held the whip in his hand and pointed to the spread out topographic map and continued.

The castle is surrounded by four rows of brick or mud houses that line the road leading to the four gates of the outer city.

The four gates of the outer city are all made of large blocks of masonry, the east and west gates have been sealed with earth, and the north and south gates can be opened. There is a fortification communication between the city gates, which is composed of an earthen wall with a height of 4 ~ 5 meters, and there are cannon holes or pheasant moats dug in the wall, which are covered with wooden blocks or firewood rows, so that the defenders of the city can cover when they fire guns.

There is a 5-meter-wide trench around the female wall, and the ditch is injected

Full of water from the nearby small river people of the river. There is a layer of deer village made of untrimmed dried thatched bamboo on the moat. There is also a 3~4 meter wide slope between the trench and the female wall.

It is densely covered with a layer of green bamboo up to 8~10 meters high, which completely covers the whole city so that outsiders cannot see it, and this layer of bamboo fence constitutes an insurmountable obstacle under the dense firepower.

…………

Hanoi City is an important military town built by the Annam people in the Beiban area, since the French easily captured the city of Hanoi, in addition to using the existing fortifications left by the Annamite people to arm, but also blocked the west gate, the north gate, the east gate of the three directions of the exit, leaving only the south gate exit more than 400 meters away from the river in the south of the city, and placed a small ironclad ship and four gunboats to assist in the defense.

In addition to deploying warships in the middle of the river to snipe our attack, the French also built batteries near the embankment along the river to threaten the passage of our naval gunboat formation to attack from the water. ”

"How many troops did the French deploy along the river south of the city?"

"According to the information from our intelligence personnel in the city, the commander of the garrison in the south of the city is the French major Wei Yi, and his subordinates have more than 240 marines and more than 500 black soldiers dispatched by Li Weiye, and if you include the young men of Annam, who were forcibly recruited by the French to build fortifications along the river, the French can use more than 1,300 soldiers to defend the south of the city."

"How are the French garrisons in other directions?"

Tang Jingsong asked.

"Through the analysis of the results of several fire reconnaissances, it can be roughly deduced that the situation of the defenders of Hanoi can be roughly deduced, and the frontal direction from Hanoi to Bac Ninh, the French army is well defended and has strong troops, but the flank defense is relatively weak.

Therefore, I propose to attack Hanoi from the front and gather the main forces to attack the fortifications in the direction from Hanoi to Bac Ninh, although this attack may bring a certain degree of casualties to our army, but the effect is the most obvious, and it can destroy the main French forces in the Pak Ban area in the shortest possible time. ”

"Minister Liang's suggestion is good, you don't have any other ideas, just put them forward."

Mei Dongxing stood up and asked.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have an immature idea under my post, I don't know whether to talk about it or not?"

"Brother Tang's position as a staff officer has been recognized by the locals, so naturally he should give more advice and advice to the combat operations of the Nanyang Legion.

"Then Tang said it directly."

Tang Jingsong arched his hand to everyone and said, "When I took a boat from the Red River into Annam, I found that the confluence of the Tiande River and the Liutou River was turbulent and the volume of water was very large, and the confluence of the two rivers was less than 20 miles away from Hanoi City. Cover the main force to attack from the direction of the south gate, when there is a greater chance of success. ”

"The flow of the Tiande River is gentle, and after it flows into a part of the Liutou River, although it cannot flood the city with water, it is not difficult to temporarily disrupt the French army's defense line along the river."

Mei Dongxing found the confluence of the two rivers marked on the topographic map, looked at it for a while, and quickly made a decision, adopted the offensive plan proposed by Tang Jingsong, and then made some improvements on the basis of the plan proposed by Tang Jingsong, and formulated the final offensive deployment:

Li Wencai led 2,500 regular troops of the Nanyang Legion, starting from Shangqingfang, crossed the left bank of the Liutou River, and along

The Tiande River advanced and crossed the river to Zhicuntang to join the second attacking force led by Chen Xingui.

Chen Xingui led more than 1,000 soldiers to bypass the sealed West Gate of Hanoi, land along the waterway to the confluence of the Liutou River and the Tien Duc River, seize the high ground of Zhenqiao and Tu Son, and attack the French army's fortifications on the Tien Duc River from the flank, so that Li Wencai's troops could pass through there.

Once the rendezvous of the two forces was achieved on the left bank of the Tien Duc River, the two combined forces continued to advance and attack the second line of French defense, mainly by shelling the dam extending from Zhongshan to Rabe and from Bac Ninh to the bridge with warship fire. After defeating the defenders, he took advantage of the situation to attack the south gate and occupy Hanoi City.

At 10 o'clock in the morning of March 27, the current of the Liude River swelled, and four gunboats with a displacement of 500 tons and three gunboats with a displacement of more than 300 tons went down the river to attack the French army.

At 11 a.m., the gunboat formation of the Nanyang Corps destroyed four small fortresses along the river and successfully broke through to a distance of six miles from the south gate of Hanoi.

At 12 noon, the French warships on the river were attacked by the gunboats of the Nanyang Legion, a small ironclad ship was damaged and captured, two gunboats were sunk, one gunboat took advantage of the chaos to escape, and two gunboats were captured.

Then, at 3 p.m., Li Wencai's troops and Chen Xingui's troops routed the stubborn French defenders and successfully broke through the defense of the defenders at the South Gate and entered the city of Hanoi.

At 5:07 p.m., most of the city of Hanoi was occupied, and the commander of the French garrison, Li Weiye, saw that the reinforcements were cut off and there was no hope of breaking through, and under the promise of the Nanyang Corps to persuade the surrender representatives not to abuse the prisoners and ensure the personal safety of the captured French soldiers, he ordered all the French troops and the subordinate black indigenous and Annam troops to stop resisting.

As a result, the Nanyang Army won a great victory in killing 189 French soldiers, wounding 110 and capturing more than 400 white soldiers at a low price of more than 300 casualties. (Black Native and Annam Servant Corps are generally not counted in military merit records.) ）